A day goes by routinely
In the same one singular life
The hours reset perpetually
But the years are finite though rife.
Like a wheel that keeps spinning
On a long road unwinding
Up goes down and round and round
But never on the same patch of ground.
inner minds
Someone told me that she just realized that I really do not trust people – I merely tolerate them. Hmmm…I never thought of that. I mean, I do trust people, albeit only up to a certain safe extent. Like in lending money, for instance. If someone close to me asks for a loan, I make sure that the amount I lend is not more than what I am prepared to cover in case payment is delayed or defaulted.
And for this I was accused of not trusting but merely tolerating the anticipated worst-case scenario.
I remember this risk management seminar I took more than a decade ago. It taught us that risk has two dimensions: probability and magnitude. So in a four-quadrant matrix, risks are roughly classified as low-probability/low-magnitude (there’s a 5% chance that you’ll lose P5,000), high-probability/low-magnitude (there’s a 95% chance that you’ll lose P5,000), low-probability/high-magnitude (there’s a 5% chance that you’ll lose P100,000), and high-probability/high magnitude (there’s a 95% chance that you’ll lose P100,000).
I’d say I’m a risk taker even if the probability of losing is high for as long as the magnitude is low. But once a lot is at stake, I tend to play it safe, no matter how ’safe’ they say the odds are.
In my previous company, our president explained the importance of credit security. The example he gave was about one sales executive who authorized the sale of goods worth a substantial amount without credit security because of the mutual trust he enjoys with the customer. Our president said, “Okay, this customer is very trustworthy in terms of his ability and willingness to pay, and I take that. But what if he suddenly dies of a stroke, and the one who takes over the business is not as reliable?”
I guess we can only trust another person’s intentions, because if we try to consider the possible circumstances beyond that person’s control, e.g., a sudden stroke, we realize that we will be taking risks. However, if the calculated risks are deemed manageable and not unnecessary, it is never unwise to take them.
Perhaps I have unconsciously applied this business principle to my personal life. I do trust people, but only up to their intentions. If I foresee certain significant risks that were not explicitly considered by the person to whom I would be giving my trust, I back out. Unfortunately, sometimes people take it personally.
But some people do have the right to take it personally, especially the one I consider as my life partner, my ’soulmate’. To hesitate when I think there might be risks unforeseen by the person demanding my trust could mean I don’t trust her judgment. I do trust her intentions, albeit maybe not her judgment. And in a way, that could mean I don’t trust her at all.
This may be a hard reality for me. But if it’s any consolation, I never totally trust anyone’s judgment – not even my own. I just tolerate and try to manage the calculated risks.
And so to the person who said that I don’t really trust her but merely tolerate her, let me say it this way: I trust you to the point that I can sleep soundly with you by my side with a loaded gun in your hand. Now there’s a risk that you’d have a nightmare of being attacked and so you’d shoot the ‘attacker’ – me, or out of simple clumsiness you’d accidentally fire the gun pointed in my direction. But while the magnitude of the risk is too high, the probability is very much lower than you leaving because you think I don’t trust you. Besides, the magnitude of the risk of losing you isn’t too far from the magnitude of the other risk involving a loaded gun in your hand. inner minds
In Part One we took an impersonal approach on time and life so this time we’ll try to add a little emotion. I’ll do my best not to sound too cheesy though, just enough that the guys would suffer through it while making the ladies smile. Okay, here it goes.
A few days ago I heard the song Slipping Through My Fingers by Abba. Now I’m not going to talk about the movie Mamma Mia lest the guys start packing but rather about the lines from the song and how they relate to time and life.
Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while
Ah, a mother watches her young daughter leave for school every morning and gets a bittersweet pinch in the chest each time.
The feeling that I’m losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl
I guess sooner or later we will lose everything forever, every single thing dear to us. With this we should be grateful for every shared blessing and cherish it as much as we can even if we cannot really enter our loved one’s world.
Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Nostalgic as this may already seem, how sad it would be if these experiences never happened at all, or if one is unable to connect with her own daughter:
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time
But do we really need to see what’s in a loved one’s mind? To you freethinkers out there, did you love your parents less when you became ‘enlightened’ and you started to think of them as less enlightened than you? Of course you’d love them more if they opened their minds, but just because they didn’t when you did doesn’t mean you loved them less.
Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when she’s gone there’s that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I can’t deny
Hmmm…breakfast is a wonderful time for bonding but unfortunately both mother and daughter still have their minds dozing in dreamland, and it is only when one has left that the other realizes what was just permanently lost.
What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
Well, some of that we did but most we didn’t
And why I just don’t know
Ah, the could have beens. It is often said that regrets on the things we did can be healed by time, but regrets on the things we did not do will haunt us forever. Mark Twain said something similar to that.
At this point the chorus about trying to capture every minute is repeated. Surely there will be moments really worth capturing – by engraving them in vivid memory or by literally taking a picture – to preserve and immortalize them, as the song’s last lines suggest:
Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Ah, time. It does things to us, to life. Life is at the mercy of time. And while life is personal and always longing for itself, time is neutral and unforgiving. However, life is also a cycle of birth and death, and linear time is needed to keep this cycle going.
With the psychological arrow of time we remember the past but not the future. And with this time has a given us a very generous gift: memories. And although life cannot survive the funny tricks of time, our memories often do.
inner minds
There are two ways to write (actually there could be more but I only know two): structured and streams of consciousness. Structured means the writer already has the key points – the major plot – in his/her mind, and all he/she has to do is fill in the gaps and make the necessary connections. Streams of consciousness, on the other hand, means writing in real time along with the thought process, narrating the thought as even as it is forming in the writer’s mind. And with this the writer doesn’t know how the story will develop and especially how it will end. It just goes.
Right now I’m going with streams of consciousness because I don’t have much points in my head. Well I guess the points will just flow as the fingers hit the keys one by one, somehow independent from the conscious mind. I guess here’s one point: a seemingly empty mind can still speak. Now the question is, will it make sense? I guess that depends on what it is empty of. If the mind is empty of everything, it will not make sense if it speaks at all. But with a mind merely clear of distractions and prominent thoughts, one can reach into its deepest recesses and uncover buried treasures. Now the trick is to make sure the treasures don’t fall off on the way to the surface, otherwise it will only be very old dirt coming out of the elevator shaft.
Now what buried treasure could there be left in a mind that has already spoken quite a few times? Let’s see. Ah! How about this: I think the buried-treasure analogy can be augmented with a seed-tree metaphor. Bits of information (seeds) are planted in the brain and they grow into trees of knowledge that often intertwine with one another. This way there will be a renewable source of ideas.
Ah, ideas. One cannot easily force them to take form. Sometimes they start off as small and very fragile sparks that hover just above the floor of unconsciousness. Somehow they need to stay low for a while as they try to grow into steady flames able to withstand the winds of criticism at higher altitudes. Every once in a while an idea gets so refined that it attains the status of an ember where criticism can no longer douse it but fans it into a fire instead.
On the other hand, there are many ideas that should have been quickly extinguished with a single blow of reason. Sometimes, however, the mind itself acts as a barrier to protect these faulty ideas, nurturing them into powerful zombie-like ideologies that just wouldn’t die. These zombies even succeed in biting living human minds and turning them into zombies. Then one day the zombies become the majority, and those individuals who attempt to rise above them are in for some trouble.
Gah! I really find it disturbing when I let my mind wander into streams of consciousness mode and it ends up in an allegory of some controversial topic. I guess I’ll shut up now and try to dig another treasure next time. inner minds
I am an only child. Now while the first word that would probably come into your mind is spoiled, I’d say this situation significantly shaped my boundaries. I’ve lived all my life in a three-house compound along with my cousins and later on with my nephews and nieces. When I got lonely or bored or simply missed my relatives (I deeply adore them), I’d go downstairs, walk a few meters and knock on their doors. But the good thing about growing up with no siblings is that when I wanted – needed – solitude, I could easily get it. And perhaps it was because of this very arrangement that I had the chance to reflect a lot.
Now this is supposed to be the part where I go from a personal introduction to a more general issue. That’s how my boundaries are supposed to be. Unfortunately, I’m having a little drink tonight to ease my aching legs from yesterday’s run, and so my boundaries are just a little bit soft…er. So here it goes.
One thing I love about our fellowship with my nephews (they’re my crowd now because my age gap with them is very much closer than with their dads) is that while we are definitely very close, we respect one another’s boundaries. Since we now have cellphones and the internet, we text or chat to plan a house visit. We seldom do the knocking on the door thing anymore.
Nowadays it just seems rude to drive to your friend’s house without calling first. What if your friend is sleeping, making love to his wife, or simply enjoying his solitude with a book or a movie? Even if you are best friends – or lovers – I believe a little boundary is still appropriate – even necessary.
Ah, my boundaries have just snapped shut. Earlier I was talking about my nephews and then I just shifted to a slightly different topic. But I wanna talk about my nephews some more. Wait, let me get another drink….
…Ah, my nephews. My very cool nephews. Their dads – my older cousins – were the ones who taught me how to drink. Now I’m just returning the favor. And I hope one day they too will return the favor. They’re now in their early twenties and frankly, I enjoy interacting with them more than with their dads. (See, I’m not even afraid to say this because their dads don’t read my blog like they do.) And while their dads talk mostly about politics, my nephews talk about philosophy.
Okay, I guess that’s about as far as my boundaries will allow, sober or not. That’s because no matter how important you, my readers, are to me (even those I do not know), I happen to be a very private person. And as much as I am expressive of my innermost thoughts, my personal life is another thing, and it is open only to those whom I know personally.
I’ve read somewhere that most relationships fail not because of too much separateness but because of too much togetherness. This is definitely true not only with couples but also with friends. Although our teenage years are often marked with sleepovers, as we grow older we tend to keep our friends at a comfortable distance. Our fondness for them did not deteriorate – to the contrary it just got fonder – but somehow we tend to value our privacy more.
And though we don’t see them as much as we did, this only makes every reunion special. inner minds
What is time? Does it exist beyond the beginning and end of our universe? From the point of view of the universe there was no time ‘before’ it expanded from a singularity and there will be no time ‘after’ it collapses back into a singularity (that is, if it collapses back). But what about from a hypothetical point of view ‘outside’ the universe? Is there ‘time beyond time’? Ah, things too heavy to ponder on a Monday evening. How about we set that aside for now and shift to something more within our purview. Let’s talk about life – and ‘time beyond life’.
About 14 billion years ago, time began along with the Big Bang. That means we never existed for 14 billion years as far as the universe is concerned. We were practically dead. But then we are born and we live. And at the end of our lives we will become exactly what we were for the past 14 billion years: non-existent. Or will we?
While the term universe is often confused with space, it actually means space and time or the totality of space and time from the Big Bang to whatever scenario the universe ends up to. The universe isn’t just the entire space at this very moment in time; it is the entire space for all the time it exists (note the present tense exists – the universe is present at every minute of its life). And so even after we die, as far as the universe is concerned we will always exist at a certain point in time and space. Points actually, one point for every infinitesimal fraction of every second of our lives.
But then the point is, as far as we are concerned we cease to exist after we die, unless there is indeed life after death. But if there is none, then those we leave behind – our surviving families, friends, and those whose lives we’ve touched – their memories of us will be the only witnesses to our existence. And after they too will all be gone, only the universe will have a record that we once lived.
And if the universe would one day cease to exist, I wonder if there is something beyond to observe all the events from the universe’s birth to its death, capturing the universe’s life and every life it supported – and how each of those lives struggled for survival, evolved, and lived; each joy and each suffering, each triumph and each defeat – immortalizing everything in a ‘time beyond time’. inner minds
Storytelling is one form of art that transcends medium. Whether in books, ballads, plays, or movies – even in sculptures, photographs or paintings – someone is telling a story. Someone is talking of life. Not Life on a grand scale but life in bits and pieces; seemingly mundane moments that give us glimpses of a bigger picture. Fleeting and ephemeral, once captured by an artist they are immortalized and frozen in time, lending themselves to be shared with other lives as well.
While different stories have vastly different scopes, the time it takes to tell a story somehow falls within a relatively narrow range. Most books have a few hundred pages and most movies last a few hours, but the stories they tell could either cover decades of world history – or a single eventful night in the lives of two people. And yet a beautifully told story is never a page too long, never a minute too short. It’s just as it should be.
Since storytelling time is limited, the story has to be compromised between breadth and depth. Naturally, epic tales cannot go too much into the individual lives of the characters, just as love stories seldom wander far beyond the interaction of a few people. But the storyteller somehow manages to piece the two together in perfect balance of breadth and depth, the former a background of the latter. And while not every second of the story can be told, the storyteller speeds up time and slows it down at just the right moments so that precious minutes are neither wasted nor skimped.
Imagine telling the story of a certain civilization and how it came about. If one were not to miss out a tiny detail, the story could not be finished within the listener’s lifetime, and so the trick is to secure only the salient points. On the other hand, a story that takes place within a shorter time than it takes to read it has to have something really interesting to sustain the reader’s attention. If every single moment, every spoken word is worthy of mention, telling the story will take just as long as the story itself. Now put every deep emotion, every unspoken thought, every subtle gesture, and there you have a story bigger than how it would have been in real life. innerminds inner minds
Or more precisely, what do the fingers say as they type ‘blindly’ at the keys, each stroke leading to another, skin on plastic, tap tap tap… I remember the proposal that if you have an infinite number of monkeys, give them an infinite number of typewriters with infinite ink and paper, and sooner or later at some point during eternity one of them will be able to accidentally come up with a beautiful poem – comparable to that written by a true artist – among an infinite number of pages filled with pure rubbish.
When one reads a poem, would it be more ‘logical’ to assume that it was done by a monkey among his brothers and sisters who number by the infinity, or that it was the inspired, deliberate work of a poet? How about we apply Occam’s Razor, which states that “when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”
Theory #1: The poem was accidentally written by a monkey among an infinite number of monkeys typing away for all eternity on an infinite number of typewriters with infinite ink and paper.
In this theory, three things have to be explained: (1) the existence of an infinite number of monkeys; (2) the existence of an infinite number of typewriters; and (3) why they were typing away for all eternity (instead of doing other ‘monkey’ things).
Theory #2: The poem is the inspired, deliberate work of an artist.
Care to count how many things have to be explained in that theory? innerminds inner minds
That was from ABBA’s Our Last Summer, a song which tells of a woman’s precious memories of Paris a long time ago. Wow, imagine having a drink in each café – that’s practically bar hopping – with someone you really like, and then you talk about politics, philosophy and stuff. Alcohol loosens the tongue and the conversation unfolds naturally. Looking at her, you know from the intensity of her gaze that she is listening to every word you say, and from her quiet smile you can see that she likes what she’s hearing.
I was so happy we had met It was the age of no regret
Ah, the ‘immortality’ of youth. Living for the present, where each passing moment is all that matters. Carpe diem!
But underneath we had a fear of flyingImagine the feeling when you know in your heart that you may never get this happy again. When you connect with somebody at an extraordinary level. When it seems that together you can take on the world. When you could even say something as cheesy as, “I could die this moment because this is the closest to Heaven that I’ll ever get.” And no matter what happens afterward, this moment will be your own happy ending.
And now you’re working in a bank
The family man, a football fan
And your name is Harry
How dull it seems
Yet you’re the hero of my dreams
Ah, so they didn’t end up together after all. But this only makes that ‘last summer’ all the more priceless, because it will never happen again – except in her memory, where it is immortalized, frozen in time.
And that is called Life.
I can still recall our last summer
innerminds inner minds
The interesting minds (those worth the time to try to understand) are those that encompass the ‘measurable’, consider the immeasurable, know the difference, and can discuss both with equal aplomb, like Stephen Hawking. – INTJ Reb
Being in the presence of minds vastly greater than our own can be a rather disconcerting experience, especially if it comes to the point where there is nothing left for you to say other than what has already been said. I’m not talking about technical subjects like engineering and math because it takes years to study those, nor of the latest developments in science because one can easily google them. I’m talking about philosophy.
While science derives facts based on observation and math in studying the physical/natural world, in philosophy facts are based on pure logic to understand existence in relation to less tangible things such as beauty, emotions, and the supernatural. (Source: intjforum.com)
Ah, logic. To grasp the unobservable, whittle it down to bite-size chunks and then turn it into a meal digestible by the mind. Here the playing field is leveled because education and acquired knowledge do not count, and all that matters is pure brain power. And here I am greatly humbled by minds that already have logical answers to questions I haven’t even asked.
I admit that I am a proud person in matters concerning intellect. I try to never lose an argument by not taking a stand that cannot be defended while manipulating my opponent into taking an extreme position that would saddle them with the burden of proof. I always play it safe by sticking only to what we ‘know’ and pointing out what we don’t. I always say that science can only deal with theories that are testable, and scientific theories never become facts.
So when debating with an atheist about the existence of God, while I am a believer I sometimes say that we really don’t know. There is evidence both for and against the existence of a Creator, but there is no proof for either position. Evidence causes us to believe; proof causes us to know. Science, except perhaps in the field of mathematics, cannot really ‘prove’ anything – science can only disprove.
And I guess here lies the point where the atheists and deists part ways. While both rely on science, logic, and reason instead of authority, tradition, or dogma as bases for the formation of their beliefs (note: beliefs, not knowledge), when science can no longer gather the necessary empirical data because such data is sitting at the other side of the space-time boundary, philosophy comes in. However, beliefs based on philosophy are generally ‘inferior’ to beliefs based on science. But for as long as logic and reason are applied, these beliefs can hardly be called irrational. And yeah, atheists (even the ‘weak atheists’ who do not say that they ‘believe there is no God’ but rather that they simply ‘don’t believe in God’) do have a belief too: that either the universe had always existed eternally or was an accident in nature. Now this belief is definitely not based on empirical evidence but rather on…come to think of it, what is the basis of this atheist belief?
This ‘play-safe’ attitude of mine is sometimes the very thing that limits my mind from expanding into uncharted territories, especially when my intellectual pride is at stake. I am quite ashamed of this and I envy people who are willing to stick out their necks, like this someone who wrote in a forum:
The only reason I’m not an atheist is the unverifiable and unjustifiable and unreasonable reason that I’ve experienced God (or thought I have as some of you might want to put it). There’s no proving it – I can’t – but it’s what I know to be true. And to not believe will be to lie to myself. (Source: filipinofreethinkers.org)
I had written something similar to this before (I called it ‘Grace’), but that was in this blog and not in a forum. Perhaps later on when I’m more ‘intellectually mature’ I’ll take the plunge into the physically unknowable, where discussions are based on pure logic, and where I have to say the things I ‘believe’ (not ‘know’) and defend them – along with my pride.
Some minds do not want to wander into things that are ‘untestable with current proven instrumentation’. Others are capable of going to those ‘untestable’ areas, and still maintaining a discipline that studies ‘physical fact’. When you go into an area that is ‘untestable’ (I don’t consider logic a valid test, either, as it is a man made construct, and unproven at the extremes of experience, just as is ‘time’), you may find that the ‘minds that will not wander and do not want to conceive of something more’ violently and/or vociferously disagree; they have accepted and clung to ‘I don’t want to deal with that, so here’s where I stand’. There are those that cling to ‘logic’ as their last bastion of consideration, as well. Now, their stance upon the ‘proven’ is like religion to them, and we know how controversial religion can be.
The interesting minds (those worth the time to try to understand) are those that encompass the ‘measurable’, consider the immeasurable, know the difference, and can discuss both with equal aplomb, like Stephen Hawking. (Source: intjforum.com, posted by INTJ Reb) innerminds inner minds
