Dare to Dream

Often, we always see people day-dreaming. Now, the question is always: is it good?

Dream is a very important part of our lives. Dream is the place where we can think without using our sense of logic, without boundaries and without limitations. This is where ideas come about and ideas are very important part about being human

I have heard of a story of how a scientist came about with the molecular structure of benzene ring. The scientist who came about with the theory that the benzene molecular structure was in the form of a ring was Friedrich August Kekule. The theory was developed when he was day-dreaming that a snake had bitten its own tail.

No doubt not everyone can be like Kekule. However, without day-dreaming, how can we think about the unthinkable?

Gender Equality: Are We Serious About It?

It has been many centuries that women has been looked down upon as the weaker sex. From the beginning of civilization, women has been deemed to be weaker and it was in the 1970s or 1980s that gender equality has increased in prominence.

It is not that gender equality has never been discussed in the past. It has been discussed by many great philosophers of the past. In fact, feminism/gender equality dates back to the 1800s where the idea of feminism was started by John Stuart Mill, a philosopher from England who created the 'harm principle'. In the modern world, gender equality has become almost a universally accepted principle and all women are granted the same rights as other men, e.g. right to equal pay. However, there are times that you will see women getting lower pay compared to their male counterparts. The rationale given are numerous.

I am a believer of gender equality. I have always believed that women should and must enjoy the rights enjoyed by men. However, there are times when women who lay their claim on gender equality AND still want to maintain that they should get preferential treatment by their male counterparts. This is what I would call too much

Not too long ago when gender equality was not something that is in vogue, men used to buy the ladies that they like drinks, presents and so on. Women have always been the passive party in relationships and they have always had and expected men to approach them. And this mindset has continued to be the main belief of many modern women

This is something that I find hypocritical: What is with the double-standard when laying claim on gender equality? Claiming gender equality has always been fine with me. I will always treat my female friends as equals. But women who expect men to do everything for them and still want to lay a claim on gender equality will only be utter hypocrisy. In life, you win some you lose some. You don't win everything and lose nothing. So if you expect to be treated equally, please start to treat others equally

Here's what I think an understanding lady can do:
1. If men offer to buy you something or do something for you, please let them do it. After all, they are willing when they offer. Otherwise, it will be better if you ask first if they're willing. Worst-case-scenario: going dutch. Not that you're going to lose anything anyway. Imagine that you're dining at a very upclass restaurant and you have to pay for two. Your monthly salary/allowance will dry up in no-time
2. Not all men are created equal. After all, we're still humans. Some men are just more timid while others are more confident. Do not expect all men to be the same. If you're interested in a guy, please use stronger indicators, not indicators that guys don't even understand. It's sometimes very difficult for some guys to read women's body language

So, to the ladies, please be more understanding to guys. We're not gods, we're only humans and we're not perfect
For the guys, if you think that the content of this post is rational, please tell your female friends about this

Disclaimer: This post is the opinion of the author alone and does not represent the opinion of any other individuals. It may represent the opinion of some people. You are entitled to your own opinion. The expression of your opinion is entirely up to you

Hallmark of A Great Individual

It was only yesterday night that I was in Hari Ramulu's class and once again, he has made me think hard. What really triggered such a thought? When Hari started comparing the CGPAs of two different individuals (they have very high CGPAs), I started thinking of what really makes great people great? So I kind of came up with this short list of what really makes us great

1. Cognitive capacity (Intelligence)

Well, needless to say, we always relate the greatness of people to intelligence. I have to say that this belief is partially true and partially false. I think the reason for saying this is very simple isn't it? There are many things in life that can be misused and intelligence is one of them. Otherwise, you wouldn't be seeing hackers who hack into servers and destroy files (not all hackers are bad). However, I wouldn't go far enough to say that people with average cognitive capacity to be mediocre in their lives. There are people with average cognitive capacity doing great things as well. Although it is evident that not all of us are born with the same cognitive capacity, nurture also play a very important part of the development of the cognitive capacity. I believe that sound cognitive capacity is not a pre-requisite, but an advantageous trait to have in order to become a great individual

2. Emotional Control

I have to say that being emotional is something that only makes us human. I feel that some of you might argue that:

Without emotions, we'll be less of a human. Being a human is all about having emotions. If a dog can show emotions, why not humans? If a human can't show emotions, it only means that he's even worse than a dog

In my honest opinion, there are many times that emotions will take the driver's seat in our mind and we do things that turn out to be irrational. I have personally been through such situations where emotions took control of me and I ended up making decisions that I regret. I have been lucky at times when the mistake didn't cost me that much but there are times when such mistakes did quite a severe blow to me. All these are pretty much based on my personal experience where there was poor upholding of my discipline.

* this does not apply to people to are involved in fields that are related to emotions like arts. I agree that there are many artists that make a living with their emotional expression and I truly respect these great artists *

3. Spirituality

For a person to identify and answer his higher calling, he must be in touch with his spiritual side. What is spiritual? Spiritual means of or pertaining to the spirit or soul, as distinguished from the physical nature. Essentially, to be able to identify and answer the higher calling means that that person is able to add value to his life by having a purpose in life. By having a more fruitful, purposeful and meaningful life, everyday seems to be so colourful. A person will have the determination to accomplish what he set out to do everyday simply because he is answering his calling, a greater and stronger reason to accomplish what he wants to accomplish

Having highlighted three hallmarks of a great individuals, I must admit that this is an incomplete list of all hallmarks of what makes an individual great. There is no definition of what constitutes a great individual because the scope is just too wide for me to cover in its entirety. Greatness is something that I don't know how to gauge. If you have any of your own opinions to add, I'll be very happy to share my views :D

* this post is only an opinion of the writer and should never be treated as a fact *

Good Leader, Great Leader

"A great leader may not be a good leader but a good leader is a great leader"

Quoted from: Hari Ramulu

This quote really got me thinking harder. One of the classic examples cited by my Professional Ethics lecturer is Adolf Hitler. Well, coming to think about it, I started thinking of the other side of the coin instead of the side of the coin that he was referring to.

Let's take Adolf Hitler for example. Adolf Hitler as we know him is painted as a very cruel German leader who wanted to conquer the entire world. As someone who has killed so many people throughout the entire duration of World War II (WWII), this guy will most definitely be the bad guy.

But then, think again! Despite his notorious reputation, Hitler is a highly reveled figure in the Nazi Germany back in the 1930s. His leadership has brought Nazi Germany to become a very developed nation after all the destruction that Germany suffered after its loss in World War I (WWI). Germany even organized an Olympic Games in the 1930s and won many medals during the Games. In the eyes of his supporters, he is a great and good leader.

Let's take an example that is simpler, Dol Said of Naning who fought the British during the imperialist period. Our history books have told us that Dol Said is one of the first few freedom fighters and risked their lives to obtain freedom for not only themselves but also for the country. Hence, he is portrayed as a good leader in our history books (written by the Malaysian government). However, just look deeper and you will find that in the eyes of the British, Dol Said is just another terrorist, a ancient-day Osama bin Laden to the United States.

There are other examples where there are two sides of the coin in what constitutes the term that we usually use, GOOD. An analogy can be used by looking at cylinder from the top and from the front. From the front, the cylinder is a rectangular while from the top, the cylinder is a circle. We only need to change our perspective and many things will change dramatically.

Moral of the story: try to have a 3-dimensional (3D) perspective to life :D

*This blog posting is not to show my support for figures like Adolf Hitler. It is only intended to show the different kinds of stories that you will hear when two opposing sides tell their stories*

Philosophy of Life and 3Cs of Happiness

Due to the circumstances that currently cricles this blog, I've decided that this blog will be my public blog, which means for everyone to read. The reason for this move will not be disclosed here. For those of you who are interested to know more, you can pm me at my MSN.

Now that this is gonna be my so-called public blog, what would I post in it? The materials here will be mainly and strictly about philosophy (not that previous posts didn't contain any elements of philosophy). I know this subject is kind of boring to many people, but I just find joy in learning more about philosophy


3Cs of Happiness

The first C: Counting Your Blessings. This C is possibly the most important element of being happy in our lives. To be more precise, this C signifies contentment. Happiness is not gauged by having what you want, but wanting what you have. It sounds paradoxical but when you think deeper into this, you'll find that there's a lot of truth to it. By wanting to have what you want, a person then becomes like the greedy dog that already has a bone but wants to have the bone of its own reflections. To say or even blog about this is easy to do, but to practise this is far harder than many think.

The second C: Character. The end result of education is character. We may see many people who are highly educated but morally poor. Don't believe me? Read about the current financial crisis and you will understand what I mean. I would rather people uphold the highest degree of integrity despite not being highly educated. Without a strong character, happiness is difficult to be achieved because of the more temporary nature of the happiness obtained. That is why character is one of the Cs of happiness

The third C: Comparison With Thyself. Comparison happens everyday. We always want to compare ourselves with the people who are best at something. The truth is: there is no point comparing ourselves with other people. The reason: we are all unique and different people have different capabilities. There is no point for us to try to live someone else's life. We'll ultimately end up wasting our time. Why compare ourselves with our own then? Comparing ourselves with our own helps us to continuously improve ourselves and be contented with what we have. Why cause heartache to yourself by comparing with others? We'll feel happier if we just compare ourselves with our own. After all, the ultimate goal is to be a better person than we were yesterday

As for me, I'm still trying hard to practice the 3Cs of Happiness. Wish you all good luck!

P/S: I have to give credit for the 3Cs of Happiness to an elderly friend of mine, Sita Ram