To Harmonize

I do not seek power.
For it is useless without control.
Power confers capabilities, but also great responsibilities.
The wielder of the sword will wound many,
If he does not have strength to control its power.


I do not seek to judge.
For judgement blinds oneself and limits understanding.
But judge we still must, out of sheer necessity.
Without judgement there are no meaning to facts.


I do not seek to do harm, under any circumstances.
It only makes sense to resolve to make the world a better place.
To do otherwise is contradicting to our existence.
But I still cause harm, because I am not perfect.
Intentional or not, it is still harm.


I do not seek to win.
Victory is not the end, but the means to an end.
To seek victory alone is meaningless.
What do you do after the victory?
It is like seeking limitless fortune.
What do you do with it after getting all that money?
I do not want anything that is not mine.


I seek understanding.
The world is an amazing place.
And yet we fall victim to so many false ideas.
The thing is we don't even know which are the false ones.
And we are lead to far away places we don't even know.


Therefore I seek to understand.
Every single person or fact I come across is a resource.
The past is a great place to start.
The intrigues, tragedies and the triumphs.
They help make sense of what is to come.


With understanding I seek to harmonize.
Our world is filled with incompatible concepts.
Most often it is not about choosing sides,
But harmonizing them to produce a compatible concept.
Sometimes one side lose out to the other.
But in time reality always reveals what is the Truth.


Like it or not we have come into existence.
Everything exists for a purpose.
But we were born without a purpose.
Based on what we have, we give ourselves a purpose.


So what is your purpose,
The meaning of your existence?

A Kite

In a world we would like to have.
Where all our dreams came true.
The sun shines behind gentle puffs of clouds.
Green fields grow from the slopes that seem to stretch forever.
A sea breeze that feels just right and does not bring cold.


And yet the city skyline looms in the background.
Not overbearing, but it all blends perfectly together.
The wall of stone that separates the sea from the harbour.
Ships that lay in docile wait outside.
But the thing most beautiful is the kiss of a lover.


Kites fill the skies, swaying in joyful melody.
High above us all, eyes looking to the heavens.
They each have a story of their own to tell.
Tied to the ground, having allowed to soar only once in a long while.


They all yearn to be free one day.
As we all do.
Then one day one strong gust of wind blew.
The owner of one kite held the line too stiffly.
And it broke away to freedom.


The wind carried it high up above the city.
Away from where it once came.
It chased the clouds, as it always wanted.
In its moment of great joy it never thought,
What will happen when the wind dies down some day.


We were all set free either by accident or design.
But we are more than kites.
We can decide where we go.
We chase more than clouds.
We chase ideas.


We will never know when the wind will die.
Just as we never know if the idea we go after is sound.
But if we do not, then do we just drift around in pointless wander?


Carried away by the moment of freedom we fail to see what is real.
Till the day reality catches up with us when we fly too high.
But somehow we will always end up somewhere.
It may not be where we want to be.
But there will always be something there for us.


Sometimes things just don't go the way we want.
There are places we want to go but there is just no wind.
No matter how good a kite is at catching the wind,
It is useless when circumstances do not allow.
When there is simply no wind.


No matter where we go, there's always something we can learn.
One more fact of life that will make us that much wiser.
Then there is nowhere we will be afraid to go.


Happiness is not about getting what we want.
Rather it is about being at peace with what we have.
While striving within our means for what can be ours.
The whole world may be ours.
But if we are not content,
What then is happiness?

Somewhere Out There

Everyday somewhere out there, something has changed.
To hate change is to be at odds with reality itself.
And reality always wins.
Today everything around us may seem familiar to us.
Tomorrow it may become something else altogether.


We may believe that we already know enough.
But there's always that missing bit of information we lack.
Someone else's secrets, or things that we cannot comprehend.
Or the things that have changed from the certainty of yesterday.


The fact is that we will never know something in its entirety.
We can only do so much to establish certainty.
And it has taken me so long to learn it.
Fact can only bring us so far.
The rest is up to faith.


It is a fine balance.
We cannot live just on facts alone.
Because we will never something to its full certainty.
That leads to paranoia.
Nor can we live simply on faith.
That is just blunt ignorance.


To live just in faith and without fact.
One day we may become ignorant even of faith itself.


Sometimes the facts become so overwhelming and complex,
That the only logical solution is to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Invoke a bit of simplicity to study complexity.
And in the mean time have a bit of faith to live with uncertainty.
With calm comes understanding.


But of course there will always be those questions that take a painfully long time to answer.
Perhaps we are simply not meant for it yet.
Somewhere deep within us, something is preventing us from making that connection.
Understanding will come with time and maturity.


Somewhere within the shroud of unknown,
You know something is right.
It is difficult to define it, but your heart knows it is there.
Have the faith in that uncertainty, and live in the hope that more will be revealed to you.
For you know what lies there is right.


Fact and faith lives with each other.
Knowledge and wisdom establishes certainty.
And faith conquers the uncertainty that cannot be made certain.

As It Is

All these while a fire rages in me.
An anomaly stirring within that keeps calm at bay.
A barrier to the clarity I once had.
For too long I have tried to combat it.
Sometimes it got less, but there is no permanent cure.


In this place I have not visited for a long time.
I go in and surrender myself.
All my emotions, all my wants.
Until I am who I am, without all prejudices and the rules that bound me.
In here there is no joy or sadness.
No good or bad.
And all things are reduced to nothing more evil than pure numbers.


Here I can directly see a subject's physical being.
Without emotion or purpose.
It is what it is.
The purest form facts can exist.
Down here there are no interests or desires.
Only strategic calculations.
Certainty is only limited by the extent of my perceptions.


I do not see joy or excitement, for it is deceptive.
I do not see sadness, for it does not make sense.
There is no disappointment, because there is nothing to lose.


In here it is all silence.
The noise off all things are driven out by temporary peace.
All the mindless restrictions, dogma and rules are thrown out.
The mind runs free.
Difficult questions are made simple.
Even the most absurd connections are made.
They are regulated by a form of universal necessity.


Here I saw the cause of the problem.
In this sphere of near perfection I zoomed in on the imperfection.
Without the protection of emotions, that imperfection is helpless.
It does not have a hold over me.
With ease it was surgically removed.
As it should be, without joy, sadness or regret.


And suddenly thoughts flow without resistance or hesitation.
The heavy chains that once bound them together are removed.
The dead end is no more.
The fire is put out.
I have lasting peace once again.


It was a moment of grace.
With clarity I see the world.
Information flows with great efficiency.
The burdens of yesteryear seem a lot clearer now.
I have seen it bare and naked.
I do not fear it anymore.


This is only the first step.
The road ahead is long, to keep it all at bay.
Knowledge is half of the cure.
The rest is up to us to make it so.

Abort, Retry, Fail?

It is so natural of us to be afraid to fail.
But in a complicated world like our's, isn't it a common place to fail?
It is us against everything else.
They all seem so tall and mighty.
There are so many things we do not understand.
The odds stacked so greatly against us.
How not to fail?

And because of this fear to fail, we fear to try.
It is a common story we see everywhere.
We start out everything with great enthusiasm.
Only to be cowered by multiple, sometimes catastrophic failures.
Because of this wound we are afraid to risk anymore.

Fear makes us turn away from doing even what is logical.
It forms mighty fortresses that are safe havens to hide in,
But they do nothing to solve our problems.
The false sense of comfort only make us believe things are fine.
But the fault still exists.

It all seems so unexplainable, even mythical.
As if the world is modeled such that individual endeavors are made to fail.
Because of the hurt we would rather ignore and dispose of the failure.
But aren't we combining fear and ignorance together?
That is even scarier than failure itself.

Failures are logical.
They happen for a reason.
Hurt though they may be.
But they are like data from a failed experiment.
In experiments you try and try, altering different variables and observe the results.
Until you get what you want.

At times we won't even get what we want.
Surely we don't dispose of the empirical truth for something that we would prefer?
The Truth is the Truth.
There is no escape.
And facing it is the first step to making things right.

Because of a few failed attempts we give up altogether.
Doesn't it mean that whatever we set out to do will always remain flawed and failed?
If we don't try and discern what really went wrong, how do we make the wrong right again?
Surely we cannot expect to get everything right in one go,
Given all the complexity around us.

Just look at history.
We have been trying for millennia and are still far from it.
We still kill each other, and multiple incompatible versions of Truth float around.
But we have managed to get a few things right.
Even these we only get them after much suffering.
If humanity has given up only after a few tries,
We would have never progressed beyond animal instincts.

Keep trying.
Accept that failures are the norm.
It is, in a complicated world like our's.
Look at all things with a fair heart.
Things will become clear.
The only thing that is stopping us from doing what we must is fear.

Fear.
Even I struggle to break free from it.
Time has built so many levels of it.
So much that I don't even know the cause for some of it.

But try even in the midst of fear we still must, if it is sound.
It is our only hope.
Our Light among the ruins of fallen trees.

2011: Hate Made Illogical

We live a busy life.
Things happen so quickly that we have no time to stop and think.
The amount of information we must process is astronomical.
Yet somehow we all did it in our own ways.
Some have better systems at processing this information.
Some don't.
But we all learn as we go along.


The last day of the year somewhat reminds us to stop and look back.
How has this year been?
What are the things I have learnt?
And perhaps those I have yet to learn?
What does it mean for the year that is to come?


This year has been relatively peaceful for me compared to the last.
I understood the value of peace towards the end of the last year.
And I attempt to live it out in this.
It was all building on the changes made last year.
The results have been good.
With this peace I have understood even more things.


Hope is the fuel driving the engine.
Looking at things with rational optimism.
I've learnt to select paths that have greater potential.
And that includes thoughts and ideas.


With hope one is motivated to see the big picture, and to find out more.
If it is not possible, at least we understand why.
That in turn makes it easier to accept.
If it is possible, then we can exploit its advantages to the fullest.
Failure or not, it is a chance to learn.


As I see the potential of the things I learn,
I also saw its inherent limits.
The concept by itself is sound.
It is us who often fail at perfect execution.
And at times we are only allowed one shot at it.
When it is gone, it is gone.
This apply to many things in life.


The more we see, the better we get.
It will either reinforce or correct the accuracy of our views.
Sadness and heartbreaks are but the price we pay for these lessons.
It was by being fools that we will come to be wise.


I end the year with great satisfaction, considering the progress so far.
And yet with that we also think about the things that can be done better.
People that we hurt along the way.
Why was it so?
What can be better?
And how the next year can be better?


There are things that we wish for a chance to make it right again.
And yet events are such that it is no longer possible.
I have to find the way to reconcile that within myself.
There is much to learn from this.
So that the same hurt will not be inflicted on others again.
As with all things dealing with emotions, it has never been easy.
But the more daunting the task, the more we learn.


Peace has made Hate illogical.
Understanding has made a fool out of Ignorance
I am thankful for what I have learnt this year.
I do not wish for a good life in the next.
But I do pray for the strength to face whatever that may come.


Welcome 2012.
And the next step in the journey of life.

The Lie of Simplicity

We are a shallow people.
So often we claim to seek the Truth and celebrate looking into the depth of matters.
But in truth we seldom are able to look beyond appearances.
We settle for half-truths quickly, without patience to wait for more.
We allow that half-truth to take over us.


And so we live in learned ignorance.
A foolishness we are completely oblivious to.
And we are proud of it.
Yet all of that is manifested in the emptiness growing within ourselves.
An emptiness we cannot explain.


Is it society's relentless drive for quick results?
As long as one is able to cheat the system he is counted as a success?
Perhaps that has eroded our patience as well.
The big ideas no longer seem so attractive anymore.
They look more like lumbering giants, irrelevant and cumbersome.
Frozen beneath the thick ice of ignorance.
What matters now is how shiny its surface is.
Not how solid its interiors are.


Yet what is held dear by the masses does not automatically hold true.
The imbalance in a system corrects itself.
What is false will fail one day, along with the entire system.
Even then we would not say that it is false.
How could it be, it was said to be true by everyone.
By then we blame ourselves for being unworthy.
We say that God does not exist.


But what is true has not changed.
What makes a sound concept still stands tall and relevant.
It is simply abandoned by the masses because of its complexity.
So big that we give up to look at it at all.


We were all deceived by the lie of simplicity.
And all drunk with it.
All its promises for quick results.
We celebrate it as progress.
But in fact we are taking many steps back.
The shell becomes more and more hollow.
The emptiness grows.


We all fall for it.
It is too tempting and soothing to the ears.
Too easy to believe in.
All its promises so bright.
And above all, everyone else is doing it.


Success is measured by deceptive figures.
It encourages us to cheat the system in order to succeed.
But it is easy to get lost here.
Soon we are optimized for these indicators
And worse, we believed in them.


We succeed, yes.
Or put it in this way, we have become beautiful.
But what have we become?
Are we still recognizable anymore?
We are a mighty shell on the outside, decorated full of honours.
But within we live a pauper's life, empty and grimy.


There is no shortcut.
To understand we need to walk down the long, deep path.
A path we may become lost and even despised.
But what is true explains itself.
What is grounded in fact will still work, regardless of how the masses work against it.


At the end of it all, reality is like an acid,
Melting away the weak coatings covering the Truth.
It will stand the test of time, and it will explain all things.
It will triumph our current understanding of Logic and Reason.
They are limited in their functions, not because they are flawed,
But because they are incomplete.
They become flawed when we take the incomplete and treat it as complete.


If we look closely enough,
With a fair heart and mind.
Away with all the common prejudices and conceptions.
We will find what is true to be simple and pure as always.
Never has it changed, from the past till now.
Yes, the Truth is simple.
But the way to it is not.
Executing and following it is hard.