Emotions Part 2

Emotional breakdown, again.

Was talking to Marcus yesterday, over lunch. When I was telling him about how nowadays I'm struggling with things like anger management, he said, "Heh, that's part of growing up."

Yeah, indeed.

Lots of things to think about it. A few things I need to act upon now, and a few things that I want to act on soon. As Robbie Williams sings in "Angels"

"When I’m feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And I know I'll always be blessed with love"

The Da Vinci Code

Have been thinking for weeks on what angle I was gonna blog about the Da Vinci Code. You know, the book and movie that has all 100 million+ of us Christians in collective apoplexy. But since theferrett has talked about this topic, I'll link to his blog entries where he gives his thoughts on the book and how the DVC is just a fiction novel.

Hooray for livejournal.

PS: Oh yeah, the comments are worth reading too, generally..

Emotions

I used to be emotionally stable - I didn't feel anything easily. I didn't anger easily, I didn't get sad easily, I didn't get happy easily.. life before Christianity was a peaceful one. I had (and still have) several groups of close friends, I had a good family, I was (and still am) relatively well to do. I didn't have to worry about my grades. Absolutely no worries in my life.

Emotions back then was a all or nothing thing. Either I liked things intensely or couldn't be bothered with it at all. I don't call someone "friend" easily, but once you were a friend, I would value that relationship deeply. Drifting in the sea, without a care in the world, not knowing where I would go, but knowing it would be somewhere good. Not a bad life to live, for a non-believer. Many people strive to be where I was.. and I felt privileged to be in such a state.

Being in church though, has opened the whole Pandora's box of emotions for me. No longer am I emotionally self sufficient. I feel insecure at times, I feel unhappy, I feel lonely at times. I anger much easily now - I'm truly amazed that I have lost my temper several times these few months. I've experienced emotional breakdown, for the first time in my life.

But to counter balance that.. I've experienced many positive emotions. I smile much more. For the first time in my life I know what is the meaning of joy - the joy of seeing people coming to know God, the joy of seeing brothers and sisters mature as a Christian. I feel hope, hope for a better life, both in this world and the next.

The whole range of emotions, in various shades of intensity, has been opened within me. Something that I couldn't imagine happening to me ever in my life. It is a gift from God I value highly.. true it is double edged in nature.. I'm "weaker" now in terms of emotions.. I am no longer base my happiness within myself, but in external changable things.

But now I can say I don't just merely exist, but I live.. I no longer just drift aimlessly, but yearn for something greater in life..

Praise be to God =)

My view on philosophy and Christian apology

Today during the CG meeting held in NUS, Yufen passed around several books about Christian apologetics that YA borrowed from the library.. Haha, the title that caught my eye was Christian Ethics: Options and Issues by Norman Geisler. Think YA deliberately chose that book for me.. haha =p

The people that knew me only recently might be surprised that I was interested in philo only after I entered Army. Still distinctly remember the things me, Karwee, James, Tan and the rest discussed on the MINDEF Forum. At that time I didn't knew what Utilitarinism was, or that dualism was called dualism. I didn't know who Bentham was or that he invented the hedonistic calculus.

It was only after entering university, was I able to attach the names to the things we were talking about. It was awfully fascinating to me that we covered ground that great thinkers had trodded before us.

~ ~

Now that I am a Christian, most of these issues are now resolved for me. Nonetheless I am very interested to finish my so called "philosophical education". God gave humans a enquiring mind, and it's fascinating what philosphers have come up with over the years.

I used to rely heavily on Christian apology as a new believer to "cement" my faith.. but nowadays I really dislike apologetics as a whole. I think knowing the arguments (and how to argue) about Christianity is something necessary, but very ugly. While it serves as a bridge for non-believers to know about God, it is almost totally irrelevant to daily Christian living. You can do well as a Christian, and live a fruitful life, without having to know a single argument for God.

To steal a few lines from Wittgenstein's Tractucus (and to those who read philosophy I apologise for this atrocity) .. "he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright."

Christian apology is the ladder where you climb to know God, but once you've reached there, you can effectively throw the ladder away.. you'll literally see the world anew. The ladder's only purpose now is to help other non-believers to climb up that ladder, so they can see Christianity as it truly is for themselves..

Christianity not a philosophical school of thought.. it is a all emcompassing (holistic) lifestyle..

~ ~

Haix, but I really wish I had a Christian whom I can talk philospophy with.. Don't know anybody who shares the same interest with me..

Haha, for the past two days I've been working in a secondary school as a facilitator for this bio enrichment workshop conducted for the students. Wouldn't call myself a teacher, although that's what the students called me.. haha

What an eye opening experience it was.. I still can remember the days in secondary school where everything was just about study and play. So I guess it was some kind of retribution of sorts that now it's my turn to handle these kids. Man were they a rowdy bunch.. I had to literally go around and wake up sleeping kids, confiscate things from kids that were fooling around. And to imagine I got one of the better classes - one of the other classes only had 1/8 of the students turn up for the second day.

If you were to put me into this course right now as a secondary school student once again, this workshop would be something that I would look forward to. They were being taught how to grow bacterial cultures on agar plates - stuff that I have just learnt this semester! It's really cool that secondary school and JC kids nowadays have such opportunities to do things that I only get to do in university level.

It seemed to me though ,that my main job as the facilitator was more of riot control then much teaching. I'd suppose it had to do with that these were not Raffles Institution students for example, so probably they were not so inclined to learn something that seemed so irrelevant.

I actually felt for the kids in a way though. Could remember having similar after school excursions to PUB or such things.. those days, I was much more excited over the thought of going to arcade with the rest after the field trip, rather then the field trip itself. Haha..

Man, what wouldn't I give to go back to secondary school or even JC again..

Elections 2006

Well, it's a few days past the results of the elections.. What can I say? I feel that the results is one of the best possible outcomes for Singapore as a whole.

Why do I say that? Well, it's true that exactly the status quo has been maintained - 2 Opposition SMCs, maybe an NCMP or two. That's true. But the great is that people are starting to become politically conscious. The quality of the Opposition's candidates are improving (look at the WP's chairman man. What a cool woman. haha. JBJ must be glad the WP's fortunes are improving). The Opposition's starting to be more active, for the first time in a while they're contesting more then half the consituencies.

And even more heartening, flickers of political awareness are starting to disseminate through the net. Look at the popularity of Mr Brown's semi-satire Persistent Non Political Podcasts, especially the Bak Chor Mee one.. haha.. And the carrot of HDB upgrading didn't sway the Opposition wards neither, which is heartening. Time the PAP thought of something new man..

And above all this, the most important thing, PM Lee has managed to get a convincing mandate for his first term, which is absolutely essential for Singapore's survival. Many MNCs invest in Singapore because they have faith in the SIngapore brand, which (currently) lives and dies with the wellbeing of the PAP. True, the "Suicide squad" sent to contest the PM's ward got one out of three votes, but 2/3s of the vote isn't bad either, and gives PM Lee more legitimacy instead of being an "walkover" PM.

Chiam and Low held on to their seats too, which is really reassuring.

Singapore's prosperity and survival is inexorably tied to the government, and the government is inexorably tied to the PAP. This has been mentioned even by the PAP themselves. If truly by some freak accident, more than half of the AMK GRC went "Ah, everybody else must be voting for the PM, let's give the WP a sympathy vote", and PM Lee lost his GRC, we would be in chaos overnight. Don't talk about political diversity and checks and balanced - our percieved stability as a invester friendly nation would be destroyed.

This election result is truly the best of both worlds - PM Lee gets a good mandate, and the Opposition aren't totally discouraged.

Haha, not really in writing form today, will whip this post into shape some other day =p

Thinking of her..

Was sitting alone in my house, listening to music.. and started singing along to Evan and Gerran..


Crazy for this girl

Chorus:
And I look at her, she looks at me
She got me thinking about her constantly
But she don't know how I feel

As she carries along without a doubt
I wonder if she'll figured out
I'm crazy for this girl..
I'm crazy for this girl..


Haix ... =(