Monday, January 5, 2009

Diogenes

Society has complicated itself. Shouldn't we just go back to self-sufficiency? to being where we would like to be? to being with the essential things of life only?

Human desire has no limit. And since it is limitless and there would be no way to limit it, and in the process of trying to fulfil some of the desire, we are so miserable, why can't we just learn to ignore all those desires? Why must we pursue them at all?

Life is somehow ridden with pretense. Ridden with narcissism manifestated as selfconsciousness. One day,we'll just die. Our lives are so short and significant. Why must we further add on to our misery by going all the way out to trouble our soul to fulfill those forever-unfulfillable desires.

I want to live like Diogenes.Just the bare necessitities of lives. The simpler the better. 
Tired of pretenses all the time.
 
But I must admit that Diogenes is an exhibitionist. One can do b etter without that trait, just live simply. Don't buy, don't spend money on unnecesary things..like sweets, junk food, fruits.. soda..accessories, big houses, cars..

ONe just need shelter= small room.
warmth= blanket and warm clothings
clothings= for decency
one meal per day+ water= bare survival
glasses= to see clearly
some money for medicine
pen and papers
light
utensil
tea
shoes
bags
air
fan
soap and shampoo

things one can live without:
TV
newspapers
junk food, soda, milo, fruits, sweets
cosmetics(just need deodorant)
the rest of the other things
all the emotions and rollercoastal unneccessary of human relationship

people in third world countries have only one meal a day and bare necessities and they can live. Why can't I?

I used to live with grandma when I was young. Before I migrated to another country that is.

I spent all my childhood life with her, not with my mother or my dad. My dad was sick mentally so my mum divorced him and carried me off to take care of me. But because we were poor, mum ventured out to work and left me with grandma.

My mother had a hard life too. She grew up in a big family of six without a proper dad. It was the War in the 1970s that robbed my grandma of her first husband, who was a soldier. When her first husband passed away, she had three children already. And she was in her late twenties. The war dragged on and there was support from anyone. Although her late husband's family was rich, they were landowners, they didn't exactly give grandmamuch money. Partly because of the numerous sisters in-law that grandma had. These people didn't like her.. just the usual hatred between sisters in law.

So grandma left the countryside where she lived with her late husband for the city. Here, she was given a house by the late husband's family to live in. The house was a small one, suffcient for the family of four, grandma and her three children.

The war was cruel. Grandma used to relate how in the same family, her late husband and his brother were at the opposite sides of the war. Her husband was agaisnt the Communist and his brother was for the communist. So somehow the communist or the anti-communist didn't trust the whole family, they plotted and killed the two brothers, separately.

One day, the anti communist husband did not return home after his mission for almost 2 days. Grandma was nervous. The superior people in the army couldn't find him anywhere either. He was a corporal, so when he set out, he brought with him a small unit of 3 to 4 people. None of these people were home either.

So naturally everyone got nervous.

Grandma told us a very incredible story. She told us how she dreamt of grandpa came backin his shorts and told her where he was. He told her that the communists had shot and stripped him and everyone in the unit to their shorts. The communists robbed their uniform so that they can use later on. When grandma woke up, she told the other people where to find their corpses, and indeed, all the dead had only their shorts on them. 

It was incredible. But it was how my grandpa's corpse was found. Sometimes things are just beyond our understanding. The dead may come back. But probably because they have something to tell us. Just as we cannot hear ultrasound, and see infra red light, it's not sufficient to argue that these things do not exist. Maybe we have not really the real mean to detect them.
But that asides, I don't think we should be fearful or let these thoughts occupy our mind all the time. 

Back to my grandma's story. Grandma struggled for many years on. Being a single mother in the war time was not easy. She tried to seek help from her own relatives. .

my beloved grandma

Grieving all the time

I long to go back to sleep the moment I wake up.
In such sleep, or even just a slightly delirious sense, I dream of grandma.The person who loves me most in the world. She has passed away. And Isaw with my own eyes how she died. 

She died from pain. Cancer pain. Almost 4 months after the discovery of her cancer.

Every moment after that discovery was immense pain. I felt like my heart and my guts cut everday. 

I flew back home from overseas. with my mother and my sister. But how I hated my mother. A woman obsessed with money all the time.
When grandma was alive, my mother used my grandma as a tool to help her collect rental money of the many porperties that mother had. Mother is not one who is easily satisfied. She demanded grandma to reportto her regularly, to hand all the money to her. If grandma kept some money herself, mother would torment grandma with sniping words, even vulgarity.

The worst things happened were that mother poisoned my mind during this whole period. I was not exactly too young, to be truthful. But I was of an impressionable age about 12, 13. Mother would tell me how grandma steal her money. How grandma did not hand all the money to her. How, basically , grandma could not placate all the people that mother's rental businesses were relating with.

Mind you, the business was not easy to run, for one thing. Second thing is that grandma was damm old already, she was about sity somethings. She should have been able to enjoy her life. Not being slave to her daughter.

My mum and me were being overseas all of these times and the properties were left in the original country for grandma to run. So most of the time, I lived with mum, and my mind got poisoned by her.

She insisted that life was nothing but greed and dishonesty. She trumpeted generosity and pretended most of the time to display her generosity, but with her lip service only.

The amount that she gave to other people was really insignificant. And always with some ulterior motive. Like she will try to bribe them. etc.

My whole life staying with mother was a mental torment between my innocence and my cynicism and hypocrisy. Mum is full of vulgarity inside her mind. But she acts as if she is the most gentle and peasant-like person on the outside. How I despise her!

Watching my grandma dying is the most horrible thing. Because cancer brings tremendous pain. And for some reason, perhaps senility, my grandma became so fearful of death so much. She was not only physically tortured by the disease. The knowledge that the pain was killing her killed her mentally as well.

When my mum andI were in another country, grandma stayed with my uncle and his family. They had 2 domestic helpers. And 2 children

When I returned to the country to meet my disease--stricken grandma, I was disgusted to see how my grandma was treated by my uncle's family. Grandma couldn't speak probably. Neither could she stand up and walk about freely. I couldn't understand why. perhaps it was the cancer, or perhaps it was depression on my grandma's part.

Anyhow, by the time I reached home, grandma was dirty. She did not bathe for 2 weeks and was covered in filth. Shame on my uncle's family. They had domestic helpers. They are rich.. but they didn't bother with grandma. I was infuriated, especially with my uncle. How he feared his wife. And the domestic helpers bullied my grandma. They treated her like trash, by shouting and ignoring her. They were thinking that she had some senility and her children were not treating her well. WHy should they?

I hated that sight. The sight of my helpless grandma being bullied by my uncle's family. 

How powerful and influential my grandma used to be?What great sacrifice she used to do for her own family? She used to sell her own blood when they were poor, in order to raise the family up in times of hardship. How I hated how they forgot all those things?


tough life

Why do people want so much knowledge for? isn't it just sufficient to be able to think for themselves? 

Is knowing much more improve their chances of staying far from the grave longer? Or is it just a sense of temporary satisfaction, false security and superiority over other people? But such feelings only last for fewer than 10 minutes. Af ter which, a sense of fear to lose what they have will come over them.

How temporary is human's happiness?

How insecure is life!

How long will your loved one love you? As long as you love them and less than that. 

Who is not susceptible to age, sickness and death?
Who knows when sickness and death come to one?
Who can stop those?
Our survival is a constant battle with microorganisms and nature. Laughingly, some people worship nature. They worship their own destructor. Nature just is. No need to worship or abuse. Because these will bring immense inequilibrium.

I am living in the city, but I wish that I canhide in my own cave all the time. No desire to communicate, no desire to socialise. 

Perhaps my own upbringing has caused this. But I have no desire to blame

things i want to do today

clean the desk
fold my clothes
sleep more
exercise aerobic
bid for my modules
stretch pilates
meditate metta
no eating from 1pm till 7am


Some thought

A strong, weird desire surges through my mind today.
What if I don't eat anything at all for 3 days? 
I know that if I can refrain from eating anything past 2 days, their will be a lightheadedness feeling coming over. That kind of feeling is rather addictive even. Like some kinda drugs. It can put people in a weird euphoric state. That may explain why religious people tend to fast

So now, I should put my todo list here, everyday.

By the way, just now I dreamt a strange dream. I saw my dead grandma in my dream at our old house. Then I asked her : Is there God? She said :Yes. Then I became irritated and explained to her that there was probably no God, because if there is really a God, that created human, then who created that God then? That is a paradox in itself. Then she began to keep quiet and acknowledged that I am probably right...

Strange that this God thing has come to my mind. I even dreamt of it. How irritating.

It is probably a struggle between my rational mind to let go of the idea of God and the mind that wants comfort, so it needs to hang on to that thought.Lingering sense of fear as well.Perhaps it's true that indoctrination of untruth by means of threatening of hell fire is scary indeed. A form of psychological abuse. When will that struggle between rationality and cowardice end? 




b*ring

Today is another boring day.

After reading " The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, I feel so depressed. 
After I read "The Blind Watchmaker"I felt so manipulated. By my genes, that is. I feel like I am a mechanistic construction that is just comparable to the watch I wear. My existence can be compared to that watch's, neither of us existed because we wanted to exist. We came into existence out of our own will. We just exist because of circumstances.

The books were good. Very convincing and rational. I can't really claim Mr Dawkins for my feeling depressed , or for his injecting into my brain some ultimately sad thought and the bottomlessly abysmal void. I used to be an agnostic. Whether or not God existed was none of my business.. and my interest. But after reading his book, I am not an agnostic anymore. Sad

I had no passion in anything. A slight interest in science and books and music.But notmuch, not sufficient to sustain me through the insuffereable periods of uninteresting life episodes that are occasionally marked with pain and joy. Both of which are so temporary and short that my life- in short- is so damn boring. Not that I am complaining.

I feel lucky that life has not dealt me an entirely horrible card: I am not starving, was not abused, had some education, had some kinda so called family, born in a war-free region... Very good indeed, by today's standard.

But there are some facts in life that is so ridiculous.
  1. one needs to consume food to be alive, resisting death
  2. in order to consume food, one needs to have money
  3. to have money, one needs to work 
  4. when one works,one spends one's life away
  5. spending one's like away is not very different from not being alive
  6. so being alive and not being alive is not so different
  7. the only certainty is everyone will die
  8. in the end,people spend a lot deal of time to resist the unavoidable,in the meantime, struggling a lot
another thing I don't understand:
  1. people created the idea of "the economic system"
  2. " the economic system" brings recession
  3. recession brings unhappiness
  4. thus, people created recession and subsequently, unhappiness
  5. Why don't they just scrap economic system to obliterate unhappiness altogether?
  6. Why must they cling to these darn things"?