So, on my study table there's this poster of three young monks, first guy has his hands clapped over his eyes, the second, hands over his ears, third, hands over his mouth. My dad brought it back from overseas. In all honesty the title of this post has nothing to do with what I'm going to write, but I couldn't think of a better one. Anyway, after gazing at the poster for days, it prompted me to think: which of the three senses would I keep if I had to forgo the other two?
So I sat down for some time and began to think. Let's examine each one individually first.
Starting with the least likely one to keep: speech. Sure, I value my voice-don't we all? And I must say I consider myself one of the more vocal people in class, or at least not one of the silent ones. I love to talk, I love telling jokes. But in this era of technology, that's no barrier to communication. Emails, facebook, forums...the list of what I could use to talk to others is endless! PErsonally I feel that this would be the least popular choice to keep, among the three, unless the person's life centres around his voice, for example, if he is an orator or singer.
Next, the sense of hearing. Music is awesome, granted, but besides that I can't really think of much else that would require me to use my ears, besides communication. In any case, I would prefer to read what the other party is trying to communicate to me, instead of hearing it. The one practical concern of being unable to hear is that I would be unable to hear warnings others shout at me in cases of danger, or announcemnts over the intercom system.
Finally, sight. There are so many things which require one to see to fully enjoy, far too many for me to list down. Just to name a few: Telivision, computer games, Gunpla-ing, drawing...the list goes on. Also, from a practical viewpoint, sight is the sense which is the most useful in everyday life. I'm honestly unsure of what I would do if I suddenly became blind. Everything I've learned will be useless.
Therefore, I arrived at a conclusion. If I did have to choose, the sense I'd keep is sight. Obviously it'd be a horrible thing to have neither the ability to talk or hear, but it would be worse if I couldn't see. Life without sight is unimaginable for me.
Well, others may have differing opinions from me. This is just my take on which of these three senses is the most important, make of it what you will. Thinking about this makes me appreciate the fact that, in most ways, I am a healthy boy with no major problems. We really do take things for granted sometimes.
Now, moving on from such melancholy topics.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Newer...old new phone. Meh.
So, three days ago I changed my new old phone to my newer older new phone. *sigh* I can see you shaking your head in confusion. Fine, let me try to clear things up a little. It's a long, convoluted story.
During P5 or 6, I upgraded my really old LG phone (with no features at all, unless you consider a colour screen as a feature) to a far better Walkman phone. AFter barely half a year of usage my dad took it away from me to backup his phone contacts in his old phone since his new phone had some sort of contact limit, meaning that the contacts in his SIM card could not be fully transferred over. Due to the nature of his profession (insurance agent), my dad has thousands of contacts in his phone. So anyway, he used my new phone to backup his contacts from his old phone instead of his new phone. He let me use his older phone (a Cybershot) for the time being, while he got the mess sorted out. Now, his older phone was actually one of the revolutionary, groundbreaking phones in it's time. Which was roughly seven years ago, in 2003.
Fast forward about two years, into 2009. My parents get awesome touchscreen phones, in my dad's case, an iPhone, which had no problem backing up his contacts. I persistently begged for my Walkman Phone to be returned, since
a) My Cybershot phone had serious battery issues. It ran out of juice after 10 minutes of talktime.
b) It had 64 Megabytes of memory space. Most of which was filled up by whoknowswhat, so that only 30 megabytes remained, which was enough for roughly 7 songs. Compare that to the Walkman, with 1000Mb of space, or roughly 15 times that of the old Cybershot.
In any case, it was one of those things which one alwats wants to do, but never has the time, or when he has the time, forgets about it.
Which was why I only got my newer-old-new walkman phone three days ago. I exchanged the new-old cybershot for it and immediately flooded it with a little over a hundred songs. The new-old cybershot remains, thoguh, in case one day my Walkman dies suddenly and I need a backup phone. Just imagine the scenarios! My dad's iPhone screws up and he needs to back his contacts up in my old Cybershot, and he gives me his new-older other LG phone to use, but that screws up as well and I'm forced to use my new-old-older Cybershot phone and...!
Sorry, I didn't confuse you, did I? :P
During P5 or 6, I upgraded my really old LG phone (with no features at all, unless you consider a colour screen as a feature) to a far better Walkman phone. AFter barely half a year of usage my dad took it away from me to backup his phone contacts in his old phone since his new phone had some sort of contact limit, meaning that the contacts in his SIM card could not be fully transferred over. Due to the nature of his profession (insurance agent), my dad has thousands of contacts in his phone. So anyway, he used my new phone to backup his contacts from his old phone instead of his new phone. He let me use his older phone (a Cybershot) for the time being, while he got the mess sorted out. Now, his older phone was actually one of the revolutionary, groundbreaking phones in it's time. Which was roughly seven years ago, in 2003.
Fast forward about two years, into 2009. My parents get awesome touchscreen phones, in my dad's case, an iPhone, which had no problem backing up his contacts. I persistently begged for my Walkman Phone to be returned, since
a) My Cybershot phone had serious battery issues. It ran out of juice after 10 minutes of talktime.
b) It had 64 Megabytes of memory space. Most of which was filled up by whoknowswhat, so that only 30 megabytes remained, which was enough for roughly 7 songs. Compare that to the Walkman, with 1000Mb of space, or roughly 15 times that of the old Cybershot.
In any case, it was one of those things which one alwats wants to do, but never has the time, or when he has the time, forgets about it.
Which was why I only got my newer-old-new walkman phone three days ago. I exchanged the new-old cybershot for it and immediately flooded it with a little over a hundred songs. The new-old cybershot remains, thoguh, in case one day my Walkman dies suddenly and I need a backup phone. Just imagine the scenarios! My dad's iPhone screws up and he needs to back his contacts up in my old Cybershot, and he gives me his new-older other LG phone to use, but that screws up as well and I'm forced to use my new-old-older Cybershot phone and...!
Sorry, I didn't confuse you, did I? :P
Thursday, September 2, 2010
What Motivates People?
Sometime ago I did rather badly for a Chemistry test. I felt horrible after that, because it was the only test I ever did really badly in, excluding a chinese test in primary school, and anyway that was because I only found out about the test on the day itself. Okay, I'll admit that this wasn't my first time doing Chemistry, I even had some introduction to it in Secondary 1. I can't say I didn't revise either, I started mugging days before the test, and especially hard on the day before the actual thing. Still, that didn't stop me from getting a miserable C6. As said earlier, I really felt like crap after the results were released. While I was dissapointed in myself for not getting a high mark, I was honestly more worried about the reaction opf my parents towards my bad result.
This led me to wonder: do people fear failing a task simply because they truly care about it and do not want to do badly, or is the main reason fear of the repercusions that will inevitably occur when one fails at that task?
The most obvious way to demonstrate this is by using an example based on a test. Lets call our characters 'Tom' and'Henry'.Tom is neglected by his parents, while Henry comes from a family where his parents are very protective and concerned about him. Lets say Tom and Henry both fail a test. If he truly cared about the result and not the consequences that getting the bad grade, he would punish himself and become all gloomy and depressed, and resolve to work extra hard to correct this mistake and do better in the next test. The scenario would be the same for Henry as well, provided that his character fits the description of the former. However if their persanalities are of the latter, which is to fear failing for the possible repercusions, then the two scenarios will be vastly differnt. Tom will be unaffected by the result and life will go on as usual, since his parents neglect him so much that they do not even bother about his results. Henry on the other hand will be scared of the dissapointment his parents will feel towards him, or the punishments they will mete out.
That said, I believe that no one can possibly be happy after doing badly at a test or examination. While some may put on a facade of nonchalance and act as if they do not care, in their hearts they will be at least a tiny bit dissapointed in themselves. Even if the person in question does not care in the least towards the subject, for whatever reason (say, me toward a malay test, since I don't give a fig about the subject itself, and also because it is not a graded subject), he will feel a little...disapointed? Sad? I repeat: No one can possibly feel good about doing badly in anything, even if it does not affect him and he does not care about it at all.
Anyway, back to the original topic at hand. My personal opinion is that most people are motivated by a combination of both extremes manifested above in the cases of Tom and Henry.
This led me to wonder: do people fear failing a task simply because they truly care about it and do not want to do badly, or is the main reason fear of the repercusions that will inevitably occur when one fails at that task?
The most obvious way to demonstrate this is by using an example based on a test. Lets call our characters 'Tom' and'Henry'.Tom is neglected by his parents, while Henry comes from a family where his parents are very protective and concerned about him. Lets say Tom and Henry both fail a test. If he truly cared about the result and not the consequences that getting the bad grade, he would punish himself and become all gloomy and depressed, and resolve to work extra hard to correct this mistake and do better in the next test. The scenario would be the same for Henry as well, provided that his character fits the description of the former. However if their persanalities are of the latter, which is to fear failing for the possible repercusions, then the two scenarios will be vastly differnt. Tom will be unaffected by the result and life will go on as usual, since his parents neglect him so much that they do not even bother about his results. Henry on the other hand will be scared of the dissapointment his parents will feel towards him, or the punishments they will mete out.
That said, I believe that no one can possibly be happy after doing badly at a test or examination. While some may put on a facade of nonchalance and act as if they do not care, in their hearts they will be at least a tiny bit dissapointed in themselves. Even if the person in question does not care in the least towards the subject, for whatever reason (say, me toward a malay test, since I don't give a fig about the subject itself, and also because it is not a graded subject), he will feel a little...disapointed? Sad? I repeat: No one can possibly feel good about doing badly in anything, even if it does not affect him and he does not care about it at all.
Anyway, back to the original topic at hand. My personal opinion is that most people are motivated by a combination of both extremes manifested above in the cases of Tom and Henry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)