A book and its cover

My Hush Puppies luggage has this glitch ever since I bought it last year: the handle sometimes won't go down all the way. It's stuck at medium height at random times, and so it's frustrating when I have to put the luggage in baggage or car trunk.
I've been meaning to bring it to the service centre, but as with most adults, I always loss my time doing I-have-no-idea-what.

Finally today my boredom reached its peak and I decided to drop by Hush Puppies main agent near Tai Seng MRT.
The complete address is:

Lohmun Leather Products Pte Ltd
153 Kampomg Ampat #03-04,
Jun Jie Industrial Building, S368326
Telp: 6282 8255

There's no easy way to reach there (except by taxi or personal vehicle, of course), I had to walk 15 minutes from MRT station. Even when I reached the building, I had to go through turns and trucks to reach the service centre.

But once I reached the building, everyone there was so helpful, it's almost comical. The security saw me dragging my luggage and immediately said, "Straight, to the left, take lift, 3rd floor." As I was walking to the lift, another person standing there said, "3rd floor number 4." When I reached 3rd floor, the lift opened up to another person and he said "Your left, to the corner." As if somebody knew I was coming and made the whole script for me. Just to piss-off my atheist readers, I would say it was God who planned the whole thing for me.

The service centre turned out to be not so much a centre, just a workshop. I expected to fill some forms, show my receipt etc etc. But I was only greeted by a technician with this stern looks about him. He merely said, "what happened?" I explained to him and he took my luggage, give it a few spins and a few drops of oil. And just like that the glitch is solved! Literally 5 minutes. He works so fast it's like watching an F1 technician at work.

Apparently there is nothing broken, the handle just needs some oil. I feel so embarrassed. I think it happens a lot to ignorant buyers. The technician merely said, "anything else?" while checking for other parts of the luggage. Amazed, I said "that is all". He then taught me how to do the oiling to my luggage and sent me off my way. I wasn't charged a single cent for all these. Such a nice guy! I want to take a moment to praise Hush Puppies customer service *slow clap*

Moral of the day:
Don't judge a book by its cover. It's not only talking about judging people from his looks, but also about addressing a problem. A problem might looks life-ending but the solution could be so simple. Or on the contrary, it may looks easy, but there might be invisible impacts to other aspects in your life.

The secret is, be honest to yourself. Like Steve Jobs said, your intuition somehow already know what's going on. Most of the time, it's our mind that wants a dramatic existence and  makes things worse than it really is.
In Syrio Forrell's words, see with your eyes. See things and people as they are. Is this an obnoxious person or just a nice person who's having a bad day? Is there really no solution to this problem or uncle Google can help you solve it? Don't let your feelings or memories or worries add cloudy filters to them. Otherwise, you'll end up wasting time and energy like I did.

Understanding understand

The difference between hearing and listening; between watching and seeing; between experiencing and learning; is the understanding.

I've been feeling angry (again) lately. About the things I cannot have and I cannot have. Understand? Things I don't have the capability to have and things I am not allowed to have.

There are things I want that I can't get yet.
There are things I want I know I have the ability to have but somehow still don't have.
There are things I want that I know I will never have.
There are things I chose not to have but I want it now.

Someday, I will understand.

My brother said, wisdom is when you understand. And when you understand, you're wise, you won't be angry. So you have to learn to understand what you don't understand yet.

 But how do you know you don't know what you don't know?

Do we even understand the word 'understand'?

Confuse yet? Well, let it sinks. UNDERSTAND IT.

All the angers rooted from wants; is that even healthy? Perhaps I should just go and live like the Kalahari bushmen. Seems peaceful enough.

In another note..

First, God is both able and willing, it's people's stupidity that's always gets in the way.
Second, atheists are supposed to not believe in God, so why are we discussing this? Atheists, please understand yourselves. Decide, whether you're an atheist or an agnostic?

People's inability to answer simple questions is amazing.
Especially when it comes to what they want.

The price of life

It's not a dream when you are not ready to die for it.

“Don’t ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.” 

-Dagny Taggart

Kesuksesan itu bukan kunci kebahagiaan,
kebahagiaanlah kunci dari kesuksesan.

- Om Tukul Arwana

Success is not the key to happiness; happiness is the key to success.

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." 

-Robin of How I Met Your Mother

Sometimes, in this part of the world you have to deal with people with a smile on your face and a knife behind your back.

(Un)learning hypocrisy

Don't be a hypocrite.
The smart will avoid you.
The mediocre will hate you.
The stupid will follow you.

Life is a process of learning.
Not just a learning of what to know, but also what to be.
There are many things I learned to be before. I learned to be strong, to be resilient. I learned to be rebellious. I learned to be calculative. I learned to have faith in humanity --and then to have none. I learned to be a leader, I learned to be a follower, I learned to be a spectator.
But the one thing I didn't realize I have to learn, is to be evil.
This is the day. This is the red mark on the calendar that I am learning to be evil.
It is not something I want to do, but something I need to do. Just like any other learning process.
But this one, is a learning that is fueled by hatred towards a hypocrite.

Fix it when it's broken

9Gag can teach you some very good lessons sometimes..

And the answer is...

I know nobody asks, it's because they don't know the question yet.
For those who already realize the problem, good for you.
For those who haven't, I save you the agony of pilgrimage looking for an answer.

It is a question arouse from me trying to be smart and went to read the 1200-odd-page of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The book is beautiful; a work of art. But that would be a totally different story.
The book holds the philosophy/conviction that Ayn Rand introduced: Objectivism.
For a long time, I tried to understand the essence of that philosophy, but only lately I can grasp the full meaning of it.
Here it is, in Ayn Rand's very own words:

"My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:


Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."

Copyright © 1962 by Times-Mirror Co.

Bossy

Just realized that in the working world, being bossy means you'll be promoted as manager very soon.

Damn, dad, why did you have to teach me to be obedient whole my life. Now I have difficulty ordering people around. And in my boss' eyes, I'm "not a manager material. I know one when I see one."

So for kids out there, if you want to be manager very fast, (here in Singapore, anyway) please cultivate your bossiness as early in your life as possible.

Expectation vs Reality

A girl who has never eaten a lobster in her life...

...expectation:
Girl: I want to eat lobster :(
Boyfriend: *secretly plan a romantic date by the sea with lobster in the menu, and not forgetting the rose petals shower*

...reality:
Girl: I want to eat lobster :(
Boyfriend: Yeah, me too.

Moral of the day:
Don't look for a rich boyfriend, but look for a boyfriend who's willing to spend for you.
Don't look for a boyfriend that can play music instrument, but one who would want to play for you.
Don't look for someone who merely loves you, but one who's willing to show it.
And once again, the Bible is right, don't look for someone who is able to, but for one who is willing to do so.

Achievement

One day, we will all learn to be proud of our achievements, freely.
He who dares not to talk about his achievement, has achieved nothing.

-Inspired by Francisco D'Anconia.

Why some people hate everyone

This is an article from The Straits Times' Mind Your Body 15 March 2012.

Thought it's lovely and everyone should read this.

by Gary Hayden (gary@garyhayden.co.uk)

Heraclitus

One of my all-time favorite thinkers is Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535-475 BC). Not so much because of his ideas --though he had some very profound ones-- but rather because he was so deliciously eccentric.
He was the archetypal grumpy old man.
He lived in a state of permanent irritation at the stupidity and corruptness of his fellow citizens.
So much that eventually, he went into the mountains to lead a solitary life surviving on a diet of grass and plants.
Unfortunately, this back-to-nature lifestyle did not agree with him. He ended up suffering from dropsy, an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin.
He returned to the city and consulted some doctors, but they were unable to help him. This was hardly surprising as he explained his symptoms to them in the form of a riddle.
The upshot was that he tried to treat himself by lying in a stable and covering himself with cow dung. Whereupon, he died.
It was a sad and ironic end for a man whose philosophical theories stressed the need for people to live together in a social harmony.

REPEATED DISAPPOINTMENT
Heraclitus is a textbook example of a misanthrope, a person who dislikes or distrusts other people or mankind in general. He is, of course, an extreme example.
There are few people in the everyday world whose dislike of others leads them to shun society, life off grass and cover themselves with manure. But nonetheless, there is no shortage of misanthropes, of a milder variety, out there.
Some time ago, I met a woman in a cafe who used to be in the same class as I was at school. I began to reminisce about some of our old schoolmates and said how lovely it would be to see them again. "I wouldn't want to see any of them," she repilied. "I hated everyone at school."
Here is another example. I spoke to a man in England recently who told me that he was suffering from high blood pressure and that the doctors could not identify the cause. "I know what it is, though," he said. "I sit at home and I get to thinking about the state of the world. It makes me angry and I brood and brood. That's what's causing it all."
Of course, it is not the world itself that he is angry with. It is the people who live in it.
He has become disillusioned and disappointed with mankind in general.

Plato

What makes people misanthropic?
People are complex creatures. So doubtless there are many and varied reasons why people grow to dislike and distrust others.
But one interesting and plausible explanation of the misanthropic temperament comes from the Greek philosopher Plato, who came a hundred years or so after Heraclitus.
He said: "Misanthropy develops when without art (that is, naively) one puts complete trust in somebody thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable, and then a little later discovers him to be bad and unreliable... and when it happens to someone often... he ends up... hating everyone."
In other words, the misanthrope falls victim to his own unrealistic expectations about how other people can be expected to behave.
Most of us realize that other people are sometimes selfish, lazy, unkind, shallow, stupid, and ungrateful. Even the best of them are sure to disappoint us from time to time. Just as we disappoint them from time to time.
Being realists, we accept this and try not to get too worked up about it. Not so, the misanthrope.
His naivety, or misplaced optimism, or whatever it is, sets him up for disappointment after disappointment and lead eventually to bitterness and disillusionment. The misanthrope would be wiser to expect a little less from others.
Sure, people do not always behave as they ought to. And some people behave very badly indeed. But we ought to have some respect for human frailty and remember that most men and women are neither terribly good nor terribly bad.
The Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), showed marvelous good sense when he urged: "Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."

Whatever happened to chivalry?

Whatever happened to chivalry?
Some said it's killed by femininity.
But, eMANcipation is a stillborn,
(and still infiltrate by man.)

chivalry died too early.

Love what you do

"If you are a millionaire with lots of success but you are not happy, then you need to ask yourself what you are working for."

-Mr. Itthipat Kulapongvanich, founder of TaoKaeNoi

Did you know that TaoKaeNoi was founded by a Thai and not Japanese?

Did you know that TaoKaeNoi is Thai for "young entrepreneur"?

What's your life philosophy?

Elegance

"Elegance is sexiness with maturity."

- Mr. Varlan Allan (2012)