life lessons...

iI was embroiled in a potential huge argument with my parents over a personal matter.

That made me ponder about such a thing called 'life lessons'. Sometimes i am just a little frustrated when they see me in a one dimensional way. They put me in a stereotype and force me into taking measures to reform myself so that i will come to no harm whatsoever.

My mum says 'justin, you know, you should do this and that, blah blah... It is for your own good. Don't be like who and who. They were like you before and because they did not follow what others tell them, they ended up very badly.'

well, they are taking the life lessons of others as a reminder of what i should be doing, and what i should not be doing.

'I am old enough and i have seen so much of this world. You should take my advice.' she said.

There is a chinese saying '不听老人言，吃亏在眼前'. Yes, she is trying to push this message into my head.

I know for sure she is doing this for the sake of my well being, but this is at the cost of my emotional well being. So many a times, i think the older generation tells us to do things without considering our emotions. If they think something so not good for us, we will be forced to discard or abandon things that we hold close to our hearts.

And they think it is easy to be done when it is actually not. I did not want to get into an argument by pointing out their flaws and question them to do what is good for them too. I might by struck by lightning! Haha...

So as young ones, we will always be the ones at fault, the inexperienced ones who will be hurt and cheated, the ones who will always make the wrong decisions and commits the same mistakes.

I think i have drifted away from what i want to convey in this post. Are lessons there meant to prevent us from committing the same mistakes? or are lessons meant for us to personally experience and hence not to make the mistakes again because we have felt the pain? How well can we learn by preventing mistakes vs committing the mistakes and learning from them? And who is to say that another person's story will be applicable to our own?

It has been a long time since i felt so vexed. I tried to play down the issue to no avail. I can just nod my head and say yes yes yes. Perhaps at the very end they will be right about their advice, but they may be wrong as well.

Even if i am prepared to go through the pain and learn from the mistakes, they will still try to pre empt me from going through it.

Sigh... I don't know what to say. Just hope that everything turns out well.

Dakepaike from mobile phone.

Dakepaike's weekly quotes.

week 25:

education often gets you the average pay (often a miserable one) but rarely makes you filthly rich.

Dakepaike
typing this post from my mobile phone. Com broke down...

Dakepaike's Weekly Quotes:

Week 24:

If talk is cheap, thinking is cheaper.

-dakepaike-

Taichi Game Between Nokia and Singtel

First of all, sorry guys for not turning up for the gathering. Some last minute changes to my plans.

Anyway, I had to accompany my Dad to the Nokia Care centre to get his phone repaired. His phone was infected with a virus application and man... crazy things happened.

This story serves as a warning to all readers when accepting a file on your mobile phones.

My Dad was prompted to select if he wanted to connect a bluetooth application or something like that days ago. Being a user of bluetooth for hands-free talking while driving, and the fact that he has to wear his specs to read the pop-up. He did not read the application message carefully and just selected "OK".

Soon, funny things happened. Friends and even strangers called my Dad and asked if he sent them an MMS as they had received them from him. This happened very frequently throughout the day. Some of his contacts even received the MMS at 4.30am in the morning.

Weirder things - he would receive error messages saying his MMS could not be delivered to the following recipients - and all of them are house numbers. Why would someone send MMSes to a house line?

It appears that his phone is infected with a virus. I searched the net and found out that he has gotten the "commwarrior" virus. According to the Nokia Care centre staff, this virus is renowned to attack Nokia N70 model, which is the one my Dad is carrying. It automatically sends MMSes to all the contacts in your phone, 12 different MMS contents are discovered so far. And the amazing thing is, if someone turns on their bluetooth nearby, it also sends MMSes to them via bluetooth, explaining why strangers call my Dad. Even with the bluetooth switched off, the phone will still continue sending MMSes as and when it likes.

The real complication comes if all those MMSes translate to astronomical figures in the monthly bills.

Fearing this (paying for MMSes that we did not send at all), I called Singtel to explain to them the situation.

"Sir, currently we are not too sure what is happening to your phone, I will take note about it and when the next bill comes to you, you just give us a call and we will see what we can do." the customer service operator said.

I was worried that with no proof that we did not intentionally send the MMSes, they can still eventually deny our allegations and charge us the MMSes sent. The operator then said they will try to waive the charges if a virus is indeed the cause. I was told to go to the Nokia Care centre to get my phone done as this is not under Singtel's network problem.

Ok, as my Dad called and asked me to go to the Nokia Care centre, hence my absence for the gathering.

"So, can you print a statement to show that my phone was infected with this commwarrior virus in your diagnostic test?" I asked. I was always afraid that with no evidence, they can say anything they like.

"Sorry sir, but we do not include the fact that your phone is infected with a virus in the statement. We can only say that your have come to get your phone repaired/serviced. We cannot include the nature of the problem..." the customer service officer said.

Wow wow... I know that they will just clear everything in the phone and so called re-install the programs. A 'diagnostic test' report is not available.

"Ok, why not you go to Singtel and show them your phone that you have this virus application as evidence? I am sorry we cannot do anything about the statement."

Damn... a trip to Singtel Hello! shop with very long queues.

After explaining the whole situation to the customer service officer, she said "Well, we cannot do anything. From our records, the operator has noted your problem and told you to come to us when you receive your bills. At the moment, you have to get your phone repaired."

"But Nokia said they cannot print an evidence to show we have gotten this virus, so we came here to show it to Singtel." I said.

"But they should be able to print out something to indicate the problem is with this virus. We cannot write a statement here to say you showed us your phone and the virus application. You will have to go back to Nokia." she replied.

Think they are trying to play some Taichi game. I needed concrete evidence and none of them can provide me one. Pushing me here and there.

We called the manager of that Hello! shop and explained our situation for maybe the 4th time. This time round, the manager said "Ok, I can type in the records that you have actually come here and notify us the problem. We have seen the virus application and confirmed you made a report here. We will launch an investigation and if we see there are irregularities in your MMSes, we will waive off the charges." He typed everything and showed us the computer screen.

I am not sure if this is considered an evidence but somehow this is the most we can do.

Just a short story to tell.

-dakepaike-

杂诗

其一（乡愁）

皑皑白雪遍满地，
浓浓乡愁盈心扉。
渺渺瀛寰任我行，
独在异乡为异客。


其二（国貌）

秋菊落花冬流水，
茫茫绿荫翳丰城。
无奈外客袭盆地，
风卷残云九重天。


Stiff

Dakepaike's Weekly Quotes (special edition):

“Things do not change, we change.” – Henry David Thoreau

I was reading this book entitled “Lift me up, words of wisdom” by Ron Kaufman. Basically, this whole book is just a compilation of many quotes by great people. I came upon this quote by Thoreau and felt so strongly about it that I decided to contest his ‘words of wisdom’.

Hence I came up with my own, a slight modification to his and I present to you Dakepaike’s weekly quote, week number 23:

“Things change, so we change.”

By the way, this is an extremely easy book to read but in my opinion, it is also an extremely naïve book to read. I had difficulty relating to the quotes because I feel that most of the quotes cannot apply to today’s complicated and dynamic world. No offence to anyone and Mr Kaufman, just my own opinion.

So, why “things change, so we change”? Because of one simple rational: humans respond. I do not want to get involved with the meaningless debate of ‘which comes 1st, chicken or egg?’ Some people will argue because humans change, so they change things, others will say that because things change, so people are being changed. I actually favour the latter stand. As human beings we respond and react to different situations and environment. It is unimaginable that things will always remain stagnant (life will be damn boring). Things always change. I propose that humans are passive agents in the face of change. We react, not create. I have a handwritten draft that talks a lot more but I think it is crap, so I just go on to prove my stand.

Let me give examples to better illustrate my point. We talk about saving and reducing global warming because things have changed, so we change ourselves (how we use and conserve energy, reduce emissions etc). Perhaps the sole breadwinner of the family becomes bankrupt, the family members have to change their lifestyles, maybe even a change in their characters, the way they view money.

The above examples are simple and straight forward ones. To completely debunk the opposition’s beliefs that ‘things do not change, we change’, I am constructing a very simplified yet complicated example. Hope it is not too profound for readers to understand. Here we go!

Imagine you are now in a world of white. There is nothing else, everything you see is white. For now, things have not changed, white is white. One day, you decided that it is getting boring. You, as a human being change, your feelings about the environment change, you decide to do something to change the thing (environment in this case). So you are the one who has changed? Or something else has changed? In this extreme argument, I would say things have changed, so you change.

Read carefully the contents below:
Initially, you have a connection with the white space, you have given it meanings. You are comfortable or at least not antagonistic about it.

Now the white space has got its own meaning and definition (you gave it a meaning). So far, white space is ‘constant’, you are ‘constant’ too. Both of you are in equilibrium, both are interconnected.

Suddenly you feel something different about the white space. Why does your feeling change? Do you change out of nothing? No, because the meaning of white space has changed, it disrupts the equilibrium. To you, white space changes its meaning. White space, being interconnected with you, changes you. Hence, things always change 1st, so we change.

Hmm… I am not too sure if readers will understand.

In a nutshell,
Things are given meaning by us.
Humans respond to changes.
When the meaning of things becomes different, we react by changing.
Meaning of things becomes different = things change.

Hope it is clear enough.

I think I am going crazy thinking of such philosophical stuff.

-dakepaike-

Our Morals Bend like Yio Chu Kang Road

This is quite a funny title but one day I was thinking about morals and suddenly I came up with this analogy.

For those who do not know, Yio Chu Kang Road is the long stretch of road that stretches somewhere from Serangoon North area to Seletar area near Jalan Kayu. (Streetdirectory.com is still in a legal battle so they cannot release any of the maps)

If you are driving along that road, you will feel that it is a straight long stretch of road. Yes, straight is the key word. There is a very slight and gentle bend (so gentle that some people do not realize) along the Seletar area but the bend is stretched out over such a long distance that it is almost negligible.

Yes, our morals bend like this Yio Chu Kang Road. This road is like our morals over our lifetime. We start from Serangoon. We were young, innocent and pure. We were educated the right moral values and belief systems. We are so called ‘straight’ and upright and yet to deviate from being ‘straight’.

As we grow and mature, as we see more of this world and interact with people and environment (like we are closing onto the Seletar area). We cannot be innocent and pure anymore, like a glass of clear water ‘contaminated’ with a drop of black ink.

But, sometimes, or most of the time, we do not realize our morals change. We are not as ‘straight’ as before. We have hit the gentle bend without knowing it; we still feel we are ‘straight’. We say we do good things, we believe in what is right and fair and all those stuff. But at the same time, we do question them, we doubt them, some even do what is wrong and unfair. In a nutshell, we have, in the strictest moral sense, deviated.

So, we still believe the road is straight, our morals are intact (straight), yet it did not occur to us that we have actually changed.

Hmm… I think this one sounds very profound. I hope readers understand what I am talking about.

If you do not understand, never mind. Sometimes I cannot understand myself at all. Haha…

-dakepaike-