"Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance. What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?"
-William Hundert, The Emperor's Club
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Summer Holiday
"I hope the pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope"
-Red, The Shawshank Redemption
After much unhurried thought and the performance of numerous balancing acts, I have made up my mind. Akin to the many escapades ventured by protaganists such as Bilbo Baggins and Allan Quartermain, my insatiable need to embark on an adventure has resurfaced yet again and this time it has translated into a concrete plan. In addition to a wanderlust which merely implies an itch to travel, I also seek the thrill that is provided by the elements of danger and potential uncertainty.
The path less trodden:
June 8th: Depart London, United Kingdom for Cancun, Mexico
Days 1-6: Mexico
Places: Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, Tulum Chetumal
Days 7-10: Belize
Places: Belize City, Caye Caulker, San Ignacio.
Days -11- 19: Guatemala
Places: Flores, Rio Dulce, Lake Izabal, Guatemala City, Antigua Guatemala, Panajachel
Days 20-24: Honduras
Places: Copan, La Celba, Utila Bay Islands, Comayagua
Days 25-30: Nicaragua
Places: Leon, Managua, Granada, Ometepe Island
Days 31-36: Costa Rica
Places: Monteverde, La Fortuna/Arenal, San Jose, Puerto Viejo
Days 37-46: Panama
Places: Panama City, Bocas del Toro, Boquette, El Valle
July 24th; Depart Panama City for London Heathrow
As you would expect a 46 day trip to offer, this leviathan adventure encompasses various opportunities to come face to face with the cuisines, cultures (of the contemporary as well as the indegenious inhabitants), biodiversity and natural beauty(extinct and active volcanoes, mountains, jungles, caves, rivers, beaches, a barrier reeef...bikini or scantily clad girls HAHA!) of Central America. Also, I'd participate in a never-ending cycle of activities such as snorkelling, diving, hiking, photo-taking, rafting, playing sports, learning to surf, perhaps wake-boarding and of course relaxing on the beach without a worry or care. Through my impending endeavours, I hope to explore my limits and perhaps even breach the existing frontiers of my life. By the way, this itinerary is brief and contains no explicit details on the various places of interest as well as the pertinent activities i'd engage in there, because I intend it to be a surprise when I make my forthcoming post after I return.
-Kenneth Wong
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The Awakening
The 5am talk with Melia and Luke this morning has hammered home the most potent imapct on my life since the new year has commenced. It is bloody ironic that the process of reviewing Luke's life-impacting dilemma has led me to realize all this stuff. Indeed, the conversation has impelled me to conduct a series of introspections and I feel that I've been enlightened with new perspectives in life. Suddenly I realize that all this while I've been thinking on a different spectrum as many others who are probably gonna succeed in life. I've been viewing and leading my life under this yoke of sloth, passivity and inaction, the lack of ambition and illogical fear of hard work. All this time, I've been deceived by my own sense of warped logics and justifications that constantly lie to me into perceiving myself as a success and harbouring a cocky persuation of a bright future that will be achieved through innate finesse and perhaps a series of fortunate events. I've always looked to the easiest way out and maximisation of personal utility. I've never really believed that effort is more or less commensurate to success. For the record, these self-deceptions and insane delusions have been discarded as of now. The lies must stop.
I definitely owe myself this responsibility to start working on maximising my potentials, extirpate the mental fetters that have enslaved my mind for a decade and break out of my comfort zones to plunge into the deep of unchartered waters. I'm seriously ashamed that all this time I've been encaged in this dungeon of self-denial and I'm appalled at why this never ocurred to me. Well, better late than never. A fresh start in the year of the piggy. Whatever it is, I better pass the law interview next week. Wish me luck. Then again, I don't need luck. Haha!
Justin
I definitely owe myself this responsibility to start working on maximising my potentials, extirpate the mental fetters that have enslaved my mind for a decade and break out of my comfort zones to plunge into the deep of unchartered waters. I'm seriously ashamed that all this time I've been encaged in this dungeon of self-denial and I'm appalled at why this never ocurred to me. Well, better late than never. A fresh start in the year of the piggy. Whatever it is, I better pass the law interview next week. Wish me luck. Then again, I don't need luck. Haha!
Justin
Thursday, February 15, 2007
An excerpt of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don’t much care where--' said Alice.
'Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you’re sure to do that,' said the Cat.
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don’t much care where--' said Alice.
'Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you’re sure to do that,' said the Cat.
The life and times of myself (Warning: Very boring content)
"A little more sleep and a little more slumber;"
Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number,
And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands,
Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands.
-The Sluggard by Isaac Watts
Sometimes things aren't cracked up to what they should be. The mirage of the much vaunted varsity experience holds a promise that is a distant hope to me. I swing back and forth from my bed to class, juxtaposing the epitome of slothful inactivity agaisnt the highest order of a mental challenge. Thus far, I learn to subsist through this chasm of 'Ecclesiastal' meaningless as I trudge along my meandering life.
Analogous to my habitual jaunts to the gym, my life is a standstill. You may wonder how and why. Like the moderate periods I sweat it out on the treadmill, I run but have not made any headway; in the sense I cannot derive any inner significance from anything whatsoever. It is not the focus of a fitness goal but the lack of appreciation for the strain and fatigue that accompanies it that keeps me running. And most of the time I don't even know why I got started in the first place! Ironic enough, I occasionally reach a stage where I'm too dead, too lazy to get off it. As the days past, even the weights get seemingly heavier. How is it that my physical body has expanded while I am a void space within?
I read law but am actually a member of the school of philosophy which class has no definite year. Through the days, I seek greater depth and insight to life through my irregular and intermittent endeavours at school-work as well as engaging in countless reflections that bring little answers and conclusions. I ruminate about mediocrity, the adversity of the future, the metaphysical, morals, friendships(especially balancing pride with the inherent need for company) and love(something my life has been bereft of due to the greatest limiting factor: I). In rediscovering my primal competitive instincts, I participate in various games of poker where the few tenuous victories somewhat compensate for the emotional vacuum as of late.
In spite of everything, I have one thing to be glad for: my friends. I am inexplicably thankful to God for placing patient and wise friends in my life, who so earnestly advice, motivate and share this friendship with me with the simplicity of heart, even though I may not have measured up to each of your standards of a good friend. It was especially the recent conversations I had with you all(in excess of theamigos), no matter how short, that unfaillingly add the extra spring to my step and assuage my recent gloom.
Yup, you've just read about how someone who can feel that everything is meaningless despite chasing a clear and immediate goal. My lack of activity outside my room could thus be largely attributed to this, which is why I sleep till 2pm daily. In short, I am far from satisfied with my life. I used to hate writing all my life but now I do it as a sustenance of my sanity; it is moments like this where words outpour in the raw from the overflow of my heart. I yearn to cross the border of the illusion of hope and be truly happy, transcendingly joyful. There is so much more to life than material comforts and superficial pleasures.
-Kenneth Wong
Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number,
And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands,
Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands.
-The Sluggard by Isaac Watts
Sometimes things aren't cracked up to what they should be. The mirage of the much vaunted varsity experience holds a promise that is a distant hope to me. I swing back and forth from my bed to class, juxtaposing the epitome of slothful inactivity agaisnt the highest order of a mental challenge. Thus far, I learn to subsist through this chasm of 'Ecclesiastal' meaningless as I trudge along my meandering life.
Analogous to my habitual jaunts to the gym, my life is a standstill. You may wonder how and why. Like the moderate periods I sweat it out on the treadmill, I run but have not made any headway; in the sense I cannot derive any inner significance from anything whatsoever. It is not the focus of a fitness goal but the lack of appreciation for the strain and fatigue that accompanies it that keeps me running. And most of the time I don't even know why I got started in the first place! Ironic enough, I occasionally reach a stage where I'm too dead, too lazy to get off it. As the days past, even the weights get seemingly heavier. How is it that my physical body has expanded while I am a void space within?
I read law but am actually a member of the school of philosophy which class has no definite year. Through the days, I seek greater depth and insight to life through my irregular and intermittent endeavours at school-work as well as engaging in countless reflections that bring little answers and conclusions. I ruminate about mediocrity, the adversity of the future, the metaphysical, morals, friendships(especially balancing pride with the inherent need for company) and love(something my life has been bereft of due to the greatest limiting factor: I). In rediscovering my primal competitive instincts, I participate in various games of poker where the few tenuous victories somewhat compensate for the emotional vacuum as of late.
In spite of everything, I have one thing to be glad for: my friends. I am inexplicably thankful to God for placing patient and wise friends in my life, who so earnestly advice, motivate and share this friendship with me with the simplicity of heart, even though I may not have measured up to each of your standards of a good friend. It was especially the recent conversations I had with you all(in excess of theamigos), no matter how short, that unfaillingly add the extra spring to my step and assuage my recent gloom.
Yup, you've just read about how someone who can feel that everything is meaningless despite chasing a clear and immediate goal. My lack of activity outside my room could thus be largely attributed to this, which is why I sleep till 2pm daily. In short, I am far from satisfied with my life. I used to hate writing all my life but now I do it as a sustenance of my sanity; it is moments like this where words outpour in the raw from the overflow of my heart. I yearn to cross the border of the illusion of hope and be truly happy, transcendingly joyful. There is so much more to life than material comforts and superficial pleasures.
-Kenneth Wong
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The borders of reality and escapism
In assenting to the Matrix Theory propounded by the Warchowski Brothers, reality is but an animated canvas that has been pulled across our eyes. This eternal epic is constantly written by fate and chance; and these authors so sublimely manage to craft and project this masterpiece of the world to the world, in precise dimensions and quantities of other stimuli that appeal to human senses. It even manages to allow it's audience to grasp and feel time. How more real can it get?
Throughout the endurance of time, the validity of reality has hardly been questioned and thus it is established as a self-evident truth we accept on our own volition. By virtue, reality per se, is pure and unadulterated, until it passes through the biased eyes of each viewer and concomittant participant of this elaborate set-up. Attesting to Justin's proposition, each of us has been pre-configured to react independently- emotionally, physically and intuitively- yet not necessarily differently to a same situation. For example, 2 people who have scored well in exams may have dissimilar sentiments- one may be revelling in his feat while the other is indifferent because he believes he merely did enough to justify himself in every sense. Without further protracting, I shall broach the issue of escapism since innately, we've all been calibrated to accept reality uniquely. The vicissitudes of our perceptions usually leave us either blinded in, or to reality, which makes it all the more difficult to ascertain what exactly is a good or bad thing due to the lack of a definite yardstick.
As a matter of opinion, the vox populi usually connotes reality with negative events, and people have constantly sought avenues to 'escape' from it, at least in an emotional sense. Without evaluating their initial premise, is escapism still therefore justifiable? And in order for it to be, how much should one indulge in it? In a nutshell, I believe that escapism is an essential aspect of our lives and that it has to be meticulously administered to procure self improvement. What I mean by this, is that escapism soothes and helps tide us through the least pleasant of times as when our minds are momentarily freed from the captivity of negative thoughts, we function more adequately, or at least we don't feel bad. However, excessive indulgence in escapism blurs our judgement of reality and thus impedes us in effectively functioning. Therefore, as 'judgement' is the key word, I find it wiser to adopt a more conservative approach towards escapism so as to preserve my clarity of thought.
The snare of escapism trammels everyone in some way or another at a point in his life, and it is also capable of producing success as opposed to merely ameliorating bad situations. Pertinent to our varsity lives, I know you all can endlessly meditate on your textbooks and practice successive sums while forgetting that u actually exist. Also, the above-mentioned illustration is but a microcosm of the working community we are to become of. This corroborates my stance that everyone is intrinsically an involuntary escapist. You may wonder and ask: but it isn't it unfair to assume that one is only motivated to engage in absorbing activities just because he perceives his situation as screwed up big time(a hint of exaggeration for dramatic effect)? My answer would be that it isn't necessary for one to actively evaluate his current situation because sub-consiciously, he naturally contemplates what keeps his boat afloat. And why does one do that? This is so as the irreconcilable duality of good and bad is entrenched in the recesses of his mind, therefore with a semblance of the negative and to 'escape' from it, the natural and rational option(not that it actually is one) would be to choose the positive.
As we can see, the art of balancing reality agaisnt escapism is a pretty formidable and delicate task. Like Houdini, everyone must somehow learn to be an 'escape artist,' within reasonable and morally legitimate means of course. Personally, I repeat this monotonous cycle of reading, working out, watching movies and talking cock for hours on msn as a diversion from the drone of everyday life and the unpleasantries that accompany it, especially the ever lingering ennui. I am particularly fond of escapism through art- literature and movies- because it allows me to gain greater depth to life through being able to identify with analagous scenarios, notwithstanding my limited capacity to appreciate art in general. Also, the 'art' of reconciling the plot with its true significance and aptness of description/depiction(for movies) simply captivates and leaves me in awe of such imaginative brilliance. Yet, despite building a bridge to my soul, art, as a form of escapism cannot substitute the emotion the drama of everyday life provides.
By the time you read this, you would've snapped back into reality. So have I parted from the temporal satiety penning this had to offer. Have a havoc term, amigos! and yeah it's always an escape when I listen to 'amigos para siempre' because of the meaningful memories it resonates.
-Kenneth Wong
Throughout the endurance of time, the validity of reality has hardly been questioned and thus it is established as a self-evident truth we accept on our own volition. By virtue, reality per se, is pure and unadulterated, until it passes through the biased eyes of each viewer and concomittant participant of this elaborate set-up. Attesting to Justin's proposition, each of us has been pre-configured to react independently- emotionally, physically and intuitively- yet not necessarily differently to a same situation. For example, 2 people who have scored well in exams may have dissimilar sentiments- one may be revelling in his feat while the other is indifferent because he believes he merely did enough to justify himself in every sense. Without further protracting, I shall broach the issue of escapism since innately, we've all been calibrated to accept reality uniquely. The vicissitudes of our perceptions usually leave us either blinded in, or to reality, which makes it all the more difficult to ascertain what exactly is a good or bad thing due to the lack of a definite yardstick.
As a matter of opinion, the vox populi usually connotes reality with negative events, and people have constantly sought avenues to 'escape' from it, at least in an emotional sense. Without evaluating their initial premise, is escapism still therefore justifiable? And in order for it to be, how much should one indulge in it? In a nutshell, I believe that escapism is an essential aspect of our lives and that it has to be meticulously administered to procure self improvement. What I mean by this, is that escapism soothes and helps tide us through the least pleasant of times as when our minds are momentarily freed from the captivity of negative thoughts, we function more adequately, or at least we don't feel bad. However, excessive indulgence in escapism blurs our judgement of reality and thus impedes us in effectively functioning. Therefore, as 'judgement' is the key word, I find it wiser to adopt a more conservative approach towards escapism so as to preserve my clarity of thought.
The snare of escapism trammels everyone in some way or another at a point in his life, and it is also capable of producing success as opposed to merely ameliorating bad situations. Pertinent to our varsity lives, I know you all can endlessly meditate on your textbooks and practice successive sums while forgetting that u actually exist. Also, the above-mentioned illustration is but a microcosm of the working community we are to become of. This corroborates my stance that everyone is intrinsically an involuntary escapist. You may wonder and ask: but it isn't it unfair to assume that one is only motivated to engage in absorbing activities just because he perceives his situation as screwed up big time(a hint of exaggeration for dramatic effect)? My answer would be that it isn't necessary for one to actively evaluate his current situation because sub-consiciously, he naturally contemplates what keeps his boat afloat. And why does one do that? This is so as the irreconcilable duality of good and bad is entrenched in the recesses of his mind, therefore with a semblance of the negative and to 'escape' from it, the natural and rational option(not that it actually is one) would be to choose the positive.
As we can see, the art of balancing reality agaisnt escapism is a pretty formidable and delicate task. Like Houdini, everyone must somehow learn to be an 'escape artist,' within reasonable and morally legitimate means of course. Personally, I repeat this monotonous cycle of reading, working out, watching movies and talking cock for hours on msn as a diversion from the drone of everyday life and the unpleasantries that accompany it, especially the ever lingering ennui. I am particularly fond of escapism through art- literature and movies- because it allows me to gain greater depth to life through being able to identify with analagous scenarios, notwithstanding my limited capacity to appreciate art in general. Also, the 'art' of reconciling the plot with its true significance and aptness of description/depiction(for movies) simply captivates and leaves me in awe of such imaginative brilliance. Yet, despite building a bridge to my soul, art, as a form of escapism cannot substitute the emotion the drama of everyday life provides.
By the time you read this, you would've snapped back into reality. So have I parted from the temporal satiety penning this had to offer. Have a havoc term, amigos! and yeah it's always an escape when I listen to 'amigos para siempre' because of the meaningful memories it resonates.
-Kenneth Wong
Monday, February 05, 2007
On choice and choices
The topic of the hour is choice. How do we know that the choices that we make are correct and equally importantly, what do we define as a correct choice.. Further still, is there always a choice that is correct or one that we are meant to pick above all the others..
I think a very loose guideline for making a correct choice but not necessarily, "the", correct choice is to choose the path that leads to the best possible outcome in the forseeable future. This loose statement however leaves much room for doubt as to whom the choice should be best for, whether for ourselves who make the choice, those around us whom we love, or the world in general. Ignoring the last two options for the sake of simplicity, we still are faced with the task of determining what outcomes are best for ourselves. Should our choices lead to happiness or riches or self improvement or any other results that we deem to be positive... At best, one choice leads simultaneously to those results which we deem to be important to ourselves. However, it is when these results are mutually exclusive or at least partially so, that we are faced with indecision, at least temporarily, as we consider and barter one aspect of our lives for another. A simple example would be studying for a test, where we sacrifice transient happiness for self improvement and perhaps, a modicum of self satisfaction. In this situation, it seems like the correct choice is obviously to sacrifice the transient happiness in lieu of the longer term benefits. This case exemplifies the futher consideration of time with regards to the choices we make. Surely we do not always make the choices that are most beneficial in the long term. If this were the case, those of us who are religious would be inclined to join the clergy. Where do we draw the line as to how far into the future we should plan and make sacrifices for... When do we decide that it would be wiser to cave in to hedonistic tendencies as opposed to other choices that might lead to better outcomes?
All the above considerations are usually made before we actually make the choice. Yet, after all this consideration and the choice has been made, we often still are unsure if we have made the right choice, if such a choice indeed exists. My personal method of dealing with this has been to find something meaningful to myself that has been derived from the choices that i have made that is significant enough to justify the choice. An example of this would be getting up early in the morning to watch a soccer game. If the soccer game goes well and one derives pleasure from it, then i believe that the choice can be justified. Yet, what if one gets up at 4 am and endures an unexpectedly unentertaining match.. Due to the seemingly relative insignificance of this choice, we are not too unsettled even though the choice no longer seems justifiable. It is however, more troubling when we face such situations with regards to decisions that directly and significantly affect our lives.
To complicate matters further, the level to which we can forsee the effect of our choices on our futures is rudimentary at best, even when considering the near future. An example of this, albeit a poor one, is when last night, i chose to watch a few episodes of , "the office", to tire myself out so that i would be able to go to sleep quickly. Although i became extremely tired, when i tried to go to sleep, i found myself feeling extremely hungry and had to go to mcdonalds to buy some food, depriving myself of sleep further than what might have resulted, had i chosen to forego, "the office", and instead just lie in bed until i fell asleep. By this example, i mean to show that even the small choices that we make can affect us in unexpected and unforeseeable ways, leading us to completely different sets of choices from those which we would otherwise be faced with, and that small effects resulting from seemingly insignificant choices can snowball into much much greater ones with the potential to produce profound effects on our lives.
Anyway, that's it from my philosopical self, and i can only hope that you are happy with your choice to read this entry.
cheers...
-Luke
I think a very loose guideline for making a correct choice but not necessarily, "the", correct choice is to choose the path that leads to the best possible outcome in the forseeable future. This loose statement however leaves much room for doubt as to whom the choice should be best for, whether for ourselves who make the choice, those around us whom we love, or the world in general. Ignoring the last two options for the sake of simplicity, we still are faced with the task of determining what outcomes are best for ourselves. Should our choices lead to happiness or riches or self improvement or any other results that we deem to be positive... At best, one choice leads simultaneously to those results which we deem to be important to ourselves. However, it is when these results are mutually exclusive or at least partially so, that we are faced with indecision, at least temporarily, as we consider and barter one aspect of our lives for another. A simple example would be studying for a test, where we sacrifice transient happiness for self improvement and perhaps, a modicum of self satisfaction. In this situation, it seems like the correct choice is obviously to sacrifice the transient happiness in lieu of the longer term benefits. This case exemplifies the futher consideration of time with regards to the choices we make. Surely we do not always make the choices that are most beneficial in the long term. If this were the case, those of us who are religious would be inclined to join the clergy. Where do we draw the line as to how far into the future we should plan and make sacrifices for... When do we decide that it would be wiser to cave in to hedonistic tendencies as opposed to other choices that might lead to better outcomes?
All the above considerations are usually made before we actually make the choice. Yet, after all this consideration and the choice has been made, we often still are unsure if we have made the right choice, if such a choice indeed exists. My personal method of dealing with this has been to find something meaningful to myself that has been derived from the choices that i have made that is significant enough to justify the choice. An example of this would be getting up early in the morning to watch a soccer game. If the soccer game goes well and one derives pleasure from it, then i believe that the choice can be justified. Yet, what if one gets up at 4 am and endures an unexpectedly unentertaining match.. Due to the seemingly relative insignificance of this choice, we are not too unsettled even though the choice no longer seems justifiable. It is however, more troubling when we face such situations with regards to decisions that directly and significantly affect our lives.
To complicate matters further, the level to which we can forsee the effect of our choices on our futures is rudimentary at best, even when considering the near future. An example of this, albeit a poor one, is when last night, i chose to watch a few episodes of , "the office", to tire myself out so that i would be able to go to sleep quickly. Although i became extremely tired, when i tried to go to sleep, i found myself feeling extremely hungry and had to go to mcdonalds to buy some food, depriving myself of sleep further than what might have resulted, had i chosen to forego, "the office", and instead just lie in bed until i fell asleep. By this example, i mean to show that even the small choices that we make can affect us in unexpected and unforeseeable ways, leading us to completely different sets of choices from those which we would otherwise be faced with, and that small effects resulting from seemingly insignificant choices can snowball into much much greater ones with the potential to produce profound effects on our lives.
Anyway, that's it from my philosopical self, and i can only hope that you are happy with your choice to read this entry.
cheers...
-Luke
Friday, February 02, 2007
Good Will Hunting
The question has been lurking in my mind for some time now - occasionally it surfaces as an active thought and at other times it languishes in the shady recesses of my mind. This morning, this question once again had taken the form of the former and I decided that I have to blog this partly to articulate it and not let it slip away once again, and also to grant myself a respite from the drudgery of mugging for my damn psych test tomorrow. (partly also cos I'm confident of doing well.. haha not too cocky for my own good, I sincerely hope.)
Indeed, here's the perennial question: Do we have a right to be proud of what we are (achievements) and our attributes (physical, psychological, emotional, mental and intellectual)? To make it sound more familiar, am I good cos I'm good?
Really, my friends, what I'm trying to drive at is whether all the 'good' things about us are really things that we should be proud of, because from the way I perceive it, we may afterall be mere machines endowed with these natural attributes (for the sake of this discussion, all the good attributes), and predispositions to do certain things in certain ways (for the sake of this discussion, all the good things in all the good ways). In sheer indignance, some of you, especially those who believe in a god, may protest: no, we're all given freewill! - that makes all the difference! Well, allow me to retort: isn't freewill a subset of our predispositions? Let's imagine that I'm studying damn hard for a test while others aren't because I've a stronger will to study and excel while others don't. But is this really a pure matter of willpower - something that is determined by the individual himself? I think not, because I'm indeed more predisposed towards studying hard, which can be translated into me possessing a stronger predispostion to augment my will to compel me to study relatively harder than the rest. This last statement explicitly corroborates the fact that our will is determined by our predispositions, and the former is, thus, but a part of our natural endowment - something that was bestowed to us out of either grace (for the believers) or contingency (for the atheists), and definitely not something we deserve. A murderer who kills out of rage may not be that guilty afterall - he simply was born with a stronger predispostion to kill and born with less will to control himself. Let's look at some words and phrases we associate with proudly: innate, smart, skillful, righteous, tenacious, morally upright, I did it!, I thrashed the rest!, I worked freakin hard for this. If you're even the slightest bit convinced of my aforementioned argument, you should be questioning yourselves whether those words and phrases are really that glorious afterall. Freedom of choice - the most pertinent thing that distinguishes us from other organisms - and will - the most salient comparative innate ability that pries us away from homogeneity, ceteris paribus - may not be really that deserving of their elite stauses afterall.
We may well just be beings that have been pre-programmed with individual endowments and levels of endowment, and nothing to be really proud of. An analogy would be that of a computer with a design (physical attributes) and programmes loaded in (mental, emotional, psychological and intellectual attributes). Willpower would be the durability that was built-in, yes built-in, the computer. Hence, where is the missing link? - where's the mind that controls the hands that in turn controls the computer? It has to be a human being, I guess - yet another computer no different from the one it is controlling. However, I'd like to think otherwise.
Justin
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