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Friday, March 28, 2008

Pride

Looking at my grades for the last CA, I do feel a sense of pride. Sitting here in the library for so many days does pay off.

There are some topics that I didn't do quite as well, but I'll focus on them in the remaining days and try my best.

I think that's the beauty of work. To put effort into something and see it realized. I'm building a good doctor. I'm crafting a person that can help other people. I'm not studying for grades, but building a person that can meet certain criteria, and have certain knowledge.

Sometimes we try to measure up to the ruler. It's like a growing piece of bamboo. Maybe it needs to grow 1m in order to be able to be harvested and used to make beautiful instruments. If we do that at all costs, to be 1m tall, we might be weak and break easily. We should try and grow at maximum strength, and let the test tell us when the time is right for us to move to the next step.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Time

We don't know how much time with have. It's strange that the most important quantity to humans, that relates to how much life we've got left, we can't measure in any meaningful way. But money, something that's so abstract and unessential, we've developed an entire science around.

I'm listening to Michael Rabin, a dead violinist, virtuoso who's acutely aware of his own mortality, and worked from young to develop his skills and leave us wonderful recordings. How does one characterize a dead man? Each recording is but a snapshot of a moment in his life. How can we extrapolate his life from the fragments that we're left and appreciate him in his totality?

We leave bits of ourselves all the time in the people we interact with. There are loads of people who've left pieces in me. I still remember them each time I use the skills they taught me. In that way, I know that when time runs out for me, I've left pieces of my own in the people i've interacted with.

We are all beings of energy. What's the difference between one person who masters boxes made of wood and string, and another who masters the administration of poisons against beings we can't see? The difference between a person who deals with reality, versus another who deals in spirituality?

Our legacy is what we leave behind, and our lives are just a struggle to find something meaningful to contribute. Because our reality is not built by one person alone, neither did it arise from our consciousness. It came about by the legacy of human lives long past.

It speaks well of humanity that the world is beautiful.

Endgame

I've been thinking about why i gave up. The logic's clear in my mind, but some matters are partly of the heart as well.

Why give up on someone who has come so close to perfection?

Each day I mourn the passing of yet another day wasted. Giving up now means the loss of even more time. But I'd rather risk it completely, for the best, than to win a partial victory with certainty. Some things are just not in my hands. And each day wasted, shouldn't be a responsibility that someone else has to bear.

It is out of my hands because a shared future means a shared responsibility. This last test then, is not a test set by me, but by her. Will she risk a certain partial happiness for a probable lifelong happiness?

We underestimate our ability to choose our own happiness and the happiness of the people around us. Sometimes we hope they might make decisions for us. We look to the stars, to the arrangement of leaves in a teacup, to the words of a medium, to the voice of prayer in order to remove the burden of choice from our shoulders.

Man's free will is man's burden, yet it's also man's only hope of happiness. Free will separates us from what has come before, and lets us seek for the future.

If everything's an extension of the past, can miracles happen?

Monday, March 17, 2008

Getting older

I've been playing Unreal Tournament 2004 quite a bit during the study period, just to get the old adrenaline up, and get back in the zone for some more fact cramming. Used to be really good at it. Now I'm just all right. I am not yet at the level where I am in the game, but my mouse and movement control is getting better.

First person shooters helped me hone my mental perception of the world. In the game you see only one perspective, however enemies can come from any direction, and your only guide to where they are is a stereo sound image (which tells you left and right to how many degrees of rotation, by way of timing delays between the left and right audio channels), and a memory of where the potential doors in the map are. You control the aiming reticles, and based on your gun, you might shoot at where they are, or at a surface to where they might be.

I used to be consistently first and second on these sorts of games when playing against other human players, and computers used to be really bad. But now with the increase in computing power, I find myself falling back on the leaderboards. It's strange to see yourself struggling, or the pinpoint accuracy you once had with the mouse, deteriorate to a slow stumbly almost comically clumsy stroll along the level.

But what tells me most that I've aged, is that I no longer see myself hitting the target. When i was younger, being in the zone meant that I had all the time in the world to put my mouse precisely over the enemy and click; hitting his head (no bigger than a few pixels) and killing him instantly. And I would see that entire sequence of events that takes place in a few milliseconds. Now, I swipe my mouse across the enemy and tag him. But each time I do, I'm surprised, because I can't see it happen. I still hit my enemies, but I can't see myself doing it anymore.

I wonder if that's age? I hope I can still do things consciously when I get older, but we all know we lose things along the way.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Waiting

I don't think it's fair to keep waiting. Moving on!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Vistas

Some events in my life opens up new vistas of experience. And one of the most beautiful was something I just experienced recently. It's like playing a really good guitar or piano, and enjoying the whole range of emotion presented to you.

I've met someone amazing, and even if we don't work out, one of the most amazing things that has happened to me is this constant falling. Some people talk about love at first sight, when you know that the girl is the right one for you. But I bet they've never experienced falling in love anew each time you see a person. It's like love at first sight all the time. Every time.

What would life be like,
if every time I opened my eyes,
the first thing I do is to fall in love again, anew?

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

On Abortion: A response

"Today we learnt in class that 1 out of every 4 pregnancies in Singapore are terminated through abortion...
I couldn't help but wonder what the world would be like if those babies had been born... what chances of learning to love have escaped us...

[...]

And why doesn't the doctor just resuscitate the baby if it was delivered?

The lecturer mentioned that in certain cases mothers have tried to sue doctors for NOT resuscitating babies that were alive when aborted...
but has any doctor tried resuscitating and then got sued for that? somehow I don't think so...so why don't they just do so?"

- Geraldine's Blog

She doesn't have a comment system, so I thought I'd respond here.

Every woman has the gift of creating life, but not every woman has control over the creation of life. We are built imperfect. Sometimes the best measures fail, sometimes rape happens. Should the woman be held responsible when she was not in full control?

I believe it is right and fair to give every woman the right to choose whether or not to bring a fetus to term. Every child deserves a loving home that is prepared to receive him. Every woman should have the happiness of bringing up a beautiful baby, and not be tortured by circumstances of which they have no control. (birth defects, rape)

To achieve that happiness for everyone, I am prepared, as a future doctor, to undertake the unenviable task of taking lives that I have sworn to save. Better that a baby passes by my hand, oblivious, than a child be born to uncertain pain and suffering.

I offer a service that serves to minimize suffering, but the decision to kill, to stop life, rests with the woman I serve. I only do my duty to keep her safe.

Sometimes men make mistakes. Science just allows us to minimize the hurt, so that we can learn from it and move on with our lives. Perhaps sin is forever, but mistakes don't have to be.