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The thoughts, life, and times of an American Chinese guy. Life can be strange. My fraternity brothers always said I should write a book about all the crazy things, ideas, and occurrances in my life. Even in college, my brothers knew my conservative personality and clean cut appearance didn't mean a boring person. I'm not crazy, but I have been places, had experiences, and seen events for many lifetimes in the last 10 years. I have known joy, happiness, the greatest times of my life, and felt extreme pain. I have done good and bad. The good has led to great memories. The bad has led to regrets and some of the most meaningful lessons of life.
I CAN ONLY READ ENGLISH COMMENTS ON MY BLOG, BECAUSE OF THE WAY AsiaFriendFinder IS SET UP.
PLEASE POST COMMENTS IN ENGLISH. THANKS.
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Free Will - there was never a paradox
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Nov 26, 2010 12:30 am
1501 Views
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If God is omnipotent and knows what we will do before he created us, how can we have free will?
ANSWER: This paradox is explained by God being outside of time–he knows the future just like he knows the past and the present. Just as the past does not interfere with our free will, neither does the future.
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Selfishness can be disuised as selflessness
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Nov 24, 2010 1:11 am
1380 Views
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I found myself reading about a man who shot his wife. He called it a "mercy killing".
Here's a test of whether someone kills a loved one out of truly unselfish motives or for himself ---- ask the person to honestly ask himself did he do it because he wanted to end HIS emotional pain from watching his wife die or to end HER suffering?
One's a selfish act and nothing more. The other, though I believe it to be wrong, is at least not purely about the killer himself.
Are you doing this to end your own suffering (from watching someone die) or are you REALLY doing it to end their suffering?
This very difference happens in many other instances that appear to be true charity too. How many of us are called to do the selfless thing by ads to feed starving kids, when it's clear the organization (like Feed The Children) are clearly targeting our emotions. The operative word is OUR feelings and OUR need to give to sooth our own negative feelings.
Is it wrong to give to the homeless or the starving? Absolutely not....it is a GOOD THING to donate.
However, people should be honest to themselves. Many times, we give to alleviate our own pain or sadness when seeing others suffer.
It's ok to give to sooth our own feelings, but it is even better to give to alleviate the sufferings of the sufferer and not ourselves.
In those rare instances when our "mercy" actually hurts or ends the life of another, be careful not to call it mercy to the victim when you are doing the taking of life for your own selfish need to end your own pain in seeing another in pain....that is about YOU and not THEM.
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The Battle
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Nov 21, 2010 11:24 pm
1311 Views
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Men find themselves doing what must be done, when the call goes out and nobody else can in war.
In life, men often find themselves in the same situation. We can run or face what is before us. Some say the coward's way out is best, but when death is certain the only difference is that the coward dies weak and the ones that do what they should die overcoming their fear.
I can say from my own life that I've gone into a losing battle in life (not war), but I went in anyways. The other option was simply to kneel and let what must come wash over me. Either way, the fate was sealed, but in the path I took I came out stronger...broken but stronger...and I never knew why I didn't just go down "easy" like so many before me, but I knew it was wrong.
Now, I am starting to deal with another battle. Someone I know has their death sealed. I can do nothing but either run or stay by them as they walk the path to death...and I've learned why it is better to fight even when the end is in sight (not just morally but as a practical matter in life).
You get stronger, and if you live, like those 300 survivors, you won't run the next time. You might just be able to help someone else face death...because, though you still know love and compassion, you have learned to face death, to only feel a numb sense of the pain that comes with it, and sometimes to not feel (emotionally) at all even though you can still love. You learn that 4 letter word doesn't come from simply emotions, like the savages and the cowards feel.
In another analogy, you have conquered the savage's "heart of darkness" and come to know the light of life, even when facing death (of yourself or those so very close to you).
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Apology vs. Repentance
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Nov 16, 2010 12:48 pm
1441 Views
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The concept of forgiveness is often misunderstood, and often "misunderstood" intentionally by those that don't want to admit and STOP their sin, bad behaviour, wrong doing.
For instance, many people like to quote the following Bible verse:
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NAS .
More than one person or group takes this to mean just asking for forgiveness is all that is required.
However, all over the New Testament, the Bible speaks clearly about how change is required for real redemption.
And the following Old Testament quote says it all. Repentance goes beyond just saying sorry (to a person you hurt or wronged) and asking for forgiveness (from God).
“He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion” (Proverbs 28:13 NAS.
Notice you must do 2 things:
1. Confess the wrong. That would be saying sorry, apologizing to the people you wronged; then asking God for forgiveness. It also means admitting what you did was not just hurtful but also morally wrong, which means asking for forgiveness from the people you hurt.
The above is much more than a "I'm sorry that hurt you" or "I'm sorry I made that mistake". These are evasive statements that simply say you didn't intend to hurt someone.
You need to go past that and admit what you did was morally wrong. It was not a mistake but intentional. There is a difference and both you and God knows the difference between a genuine mistake and a dishonest attempt to evade guilt.
2. Forsaking the wrong means to STOP doing it. That means you cease doing whatever you did wrong, cease living off the benefits of that wrong (give back the stolen cash, stop the adultery, admit your lying to your friend), and change.
Here many people again avoid dealing with admitting their sin to the exact people they hurt by "changing" in general. That is fine if the victims are dead, but if not the change needs to start with the ones you hurt (God and the particular people).
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This difference between a shallow apology and real repentance is found in other religions too.
Even if you are an agnostic or outright atheist, there is a clear social mores and ethics that makes it clear saying "sorry" without change/making amends is meaningless. No system of morals or ethics can just go with words and feeling "sorry". In a world with no God, such a system would serve absolutely not utility or purpose, except for the "emotional release" of the victim and the selfish need for the wrong-doer to feel better. The wrong-doer has not ethical right to feel better and the victim can learn to "let go" of it without forgiving then.
The end result is whatever your views on God or gods, unless you are one that values wrongdoing, there is clearly a big difference between a simple apology and a meaningful act of repentance.
Repentance requires admitting you did wrong and changing/stopping the bahaviour towards the ones you hurt and God.
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Heart of Darkness
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Oct 19, 2010 1:23 am
1406 Views
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"Heart of Darkness" is a literary classic about a captain traveling down a river in Africa (the dark continent), and it is believed that river was the Congo the Belgians had been trading in during the colonial era in Africa.
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Heart of Darkness: The Final Words
In Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Kurtz's final words as he lay dying are, "The horror! The horror!" (pp. 1415) Some interpret these final words as the horror of one culture decimating another in the name of religion, civilization or greed. Others may believe that Kurtz had at that moment fully recognized what he had become, "the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, or craven terror..." (pp. 1415)
But later in Heart of Darkness I believe that Conrad tells us what the real horror is-life. "Droll thing life is-that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself-that comes too late-a crop of unextinguishable regrets..." (pp. 1415) To the very end Kurtz was proud and unrepentant. It was not the recognition of just his wrongs, but the recognition of life's wrongs, terrors, and disappointments that caused Kurtz to cry out.
The recognition of life's horrors is what Marlow terms "a moral victory". (pp. 1416) In the course of Marlow's travels, he saw countless people too dull or too blinded by their greed or their "cause" to take the time to stop and think about who they were becoming; about what they were doing to others; about why they were doing the things they were doing.
Kurtz's identification of "the horror!" is the "moral victory". Yes, he had plundered and killed and destroyed, but in the end he acknowledged the cruelty of life and had judged it-more than can be said about the countless others that die daily in the "heart of darkness". The "heart of darkness" is not Africa. It is not England or Belgium or the United States. The "heart of darkness" is the unexamined heart of man. Through the narration of Marlow, Conrad challenges his readers to examine themselves to gain the "moral victory" before it is too late.
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The War Is Always In US
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Sep 21, 2010 10:53 pm
1553 Views
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Written 2007/2008
Oliver Stone's message in all his movies is best reflected in the ending scene of the movie "Platoon".
The war was never in Vietnam [or any physical battlefield]. It was in us and will always be in us.
He was talking about the battle between the light and the darkness.
I've come to finally emotionally and intellectually understand this, when it comes to letting go of what was lost, who we've lost. The past is unchangeable, but we continue to relive it and to re-think or argue on why it could have been different. Yet, it's all in the past. The dead don't come back in this life. Those who left us do not return in almost every case, especially with the passage of time. Past lives are gone. All there is for us is the future. Maybe it will lead back to our old lives or lovers, but maybe it won't. The point is the past is over, whatever hope we have and wherever we end up, and whoever we end up with (or alone) can only be found by going into the future.
That's the battle in us....to let the darkness of the past imprison us or to free ourselves with the truth of the light --- and that is the reality that all we have is the present and what we do with it forms our future. Men are not gods, we cannot go back in time. We cannot stop time. We are like the sands in the desert winds. Time blows us forward forever, until we ourselves return to dust and sand ourselves.
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love knows not its own depth
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Jun 20, 2010 10:50 pm
1626 Views
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"...love knows not its own depth
until the hour of separation."
- Kahil Gibran
In this, those that cheap and plan to break their marriages often receive justice in finding out how painful it is to leave their husbands and wives, even with their immoral mistress or lover from an affair waiting for them.
And it is also when those jilted by a cheating wife or husband learns they often love their spouses more than they thought they knew.
We don't know just how deep our love is for someone, even when we know we love them, all too often. And this becomes both an instrument of justice for the evil and wrongdoers, and a multiplier of the suffering the cheaters' inflict on the wronged spouses.
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