Organized Religions

I, for one, like to write an entry of an issue that I might have written about before. But that's only because when you're trying to spread good messages to the world, sometimes it takes repetitions for the messages to kick in and have an influence. So, for this entry, I'd like to talk again about how some people would like to question the choices of some others to follow a religion.

I am writing this entry especially because I remember reading an article of a man who killed himself because of the death of his cat. I am not writing to judge the action of the man, but I'm writing to emphasize on the fact that we humans need something to hold on to in order to survive. The things that we hold on to can be physical like a pet, a career, a family, etc. and it can be spiritual too like the idea of God and the thought that God is protecting us, etc. The difference between the two that I observe is that the latter is more permanent, hence more effective to stabilize our condition as a fragile human being. When you hold on to a physical object like a cat as mentioned in the article, and the object is gone from your life forever, that is when your life starts to unravel.

So, the idea of God and the belief that God exists gives a more permanent solution to prevent things like this happening again, because it's in the mind and things in the minds tend to last longer. And then, those skeptics ask, "OK, believe in God then, but do you need organized religions?"

One of he benefit of religions is that it gives the organization of believing in God and having faith. Just imagine someone who just has the idea of God but refuse to follow any kind of organized religion, don't you think his belief is loose? When he has the idea of God but doesn't follow a certain religion, then he starts to follow morality as defined by humans which can be biased, limited, and flawed.

But I am certainly not questioning or judging anyone who refuses to follow a religion, because I still believe that it's an individual choice. But I also believe that those who invite to question organized religions and claim that they are outdated practice and should be abandoned by the modern people are those who just can't find a fight that is worthy their life. They need to find an issue that should not have been an issue. Religions bring more benefits than harm and I think we need to acknowledge that.

Please don't tell me that religions are the cause of world terrorism. Come on, we are all educated enough not to be that simplistic. Terrorism and violence are caused by all sorts of things. We have terrorism whose criminals declare to be working in the name of religions, crime of passion that is done in the name of love, crimes that are driven by revengeful feelings, racially motivated crimes, and many more. But we certainly do not blame love when someone kills another because of it, do we?

Infatuation

What is infatuation? I have posted an entry regarding infatuation and I viewed rather negatively. But, I'd like to retract what I said and add one of the most important thing about infatuation - it's not just about physical infatuation. Sometimes we see kids as young as 5 years old start to have a crush on a classmate and sometimes it's the older people who experience being infatuated with someone. But whoever it is who feels it, infatuation is normal.

I'm not writing this entry to assert to you that it's normal. Of course it's normal, it's part of being human. But I'd like to get back to the point that even kids as young as 5 years old already have the experience of being infatuated. Kids are still innocent little beings even in this modern world where information about sexual relationship is shoved down our throat at every corner of our environment. This is only my opinion, but I don't think when a 5-year-old kid is infatuated with someone, his or her main focus of being infatuated is to satisfy a physical attraction. When I asked a young kid about his crush on his classmate, he told me rather generally that he likes her and he likes spending time with her. He said that he likes her smile and that her presence brightens up his life.

So, perhaps the definition of infatuation should be widened than a physical attraction towards someone. I believe that it's the beginning stage of love. Yes, we need to also be attracted to that person, but infatuation is more like wanting the companionship of the person, wanting the connection, physically and emotionally. And love is just an advanced version of it.

I used to be scared whenever I started to have a "crush" on someone in my past, mostly because of the narrow definition that I used to have. But now, although it's been a long time since I had been infatuated with a person, I think it's a wonderful experience and it's a proof that you have a heart

Just Some Quotes

In this entry, I just would like to present to you some of the random quotes that I find achingly true:

"A beautiful thing is never perfect."

"Disappoint anyone, hell disappoint everyone, but don't ever disappoint yourself..."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

"Nobody can tell you there is only one song worth singing..."

"The reward for conformity is that everybody likes you except yourself."

"Just because you believe in something doesn't make it true..."

That's it for now. Anyways, these quotes might or might not have its original sayer, I don't put them because I only know some, and it looks messed up if I only state some of the original sayers, so I leave them all. But if you are interested, go here.

The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side

Batman said in one of those Dark Knight films that I don't watch, "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain..." Let me change that a bit, "You either quit a job happily, or you work long enough to see yourself hate the job that you used to love..."

Alright, I admit, that doesn't really make sense. Of course when you find something that you love, you're more likely to find yourself to also love it in the next few years, possibly until you retire. 

I love studying, while people can't wait to get into the working environment, I love attending classes and call myself a student. But lately I have this feeling as if the usual working environment suddenly looks more appealing than what I'm doing now. But I also remembered a few years back when I worked at a call center, I couldn't wait to quit the job and do my masters. So, what happens? Why am I always bored with my current livelihood? Why is it that the grass is always greener on the other side?

Then, I thought long and deep about this. I realize the answer doesn't lie on the nature of what we do, it's the quality the nature of what we do offers us. I remember when I did my bachelor and masters, I attended classes and had assignments where required me to have social interactions. I remember in my bachelor that I used to have infatuations with a few people and I had ups and downs with my friends. But now, I'm doing my PhD by research and of course all those things aren't really part of my routine anymore because all I do each day is sit in front of my laptop and think about what to do to improve my proposal/thesis. I sometimes go to an office here but the social interaction is not the same. The office mates are much older than me so we're bound to have a gap, no matter how friendly we all are, especially when there are only less than five people working in the same office.

I'm an introvert, combined with extreme shyness, so it makes it even harder to make friends, especially that this is a relatively new environment for me, living in another state and in another university. 

Rant aside, my point is, when you find something you love, try to contemplate about the qualities of the things that you love. Then, you get the idea and you could be more grateful and know how to beat the routine sickness if you remember this. 

Moving Forward

Friendship is a funny thing in life. It is so because I have observed especially lately in my life that for some people, for some unfortunate people, friendships are just a phase. I mean, rather than being a fulfilling relationship in one's life, it becomes only an event at one point of life. And then, the friends just move forward, or the unfortunate people move forward pass one another.

I have seen a lot of other people who have stable friendships for as long as they live, and it's a good thing. But for the other ones, friends come and go. No matter how much "you're my best friend" that has been declared, or how many outings that have been planned and done, they are still a phase. Some of those unfortunate people might be OK with it, maybe because they could easily find friends everywhere they go. But for some other unfortunate people, they suffer through it.

I don't know, I have been asking for those unfortunate people, what makes them fall into this pit? Shyness? Introversion? Maybe if they are good people, they might be chronically shy, so it kinda thwarts the likelihood of making new friends. If they are bad people, well, then, it's because of their "badness."

But I'm talking about the unfortunate good people who experience having phased friendships. People rarely notice them, and people rarely acknowledge that what they are going through as a crisis. But they do go through this, and they do suffer through it. And I'm sure those out there who committed suicide belonged to this group of people.

So, I'd like to call out this group of people and wish them the best in life. I hope that they find what they are looking for and never ever give up in the midst of the dark tunnel. I wish they are granted the one, at least one, friend who could offer support whereever they go.

Songs to Listen to When You Are Feeling Melancholic

So, I have made an entry for songs that motivate and inspire me. This time, I would like to list down a few songs that I usually listen to when I am feeling melancholic or just blue. I consider these songs melancholic (I don't want to call them "depressing" because it sounds negative) because of the lyrics that are either cynical about the world or self, critical, and have a deep meaning in relation to how screwed up the world could be. So, here they are.

1) Gary Jules - Mad World

This is absolutely melancholic for me because it talks about how this world is like a a place that is filled with robots that exist without a purpose. We all do things that we do everyday, sometimes for just the cause of it.

2) U2 - One

OK, this song might not be totally melancholic, but it was written when the band was on the brink of breaking up. But this song brought them back together. One of the most powerful piece of lyrics of this song is, "You asked for me to enter, but then you made me crawl..."

3) John Grant - Marz

The official video of this song shows a girl who committed suicide and went to a place filled with childhood dream and desires. The official video also shows that while the desires sound good in the beginning, but it might "drown" you down at the end. This song is actually a connotation of a personal tragedy of the singer who had a past life involving drugs, messed up family situation and also suicidal thoughts.

So, here for now, three songs that I classified as melancholic. Marz has been the most melancholic for me as it deals with suicide and self-acceptance. Hope you enjoy.

Home Sweet Home

So, I went to Bangkok last Wednesday using International Express which was a 22-hour ride. Remind me not to use the train again, it was a torture. But, that's not what I want to talk about. I'd really not like for this entry to sound like a rant, but for the first time of my life, I cut a trip short just because I really couldn't adjust to the environment of the place that I was visiting.

Don't get me wrong, Bangkok is a nice city. In fact, it looks a lot like Kuala Lumpur, and I LOVE Kuala Lumpur. But when one of your missions of travelling was also to try out new foods, that's when you started to have issues. Bangkok seems to be filled with nice foods and they had a lot of street hawkers that sell many kinds of snacks, fruit cuts, and even main dishes like fried chicken and other stuffs. But too bad their halal status is almost always unknown. Whenever I was interested in a food that looked so delicious, I would just ask, "Muslim?" since they didn't understand anything I said, and I could say that 99% of the shops/restaurants/hawkers that I went to said no. On the first day I arrived, being as naive as I was, I walked around Saphan Khwai BTS station area which was filled with tasty-looking foods. After searching for almost an hour, I resorted to eating a dry garlic bread just because everything was not halal there.

I searched for the information on halal food in Bangkok and many experiencers reported that they needed to take a train to a mall that has only one halal food stall in one whole food court. I might also go to Nana BTS station and I went there once. Nana was like a little Middle Eastern, and there were a lot of halal places, but the station was quite far from my hotel. I wouldn't take a train everytime I wanted to eat.

On the second day, things became unnecessarily difficult. I was always OK with language barrier. I visited Istanbul twice before and I could say not so many people could speak in English but the trip was very enjoyable. However, in Bangkok, when you couldn't find halal food, and you couldn't communicate almost at all with the local people, my patience started to wear thin. The frustration was added by the fact that it was also quite hard to find a place to perform your prayers and the only place I could go was, of course, my hotel room.

I don't want to sound like a spoiled traveler who needs to have everything nice in his trip, but these aspects are important to me when traveling. So, because of the difficulties, I cut my trip short and from the original 5-day plan, it became 2-day. I did not care about money at all and I just want to get out of there, so I changed the flight date.

When I reached Penang, suddenly my home here is not just a home, it's a home sweet home.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that Bangkok is a terrible city, it is actually quite nice for me. But language barrier, food barrier, and religious performance for me are things that I need to observe when traveling. However, the difficulties might be contributed by the fact that I was not familiar with the place. So, I'm sure a lot of you out there have gone to Bangkok and enjoyed it. But not for me though. This might be the first and the last time.

New Year's Resolution

It's a tradition - you will list down a whole new set of resolutions you would like to achieve in 2013, even if you might miss the ones for last year and the year before and the year before. I don't deny, I am one of those who set their minds to accomplish certain things in the new year, but I also don't deny that the probability that we would achieve them - 50%. Well, might be higher.

So, why would we have a new set when we have not even seen the lights for our past sets? Maybe I have written something about it, but I'll write again about it anyways. It's about intention. Turns out intentions are not so simple. Researchers have categorized intentions into goal intentions and implementation intentions. I first learned about the categories of intentions in Health Psychology class about how only some people who intend to lose weight are able to achieve their objective. The concept is this: Goal intentions are general intentions, "I want to lose weight." While, implementation intentions are specific, "I want to lose 10 pounds in 3 months."

Why specificity of our intentions are better indicators of intention achievements? It is because people are more than likely to act on their intentions when they see clearly what they have to do and pursue. When you already set the details, it's one step done, but when you're not clear about what to do, then that's what slows down the process of achieving the goals.

This highlights the importance of operationalization. I still remember how our professors in our Psychology department kept stressing on operationalizations in research but it turns out to also be a significant factor in behavior changes. Operationalizations are defining things in practical terms - it is the opposite of conceptualization. Defining hunger as the feelings of wanting food is conceptual, but defining hunger as the craving of food after 5 hours of not eating, then it's operational. Wanting to read more books is conceptual, but wanting to read at least one book per month, then it is operational.

So, set your hearts out to want to achieve new things for the betterment of your new year. But try to make it less complicated and make it clear. Make it a goal that you can see you can achieve. Well, as usual, when I'm writing a "preachy" post, it's because I need to remind myself more than I need to remind you. so, good luck to us all!

For Those Who Are Skeptical

Hindsight Bias, or Knew-It-All-Along phenomenon is a social cognitive error where people think they actually have knowledge of the outcome of an event long before it happens. Ali and Farah suddenly decide to get a divorce after a 2-year marriage? You knew it all along. Prime Minister A wins in the most recent election? You knew it all along. The economy faces the most devastating era in the decade? You knew it all along.

I don't want to talk about this generally, rather I want to talk about this in the context of people who don't believe in Psychology, who think that Psychology is just a common sense. They claim that most of what Psychologists study involve things that we can predict on our own. They will say that they knew it all along when Psychologists said that studies show that people are less likely to help when there are more people in the place where the emergency happens. They will say they knew it all along when Psychologists reported that symmetry is one of the major factors of attractiveness. If these people knew it all along, then why is there a need for psychology and psychological studies?

The reasons I outlined below:

1) Bell curve in statistic (or the normal distribution)

When Psychologists conduct a study, they would like to know how the curve in the graph looks like. The most usual curve that they are more likely to find out is the normal distribution along the graph - or as they call it the bell curve. The bell curve is when a distribution of individuals' scores is even, creating a curve that resembles a bell.

What does this mean? This means that Psychologists do not claim on extremity, they acknowledge the fact that there will always be: 1) events that are likely to occur, and 2) events that are less likely to occur, but could occur nonetheless. Take a look at the picture of a bell curve above, the one in the middle is event that is more likely to occur, and the extreme ends are the proportion of events that are less likely to occur. So, the aim of psychological studies is to inform you which event/outcome that would most likely to occur when a behavior is performed. So, the phenomenon that help is more likely to be offered when there are fewer people in an emergency place is the event that is reported from psychological studies that is located in the middle of the bell curve. The end extreme might tell you that even when there are fewer people in the emergency place, but someone decides to help anyway. So, it's an exception. But it's less likely to occur depending on various factors.

2) Our "knowing it all along" is a 50-50 chance of being correct

When you have an assumption in your mind of how things would be, you have a 50-50 chance of your assumption being correct. And when you find out that your assumption is actually correct, this is where you profess so gloriously, "I knew it all along, I don't know why there is a need to study this..." But when you are wrong, you either lie and say that you knew it all along too, or you just keep silent, trying not to put your wrongness into spotlight.

Rather than making a random assumption and waiting for your 50% chance of being correct, Psychological studies make an informed decision by looking at the bell curve and see what event that is more likely to occur. When the outcome is what is predicted to occur, then it is not them knowing it all along, it is informed. But when the outcome is not as predicted to occur, then there must have been other factors that chip in. For example, event when you found out that someone actually decides to help even when there are fewer people in the emergency case, there might have been a personality factor, personal factor, or environmental factors that lead to the decision of that person to help. So, this leads to another study that can help in future decision making. The point is, it is always informed and does not come from "gut".

So, these are the reasons to convince you skeptics out there that psychology is a legitimate science because it uses legitimate and rigorous research method to study about something. It might be about the everyday life, but psychology is the distinction between assuming and predicting.

Kids Are Smart When You Let Them

Last week I was baking cookies for my family. As usual and expected, my 6 out of 8 nieces and nephews were very excited that they got to eat some double choc chip cookies soon. they'd check in on me and the cookies every now and then to see if they could eat some if the first batch was done baked. So, I gave them the whole first batch for them to finish and as soon as they were done eating the cookies, they were expecting the second batch like flies swarming all over bad meat (bad methapor, but they did seem like flies - running around back and forth). After the third batch, I asked them to stop eating because apparently I haven't got any and I want some too, and also I need to pack some for my brother and sister who would come later and also I need to keep some for the other two nephews who were not home for later. But there was this one niece of mine who we call Sabrina who would not understand the meaning of "no" and keep asking. Because she's making this cute face that my other niece and nephews couldn't make, she was an exception.

Then, I baked my fourth batch and Sabrina came to me with me holding a hot pan of freshly baked cookies. I warned her that it was hot and she distanced away for a second then came back and I had to warn her again. Of all my nieces and nephews, she'd be the most courageously strong. She'd be the one to just lift up a hot bowl of cooked noodle when she's hungry, or stand very closely to the road to get into the car, etc. And this time, she couldn't wait and just went to me and wait beside me for her cookie. Then, her arm got burnt by the pan and for the first 5 seconds, we didn't know. We didn't know because she wouldn't scream or cry like other normal small kids - mostly because she didn't want to get scolded by us for not listening to what I told her. Then, my sister noticed that her arm got red and the skin peeled off and then we knew she got burnt.

This is Sabrina, who is a sucker for posing in front of the camera...

After holding it back, she finally cried very loudly. We knew that it was so painful because she was just a 4 year old kid. We did everything to calm her down and she just wouldn't shut up. But interestingly, looking at her fellow nephews and niece playing in the other room, she slowly calmed down and hesitantly joined them to play together. I scolded her a little earlier, just to show her that when I told her something, I meant business. But now, looking at her slowly regaining her spirit and sanity, I felt sorry and regretful. Then, I asked her to join me going out for a ride to buy something my mother asked me to.

Then, I asked her in the car (in Malay of course), "Sabrina, why would you touch the pan? You know that it's hot right?" She just nodded slightly with her unhappy face. Then, I went on and on about when I told her something, she needed to listen. After that, she said two things that broke my heart. First, I offered her a cookie I brought along and she refused saying, "No, I am scared of getting burnt again." This shows how easy for kids to be sensitive to "traumatic" events. And then, she continued, "It's my fault, because I didn't wait for you to give me the cookie..."

I was surprised. I didn't even say anything about waiting, or patience or anything like that. But she had the ability to reason and realized that if she had waited for a bit more, she'd not get burnt. It broke my heart because all this while we thought that we needed to remind her again and again in the aftermath of getting burnt because we wanted to make sure that she got the message, but she got it just fine. She understood her behavior and this is something even most adults couldn't do.

Do you remember my post about even when we don't realize it, we are actually progressing? Kids do too. But we, as adults, keep forgetting that kids also have their own capacity to understand the world and understand how it works. Although they need guidance from adults, but when you let them and when you ease down on the restricting, they could actually exhibit potential more than we would have expected. And then, you can be proud as I am a proud uncle of Sabrina.