Quotes from "Under Heaven"

At the lowest ebb, of a person or a nation, the first seeds of later glory may sometimes be seen, looking back with a careful eye. At the absolute summit of accomplishment the insects chewing from within at the most extravagant sandalwood may be heard, if the nights are quiet enough.


Most of us are foolish in our dreams. The trouble comes when we bring folly out of dream.


A person can adapt to more than he might have thought he could. What he is uncertain about is when that stops being a virtue and turns to something else, leaving you too much changed, undefined, unanchored, like a fisherman's empty boat drifting on a river, with no way to be returned to where it belongs. (abridged)

from Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Mutual Support

My first ever ceramic piece. Created 23 July 2011.

丑小鸭的故事

不久前，在报章上看到了一则以丑小鸭为题的文章，
突然有感，在Facebook上写了这么一段：

随着日子一天一天过去，
丑小鸭依然是丑小鸭。
最后，丑小鸭是老死的，
始终没有变成天鹅。

结果引起了一阵喧哗。

许多人大喊，太悲伤了！太悲观了！

又有人问丑小鸭不好吗？难道丑小鸭注定悲伤，而天鹅一定快乐？

又有人说，鸭子怎么可能变天鹅？这种不合逻辑的童话本来就骗小孩的。

又有人说，人生总要有一点童话，有一点梦想，才活得美丽。

其实，丑小鸭慢慢老去，最后死去，始终没变天鹅，难道这不是你我平凡人生最写实的故事吗？

丑小鸭快乐吗？天鹅幸福吗？冷暖自知！

不要因为曾经有只丑小鸭变成了天鹅，就以为丑小鸭必有变成天鹅的一天。

不要为了等待那一天而蹉跎了一生。

Rethinking meritocracy

Singapore is a country that prides itself on meritocracy, and indeed most Singaporeans are proud of that too. The basis is that meritocracy is fair in that everyone has a chance to raise up in the society as long as you have merit, regardless of your ethnicity and your social class.

However, recently, I began to have second thoughts about meritocracy. One of the problems I find is that it breeds a sense of entitlement and a tendency towards indifference for the less fortunate. It is common to find people who feel they are entitled to huge rewards, believing that they deserve so purely because of their own merits, and disregarding any forms of interactions with other people that lead them there. And then there are people who thought the poor deserves to be poor because they are not working hard enough.

Today, I come across another interesting idea in the Straits Times article Misguided fight against 'inequality' (by Samuel Brittan. Straits Times, 8 Oct 2011 p.A39). What is interesting is that the article referred to Hayek's an argument that there is a difference between "value" and "merit". What we are actually doing in the name of meritocracy is not so much rewarding people for their merit as much as their value. Perhaps that's where meritocracy starts to go wrong.

According to Friedrich A Hayek:

The inborn as well as the acquired gifts of a person clearly have a value to his fellows which does not depend on any credit due to him for possessing them. There is little a man can do to alter the fact that his special talents are very common or exceedingly rare. A good mind or a fine voice, a beautiful face or a skilful hand, and a ready wit or an attractive personality are in a large measure as independent of a person's efforts as the opportunities or the experiences he has had. In all these instances the value which a person's capacities or services have for us and for which he is recompensed has little relation to anything that we can call moral merit or deserts. Our problem is whether it is desirable that people should enjoy advantages in proportion to the benefits which their fellows derive from their activities or whether the distribution of these advantages should be based on other men's views of their merits.

For the full reading on this idea, see the following URL:
http://www.woldww.net/classes/General_Philosophy/Hayek-equality.htm

What do you lose when it doesn't matter to you?

Heard this anecdote today:

Girl loves boy very much. Boy not really interested. Friend tells girl: "If you breakup, the boy loses a girl who loves him very much. But you only lose a boy that doesn't love you much. So the boy loses more."

Hmm... I say this is just Ah Q mentality. The harsh reality is that if someone doesn't love you, he won't think it is a loss. In the end, it's the one who loves most who gets hurt the most.

On conventional wisdom

We Associate truth with convenience with what closely accords with self-interest and personal well-being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. We also find highly acceptable what contributes the most to self-esteem.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith
(Taken from Freakonomics)

曾经有一个人爱过

J，你跟我说过，在你状况最差的时候，有一个人爱着你，你很感激。

我明白，那只是一份感激而已，你无法以爱回应。

谢谢你陪我走了这一段。无法给你什么。希望你会记得：

曾经，在你状况最差的时候，有一个人爱过你。