The world is really changing. And reams of boring statistics are already showing it. How much has it changed? Hans Rosling of the Gapminder Foundation shows us using fantastic software which reads UN statistics on population, income, and others. Pay attention to these two talks from the TED conference which will really blow your mind away:
The lesson: economic change is the result of social change. Not the other way around.
I usually steer clear of political discussions, because they tend to be as circular as religious ones, but nowhere near as thought provoking.
Recent news however, doesn’t give me much choice, because it’s an intermingling of the two.
First there was that bit a few days ago of Archbishop Cruz of Lingayen excommunicating President Arroyo. Then just this morning, another article came out of congressmen requesting the CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) to sanction Archbishop Cruz.
This gets me thinking about the implications of the recent Vatican declaration of new sins, which incidentally also touches on the subject of confession: priests are to refuse absolution to sinners who do not appear to be sincerely contrite.
Although I was raised Catholic by Catholic parents, my appreciation of religion has expanded (can I say matured?) greatly since my childhood. At first, I merely counted on religion to explain the universe for me. Then I remember distinctly during a Grade 4 science class, when one of my classmates asked our science teacher, who was explaining the origin of the solar system: "Maam, I thought God made the universe in 7 days?"
That same confusion arose much later, especially during EDSA 2, when we would look at bishops and priests, whose main concern was the heavenly salvation, making comments and being passionate about local politics–which is a very earthly kind of salvation.
It was when I started reading about the history of Christianity when I finally expanded my appreciation of religion. In general, and this is where my current appreciation of faith stands, religion can appreciated in 3 ways:
1. To Explain Reality - only that it shares the podium with Philosophy, and more recently, Science. From the old days when people relied on Genesis to explain the origin of the universe, most religions now stick to the "purpose" of creation rather than the method. Convenient.
2. Historical Context - the top 3 religions now: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (Jewish), apart from sharing a common Old Testament (the Islamic Koran and Jewish Tanakh), also share a common birthplace in the Middle East areas. And the way these beliefs have spread were influenced by the conflicts and politics of those areas.
3. As a Social and Political Tool - The Roman Empire, which was largely pagan, adopted Christianity as its official faith, which led to the elimination of other religions and sparked numerous wars, all the way to the European wars of the middle ages. European powers also used Christianity as a tool to colonize Asian countries, as Spain did with the Philippines–and this has largely been the root of Philippine culture.
So with that, how can you avoid talking about politics without talking about religion, and vice-versa?
Incidentally, separation of church and state, is a constitutional precept that we inherited from the United States–whose aim was to welcome all religions in the spirit of democracy. Can those ideals really apply to the Philippines?
On the opposite tack, imagine other societies, whose religion and politics are really intermingled: like China and Japan, whose ancient societies treated their emperors and royalty as being descended directly from divinity.
There are present day societies that do not separate church and state. Consider Iceland for instance, which has a state religion–and whose citizens are automatically a member by birth, whether they choose it actively or not.
The result (whether directly or indirectly):
Iceland is the most developed country in the world. Iceland is the most egalitarian country in the world. Icelanders are also considered the happiest country in the world.
Am I kidding? Nope.
Food for thought.
I love to drive. Back in school, being one of the few people who drove myself to class, I end up being the batch/barkada school bus to trips, gimmiks, and outings. More than that, I love the feeling of moving around places. I’m a very obsessive urban creature–and I love moving around cities and places, especially new ones.
Anyway, that love for driving and automobiles has not changed for me. Even now, especially in light of my benz project, I’ve reignited my love for automobiles.
Interestingly, a recent Forbes article entitled What Your Car Says To The Opposite Sex shares some interesting insights about what signals your car can send. Unfortunately for us Asian mortals, the cars being talked about (Porsches, Lexus, Ferraris) are a bit beyond our meager reach (or otherwise you’re a candidate for hell, says the Vatican). But still, I myself have found a couple of insights to be gleaned from cars.
I’d like to share two old videos I love, one is a commercial, another is a short film, which were done to market some luxury cars. Apart from the obvious advertising, I enjoyed the messages being conveyed by these videos.
Jaguar Gorgeous
Cool actor Wilem DeFoe shares his voice talent to this Jaguar poetry about "Gorgeous". Although criticised for its hedonistic message (read: old rich DOMs wooeing modelesque young fawn), the definition of gorgeous really appealed to me. Very aspirational thinking, although I’m not ready to admit that I’d like to be a DOM someday.
Gorgeous deserves your immediate attention.
Gorgeous makes effort look effortless.
Gorgeous stays up late, and still looks gorgeous
Gorgeous has no love for logic.
Gorgeous loves fast.
Everyone cares what gorgeous says.
Gorgeous gets in everywhere.
Gorgeous can’t be ordinary even if it tries.
Gorgeous pays for itself in the first five seconds.
Gorgeous doesn’t care at all what others are doing.
Gorgeous was born that way.
Gorgeous trumps everything.
Gorgeous is worth it.
The Follow by BMW Films
This short film is directed by Wong Kar Wai (WKW) who also directed that gorgeous Chinese movie: 2046. This stars cool actor Clive Owen who plays a driver that’s hired by Forrest Whitaker to tail the wife of a hollywood washout played by Mickey Rourke.
The story is basically Clive Owen’s voice over of the driver’s thoughts on how to follow (read: stalk) a subject. It’s this voice over that I found very interesting to reflect upon since it deals with patterns in life.
You vary your distance. You stay to the rear, to the right.
Never more than a few cars behind.
It’s all about patience, percentages, timing.
If you get too close, move into their blind spot.
If you lose them, just keep moving, hope for the best.
Out in the open, distance is subjective.
You can let the target bite the horizon, so long as you know their patterns.
The waiting is the hard part, your mind wanders, wondering what it would be like watching your own life from far away.
On foot it’s the same, distance, patterns, anticipation.
If the target doubles back, never react.
Whatever you do, don’t get too close.
Never meet their eyes.
There’s something waiting at the end of the road. If you’re not willing to see what it is, you probably shouldn’t be out there in the first place.
~*~*~*~*~*
I put boldface on the last sentences of both commercials as a gentle reminder for myself. Life is worth it, but only if we choose it to be worth it. Otherwise we become victims of our own lives.
Super Lotto has hit 200 mil again and people are on a buying frenzy. 200 mil is enough to set you up for a decent life for good, although in light of the Vatican’s new sins maybe it doesn’t bode too well for your afterlife.
Meanwhile, it’s interesting to do a little stat refresh on probabilities when considering the Lotto. If it were a 1 digit game from 1 to 10, the odds are 1 in 10. If it were a 2 digit game from 1 to 10, the odds are 1 in 100 (10 x 10). But wait, in lotto you can’t repeat, so selecting 2 non repeating digits from 1 to 10 gives slightly better odds at 1 in 90 (10 x 9).
Super lotto is 6 non repeating digits from 1-49. That’s 49 x 48 x 47 x 46 x 45 x 44 = 1 in 10 billion odds. So if the jackpot were 10 billion, you can expect to get 1 peso for every 10 pesos you shell out. Bummer.
At a 200 mil jackpot, that’s roughly 2 centavos for every 10 pesos. Bummer bummer.
Of course, expected return just spreads out the reward over the number of possibilities. In reality most numbers will get zero, while 1 combination gets the jackpot.
Other lotto games offer better odds. The 6/42 game is 3 times better than the 6/49 game. Although not surprisingly, the 6/42 jackpot rarely gets big because people win quite often.
One more thing, you may think you got the odds cinched, but don’t forget, even if you consider the odds of winning, there’s also the possibility that another person will get the same set of numbers–so you SHARE the jackpot with them!
The odds of sharing are UNKNOWABLE since you don’t know how many people are playing the game.
Lotto should simply be a fun game.
Now the odds of living a fun and fulfilling life? That would be interesting to compute.
I spoke of our pet Duke’s death in my post just now. As part of life’s occasional asymmetry, another pet of ours is about to gain new life.
The pet–is a yellow 190E 2.3-8V Mercedes, the benz that figured as a supporting actor in an older post here. Well, the old car is getting not just a makeover, but a full rehab!
I’ve been meaning to resurrect the car for quite some time now, but have been putting it off to prioritize other things. But it’s always good to have a hobby, so while I’m in between business ventures and a book idea, I thought to finally pay attention to it.
I’ve opened a blogspot to document my progress (and the inevitable expenses). The car has quite a history of its own, and it deserves special treatment:
Anyhow, especially if you happen to be a car enthusiast, please do pay the blog a visit and put in a few comments. By the way, as a matter of trivia, Mark T. Market is a pseudonym I adopt in blogger, and in online forums.
Attended a highschool classmate’s father’s wake just now and got to talk to a good friend Mark, who pointed me to a website from the movie/book "Golden Compass". In that movie, people had animal-mates, called "Daemons" who represented their soul.
I took a short quiz from that website to find out who my Daemon is. Here she is, meet Amantha, an Ocelot:
http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/
It’s actually with some irony that my daemon turned out to be a cat, since just yesterday, a pet of ours–"Duke" a white persian–died suddenly. He was caught by the city pound on the street a couple of days back and spent 3 days in a cage before we finally sprung him.
We suspect Duke caught some sort of illness while in the pound, and yesterday in the wee hours was vomiting and moaning (meowing) in pain. We buried Duke in our front yard last night, and the atmosphere in the house has been a little heavy of late.
Cats and wakes make an odd combination.
Even as I’m immersing myself in my futuristic lifestyle with my HSDPA-enabled laptop, and reading emails in the thick of traffic along billboard-riddled EDSA… other things are changing in the world.
Remember the seven deadly sins (pride, lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, greed and envy)? You might be interested to know that the vatican has declared additional sins–or modern day counterparts to those.
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/mar/11/seven-new-deadly-sins-declared-by-the-vatican/
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storyPage.aspx?storyId=111744
1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control
2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty
Although most of these will be quite a non-brainer to most Catholics, 3 will be contentious: excessive wealth, birth control, and genetic research.
Use a condom and you go to hell.
Get rich and you go to hell.
Mess with your genetics and you go to hell.
Excessive wealth in particular is a touchy thing–because it can be relative. In a poor country like the Philippines, it isn’t that hard to poke above the median, if you get lucky enough. Or is the excess on a global level, so only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates get the Ninth Hell (include those guys who own Google, Youtube, and Facebook).
I find religious discussions interesting nowadays, because it’s only now that changes in the Church are becoming dramatic–in an institution that’s been pretty inert since our childhoods (the Church your parents and grandparents knew was virtually identical). Now we got new sins of the times.
Gives us all an opportunity to rethink our beliefs and values.
Many people I know were raised Catholic, but are actually living agnostic nowadays–although their ability to articulate their agnosticism leaves a lot to be desired.
Some people I know have also left Catholicism altogether for a more "wholesome" (my word) definition of Christianity (familiar question: Do you accept our Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour?). Technically these wholesome beliefs fall under the category of Protestantism, which can be conservative or liberal Christianity.
I wonder how my Christian friends react to the Vatican’s declaration. Some of these folks are quite rich themselves, and use birth control. The agnostics won’t have a problem with that.
Interestingly, I heard anecdotally that Christianity (of the Catholic and Protestant sort) is becoming quite the rage in Africa now. While in Europe and North America it’s pretty much in stasis. It’s quite an odd correllation: developing countries are predominantly Christian, while more mature and developed economies are not. Something about the beliefs and values and the way its taught. Chicken or egg: ether the belief system is caused by the economic situation, or the economic situation is caused by the belief system.
Then again, was middle-age Europe also predominantly Christian with all those holy wars in Rome? So maybe a sign of progress in a society is the tone of religion you find around.
More agnostics and atheists = progress?
I just realized this now, so many years later, about the lives I’ve lived, and the ladies who shared those lives with me.
I wrote about the deadly quartet once upon a time. These were actually based on real women I knew–and lives I extrapolated were based on their personalities as I remember them.
That extrapolation can be found in an older post:
http://docligot.blogs.friendster.com/the_pharmacy/2005/08/return_to_night_1.html
More to the point, these four women, were women I was actually attracted to, or dated in the past.
Outside of the creative background story I wrote about them in the past above, I originally referred to these four women as "Queens" of my life: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades. As a matter of (non)background as well, I dedicated an old post to one of these queens:
http://docligot.blogs.friendster.com/the_pharmacy/2005/04/if_i_really_car.html
Why bring up the deadly quartet, or the four queens at this time?
Well recent events involving one of the queens/quartet finally closed off those chapters for good. It’s amusing to think about them now, since I dated these people close to half a decade ago, but as of today, all of these four women have gone with the wind.
The Queen of Clubs has left the castle. She was courted by another kingdom. She left, with many words unsaid between us (at least from my point of view). Of the four queens, I missed Clubs the most not because she was the prettiest (she wasn’t actually), but because she was the most likeable.
The Queen of Diamonds and I parted on sour terms. A small spat about money and investments was the cause. She dwells in a small kingdom at the fringe of our land. I hear about her very seldomly. It’s ironic, because of the four queens, I thought Diamonds and I were very compatible–because we spoke the same language. Ah… money can be a double edged blade sometimes.
The Queen of Hearts and I parted on even sourer terms than Diamonds. Actually I was never really attracted that much to hearts, but in hindsight, she was probably more attracted to me. Hearts and I could never agree on the same thing because as much as Diamonds and I were compatible, Hearts and I were very incompatible. She left not only the kingdom but the land as well. It’s actually very easy to zap Hearts an email, but I see no reason to.
The Queen of Spades and I are still on speaking terms, and we work together occasionally on a thing or two. The romance has died down into a friendly, albeit collegial kind of friendship. Spades and I share a certain penchant for angst, and to this day I remain slightly attracted to Spades, primarily for one reason: she’s quite a study in contrasts. A wickedly crazy smart sophisticated lady. Spades still lives in the kingdom, but has a king/consort.
Four women in as many years, and they’re all gone. Actually my last encounter with the quartet of queens ended more than two years ago, but in the interim I also had a sort-of attempt to slide back into the social scene, and actually got semi-involved with a new set of women, a trio this time.
I wrote about the trio in another former entry:
http://docligot.blogs.friendster.com/the_pharmacy/2006/11/turbulence.html
Having learned my lesson from the quartet, and how those relationships ended, made me more careful with the trio. And of the trio, I ended up with one. The one my angel told me about.
Who was the angel? Well I wrote about her too:
http://docligot.blogs.friendster.com/the_pharmacy/2006/12/and_so_it_isjus.html
Thinking about the angel brings me back decades ago, and ultimately it was she who started me on this crazy journey.
Hey angel, if in case you’re reading this, you’ll be happy to know that finally I’ve come full circle, angel, just so you know. And I’m happy knowing that you saw this coming once upon a time.
HSDPA rocks. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about: it’s having WIFI wherever there’s a cellular signal.
I’m now reading emails, checking Brian’s blog (see previous post), watching exchange rates, send instant messages…
Generally goofing off on the internet… while stuck in traffic; or whenever it fancies me…
Anywhere. Anytime.
The thing is, having streaming internet now gives me reason to zone out anywhere too. Consider the irony that now that I’m as connected as ever, the more detached I have actually become.
Got recently acquainted with Brian Gorrell, australian, gay, and HIV positive. He’s in the middle of quite a spat with some pretentious members of Philippine "hay" society, notably Star Lifestyle columnists DJ Montano, Celine Lopez, and Tim Yap.
You guys probably know about this already, but you can read about the sordid affair here:
http://delfindjmontano.blogspot.com/
Brian’s story is a cautionary tale of dealing with fakes. I’ve had my fair share of fake people in my life, from my business to personal dealings.
I used to work at a place which was populated by a large number of fakes: a bank department (which is supposedly ironic since bankers ought to be known for their sincerity).
In that previous work life, I was surrounded with people who spent quite a lot of effort to appear:
1. like they were doing something; or
2. like they knew what they were doing
Of course, being someone who was actually both, it pissed me a great deal having to deal with these fakes on a daily basis.
Fortunately (perhaps due to the largesse of some unknown benevolent entity), things have a medium-happy (as medium-rare is to steaks) ending: I left that department, and most of my former fake officemates left the bank to work for a competitor bank, on higher salaries–perhaps the best testament of the power of fakedom.
That’s funny, I only remember them now, after reading Brian’s story above.
I’ve also dealt with fakes much earlier in my life. I studied in business school: which upon hindsight, is formal training for professional fakedom. What is a business graduate anyway but a person who knows a lot of little things about generally nothing in particular?
How I wish now that I took up something concise and formidable: like Philosophy, or a real science such as Psychology.
And as Shakespeare wrote: "the most unkindest cut of all":
I nearly became a fake myself. Nearly fell for the pretentious frame of mind, a strong belief in a false purpose, and a quiet compromise to bear with false individuals. To accept the fakedom and admit it to be true.
Almost. But not quite. That unknown benevolent entity made it sure I came to my senses in the nick of time.
Now, like an ex-smoker can’t bear the smell of secondary smoke, having a close shave with fakedom makes me eschew fake people even more.
I’ve developed a sense for them. Spider sense, ESP. I can see the fake people a mile away. I can spot them easy from a crowd. I can feel their presence.
What I’m trying to figure out now is what to do with them. I’ve been spectator to these fakes for so long, it has nearly numbed me beyond action. I will deal with you fakes very soon.
Normally I’d issue a warning. Tell fakes to be afraid, be very afraid. But fakes don’t feel fear because they don’t know what it means. They might pretend to sometimes, but they don’t have a clue.
Doesn’t matter though. In the end it will be sweet selfish satisfaction blowing away the fakes who never knew what hit them, even after the final blows are dealt. Fakes won’t acknowledge defeat even if they could spell it. Fakes won’t realize the end even if they could see it.
They see nothing, they feel nothing–nothing true. But when I am done, what they feel and what they are will at least be coincident. One little step to "no more fakes", "no more fakedom."
The world, my world, our world, will be infinitely better off having one less fake around.
Thanks Brian for your inspiration.
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