4 P O A

Four Points of Admonishment

Have you noticed that local teachers, tutors, lecturers, elders, employers, etc., have a certain sequence of points they consistently go through when they reproach or castigate their pupils, students, subjects, youngers, employees, etc.? Here’s how it goes:

1] The “You-all” opening –

This is where they clump you into some fraternity that seems to be synonymous with the trait or fault for which you are being reproached. Examples, “You-all never seem to realize . . . ”, “You-all just can’t . . .”, “You-all just don’t . . .”, “You-all just won’t . . .”, and so forth y’all.  [There are times it's only you in the room being talked to but when they go "You-all . . ",  you can't help but wonder who else do they see in the room with you? C'est bizzare!]

Why? I suppose it’s to shame you into realizing that you belong to a conglomeration of negatives. And of course it goes without saying, that they would in turn shine forth as not being, and could never be, a member of such a gawky gaggle.

2] The “You-know what I went through” reminder –

This is to begin to tell you in case you didn’t know already, the rigmaroles, trials and tribulations they had to go through for you to be in the position you are in; such as setting up the task for you, nominating you for the task, giving birth to you, etc.

Why? Feel the guilt you insensitive ingrate!

3] The “In my time” soliloquy –

Now you hear how they [or others they know] did it, would have done it or how it was done in their personal time-space continuum.

Why? Apart from making you feel more hapless than they expect you to already – they just enjoy it I guess, because they seem to do it at every other opportunity they think warrants it.

4] “So now, . . . ” -

By this time, I would have forgotten what the admonishment was for in the first place. This is when they just reiterate what needs to be done, sometimes in a pep-talk manner – probably to give some semblance of relevance or culmination to the three preceding points they were waffling on about. But I’m not normally convinced that this would be the last time we’ll be hearing all this.

Why? They never tell the ‘how’s that you actually need so you could complete the matter at hand to a level of satisfaction that would immunize you from having to endure further variations of the 4 POAs.

Pre-Vacation Sentiments.

I never realized how folks around here just can’t be happy for you when you inform them that you’re going on a vacation. All I had to say was, “Oh by the way, I’m going to **** with my daughter…”, and this is a rough cross section of the typical reactions I got from various persons [in no particular order]:

• immediate narration of all the negative things about the place i’m heading to like the extremities of its climate or culture;
• lamentation of how they had planned to go there as well, but due to circumstances that they proceed to tell at great lengths, they couldn’t;
• telling me that they have a better vacation lined up than the one I’m going to;
• barrage of requests of what I could do for them on my trip: like getting, looking up or delivering stuff for them;
• reflex response of an alternative destination which they tauntingly insist would be all the much better than the one I made;
• telling me tedious tall tales of their experiences with natives or produce of the country I’m visiting for no apparent reason;
• falling into a reverie of their own past trip, and start talking through what is probably the lamest of holidays one could possibly hear about;
• paroxysm of why I made such a godforsaken choice of a destination for a vacation – with supplementary ruminations why they are of that opinion tailored to make me look like a schmuck for my choice;
• immediately talk about making plans of going to the exact same spots I’m going and start to quiz me on my plans which they are going to ante up and make so much more interesting for themselves;
• being told of the ingrate that I am for not including or having given them the opportunity to include themselves in my plans; basically how they would like to go as well and I’m a complete sod for not asking them.

I can only recall two persons who actually showed delight when I told them of the vacation; their faces beamed up instantly and they were all aglow as they congratulated me on my plans and just gushed forth with goodwill, sharing the many things there that they hoped we would enjoy. Fantastic! They helped make the vacation enjoyable even before we left.

Alas, those two souls are not natives of this region.

Can’t the folks around here be more genuinely like that?  Why can’t folks around here just find delight in the joys of others? Even those mentioned above who insisted that you run errands for them during your vacation – how could they just intrude or impose on someone’s best laid out plans? I refuse to shrug it off with over-simplistic judgments like ‘it’s envy’ or ‘they’re just jealous’.  Those are just symptoms I believe – but symptoms to or of what? Insecurity?

Those responses I outlined above were almost like self-defense mechanisms triggered by hearing about someone’s good fortune – in this case, a vacation very much being looked forward to.  But what were they self-defending against; what here was the nemesis or the threat?  The momentary fortune of others?  Why are you threatened by something that you should be joyous about? The information of my vacation was only given in passing and not through some boastful, loud and proud proclamation; but even if it was the latter, is there a necessity to engage to self-defense mode?  Do we find ourselves inferior upon hearing of someone else’s good fortune? So inferior that we have to instantaneously prove ourselves not? Is that what we’re defending against? How? By making those idiotic remarks like the ones I’ve exemplified above?  We don’t mind appearing like an imbecile rather than appear inferior?  Are we that insecure that we might appear lesser?  Is our self-worth only gauged through the eyes of others; or more pathetic still, through how we imagine others see us?  That’s insecurity coupled with the paranoia of it as well.

And if it were true, then oh dear, pathos my people.

Life through apertures at the speed of shutters.

In the hands of teenagers around me, the laptop is a RM3K digital photo album. It’s where they store all those pictures taken because them young ‘uns way of enjoying their moments is capturing and recording it to be enjoyed later and in anticipation of posting ‘em up for others like them to join in the merriment.

It’s not that the pictures need to be displayed so as to weed out the more desirable from the lesser ones. No, that narcissism starts much earlier. Thanks to the technology of digital photography, the selection is done instances after the photographs are taken. After every shot, the consensus will decide if the image is to what they always imagined they’d look. If not, they’re more than prepared to go through the rigmarole again, with their catalogue of semiotics for the necessary poses, expressions and gestures till their expectations are met. It’s kinda bizarre that people actually freeze themselves in order to be captured and frozen by fractions of seconds with the shutter; to freeze for a phenomena that would freeze you anyways. Why, in Asia they’ve even devised a sign to indicate when they’re ready to be captured -they portray the number two with their fingers to announce their readiness for the shutters. The degree of readiness is further indicated in direct proportion to the number of hands indicating the number two.

I don’t know about you, but i would have thought that with all this I would enjoy conversations with them young ‘uns more cos their stories have got pictures as well. But I find that what makes for narration and description are just captions, and the illustrations are so much of their persons that it obliterates all else around obscuring any sense of place. If there was a landmark, you couldn’t get to know much about it apart from the simple fact that they were there. If it was a picture postcard scenery you could not look further than them in in front of the lens hence obscuring the wonderous view around them. But you could probably have a hint at what food tastes like cos that gets a sapient-free picture; and it’s only because they are the prologue to images of being devoured in various states.

It seems like this will be the mode of communication with them for awhile. They’ll probably say that you can’t get to know them better than this where all is recorded and captured. Memories start early. They are setting up and pre-selecting for recollections and ruminations later. The enjoyment is not just in the now, but also set up for the later.

Everything is set up to be captured in order to be related through still life. But i’ve always felt that no one and nothing exists in the fraction of a second. Everyone and everything exists in the realm of continuous time. So how much of a person is in a photograph, except for a fleeting illusion cos a captured image cannot be much more. So are they simply just setting up illusions for others to perceive through those illusions? I only lament that I could not get to know the real them, and despair that when not being frozen in time, there might not be much of  real them behind the images.

Really saying something?

Case in point #1:

A talk by a city planner, supposedly on urban planning matters to post-sophomore architectural students, ends up being a longer than alloted monologue about how his professor from the past, whom he personally met from the airport and chauffeured around says that what he sees around our city is among the finest. Other issues raised were how other examples have been given similar accolades by seemingly qualified people whom he knew personally, some while being driven around by him as well.

Case in point #2:

An elderly and well-established local architect gives a presentation at a seminar on architectural issues related to Islamic civilisation which consists entirely of a slide show of his travels in younger days through middle eastern countries, with images of him and others looking like The Grateful Dead and all the anecdotes that came with the experience. Point consistently reminded throughout was how the younger folks in the seminar should follow his example, which we are to assume would cover the subjects pertaining to the seminar. Older folks in the audience nod smugly in agreement.

Case in point #3

A tutor displeased with his class for what he considers lackadaisical attitudes, proceeds to grill them for no less than 4 hours on improving the situation. In those 4 hours he has managed to cover the hardships of parental roles with off-springs in general, deftly segueing into their studies and eventual matrimony before being released into the real world. He highlighted the commitment of the university in giving the students the opportunity to study within their hallowed halls from out of hundreds of thousands of applicants, and the department’s relentless pursuit in extracting the necessary funds to carry out said nobility. Naturally this would follow with his own personal altruistic roles which includes the sacrifices he made braving the traffic day after day to be there at the expense of how his own flesh and blood would have to rely on other means of transportation while he stays committed to his task, as does his spouse in another part of the city.

Then comes the government’s role providing for the youth as they are the future of the nation to the extent that the nation has even paid for a foreign architect to design and foreign technology to build not just one, but two very tall buildings that we can be proud of. [Of course the foreign part was my own addition. The way he put it you'd believe we designed and built it ourselves.] I hope you can see where this is going cos i’d really like to move to another case point; but rest assured, not a peep about the actual problems the students were having with their tasks at hand which was the reason for the poor showing.

Case in point #4

A workshop for learner drivers included a seminar where the presenter goes on and on about how in developed countries similar schools would have very hi-tech facilities including furniture from world renown furniture house, Ikea [like that was a good thing].

Case in point #5

Elderly folks telling the young ‘uns about the hardships of life during wartime, the perils of foreign occupation, the misery of rationing, the lack of proper sanitation facilities, the joys of independence – was it so that them young ‘uns would appreciate the times they’re in and not take things for granted? Nope. It was so them young ‘uns will watch less TV, read more books and study much harder in school.

Case in point #6

Some politician on a TV forum where the topic was on how we should be moving forward with the times, declares out that rather than moving forward he’d like to look backward and went on and on about how things were in the past and proceeded to reminisce about it while the others in the panel, including the host, fell in as subordinates and nodded diligently till it was time for the final credits to roll.

MY POINT

I could barely fathom what was going on in all those characters minds as to how they could just go on talking about things actually irrelevant or barely contributing to the subjects at hand, if at all. One would expect that if not much was known of the subject matter then there wouldn’t be much to say; but they just went on and on, totally engrossed while digressing further and further till all that was left was to thank them for having taken the time out to talk, despite actually saying anything. The act of talking, never mind the lack of actual content.

The first case was just telling you what’s considered good by whom he considers good [like you should too] as if that was good enough. Whereas shouldn’t he be talking about what makes the good good, and the inverse for what’s bad?

The second case – I don’t know, I’m still figuring out that one.

The mystery in the third case is why the tutor would not delve into the actual causes of the students’ problems in order to help them out of it? If he already knew what that was, what could it be that warranted the 4 hour sermon of sorts?

Case in point #4 appears to be very insecure as it seems like he needs to impress the audience with what he knows [as if that is what it takes to impress them], in order to coax a sense of authority from them in order that they’ll listen to him.

Advise from the elderly in #5 should be taken for the intentions behind and never the form that they actually choose to carry it out.

Number 6 is a politician.

Simulation by Negation

Some examples in italics first. Pay particular attention to the first part of the sentence and the inconsistency of the later parts in relation to what was said in the first part.

“It’s not that I want to gossip, but do you know who she’s been seen with ever since she got those implants and the botox injections that must have been paid for by that man who dresses like a 70s pimp with the daughter who never waxes her facial hair ever since she’s been dumped by that wife-battering singer who must still be on mescaline when he was caught for bestiality with that bitch that looks Alsatian that is always licking ……”

“Of course I did it out of sincerity and expect absolutely nothing in return, but he could have at least remembered what i did and donated his kidney for me to sell when I was broke. It’s not like I was asking for anything in return.”

“You know I’m not the sort to poke my nose into other people’s business, but how much are you bringing back from work after taxes including bonuses and overtime, and what kind of rebates do you get?”

“I can’t stand people who stab others in the back like that brazen hussy who told me yesterday she’ll flatly refuse if you ever ask her to be your mistress because she knows you will ask by the way you look at her.”

“I never like to copy other people’s design but why must he use those curves cos I don’t know how to draw that form into my building.”

Isn’t it amazing how folks declare out how they are not of certain traits or behaviour, then in the same breath without batting an eye, proceed to show clear indications of that very same trait in themselves? It’s as if they know it’s wrong to be that way so they say it out loud first as if declaring it establishes that they are not like that; so when they actually do it after it’ll be okay because they know that they’re not like that -cos they just said they’re not.

It’s the impression of having an attribute or a virtue without actually having it, but by simulation of it on declaring not hosting or being capable of the adverse of said attribute or virtue.

How delusional can you be?

Well, from experience, very – cos the people i know who do it have absolutely no idea they do it. And the times I’ve pointed it out to them, they vehemently deny it. It’s probably because when they say out loud what they’re not, they are just saying the words and unwittingly picturing the concepts of those words, but the act that comes next are detached from that mental picture. The only way to elaborate this further would need using one of the examples.

Take the first one. When declaring that she doesn’t gossip, the person has an instantaneous image of others whom she’s experienced as gossipers and she decides not to be like them. As she cannot see herself, she has never seen herself doing like those whom she pictures gossiping; in other words, she can’t know what she looks like when she gossips. Which means when she pictures people gossiping, she is not included in the picture. So after declaring out loud she doesn’t gossip and picturing those who do -which does not include her-, she proceeds to do it cos she can’t see herself doing it. It was the words with pictures that stuck with her, not the concept behind it. Could this be another example of hurrying a form to understand an abstract notion instead of understanding the notion in the abstract? – the form in this case are the mental images of people gossiping and the abstract notion is what the act of gossiping is really about.

So be cautioned. Since the simulation can create such delusions, what those examples did could also easily be done by you.

In the words of the 70s philosopher Uriah Heep – Look At Yourself

A’s are for Attainment not Achievement

I don’t much mind the initial objectives of the local education curriculum. It does seem to have the right intentions -primarily that of dispensing fundamental knowledge through the necessary base skills required to acquire them. But you’d need to look only in certain places to be of like opinion -and that would be within the given textbooks that are prerequisites for every learning year. Of course you’d have to charitably overlook the occasional errors in spelling and paging, the simplistic anecdotes and analogies, the choice of graphics, and the nationalistic cover with the sensationalist fonts. Past that and you’d find contents geared to enable the understanding of the fundamentals and mechanisms of what you are learning about. For instance, they attempt to convey the concept behind division through examples of sharing in daily life rather than simply laying out division tables to be memorised. History is laid out as sombre true stories rather than simply putting dates to names, places and events to be remembered; which is more wont of the supplementary or interactive books that seems to be preferred by the teaching protagonists.

In the hands of the latter, the subjects are reduced to notes and data to be recited, remembered and regurgitated at exams. In the event of those 3 r’s failing when the time comes, there’s also the actuarial science of question spotting based on the empirical analysis of cycles and probabilities.

To further ensure those 3 r’s are properly instilled, there’s always tuition with more exclusive notes and tutors with better answering tips and techniques or higher q-spotting acumen. These are centres or personnel with reputations forged by the ratio of A’s to students over the years. Of course, tuitions are also indispensable for those requiring remembering by repetition. If you are not confident of your memory retention faculties, fret not, there are centres that chest-thumpingly boast to being able to boost it for you solely for exams.

What are exams then? Assessments of one’s comprehension, absorption and assimilation of the knowledge required to facilitate or enhance one’s role/survival for a life of fate unknown? Or more of a challenge to overcome where victory paves the way for a life of determinate goals; where casualties are doomed to forever fall to the wayside. With the kind of accolades and the amount of adulation and fawning, plus national media coverage, the latter seems more like it.

But isn’t it merely a simulacrum of what the true objective should actually be? No question it’s about the hardworking, but more for toiling to cover as much as possible in order to remember as hard as possible rather than to understand to the point of applicability. Intelligence? Isn’t it more to do with memory retention, which folks confuse with actual intelligence?

So maybe we should remove the false accolades and adulation which upholds such illusions so that future generations would not be fooled by it and may actually strive with due diligence for actual intelligence.

Could we?

Most likely not. They’d be up in arms and throw fits and tantrums over even the suggestion of removing such incentives and rewards. Don’t even think about it. No way would the parents/guardians ever allow such a travesty to even be considered. After all, that’s the route they came through.