Joseph Campbell: Darth Vader has not developed his own humanity. He's a robot. He's a bureacrat, living not in terms of himself but in terms of an imposed system. This is the threat to our lives that we all face today. Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes? How do you relate to the system so that you are not compulsively serving it?
On how to not lose our humanity: By holding to your own ideals for yourself and, like Luke Skywalker, rejecting the system's impersonal claims upon you.
Looking at myself and those around me, i guess most of us are shaped by the world around us. The expectations of our parents, friends, loved ones, those of the institution (think getting high GPA = good job) and 'social norm' influenced us to make many decision that we would otherwise not make.
I applaud Xin Hong's reply to his friend's qn on why doesn't he apply to "prestigious institution". He said that wants to work for a firm which live the principles that he agrees with and work for a person (a prof who taught a course in SMU) whom he admires.
How refreshing! when he asked me if it made sense, i told him it totally does. My only caveat is that he must not be envious of others (whom i believe mostly less exceptional then him) who will earn way more than him (at least in the beginning).
To see Chin Ta dance in the library was quite stunning at first, but now there's a bunch of his Caderas friends who'll dance with him in that corner in the library. Not distracting cuz they count their dance steps to silent beats, but very entertaining. He has essentially re-shaped the 'imposed system' in his idiosyncratic way. Btw, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
End of Mid-term exam week today. 'Buang' my MS exam today. Probably got 40 odd marks out of 100. Now my grades depend on my relative 'buangness' of my classmates. Dunno how to do well in a class where they can talk about gradients and coefficients and make much sense out of it. They are having a private conversation in class with the prof which i'm not part of.
Yippee! Mid Term Break. Time to read my Buffett biography and sit around and do nothing (at least for a few days).
Once again, the same quote from a previous post:
The vulgar thus through imitation err;
As oft the learned, by being singular;
So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng
By chance go right, they purposely go wrong.
~Alexander Pope
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