The day was but a day until the high heels clacked on the asphalt. Brad turned around, and did his best not to turn anymore. The sun became a halo surrounding her, obliviating all but her slender waist. Then she stepped beneath the trees and her soft eyes glowed green like the leaves above.
Brad stepped forward, averting his eyes from her charming hairclip the way all men grew skilled at lest they alienate half the human race. ‘You captivate me,’ he said.
She jerked in surprise, retrieved an errant strand from her face. ‘Excuse me?’ Drenched in sunlight, his eager face shaped itself to propel his words. ‘No, say nothing. That was a stupidity.’
‘I could scarcely care less for the minor mistake,’ he said. He stepped forward with arms outstretched, escorting her further into the shade where they might see one another better.
‘I guess you wouldn’t,’ she replied. ‘Actually, you appeal to me as well.’
‘Great. Shall we have a relationship?’ he asked.
‘Become a couple? What are the terms?’ she asked.
‘That we be open with one another, in mind, body and soul. The romantic adventures of man and woman are often fraught with pitfalls. Granted the human race numbers billions of individuals and the potential for variation is enormous, so two partners are probabilistically never precisely compatible with one another,’ he said.
‘True,’ she agreed. ‘Even if they are, my scone, constant exposure to each other’s differences over the years wears down their patience. Quarrels erupt faster than volcanoes four point six billion years ago.’
‘We have chosen well, for we are as reflections in an imperfect mirror. I enjoy being called “scone”, though I wonder why not “sugar” or similar terms,’ he added.
‘Individuality. I happen to savour scones, the puffy crumbly feeling as you eat them,’ she said.
‘How about it? I confess my faults and shortcomings to you for forgiveness, and you to me. Like a pregnant mother aspiring for aptitude at meditation, shall we also practice these communication methods to ease the birth of our time together.’
‘You tease me. The mother is always the female. Do I take on the bulk of the responsibility?’ she asked, her lip glinting under a sunbeam penetrating through the canopy.
‘Tell me what you desire, in accordance with the conditions,’ he said. ‘Myself, I currently find completion holding your body against mine own.’ Her head swirled as the heady odours of his maleness and crisp leaves of the leaf litter made their way up her nose.
‘No complaints, scone,’ she replied, and they fell to a crackling.
2.11.09
24.9.09
Sensible Spirituality
I just listed six different takes on the afterlife, although my primary concern was for the first, specifically the Chinese view. I don’t regret writing them, and am glad I did. However, I still haven’t written my feelings on how Chinese, and later most cultures, see spirits.
Until the 20th Century, nobody pretended that folk beliefs and spirits were anything truly defendable against. After all, if you can’t see an invisible troublemaker, you can’t tell if you’re seeing him making mischief or not, or if he’s walked away from you or not, or even if he’s cleaning up his messs. Or not. Also, most people hadn’t heard of the scientific method, and had no idea how to go about testing the validity of folk beliefs. If they did try, they didn’t know how to keep constants and a single independent variable, nor more importantly the bias they themselves held while conducting the trial. Thus, once they did learn such things, it wasn’t long before they stopped marvelling at the glittering towers of science and decided to dig up the earthy stories they grew up on.
Many superstitions were discredited. Others were convincingly proved false by the confirmation or rejection of others. There are still plenty to be tested. Regardless, people hold onto their beliefs in the face of hard, tangible proof. For example, people trust that pyramids were built by aliens, rather than thinking that Egyptians might have also had geniuses like Newton or Galileo or Einstein to direct such endeavours.1 Or far closer to home are horoscopes. Supposedly the motion of the heavenly bodies affects our lives and thus the combination of natural events, other persons and personal experiences which together is luck. So if we know how to read those bodies, we can predict and anticipate booms and slumps in our lives and take advantage of them accordingly. However, few people know (or care, even sadder) that if you cover the signs and read the advice in a horoscope, most people can’t tell the difference, even if the advice contradict. This is a particular technique of speaking. The writer lists circumstances almost any human being should be going through or feels they are going through and then gives the sensible2 solution to dealing with it.
And besides, we have discovered flocks of galaxies in the gaps between adjacent stars, but no one has said how they determine when I will next nearly-faint when I see the girl of my (one-sided) affection.
The point is, humans believe what they will, no matter what other people say, if they truly, honestly want to.
Which brings me to spirits. Humans believe they are not alone. In a world where at least ten billion people have lived their lives, this shouldn’t be an object of dispute. But then humanity would prefer to think that there are other collective entities that exist in the universe. Namely, aliens and spirits. Aliens come later. Spirits come now.
Spirits can take charge of a specific landmark. A stone, a brook, a pile of dirt, any of these are viable dwelling places. Alternatively, they can be part of an organism, anything from a redwood to a mayfly. Disregarding the actual abilities of their hosts, spirits of the world can interact with humans, often manipulating the physical to bring across surprisingly human desires. A tree may demand a dish of cooked rice every day, though it lacks jaws and may indeed be touted as a form of cannibal for doing so. Failure to comply, however, leads to misfortune that the immobile tree has caused whilst hard at work smashing water and carbon dioxide molecules into their atoms and subsequently reforming them into sugar as it then takes the energy released by the reaction.
The spirits may in fact take human form at times, though it is clear that they are not human themselves. So say the many fae who have been taken by men and birthed halfling children. Supposedly being foreign entities with different origins as ourselves, they should also have few similarities in our ways of thinking. But they can fight wars with as much vigour as ourselves at times.
This view might be false. Maybe all spirits are human, simply at one time or another, but we can all be labelled as a member of spiritkind. The pontianak is a famous one in Southeast Asia. The ghost of a newly-wedded bride, if I remember correctly, it resides in banana trees.3 Any disturbance made to the banana tree is asking for trouble, for the pontianak will then harass you in your daily life, preferably at nighttime, when you are more vulnerable. The only way to sate it is to undergo a complex ritual filled with delightful ceremonies (also preferably at nighttime), at which the pontianak returns to its tree, waiting for the next hapless victim to offend it.
Here is my point of contest. If all spirits might be considered human in a human body, and that many feared spirits were in fact humans when alive, why should we be afraid of them? We can be afraid of people, but if we learn of their lives and the many facets of the singular human gestalt, our fear may lessen or be accompanied by feelings of empathy, pity or maybe even admiration. There is no such thing in spirits. Spirits are filled with one thing, and that is an emotion. Be it anger, hatred, fear, longing or love, that is their only manifestation and they fulfil it in all their sightings.
I put this down to public relations. Frankly, hearing a ghost speaking of the old days when people made their own chaptehs, not like now where they’re all assembled in a factory by a few bored workers, is not a ghost who is likely to be remembered. But a ghost who goes on and on and on about the wrongs done to it in its life seems a tad more intriguing, even if a moment’s thought reveals that the average human life is filled with wrongs anyway and contains pleasures if only a moment’s thought is spared.
Humans are not people of one emotion. That is one-dimensional. All people display at least three dimensions of thought in their lives, for the sake of analogy. Heart, mind and soul, which only by coincidence number three, are the minimum that make up a person. Surely those pontianaks have sly thoughts that ambush them in the middle of an outrage of security that remind them that their victim is someone’s child, someone’s friend and maybe someone’s parent. Maybe they too wonder what happens to bad pontianaks who don’t lash out at every person who touches their banana leaves properly. Perhaps they mourn for their grooms who moved on without them or effectively died on their deathdays. In short, if you talk of a human spirit, that spirit will appear a human under a sufficiently long period of scrutiny.
I am aware our so-called ways of such scrutiny are little more than mumbo-jumbo at worst and near-actual experiences that straddle the line between imagination and reality at best. I am also aware that most conveniently, spirits are said to shy away from humans and thus would not savour an interview.
In group dynamics, there are a majority of people who nod and mumble when a leader or makeshift one goes and lead them, a minority who join that leader to rise to positions of power and another minority who reject that leadership and gambol off to do things their own way. I like to think I’m the third. I assume that most spirits fall in the first category, and possibly the second as well. So in our entire span of existence, I don’t see why it’s unreasonable that humanity should have spiritual encounters of the third kind.
Sadly, knowing people, they probably thought such encounters weren’t good tales. We, after all, are never as sensible as we’d like to be, whether in confirmed life or unproved death.
Until the 20th Century, nobody pretended that folk beliefs and spirits were anything truly defendable against. After all, if you can’t see an invisible troublemaker, you can’t tell if you’re seeing him making mischief or not, or if he’s walked away from you or not, or even if he’s cleaning up his messs. Or not. Also, most people hadn’t heard of the scientific method, and had no idea how to go about testing the validity of folk beliefs. If they did try, they didn’t know how to keep constants and a single independent variable, nor more importantly the bias they themselves held while conducting the trial. Thus, once they did learn such things, it wasn’t long before they stopped marvelling at the glittering towers of science and decided to dig up the earthy stories they grew up on.
Many superstitions were discredited. Others were convincingly proved false by the confirmation or rejection of others. There are still plenty to be tested. Regardless, people hold onto their beliefs in the face of hard, tangible proof. For example, people trust that pyramids were built by aliens, rather than thinking that Egyptians might have also had geniuses like Newton or Galileo or Einstein to direct such endeavours.1 Or far closer to home are horoscopes. Supposedly the motion of the heavenly bodies affects our lives and thus the combination of natural events, other persons and personal experiences which together is luck. So if we know how to read those bodies, we can predict and anticipate booms and slumps in our lives and take advantage of them accordingly. However, few people know (or care, even sadder) that if you cover the signs and read the advice in a horoscope, most people can’t tell the difference, even if the advice contradict. This is a particular technique of speaking. The writer lists circumstances almost any human being should be going through or feels they are going through and then gives the sensible2 solution to dealing with it.
And besides, we have discovered flocks of galaxies in the gaps between adjacent stars, but no one has said how they determine when I will next nearly-faint when I see the girl of my (one-sided) affection.
The point is, humans believe what they will, no matter what other people say, if they truly, honestly want to.
Which brings me to spirits. Humans believe they are not alone. In a world where at least ten billion people have lived their lives, this shouldn’t be an object of dispute. But then humanity would prefer to think that there are other collective entities that exist in the universe. Namely, aliens and spirits. Aliens come later. Spirits come now.
Spirits can take charge of a specific landmark. A stone, a brook, a pile of dirt, any of these are viable dwelling places. Alternatively, they can be part of an organism, anything from a redwood to a mayfly. Disregarding the actual abilities of their hosts, spirits of the world can interact with humans, often manipulating the physical to bring across surprisingly human desires. A tree may demand a dish of cooked rice every day, though it lacks jaws and may indeed be touted as a form of cannibal for doing so. Failure to comply, however, leads to misfortune that the immobile tree has caused whilst hard at work smashing water and carbon dioxide molecules into their atoms and subsequently reforming them into sugar as it then takes the energy released by the reaction.
The spirits may in fact take human form at times, though it is clear that they are not human themselves. So say the many fae who have been taken by men and birthed halfling children. Supposedly being foreign entities with different origins as ourselves, they should also have few similarities in our ways of thinking. But they can fight wars with as much vigour as ourselves at times.
This view might be false. Maybe all spirits are human, simply at one time or another, but we can all be labelled as a member of spiritkind. The pontianak is a famous one in Southeast Asia. The ghost of a newly-wedded bride, if I remember correctly, it resides in banana trees.3 Any disturbance made to the banana tree is asking for trouble, for the pontianak will then harass you in your daily life, preferably at nighttime, when you are more vulnerable. The only way to sate it is to undergo a complex ritual filled with delightful ceremonies (also preferably at nighttime), at which the pontianak returns to its tree, waiting for the next hapless victim to offend it.
Here is my point of contest. If all spirits might be considered human in a human body, and that many feared spirits were in fact humans when alive, why should we be afraid of them? We can be afraid of people, but if we learn of their lives and the many facets of the singular human gestalt, our fear may lessen or be accompanied by feelings of empathy, pity or maybe even admiration. There is no such thing in spirits. Spirits are filled with one thing, and that is an emotion. Be it anger, hatred, fear, longing or love, that is their only manifestation and they fulfil it in all their sightings.
I put this down to public relations. Frankly, hearing a ghost speaking of the old days when people made their own chaptehs, not like now where they’re all assembled in a factory by a few bored workers, is not a ghost who is likely to be remembered. But a ghost who goes on and on and on about the wrongs done to it in its life seems a tad more intriguing, even if a moment’s thought reveals that the average human life is filled with wrongs anyway and contains pleasures if only a moment’s thought is spared.
Humans are not people of one emotion. That is one-dimensional. All people display at least three dimensions of thought in their lives, for the sake of analogy. Heart, mind and soul, which only by coincidence number three, are the minimum that make up a person. Surely those pontianaks have sly thoughts that ambush them in the middle of an outrage of security that remind them that their victim is someone’s child, someone’s friend and maybe someone’s parent. Maybe they too wonder what happens to bad pontianaks who don’t lash out at every person who touches their banana leaves properly. Perhaps they mourn for their grooms who moved on without them or effectively died on their deathdays. In short, if you talk of a human spirit, that spirit will appear a human under a sufficiently long period of scrutiny.
I am aware our so-called ways of such scrutiny are little more than mumbo-jumbo at worst and near-actual experiences that straddle the line between imagination and reality at best. I am also aware that most conveniently, spirits are said to shy away from humans and thus would not savour an interview.
In group dynamics, there are a majority of people who nod and mumble when a leader or makeshift one goes and lead them, a minority who join that leader to rise to positions of power and another minority who reject that leadership and gambol off to do things their own way. I like to think I’m the third. I assume that most spirits fall in the first category, and possibly the second as well. So in our entire span of existence, I don’t see why it’s unreasonable that humanity should have spiritual encounters of the third kind.
Sadly, knowing people, they probably thought such encounters weren’t good tales. We, after all, are never as sensible as we’d like to be, whether in confirmed life or unproved death.
16.9.09
Deader than Dead
On the average, I tend to assume most people are too busy being alive to bother about abstract notions like ghosts and the spiritual world. However, it seems as if the exact opposite is true, and what I once heard from our Pastor Jeremy was also true: That people are very concerned about spirituality, but not about God.
This being the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, it is plausible that have given in to the crowd for once in my way of thinking. However, I don’t feel that has happened. Anyway, they’ve gone and made a detour somewhere else so we now have two differing views on the same subject.
Like today. Chee Siong was sharing a recount by a schoolmate who could supposedly see ghosts. During CID lesson she saw1 a ghost following one of the teachers, and began talking to it. Apparently, it was doing ghostly deeds, looking for someone it knew when it was supposedly alive. Since she was on the topic, the schoolmate then asked the ghost please not to haunt anyone, and the spectral fellow agreed. She apparently also has a reputation for her third eye.
About three weeks before that, Kelvin and Yuejun also got on the topic while eating at McDonald’s. They went through basic stuff, like how spirits live in a world practically invisible to our eyes, except for the select few who could be seen who also happened to be the select few who had major communication problems. Communication with people, that is, and not other spirits. I can only speculate about how they joke, scold, tease, cry and jolly one another.
And now the background information is past, and I can begin the real thing.
People have a few beliefs of life after death, healthy in that it shows how varied we are, unhealthy in that they are not necessarily inclusive of one another.
The first is the afterlife, where based on our deeds on earth2 we are judged and then sorted into differing afterlives to spend, suffer or enjoy indefinite eternity. The Greeks have these three together, named Hades, Tartarus and the Plains of Elysium respectively. Alternatively, there is reincarnation, but that’s for later. The Chinese afterlife also has this, people are transformed into fairies and are from thereon part of the celestial hierarchy until they commit some minor error and are flung back to earth for punishment. The Catholics have this in the form of Purgatory, Hell and Heaven. Purgatory is where all souls must suffer for their sins by going through a limbo. Sounds like a boring sitting session magnified a few thousand times. Once they have paid their toll, may they then ascend to heaven, or descend to hell if I’m right. Catholics may lessen or even redeem their dead by praying for their sins and beseeching the Mother Mary to forgive them because of her authority over Jesus.
The thing is, most of these belief systems deal primarily with afterlife forever. From living a life where we at best expect to live to a hundred to a life where a millennium and a day make little difference does not sound right. Even assuming that the afterlife is just like normal life and that we can pursue our interests just like before, and then keeping in mind Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem which proves that no matter what systems of knowledge we build, there will always be an area of unprovability, it sounds rather grating after the first few eons or so.
Christianity is a special case because the one criterion is acceptance of Jesus Christ as the global Redeemer of humanity’s inherent sin. All other ways go to hell, a cheerful evangelical message that has brought crowds flocking to churches over the years, mostly with sledgehammers. The Christian Heaven is a place where humanity shall be fulfilled by becoming one with Jesus by being part of the church while the church is wedded to Him, from henceforth we spend eternity praising Him in life. The Christian Hell is a place devoid of God’s love, filled with suffering and denoted as “eternal death” although the soul is obviously conscious enough to suffer.
The second is reincarnation. Though usually characterized by a succession of the soul through tiers of organisms, there have also been systems where inorganic matter joins the cycle. Everybody starts from dirt. However, if one pile of dust leads an especially puritan existence spent in devout worship of the Great Vague Oneness, in its next life3 it may then upgrade to a higher level of inorganicness or finally become alive. Presumably, they start at the bottom of the evolutionary tree/shrub/forest. But people had other systems then, always with mammals just below man, who topped the construction. Within humanity, one would then ascend society, rising from beggar to worker to official to ruler.4 Despite all this, the ultimate aim is not for a grain to one day become a president, but to escape the cycle altogether, and then entering a good old afterlife where we then spend eternity being One with everything else. We might try being Another, but then that might have been what caused the appearance of a divine Adversary in the first place.
The third is that we live on only one plane out of myriads, greatly extending our universe beyond physical boundaries and parallel universes to spiritual realms as well.5 When we die, we merely discard our physical shell for freedom of movement as a spirit. This spirit then ascends to the next plane, either physical as well or spiritual, to live another life followed by another death followed by another transmigration and so on. Whether there is any choice in the matter is unknown, but there has been no real limit set on the number of planes that exist. In other words, one leads an existence6 of lives and deaths and transmigrations that lasts forever. There are books that are found on this. They read like game manuals,.
The fourth is that there is no afterlife. When we die, it’s all over.
The fifth, subset of the fourth, is that we live on in our descendants’ genes, and later recognized, memes. By spreading our genetic code far throughout the gene pool, we can ensure effective immortality by having bits and pieces of ourselves live on in other people. It may not be all of us, and probably won’t offer decent after-dinner conversation, but it part of us, and that makes it us. The concept of memes follows this, except that the unit in question is an idea and not a gene. As V famously said, “Ideas are bulletproof.” But then, they’re just as prone being left behind as genes are. From another view, if we divide ourselves into pieces, and somehow ensure those pieces are put back together at later dates, by which we can further extend our lifespan, that is also called living forever. However, this heavily demands an understanding of the theory of emergence, which is nowhere as simple as it appears.
The final theory, the most speculative of all, the one that demands evidence but cannot receive it, is that our lives are only the cores of our existences, and that our existence lasts as long as the universe. Take it like this: We are made of atoms, or quarks, or some other arbitrary indivisible unit of matter. Although there are a great many atoms in our body, there is a far larger number of atoms in all the universe, compared to which we make up essentially zero. This is not a worry. In fact, it means when we die, we can rest knowing that one day, there will be one of our atoms floating around in a supernova, flying on the solar wind, locked up in frozen helium, sitting in a cube of sugar or slushing in an ocean. That, in itself, is a form of existing. And if you consider that the soul cannot be explained by the physical workings of the body, the soul is although linked to the body does not originate from the body itself, then it can be said that the being, while not experiencing sensation after death, nonetheless endures as long as its atoms still exist. And since matter equals energy based on E=mc2, then somewhere in the future, we will power our children’s engines.
Theories 1-3 require the existence of a Deity or a pantheon of them. Theory 4 is both a reason to shoot yourself now and not to, remaining equally bleak in both prospects. Theories 5 and 6 are similar but not precisely identical views on this, but imply that we ourselves can create something approaching that if we went about things the right way.
By right, each theory deserves a full shelf in a philosophy library to itself. But then, I don’t have the time or the philosophical stamina to carry on such theories and ensure their integrity at the same time. Even if I threw integrity into a lake7 I would still lack enough time.
But they are interesting introductions, and if I find someone to dispute any of them with, I can honestly say that will be the first intellectually stimulating exchange I’ve ever had.
Touched on: Religion, afterlife, Godel, spiritual succession, life, death, deconstructionism, emergence
1Believed she saw. I’m not inclined to believe that.
2Not the planet Earth, but some entire plane we dwell in for now
3That is, wind disturbs and destroys the pattern the components creat, collapsing a mound of soil in a thin film of dust, for instance
4That isn’t to say parallel universes and spiritual realms aren’t combined sometimes though.
5This just may explain the divine right of kings, but I leave that to a terrible tendency of people to follow someone who uses a chunk of metal to raise his height by a foot.
6For life loses its connotations and meanings under such heavy philosophical barrage
7Most likely losing stamina at the same time because I know that what I’m writing may be rubbish due to faulty reasoning.
This being the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, it is plausible that have given in to the crowd for once in my way of thinking. However, I don’t feel that has happened. Anyway, they’ve gone and made a detour somewhere else so we now have two differing views on the same subject.
Like today. Chee Siong was sharing a recount by a schoolmate who could supposedly see ghosts. During CID lesson she saw1 a ghost following one of the teachers, and began talking to it. Apparently, it was doing ghostly deeds, looking for someone it knew when it was supposedly alive. Since she was on the topic, the schoolmate then asked the ghost please not to haunt anyone, and the spectral fellow agreed. She apparently also has a reputation for her third eye.
About three weeks before that, Kelvin and Yuejun also got on the topic while eating at McDonald’s. They went through basic stuff, like how spirits live in a world practically invisible to our eyes, except for the select few who could be seen who also happened to be the select few who had major communication problems. Communication with people, that is, and not other spirits. I can only speculate about how they joke, scold, tease, cry and jolly one another.
And now the background information is past, and I can begin the real thing.
People have a few beliefs of life after death, healthy in that it shows how varied we are, unhealthy in that they are not necessarily inclusive of one another.
The first is the afterlife, where based on our deeds on earth2 we are judged and then sorted into differing afterlives to spend, suffer or enjoy indefinite eternity. The Greeks have these three together, named Hades, Tartarus and the Plains of Elysium respectively. Alternatively, there is reincarnation, but that’s for later. The Chinese afterlife also has this, people are transformed into fairies and are from thereon part of the celestial hierarchy until they commit some minor error and are flung back to earth for punishment. The Catholics have this in the form of Purgatory, Hell and Heaven. Purgatory is where all souls must suffer for their sins by going through a limbo. Sounds like a boring sitting session magnified a few thousand times. Once they have paid their toll, may they then ascend to heaven, or descend to hell if I’m right. Catholics may lessen or even redeem their dead by praying for their sins and beseeching the Mother Mary to forgive them because of her authority over Jesus.
The thing is, most of these belief systems deal primarily with afterlife forever. From living a life where we at best expect to live to a hundred to a life where a millennium and a day make little difference does not sound right. Even assuming that the afterlife is just like normal life and that we can pursue our interests just like before, and then keeping in mind Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem which proves that no matter what systems of knowledge we build, there will always be an area of unprovability, it sounds rather grating after the first few eons or so.
Christianity is a special case because the one criterion is acceptance of Jesus Christ as the global Redeemer of humanity’s inherent sin. All other ways go to hell, a cheerful evangelical message that has brought crowds flocking to churches over the years, mostly with sledgehammers. The Christian Heaven is a place where humanity shall be fulfilled by becoming one with Jesus by being part of the church while the church is wedded to Him, from henceforth we spend eternity praising Him in life. The Christian Hell is a place devoid of God’s love, filled with suffering and denoted as “eternal death” although the soul is obviously conscious enough to suffer.
The second is reincarnation. Though usually characterized by a succession of the soul through tiers of organisms, there have also been systems where inorganic matter joins the cycle. Everybody starts from dirt. However, if one pile of dust leads an especially puritan existence spent in devout worship of the Great Vague Oneness, in its next life3 it may then upgrade to a higher level of inorganicness or finally become alive. Presumably, they start at the bottom of the evolutionary tree/shrub/forest. But people had other systems then, always with mammals just below man, who topped the construction. Within humanity, one would then ascend society, rising from beggar to worker to official to ruler.4 Despite all this, the ultimate aim is not for a grain to one day become a president, but to escape the cycle altogether, and then entering a good old afterlife where we then spend eternity being One with everything else. We might try being Another, but then that might have been what caused the appearance of a divine Adversary in the first place.
The third is that we live on only one plane out of myriads, greatly extending our universe beyond physical boundaries and parallel universes to spiritual realms as well.5 When we die, we merely discard our physical shell for freedom of movement as a spirit. This spirit then ascends to the next plane, either physical as well or spiritual, to live another life followed by another death followed by another transmigration and so on. Whether there is any choice in the matter is unknown, but there has been no real limit set on the number of planes that exist. In other words, one leads an existence6 of lives and deaths and transmigrations that lasts forever. There are books that are found on this. They read like game manuals,.
The fourth is that there is no afterlife. When we die, it’s all over.
The fifth, subset of the fourth, is that we live on in our descendants’ genes, and later recognized, memes. By spreading our genetic code far throughout the gene pool, we can ensure effective immortality by having bits and pieces of ourselves live on in other people. It may not be all of us, and probably won’t offer decent after-dinner conversation, but it part of us, and that makes it us. The concept of memes follows this, except that the unit in question is an idea and not a gene. As V famously said, “Ideas are bulletproof.” But then, they’re just as prone being left behind as genes are. From another view, if we divide ourselves into pieces, and somehow ensure those pieces are put back together at later dates, by which we can further extend our lifespan, that is also called living forever. However, this heavily demands an understanding of the theory of emergence, which is nowhere as simple as it appears.
The final theory, the most speculative of all, the one that demands evidence but cannot receive it, is that our lives are only the cores of our existences, and that our existence lasts as long as the universe. Take it like this: We are made of atoms, or quarks, or some other arbitrary indivisible unit of matter. Although there are a great many atoms in our body, there is a far larger number of atoms in all the universe, compared to which we make up essentially zero. This is not a worry. In fact, it means when we die, we can rest knowing that one day, there will be one of our atoms floating around in a supernova, flying on the solar wind, locked up in frozen helium, sitting in a cube of sugar or slushing in an ocean. That, in itself, is a form of existing. And if you consider that the soul cannot be explained by the physical workings of the body, the soul is although linked to the body does not originate from the body itself, then it can be said that the being, while not experiencing sensation after death, nonetheless endures as long as its atoms still exist. And since matter equals energy based on E=mc2, then somewhere in the future, we will power our children’s engines.
Theories 1-3 require the existence of a Deity or a pantheon of them. Theory 4 is both a reason to shoot yourself now and not to, remaining equally bleak in both prospects. Theories 5 and 6 are similar but not precisely identical views on this, but imply that we ourselves can create something approaching that if we went about things the right way.
By right, each theory deserves a full shelf in a philosophy library to itself. But then, I don’t have the time or the philosophical stamina to carry on such theories and ensure their integrity at the same time. Even if I threw integrity into a lake7 I would still lack enough time.
But they are interesting introductions, and if I find someone to dispute any of them with, I can honestly say that will be the first intellectually stimulating exchange I’ve ever had.
Touched on: Religion, afterlife, Godel, spiritual succession, life, death, deconstructionism, emergence
1Believed she saw. I’m not inclined to believe that.
2Not the planet Earth, but some entire plane we dwell in for now
3That is, wind disturbs and destroys the pattern the components creat, collapsing a mound of soil in a thin film of dust, for instance
4That isn’t to say parallel universes and spiritual realms aren’t combined sometimes though.
5This just may explain the divine right of kings, but I leave that to a terrible tendency of people to follow someone who uses a chunk of metal to raise his height by a foot.
6For life loses its connotations and meanings under such heavy philosophical barrage
7Most likely losing stamina at the same time because I know that what I’m writing may be rubbish due to faulty reasoning.
28.8.09
On Two Letters
XY: My one. The one that as I've seen is the more difficult to possess and master at the same time. Males are generally expected to adhere to an abstract concept called 'masculinity'. I have no idea what it is, since many so-called 'macho' traits are in fact present in females as well as males, and vice versa. However, failure to do so, which is easier to attain, results in severe reproach by society. And while some men are rightly accused of being effeminate, others are simply called 'unmanly'. There appears to be a middle ground that is an undesirable place to be.
Another problem is the biological role of men. Men are singularly programmed: Get to a female and impregnate her. Hopefully, this simple line may be repeated continuously for the whole of his fertility. Of course, it is implied he will have to do some choosing, since randomly bonking any woman may result in undesirable offspring ie ones with bad genes. That's why men also have a mental augmentation to judge their mates fairly. Hair that is kept long and glossy implies the owner is so healthy she can keep a beautiful crown of hair WHILE muddling through the challenges of life, and can certainly be expected to have the capacity to support a child or two. Breast-waist-hip ratio by right should have large breasts for ample nursing and large hips for ample space for an enormously large head such that the waist is perceived as small in comparison. We know how that went in fashion... The supposedly ideal girl should have a fleshy figure. Seriously. The other extremes, skinny and fat, respectively show too little bodily substance and too large an appetite for substance. I don't dare tread into faces. Too much trouble lies there.
Now, understanding the concept of beauty from the male point of view may be all good and well, but then we realise that those delicate pictures of beauty are actually human beings just like us. Around like us. Maybe we actually have opposing personalities, but disregarding their life experiences and ways of action and reaction they're just like us. Still, it's probably not clear to think of a girl talking. To be accurate, it's more like finding out an intriguing, teasing and enchanting artwork can and will talk enough to hold conversation. A conversation that may be the more enjoyable for the artwork's nature, but if you listen to the words you realise they're what people talk about every day.
Come on. Every time, every single time I see a girl or lady in a group of guys I think, 'What a beautiful flower. So fragile, so soft, so gentle on the eyes'. I get the impression it's not a healthy way of thinking, since I haven't ever seen it mentioned. Moreover, flowers ARE organs for purely sexual purposes.
Anyway, men by nature ought to chase and gank their dream set of women, whichever of them is available at the time. But some are too shy, and hang around wishing those girls would just be receptive long enough for them to sink their hooks in. Others are too enthusiastic about them, mingling with the long-haired crowd and chattering away joyously. The bastards. The rest are somewhere in between. These are the sad ones. Society will bash people like the latter for taking advantage of females. Society will also bash people with no initiative to be men. I just hope society will suddenly wake up and see its own male components. Then it can bash itself for closure.
Note: This is more akin to a rant than an actaul dissertation on the male gender and views on females. The logic here is the rare refined type unendingly distilled to produce some basic element of human nature that is shiny, but if hooked it up to your thinking, stores mostly shocks.
Note on note: That isn't to say it doesn't WORK.
Another problem is the biological role of men. Men are singularly programmed: Get to a female and impregnate her. Hopefully, this simple line may be repeated continuously for the whole of his fertility. Of course, it is implied he will have to do some choosing, since randomly bonking any woman may result in undesirable offspring ie ones with bad genes. That's why men also have a mental augmentation to judge their mates fairly. Hair that is kept long and glossy implies the owner is so healthy she can keep a beautiful crown of hair WHILE muddling through the challenges of life, and can certainly be expected to have the capacity to support a child or two. Breast-waist-hip ratio by right should have large breasts for ample nursing and large hips for ample space for an enormously large head such that the waist is perceived as small in comparison. We know how that went in fashion... The supposedly ideal girl should have a fleshy figure. Seriously. The other extremes, skinny and fat, respectively show too little bodily substance and too large an appetite for substance. I don't dare tread into faces. Too much trouble lies there.
Now, understanding the concept of beauty from the male point of view may be all good and well, but then we realise that those delicate pictures of beauty are actually human beings just like us. Around like us. Maybe we actually have opposing personalities, but disregarding their life experiences and ways of action and reaction they're just like us. Still, it's probably not clear to think of a girl talking. To be accurate, it's more like finding out an intriguing, teasing and enchanting artwork can and will talk enough to hold conversation. A conversation that may be the more enjoyable for the artwork's nature, but if you listen to the words you realise they're what people talk about every day.
Come on. Every time, every single time I see a girl or lady in a group of guys I think, 'What a beautiful flower. So fragile, so soft, so gentle on the eyes'. I get the impression it's not a healthy way of thinking, since I haven't ever seen it mentioned. Moreover, flowers ARE organs for purely sexual purposes.
Anyway, men by nature ought to chase and gank their dream set of women, whichever of them is available at the time. But some are too shy, and hang around wishing those girls would just be receptive long enough for them to sink their hooks in. Others are too enthusiastic about them, mingling with the long-haired crowd and chattering away joyously. The bastards. The rest are somewhere in between. These are the sad ones. Society will bash people like the latter for taking advantage of females. Society will also bash people with no initiative to be men. I just hope society will suddenly wake up and see its own male components. Then it can bash itself for closure.
Note: This is more akin to a rant than an actaul dissertation on the male gender and views on females. The logic here is the rare refined type unendingly distilled to produce some basic element of human nature that is shiny, but if hooked it up to your thinking, stores mostly shocks.
Note on note: That isn't to say it doesn't WORK.
15.8.09
New Pictures
Uploaded pictures.
http://educatedrodent.deviantart.com/art/Before-Mirrored-Stares-133442549
http://educatedrodent.deviantart.com/art/Identity-Poses-133441700
http://educatedrodent.deviantart.com/art/Before-Mirrored-Stares-133442549
http://educatedrodent.deviantart.com/art/Identity-Poses-133441700
2.8.09
Squirrels and Ants
On Saturday I watched an old TV episode. The protagonist spoke on how screwed up it could be to be human, mentioning a time after getting chewed out by his girlfriend. He was walking in the park, and saw a squirrel. A squirrel without intelligence, a squirrel without a job or boss, a squirrel with home security, a squirrel who was his own man and didn't have woman trouble. At that moment, the protagonist would have swapped with the squirrel given the slightest chance at all. He was illustrating the downside of humanity's sentience and the way we struggle in life.
I laughed at him, not only because it was a comedy show - someone in the show later criticised him for being a "closet squirrel" - but also because I thought he hadn't gotten the right view of life yet.
Then I reflected on my crush. The long fifteen months and maybe more I had been attracted to her, and the varying ways I messed up our average friendship. Especially after I SMSed her lately, only to be ignored.
That night, I saw an ant in the kitchen, and I thought, now you're a lucky bastard. Bitch. You only need to exist and people call you hardworking, which is more than what I can say. You're so small you're practically safe as long as you stay away from sadistic humans or keep near pacifistic monks and myself. You don't even have to worry about gender, because you're a suppressed female, effectively a neutral ant. I'd like to be you right now.
The irony hung at the back of my mind, as it always does in my every waking slice of time.
And today there was a sermon. It was long, but the key point was to trust in God, don't make too many plans. That ties in with my ideal life, which is to live so simply you can carry out plans because of how simple they are.
And tomorrow I'm going to talk to her.
I laughed at him, not only because it was a comedy show - someone in the show later criticised him for being a "closet squirrel" - but also because I thought he hadn't gotten the right view of life yet.
Then I reflected on my crush. The long fifteen months and maybe more I had been attracted to her, and the varying ways I messed up our average friendship. Especially after I SMSed her lately, only to be ignored.
That night, I saw an ant in the kitchen, and I thought, now you're a lucky bastard. Bitch. You only need to exist and people call you hardworking, which is more than what I can say. You're so small you're practically safe as long as you stay away from sadistic humans or keep near pacifistic monks and myself. You don't even have to worry about gender, because you're a suppressed female, effectively a neutral ant. I'd like to be you right now.
The irony hung at the back of my mind, as it always does in my every waking slice of time.
And today there was a sermon. It was long, but the key point was to trust in God, don't make too many plans. That ties in with my ideal life, which is to live so simply you can carry out plans because of how simple they are.
And tomorrow I'm going to talk to her.
12.7.09
Stirring water
This place is stagnant. Living is too much to do without having to write directly about it.
Not that most people come here to see anyway.
Don't feel much like writing this. Only started because I read someone else's blog. I have better stories to write, one for a competition, a few others for personal enjoyment. Before those, I still have to handle a reflection on polymers, which I will write with all my effort.
My hope is that my teacher will either be dazzled, baffled or annoyed. I aim for the third, because then she bring it up in class and make things interesting for a while.
Not that most people come here to see anyway.
Don't feel much like writing this. Only started because I read someone else's blog. I have better stories to write, one for a competition, a few others for personal enjoyment. Before those, I still have to handle a reflection on polymers, which I will write with all my effort.
My hope is that my teacher will either be dazzled, baffled or annoyed. I aim for the third, because then she bring it up in class and make things interesting for a while.
2.5.09
An Extract from Pathogen
Too lazy to carry on Million posts. Too lazy to write a proper post. Too lazy to make this bite-sized. Below, a message from one of my stories to celebrate the new month.
Enjoy.
The van jolts once or twice more as weaker Bolters lose their grips and fall off the roof. It helps little. We are still in the god-forsaken grass, after all. In spite of all this, the driver happily maintains his pace, white teeth flashing whenever I see the rearview mirror. Ten thousand kilometres on a clear day, I think, ten metres in grass.
Indeed, the grass has become so tall even sunlight begins to find difficulty in entering. Surely the Bolters find it no hindrance, for even as I observe this six vaguely foot-shaped dents have appeared in the van roof.
‘Whack them off,’ says Alf unemotionally.
‘No,’ says Lockheed. ‘Sit down, guys. I gotta see how many of them will fall off later.’
Somehow, he finds it within his ability to push down the pedal even harder. He turns left, then banks. With a hollow rush of wind we leave the grass, exchanging them for trees. Lockheed maintains his bank, managing to evade a tree trunk that passes maybe a foot to our right.
Just in front of that tree trunk is a copse of rather stout trees, bowers hanging low in the dim light. They remain hanging, much to the Bolters’ misfortune. Terrible crunches come above and behind the van, but for that we go faster.
Lockheed lifts his foot and rides the van on the momentum. He looks left and right as he orients himself. He swivels the steering wheel suddenly to put us back on the main road. He does not resist as the van draws to a stop.
I cannot resist my temptation either. I lean forward, to the side of his head, and ask, ‘Is there something out there?’
He places a finger just in front of my lips. Flor sees this, but I know she can, so I am prepared when she jolts me forward. I sit back down, glowering.
We wait in silence. Utter silence. Our rampage through the forest has scared the local residents into muteness. Or they may be expecting another rampage.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. It’s Alf. I’m not as surprised as I would have been when he pushes me gently to the side and leans to the centre of the van. He makes a gesture with his left hand, index and middle fingers covering the top of his thumb, ring and pinky at the thumb tip. He places the side with the thumb to his eye.
The gunmen turn around and draw out small slits in the van wall. Very small. One narrow slit for viewing, a slightly wider one for gun placement. They use them both. Flor and I make way for them by moving to the back and watching the van rear.
Alf calls his men’s attention again and signs sentry duty for twenty minutes. Lockheed sees this and signs back at Alf. He must be concerned over waiting so long. They try to convey details with their hands and give up.
Alf whispers his stand in Lockheed’s ear, Lockheed his in Alf’s. They have their debate of low decibels for two minutes, before Alf signs ten minutes. It hardly makes difference to me. I’ve yet to see any clues that can reveal anything concise about the infected’s plans.
No clues at all. I search long and hard. Clues lying in the environment around elude me. Pointers of infected presence are absent. A tracker could conclusively say that this place was free.
I wonder this myself. All the infected wanted was their nexus, after all. A small group of speedy individuals was hardly worth the minute fraction of the force they could spare. Twenty Bolters wouldn’t lessen their effective power.
I have all these thoughts. I look at them. I accept them as logical and based on firm evidence of the past performance of infected. Then I carry on waiting.
A feeling of wrongness needles me. I can’t help but think that something is wrong. It feels like the border of a jigsaw puzzle has been assembled, but the interior is being filled up with wooden blocks. Unevenness in perception breeds doubt. I, I who observes, take note of the squirming doubt within me. It is a worm. Some horrible little maggot that was placed into me as a pallid waxy egg and has hatched into merely an immature form of the monster it will become. I am powerless to stop it as it consumes my substance, breaking down my body into proteins and fats and sugars, and cracking those substances for energy. I watch helplessly as it grows fat on my mental landscape. I look out through the slits, doubt gorging itself on all my logic.
Alf looks at his watch and signs that we’re leaving. I look at my watch. Five minutes have just passed. I hurriedly correct Alf. Any other time, it might have been a minor error. Here, everything will add up. The parts of my mind tainted by doubt say so. He insists ten minutes have passed. The men next to him are divided over it. They check their own watches, and I watch doubt propagate. I understand its life cycle. It will reach maturity when we are all riddled by doubt.
As the gunmen check among themselves, they lean away from the slits. I peer out into the open. In the forest, nothing but tree trunks in their solace, however intimate their leaves are with one another. Nothing could come up without being detected. In the grass on the other side, a small breeze whips the top of the leaf blades. Shashshaaa, they go.
Shashshaaa. I flick my eyes across the entirety of the cellulose wall, looking for something to sate my doubt, and hopefully the doubt of the others.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing is the clue to the touch of the infected, nothing the tracks of slouching slobbering half-dead bodies, nothing the vestiges of past presence for investigation.
And I find nothing standing in the grass parallel to the van, neatly in the centre of the van wall. Right where nothing came from, and could continue telling us there was nothing.
I raise my gun and I pull two fingers and I see the discoloured blood spurt out from the hidden Genie, behind the van wall, head in front of the slit, right between two hysterical people.
Tension flows into the air, out of our bodies. Doubt dies. Danger comes.
‘Drive, Bridge!’ I scream. He gladly does so.
As we depart the rapidly amiable forest, we see two balls lying in the dirt, one a head, one a distended abdomen. They slowly deflate as viscous green-grey fluid flows out.
Enjoy.
The van jolts once or twice more as weaker Bolters lose their grips and fall off the roof. It helps little. We are still in the god-forsaken grass, after all. In spite of all this, the driver happily maintains his pace, white teeth flashing whenever I see the rearview mirror. Ten thousand kilometres on a clear day, I think, ten metres in grass.
Indeed, the grass has become so tall even sunlight begins to find difficulty in entering. Surely the Bolters find it no hindrance, for even as I observe this six vaguely foot-shaped dents have appeared in the van roof.
‘Whack them off,’ says Alf unemotionally.
‘No,’ says Lockheed. ‘Sit down, guys. I gotta see how many of them will fall off later.’
Somehow, he finds it within his ability to push down the pedal even harder. He turns left, then banks. With a hollow rush of wind we leave the grass, exchanging them for trees. Lockheed maintains his bank, managing to evade a tree trunk that passes maybe a foot to our right.
Just in front of that tree trunk is a copse of rather stout trees, bowers hanging low in the dim light. They remain hanging, much to the Bolters’ misfortune. Terrible crunches come above and behind the van, but for that we go faster.
Lockheed lifts his foot and rides the van on the momentum. He looks left and right as he orients himself. He swivels the steering wheel suddenly to put us back on the main road. He does not resist as the van draws to a stop.
I cannot resist my temptation either. I lean forward, to the side of his head, and ask, ‘Is there something out there?’
He places a finger just in front of my lips. Flor sees this, but I know she can, so I am prepared when she jolts me forward. I sit back down, glowering.
We wait in silence. Utter silence. Our rampage through the forest has scared the local residents into muteness. Or they may be expecting another rampage.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. It’s Alf. I’m not as surprised as I would have been when he pushes me gently to the side and leans to the centre of the van. He makes a gesture with his left hand, index and middle fingers covering the top of his thumb, ring and pinky at the thumb tip. He places the side with the thumb to his eye.
The gunmen turn around and draw out small slits in the van wall. Very small. One narrow slit for viewing, a slightly wider one for gun placement. They use them both. Flor and I make way for them by moving to the back and watching the van rear.
Alf calls his men’s attention again and signs sentry duty for twenty minutes. Lockheed sees this and signs back at Alf. He must be concerned over waiting so long. They try to convey details with their hands and give up.
Alf whispers his stand in Lockheed’s ear, Lockheed his in Alf’s. They have their debate of low decibels for two minutes, before Alf signs ten minutes. It hardly makes difference to me. I’ve yet to see any clues that can reveal anything concise about the infected’s plans.
No clues at all. I search long and hard. Clues lying in the environment around elude me. Pointers of infected presence are absent. A tracker could conclusively say that this place was free.
I wonder this myself. All the infected wanted was their nexus, after all. A small group of speedy individuals was hardly worth the minute fraction of the force they could spare. Twenty Bolters wouldn’t lessen their effective power.
I have all these thoughts. I look at them. I accept them as logical and based on firm evidence of the past performance of infected. Then I carry on waiting.
A feeling of wrongness needles me. I can’t help but think that something is wrong. It feels like the border of a jigsaw puzzle has been assembled, but the interior is being filled up with wooden blocks. Unevenness in perception breeds doubt. I, I who observes, take note of the squirming doubt within me. It is a worm. Some horrible little maggot that was placed into me as a pallid waxy egg and has hatched into merely an immature form of the monster it will become. I am powerless to stop it as it consumes my substance, breaking down my body into proteins and fats and sugars, and cracking those substances for energy. I watch helplessly as it grows fat on my mental landscape. I look out through the slits, doubt gorging itself on all my logic.
Alf looks at his watch and signs that we’re leaving. I look at my watch. Five minutes have just passed. I hurriedly correct Alf. Any other time, it might have been a minor error. Here, everything will add up. The parts of my mind tainted by doubt say so. He insists ten minutes have passed. The men next to him are divided over it. They check their own watches, and I watch doubt propagate. I understand its life cycle. It will reach maturity when we are all riddled by doubt.
As the gunmen check among themselves, they lean away from the slits. I peer out into the open. In the forest, nothing but tree trunks in their solace, however intimate their leaves are with one another. Nothing could come up without being detected. In the grass on the other side, a small breeze whips the top of the leaf blades. Shashshaaa, they go.
Shashshaaa. I flick my eyes across the entirety of the cellulose wall, looking for something to sate my doubt, and hopefully the doubt of the others.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing is the clue to the touch of the infected, nothing the tracks of slouching slobbering half-dead bodies, nothing the vestiges of past presence for investigation.
And I find nothing standing in the grass parallel to the van, neatly in the centre of the van wall. Right where nothing came from, and could continue telling us there was nothing.
I raise my gun and I pull two fingers and I see the discoloured blood spurt out from the hidden Genie, behind the van wall, head in front of the slit, right between two hysterical people.
Tension flows into the air, out of our bodies. Doubt dies. Danger comes.
‘Drive, Bridge!’ I scream. He gladly does so.
As we depart the rapidly amiable forest, we see two balls lying in the dirt, one a head, one a distended abdomen. They slowly deflate as viscous green-grey fluid flows out.
26.4.09
Million Part 2
Speaking about our bodies, we have at least 10^13 cells in our body, or ten trillion. Other figures go as high to 50 to 75 trillion cells.
Now admit it. You look at 10 trillion cells, and then at 50 trillion cells, and all you say is 'Oh'. Doesn't matter that the first figure is 1,600 times our world population, and that the second one 8,000 times.
Indeed, this number is baffling in more ways than one. 10 trillion cells fitted into a body 1.7m by 0.1m by 0.4m on average is something rather unimaginable, however real it is. The resources required to keep all these cells alive is just as, if not more, perplexing to anyone without scientific knowledge.
Now admit it. You look at 10 trillion cells, and then at 50 trillion cells, and all you say is 'Oh'. Doesn't matter that the first figure is 1,600 times our world population, and that the second one 8,000 times.
Indeed, this number is baffling in more ways than one. 10 trillion cells fitted into a body 1.7m by 0.1m by 0.4m on average is something rather unimaginable, however real it is. The resources required to keep all these cells alive is just as, if not more, perplexing to anyone without scientific knowledge.
22.4.09
A Death is a Tragedy, A Million is a Statistic
Normally attributed to Josef Stalin, this quote has the dually depressing nature of being both nonsensical and aptly descriptive of human nature.
Why should it be, you may ask at first. A million deaths is at least the effects of one death multiplied by a million times. That is where the problem comes in. Humans don't cope well with large numbers. At some point, differing in various populations, humans start seeing thousands or tens of thousands as digits put together. In the human mind, the numbers are converted to standard form, and then the tens dropped off until it's time for bookkeeping.
Leaving the grim subject of death, take distance as an example. The top two or three stories of Raffles City are left fairly empty to create a large chamber. Looking at it, I wonder at how much space there is up there. Then I look at the sky. The sky has such a deep blue colour and such magnitude we just file it away as background, less important than the 10m-long bus driving up. Well, the sky is almost one thousand kilometres high. To help you, imagine Thailand propped up vertically with its southernmost point on the ground. Its northernmost point would just clear the exosphere. A human barely reaches 2m on average. How puny we are.
Why should it be, you may ask at first. A million deaths is at least the effects of one death multiplied by a million times. That is where the problem comes in. Humans don't cope well with large numbers. At some point, differing in various populations, humans start seeing thousands or tens of thousands as digits put together. In the human mind, the numbers are converted to standard form, and then the tens dropped off until it's time for bookkeeping.
Leaving the grim subject of death, take distance as an example. The top two or three stories of Raffles City are left fairly empty to create a large chamber. Looking at it, I wonder at how much space there is up there. Then I look at the sky. The sky has such a deep blue colour and such magnitude we just file it away as background, less important than the 10m-long bus driving up. Well, the sky is almost one thousand kilometres high. To help you, imagine Thailand propped up vertically with its southernmost point on the ground. Its northernmost point would just clear the exosphere. A human barely reaches 2m on average. How puny we are.
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