Memento Mori

I had a rather interesting discussion with a friend yesterday regarding the important distinction between having no fear of death, and enjoying the active pursuit of death. A challenge I often encounter when claiming that I do not fear death, is that I should perhaps go kill myself right away, since I do not fear death and thus should be courageous enough to do so. Frankly, if I responded to that claim every time I encountered it, I would be dead many times over.

Since I am typing this, I am of this moment quite un-dead. I probably would remain so for some time, bar unforeseen circumstances, given the particular quirk of my bloodline. Regardless, I think it is important to distinguish between pursuing death and having no fear of it. For example, I may not fear the average passer-by, but it would be silly of me to "prove" that lack of fear by punching random people in the face. There really is nothing to prove here. In the case of pursuing death, I believe hypocrisy is readily proven by the simple fact that self-claimed pursuers of death are generally still alive when they speak of it, thus invalidating their claim. 'nuff said. On the flip side, however, I also believe that living life in the active evasion of death is equally foolhardy: one stops living for oneself and does so more for the sake of survival itself. Neither seems to me like a good way to live.

I believe memento mori is a pertinent philosophical guide here. One should learn to accept one's mortality. Life will end...sooner or later. Knowing so and accepting it frees oneself from the extremes of pursuing and avoiding death. Che sera sera and all that. That is when one can finally begin to truly appreciate life for what it is. To this I have received challenges before, that I should prove my lack of fear by proceeding to off myself. And to those challenges I say bollocks. If one needs to prove such a thing in the here and now, one is simply willing to go ahead while one still has the guts for it. I'd say the proof is in the pudding: I can find that out for myself in that undefined future when time finally catches up with me.

Terrible Service

Today, I experienced the worst of all bad service so far. I was eating at a cafe with company, and the place was fairly crowded. After a reasonable wait, part of our order was delivered. Given the crowd, it was to be expected that the other part would take awhile. Of course, this is where the problems began.

We ordered a pair of pizzas, and only one arrived. The waiter said that the second one would come soon. It occurs to us that no plates, paper napkins or utensils were brought out. We ask for water. Fifteen minutes pass. We ask the waiter, and are assured that the pizza would come. Still no cutlery, and no water either. I had to chase them for the napkins and cutlery. Half an hour passes. Still no pizza. The water had to be collected personally even though it should've been served. The kitchen has been instructed to prepare one as a priority order. Three quarters of an hour. The waiter indicates that the order has been passed down, but the kitchen isn't bringing it out. Food continues to flow out to other tables. An hour passes. Waiter asks whether we wish to cancel the pizza order. What. The. Hell.

I think I do not need to describe exactly what went wrong here. The situation is quite self explanatory. Perhaps I should have declined when they turned out to be really sloppy with the reservation procedure. First I tried calling them. They said the reservations were only taken online. Fair enough. I made a reservation online a few days in advance, and was told that the place was full out. Wow that's pretty hot. I got a call yesterday saying that one reservation was withdrawn, so I was happy to be slotted in. I requested that they send a confirmation email just in case. They did not. I sent an email reminder, figuring that they were bus and forgot. Still no response. On hindsight, I figure that if they could not be bothered to respond promptly to their sole means of securing reservations, I shouldn't have expected them to provide good service. There goes a potentially good evening.

Back To Training

It's time to get back to physical training. After doing 3 months of rather sedentary work, I can really feel things going south with my overall fitness level. Hell, even if it my fitness wasn't going south too quickly, I'd think it's generally a bad thing to let it go south in the first place. Besides, I'm probably getting fat as well, now that I prod at my tummy.

For the record, it's lightweight stuff, with my trusty old dumbbells and grip bars. High reps, low load. That kind of thing. Even a bit of training is better than nothing, methinks.

The next step would be to get back to working the abs and my lower back. Keeping those in tone would probably do wonders for my posture, which at this point is admittedly not good at all. Something needs to be done about that for sure. Now that I just did my first session in quite a while, I do find myself feeling pretty darned good. Things can only get better from here.

Heritage Sites

I've been mulling over the whole world heritage site concept, and really...while admirable as an anchor to counterbalance the inexorable march of progress, I wonder just how sustainable such a concept can be. For example, site A is preserved because it is worthy of conservation. Eventually B, C, D and so on get selected. It stands to reason that increasing tracts of land will be frozen from redevelopment in order to preserve the integrity of the sites.

The question, then, is whether there will come a point where heritage sites take up such a significant proportion of valuable landmass that their heritage status will have to be revoked. It seems to be the case, seeing as how heritage sites that were manmade tend to be on plots of land that are in some way useful to humans. It therefore stands to reason that some people will invariably desire it for their use at some point.

Of course, the flip side is the sustainability of cultural and natural heritage. If things of natural beauty and human cultural heritage were to be swept away in the tide of progress, how then will there be anything left for the descendants? This is one balance I am glad I do not have to administer, because I do not have the answer to it at this point.

Office Politics

Office politics are always interesting. I learned today that someone was being quite the asshole, playing the CC game at work. That works by bringing an argument before bosses by CC'ing them in an email. Of course, seeing as how I have not actually witnessed the person doing such a thing, there remains a non zero possibility that I received this story as part of a political maneuver.

What is interesting is that even though I believe that I was not lied to, every maneuver within a social setting is effectively a political move. The only really important distinction is between whether the move is benevolent or malicious. The simple act of warning someone against a genuinely malicious person is a political act in itself because it will adversely affect the person's opinion of that malicious someone. However, due to its good intentions, I expect it is something that is desirable in a professional work environment. In fact, it may be something to be encouraged, seeing as how it is a good way to bring such acts to everyones' attention and thus to reduce the incidence of vicious games at the office.

Darren Shan

Darren Shan...that oh so weird series. I guess it really is a matter of time before people get sick of the traditional styled vampire tales and go with a reinvention of what it is to be a vampire. I picked up the book at the library because I noticed that it bore the Cirque Du Freak series label, and figured I might as well find out what it was about.

One thing I'd say to the author's credit is that the Darren Shan series just isn't your average teen romance masquerading as a vampire story junk. It's quite a bit darker, and has some interesting themes of acceptance and difference. That said, I cannot say I liked it overly much. I mean really...it's really kinda weird having vampires cutting their victims with their nails to draw blood, then using spit to heal the wound back up. Really? Seriously?

That said, I really couldn't be bothered to continue the series. Especially not since I'm reading another dhampir series at this point. Time's limited, and I guess not every youth-targeted vamp novel series is going to appeal to me. The last time I read a good one was probably by Lisa J Smith.

Karate Kid

I got to watch the Karate Kid today. I believe this film is a whole lot less cheesy than the initial offering. Surprisingly enough, I think the remake is actually better than the original. Then again, perhaps I am just biased against orientalist exoticization and all that.

Anyway first things first: It's NOT a karate show. Dammit...just why would they ride on the Karate Kid brand and make it a kung fu flick. Granted, there was a goodly bit more emotional involvement in this show, moving beyond platitudes on the code of conduct in martial arts towards some sort of backstory for the characters. I especially liked that the kung fu master was not just some guy living on a high mountain and not having very much to him besides that.

That aside, the show's really your average good vs evil tale, whereby an underdog protagonist has to deal with a bunch of really powerful and vicious "evil" dudes. Interestingly, the "evil" guys turned out to be more misled than actually intrinsically ill intentioned.

I'd say the show deserves a clean 8.5/10, even though I personally believe that kung fu shows should have fewer of the flashy techniques. That's just my personal bent, and I guess the kinds of things I'd like to see are not quite suited for public viewing.

Points Of Death

I know, I know. I deal with this topic a lot. But of course, mortality is such a fascinating topic to ponder. Right now my focus is towards what one could think of as conceptual death. By conceptual death, I mean how can we map out with some certainty the boundaries that split the living from the dead in the conceptual sense.

For example, someone may be "dead" to others by becoming so overwhelmingly evil that others are horrified into denying that person's status as a living human. That person's personality has been destroyed, and the person becomes conceptually dead. Alternatively, someone may be brain dead and have effectively no personality while lying on the bed, yet this person may well be conceptually alive, as evidenced by the general unwillingness to end this person's life.

As with most conceptual things, we probably already know that different people put different weightages to different acts and statuses. Like a highly religious person may deem another to be conceptually dead for apostasy. However, the fact remains that there is most certainly a tipping point beyond which one is deemed to be too far gone. Also, it may be possible to map out the point values for each individual person, and thus derive just how many "life points" each person really has in the eyes of others. I have not actually created a life points table at this juncture, though.

Promoted To Incompetence

One thing that never ceases to amaze and amuse me is just how it is possible for someone to be promoted into incompetence. When someone is good at their work, they may be assumed to be good enough to try out a superior position. As a result, they are promoted. Of course, we know the cycle eventually winds up promoting someone into a position they are really not very good at. We also know that the sound decision in this situation, to step down, is very difficult to make considering how much prestige is lost from the move.

Allowing people to try out the new position, and pull back if found unsuitable, seems to be a fair solution to such situations. However, the other very real issue is how a superior position's pay is almost invariably higher than that of a lower position. This presents a rather strong disincentive for would-be demoters: even if no prestige is lost, salary would go down as well.

Pay just does not seem to scale well in relation to performance/productivity. A highly productive tier 1 employee may do more for the company than a mediocre tier 2, yet the tier 2 will most likely earn more. It makes little economic sense. In fact, some companies deliberately refrain from promoting a highly skilled employee out of the fear that doing so would result in the loss of a good performer. Were the pay structure to be revised to allow a flatter salary distribution amongst the tiers, it may well be that a superior personnel spread could be achieved.

Ip Man

It is quite interesting that while I watched Ip Man 2 just recently, the bus driver played Ip Man 1 on the trip enroute home from up north. I am very much inclined to agree that Ip Man 1 was superior to its sequel if only just because of its plausibility. Ip Man's tribulations under the Japanese during WWII seemed that much more credible and emotionally engaging than some pride-inspired tiff with the British. It is one thing to be forced to fight for one's family's survival. It is quite another to be obliged to do so simply to preserve honor.

I also appreciated that Ip Man 1 had quite a bit more brutality than in 2. If I am going to watch a martial arts oriented show, I would certainly expect it to have extensive culture. And I dare say it's lived up to my expectations.

I'd think Ip Man deserves 8/10. Blood scores points.