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I went for the Expo Sale yesterday. Everything is so cheap that it's really tempting! But I'm trying not to spend so that I won't feel so guilty spending during my trip. Lol. So I didn't spend at all. Mainly because 1) I wasn't there to shop for myself 2) I had no energy to shop 3) I want to spend more on my trip. Anyway he night before I slept for like 9 hours but somehow I was a zombie all day. And I walked till my feet hurt, too. :( After that met Yilun and Guo Tong for dinner and supper last night. Did some catching up. :)

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My urticaria is so recurrent that I'm starting to believe my GP saying that it's unlikely that the cause is food. As far as I know, for hives due to food allergies, the outbreaks usually subside pretty quickly, like in less than a day. But mine is dragging. It's been almost a week already. And it always appears when I'm asleep, and starts to itch only when I wake the next morning. A worrying trend is also that everytime I reduce my dosage of steroids (per the doctor's instructions), it finds the chance to attack again. :( I wonder what will happen when I finish my last course of steroids. Sigh. My holidays have been quite sad. I haven't been well for a single day. Save for 5 and 6 Dec. Even now, I'm still suffering from residual symptoms of my flu, which are taking forever to go away. :(

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I used to have a friend whom I was very close to, but whom I later found out was everything a nasty person could be. I was indignant and angry because I thought no one saw her ugly side except me, and I thought that it would take a lot to understand how she really is like. And I didn't like knowing that others would learn it the hard way, just like I did. I wanted very much to tell the whole world what I'd found out about her, but I didn't. Silently, I swallowed my anger. It was difficult. But as time went by, I heard more and more stories from different people about how unpopular she had become in the various organisations she had set foot in.

Now that I've left all that behind me - in fact, I did so a long, long time ago, it's all clear to me now. I didn't even have to badmouth her. People simply, found out about her ugly character. I guess it's in human nature to distinguish sincerity from superficial interaction.

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At some point in time, we all contemplate our future. How it'd be like. We think about the macro details, right down to the nitty gritty details of everyday life in the future. The people we'll be spending time with, our careers, our new families, and so on. It's inevitable. Some people live for the moment, but I find myself always glancing into the future, trying to picture my life. And it makes me worry. When I stumble upon an idealistic thought that may not materialise. When I stumble upon a possibility I don't quite fancy. But maybe I really should learn to live for the present. Quoting The Little Manual of Happiness (by Vikas Malkani), "Happiness does not depend on your tomorrow; happiness is today, the present moment."

Such a simple statement. Yet, I think that its meaning goes beyond what it seems to convey. It's so much easier said than done. I do agree that if we treasure what we have today without worrying ourselves silly over the future, we'd all be happier people. At the same time, it would be a show of lack of self-love not to give any thought to the future at all. I always believe in forward planning and saving for a rainy day. I think this is what makes it so difficult to draw the line. It's a fine line between over-worrying about the future, and making necessary preparations for it. And I seem to gravitate towards the former most of the time. It's just this innate part of me that's always worrying about the good things ending, and the bad things that don't exist starting.

My experiences in life have further nurtured that part of me, probably because I hope easily, yet my hopes are easily shattered as well. So when something bad happens that falls below my expectations, I get devastated. And then I start to apply this possibility to the other things in my life, and that's where the worry cycle begins. When I do well in exams, I worry about keeping my standard up. When I do badly, I start to imagine the very worst for upcoming exams. In that sense, it's never really a happy thing to either succeed or fail, is it? But I've grown so used to this that it has literally become a negative philosophy in my life I depend on. I always imagine the worst so that I'm mentally prepared, but I probably overdo it.

I think I digress very easily when I blog. Seems to reflect my nature offline as well. I realised that when I talk about something, when I happen to mention something that is of interest to me in another way, I start to go offtrack. It's addictive. Anyway, the point I wanted to make about contemplating about the future is... Some things are probably in human nature. I don't make sense. I don't mean to anyway so it's okay.

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Religion plays a different part in everyone's lives. For staunch believers, many of the things that they do or that happen in their lives, they relate back to their respective gods. For others, however, religion is totally useless and unnecessary. I happen to fall somewhere in between, with some gravitation towards the latter. The truth is, I am not an athiest. I do not propagate that no god or creator exists. I accept that it is reasonably possible, but at the same time, I'm never letting go of the possibility of the flipside; that no god exists. In other words, I'm agnostic.

What this entails is that even after finding out about the different religions, I am unlikely to subscribe to any of them. I rather like existing as a bystander with a bird's eye view of the different religions. I refuse to commit to any of them, because I always want to retain this ability to critique each and every one of them, to always question and wonder. You see, it is really quite impossible for a religious cynic like me to accept and embrace wholeheartedly something that is not proven to me to be true or to exist. Even if I do believe in the existence of a god, I will never be able to let go of the dubiousness of that notion. How can I ever be a good religious follower, then?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I'm not entering into a religion because I think I won't make a good believer. You should see it more as being that someone like me will never pick a religion, simply because, I know I can't believe fully in any of them. It's a kind if incapacitation. Not really a disability; no, I wouldn't quite call it that. In fact, I'm most happy with the way I am.

I'm not really concerned about what happens to me after I die. Hell, I don't even believe in the distinction between heaven and hell. I do what I want to fulfil this life that I live right now. I don't mean to say that I disapprove of believing in a religion. I think that, if that's the way some people would like their lives to be guided, and if that's the way they find their purpose and meaning in life, there isn't anything wrong, as long as no one is harmed in the process. I just think that religion is not a one-size-fits-all thing. It doesn't work for everyone in the same way, in that, some people prefer to be guided by their own personal beliefs. Very individual and unique values that can't be found in any religion.

Also, religion, in my opinion, seems to erode the uniqueness of each individual, and the ability of each individual to think for himself. Once you subscribe to a religion, you are really subscribing to some belief that would inevitably influence the way you think and carry out your life. And to me, I think I rather enjoy the freedom to decide how my life should be led, and why I do or don't do certain things. And in some sense, I guess it doesn't really matter to me what happens to me after I die. I believe that as long as I haven't been a monster in my lifetime, I won't be banished to hell or anything like that. That is, if hell exists to begin with.

Someone said that religion is human construction. I think that's an interesting thought. It is because the world around us is filled with so much uncertainty, that humans probably had to devise a way to explain what they cannot explain using other means. For example, science can explain the technicalities of the occurrence of seasons. But it cannot explain how they came into existence. So religion comes in to fill the gap. At the same time, humans probably started to wonder about the purpose behind their very existence. Who put them into existence, and why? Again, science will never be able to answer such questions, and that's probably where religion came in, too.

Whatever it is, I've always been fascinated by the concept of religion, and I will continue to be. I think it's always very interesting to find out the differing beliefs of the various religions. And why they believe certain things that other religions don't. But the fact remains that I will always question every religion, and I believe that there will always be questions about each religion that nobody can ever answer. Tell me to put my faith in something so doubtful? No thanks. I'd rather maintain my status as an objective bystander. :)

Posted at 12:44 PM

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Since 14 Dec 08