Direction

When I was a kid, my father hoped I would be a great scientist who would do much good for humanity.

Unfortunately that has not came true at all. Sorry, Dad.

One thing with society is everyone keeps telling you: "To achieve something, you need to have a direction in life. A purpose, an aim." The idea is everyone should know what they want to do since they are a kid, and stick with that all the way till the grave. Of course, parents hope that their kids aim at being a lawyer or doctor.

The trouble is I have never really knew what I want to do with my life, and I suspect many other people do not as well. Most of us just settle into the most comfortable position that we happen to stumble upon, and remain there for our entire lives, with varying degrees of happiness.

And this is not necessarily a bad thing - if everyone had an undying passion that could never be quenched by the passage of time for what they wanted to do, the world would be scary indeed. Tons of people would be killing themselves for not being able to make it into law or medical school, even more people with zero talent would keep trying to become singers and actors, and when the structure of the economy changes all those whose jobs no longer exist would be doomed.

Flexibility, which in a way is linked to the lack of extreme passion, is key for our society's resilience.

I never had much of an idea as to what I wanted to do. When I was younger, I entertained the idea of becoming a writer, but after taking a look at the number of people who actually earn big money from writing, I decided it was not going to be my full-time job. I then briefly thought of acting, but after being a spare in a certain drama production, the idea of endless reruns scared me off.

Later in college I did Finance with the idea of being an investment banker, which sounded pretty cool at the time. I did actually secure an offer with the Malaysian Stock Exchange; unfortunately the pay was really low. So when my current company offered me a much better package, I immediately said goodbye to my dreams of high finance.

When that happened, I realized that I was never really that keen on finance anyway. I just wanted the money.

And so I suppose many people are like me. We are not absolutely sure what we want to do in life, and a number of things are fine as long as they pay enough and we don't hate our lives while doing them. So yes, we have no direction if you speak of direction as a career path, which is what society has always drilled into me.

But if you speak of direction as a purpose, then I suppose my purpose is to be good in whatever field I am in, to deliver high quality work to people who rely on me, to be honest and trustworthy to others. It may not sound as poignant as "I want to be a doctor and help people", but I suppose it is something I can truly follow.

And I hope I never forget it as long as I live.

The future of Gender Relations

I've met many girls who say they want to date a guy who is "superior" to them. This sentiment seems to have been prevalent throughout history; it is ascribed to girls wanting to feel protected. Understandable.

The question is then: how do we define superiority? Long long ago it was probably physical strength and fighting prowess, as in the man must be able to fight against saber toothed tigers or hunt antelopes better than his woman. As most men are much stronger than most women, this criteria doesn't pose much of a problem for men.

As society progresses, the criteria of superiority slowly switched from physical power and courage to intellect, and earning capacity. This wasn't hard to do seeing as higher education and the job market was mostly male-dominated.

However as we move into the modern age, it's getting harder and harder for men to claim superiority in intellect, as we can see in Malaysia more girls go to university than guys. Same for earning power as women draw closer in terms of equality.

So now society faces two choices in terms of finding a partner. One of the two choices must be made or else things will go haywire:

A. Girls (and guys too) accept that the man doesn't have to be "superior".
B. A new criteria of "superiority" has to be set.

If neither of these two choices are made and we continue on our present path of increasing equality, the necessary outcome is that fewer and fewer girls can find a guy who matches up to their expectations. So either the number of unhappy marriages increase, or the total number of marriages decrease.

Perhaps this is humanity's way of combating overpopulation.

Popularity and Uniqueness

We often hear the sentiment repeated to "be yourself" and not "try to blend in for the sake of being popular". The image of a solitary thinker alienated by the masses of sheep-like people is often invoked, and in a way being popular is seen as a foolish thing - demeaning to intellect and creativity. Real outstanding thinkers are supposed to stand out from the crowd.

Rubbish.

The days when Galileo was persecuted by the Church for maintaining that the earth revolved around the sun are long gone. Nowadays people who stand out are celebrated - Steve Jobs is practically deified, scientists like Einstein and Hawking garner immense respect, and people who dress weirdly like Lady Gaga have a cult following.

Being outstanding or unique in no way makes one disliked in today's world. People of today are definitely more open minded than any time in history, sometimes too open minded, as we can see from UFO cults.

The attractiveness of the idea "being great means being unpopular" is that if one is unpopular one can use that statement to comfort oneself. Which is totally stupid.

Most unlikeable people are unlikeable not because they are unconventional, but because they are unpleasant. Or unsociable. So instead of brooding on their greatness, I would suggest fixing what is wrong.

Imagine the reverse

In life we lament many things. Yet if we pause for a moment to ponder what would happen if the reverse of what we lamented was true, we will often find that such a situation would make us far more sad.

Let us investigate a few statements, and their implied reverse:

1. "How come those pretty girls always have an ugly bf? (or handsome guys have an ugly gf)"

If this was never the case, the world would be hard-coded into the state of "beautiful people date each other" and "ugly people date each other". Over centuries, the human gene pool would diverge into two races, a beautiful one and a ogre like one. The two races would then wage war on each other.

A very dreadful thought right?

2. "How come rich kids tend to be useless?"

If rich kids were always extremely capable, the rich would grow richer and richer over time, and us poor people would never have a chance at all. In time the wealth of the world would be in the hands of only a few families.

A very dreadful thought right?

3. "How come girls never appreciate guys who treat them well?"

Say girls all based their choice of boyfriend on the sole criteria of how much the guy pampered her.

That would be the most horrifying thought in existence... all the guys in the world would have to be engaged in a race of "who can pamper the girl more". Soon only 24/7 slave service would qualify you to date a girl.

(the same applies for girls who ask the same question in reverse)

In a nutshell:

Be careful for what you wish for.