codes 2 - adherence

motivated by some underwritten idea of fairness (which i admit from c s lewis' principle of moral objectivity), sometimes manifesting itself as not letting someone get away with what everyone else lawfully abides by, or permitting no exception, because of some abstract notion of maintaining a form of cohesiveness of outloook, or the impetus for an overarching structure of order to scaffold all behaviours interconnectedly so that all actions have their place, or even a harmony of sentiment driven by the discomfort at the jarring and out-of-place (literally the chinese expression that what is observed does not sit well with the eye): these express the paradigm of adherence.

social codes

granting that there are of course rules of conduct, both codified and unspoken, for workplaces, educational institutions, public venues, etc, it still is surprising, and often annoying, how there'll always be a party which will impose more control than stipulated, and others who will decry any form of rigorous interpretation of such strictures.

at a workplace, some will tut-tut at the slightly bared midriff, the shorter skirt; the student is stereotyped by his or her need to always push boundaries of shoe colour and hairstyle; hugging/kissing/petting in trains/parks/cinemas; private nudity at a heartland hdb home with undrawn curtains: some people get genuinely upset by what they see as a transgession of social and behavioural norms, and some don't care. some want more rules, some fewer.

no point telling one group to be less anal, or the other to buck up. more on this.

the timed exam

the least pleasant part of any educational process, involving extensive and tedious rote preparation, anticipation of an environment and a framework quite unlike anything realistic, acquisition of specific skills of focus, analysis, pace, coherence, among others, held together by a certain mental and emotional disposition. not unlike the actual competition event in a sport - its nearest equivalent.

funny how the artificiality of it all, its ceterus paribus-like quality is desired as a means of most accurately assessing ability. no other condition is more clinical and devoid, more reductive of man as comparative performance engine.

success

barring providence, fortune or whim of fate, most success comes from having put in the requisite effort, time, investment etc in order to produce the desired result. bodybuilder pumps iron 3 hours a day, takes his steroids, sticks to a bland chicken breast diet; top-notch lawyer puts in 16-hour work days, schmoozes with the right set, stabs and connives for opportunities up the ladder; all-distinction student slogs all day, reads only the most arcane of theory textbooks, joins olympiads, and so on and so on.

here's a perspective: looking at success as undesirable because it would entail becoming the kind of person one might loathe to be, or doing the things one might abhor, in order to be in that position of success. so rather than admiring the buff, trim musculature of the erstwhile bodybuilder, one pities how such a major part of his life has gone down the drain in achieving something of such inconsequence.

to have wasted one's life becoming powerful, rich, beautiful, smart, to have wasted it becoming successful, is a horror and a tragedy.

minority report

quite vindicated when i discovered oscaraustin noticed as well that the protesters in town for the world bank / imf conference et al who were deported were traced via their cellphone signals.

remember these aren't local handphones. which means they were on the watchlist even before they arrived. i would have expected such scrupulous security for suspected terrorists, but activists?

remember also they hadn't done anything yet. they were disbarred based on what it was assumed they would do. 'precrime', in the words of philip k dick. four million smiles only for those with agreeable intent.

theft

an ex's momentarily unattended wallet was pilfered right in front of her at the airport check-in counter, five years back i had to fill in a column in a police report for a shoplifting student, more recently a hobby hangout had an audacious hit of missing product, to top it all i know a purported klepto.

it's hardly about need and lack of course, not at this day and age. so i've often tried to imagine the impulse that drives the desire to take what isn't one's own (and here i speculate only about the opportunistic, not the premeditated): i figure an overwhelming craving, a lust or coveteousness of some sort, just like anyone would regularly have for, say, food when aromas trigger, or window shopping for a shopaholic, but either without the necessary moral restraint or the blocking to override such conscience, or sometimes the intentional ignoring of such control, and finally a possibly addictive adrenaline rush not found even in the most stimulating of normal activities and it's resultant endorphin release, like a drug.

it's a potent cocktail.

dressing one's age

finally it's happened. been expecting it for a while, thought it was only a matter of time. colleague (who's quite a few years younger than i am by the way, and wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pleated work pants) said i should dress my age. too young grunge punk. attire: black bradstreet noseferatu tee, boot cuts, orange-blue basketball nikes, one-inch oxidised silver ear post, random leather and metal bracelets, random rings both left and right. age: thirty six going on.

i sometimes privately think his point is valid. peter pan syndrome? you judge.

work - can't or won't

topic came up from an article in yesterday's papers and due to a harried individual having to work the last few weekends: we often say we are unable to do something, like meet a friend for lunch, spend time on the phone catching up, take half a day off, spare some energy for an outing, because we have work commitments. we fulfil our responsibility to work first; we often believe it is on behalf of loved ones that we bring home the bacon; we hope for future gratification that we endure present hardship; in other words, we can't.

or is it that we won't? our value is already defined by who we are at work; our success as a person is less measured by how good a friend or spouse we are than by how much we've achieved professionally; our fulfillment is sublimated over more instances at work than socially. work is us.