Chrysalis [ 01. The Beginning Proper ]

It was the beginning of my junior year when I moved to the university hostel. What I needed was an escape from home. I felt that my runaway father and overprotective mother too much to handle. It was a wonder in the first place that they allowed me to move out to live on my own.

I was at the door of my new room. I saw nobody at the corridor. I opened the door and looked in. The room was quite big for one-bedded room. I climbed a bed beside the window.

I was tired. Tired of studying. Third year materials of pharmacy course are simply too much.

I was also tired of living, I admit. I looked around my room. All my needs had been delivered beforehand. Just a few adjustments to make before I go on with life. New life? Not necessarily so; it was just a new place but the person is still me. So the living also remained just as I remained who I was.

I imagine the life is kind of a video: I had paused it for a while but now I had to resume. Sometimes I wonder why the video was played in the first place. And when the video has stopped playing...What will happen? What is its purpose?

My cellphone vibrated softly as a text message came. It was my mother; she wanted to ensure that I would go to church the following day. It was a bright Saturday afternoon, yet I felt so bleak.

I already checked up on the church. It was not far; in fact, they used one of the university's multi-purpose hall to conduct a service. Yes, Mom, don’t worry, I already found a church. My fingers played on my cellphone for a while.

I had no intention to go out for a walk. Not even out of my room to find out who the people next door were. That is just the way I am. I was just keeping myself to myself; is there anything wrong with that? At least it is better than some people who are over-friendly. Isn't it hard to keep the mask of friendliness? I can sense it - most people are getting friendly to others for their own ends. Since when having the President of the student body as a friend becomes a person's worth? Some others measure their worth by the number of people in their contact list. There are a lot of other motives of course - popularity, money, politics to mention a few. Rotten.

I did not realise that I was slipping away from reality to dreamland. There in my dream, the people are wearing masks to hide their ugly face. Some even have astronaut suit. I suppose their rottenness make their stench unbearable to that extent. Not funny. I know.

When I was awake, it was already midnight. I went to the public bath to wash up. Since the weather was cold, I only washed my hands and feet with hot water. Afterwards when I brushed my teeth, I realised that there is someone in one of the cubicles. I did not really notice because it was late and I was lethargic. I brushed my teeth a bit longer because I was a little curious about the person. A little like me this person seems to be. I guess he is kind of lonely too. Since when I finished brushing he had not come out, I gave up and went back to my room.

I then realised that I left my towel in the bathroom. I guessed the reason behind my absent-mindedness was that I was not used to the new place. So I went back again to the bathroom after arguing against my own laziness. I could not even remember where I put it. After searching for a while, it occurred to me that I even doubted whether I brought a towel in. So I went out my way. At the door, I remembered about the person from before. He was already gone. Perhaps if I had gone a little bit earlier, I could have met him and confirmed whether I left a towel in the bathroom. Oh well.

I woke up the next morning at 8. I went out to check the service time and its exact venue before having breakfast. It was at ten - there was a plenty of time. So I ate my breakfast. Real fast.

I am a fast eater. When one of my few friends point that out to me I think it was quite natural to me. At home, my mother had to leave early for work and came back late at night, so we never had our meal together. Mother was working hard even though father sent some money for our living expenses on a regular basis. Well never mind that. I finish my meal quick simply because there is no interruption. I've seen some people eating and chatting at the same time. I could not do that because there is no one to talk to; I was always eating alone. I chuckled, If I'm chatting to myself, then I will soon not eat alone because I will be admitted to a Mental Hospital. Not funny. Yeah I know.

A Little More about Higher Dimensions

[This is related to my earlier post, Plato's Shadows and Higher Dimensions - please read that first...]

Flatland was a novel about dimensions. The narrator, a square, lives is 2-D world. Suddenly he got a visit from Lord Sphere from 3-D world. Lord Sphere showed him 1-D world in a dream. Square met the king of the 1-D world who do not believe in the existence of higher dimensions. Square tried to explain - to no avail - that there is another direction; that the world is not a single line but a flat plane. When Lord Sphere tried to explain 3-D world (space), Square was as stubborn and unbelieving as the king. Lord Sphere demonstrated things that can only be done in higher dimension: disappearing and reappearing, seeing the inside of Square, changing size (small to large circle as seen in 2-D world.) Then Lord Sphere reminded him to his experience with the king. Lord Sphere finally brought Square to space and finally Square believe Lord Sphere.

As mentioned above, Square is the reflection of us in the 3-D world. We may be unbelieving about existence of the higher dimension as Square was. Indeed Square rebuked Lord Sphere when the latter said that there is no higher dimension than 3. Looking at Square and Sphere we may be conceited and he looked ridiculous but there is a possibility that creatures of 4-D are looking at us the same way.

We can't say that fourth dimension does not exist because we cannot see it. [if we of 3-D world can see it, then it is not of 4-D world, duh...]

In a book titled 'Constants of Nature' (by John Barrow if I am not wrong...) it is said that our world that has 3 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time is the most stable. Too high up or down, it will be unstable. Again, this is only a prediction of us in the 3-D world trying to perceive higher dimension. Can we imagine that there is another axis in our space beside x, y, z? Imagine you are a square and all your life you are moving along the x-y plane when out of the blue revelation comes and you are told that there is another direction: the z-axis.

Indeed it is hard to imagine the 4-D world. It is possible to predict the number of vertices and sides of objects of higher dimensions, though.

Let us consider a square of 2-D world.

In 1-D world it is a line.

In 3-D world it is a cube.

In 0-D world it is a dot.

Follow? Just remember casting shadow reduce dimension by one.

Dimensions	0	1	2	3	4
Vertices	1	2	4	8
Sides	0	2	4	6

For number of vertices, the geometric pattern tells us that a 4-D 'cube' should have 16 vertices.

Likewise, the arithmetic pattern of number of sides tells us that a 4-D 'cube' (the proper term is tesseract or octachoron) has 8 sides.

I have difficulty imagining this: after all we live in 3-D space; but isn't it interesting to know?

Relationship

A riddle for you
It's about this rope;
Well, may be steely wire for some
Others, fragile as spider thread
See the gradation of strength?

Binding like a chain,
Or loose like rubber string
Eros, Philia, Agape, Storge
See?

My own
is unusual
A bit of mix up
between those Love brothers
very tightly I hold to my end
the other end seems loose
See? - No you don't

Indeed,
A riddle for you and me
A riddle for humanity
...

And your answer?

Plato's Shadows and Higher Dimensions

My English teacher in secondary school once recommended a book to help us improve our poor English. I can't seem to remember the title though. The book was in a way similar to 'To Kill a Mocking Bird': the world is viewed through the innocent yet precocious mind of a child. It is a wonder (more of an intended irony I guess...) that the child is more philosophical than most adults around her. Yeah the book is quite philosophical now that I remember.

There was one part that really impressed me deeply - it was about shadows.

Have you heard about Plato's shadows?

Plato had this analogy of our world. We are prisoners in a cave. We have our backs turned towards the entrance of the cave and we always face the wall inside the cave; we can't change our position because we are chained. We have spent the whole of our life there that the cave is really our world. Sometimes on the wall, shadows form because things the shadows from outside the cave are projected onto the wall. Now we think these shadows are the real things - because we have never seen what is really 'real'.

Now consider our own world. What do we see around us? It certainly seems real - but it is perfectly possible that they are only shadows. When the prisoners are released, only then they will realise that the world is not all about shadows.

Could it be that we live in a Matrix-kind of world? Are our perceptions deceiving us? Are they filtering the truth? But then again without these filters we can understand nothing. We will be reduced to mind. Do we finally encounter reality when the 'filters' are removed, or the other way around, do we really exist if they are all gone?

So the problem seems to be that our filters are not good enough but we can't remove it. Should we upgrade it? Well, we don't know what is really real so how can we improve our filters to be better in perceiving the true reality (if there is true reality...)?

Back to the point. About 'true' reality and 'lesser' reality, the shadows.

Let me try to recall the part of the book I read about shadows and dimensions. It goes like this. Supposing I have a cube in a dark room and I shine a light on one of its sides to project a shadow on a wall. Then the projected shadow will be a square. Supposing we can take this shadow of a square and also takes its projection along one of its sides. It will result in a line. Take this line and do one more projection - this time round the projection is a dot. A cube is 3-D object, a square is 2-D object, a line is 1-D object and a dot is 0-D object (can we call it an object when it is dimensionless??). That means the shadow of an object is its form in immediate lower dimension.

Well if this is so, taking projection over projection like above will result in us concluding at the same spot - at which point it is dimension zero. But supposing we can do the reverse. If we can construct an object from its shadow, then where will we stop? At 100th dimension? At the point where the number of dimensions is infinity? Perhaps this is where God exists: at much much higher dimension that we puny human beings cannot comprehend.

We humans are sometimes too arrogant to admit that our world is only 3-D. So arrogant that some of us say that divine beings don't exist. What if they exist in higher dimensions?

Talking about dimensions remind me of another book I read: Flatland. It tells the story of 2-D world (it is flat, duh...), oblivious of existence of Spaceland (our 3-D world). Actually this is a satire of us who are oblivious of the existence of higher dimensions.

Suppose you are a 3-D being (no need to suppose, I guess...) then you encounter Flatland with all the flat people inside (onside...?). You can tease them a little by poking your finger on one place then pull it back. The Flatlanders of course would be perplexed since something appear and disappear. Beings of higher dimensions can do this, since they have more 'directions'. In our case the Flatlanders does not know up or down but we do so we can pull our finger in 'up' direction.

So how about beings existing in dimension infinity? Well...answer for yourself.
So is our world a projection of higher dimensions? Shadow of the divine world? What is real? Does God exist? Where?

It is the question that enlightens not the answer.

Possibilities

Josef Neumann smiled at the customs officer who was handing him his passport. He just crossed the Germany-Austria border. He hailed a carriage.
The year was 1900. He felt stressed, chased after by his publisher who demanded the draft of his new book. He needed a vacation, a refreshment. The new century would be a good time to start afresh, he had thought. He would visit an old friend, a doctor, in Austria.
While travelling to his destination, Braunau-am-Inn, a small town near the border, his mind wandered. He was always like that – liked to dive deep in his own imagination. After all, he was a novel writer: Was it not his job to imagine and make stories?
He particularly loved working out the lives of other people, foreseeing their destiny. He always pictured one’s destiny as a branched path: a path with so many junctions so intricate that his mind cannot comprehend. Every branch is a possibility, a choice one has to make to go on in life. Funny how people often make bad choices, he always said, but that is exactly what make lives so interesting, isn’t it? Life is not always rosy. There will always be tragedies as well as joyous moments in one’s life.
He liked to explore those possibilities, picking out and stringing them together to make a good story. He enjoyed his role as an author, the freedom and power he had over others’ lives. It was like fitting pieces of jigsaw puzzle in their place. Yet it was not: the pieces did not have exact positions like in a jigsaw puzzle. An author’s job is simply to arrange them – not necessarily fitting them – making them look good together. There is no right or wrong; everything is possible.
After finding his inn and checking in, he decided to go for a walk before meeting his old friend in the afternoon. It was a bright morning. The dews formed on the lush green leaves and grasses were beginning to disappear under the sun’s generous shines. A group of young boys were playing at the field. They were playing a war game.
A boy who gave the others orders intrigued him. Neumann sat under a tree, having found a new target for his imagination. He imagined the boy as a great leader in the future. No, he thought, Braunau is too small and rural. Okay, so the boy will go to Vienna, Germany – considerably a more reasonable place for would-be leaders – for secondary education after doing extremely well in primary school.
How about the background? Neumann began to work out his puzzle pieces. The father is an authoritarian, always ambitious about his son’s studies: he wants his son to become a civil servant like him, loyal to the Austrian Hapsburg Monarchy. The mother, as if trying to balance the situation, pampers her son, giving him whatever he wants.
The son, being rebellious, dislikes Austria – as if unconsciously contradicting his father – and will do badly in his secondary school then dropped out, deciding to become an artist instead.
Maybe a little tragedy here, he thought. His a-little-too-caring mother will die of cancer when he is only nineteen. This will be a great mental blow for him, making him temperamental for the rest of his life. The boy will blame the Jewish doctor who treats his mother for coming a little too late to save his beloved mother. Neumann gave this role to Edward Bolch, his doctor friend. So Bolch does his best, but still, the boy won’t hear of it. The hatred will be carried on for the rest of his life.
It was already noon. Neumann had to conclude his story soon otherwise he would be late.
The boy will soon discover that he has the gift of the glib. His fine oratory skill will bring him to power, but not before he has learnt about the bitterness of World War I and suffered temporary blindness caused by enemy’s poisonous gas.
A woman walked towards the field. She was probably the boy’s mother because he turned his head when she called.
“Adolf!” Maybe Adolf will be a great leader of Germany. There is no right or wrong; everything is possible. A dictator perhaps? Like his father? Possible.
“Adolf Hitler, come now!” The woman called for a second time.
Satisfied by his completed jigsaw puzzle, Neumann got up. He was looking forward to meet Edward.
PS: Here, Neumann’s predictions came true. Indeed this was the path Hitler treaded on. Yet not all of them are true. After all, aren’t they just possibilities?

Flight

The plane began to take off. Zulkarnaen Al-Ridah looked outside. A fateful flight, he thought. On his lap was a small black box. He hesitated. He had to open it soon. Fear was still in heart, although it had subsided.
He still remembered when he was about to enter the huge Manhattan airport. Fear really consumed him until he almost decided to turn back. No, he had thought, I cannot afford to; it is too late. So he trod heavily forward toward the check-in gate. His heart began to beat fast. Faster, and faster. Calm down, he said to himself. He took a deep breath and counted until fifteen, as his instructor told him. He did calm down somewhat. But he was still trembling.
His luggage was simple: only a small travelling bag. Still trying to soothe himself, he chuckled, Well, I don’t need much, after all I’m about to….his line of thought was interrupted. An old lady suddenly got in his way and gave him a sports bag, then continued walking as if nothing had happened. He was not surprised at all. They are always ingeniously well-prepared, he thought, an inconspicuous porter, how clever.
He walked through the metal detector. His heart skipped a beat. He was half-hoping for the alarm to go off, so he could turn back. But the alarm did not. He casually took his travelling bag and newly-acquired sports bag and walked to the check-in booth. As he gave his passport and his ticket to the attendant, he was trying to figure out how They were able to fool the detector to distract himself from the fear in his heart that started to grow again.
“Enjoy your flight, Mr. Al-Syaifah,” the attendant smiled.
Al-Syaifah alias Al-Ridah took his ticket and forged passport back without a word. He went to the waiting room., He sat, burying his head in his hands. Soon he was lost in thought. He was really frightened. He was enveloped with Fear and it seemed to seep to every corner of him, becoming a black hole and engulfed his existence. NO. Absolutely no turning back, he said once again to himself. There is no time for wavering.
He had agreed to undertake the mission. That time there was no fear. Neither was hesitation. Why now does he have doubts? Why now is he consumed with Fear? It was Faith that carried him thus far. What faith? He started to question. Is it really right? Or…?
“To all passengers of flight BA-245 to New York City, please…”
The announcement interrupted his thought.
He stood and got in his plane. He saw his comrades. He didn’t really know them, they were just briefed together a week ago; the mission was an absolute secrecy. As soon as he sat, he extracted the black box from the sports bag.
The plane took off.
…
“Attention all passengers, we will arrive in New York City in 20 minutes, please fasten your…”
Al-Ridah hesitated for a while, then he began to unlock the black box. What faith? He asked himself again as he looked at the bright dawning sky.
It was a lovely morning on 11 September 2001.

Time

I look upward. The dark sky is studded with bright moon and stars. I close the door gently so as not to wake my grandparents up. I set off. My night walks are supposed to be secret, but probably they already know. They understand.
I stroll slowly across the grassy field, along the path I know well. Well, too well; I have been having night walks for quite long, you see.
Stars. They are millions of light years away I suppose. I wonder what happened during the period when the starlight was travelling to Earth. Kingdoms rise and fall; history being made and remade; humanity progressed or regressed; creatures evolved; well, I don’t really care. Perhaps if I stare the sky long enough, I will see a speck of starlight just arriving from its long journey across the space.
But I move on; I’ve got a more important Question to ponder.
I slow my pace a little and close my eyes. I can hear soft breeze blows grass and leaves rustling, male crickets’ songs calling for the females, and gentle flow of a stream faraway.
I stop.
Is Time a river? I want to feel the flow of Time like the cold night breeze against my face. I want to hear the gentle sound of the River of time. But I think I won’t be able to. You see, I am carried away downstream by the flow and I am part of that River. To feel a river’s current, you need to go against it; to hear it, well, maybe the gentle sound is subsided by all the noises we the swimmers make in the River of time.
Or is time a big blank canvas, and there is an artist painting on it, applying different colours and tones to depict history? I cannot help but to ask why the Artist is painting miserable pictures. Wars ravaging countries, starvation, poorness, lies and deceit, all the calamities upon humanity; why? Why? Can’t he just paint Paradise instead of Hell? When will the whole painting end? What is the point of painting it in the first place?
I run.
I don’t know. All these conundrums about time; I don’t know.
I already said I have a more important Question that I’m trying to answer.
Breathless, I arrive at the destination of my night walk. The cemetery was not large, so I found my parents’ and brother’s graves immediately; besides, I have been here every night. I put my hands on the graves, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath preparing to shout. Well, here is my little Question: Can I turn back time to 5 years ago when my whole family was happy; when they were not dead yet in a car accident? Can I? I beg of you! It is only a meagre fraction of a starlight journey; only a little move upstream in the River of time; only a dot on the big blank Canvas. I beg of you, stars, River, Artist, Guardian of Time, God, Devil, whoever!! Please... give me Time...

Beauty: Appreciation of Effort?

I had a philosophy lecture on beauty a while ago.
Well, Beauty was still left undefined then. I had this idea for a while that beauty is not just 'looking good'. There is another dimension of our perception of Beauty. My proposition was beauty is our appreciation of effort. Let me explain.
Dance performances. We are fascinated not only (I hope) by the dancers' flashy costumes or their attractive faces but also their elaborate, patterned movements. Why? Because we know that they have done rehearsals to achieve that. We know because there is no way that such feat can be done without a lot of practice. A lot of effort has been put in to achieve that. Same reasoning follows for drama performances
Another example. My Biology teacher catchphrase is: 'Isn't it beautiful?' every time she sees nature-related (duh...) pictures. We, her naughty students, of course often make fun of that because even pictures of worms, reptiles and insects that most people think are gross; she will still say they're beautiful.
I somehow can relate to that. I believe in God, so I say that the way God design nature is beautiful. I'm not only talking about appearance here, your classic dimension of beauty. I'm talking about complexity and organisation. How cells can have such elaborate mechanisms. From their plasma membranes down to their organelles and nucleus; all are orchestrated so incredibly. We're only talking about a single cell here. Your Amoeba maybe. We haven't considered something more complex: animals, plants, humans. If you do not believe in God you can say that the work of evolution is so great to finally achieve current level. A lot of effort has been put in, be it God's or evolution's, take your pick. We who witness that can but agree 'Isn't it beautiful?'
People often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. True, because there are many dimensions of beauty, one of which I spent hundreds of of words explaining, so people's perception of the dimensions varies. Some value appearance over the 'appreciation of effort' put in, some vice versa, some value even another dimension.
Beauty is a complex thing. Well, since complexity is a dimension of beauty, Beauty is beautiful. That is the beauty of Beauty.