Live for yourself...

It is very difficult to be selfish. Selfish, in it's true form. Not possessive. People always confuse possessiveness with selfishness. For me, to be selfish is to just think about your own needs and interests. Then reason and act accordingly to fulfil these needs and interests. Here, you have to take note, I did not add "disregarding others' needs and interests". I think I have already made myself clear about this in my previous post.

I realised that until today, I have lived and am living a life just to please others. A lot of the things I do in my life, I have been doing so as to please others. Others include, my parents, relatives, society. I have just never realised it until one day. It is happening in everybody's life, but nobody realises it at first. A child is trying to please it's parents, a wife is trying to please her husband and in-laws, a man is trying to please his boss, a woman is trying to please the society. I want to ask here, wtf? Who ever thinks and cares about pleasing oneself?

Have we ever lived a life just to please ourself? Have we ever went to school because we love it so much? Or have we ever done something in life just because we want to do it, not because we are told or forced by someone? For me, if I were to live according to my parent's wishes, I will study, marry to one and one guy only, have kids and live 'happily ever after'. If I were to live according to myself, I will study, not marry and live life as it comes.

As days pass, I am beginning to think 'radically' about all the things in life always taken for granted. I want to live my life for myself and duh, who's going to stop me? I am also starting to 'let go'. It's like a transition period in my life. Even death doesn't frighten me anymore. I'm starting to live life for myself, such that if I were to die now, I'm happy. Even with unfulfilled wishes and unsaid love. I don't know how long this feeling will last. But living life for oneself is so much better than living for others. It's like Vijay's character in Puthiya Geethai. That is the only movie in which I like Vijay a lot.

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Selfishness Is Virtue

Some of them, like Ayn rand, have said this. Some of them have condemned it, praising altruistic behaviour. But is it possible to be truely altruistic? To help others, disregarding our own self-interest. Is it truely possible?

As humans we are born selfish. Selfishness is our true nature. But like they say in spiderman, everybody loves a hero. A hero who sacrifices himself and his desires, his wants for the 'greater good'. Gosh! Cut the crap man! Or like they say, "Give me a break!" I hate people behaving like self-sacrificing animals for all the wrong reasons. Well, not exactly wrong. But reasons that are not logical, shall we say?

People give stupid reasons when asked why they did something altruistic for the poor people or for the ill people. Well, at least i think they are stupid. People do good because they go by the Book. People do good so that they get praised and be put on a pedestal by others. People do good because they want eternal rewards in there after-life. People pretend to do good, to attain power and control.

But the truth is, we all do good for some selfish reason. Even Mother Teresa should have had some good selfish reason to have done what she had done. Even if it was just some pure personal satisfaction. Why not be selfish, then? Take care of ourselves, first. We can only give love to those who we think deserves our love. Be selfish. Be honest. I think only selfishness and honesty are two true virtues. When I say selfish, I do not mean taking care of your own interests with "disregard to that of the others". I only mean, taking care of your own rational self-interests and being an end unto yourself. You don't expect others to sacrifice themselves for you and you should not sacrifice yourself for others.

We have to value our existence. In my previous post, when I quoted the bible verse, "Love the Lord thy God...", I interpretted the word "God" metaphorically. To me, it means "love your existence". To me, Man is God. There is a God in everyone of us. Someone there in us who knows what is right for us, what wrongs we do. It makes us feel guilty. It guides us through darkness. This might just be an illusory feeling. But there is a God in each and everyone of us. Let's find it inside us and not outside.

***The ideas presented in this entry are not entirely mine. Some of the credits and copyrights go to philosophical ideas of Ayn Rand and Osho. I borrowed some from here and there.***

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The Purpose Driven Life?

I have heard about Rick Warren's book called "The Purpose Driven Life". A lot of people have told me that the book is really good and that it has helped them a lot. So I borrowed this book from my friend to read it during the weekend. But before I talk about the book, I would just like to give this disclaimer. I am not here to criticize the people who have read, or reading, or are going to read the book. I am only criticizing the writer and the writings in the book.

But who am I to criticize the writer? Afterall, Rick Warren has done a lot in his life and he is certainly well-qualified to write this book about Christian faith. So on second thought, I am only critizing the writings in this book.

When I started reading the first chapter, no matter how hard I tried to read every word and sentence patiently, I couldn't go on. I wanted to read this book to understand how people of christian faith try to spread their faith. So I tried reading it patiently, trying to understand. But finally I had to start skipping certain pages. After that I started to skim through all of the pages and read certain paragraphs closely. Gosh! It was that boring! And I couldn't believe that people actually say that this book is great. It is nothing more than a Christian Self-help book, no matter what the author writes to convince us that it is not.

The book is also filled with contradictions. Both self-contradictions and contradictions with what the Bible actually says. For example, one part of the book says that God was so grieved that nobody lived to please him except for Noah, that He wanted to wipe out the human race. Another part of the book says that the God knows that we are incapable of being perfect or sinless and yet he still loves us. Not to mention Rick Warren's cherry-picking of verses from the bible. It's self-evident that the book is so biased.

In Matthew 22, Jesus says, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind". In the book, Rick's interpretation is that our love for God should be heartfelt and genuine. But how can you love God genuinely? Do you know Him? How can you love someone who you don't even know about? During the times of the Bible, people were well aware of what they were talking about. The historical events in the bible happened near their time and so their beliefs in God and their love for Him were stronger. But now it's already 2000 years since the events claimed to have been happened.

Rick's cherry-picking has done much damage here. We should not misinterpret the words of the scriptures. Everything should be read, both good and bad. The verse continues, "And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". Love you neighbour as you love yourself. Because he is none other than you, but just in another form and shape. Before you love God, you have to love yourself first, and then other fellow human beings. But Rick condemns selfish behaviour. Because loving yourself is a selfish thing. But this doesn't matter. This is just my opinion based on my other book readings.

The book also focuses much on the Intelligent Design theory. But you know about me. You readers know that I'm an atheist when it comes to supernatural gods. So I viewed the writings of this author sceptically. I don't believe in the ID theory. But if I have to believe in it, then I face a big problem. If everything and everybody is indeed created by God, then who created God? If God is the father of Jesus and God created Jesus, then who created God? The problem doesn't stop there. The predicament continues infintely. If it is true that every design has a creator, then who is the creator of the creator?

Well, I'm going to finish reading the book. Anything else to say, I'll do that in my next entry.

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Random

It's been almost a month since I updated my blog. Well, need you ask? Lots of things to do and not to mention my mood swings. Getting depressed as days pass by. But at the same time, I'm getting excited about attending University. What an ironic period in my life?!

I also got bored with my plain looking blog and considered switching to wordpress. Wordpress has a lot of themes and moreover it's an open-source blogging platform. But changed my mind, considering the downs of wordpress. Nothing matches blogger. The only problem with blogger right now is it's lack of templates, especially to those newly switched to blogger beta. Hopefully this problem has been or will be solved. But for now, I have made some changes to my blog.

Nothing much has been going on in my life right now. There'll be more excitement when I enter University and when I have more to blog about. I have also not read any interesting books to discuss about them. Just spending my time reading some scientific stuff.

At work, interesting things are happening. There are two new 3rd year students from NUS and one NTU student in our lab. Considering the practical aspects of scientific research, it seems like I know more than them! I was really shocked to know this. I didn't realise the benefits of this five-month internship when I started my job. But now I realise that I'm actually ahead of most of them who have never had any previous experience of research attachments. I've learned quite a lot of techniques in this lab. SDS-PAGE, Immunoblotting, Genotyping, PCR, Immunofluorescence, Histology work and a lot more.

For the past few days, I've been thinking about this blog. If you dig deeper to my previous entries, you will find a very different Priya. This blog has actually helped me to see a transition of myself. I am not the same kind of person I was when I started this blog. Is there more room for me to change? I don't know, only time will tell me the answer.

I want to write a long entry, but right now, I feel tired and want to sleep. So I'll come up with a longer post (or a shorter one, 'cause I can't really tell and 'cause I hate making promises) when the time and my mood coincides perfectly;)

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