Inner Demons, What kind of Hypocrite are you?

Each of us has in our minds inner demons that spurn out thoughts that are hateful, lustful, and deluding, harmful, shameful and plain bad.

Each of us also has in our minds inner angels that spurn out thoughts of love, contentment, wisdom, helpful, praiseworthy, and plain good.

The struggle in daily life then is to deal with these inner thoughts, of good and bad. Sometimes we let the bad thoughts slip, and create enemies for ourselves. Sometimes we let the good ones pour out, and we make kind, good friends. People also started to label: Our friends would think us as "this is a good guy", our enemies would think us as "this guy is just plain bad, or a hypocrite, only showing their good side towards some people, they dare not show their true colours."

The game is to show as much of your good side to as much people as possible, and show as little of your bad side to as little people as possible.

This game is the world were our social system works in. That is the origin of fake smiles (people trying to be nice even when they are not having good thoughts), of common courtesy, of social norms, of being polite to rude customers (even when we are angry at them), of many other things......

For me, I started early on in life to make sure I am not trapped by this social system, of this meaningless struggle. I make sure I show my true colours, most of me anyway, most of the time, to almost everyone. That way, no one can say I am a hypocrite, except me, for the few things I kept hidden, or revealed to only a select few.

Therefore I did not acknowledge the existence and importance of social norms, and the like. In fact, by breaking most of these norms at the exact right timing, I was aiming to educate those around me not to play this game where you might be called a hypocrite, but to play my game instead, be frank and bare all.

I thought that I was not playing the game of showing only our good sides. I was showing everything all the time! How could I be a hypocrite? However, I was wrong.

I did not notice this before, but I was quite harsh on myself if I ever had any bad thoughts. I would bash them out of my mind before I had the chance to say what's on my mind. I also generally tried to be as good as possible, to most people as equally as possible.

Try as I might, I am playing the game, even when I think I am not.

I do mind that I still can't be pleasant to everybody, that I am not fully free from bad thoughts, that I am not fully able to generate good thoughts to everyone equally, that I am not able to be 100% perfect and pure of heart despite my reputation.

Maybe those people who dislike me can see me fooling myself, playing this game and deluding myself that I am not. Then they have good reasons to dislike the big hypocrite I am.

Usually, the people who wrongly calls you a hypocrite are your enemies, and they have hate towards you. Hatred generally gets their mind working in fast, intelligent mode, "how to make the person I hate suffer the most?" And they might misuse the term, clouding it in convincing-like arguments that make you guilty for things that you are not supposed to be guilty for.

Now, I decided that I do not regret playing this game. The game as I play it, guides me to be good to everyone I meet, my good thoughts tend to dominate my entire social life. My bad thoughts, still there, are reduced to pittance, and they are weak, most of the time. The game works, somehow or another. Social norms works, and are worth adhering to (with wisdom to discern too of course). The game is no longer a trap, no longer a meaningless struggle.

It is the training ground for all to be good.

That's it. This article ends here. The main point has been stated in the last paragraph. The rest below are extras.

Now I am no longer qualified as being a hypocrite.

Hypocrite:
1.
a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2.
a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, especially one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.


The people who rightly calls you a hypocrite, those are your true friends and should be regarded as your family. Those are the people who wants to see you change and grow to be better that who you are now. Those are the people who sees your good and bad side, yet decided to be good to you anyway. They are good to you not because they are playing the game, but because they truly meant it.

Chasing girls algorithm (What kind of wanna-be-lover are you?)

Here's an algorithm for chasing girls, I generally adhere to this. However, I rarely get to use it now, not wanting a girlfriend. Not that I ever did got one. Ok let's concentrate on the moves:

• Find a girl, it should be someone you can talk to. A celebrity whom you got very little chance to meet out of the question then.
• Talk to the girl, it should lead you to be able to talk to her again. So a one time talk to a pretty lady who's queuing behind you for food in the canteen doesn't count. Not if you can't get her phone no. or learn that you are in the same class/work/society/interest as her. A girl you meet regularly can count!
• Be friends with the girl. Not just facebook friend, real friend as in you can be comfortable with each other, not having the nervous thinking of "what does she like?", "should I say/do this or that to impress her?" Be a friend with her for at least one year, to get to know her personality, habits and character from the idle talks you'll have as friends. Don't steer the conversation to one point or another just to gather the information, it'll be too forced and fake.
• Make sure the girl is single and available. As in she doesn't have a boyfriend or a husband. Someone else chasing her doesn't count, well, unless you are have too low a self esteem. In fact, you should know this sometime in the first few meetings with her. It's to make sure you don't waste time and energy on something unethical. Also available is a key word. If she's single and do not wish to have a relationship, then you may melt her heart with your sincerity or wait until she is ready. Of course, you can remain friends with her if she has another significant one, just don't harbour second thoughts about her. Do not even think of a way to make her single again. She'll hate you for it once she finds out.

From this point on, it's more of a preference style, I'll tell you my style.

1. Observe to see if the girl likes you more than a friend. If so, she might drops hints to you that a normal friend who's also a girl would not. So it's important to have more than one friend who is a girl. Sorry if it sound very manipulative. If there are those hints, start asking her out for more personal dates, instead of just hanging out with other mutual friends.
2. If the girl doesn't drops hints, you can. See if she picks it up and respond. If she still treats you like normal, just start asking her out on personal dates then. Make her fall in love with you, etc... and then eventually, when the mood is right, confess. In confessing, be ready for rejection and acceptance. Remember, rejection means you can still be friends, if you don't make it too awkward to remain friends, but you'll have to root out the feelings you have for her, or else it'll be suffering on your part, and your friendship may suffer too, if you have a moment of weakness and broke the trust of "just friends". And acceptance maybe a worst fate. Acceptance means there's only 2 possible path from then on: Marriage or breakup. Of course marriage is not happily ever after, but requires constant effort to keep the relationship strong and healthy. A breakup is just a stronger version of rejection, with deeper attachments comes deeper hurts. Especially if you have to meet her again, almost everyday. You'll have to find something that is neutral to say and redefine the relationship to friends, which is not easy if you're used to being intimate with her. Sometimes the things you see might remind you of happier times in the past, it might make you realise that there'll be no way this will happen in the future again, therefore causing sorrow. Or you'll desire for the relationship to be salvaged and saved, and if you don't handle it well and solve the incompatibility that caused the breakup in the first place, then it is just making things worse.
3. If for any reason, you do not wish to have a girlfriend, just ignore the hints that the girl drops for you, and do not initiate any hint dropping yourself. This is important so that you do not send mixed signals to the girl and avoid possible rejections that you'll have to otherwise do.

Also for a bit more details:

1. I take the words of a girl literally, so if you say you're busy when I asked you out, I'll assume you're really busy. If you do that for each of the 20 times I asked you out, then I'll infer that you really don't like to hang out with me.
2. If you really want me, but is just playing hard to get, giving the same excuses, I'll not be able to infer the hard to get part, and take it the same as point 1.
3. I fall in love too easily. Just put me together with a pretty girl that I fancied, and I'll be trying to flirt with her within a few hours.
4. I like to give the girl the authority and leadership role in defining the relationship. This is because I respect the girl's feelings and would not force anything that she doesn't like onto her.
5. I do not have the courage to initiate holding hands with a girl even on a date due to point 4.
6. When I chase a girl, I kept on asking for tips from various sources, therefore keeping an inconsistent standards of which is what on a relationship scale. One should have a consistent standard for which stage of the relationship is suitable for which actions to take. As a result, I mistook the action of giving a stuff bear as an acceptable close friends action, when it is inferred differently from the other side.
7. I do tend to be shameless in asking questions like "do you like me?", "is this a date?", "what are we?". However, I tend to be shy to voice it out too, especially when I sense that this will be damaging to the friendship that we have.

Lastly, I do wish that parents would pass this kinda information on to their children before the child gets their hormones fired up to want to seek a significant other. Hmm... maybe with examples too. That would be very helpful instead of just a general guideline: be yourself, be friend with the girl first... Aye, and since you're not my child, I'm not sharing my examples here.

I love myself

Collection of my facebook status over the past 7 days.

I love myself because I'm special, unique, and I'm not afraid to be weird. I can even be normal at times if I want to. You know which word my friends has to use to describe me? There's only one. My name: Xin Zhao.

Day 2: I love myself because I am ok with everyone. Even through there were some social tensions (both of attraction and aversion) in my life, now, I am ok with everyone.

Day 3: I love myself because I am in SPS. Special Programme in Science, where the nights in SPS room can be very fun, studying and rushing homework together with a bunch of good friends.

Day 4: I love myself because I'm learning to get used to everything being different from last semester quite nicely. My best friend Hariom Jani not being my roommate anymore, staying in Utown, not being in NUSBS MC anymore, not taking 6 modules per semester anymore, not being lovesick anymore, and learning a whole new language Japanese.

Day 5: I love myself because........................I can spend one whole day on religious activities, more than a week on meditation retreats, 15 days as a novice monk, 2 years as NUSBS MC, 20-30 hours per week doing NUSBS Vice President job, go represent NUSBS in most of the outside activities, and the rest of my life practicing Buddhism — with Yap Cheng Seng and 33 others

Day 6: I love myself because I am suffering. Instead of hating myself because I am suffering.

Day 7: I love myself because... I am in Physics. I love Physics and I live Physics.

What kind of reader are you?

I'm a selective reader. I don't simply read every single book in the world. I did that before but now I am selective. Just how selective, let's find out.

1. I don't read boring novels. If I hadn't read the Lords of the rings, I wouldn't had. Ya I read the extremely boring and thick book. Word by Word, even finished the foreword and introduction. It's a good thing I stopped after the climax, cause I can't bring myself to reading it again. ( maybe next time) So if there's any books like that, with a lot of descriptions and details so well, detailed that it takes a page to describe a thing in a very messy room, don't expect me to read it.
2. I don't read novels with too much Christian or Islamic Influence in it. Novels that take the existence or non-existence of God as a matter of faith I can take. But Novels that forces the reader to accept the existence of God, that scares readers into it, that uses the concept dogmatically and shows that anyone who's a non-believer will suffer in the story.... that's the kind of novels I avoid. Of course, I tolerate Bruce Almighty and other like it since it's not a Christian/Islamic propaganda to expand their religion.
3. I avoid novels with violence in sex and extreme sex, that is the whole book talks about the sexual activity from beginning to end. Novels with mild mentioning of sex is ok(unsuited for minors through but ok). Oh come on, don't act surprise here, most of the novels have minor scene of normal sex like most movies nowadays. (However, you don't see them in Star Wars, The Lord of the Ring, and harry potter, so it can be said that bestsellers normally don't include sex inside it.) Novels like Disclosure by Micheal Crichton which uses seduction as a important element in it's plot are acceptable.
   
4. As to novels with too much military words and atmosphere, too much mindless and unnecessarily violence (which I think the author just throw it in just to express themselves and make the readers bore or disgust) I don't read too much of it.
   
5. Now I don't avoid any other kind of books, I can read girls books, where the main character is a female doing whatever thing there is like house life (little women), or love or just plain little girls (Heidi) ya, ya those are classics and I read them in an abridged version. I can read magic and superheroes books too.
   
6. But if you ask me the type of books I read most, it's Science Fiction. Arthur C Clarke caught me on and Murray Leinster brought be to Isaac Asimov. With Micheal Crichton standing in a special place. I find that books by them are very interesting and wouldn't turn away (almost) any books written by them.
7. Now turning away from fiction, I also read non-fiction science, mostly those of popular science books like A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking. And perhaps it's not so worth it to mention since we all read it, but I read textbooks too. lol.
   
8. Oh ya as a general rule, I don't read books with less than 200 pages and would prefer it if it is thicker. It's only a general rule, so I'm not banning myself to read simpler books too.
9. Last but not least, I read Buddhism books. I just love the philosophy and psychology of Buddhism. Investigate first and then accept if you found it's true.

Ok so that's all about me, what about you?

How do you blog?

How exactly do you post in your blog? I post when I have the mood to write something cause I wanna make each post readable and meaningful. I also post whatever I feel into the post, so I only wanna post when my mood is good, no point remembering the unpleasant times in my life.

Mistakes are unpleasant to make and it is the hard way to learn. I had made some mistakes in my life so I would like to book it down in the form of what I learned from it.

• I learned that one should respect other peoples' privacy especially in one's blog where everyone can see it.

Perhaps this is a reminder of the words with great power comes great responsibility. With the internet around, we actually had great powers. Before the internet, the only way to tell everyone anything about you is through TV,radio,newspaper(which you can't get in unless you're important or famous), or by mail or phone(but this is only limited to some friends not all) or by books you published(but not everyone can write a good enough book to get published plus it takes money).
Blogging is the way people expresses their feelings to everyone and anyone in particular. Blogging can be long or it can be short and it is the advantage of it.
And about the responsibility part, be sure not to defame anyone in your blog if you really wanna vent out your anger, you may describe the incident you are angry with but don't mention their real name to protect their privacy.
Ok now I got no more mood to write and I'll just stop here.