Religion, law and other nonsense

1. The modern world is a place ruled by law.

What does this statement mean? It means that every individual, no matter his/her status in the society, is bound by an obligation to follow rules set forth by the society itself. This is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be treated fairly and justly, with regulations delineated by the so-called "law".

In other words, law is a tether to what we can do, and what we cannot. It is a safeguard against possible intrusions to the public utility. The society itself is very defensive of its morals: Any attempt to damage the integrity of the moral standards shall encounter very tough resistance. In this sense, a "peace-loving", "altruistic" individual is the most valued, for he is the most protective of the utility of the society. This, according to Nietzsche, is how "selflessness" come to be a good virtue.

However, when law itself becomes the problem, we have no solution. When the soldiers in our army turn against ourselves, we have no choice but to surrender. This occurs when law no longer protects us, but our property. One can sometimes bypass basic moral principles to enforce laws so as to be systematic and effectively use law as a bulwark to ambiguities in human behavior. Yet, when law merely protects something that is lifeless, we become not the guardians, but the slaves not only to the properties we own, but also to the lifeless laws we obey. I believe that the point when one knows only to keep an eye on his money and nothing else, is the point when he no longer exists as a living entity.

On a deeper level, isn't the sole existence of law to bound what we can or cannot do a tragedy and lament to our inevitable tendency to corrupt? The tome of rules is evidence that man cannot control himself, and must be intimidated by punishment in order to behave decently. We are indeed born to be bad, born to harm others to loot as much as possible. Law itself testifies the offensive thief within us, and hence hires mercenaries of defense to protect our property, that we so dearly love more than anything else.

Men have created law to protect themselves, but now, in this society of extreme Capitalism, we have unfortunately become enslaved by our own creation. Law is the product of the absurd and crazy man.

2. "Man survives by forgetting his past".

I suppose that we all make mistakes. Multitudes of them, to be honest. Sometimes these mistakes can be far-reaching and dire as well. One factor of two can be exponentiated, exploding into an answer that could misjudge the universe for an atom. One wrong branch in the river of decisions can lead you to a completely different ocean. For a person as careless as me and a mind as chaotic as mine, regret permeates the fabric of his memory, staining it blue and melancholic.

Therefore, to say the least, decisions have troubled mankind for centuries. The wavefunction must collapse to one, and only one, branch. If one never has to make a decision, he must either be extremely dependent, controlled, or downright inept. This is the unfortunate burden that everyone has to bear.

In this sense, in a probabilistic view, everyone must make some kind of wrong decision, and sometimes he would not even know that he made the wrong decision until too late. Regret, just like death, is inevitable to everyone.

Do not let the inevitable lead to your demise.

3. Through the partially reflective glass I gaze over to the splendor of the Victoria Harbour.

Light of all kinds of colours makes this city never experience sunset. Intelligence, dedication, technology have fused to become what we see today, the pearl of the East glimmering in the vast black ocean of Capitalism.

In this epitome of civilization, what place does the archaic religion hold?

The obvious answer would be "none". Every physical law that dictate the flow of electricity through the fluorescent lights, the logic behind integrated circuits in your computers, the propulsion of the engine in your cars, are all found by humans, not "created" by any deity up and above. All evidence points towards the lack of a deity ("white, all-loving, omnipotent etc.") up in the clouds. There simply is no god, and I often wonder why this fact is so difficult to accept. [1]

Yet, within the car I overhear the conversation of two men who have turned to religion. From them, I learn that religion provided the framework within which their moral must stand. This indeed caused them to change their past ways, eliminating a lot of their vices.

Is religion, then, a tool of reformation, providing morals?

Personally, I regard this role of religion in the society yet another tragedy, not unlike that of the existence of law. Engraved on the stone tablets of Moses was, yet again, the testimony of the innate wolves within us. It is of utmost misfortune that mankind needs to rely on ancient superstitions to overcome this urge to harm, and even escape from the truth of eventual death.

Politically, I have seen this society beginning to yield to the ignorant. As long as the desire for money is fulfilled, man can afford to sell his right to know, his conscience. The fact that ignorance is bliss is why I have lost hope to this city. Sleep forever in this orgy of meaningless colours, will you?

[1] For philosophically inclined readers: I think that god is "very likely, almost completely certainly" non-existent. That statement is for people who insist that "god is their everything".

Sky

Were you to ask someone
To draw the sky
Most, very much so,
Would gladly paint the background
Blue
Clouds light, white, immaculate
Perhaps some birds, free
Here and there (isn't it so?)
And oh, lest we forget,
The sun,
Bright, shining, radiant
Great white beams emanating from its core,
Flourishing the life of millions.

Perhaps it would be mildly annoying
Inconvenient
Or even disturbing,
To imagine that someone
Living on the same planet
Would draw the sky as a simple, tiny window
Or, a mere ceiling
Or, a dying bulb
Or, even, green
Of hails made of lead and sulphur and chlorine
Mildly disturbing, yet glaringly true.

Were you to ask me
To draw the sky
It would be black
The most lethargic of the colours
The most ominous, the most fateful
Clouds would not be white, but crimson
With a tint of bloodshed orange
Threatening to release its fury
Where is the sun? There is none
In this forever idle, stormy, turbulent
Land of nightmares
Of inadequacy, of macabre melancholy
Of irrationality and undying suffering.

But once
Once in a while
A white light flashes through
A burning meteor, expending its life
Burning away its very body
To give the final vestige of hope
In this ridiculous sky.
So tender, so small, yet firmly existing
As if there is something
Some
Goal
To reach for.

So clutch tight to this fleeting star, I say
Wish eternally to the ephemeral meteor
Resonate with its death wish
And raise your chalice
To the fantastical, pure sky
Watch, wish and hope until it shrinks
To infinity.

Rage, Rage against the dying of the light

A lot may say that Hong Kong is dying, and indeed it is. Democratic systems and bulwarks can be blatantly neglected for developing a haven for obvious foreigners, while petty mistakes can be infinitely exaggerated to form verbal abuse against the clear truth. It is to no doubt that the separation of "two systems" is virtually not existent nowadays, even if we are reluctant to admit it. Many Chinese I know are brilliant, well-mannered and conscientious individuals who prove to be true intellectuals, yet the portion who have sold their morals for power, money and fame through collusion, even if they constitute only a small portion of the country, are enough to overwhelm this small city of Hong Kong, turning it into a wasteland of extreme crony capitalism and uncivilized coliseum.

Even if Hong Kong is doomed, we shall not forgo our strife. We shall tell the oppressors that we do not approve. We are murdered in a heroic brawl, not willingly subdued to power. To sum up, let us appreciate the words of Dylan Thomas in the poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (another brilliant poem shared by Mr. Harrison). Even if death is at hand, we rage like millions of swords, like the unforgiving, metallic cries of Schubert in the face of the reaper.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night 
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Nietzsche on friendship

In The Gay Science, Nietzsche remarked on the nature of friendship in aphorism number 279, Stellar Friendship:

"We were friends, and have become strangers to each other.  But perhaps this is as it ought to be - and we do not want either to conceal or obscure the fact as if we had to be ashamed.  We are two ships each of which has its own goal and course.  Our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did – and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and in one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had but one goal.  But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones.  Perhaps we shall never see one another again, or perhaps we may meet again but fail to recognize one another: our exposure to different seas and suns has altered us!  That we had to become strangers to one another is the law above us – by the same token we should also become more sacred to each other and the memory of our former friendship more sacred.  There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path – let us rise up to this thought.  But our life is too short and the power of our vision too limited for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility.  Let us then believe in our stellar friendship, though we should have to be terrestrial enemies to one another. "

Although this presents a rather dismal and deterministically pessimistic view of friendship, which is doomed to end, it is already quite a bright side of Nietzsche's view on humanity and behavior that friendship, no matter how transient, exists at all; that friendship not based on absurd customs/morality, personal benefit or personal incredulity exists. Matthew Arnold, behind his wonderfully crafted yet painfully disturbing verses of Dover Beach, wishes that there indeed is capacity for "true" "love". Yet that can only "lie behind us like a land of dreams", while "ignorant armies clash by night". This is the truth, that I shall never find a true friend. Poignant, yet unequivocally and always true.

On this day of parting I would remember the words of Nietzsche. Perhaps it may soothe the constant pain from the scar she made (or I made for myself).

Feather

Light as a feather
Swift as a stream
Tender is the midsummer night
Brushing its wings of blessing
Unto the city of Tokyo

The grey tiles, grey pillars
Are they wailing in melancholy
Or bathing in bliss

Or cowering from their past
In the ever so soft
Ever so peaceful breeze?

Perhaps in the dawn of Armageddon
This is the piece
Of light
Free from consumers, routine and numbers
But all will have to wait for the sun
To command another march
Unto the city of Tokyo.

Japan, 2014

Normality

Smile
Without meaning

Mirror
Without reflection

Tags
Without purposes

Expensive outfit
Without uniqueness

Advanced "smart"phones
Without intelligence

"Philosophizing"
Without being alone

"Remembering"
Without remembering

Emoticon
Without emotions

Hating
Without judgment

Arguing
Without arguments

Living
But already buried

Knife

"Cut the cake

             And put down the knife"

The candlelight flickers

      "Make a wish!"

The cat drowses, eyes no longer green

           "Now you are an adult"

The scorching wax drops down

                                         flows down

                                                     the stoic candle.

        "And put down the knife."

I held the knife tightly.

       It wasn't a knife. It was a piece of lifeless 

    clear plastic.

             Etched with the words:

Beauty

Time.

Flash

         The camera.

    "Come on up, we have our cake here!"

  The knife was lead, that sank

             into the cake

                                  red, flowing

                                                       warm.

         I              

did not move my hands

    The lifeless

                    despicable

   hateful piece of polythene 

           propelled itself

 created

                   forcefully ripped 

      apart.

The way of flowing

           Downwards.

        The way of thinking

                  Backwards, archaic.

    Isolated, despised.

 The toppings collapsed 

                      The execution

       by the guillotine.

              Callous, murderous.

    They never liked to be on 

        there anyway.

      

         Then

I realized

                  I have torn it apart

       Myself.

   The knife

         just a piece of

 lifeless

       thoughtless

  polythene

A tool.

Of beauty

and time.