The way of nature, and the way of grace

The title of this blog post is taken from the main theme featured in the 2011 movie “The Tree of Life”. In the introductory scene, the mother, Mrs O’Brien narrates in somber tone that there are two ways through life – “the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow.” To elaborate, the notion that life is nature is a recognition that the world can be a harsh reality. Conversely, the notion that life is grace holds on to the belief that one should strife to make the world a more humane place, that there is value in the qualities like compassion and mercy.

The film gives a short depiction of the lives of a suburban American middle-class family, in particular, this two boys who transition from their birth to their early youth. It depicts the profoundness of the genesis of human life, the relative innocence and joy of childhood, as well as the horrors and sadness that life brings along with it. The warm and secure environment of a nurturing family is contrasted with the sickness, violence, and poverty that the boys witness as they followed their mother to the grocery. Later, there was a scene where the family was at a swimming pool, and where the boys witnessed another kid’s death from drowning.

The mother, Mrs’ O Brien is gentle and nurturing, presenting the world to her children as a place of wonder. The Dad, Mr O’Brien, is strict and authoritarian, and easily loses his temper as he struggles to reconcile his love for his sons with wanting to prepare them for a world he sees as corrupt and exploitative. There is a part in the movie in which the Dad was fetching the children home right after church, and he was giving them a lesson about life. He was telling them about a man he knows who got rich from humble beginnings, and who now thinks a whole world of himself, while there are people who still lived in poverty and die from hunger. He quips that the world is runned by trickery, and that one cannot be too good in order to succeed.

So which is the truth about the world? My belief is that the world can be a harsh place, where there can be suffering, and people can be mean and selfish. However, there is a place for the gentler virtues like compassion and mercy, and it is good that people strive to be as humane as possible, to cultivate a world where individuals are accorded dignity and respect, and to try to meet the needs of their fellow human beings.

Job (the Movie)

I watched the movie titled Jobs which is about founder of Apple company, Steve Jobs. One thing I like about the movie is the strong similarity in appearance that the cast of actors playing the various characters have with their real-life personalities. I couldn’t have thought of a better actor who bore such semblance in appearance to Steve Job than Ashton Kutcher. And I thought he delivered a compelling performance of Steve Job as portrayed in other sources – Intense, independent-minded, domineering, manipulative, revengeful, cold, ambitious. Co-actor Josh Gad played the part of Job’s trusted friend, co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, who spots the milder geeky personality, quite the Yin to Job’s Yang, and complementing the business acumen of Job with his technical genius for hardware engineering.

The basic storyline, probably well-known to most people familiar with the biography of the various personalities of the computer industry is as follows. Job discovers a prototype of an unprecedented graphic-interface computer in Wozniak’s house which Wozniak had been working on as his own personal project. He convinced Wozniak to start a company together and market the invention. They obtained the interest of a retailer who made a deal to buy the new invention from them. Job and his team begin working to produce the agreed quantity of the invention in Job’s home garage. Apple later expanded, this time having a board of directors, one of which playing the role of the antagonistic role of the disapproving shareholder representative. Job head-hunted for John Sculley from Pepsi to lead the marketing team at Apple. The board later became dissatisfied with what they saw as Job’s exorbidant spending of money into his unprofitable pet project, and replaced him as CEO with Sculley. Job quited Apple. Many years later, with Apple floundering and in need of direction, the new board invited Job back to the company. Job was reinstated to position as CEO, and led Apple to become the world’s most valuable company.

Job is portrayed as a character with a brilliant intelligence but with a terrible personality. He is casted as this genius who knows better than everyone else, and criticisms or opposition from others are never constructive, but are mere stumbling blocks towards the ideal that Job knows better. Job perceives difference in opinion as a lack of foresight on the part of others. He yelled at a fellow game designer at Atari because that colleague was of the opinion that the prevailing technology does not allow for color games, and demands to be given his own project to lead at Atari. He smartingly proves that colleague of his wrong by introducing the game “Breakout”. A judgement of his subordinate in his team developing the Lisa computer that multiple typefonts is not a necessary urgent development is construed by Job as an irreconcilable difference of vision, which merits that subordinate an extremely harsh shelling and firing by Job in front of all the other team members. When the board of Apple remarked that the Apple II failed to sell well because of the high price racketed up by Job in developmental cost, Job retorted back by laying the blame squarely on his marketing director for poor marketing strategy. There is no second guess on Job’s part that the opinion of others might be correct. He is confident that he is right and they are not. And supposedly for Job, being a jerk is justified if you are right. Well, I suppose it is better than someone who is wrong (or simply because he is the boss), and behaves like a jerk regardless. But I would think that working environments would be more civil and humane if we take away the ‘jerk’ manner of dealing with people altogether.

I like this quote attributed to Job that was made at the end of the show - “When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is. And that your life is to live your life inside the world, and try not to get in too much trouble, and maybe get an education, and get a job, and make some money and have a family. But life can be a lot broader than that when you realize one simple thing: that everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own things. You can build your own life. Build a life. Don’t live one, build one.”

I guess a good question that people can ask themselves in their daily lives is how things in the society or the world they live in can be better, and if they are capable enough, to find ways to achieve that vision. This can be in both the little and the big things.  For Job, his belief of a better world is in the technology products he develops. But I am sure that there are more things in the world that can be improved than just technological advances. For one, I believe society can be kinder, caring, and more compassionate, and people should look out for the interests of one another rather for themselves alone.

Sunday Service – Catholic Mass about the keeping of protective artifacts

I went to a Catholic church for its mass service yesterday on Sunday. There were quite a lot of Filipinos at the service. They were going there in families, both men and women, with their children. I don’t see that many of them in other aspects of societal life in Singapore. I suppose the catholic mass is a rally for catholic-believing Fillipinos to gather.

There was an interesting room at an area in the church with the label ‘adoration room’ on the entrance door. In that room, there is a rather strange looking golden artifact encased in a glass panel and buried into the wall at the front of the room. There are two pews at the back of the room. I suppose Catholics may go to that room to pray. I am wondering what that artifact holds in significance for the Catholics.

The sermon given by the Catholic priest for the mass was an exhortation to the congregants to discard artifacts of other religions (especially those Taoist kinds) like amulets and good-luck charms. He was talking about how he was advising a congregant who keep such stuff to discard these things which he warns are artifacts with evil supernatural sources. However, the man was hesitant of throwing away these artifacts because he was afraid that he might not be protected against evil supernatural forces without them. The priest said he chided the man, telling him that his true protection comes from the Christian God. I was slightly amused when the priest said that in place of those amulets and charms, the man should keep Catholic artifacts like the rosary, picture of the saints, the crucifix etc. I am not sure whether that is any less superstitious with what the man began with.

This is probably the most charismatic sounding message that I have come across in a Catholic mass, with all these reference to the protective powers of various artifacts against supernatural evil forces. I have visited other Catholic Mass before, but the message was more mundane and simple, about things like how to live one’s life in a Christian like manner.  I suppose I can understand why the layman who the priest was talking about was hesitant on throwing away his Taoist artifacts. He probably believes that they had been effective in staving off evil spirits in his life, and he is unsure about whether Catholic artifacts would have similar efficacy. I am wondering though whether Christian doctrine supports this notion of carrying around Christian artifacts for protection against evil spirits. It’s not something that I hear in my own church, which is traditional Lutheran. At least from what I remember from a previous sermon by my church pastor, he advocates Christian artifacts, such as Christian entrance wall signs, to serve as a marker of identity for one’s Christian’s faith to visitors, and as reminders for one’s own Christian identity. I think the sermon message was regarding the Deuteronomy 6:8 verse which features the advice to have symbols of reminders in one’s Christian life.

It reminds me of a joke though that I once read about. In that joke, one guy was asking the other why he kept some weird amulet with him. The other guy replied that it helped keep the wild elephants away. The first guy remarked that he didn’t see any wild elephants around, to which the other guy quite smartingly replied that it shows that the amulet works. The point of that joke is that one cannot just prove causation from correlation. The fact that no wild elephants were around does not necessarily mean that the amulet was effective. It could simply be the case that there were no wild elephants to begin with. And I am sure that a skeptic, or an atheist, would remark the same about amulets or Christian artifacts in protecting against evil spirits. They don’t believe evil spirits exist in the first place.

I am also reminded of a scene I once came across when I watched the movie The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser. In that movie, there was this minor character who came face to face with the resurrected Mummy. As the Mummy was approaching him in a threatening manner, that character was comically taking out his religious artifacts one by one in his desperate bid to find the right one that would work against the Mummy. I don’t think the Christian cross worked on the Mummy!

I suppose I don’t rule out the existence of supernatural beings, even though I may have doubts about them. And since I have chosen to believe in the Christian God, I think it is subsidiary to this belief that I must believe that evil supernatural beings exists as well. But I am apprehensive of becoming superstitious about such things, to the extent of attributing almost everything to supernatural forces.

The difference between Intelligence and character

I was talking with a few law school friends over dinner today about people in law school who are particularly smart. Some of such people are the dean listers who top the cohort, or the academic book award winners who top the cohort for particular subjects. I suppose we can say that we are the type of students who are looking at these spectacular students from a distance and have yet to do well in things.

Back in SAJC, I did encounter such a particularly very smart individual who usually scores high A’s for the sciences and maths, obtained a number of gold awards in international mathematic competitions such as the Mathematics Olympiad, was quite accomplished in his co-curricular activities, including being a track and field athelete, and a house council member. Was very talented in many areas, ranked top few internationally in the rubik’s cubes competition where he could solve multiple 5 by 5 rubik cubes blindfolded. Yet, he comes off as a jerk to me. There was a time when I saw him manipulating a rubik’s cubes and I told him that that was some pretty cool stuff he got there. He rudely impersonated what I said in a mocking fashion. And there was a time when I was collecting money from him as a representative of General Paper class, and he made some profane and rude remarks when I tried collecting the money from him.

It puzzles me why someone who does so well in the academic field could display behavior which strikes me as insensible or immature. But I suppose if there is anything that I should wise up to, it is that there is a difference between someone’s intelligence and character, and it is faulty reasoning to presume that someone with intelligence would display maturity or sensibility in his character.

I would say that intelligence has its value, and it has its purpose when it comes to the workplace. It is good that people with their respective qualifications and competencies are matched up to their respective jobs which they can handle. However, when it comes to dealing with people, finding friends, or finding someone to love, I would prefer a person with an amiable character over a person of intelligence any time.

I watched Scary Movie 5 with a few friends. One of the most raunchiest and ribald of humor you could hope to find in a movie. I found out that the female lead Jody was played by Ashley Tisdale, the High School Musical Star who played the female rival of the protagonists in that film. She has certainly come a long way in Hollywood since her Disney days.

Bill Gates

I have a fascination for the man named Bill Gates. He has certainly transformed the way the world operates with his marketing of the personal computer. And he has been very successful in life and is internationally-renowned for being the richest person on earth for a long time coming until he was superseded by Carlos Slim in 2010.  What is it about such people that make them what they are? Where do they get the vision and know-how to achieve such things? Now, I know that Bill Gates has many detractors and critics, from competitors and consumers, who frown upon his anti-competititon marketing tactics, and in terms of his products, he has received criticism for not ensuring better security when coming up with his operating systems. He has also been described as not having the most pleasant of behavior or character as a boss when it comes to work, having a rather forceful and intemperate disposition. But he has also built a humane public image with his humanitarian endeavors to fight poverty and diseases in third world countries.

I have read about psychologists giving their opinion that Bill Gates has the autism spectrum disorder known as Asperger’s Syndrome. Time magazine once compared Gates’ traits to those linked with autism, such as his reluctance to make eye contact, and his tendency toward repetitive or automatic movements, such as spasm, tics, or rocking. Bill Gates has neither sought to confirm nor deny this allegation. And even if he does have an autism spectrum disorder, he seems to be relatively able to operate well in the working environment and even to handle the media. That is a condition that I have been diagnosed with as well by a psychologist. I would say though that I am rather skeptical about the veracity of such conditions within the diagnostic manuals of psychologist, and I am skeptical about whether I or Bill Gates truly have Asperger’s Syndrome. But I suppose Bill Gates does provide some measure of inspiration for those who similarly struggles with the experiences of being on the autism spectrum, though I would have to caution that based on my observation, Bill Gates’ autism seems relatively mild compared to the severe cases that I have seen, so I would not say that Bill Gates’ experience might representative of a person who does experience with a cold hard case of Asperger’s Syndrome.

I once watched a DVD movie titled Pirates of the Silicon Valley which featured the various prominent figures in the competition in the personal computer race in the 1980s. Featured as characters were the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen, and Steve Balmer. According to the film, Apple founder Steve Jobs had the upper hand in the computer race, being the forefront runner with his computer prototype that he had cobbled up, partially stealing technologies from Xerox which had failed to appreciate the technologies that its engineers had come up with. Gates, on the other hand, was relatively unknown as the CEO of Microsoft, and was snubbed by Jobs at a San Francisco computer fair when he attempted to introduce himself. But Bill Gates craftily offered to collaborate with Jobs in order to obtain copies of Macintosh software and then, with his company Microsoft, cobble together the Windows operating system. Word of this eventually reached Jobs more than once, but no matter how angry or accusatory Steve became, Bill could always calmly explain away any such fears, weathering any of Steve's tirades meekly, placating Steve into, once again, believing that Microsoft was no threat. Eventually, Gates obtained the upper hand when he marketed his software internationally.

Steve was given concrete proof that Microsoft did replicated software from the Macintosh and when he confronted Bill with it, Gates famously replies with, "You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first." You're too late."

Indeed, the business tactics of these individuals are less than admirable. They do use underhanded and draconian means to gain the upper edge in the computer industry. But I am sure that these individuals are innately highly intelligent themselves and have the vision and insight on how to leverage on the intelligence of other human beings, and how to orchestrate the various elements to take their company forward.