Which came first, ideas or aptitude?

Newton’s papers?

I’m not sure which one comes first. I’m not sure which one I prefer.

Sorry INTJ, but I could be an INFP actually.

Gasp.

Anyway, positions open for a mathematician’s services. Tentatively unpaid and unrecognized. Applications start now. Shortlist and final acceptance will be done, if and when I ever become an academic. I could flunk out first, or decide to express my idealism in other ways.

I do wonder at times, where do musical instrumentalists, especially all those child prodigies, get their range of emotions and depth from?To have the profound understanding of life and its difficulties, its complexity and entanglements, to give expression, musical life to the feelings that come from within. What feelings, what struggles could they have had, from a quasi-sheltered existence as I perceive it?

If you are a genius, and are given attention as such, who could hurt you? Who would not offer you love? What happened to you at a age when other “normal” people were trying to “fit in”, make sense of it all? Have you ever had to struggle against anyone, anything?

Interestingly, this is like thinking, where do monks, especially those raised from young in monasteries, get their insights from? Enter the Dalai Lama.

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Suppose you were to lose your memory the next instant, whatever as a result of – a car accident, something falling on your head, some freak magnetic pulse from the Sun, anything. What would you choose to remember?

How? Memento gave a rather interesting solution. In it Leonard Shelby is attacked by drugged-high burglars one night – they supposedly raped and killed his wife, and their assault on him caused Leonard to get anterograde amnesia, that is the inability to form new memories. His last working memory of his life would be the night of his wife’s death, and everything that ever happened before the assault, for anything new he experiences, he only retains a short-term impression of things – after a few minutes, his mind would blank out and forget everything that happened to him from those few minutes. Kinda like what we mock goldfish for (apparently inaccurately, I was taught by QI), save that this guy remembers slightly longer before he forgets.

Leonard seeks out revenge, looking for those who killed his wife and fucked up his brain. He reckons there was a pair of the burglars and that he killed one that night before he lost his memory. However there was another he missed and it was him who knocked him out and caused his amnesia. Not being able to formulate new memories and hence work with remembered data, he comes up with a system of encoding information and clues about the identity and whereabouts of the still-missing assailant. He tattoos important facts about the one he seeks (e.g. “John G. Raped and Murdered My Wife.”) and mundane reminders (e.g. “EAT”), and carries around with him a polaroid camera which he uses to take pictures of people he meets and places he visits. Then, he writes on them to tell him whoever/whatever they are. (e.g. on a picture of “Natalie”, “She will help you out of pity.”)

For our purposes though, instead of going the hard way to piece together your life again and tattoo/photograph clues, we have the benefit of pre-knowledge – we know that the next moment we will lose all memories of reality; assuming that you are going to have enough time to start tattooing and photographing and writing on your polaroid photos, that you are not going to have permanent anterograde amnesia; any memories you form after the memory loss is yours to keep and won’t be blanked out.

What would you remember?

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We do feelings as well, but we don’t do happy; sad; angry; relieved.

We do absurd; silly; ridiculous; rational; authentic; true; absurd; absurd; absurd.

From the outside we do poker.

Come inside. Feel what we feel. See what we see.

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Protip: People, I do have an inner softie marshmallow, you know?

Guys, I think I have a new political hero. His name is José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer, former President of Costa Rica.

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Alright, ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the end of this long day we await the coming of the new dawn. Henceforth soon will begin a period of few months where there is an adjustment to civilian freedom once more, unfettered by military regimentation and time commitment, before the embarkation on the next lap of this journey of life, to span across four years of this prime of life, into what people like to refer to as “university life”.

A few projects/tasks for the months after the end of my military service! To while away this idle time and prepare for this exciting prime of life as mentioned above.

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I went to the Esplanade to attend the “Gala Concert: Sarah Chang Plays Bruch” on Friday, and I had some time before the concert to go to the library. While browsing through the journals on the bookshelves, I saw this study which caught my imagination – it was something about a cellist using performance cues to remember how to perform her piece, as studied by psychologists. Then, I had a brainwave. I thought of becoming, an orchestral psychologist.

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