Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Just One


"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference."

"I would rather see films than talk about them.
I would rather write than talk about feelings.
I would rather read than bask in a sea of acquantainces.
I would rather cruise museums alone than with someone who drones on why we should adore Van Gogh.
A freak? A geek? A loner? Aloof?
Alone. One feels alive."

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Dialectics


As I was making my way to the bus terminal in Heathrow airport two weeks ago, I was welcomed with a slew of HSBC's ads. I have seen these ads painted on walls in Singapore's train stations but was never able to relish them due to the helter skelter lifestyle. This time, I had the opportunity to revel them at my own pace. On a travellator.

Designed to promote HSBC's standing as the world's local bank, the new Your Point of view campaign offers a refreshing thought to celebrate people's differences by voicing common oppositions to various topics. There was one particular one that caught my eye, one ad featuring a cat and a pug with words imprinted love and loathe, and vice versa. I love pugs, but I have heard of many who cohesively thought it was an ugly "piece of animal".

This concept I learnt today, after watching "Half-Nelson" starring Ryan Gosling" is called Dialectics. Side tracking a lil, I highly recommend this movie. It shows the friendship between an idealistic high school teacher with a drug habit and a troubled student. He rejects the conventional curriculum and instead, takes an edgier approach and emphasizes dialectics in many of his classes. Basically, dialectics is a tool to understand the way things are and the way things change. Dialectics highlights the following three points:
  1. Everything is made of opposing forces/opposing sides
  2. Gradual changes lead to turning points, where one opposite overcomes the other.
  3. Change moves in spirals, not circles.

In this movie, you'll see the dialectical theme playing multiple times: the teacher and student relationship, the "black" student and "white" teacher, ideals vs rules and systems, the adult teacher and the child student. Despite the differences, they made changes in their lives which resulted in positive turning points.