"The view of the majority is always right. Do you agree?"

The more I see this question, the more depressed I get! Oh nooo.......

Forget... Forget... I shall psycho myself to forget.......

The beauty of ignorance.

A brain that functions as well as your legs do... is it a brain worthy of praise or one of shame?

Sometimes, it is the perspective that one has to take into account rather than the object itself. We may say that something looks aesthetically ugly, but ultimately it is us who make that judgement. There is no value to things but what we tag them with.

Money. Cold hard cash. This is the simplest example I can come up with. Look at that piece of $50 note in your hand. Stare at it. What do you see? The poor sees it as a form of relief. The rich sees it as another form of 'bonus'. You see it as what it can buy you. You attribute it to be equivalent of something you want. Does that mean that money has a physical, real value? Not really.

Imagine yourselves trapped on a deserted island, perhaps one like in the 'Lost' television series. Would you have any need for money? The rhetorical answer, I believe, is no. The tribesman of prehistoric world may see no value in money because they indulge in barter trade. The irony here, however, is that there is no difference between barter trade and cash as both serve as a product of perspective. If your perspective treats money as useless and unwanted, it would remain so. If you hunger for wealth because money satisfies your needs and wants, then money has a value to it. Similarly, if you trade your chicken for your neighbour's duck, it means that you value the duck as something of equivalence to your chicken, and that you value the duck more because you FEEL that you needed a duck more than a chicken. This instinct weigh the importance of something over another by itself is something so intrinsic that it is impossible to stop or realise, simply because it is in Man's nature and we do so without thinking.

The next time you claim something to be unworthy, think- 'this is my perspective and it's important to me; but how much is my view worth to some other person?'

In the dark the dead lay dead on the ground.
In the light the living lay dead in their beds.
In the sea lives are dead in their freedom.
In the air lives are dead in their world.

The man in desperation cries for help.
The man in agony cries for help.
The man in anger cries for help.
The man in himself cries for help.

Let be the man who cries out for he is dead.
Let be the man who cries out for he is trapped.
Let be the man who cries out for hopelessness lies.
Let be the man who be himself live for he must be void.

My handwriting analysis done awhile ago, it is pretty accurate from what I see... Go try it at http://www.handwritingwizard.com/

Vivian is moderately outgoing. Her emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart rendering stories. In fact, she can be kind, friendly, affectionate and considerate of others. She has the ability to put herself into the other person's shoes.

Vivian will be somewhat moody, with highs and lows. Sometimes she will be happy, the next day she might be sad. She has the unique ability to get along equally well with what psychology calls introverts and extroverts. This is because she is in between. Psychology calls Vivian an ambivert. She understands the needs of both types. Although they get along, she will not tolerate anyone that is too "far out." She doesn't sway too far one way or the other.

When convincing her to buy a product or an idea, a heart rendering story could mean a great deal to her. She puts herself in the same situation as the person in the story, yet she will not buy anything that seems overly impractical or illogical. Vivian is an expressive person. She outwardly shows her emotions. She may even show traces of tears when hearing a sad story.

Vivian is a "middle-of-the-roader," politically as well as logically. She weighs both sides of an issue, sits on the fence, and then will decide when she finally has to. She basically doesn't relate to any far out ideas and usually won't go to the extreme on any issue.

People that write their letters in an average height and average size are moderate in their ability to interact socially. According to the data input, Vivian doesn't write too large or too small, indicating a balanced ability to be social and interact with others.

Vivian will be candid and direct when expressing her opinion. She will tell them what she thinks if they ask for it, whether they like it or not. So, if they don't really want her opinion, don't ask for it!

In reference to Vivian's mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When Vivian slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project.

She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. Vivian can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.

Vivian is a practical person whose goals are planned, practical, and down to earth. This is typical of people with normal healthy self-esteem. She needs to visualize the end of a project before she starts. she finds joy in anticipation and planning. Notice that I said she plans everything she is going to do, that doesn't necessarily mean things go as planned. Vivian basically feels good about herself. She has a positive self-esteem which contributes to her success. She feels she has the ability to achieve anything she sets her mind to. However, she sets her goals using practicality-- not too "out of reach". She has enough self-confidence to leave a bad situation, yet, she will not take great risks, as they relate to her goals. A good esteem is one key to a happy life. Although there is room for improvement in the confidence catagery, her self-perception is better than average.

Vivian is sarcastic. This is a defense mechanism designed to protect her ego when she feels hurt. She pokes people harder than she gets poked. These sarcastic remarks can be very funny. They can also be harsh, bitter, and caustic at the same time.

One way Vivian punishes herself is self directed sarcasm. She is a very sarcastic person. Often this sarcasm and "sharp tongued" behavior is directed at herself.

Vivian has a tendency to put things off, Vivian procrastinates. She sometimes pretends to be busy, so she will not have to do whatever she is putting off. She is often late to appointments or deadlines. This usually leads to a great amount of effort at the last minute to meet the deadline. Procrastination is an important factor as it relates to her output on the job or at school. Remember, Vivian will put it off until later. Procrastination is easily overcome through a simple stroke adjustment in the handwriting.

Vivian is very self-sufficient. She is trying not to need anyone. She is capable of making it on her own. She probably wants and enjoys people, but she doesn't "need" them. She can be a loner.

Vivian has a healthy imagination and displays a fair amount of trust. She lets new people into her circle of friends. She uses her imagination to understand new ideas, things, and people.

This is an improved version of my GP Prelims. Did some touch ups, but I still cannot fathom why the examiner claims that I have a lack of real-life examples in the essay.

'History helps us to understand the past, but it does not help us to prepare for the future.' Is this true?

'Learn from history, for it shows us our pride and our faults.' There have always been many common sayings about history whereby history is seen as a tool that helps us to understand our past, and that learning from history would prepare us for the future. What the common person often perceives of history is that it is something objective which records the past. However, this is a misconception about the nature of history as a study of the past. History is mistakenly credited to reflect truth, accuracy and objectiveness when the fact is that history is actually subjective in nature. History is written by historians who are often people in service to the state or simply just people with their own agendas and viewpoints. As such, history is never objective because it is in Man's nature to be bias and to take a stance. Take the Japanese involvement in World War II for example, the victims of the war would write terrible histories about the cruelty of Japanese ; the Japanese would write about their war heroes. In reality, Japan has indeed changed the history of war to omit the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese soldiers in Japanese school history textbooks. Therefore, the study of history is never credible and one cannot hope to say that history helps us to understand the past.

Why is then, that the common sayings about history exist? Of course there has to be some value in history if wise men have continually urged us to learn from it. What we must learn from history is to study trends. While history does not let us understand the past fully, it shows us the consequences of certain motivators (such as power and survival) and we can learn from these lessons. Rwanda's genocide did not happen overnight, and neither did India's plunge in economical status in the 1960s. From history, we learn important lessons on what pitfalls there are, so that we would avoid them in the future. Is this helping us prepare for the future? Yes, undoubtedly so? After all, isn't education from history always important?

What exactly is future? Am I going to die the next minute I step on to the road? The future is an ocean of murky waters, and we are on a wooden boat afloat on it, unknown of the hidden dangers. Future is undetermined. Twenty years ago no one would have known that technology would spread so rampantly. A hundred years ago no one would have thought it possible to travel to space for a leisure trip. We cannot predict the future. The future happens. The future changes from time to time, era to era. History, on the other hand, does not change - it merely accumulates. What we can learn from lessons centuries or decades ago may not apply to reality. Now we face problems of game addicts and threats of computer viruses that cause a loss of important data stored in the complex systems of computers. We face a growing problem of rich-poor divide. Does history prepare us for these? No. We cannot prepare ourselves for the unknown. Even a forward-looking country like Singapore who draws many lessons from history cannot do so. Singapore can only make use of history and other knowledge like economics to predict the future, trying hard to pre-empt disasters, just like how Singapore makes use of the 1997 global recession as a learning point which now enabled her to keep her economy growing even in the present situation of inflation and America's recession. The point to note, however, was that Singapore predicted and foresaw the future. Singapore has an image of the future that was projected based on history and other knowledge areas. Instead of wandering in murky waters, Singapore visualises a bright torch beam shining down at murky waters. Singapore does not prepare for the unknown, but the known - the predicted future, not future.

The subjective nature of history combined with the indeterminate nature of the future makes it difficult to prepare for the future. If we cannot truly and completely comprehend the past, what we learn from history may be misleading. Take the century old battle between Christians and Jews for example, the study of the Bible (which is considered a historical text) deems the Jews as the reincarnate of the devil, and such prejudice has persisted and eventually led to the tragic holocaust. When a group of such people who take texts at face-value without questioning if it is the truth and acts upon what they have learnt from their own 'perceived' lessons, stereotypes occur. Following the onslaught of stereotypes, discrimination would often be developed against what these people perceive collectively as 'threats' and 'impediments' to their future. This does not help us prepare for future, and the biased nature of mis-interpreted history only furthers the cohesion of the world because it highlights differences and conflicts more often than peace and stability.

The real future is elusive and ever-changing. As such, one can never be prepared for it. We can, however, prepare for a future we predict using knowledge and history. Nevertheless, the subjective nature of history and bias of Man makes us prone to misunderstanding our past, and we cannot use history to dictate how we perceive and prepare for the future.