Childhood.

A little reflection on my childhood. I often think different things to big things that I don't know about. Like for example, the satellite dish was associated to big mushrooms. I often tell my mum I want see the 'big mushrooms' whenever we drive on the highway. I don't know how I came to the notion that satellite dishes are big mushrooms, I guess it's because they look like gigantic mushrooms to me. This shows the wonders of symbol. The meaning I attached to the satellite dish stuck till I was about 11yrs old.


Looking back now, I realised that it the things that are huge and unknown to me that I tend to associate my own manings to it. Cement mixers are giant balloons, the moon's the sun at night and many more. Nobody taught me so i just inferred and associated these things with things that I know now. Childish toughts, I know. This shows how we humans associate things since young.


We naturally have this need to associate meaning to things. My parents did not tell me what it is, so I just inferred. As such, I have misunderstood these huge objects of my youth As such my intensional orientation was based on my own definitions. My parents were left wondering what was I refering to when I pointed to a cement mixer and said: 'Giant balloon!" Hence, they adopted more extensional orientations and pointed to that cement mixer and asked me if I meant that. They have to constantly check the meaning behind my words.

This did not improve till I was primary 6, the meanings behind my words are never what they actually meant. I guess I was a creative kid back then. I thought monopoly money was real money as well, and my parents did try to correct my mental definition of things but maybe I was too caught up in my own world that I refused to understand their teachings. Due to my inability to express as a kid, it is no surprise that misunderstanding occur every now and then.

Now, twenty one years later, after countless misunderstandings, I can't say I have mastered the art of expressing myself. Misunderstandings do still occur. However, i have learnt to minimise it, by asking the meaning behind certain words and listening out for tones and looking at the situation. The different people I hang out with communicate differently hence, I have learnt to be flexible and change my commincation styles accordingly.

As such, to my the meaning behind each word a person speaks is important to minimise misunderstanding. It can lead to painful scenrios when the misunderstanding blows out of propotion.

Inglourious Basterds.

I went to watch Inglourious Basterds yesterday. Save for the fact that it gave me nightmares last night, it was overall, a good movie. It got me thinking though. That we always view the victims as the victims because they are, well, victims. And so the Jews are prototypes of victims. Poor things that got locked up in burning buildings, getting the star of David carved on their foreheads and killed mercilessly like animals. So we pity them and view the oppressors in a bad light. But what if it were the victims doing the dirty work now?

How will we react if it were the Jews who sculpt the Germans and crave swastikas on their forheads? Will we view them the same ways we view the Germans? Or will we cork our eyebrows and say: 'Oh, they are protecting themselves and seeking revenge for the horrors the Germans did to them.' But here I ask, if someone slaps you, will you slap that person back? Will that help matters?

Yes, Ingluorious Basterds is a fictatious movie but what if it were true? That the victims are also issuing the same treatment their oppressors gave them. This, my friends, is the horrors of war. The burning, bombing, screaming, and gun shots are all part and parcel of war. Sickeningly though are the things that the different parties involve do to one another, killing each other in cold blood. So here comes the bottomline, why war? And can the world be at peace with one another?

People always go on and on about the horrors of war and blah blah blah but at the end of the day, both parties lose because both parties lost many of their countrymen. Will we humans ever stop hating one another? All it takes is one person to smile at the person who slapped him and walk away. Is it really that hard?

So in essence are there really prototypes of victims? Or are these people engaging in victimage? I am not saying that the horrors of war is not true, it is true and it happened and to purge guilt of starting the war, scapegoating was carried out. Hitler was the main guy who started the war, but Hitler alone could not have started the war, he needed a team of people and there you have it, World War 2. I wonder if Hitler ever felt guilty bout starting World War 2, the war that took so many lives. I wonder if he ever knew the full extent his actions has caused. Does guilt ever take a foothold on this man? I wonder, but I'll never know.