Having nothing to do?

Today, I have a particular strong thought about the phrase ‘having nothing to do’ or what we say ‘無聊’ in Chinese. I keep thinking the question ‘do we really have any time that we have nothing to do?’ or we just do not want to do what we have to do or things that we have to do?

After having some thought, I realize that the answer is we do not want to do anything at all sometimes. But the reality is – we sometimes try to convince ourselves that we have nothing to do and to allow ourselves to waste our time for granted. Then, we end up wasting a lot of time doing things for no purposes such as browsing Facebook hundreds of time (like in a minute or so) in a day, lying on sofa playing mobile phone, or even sleeping.

So, I try not to make myself saying I have nothing to do. Instead, I try to give myself some justifications why I am doing this. Feeling ‘無聊’ sometimes can be caused by a sense of emptiness or ‘空虛’ but I hope that is not happening to be. When people feel ‘空虛’, they lose their directions and can easily be preyed to do some bad things – I think some people commit crime because of this? So, if I am really doing ‘nothing’, I should say I do not feel like doing anything right now. All I need is some rests. Right?

Other than wanting to know about motivations behind one’s behavior, similarly, we could apply this to meanings in communication – ‘people do not always say what they mean and people do not always mean what they say’. Perhaps we could try to think beyond the surface. Then, we will see the deeper meanings beyond the surface meanings.

Celebrity Consumption

Nowadays, celebrities in the world are like drops in the rain – you just can’t count! Surely, most of us would regard some kinds of celebrities as our idols. But what is the reality? Are we consuming celebrities just partly because of groupthink? Or, do we really admire one’s deeds so we have decided to treat celebrit(ies) as our role model(s)?

The Youtube video below gives a perfect demonstration of the first thought:

"On the night of July 27th, 2012, a huge prank was pulled in New York City and this is the video of what took place. Brett Cohen came up with a crazy idea to fool thousands of pedestrians walking the streets of Times Square into thinking he was a huge celebrity, and it worked! Not only did it work, it caused quite a stir. This social experiment, of sorts, makes a profound statement about how modern culture is so attracted to pop culture, without any real credibility needed.”

While you are having fun watching this video, please also give yourself some thoughts about the prevalence of celebrities in society.

Writing a blog

Writing a blog has always been the rivalry between individualism and collectivism. If you can bear long enough time to try to develop your habit of writing, it will stay… at least for a few weeks. And then, to keep or not to keep the habit, that is your choice. Writing a blog should not be treated primarily as a social activity like what Facebook does. It is a way for us to express our inner self through words. If you think the other way round, you will end up stopping to write your blog when you find that there are few/no comments about your blog entries. The same destiny applies to Xanga, which was once considered a popular blog web.

Urgh… SO MANY CHOICES

In this age of information explosion, there is way too much information available in the Internet and some of them is actually repetitious because some people just like to copy other people’s work and put them as if their own. You can easily find many of such examples in Youtube. These people are wasting our time in searching for different kinds of information. So, in this case, there is always a convincing reason why we usually have to resort to books which have at least certain level of reputation guaranteed when doing research.

Today, I do not want to put the focus on books. Instead, I want to talk about ‘comments’. After reading a news passage in Yahoo, BBC or CNN or a video clipping on Youtube, would you bother reading comments written by others readers/viewers? In reality, I think commenters sometimes tell more truth than the main texts (article/video) themselves.

Below is an example of the above mentioned case from Yahoo:

http://hk.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/simon-lee/%E7%82%BA%E4%BB%80%E9%BA%BC%E8%88%AA%E7%A9%BA%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%9A%84%E5%95%86%E5%8B%99%E5%AE%A2%E4%BD%8D%E8%BC%83%E8%B2%B4-072408842.html;_ylt=AjoCedCnOc08f8mLXL2GnI1hgLVG;_ylu=X3oDMTFrcmdnOGdqBG1pdANCbG9nIEF1dGhvciBCbG9nIEluZGV4BHBvcwMxMQRzZWMDTWVkaWFCbG9nSW5kZXg-;_ylg=X3oDMTFwYTFmYzluBGludGwDaGsEbGFuZwN6aC1oYW50LWhrBHBzdGFpZAMEcHN0Y2F0A2F1dGhvcgRwdANzZWN0aW9ucw--;_ylv=3

Many people criticized the senior lecturer of providing wrong information to the readers… (skip, skip, lazy, lazy…) After doing some little research, it has proved the commenters to be right.

Here is another good example from Timeout:

http://www.timeout.com.hk/art/features/46434/daniel-libeskind.html

I myself also think that the design is really stupid and wastes space. The interiors are badly put together – the floors are dark; every floors have very limited space of about a maximum of 8 classrooms; there are unused space, particularly the angle part, is designed just to fit the design of the building…

So, would we spend some time to activate our critical mind in judging the validity of a piece of news? Or will you just click the ‘share’ button when you find it interesting? Have a thought for yourself.

Before ending, there is a piece of personal advice I would like to share with all of you – dig ONLY into the areas that what you really want/need to and leave the rest aside. Life is short and life is about making choices. One cannot get to know all the fields available in the world – we learn and we forget. And I think this is also the reason why we all have different careers and we contribute to society in different aspects, right?

Extended reading:

[Smarts: It's Not How Much You Learn That Matters. It's How Much You Remember]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/smarts/200904/smarts-its-not-how-much-you-learn-matters-its-how-much-you-remember

The Hallway to Online Fame – Youtube

Who say Hong Kong people lack creativity? The prevalence of Youtubers in Hong Kong proves one point that there are many creative Hong Kongers who can express themselves brilliantly through Youtube videos or what we call video blogs (Vblogs). They start to a form sophisticated discourse community. When compared them with myself, I find that I should work more hard to pursue my own goals. I always think there are always some lazy people in the world and I just need to work a little bit harder than them and then I can then secure myself a job.

You may say that some of them make non-sense Youtube videos. But, at least they have the courage to post a video, pursue what want to do and say what they want to express.

Some says ‘The biggest mistake one can ever make is not to make mistakes’. I totally agree to this statement. Definitely, I need to change my attitude and should work hard for myself.

Below are some examples of well-known HK Youtubers:

Ming Jai

https://www.youtube.com/user/mingjai14

Eminleo

https://www.youtube.com/user/eminleo

Cooking HayHay

https://www.youtube.com/user/haywong709

Lou記 (Mr. Lou)

https://www.youtube.com/user/hahomo123

司徒夾帶 (Umoviegroup)

https://www.youtube.com/user/umoviegroup

伍公子 (Louis Ng)

https://www.youtube.com/user/Loui5Ng

窮飛龍 (Smilemiann)

https://www.youtube.com/user/Smilemiann

薑檸樂 (Ginger Lemon Cola)

https://www.youtube.com/user/gingerlemoncola

Bomba Production (Fox, Felix, Kibi…)

http://www.youtube.com/user/BombaVideoPro

《門徒》2007 影評

故事內容相信很多人都知道，不贅了（其實係我懶得打XD）。

劇終前由阿力（吳彥祖飾）說的最後的一句，最令人發人心省：「我一直都想知道為什麼人要吸毒，原本是因為空虛，到底是毒品可怕，還是空虛可怕？」

有些人可能覺得一些動物（例如老鼠、蟑螂、蛇等）很可怕，相反地，有些人面對這些動物卻視若無睹。既然不同人對相同的事物可以有著不同的觀點，那麼我們知道事物本身是是客觀而人的感受是主觀的。

我覺得，人的心魔是最可怕的（作為一個人，我覺得，我們不應該被物質所控制）。

很多時候，事物的自主權都在我們的身上，選擇作什麼的行為反映著我們的心態。我們的心態如何，那事物的「本質」亦隨之而改變。若然我手上握著一包毒品，我可以選擇賣出去（毒販的行為），我可以選擇吸食（道友的行為），我可以銷毀他它們（海關的行為）。

再 以本劇為例，當我們覺得毒品是一種害人不淺，令人嗤之以鼻的東西，劇中的道友卻覺得毒品是令人忘憂的東西。作為一般人，我們可能不能了解為什麼道友會以吸 毒來忘憂，而不去選擇其他的方法（例如行街、唱K、吃朱古力等）去舒緩自己的情緒，那正正是因為我們對他們缺乏了解。每個人都有著不同的背景，繼而培養出 不同的性格、信念和價值觀。

後記：劉德華（飾毒梟昆哥）的演技一流、很自然，吳彥祖（飾臥底阿力）好靚仔。

評分：4/5