Monday, April 03, 2006
there must be a sense of purpose in everything that we do. otherwise, we become mindless machines pushing dirt around. i attended a few more presentations today and i've come to realise that tkm does really instill that in his students. i think by a long stretch, the talks given by my shi-di-s and shi-mei were phenomenally better than most that i had previously attended. most students do not seem to have an inkling as to the motives of such a talk. i mean a presentation lasts for at most 45 minutes so it would be impossible for one to cover your entire thesis, and certainly that is not what is expected of students. dismally, a large proportion of my fellow students seem to treat these talks as a sort of oral examination where they present proof after proof, theorem after theorem of mathematical jargon that whilst impressive, leaves quite a sour taste in the mouth. there are even those who treat these talks as a means to pepper their egos by demonstrating to the audiences their apparent superior intellect. this is the result in insufficient training in dealing with such talks and while i believe these are important issues in cultivating a whole person, i do not think most superviors nor examiners really focus too much on these details. but tkm is one who surely does, and it certainly was thru him that i've realised so much.
i believe that every presentation must begin with one and only one core concept. everything else around this is secondary and should not dilute the pressence of this topic. going into details about anything other than this core topic is a sure-fire way of doing so, for now, the listener must focus in the details, before zooming out again to look at the whole picture. i like to imagine it as taking a walk down a scenic route leading to a spectacular waterfall. if one were to look in detail at every single thing that one passes by, like the number of petals on the flower you passed, or the direction of the flow of the stream flowing beside you, then you would be so mentally drained by the time you reach the end. the best (in my opinion) way perhaps is to take in the scenery as one saunters down and stop in amazement to fully appreciate the waterfall in all it's beauty at the end.
i guess this really extends to life in general as well. if we focused on every single minute detail of our lives, we wouldnt enjoy any of it for sure. in fact, our bodies have already adapted to this by filtering out certain bits of information that reaches our brain. these filters prevent what is known as sensory overload. our sense of touch, sight, smell, taste and sound are all constantly at work but the amount of information our brains can process is limited and thus, we have evolved to develop certain filters to send only the most important messages form these senses to the brain. that is the reason why while engrossed in something we occasionally do not hear someone calling us or how after a while the smell of your colonge seems to vanish even though new people who meet you still smell it. so, really, if we were to take any lessons away from the way our bodies have adapted, this would be one of the most important. people always say we should set goals, i say we should just set A goal and forcus on that first and let everything else be secondary.
anyway, badminton and mahjong tomorrow, can life get any better than this?
{11:08 PM}
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