Why born? Why live? And why die?

Kaithirasen, columnist from NST, commented on joy that a baby brings along upon her arrival on New Sunday Times of 26 Mar 2006. Perhaps, I should call this is a tacit agreement, for today is my 19th birthday. The commentary has somehow makes me visualise myself being born and wailing but doctor, nurses and, especially, my parents were smiling. Since that moment, I have also become hope of my parents and even the human beings.

Zillions people come to the world as I did and they are also the hopes of human beings. Before the age of 5, they learn. Somes are fast while somes are slow. Later in their from 5 to 20, fortunate ones get the chance to discover more in the world. However, many are not so fortunate. They have to find different ways to survive in very harsh and unpredictable condition. These people, despite hardship and sufferring they are encountering, do not give up to continue the line of human beings. What makes them persevere? Is it survival instinct? Or is it the prospect of happiness in future?

I do not know the answer but I know that I am the fortunate one. So are the people around me. They have learnt a lot although the amount of knowledge they acquired is insignificant in the universe. The capable fews from this group of people later use their discoveries to invent, design and create to benefit others in their communities but the unfortunate ones are still left behind.

Therefore, fews form the benefited communities feel obligated to help. Whether the aid is in the form of food, money or in more constructive form of education and technology, little can be done to improve on the "unfortunate" condition that lies onto them. It is because they did not teach them how to create as the capable fews did. Instead, they give them whatever has been created, which is useless to alleviate their suffering permanently. Nevertheless, they are not to be blamed because know-how to create is not a textbook knowlegde that can be passed down. Thus, the fortunates one remain unfortunate.

Whether being fortunate or not, no one can avoid to face the menace of death. And after they pass away, it leaves nothing but memory and, perhaps, their creation.

So what for living if one has to die eventually?
I have been searching for the answer but to no avail.

Bodhisattva, teacher of buddhism, had concentrated his energy to look for the answer 2000 years ago. He said life is impermanent as it is in the cycle of being born, old, sick and die, which is a form of suffering. The world we are living now is for us to acquire prajna (Wisdom to realise the emptiness of the materialistic world), hence to be able to cross to paramitra (to cross beyond all suffering and difficulity).

This is quite true because most our suffering is caused by sights, sounds, smells, tastes, body and mind. Should we overcome limitation of our body, we will have no suffering. Notwithstandingly, I have a doubt - if human beings are born to realise the emptiness of the world, why give place us in the cycle? In the cycle, we suffer and forget about the lesson learnt from the suffering after we die. Thus, we are born and make the same mistakes again. Why?

I am in a state of confusion. I want my family to live in happiness but money is the only possible mean to achieve happiness for people around me in this society. Such illusion is possessed by most of the people around me. This is because money can buy you health, buy you time, and most importantly, help you to pursue your interest and your happiness.

Thus, it is difficult for me exclude financial factors when I plan for my future if I want to be happy most of the time. I do not hope that people will cry when I am dead and smiling, but everyone on the earth can be happy in their short span of life.

Open source - a new strategy in software war

Programmers in the past used to share software routinely. Computer makers later equipped their products with these software, and customers customise the software with additional codes. Then came Bill Gates who set up Microsoft, a company which made standardised software, and made it much more affordable than investing money and time to develop additional codes individually. It marked the time when hardware become a commodity while software is the core product for many computer users. This was also the time when software war began.

However, software world becomes increasingly complicated then it was a decade ago. Nowaday, piracy is the biggest threat to software makers but a good news to end users. Software companies have invested billions of dollars to curb piracy by introducing more sophiscated protection in their products. Yet, it is unable to defy hackers who destroy the walls of protection that the companies have thrown most of their money in.

Why does such a big company like Microsoft with billions of capital and thousands of human power fail to crackdown on piracy?

Hackers work collaboratively across the borders of nations. The deep well of knowledge allow them to come up with a solution effectively. Whereas, Microsoft develops its software in a close manner, isolating itself from many elites over the world. The productivity hence is undermined. To classify, Microsoft adopt a proprietary way in promoting its products, while hackers do the work in open-source way.

In fact, open source becomes the main driving force in software world in 21st century. Three quarter of companies' servers are installed with Linux operating system.
Many big companies like Acer and IBM have switched their focus on Linux for its reliability and, most importantly, much lower cost. 90% of current 3-G mobile devices are also using modified version of Linux operating system.

IBM regards open source as an answer to how companies can stimulate growth and economic development while also cutting cost. By donating source codes to open community, IBM left the job to improve on the programmes to voluntary programmers over the world. As a result, the company not only cut cost in software research, but also able to possess different ideas from elites of the community. These ideas allow IBM to improve on their service in developing a reliable computer system. It can not be denied that Linux has far less bugs than that Microsoft Windows has.

Hence, open source has become a new strategy in software competition in providing reliable and
low cost computer system.

A brain-dead person is still a life.

Referring to an old article dated sept 27 2003, "Brain-dead is dead - but maybe not for loved ones", I am going to comment about respect we should give to a brain-dead person when prologing lives of others.

People consider brain-dead person has no life because they believe that human brain is the "mastermind"of an entire body. If brain does not work anymore, the body has no life even though his heart is still beating. However, there is no convincing scientific evidence to prove that brain contain soul of a human body. Scientists have cut open human brain to look for memory, feeling of a person. Eventually, they failed as they saw nothing else other than layers of brain tissues. So where is the soul? How sure can you confirm that brain-dead is equivalent to end-of-life for a living thing?

Brain, and so are other organs, functions to allow the soul control the body properly. If one of the organ is dead, leaving the person in coma, how can we come to a hasty judgement that the body has "no life", while other organs are still working properly? Buddhists believe that soul will completely leave a body after it is dead for 12 hours. To maximise successful rate of an transplanting operation, doctors will usually cut out the organs immediately after his death. Some doctors in U.S. even inject drugs into the patients to keep other organs alive but to hasten heart-death. Such acts, not only deprive the patients of chances of getting alive, it also unnaturally hasten death of the person.

You may ask how can doctors deprieve patients of any hope of survive since they already "dead". Well, there are many occassion where patients become fully conscious after being diagnosed brain-dead. The most recent news I have heard of was a taiwanese old man who woke up in his coffin during funeral ceremony. This shows that brain-death does not neccessaily connote to end-of life.

Hence, if we respect every life in the world, we should also respect those lives whose organs are damaged but still stand a chance to recover.

How far can Central Propaganda Department of People Republic of China control mass media?

A propaganda poster during Cultural Revolution

Central Propaganda Department of People Republic of China used to be an outstanding propaganda group. In retaliation against Japanese troops and later against kuomintang (nationalist party) in 1940s, the department helped Chinese Communist Party (CCP) establish an sincere, potent and friendly impression among peasants and workers majority of China population.

However, Propaganda Department nowaday is fettered by old conventions. Although the department are on par with modern communication technology (they are able to trace IPs to crack down on dissidents) and always coming out with various tricks to discredit dissidents and conceal wrong-doing of government officers, their political belief is left behind by the fast-changing political and social environment. They contain every piece of information that may be harmful to the government in fear that similar collapse of communism in USSR triggered by Glasnost will happen in China.

News media are tightly controlled by Central Propaganda Department. Such restriction acts more as a umberalla protecting bad and corruption, rather than element ensuring social stability. Peasants in countrysides are forced to give up their land to the authority but the compensation to their land are "eaten" by their corrupted cadres, while the petitioners are beaten up in Beijing. However, their voices can not be heard as the press are not allowed to report on the issues on the ground of social stability. In that case, neither national and citizens' interest are protected, instead it serves as a comfort zone for corrupted leaders.

Moreover, hindrance in flow of ideas and knowledge also undermine the effectiveness of govenrment's response to the crisis. Song-hua-jiang pollution incident, outbreak of SARS and bird flu can be contained effectively if the the incidents were reported to aware the neighbouring states. However, by the time the other states know about the incidents, the damage was already irriversible. Nanfangdushibao(Southern Cosmopolitian Newspaper) editor was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for reporting the incidents of outbreak of SARS in Cantonese province, in spit of the fact that the report had allowed other countries to respond quickly to the spread of the disease. Being a big nation as China, the department is tarnishing the national image. How can the country convince others that the rise of China is peaceful while she remains irresponsible when it comes to international issues.

With the advancement in technology and sophistication in flow of people, Chinese are no longer kept stupid all the time. Recently, peasants used the internet to voice out unfair treatments by their leaders while the international news is flowing into China mainland "illegally". Huge flow of information allow Chinese to view China differently. Since the news can not be covered up completely, why don't the government consider allowing part of them to flow to the general public to make the government more credible?

There is a Chinese legend called Da Yu Zhi Shui. Da Yu was a hero appointed by the emperor to solve the problems of over-flowing of Huang-he. His precedents were executed for using an ineffective solution of building embankment to contain the water. The water flooded out of the embankment during the period when the river flood over the river bank. Da Yu, however, managed to solve the problems by channelling the river into the farmlands. Not only resolving problems of overflowing, farmlands were able to be irrigated by the water, too.

Should Central Propaganda Department contain the flow of information until it over-flows and break the very foundation of the country's stability, or should information be channelled to its people? ?The answer is quite obvious.