December 31, 2009

Geography of a southern redneck

EuropeImage via Wikipedia


A cable guy originally from Romania told me this true story: one day he came to a single house in the woods of North Carolina to do his job. The owner of the house was a guy about 30s. This guy lived alone there with dozens of dogs and cats. He noticed the cable guy's accent and politely asked him where he came from.
"Romania." The cable guy answered.
"Oh? How long does it take to drive there?"
"Eh? ... Oh, Romania is a country in Europe"
"Oh? I thought Europe is in Poland."
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December 27, 2009

Is compassion really a human nature?

Compassion Fills the Void album coverImage via Wikipedia

My experience starts telling me that people usually would turn away from you if they heard that you were sick, especially if you are chronically ill. It seems that people either don't really know how to act in such a situation or, they simply don't believe you are sick (unless you stay in hospital).

I cannot tell how many time when I mentioned that I wasn't feeling well to some of my "friends" they just shrugged me off by saying "you look fine", or "you sound fine". I knew clearly what they really said was "don't even try to draw my attention by saying that you are sick", or, "you just don't know yourself". I also noticed that quite a few times people (or friends) just ignored my emails when I mentioned I was not in good shape.
By the way let me just clarify here that I was not the type of person who like to whiny over nothing.

So as time goes by friendships are jeopardized. As matter of fact I had to drop a few friends (which was not easy to me), because I simply cannot imagine I would do the same things like what they did to me. I can't even recall a single time of turning away from a friend when she/he needed me.
Am I abnormal here? Or, am I just too good to be a human being?

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December 25, 2009

Does knowledge have limitation?

Ladder of KnowledgeImage by degreezero2000 via Flickr


I think it does. If we admit that our human being has limitation, so does our reason and our knowledge. Thus I believe that being skeptical is the right attitude to have for a real scientist or a rational human being.
However, this does not mean that we should go for superstition. It only means that while we acknowledge our limitation, we would still respect our reason as the most reliable pathway to reach the truth.

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