As a foreigner living in Singapore, what is better about Singapore than your home country?

Originally published on 27 Feb 2017 10:13 PM

I am an Indonesian that went to Singapore university for 3 years and worked there for about 1 year. Even though Indonesia is one of Singapore’s closest neighbor, the difference between the two countries is staggering. As I live in the Jakarta (capital city), the comparison would be based between mostly Jakarta and Singapore. I’ll list down three major ones from my personal view.

A) Acceptance of Diversity
As one of the most diverse population, being in Southeast Asia, I’d say no country around here does diversity and multiculturalism better than Singapore. Southeast Asian population, in general, is very diverse, especially in terms of belief systems and cultural traditions. In Indonesia, we are as diverse as we can be as a country with thousands of islands, and that helps a lot on creating a space for tolerance in so many levels. But the greatest thing about being in Singapore, compared to Jakarta, is that there are always many different rooms for people to achieve something. People with particular skin colors are still somewhat stereotyped, both negatively and positively, but these are very trivial stuff that people talk about casually, not exactly something that might get you in major disadvantage in life. I’ll explain what I meant.

Indonesia might be very diverse in culture, but the fact remains we are not a country of diverse race. This, at times, could create a tension between some of the races here, namely between the Chinese descendants living in Indonesia with what some people called “indigenous people of Indonesia”. In the capital city Jakarta alone, you could be having a tough time entering few notable universities because of your skin color, or not getting the job you want on certain companies for the same reason. This might not be so obvious if you have western-look, or even, Japanese or Korean (surprisingly enough) as I’ve noticed this only happens mostly with the Chinese for reason I’ll leave you to find out yourselves.

B) Safety
As mentioned by other readers, public safety in Singapore is mind-bending. Even in the red-district of Singapore, and during its “peak hours”, I could walk around freely without feeling that I’m putting myself at great personal risk in any way imaginable. This is very useful, as the surrounding area of the city’s red district is one of many great place to try famous dishes unique to Singapore. Even when you are a woman, I don’t think you’ll get much worse than stares if you walk around at night around such places. Of course, this is not to say you should go out of your way to test the city’s safety, as major crimes do still exist in Singapore.

Don’t expect to feel so at ease going around places in Indonesia. From the general well-being safety to scammers, Indonesia is not a country you should be so lenient getting into. Even in Bali, one of the better island here for tourists and locals alike where it is generally so much safer for people to walk around late at night, you’d never run out of things to watch out for. Don’t get me to talk about Jakarta; if you don’t drive private vehicles here, going out alone at night, especially if you are a woman, would put you in unnecessary risks I’d tell people not to take.

C) Ease of Access
Despite the fact that living in Singapore is very expensive, it is one of the most livable city no matter where you came from. Adapting to life in other Southeast Asian countries could be a significant challenge. I’ve been on holiday to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh to name a few, and even in such a short period of time I could already tell that life would be so much more difficult if I want to live there, compared to my stay in Singapore. It is indeed a very well-organized city with everything kept clean and available. Streets are well constructed and areas of the city very well-lit at night (even after midnight).

You can’t sleep at night? Just go downstairs to nearest 7-Eleven and have a snack with cup of coffee or whatever it is you like, sitting on the sidewalk enjoying the silence. If you are party-lover, take a taxi to the nearest late-night entertainment center on weekends; plenty of people would keep you entertained. You want to study or simply an avid reader? National Library is sitting there during open hours for you to explore the world through lines of texts. Cuisines from different countries of different tastes are for you to enjoy on just walking distance in between each every one of them. Can’t speak any Asian languages? Everything has English on it. The list goes on; none of the benefits I mentioned could be so readily available anywhere in Indonesia. Going out at night is a hassle, we don’t have decent public library (if there is any)*, and some of the more “exotic” cuisines usually are in niche restaurant category.

The city is of course far from perfect, but it is so very livable and accessible for everyone. As someone coming from a neighboring country, I find the disparity of my country and Singapore is exasperating.

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[*] Update 24 March 2018: The National Library of Indonesia was officially opened on 14 September 2017, which set a milestone for Indonesia having the first mega-structured library with height of 126.3 meters tall and 24 stories, making it the tallest library in the world as per time of writing.

Footnotes

1. President Jokowi Inaugurates ‘Tallest’ National Library Building in the World

Is it better to live in Singapore or Jakarta, assuming one can afford either one?

Originally published on 26 Feb 2017 10:01 PM

As an Indonesian who studied in Singapore for 3 years and worked there for 1 year, the quick answer would be: Singapore.

Long answer, well, really depends on what you want to do in either country.

A) Social Perspective
I don’t know who asked this, but I would say if you look Caucasian, chances you will get looked up upon socially would be better in Jakarta. Singapore is a melting pot, and that gives the people a very “multicultural” feeling no matter where you look. Majority of the population now might be of Chinese descent, but you can find any kind of people coming from all around the world really really easily. You won’t look so out-of-place anywhere in Singapore, in one sense, because there are rooms to mingle for everyone. This, in turn, would make you a little less special.

I’m not trying to be racist, but speaking from a local perspective, if you are here in Jakarta … it doesn’t really matter what you do, how much you earn or your purpose of being here; if you look foreign, most people here would assume you are “better than them”, mostly because you look “bule”, a casual colloquialism to describe people that look European/American/Australian and they would in turn be somewhat nicer to you. But being here looking foreign, you will get a lot of stares from people for looking “different”.

B) Moving Around
Singapore is all-round one of the best country for transportation. You can literally walk to most, if not every single part of Singapore. You can ride buses, cabs, trains or whatever it is you like as long as you obey the traffic rules without much hassle. Walking in the city is also a nice experience. The island is very small, and although owning private vehicles here would cost you a fortune, it is still a good experience to drive around. Very nicely constructed road would not let you feel you are driving through a 3rd world country as you would in other Southeast Asian countries. The Formula 1 in Singapore literally uses their public road for its track, just to show you how good it is.

Jakarta is one of the hardest city to navigate if you don’t, at least, rent or buy a car. Owning vehicle is much cheaper and a hell lot easier in Jakarta than in Singapore, but roads tend to be bumpy even in main streets, and the traffic in certain hours of the day would get you headache and time wasted for nothing. Public transportation is somewhat getting better, and although much cheaper than Singapore, it is not as comfortable by miles away. The pedestrian walk is practically non-existent. Walking around in the cities would make you feel like walking in a literal concrete jungle, as you have to navigate really carefully along the roadside, blocked by trees and assorted stuff like parked cars or trucks, as well as being in a very close proximity with motor vehicles of all kinds.

C) Ease of Communication
If you can’t speak much local language in Jakarta, be prepared to dive into a lot of confusion. If you are here, despite being the capital city, most of the population is not English-fluent. They could probably speak a little English, but getting into trouble in Jakarta could be really troublesome, especially if you encounter individuals who want to take advantage of you because you can’t understand anything.

I should not explain it about Singapore. Being colonized by the British and the late Prime Minister having excellent vision, all Singaporeans could speak English since it’s compulsory. The older people might be a little difficult to speak to but it is no big deal.

D) Cost of Living
Singapore is one of the most expensive city to live in, no doubt about it. All those advantages and ease living here does come with a very high cost. Some might say it’s worth it, some might say it isn’t. Regardless, if you work on low-paying job, it’s hard to save up for anything here, especially if you’re planning to invest on properties.

Jakarta on the other hand, is a particularly cheap city to live in. If you are an expat, chances are you are being paid so much higher than any local in a similar position. But the thing is, the disparity of living standard in Jakarta is very striking. You can have a high-tower sky-scraping apartment or condominium in one side of the street and people living in small houses with holes on their roofs right next to it. That in turn gives you more options here than in Singapore, as the lowest priced decent meal you could buy here would (on average) cost you about IDR 10.000, which is around SGD 1.00; you can hardly eat any decent meal with $1 in Singapore. But the cost of meals in branded restaurants are pretty similar, with meals ranging from IDR 70.000–350.000 and above, which is about SGD 7.00–35.00++ in Singapore.

E) People
The people in Singapore are generally colder. As any modern, fast-paced city like New York or Tokyo, they might be harder to approach shall you want to approach them in certain situations. Manner wise, I could say that Singaporeans, generally, have more “civilized” perspective, being educated in a melting pot does give people access to different ways to operate in society, and are somewhat more considerate, as far as I see it.

Although people in Jakarta generally feel warmer, you only have that kind of treatment if you look “foreign” enough. If you still look “somehow local”, people couldn’t really care less. I know this might sound very cynical, but it’s true. You could try living here with a “local” look. You would in turn, get “local” treatment no matter your nationality. I’m not saying necessarily that people are so different towards locals, but on some occasions the difference could be really striking. Also, if you can’t stand people who walk so slowly on narrow corridors and just won’t move away, I wouldn’t recommend living here.

F) Conclusion
It’s really up to you which city you think would fit you better. Don’t get me wrong, Indonesia, as a country, is rich in diversity and tourists destinations; if you can travel during your stay here, there are plenty to see. But Jakarta as a capital city is one of the worst “modern city”, if people really want to call it that way. I don’t think that having many malls and sky-scraping buildings somehow automatically make the city modern, as a lot of people are still living in slums. Poorer people in Singapore have it slightly – if not a lot – better than if you are poor in Jakarta.

The only drawback in Singapore is that it is a very small country. If you can get a Singapore visa, you can’t really get around much further than the island itself, shall you got bored at some point.

Footnotes

1. FORMULA 1 2018 SINGAPORE AIRLINES SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX

When did you stop seeking approval and validation from others?

Originally published on 16 Feb 2017 10:40 PM

Added question(s): When did you realize that in order to be truly happy in your life, you should get your own approval and validation?

Telling the story from a personal experience, I don’t think any human being could actually stop seeking approval and validation from others. I follow few rules that worked out well for me in general.

The way I understand it, you can either:

1. Do it less frequently – Limit the time you seek for them.
2. Do it selectively depending on the situation – Look for a good opportunity to seek them.
3. Pick and choose who to seek approval from – Limit the people you seek validations from.

Now, putting the 3 tips here, let me get you some background story before moving on.

I’m in my mid 20s, and maybe not the best age for telling anyone about how they should do their lives in general, but I have found this to be accurate to describe my experience.

Human beings are social beings. Cliche as it sounds, this simple notion still consistently rings true to every single time I encounter existential questions or issues; regardless of age, gender, upbringing, religious background, race, nationality and so on. We are not the kind of species in which you can totally and completely detach from one another with a snap of a finger. Consciously or subconsciously, we are consistently look for ways to validate ourselves in the society we live in. It can be our place in the society at large, our value among our peers, level of importance in our company, or how much do people we love, love us back. Approval and validation really comes in wide range of types and shapes, but one thing still remains true: we need to be recognized by at least one other human being.

Regardless of your intellectual level, understanding, skill, competency, kindness, compassion, honesty, integrity or any other values you or your society adored or put importance on, you have to have it recognized somewhere or to someone. This is not to say we have to so desperately look for people to recognize our value or worth, which which is where the tricky part usually comes in.

You see … people would often value different traits and characters disproportionately differently from each other. If you ask for validation in the wrong time, in the wrong situation or at the wrong person, things can get hairy messy for yourself. For example, if you want to get validation of your skill in doing art, talking or showing your work to more experienced artists would give you better perspective than talking to people who know nothing about art. If you want to talk about your knowledge on science subjects like physics, chemistry, or biology, it is a good idea to look for experts on the subject to gauge your level of knowledge. If you think you are good at figuring out technical details of machine and the way things work, talk to an engineer. If you want to gauge your life philosophy, look for people who are extensively working on social structures and critical thinking; you get the idea.

Now, let’s get back to my 3 personal tips on how you would want to seek validation from others. I’ll rephrase them to fit the context:

1. Seeking validation less frequently. It’s true that looking for others’ validation all the time could lead you to severe existential crisis where you might think to yourself, “why nobody seem to understand me?”. This is especially true when you are young and yet to have a good idea of your own self-worth, and unbelievably consistent thing I’ve noticed among certain development years (17 and above), because this is the age where you want to know your place in the world. Now, what you could always do in this situation, is to think less frequently about your worth in the eyes of other people. It would help you develop your own personality the way you want to build it, but not so much detached by not listening at all that you lose your respect and reputation among your peers, relatives, or colleagues by breaking the norms.
2. Look out for the right opportunity to seek it. This comes a little close to the previous tip, only you have to look for the “space” for seeking validation rather than only “timing” part. Still, if you are to seek approval, you have to do your own homework first. That means, if you want to increase the chances that you’ll get the approval or validation from people, it is not recommended to be mediocre in whatever you are trying to do or prove, and somehow expect people to accept you for who you are, regardless of who they are. Competency is a consistent factor in being validated, so there is no room for blaming everybody else but yourself if you are doing very poorly in whatever it is, but expecting people to just be okay with it. To finalize this, let’s move on to…
3. Looking for the right people to seek validation from. Now you have the timing and the opportunity to rise … it’s only a matter of time until you are ready to validate yourself to the people who would recognize and appreciate you. No matter how good you are at something, or how deep your thoughts are, how fast you run, how good you are with the guitar or how you can solve complex mathematical problems in shortest amount of time with deadly accuracy; the only people that would validate your worth are the ones who have the capacity to understand what worthiness is. I know this might sounds overwhelming, but if you have managed to be good at something, only to seek validation from the wrong people, the result that you would probably expect from them could lead to unfathomable bitterness and disbelief that could prevent you from growing as a person. It saddens me that this kind of thing actually happened way too often that it needs to be. And if your spirit is broken, patching them up together can be a real challenge if you have little to no social support.

That being said, this is the way I perceive it, and the way I’m doing it myself. Your mileage would surely vary. I can tell you all these because I’ve experienced most of the things first hand, and learn from other people around me. There is a reason why I wouldn’t recommend anyone to stop seeking validation altogether: as social beings, being detached from the reality of your social norm is social suicide. Your value would be little to zero, if you break important, invisible rules of the world.

Hope that helps.

Why don’t people understand that you can be slim and curvy at the same time?

Originally published 16 Feb 2017 2:36 PM

I’ve noticed this as well. Although not widely perceived this way in my country (depending where you live this might be different) the trends I saw, do equate the word “curvy” as fat.

I personally felt the same way as you do regarding curvature and fatness; they don’t belong in the same category. Skinny, fat, tall or short women alike, curvature is something they can’t always have. At least from my observation, any woman can have a short body (around 150 cm or 5′) but very curved on the waist. Curve, from my personal view also means more than hip-to-waist ratio; sometimes it has to do with proportion of your shoulder width, chests and butt, too. The photos you posted along with the question … I’d guess both of them are at least 165 cm or 5′ 5″ in height. Short woman with curves also exists.

Examples:

Anna Kendrick, 157 cm (5′ 2″) is very curvy in my opinion, compared to…

Ellen Page, 154 cm (5′ 1″). Don’t get me wrong, both are gorgeous ladies. But when it comes to curvature, some women have it better than others.

Tall, skinny and curvy? Be my guest:

That is Elisany da Cruz Silva from Brazil with her boyfriend, who went into spotlight back circa 2010. She was measured about 206 cm (6′ 9″) in height at an age of 14.

At the end of the day, trends do not always reflect actual reality. I know it might be exasperating, but we just have to suck it up.

Footnotes

1. Tall Model Finds Love In Brazil

How come so many people lie on their resume and about their qualifications?

Originally published on 16 Feb 2017 2:00 PM

In the ever-changing environment and competitive industry, sometimes job seekers have to resort to this kind of tactic out of either desperation or dishonesty. This is mostly observation and casual analysis, but from my experience, I found this has some accuracy. I personally think lying on your resume is unethical, but when you are on financial or (even) existential crisis, being a little “experimental” on your resume is inevitable. If the people reading the resumes are direct experts on the particular position, we might be able to pick up dishonesty in a snap. But more often than not, it’s the Human Resource Department that does most of the filtering, so it can be a little tricky.

The reason why this happen on deeper level goes like this: depending on the general pro-activeness or competencies of each individuals, there is no way each and every graduates have really much to say about their “organizational activities”, qualifications or achievements during their lives as students (apart from their certificates). Usually this comes evidently intimidating only when they are writing down their resumes, looking at them and then, stumped over the realization of how little have they achieved over the course of their study. And on panic attack, people can really do anything to make up for that.

Of course this is not to say it happens to everyone, but as far as I know, great number of graduates felt that way. I was lucky enough not having to lie on my resume after graduated, but I know some friends who didn’t have much to say on their resumes. They don’t necessarily lie, but if you don’t lie when you have not much to say, getting employment can be a real challenge.

Being said that, this is of course not to blame everything on the student, as universities have the responsibility to encourage participation and useful courses for their undergrads, so this kind of thing would less likely to happen. But on practice, this might came off difficult to do, when you think about the cost the university might need to dish out to employ people to do things like career counseling, specialized courses and the likes.

At the end of the day, it needs both students and educational institutions to work together so that the general population don’t really have to lie so much on their resumes. Overstating your resume is a very risky business. You might get the job, but if your employer’s expectations exceed your real-life competency, sooner or later things could go wrong, mostly, for yourself.

How can I learn to be a manipulative person?

Originally published on 10 Feb 2017 12:16 PM

Further question(s): How do manipulative people think? Can it be learned? Can it be perfected through exercise? What are the hallmarks of manipulative thinking? What characterizes a manipulator extraordinaire?

Many people who answered the question had been very detailed on the “how” part of being manipulative. Now, I’m gonna ask you back, “Why?”

Why would you want to be a manipulative individual?

The way I personally look at it, “manipulation” in the general sense is to get people to feel, say, or do something that you want them to feel, say or do. Not everybody have the capacity to manipulate other people, but when they do, they have a huge responsibility that go with such a skill.

Playing with people’s mind is not something everyone good at doing. It is a mindset as much as a skill, the same way some people are better with computers, while some other better at doing art. You can train yourself to be manipulative, same way you learn how to play a piano or guitar. And at the end of the day, you will find some individuals are surprisingly better and learn faster than the rest.

You see, encouraging people to do something positive is a form of manipulation, but a positive one at that. But if you get down to it, con artists use this trick to make people think they are doing something for the betterment of themselves while actually getting them to do what the con artists want them to do. Because at the end of the day, people won’t do something that don’t benefit them in anyway. If people want to do this kind of mind trick to other people, it’s their choice.

Personally, I don’t want to get near anyone who are viciously manipulative and feel totally justified for it. Because in my experience, they’re the worst kind of people.

Which tells the truth, Bible or science?

Originally published on 9 Feb 2017 9:05 PM

This is a very simplistic way of asking a complicated question. But I’ll try my best anyway.

First of all, you can’t just compare an entire body of knowledge with a single book from a particular ideology. It’s like asking, “which is more interesting, science fiction books or The Origin of Species?”

Secondly, I’ll get out of my way to declare first, that over the course of history, there are numerous ancient text tried to figure out what is happening in this world. Bible, Qur’an, Hadith, Tripitaka, Sutra, ancient Greek texts, Norse mythology, the list goes on. If you really want to get real answer, you have to ask the question in broader terms, because, “science” would include whole bunch of things as well. Physics, chemistry, biology and combination of those, like biochemistry, biophysics, genetics and everything else in between.

Basically, ancient and modern texts alike, they serve the same purpose: trying to explain stuff. But while ancient and religious texts are dogmatic and absolute in nature, science, in contrast, is evolving bit by bit over time. You’d be blind not to see how science keeps on growing and inventing new methods and applications to aid us human beings with our health, understanding of the world and quality of life in general.

Religious texts, on the other hand, stays pretty much the same way since it was fixated back then. You won’t see major changes (if there was any at all) to religious ancient texts whatsoever at any given time. This is because, while science relies on constant change and thirst for discovery, religious and dogmatic texts survived on keeping things the way they are, sometimes, unfortunately, at all costs.

I’ve been watching many, many times with people, with all their good will, tried to reconcile these two worlds. I dare to say this: you can’t. Just can’t.

Any ideology that wants to try out new ideas over time for the benefit of humanity could never be compatible with another ideology that wants to remain still and stagnant for the good of certain select group of people. There’s just no practical way to reconcile that.

Truth can be more subjective than most people are willing to admit. What is true to me won’t always be true to you. But know this: natural law is the only thing that still applies to everyone living on this universe, no matter what or who you are. And that is probably why I’d be more inclined to study anything that studies those natural laws, which—as it turns out—exactly what science does on regular basis.

Is it bad to become an aggressive woman?

Originally published on 09 Feb 2017 3:52 PM

I’m not sure the context of this question, but I’m assuming, in courting for potential mates?

“Aggressive” women in dating tend to be seen negatively in a lot of Asian countries. That is, women who take charge in the dating scene. It doesn’t necessarily mean she is giving all the orders, paying the tab or tell her guy to go around doing things for her—something as simple as striking the first word in a conversation or maybe doing all the “dirty work” guys would usually tend to do here, like calling first, texting first and so on. Most women I came across won’t really do that for reason only they know best, but few were very proactive, and I appreciated that.

In sexual relationship, in the same Asian perspective, “aggressive” women can often be mistaken for sexually thirsty women. It could always be her character being more expressive physically and very normal stuff like that, but I bet you anything very little people here (at least my country) would take it that way.

But being a complicated gender in complicated society, I can’t say whether it’s good or bad to be “aggressive” as a woman. Aggressive men have their own problems too, but that’s story for another time.

What is the main psychological reason behind the feeling of arrogance?

Originally published on 09 Feb 2017 2:52 PM

From my personal experience, arrogance can come from different sides of the mind.

I’d describe my personal list of typical archetypes of arrogance to make it easier to be discussed: intellectual arrogance, physical arrogance and imaginary arrogance.

Teenagers and adolescents are particularly susceptible to intellectual arrogance, because while they began their journey in the planet, especially now we have the internet, they can easily thought they’ve learned so much without actually learning anything. The mind is very fickle, and if you want to keep your confidence level at bay, people have to either see more, or just try to look at things differently. In the past 10 years, I’ve noticed, intellectual arrogance is considerably much less than today, because spreading of information was severely handicapped back then than it is today. This is not to say that people in this age group are arrogant per se—especially not in a more “matured” sort of way—but it is to say that they might not realized just yet that they’ve still have a lot to learn. You could say that the sort of “arrogance” they have is more of an innocent one than anything else, and usually pretty harmless in most cases.

Another thing about “early bloomer” teens and (often) kids is that some of them would easily succumb into physical arrogance, i.e. bullies. Now, while intellectual arrogance came from the belief that they are intellectually superior, physical arrogance come from the belief that they are physically superior. Development years of children are very prone to this kind of thing, because not every children grow as fast as the other. As the idea might suggest, people who feel physically superior usually think they have the audacity to bully weaker people. This is irresponsible, but it happens way too often and sometimes it’s shocking how little the adults around them actually handle the situation properly.

Imaginary arrogance on the other hand, are the worst type of all: it needs nothing whatsoever to validate the feeling of superiority. I’ve noticed this happens mostly to socially inept people that stays home most of the time, or have very limited type of friends. They often have very little to zero reference to their own self-worth that it bloats to the point they think too highly of themselves. I know it sounds very crude when I put it like that, but sometimes, it does happen.

All in all, arrogance often stems from some sort of insecurity deep rooted inside, or lack of self-reflection. Because confident people know themselves well enough not to be too cocky, while the arrogant think they are one way while showing little to no quality they think they have.

To understand the last bit better, you might want to read up a fairly well-known bias called Dunning–Kruger effect, a psychological cognitive bias mostly concerned about how the relationship between one’s competency and one’s perceived self-worth.

Cheers.

Is there anything you find particularly disturbing or unsettling for no apparent reason, e.g., sounds, concepts, etc.?

Originally published on 09 Feb 2017 2:32 PM

The fact that many smart, very intellectual people I know or met, can be incredibly rational, logical and open-minded until it gets to the topic of politics and/or religion/superstition, especially the latter.

Now, I know what you might think, but hold your horses. This is not to start a fiery debate about the usual “religious is non-intellectual” notion that I too often see, but I just want to be honest here: the thing about superstition and religion is that, they often defy logic and common sense.

Living here in Southeast Asia we are constantly in contact with local or foreign belief systems or fairy tales. This might come off very foreign to western people, but here in Asia, and particularly Southeast Asia, we have numerous folklore and myths regarding just about everything, and from everywhere. Maybe it’s not unicorns and dragons with wings, or goblins and fairies, but pretty similar. My country (Indonesia) in particular, have long history of numerous religion spreading their dogma across the archipelago. From the legend of Ramayana to the story of Jesus Christ, we are practically the junction for mythical stories from all over the world. Say whatever you want about me comparing Rama to Jesus, but personally, I regard them pretty similar in so many aspects, in a sense that they’re both cultural, mythical stories based on an ideology. Anyway, ghost stories are also very fondly passed around here in Southeast Asia for many reasons; it could be just for the sake of it, or that people honestly believe in them.

Now, of course, I’ve met many different kinds of people over the course of my life. And I found – with no intention of condescension whatsoever – that some people are more prone to fairy tales or hoax stories than the rest. Now the very unsettling thing comes when the people I regard as very “brainy” in so many ways suddenly went totally out of their character whenever they touch that little corner in their minds, usually involving them believing in myths and stories that I sort of know are false as something totally real. Probably some of you have experienced this kind of thing as well. It is very unsettling, and I haven’t been able to wrap it around my mind how often that actually happened; more than I could’ve possibly imagine.

Now, saying those things, I can’t say I know what is real and what is not, but I can tell you one thing that I know for sure: when you regard something that you can’t, in anyway, prove the existence of, as absolute truth, I think you have to re-evaluate it sooner or later. I believe everyone has the freedom to think the way they want to think, but that way, I too have a freedom to question how did they come up with those thoughts.