Not everything told to us when we are young are true

 
    When I was young, I used to think that adults are always right. When they tell me something, I immediately believed it because I always think that they know everything else in this world that is totally mysterious to me. When my mother told me about Santa Claus and socks and gifts, I unquestioningly believed it. Once, she told us (with my younger brother) not to show our teeth to the lizards innocently crawling at our ceiling because it will never grow back when it will fall off. So I spent my childhood looking at our ceiling every time I laugh inside the house. There is also this silly belief (also told to us by a grown up cousin) to spit saliva every time we see a gecko or else our tongue will be cut off (by whom and how, I don’t know). There are a lots of don’ts and do’s during my childhood days, all invented by those silly adults trying to scare us off. 

     As I grew up, I started to realize how totally ridiculous they are. So when I saw a rainbow and pointed at it, trying to show it to my younger brother and my Tita chastised me never to do it again or else my finger (that I used in pointing) will be cut off, I asked her why, how and by whom. She just told me not to question it because it is what it is (if you don’t understand that, so am I). Until now, I really wondered where those stupid beliefs came from, who invented it, and why they told us that. For a wide-eyed, curious child like me, questions never end. Sometimes when i would ask something that I don't understand, they would usually put me off. I don't know if they are just annoyed with my unending questions or just they themselves do not know the answers.

     World is a mystery to me, life full of unknown adventures. The only known place to me that time is the neighborhood (which is composed of my cousins’ house where we usually play together with other than our place), school and home. Beyond that, it is totally unknown to me, foreign. My small world seems so large for me. I thought that those places where my eyes could see are where the end of the world lies. Adults never brought me there. I just saw them go there, and I saw them return too, affirming my ignorant belief that thatis really where the end of the world lies.

...to be continued....

Part II: Not everything told to us when we are young are true

Part 2

     So as I grew up, I began to question my very own understanding of this world. I started to go to school, began to learn how to read and write and see beyond the place where I have attended my kindergarten. I began to meet new people-- and bullies. I am not that really sociable during my childhood days so that means I don't really have friends. It is maybe because back then, I was told not to talk to people that I don't know. Do not talk to strangers, even if they are my age. The rest, I am a possessive freak and stupid and naive and foolish. In short, I was not really exposed to this world, ignorant, because that it was I learned for my whole short life.

    It was also this age that  I started to discover the wonders of reading and writing. I read a lot of books: children's books, the bible and fairy tales. I also love to write stories which I have shown to my classmates (they love them). But, it was also the age when I started to question almost everything that I have known- including God. Yes, at a very early age, I started to question the beliefs that were inculcated on me. God, Santa Claus, and the moon's ability to give bread.

     But I still believe in superpowers. That is not something that was taught to me.

     Looking back, I think I have a hell lot of fun. Though some of those beliefs are mostly don't s, like not picking a beautiful violet flower or else it will bite off your fingers (strange enough, scares involve a lot about cutting off fingers), it did give me a lot of wonders. Like waiting for a witch astride her broomstick flying past the huge, red-orange moon and wondering what she looks like.

    I was used of immediately believing of what adults told me. I thought before that wisdom and maturity come with age. Like I said before, I thought that what my parents told me is unquestioningly correct. So I believed that when I reached the age of twenty, I am already a matured individual. But it turns out that nothing has changed, age doesn't matter after all. Though my knowledge and perspective widened, I am still this childish girl who loves to create pranks to my friends, who still laughs boisterously, and who still decides on things immaturely.

    Anyway, when I realized that some of the things that I heard from them are bogus, it is the time that my devotion and concrete and ultimate belief and trust on adults started to collapse.

    So it became, later in my life (that is now) that I started to question what I see, hear, read, feel and think. Learning from my childhood days, I became a skeptic. Is what this person just told me is true?  Moreover, it is also the way I handle information from any authority. It became my rule that if something that is cannot be explained nor prove or it created inconsistencies, then it is not true or correct.   But that doesn't mean as a period. For me, it just doesn’t end there. Life doesn't just end there. Nor death is the end. Life is a continuous cycle, a circle. It just goes on and on, back and forth, back and forth. So is the knowledge. I may not be an immediate believer, but I am still an open-minded person. I know and I accept the fact that my initial beliefs, no matter how believable and concrete the facts are, may still be wrong. As anything can go wrong. 

This blog may be written on a personal basis but I believe that it still applies to everyone. It is not all about blind belief, it is all about selective thinking. It is all about knowing your ground and knowing your own thinking. It is all about debunking previous beliefs and accepting new ideas. Moreover, it is all about questioning.

How Heuristic thinking works

 

This is not as complicated as what you think of, especially for the thinkers who love to ruminate, rationalize and philosophize everything that they see, hear, feel and think. 

According to Wikipedia: 

"Heuristic (/hjʉˈrɪstɨk/; Greek: "Εὑρίσκω", "find" or "discover") refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery that give a solution which is not guaranteed to be optimal. Where the exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution via mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, or common sense.

In more precise terms, heuristics are strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable, information to control problem solving in human beings and machines."

Ruminating Cat

I must confess that I am a little bit stereotype but then, who else are not? The content of my blog is morely composed of my own experiences, thus producing experienced based opinions and ideologies.

Hunger Games Trilogy: A Short Review (and a Question of Collins' Originality)

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I am quite intrigued by this book the moment I have read the title from recommended lists online. Like any other book nerds who love to browse book sites for latest booksellers (or for traditional ones, those who browse bookstores’ bestsellers stand), I always subscribe to a few websites to keep updated myself. Ironically, I am a late bloomer of this book. The first movie which is titled from the book 1 was already released months ago and the second franchise is sooner than later to be released when I was able to touch (and read!) the trilogy.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

What piqued my interest when I came across the title is its theme. What made it popular? Maybe it has some commercial subject on it just like Twilight and Fifty Shades Trilogy (no offense, please!). But what made me acquire doubts to read it is because of rumors that Collins copied the idea from Takami’s “Battle Royale” (1999). But I am not the type of person who believes in rotten reviews or rumors in the net or on print. So to prove them myself (I hate prejudices), I decided to read first the Battle Royale before reading the Hunger Games. There is a-not-that-huge difference between the two. I mean, yes, both stories dwell on kids forced to kill each other by their authoritarian governments’ totally stupid laws but still, the direction and drive of the two stories are quite different. 

Battle Royale is more gory, bloody and horrible than the Hunger Games. But there is the passivity of the main characters despite the fact that they hate their government and secretly plotting against it. At least, there is some truth of the impossibility of overthrowing their government's absolute power by some powerless teenagers.  The latter is more humanitarian and conservative in terms of horrors and thrillers (and blood and action) than the former although Collins was able to devise the story more differently by throwing a little bit spices: cross-bred animals (mutts and mockingjays), televised duels, star-crossed lovers, and of course, the revolution. Well, okay, okay, there are tortures and inhumane killings in the Part 3 but still, the author was not able to describe the bloody details in rouge words.

***Spoiler alert for those who are still not able to read the two books: both able to escape the stupid games but the one ended in revolution and (peace) while the other ended with its characters being a fugitive. Just guess which is. ***

I’ll give justice to both authors. Although I commend the original mind, I still appreciate Collins’ works. Takami must be proud of it, so as with other artists and geniuses, who became the inspirations of their successors.

:D