When truth is not really ugly
P
erception, like anything else plays an important part in how we make sense of the world. I learnt this during my college years, and this philosophy of mine became more concrete as I matured into adulthood. My mum used to always tell me that people's opinions are like the wind, today they blow east, tomorrow they blow west.
Having said that then, we all know that in order to improve ourselves and our well beings, we need something known as feedback. Of course self-reflection and ruminations are also important mental aspects in helping us grow and mature in our thinking and behavior. Yet, feedback also plays a pertinent part in one's development.
But sometimes, getting feedback...well it's not what everyone wants to proactively seek. Why? Cuz it's probably gonna be bad news and I guess most people can't deal with it at that point in time. To me personally, in my working years I have tried to seek feedback from my superiors from time to time. Not so much that I crave for it, but I feel it's always good to know where I stand, and where I can make improvements.
Does it hurt? Absolutely yes...well at times it does hurt. But sometimes the truth is what we need to hear if we want to improve ourselves. Truth by itself will always hurt, simply because it points to our flaws. And if you think about it, it's a good thing! If truth is skewed (which I believe it is since everyone has their own philosophy of truth), then what's the point of knowing the truth other than just patting ourselves in the back and justifying our "mis-perceived" actions as being "good".
Truth need not always be ugly. With the right frame of mind, and the correct attitude, truth can actually help us grow even further, in a way, truth can "fast-track" our development and maturity. But yes it will be painful, but again remember how I said about perception in the begining? Truth, if we percieve it to be painful will be painful. But if we apply meaning to that pain ; to use that pain to grow, to become a better man, then truth doesn't become as ugly as we think.
Incidentally, Lie to Me is one of my favourite TV shows.
Of Judgement and Mercy
Yesterday at mass I heard a very powerful homily on hudgement and mercy. The priest’s homily was focused on how we tend to “judge” in our daily lives and sometimes by doing this, we get labelled as being “judgemental” or “holier-than-thou” especially in this modern day and age. Society shuns upon people who make such “righteous judgement” on others. Even I myself at many a times have been “accused” of such sentiments by my peers or friends.
For the longest time ever it was a struggle to me. Why a struggle? Because I knew that I wasn’t so much judging about the person rather than the offence or the decision he took. But I could never explain this idea to others because I myself was not fully aware of this thought process.
The priest used the story of Jesus and the adulterar to explain this and I thought it was very poignant. While the pharasies no doubt were right in stoning the woman for the offence she commited, Jesus was able to seperate between individual and the sin. Sure she had a mistake ; she had cheated and it wasn’t like she was “wrongly accused” of doing so. But at the same time while Jesus did admonish her for her sin, he also extended mercy to her by forgiving her and holding no condemnation against her (neither do I condemn you).
That encounter is so prevalent in today’s culture isn’t it? We are told to be loving to the individual, and that if he tell the individual of his/her mistakes, we are being “harsh” or we are being “unfair” or even a “bigot” for that matter. We are accused of being narrow minded and having that “holier than thou” mentality when in actual fact we are just too corward to face facts and be honest with ourselves.
And that’s where mercy and judgement comes in and this is what the Church has always taught throughout history. The Church offers both judgement and mercy provided we are willing to be honest with ourselves and truly ask for repentence and forgiveness. God is not so much interested in punishing us as he is more in restoring us. The judgement is necessary for the purification process to start and without the purification process, how would we ever be better individuals for tomorrow?
So the next time you’re going to pass judgement on someone, remember to always isolate the individual from his/her action. The two are totally different. When you see it from that angle, it will change your perception of things.
My Unifi Experience
"Dude, it only takes me less than an hour and a half to download a movie" my colleague proudly beemed to me over lunch one fine day. We were discussing about TM's unifi broadband service and my colleague was one of the 1st people I knew to have it installed at his place.
I couldn't believe it when he told me that. 1.5 GB in under 2 hours? My current streamyx could only deliver a 1.5 GB download over a night, but nothing more.
Ever since then I was on a mission to determine when on earth unifi would appear at my neighbourhood. Eventually over time I had gotten news about people saying that TM was laying some cables beneath the manholes in my neighbourhood, and 3 months ago, I saw the first "promotion counter" at my local shopping mall.
I signed up for it pretty fast and fastforward two months later, I already have unifi in my house. I won't go through the details set up however I must say that Jason has done a fantastic job in detailing out his unifi installation and review.
The speed so far has been amazing. I decided to put my colleague's statement to the test by downloading a movie with relatively high seeds and to my shocking amazement, it really was first! I managed to download the movie (1.5 GB in size) under an hour!!
I am still testing out the speed to see how long it will take to download movies/series with lesser seeds and peers. But so far it's been quite amazing.
But I guess the best thing about this whole unifi service (to me) would have to be the iptv. I was playing around with the system earlier today evening and I really loved the whole idea (though not novel at all) of VOD (video on demand). I love the idea of paying to watch for something and the subscription is really really easy. Just select the movie you want to watch and just put the purchase PIN and viola, you'll have a movie available for your viewing pleasure over the next 48 hours! Quite nifty and I am eager to try it out one of these days (over a long weekend or something).
Anyway my own speed tests will be ariving shortly. I did conduct my own speed test just a couple of minutes ago before writing this post down and the results were not as impressive. Well this is simply because I am halfway downloading some stuff anyway. Will conduct another test sometime tomorrow or so.
