People and Thoughts

1) I realize I did not quite elaborate on what it means to have a natural, predominant mode of interacting with people. Here's what I speculate. When we interact with people, some of us enjoy the process; these people think of the person(s) directly. They are genuinely concerned about their friends; they want to know more about them, it makes them feel closer. They feel a very robust sense of connection when these people meet their friends for coffee.

Others don't. When I meet up with people for a drink, I don't look forward to seeing the person him/herself, not usually. Rather, I look forward to playing conversational games, as well as gaining more information (eg, "What is it like to work in a hospital?") The exception is when I haven't met a friend for a long time; that is when I am genuinely interested in the person's wellbeing, and that's when I feel a connection with the person. That's when the question "So how have you been?" becomes more than a routine statement for me. By and large though, that's not my primary mode of interaction.

Here's another example. I'm going to take a couple of Japanese students who are here on a mini-exchange out on a little tour this week. Next month, I intend to take another group. I'm doing this because I feel a sense of duty, or obligation. I was treated very well when I was in Kyoto last month, and I feel like I have a debt to repay. That's why I'm doing it. It's not so much because I want to interact with the people. I don't feel any connection with them at all. In fact, I don't remember most of their names. My heart doesn't leap up when I think of them. It positively sinks, as these matters are going to take up a lot of my time and energy. (Though not so much, because the itinerary I've planned is one that I myself like).

I feel that I've got a debt to repay, and in some sense who the people themselves are don't really matter (as long as they're related to Kyoto University; not anybody can lay a claim on this debt). I feel a connection to my own system of thoughts, that's what's primarily motivating me. Is this any worse than being motivated by the people themselves? I don't know. At the end of the day, someone like me and another who is on the other end of the spectrum will likely give the same essential behavioral output - we'd both act to bring the foreign students from Kyoto University to some nice places. We'd both put in effort to make the trip an enjoyable one, and we'd both do things like treating the guests to a round of teh tarik. Where we'd differ is internally. Someone at the other end of the spectrum could very well have the idea of debt repayment in mind too, but I suspect what'd be most salient in his mind is the people who are coming, or the nice memories he had last month. He'd think of the people first and foremost. For me, what's salient is the more abstract idea of a debt.

2) At the start of a  German class, the lecturer had asked us for some examples of things to put on an Einkaufszettel, a shopping list. She would go through everyone. I happened to be the first one picked. What came to my mind was Papier (Paper), and that's what I said. The teacher paused for a while. Then she said ok, and wrote it down on the whiteboard. And then she thought about it a while. And asked me, for what? And I said zum Schreiben (to write). And some classmates laughed, very slightly. Everyone else would later go on to give the usual grocery items - vegetables, fruits, meat, etc. I've been looking back at this episode the past few days, and I laugh every time I think of it. I find it funny. I suspect it's because it's not something the teacher was looking for, but it isn't a wrong answer at the same time. It oscillates at a funny place, even better that it was the first answer.

3) I was at a weekly Friday Night mini-tourney for Netrunner, a 2-player card game last Friday. My last 2 matches (of 6) were against a fairly consistent, good player who was the regional champion in the last regional tournament. I had actually faced him before in the quarter finals of another tournament, slightly more major than this weekly one but less major than the regional one. (I had my most enjoyable Netrunner game so far in that matchup, but I'll talk about that another time).

He groaned when he saw what character I was playing on the Corporation side. He said, half-jokingly: "I really hate Jinteki you know". I replied: "Well I hate playing against Criminal too". And then he said something that I wasn't really expecting. He either said "Good, then we'll both hate this game" or "Good, then we'll both like this game". I can't really remember which, but if it were the former, it was said in a light manner, and I take it to mean the same as the latter, which really meant that we'd both relish this challenge. We slugged it out like in our last matchup, and it was fun.

Hmm

I realize I had forgotten to post a photo of my Level 1 meal, so here it is. Simple vegetables fried in garlic and some sauce, chicken pieces marinated in garlic and some sauce, fried eggs, ham and rice bought from a store. Carbonated water for drinks and fruits and ice-cream for dessert, all store-purchased of course.

And my room, or a large part of it:

I miss those days being enveloped in music as I lie on my bed. I remember not turning on the heater in the first 2 weeks of my stay. It grew very cold, and it was very nice. I curled myself up tightly to sleep every night, and getting out of the blanket and warmth of my bed was usually a 30-minute affair. Eventually I took to turning on the heater as the cold was causing me to sleep more than 10 hours a day, which was taking time away from other things I wanted to do.

Alright. School has started again. My last semester. Will also be my toughest one, by a far, far margin: I haven't started writing on my thesis (30,000 words), I will have to tutor 3 classes (50% more than my past 2 semesters), and chances are I would get to take German 4, where I will have to qualify for intermediate-level certification. I guess it's befitting for a final showdown.  

According to this test, I'm a INTP. I've done it twice over a course of weeks, and I spoke to a professional counselor about it, as other free tests were giving me varying results and I was curious to get to the heart of the matter. The counselor (whom I had engaged for free, as part of the privilege of being a NUS student) gave me a better idea of what the letters represent. All 3 measures - the 2 tests and the session - point me to an INTP.

Here's an interpretation of what it means to be a INTP: link. There's likely to be a gap in what can be inferred from the test and what is written there - you can read up on Keirsey's theory yourself. Whatever the controversies and problems though, I find that the writeup suits me well. Even better: I thought that it gives me an (accurate) insight into myself. Or, more precisely: it makes salient the idea that I value thought and knowledge a lot. I find that I very instinctively go "mm, that's really good" when I ask of people and find that they're studying or dabbling in highly theoretical fields. Good is the word I use. Not interesting, not intriguing, not fascinating. It's good, plain and simple.

I do find that my most comfortable position, my most natural instinct, is to tease out inconsistencies in positions. This is my most natural, predominant mode of conversation with people, and most times I operate in that mode without regard for anyone else's thoughts and feelings. This has indeed led to, as the writeup says, "an uncomfortable experience for many". It's very abrasive, very cold, and I think only another who has a similar character type as me (whether it be 'INTP' or anything else is not my concern here) can really appreciate what it feels like and thus really appreciate that I'm not trying to be abrasive and I'm not trying to be cold. Similarly, I don't think I can ever grasp how it feels like to be a person predominantly looking to be at peace with others, predominantly looking for harmony, predominantly looking to avoid conflicts and creating happiness.

That people approach conversations and interactions differently is something that hasn't been salient to me till now, thanks to the writeup. This is actually quite important for me, because it could help prevent unnecessary conflicts in the future. Likewise, it would be good if I could just send a copy of such a writeup of my personality to people who interact with me, so that they better understand some of the things I do and things I say.

Whoa. Do we really need to appeal to personality types in order to understand, tolerate and interact with each other better? Isn't the key to better interaction just to interact more and have an open mindset, have regular open communication, etc? I think we do. I'm honestly quite doubtful that my closest friends actually have a good enough sense of i) how much I value thought and knowledge and ii) how such a valuation causes or influences - that is, can help explain - some of my behavior. Sending such a writeup makes things easier. On my side, if one were to tell me that he did/said X because he wants to, for example, keep the peace, I would ask: why do you bother keeping the peace? He might reply: I don't know. I just like it that way. But I would be very unsatisfied with that. I would ask: So why do you like it that way? And one way out of here is just to appeal to personality types. Just saying: "Well, it's just my personality" isn't going to do for me though. I would ask you to do a personality test.  

In any case, whatever the methodological issues are, I do hope the writeup is true for me on 1 thing: that I am able to concentrate better than any other type. I'm going to need that concentration in the coming months.

Japan 2013

I was away in Japan from November to December 2013 for a mini, informal student exchange program with Kyoto University. I say it's a mini exchange because I was there for only a month, which is less than a usual school semester, and I say it's an informal exchange because I wasn't formally required to take any classes, save for a 2-week seminar by a pretty distinguished professor, Graham Priest. I say it's an exchange because I was partially sponsored by the hosting university, and some of their students are coming over to Singapore for a short 2-week seminar too next month.

It was enjoyable. I liked the cool autumn air, I liked staying in a nice cosy apartment all by myself, I liked the freedom to pretty much do what I want, anytime I want. A typical day would see me wake at 10am, do some static exercises and have brunch, go sightseeing, attend a lecture at 430pm to 6, and have dinner with either some local students or a fellow Singaporean student and his wife. I would sometimes crash the latter's apartment thereafter to use the Internet; they stayed not more than 1km away from my apartment. I would then almost always have a long warm bath in my own apartment, read for 1 or 2 hours, then sleep at 12.

I hung out with the couple on sightseeing trips too, on occasion. A warm, hospitable, optimistic pair, the guy an intelligent, philosophical, humorous guy, though I think I'm funnier. They're the sort of people I can see myself giving my life to rescue in a zombie apocalypse, partly because of their general kindness and friendliness. Suspecting that a zombie apocalypse wouldn't happen anytime soon, I took it upon myself to cook a simple meal for them in my apartment the weekend before I left. That would be the first time I cooked for anyone else. And I'm glad they liked it, thus not only reinforcing our bond, but also helped me unlock the achievement 'Cook a simple, edible meal for some guests', which I suppose is a necessary and sufficient condition for graduating to a Level 1 Chef, where Level 0 is to only cook instant noodles for one's self.

It was a generally beautiful trip. I'll let the photos speak for themselves here; more can be found on my Facebook, in due time. I'm not exactly a seasoned traveler, but I will say, that of all the countries I've been to so far (which includes Germany Austria the UK and Australia and of course some Southeast Asian countries), I find myself most at ease in Japan. Westerners in Western countries are often friendly and hospitable, but their kind of friendliness seems more intrusive to me, which I didn't like. Perhaps I'm being biased here though, as I tended to feel more conspicuous in Western countries than in Japan. That would make me more uncomfortable, thus skewing my judgment of how comfortable I am in the different countries, as a result of its people. But I guess the fact still remains that I feel most at ease in Japan.

I'll make a note or two about the academic portion of the trip now. The 2 week seminar I attended was a class on applying paraconsistent logic to some parts of Buddhist philosophy. In other words, it was a fusion of Western analytic philosophy and Asian philosophy. This itself is a loose project involving several notable Western and Asian philosophers who are in close contact with each other. There were postgraduate students from other Asian countries as well, and people were generally rigorous and passionate. And some of us - around 12, perhaps - went on a weekend excursion with the Japanese professor who brought together the whole event and Graham Priest, both of whom were in the loose collective mentioned earlier. We had a 3-hour long steamboat dinner Japanese-style in a cottage, during which the Japanese professor stood up to give a short speech.

He told us that we are the generation that is in the best position to expound on, develop and teach this new philosophical tradition across the world. Western philosophers studying Asian philosophy is nothing new, and they usually do it in their own terms; but we now have the opportunity to be Asian philosophers studying Asian philosophy on our own terms (this doesn't mean completely denying Western influences of course). Not only that, we have the potential to make this 'movement' the center stage of philosophy in the future. This is especially so, as one might think contemporary Western philosophy is in some sort of decline due to the increasing technicality and ivory-tower, game-playing nature of the discipline - sooner or later, it's going to give philosophy a bad name, if it hasn't already.

He said that we in this generation have a much more open mindset than people in his generation. We'd take Asian philosophy seriously. He pointed out that for the dinner, he had been thinking of ways to divide us into tables so that people from different nationalities would be mixed. But he said that in the end he didn't need to - we had very naturally diffused into tables such that each table had a heterogeneous mix of students. He said, quite earnestly, (he's a very playful professor in his 50s) that when he observed this it nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was a very joyous thing for him to observe.

Seeing the groundwork laid by that collective of philosophers, and seeing the earnestness in some of the postgraduate students present, I do think that something noteworthy will emerge in the years to come. I am still skeptical, though, that this something noteworthy will turn into a worldwide movement that will be recognised as a cohesive, important movement in the history of philosophy. We shall see. Truth be told, I have no interest in this area of philosophy, no interest in this fight; my fight in philosophy lies elsewhere.  If it does turn out into a historical movement though, if the 3-hour steamboat dinner in a small cottage at a Japanese countryside was a historical moment marking the birth of a renowned school of future philosophers, let the history books record, then, that I was part of that historical dinner, if only as a quiet observer who spent more time eating and listening than talking.

We can probably start counting now. I estimate it'd take 10 years for more groundwork to be set (and for people to actually earn their Phds), another 10 years for people to meet, discuss things and publish landmark papers, another 10 years for landmark papers against those landmark papers to be published, another 10 years for the debate to mature, 10 more years for people to start recognizing and appreciating this is a very big movement in philosophy, and 10 more years for historians to start tracing the history of this movement. November 18th, 2072 then. We shall see if history treats this dinner 60 years back as a noteworthy moment in the history of philosophy.

That aside, it was definitely a most enjoyable dinner, on a most enjoyable trip.