The exams are drawing near (that's just a reminder and I don't think it has any relation to the whole entry)and although it is never possible to turn back time and start afresh in relation to things in life that you discovered are the most important to you, I believe it is never too late to redraw and restructure your life so that you will be able to catch up or even go beyond those who have succeeded to a great extent on achieving a high standard of awarness and intellectual prowess. Just that, it will take a longer time than usual because to an extent your mind is already lateralized and adjusted to your norms and thinking habits (or the lack of it) and it requires concerted effort to force yourself to break down the you that you are and reshape it.
I was reading through my friend's blog and exploring his ideas and interests and I realised how much his ideas and insight has matured and to a great extent, put to shame even undergraduates that I know of and even, decisively, myself. If you want to see some of his views click, Latiff. I admit that I have not even be able to fully harness and strengthen my intellectual capacity to prepare myself to engage intellectually and explore ideas and evaluate them decisively and critically. Even to come up with new ideas are once in a blue moon moment. Considering we started on the same platform, I have regressed while he has moved forward further. His love for reading and his drive to explore and succeed has greatly improved his intellectual sphere and hey! he should be the one in university, he can definitely graduate with first class honours! Which made me question my position in this intellectual environment of the university...
But NO! I refuse to see it as a failure, I rather see it as a revelation for myself... in my quest of my Revolution... Lets just say I start late, very late... But then again, it is considered late in terms of the social views now, when actually if you look into the past, universities are an amalgam of people of varying ages in a single cohort, it is the system of now where people enter universities at roughly a certain standard age for a cohort...
But Hey! Do Not Despair! Mannheim wrote his greatest works past 57... I can still progress, but it will be a long ardous journey... (Ok, i digressed)
Life has been like a daydream since secondary. I lived the day by day without ambitions, without a goal, even through my junior college days. To an extent, it was internally caused but I shouldn't say to an extent, because it was internally caused.
When you disregard yourself at a young age, the moment when the mind is at the optimal stage of formation, where the neurons are at its optimal stage to form the most intricate connections throughout the grey matter in your head, you will tend to fall into stagnancy. The stagnancy will catch up with you as you move ahead in life, as you grow older and you realized so many things has not been done to help yourself to the fullest.
Here, the biological nature of your progress comes into effect. Undoubtedly, how well our mind develops depends on how well it was exercised when you are young. The harder it was worked, the greater it be in the future. It paves the way to an extensive biological progress of neurons connections in the grey matter of your brain, and having more connections between neurons, you will possess the capability to think faster and evaluate further because of the capacity that you possess. Hey! More connections means faster processing speed and greater extensiveness to cover between the different processing sections in your brain! And what better time to develop that than when you are young, when your brain has not reach full maturation and not fully lateralized...
Definitely, to an extent, I am at the losing end because I stagnate for 5 years of my life, let's put it to 8. 8 crucial years when I can count the total number of books that i read a year, excluding textbooks, mindless talks, mixing with the wrong (I shouldnt say wrong, just not what you are looking for) people, never did think beyond what is in front of me... 8 bloody years of waste! i call it a waste because I know i can go futher, even beyond... I was so darn bright when I was younger! And reading up developmental psychology... I really call it a waste that i didnt utilize the opportunity that lies abundant then. Not to say the opportunity to develop a thoroughly critical mind is lesser now, but now, I have more responsibilites on my hands such that it makes the restructuring of my life a little more perlious, with the multiple juggling of deadlines, obligations...comparing when I was younger when I have all the time in the world (but wasted it away). It would have been easier to develop a young mind extensively with proper coaching and self-efficay compared to an adult where habits are already formed and the body gets easily tired as compared to the young child...
I would not blame it on parenting style or the social influence around me then because I can remember that I did thought about goals and dreams. I just didnt have the will power or drive to plan out my life and take necessary actions to change myself. The most impostant setback was when I disregarded reading... I did not know how it happened because I was an avid reader in my primary school days and to an extent secondary! HEck! I was able to understand Stephen Hawking's The Brief history of Time when I read it in Sec 1! and I cannot remember even facing any difficulty!! Why is that that now, when you are at the so called peak of your intellectual journey, you have difficulty understanding and accepting concepts (for myself that is) when at a younger age, you can easily take in with interest subjects that are complicated for your age,like reading encyclopedias on issues of war and science... even maths! (Here, I am discussing it comparatively in terms of intellectual capability=age analysis)
I just didnt read enough, think enough and feel enough... thats a great revelation for those who felt I think... I did actually think, but my mistake was I never did penned it down except for the time in secondary when I came up with quotes about life. I stopped such intellectually enagaging activities when I was in JC... Was it because I was subconsciously disappointed with my O level results? or was it during the time i realised I wasnt able to study three science subjects in upper secondary cos of one bad result... Cos seriously, my intellecctual development was on a decline ever since seconday 3...
But I thank God though for letting me through to university,though to a great extent I felt that i don't deserve it. In my own view, I didn't possess enough intellectual capability and diversity to be an undergraduate. If it is supposed to be the peak of learning, one should have a high standard of intellectual understanding... Which I lacked, 8 years on... and it's time it should stop... the lack of an extensive intellectual understanding. I believe He wants me to realize my potential, regardless of my performace in university (although I hope to do well)... If not, i would have actually been a working adult, passing through life day after day working mindlessly... without realizing my self can be further optimized and enhanced...
I really have a lot of catching up to do... not with others, but with my own perceived actual capability. Cos I know I still possess the capaility... it will take time... it will take a lot of effort...and this is one step in that direction.
What is happening now is to start the process of analyzing myself and breaking down the wall and the coat of goo and moss that has entrapped me for long. In a way perhaps, a semi-dialectical approach to restructuring myself.
I missed out so much on science that I onced loved, on philosophy that I once loved, on history that I once loved, the love for logic, the love for rational thought, the love for the intellectual spectrum of life... What made the love lost, I have to search deeper to understand and evaluate...
I did not know myself till now, it is time I did...
and gain what could have been gained in the 8 years, the period of stagnancy, the Great Standstill...
I want to be smart, I want to be critical, I want to be an intellectual, not for myself, but in the advert of social change, seeing the growing restlessness of the current global situation.
The end of history definitely has not arrived... the chapter that discusses communism and capitalism reached the end 15 years ago, a new chapter is being written in this time of uncertainty... Men has definitely not learn anything from the past.
History is never about learning the past... Cos men seem to be making the same mistakes over and over in governing the world, despite social and economic transformations. The intellectual arena is riddled with personal pursuits and lacking the altruistic evaluation of the social sphere or a pure advancement of the intellectual sphere...
Will there be another Karl Mannheim?
Will there be another Edward Said?
Will there be another Mutahheri?
Will there be another Einstein?
The journey is long, but what is hard and tests a person, matures the person...
Trying to recapture Quote writing:
You are a failure only if you fail to progress through failure and see not the opportunities of progress in the advent of failure... - Fairuz Selamat
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