As a university graduate myself, I always wonder why my tuition fee was so expensive. Especially when I studied overseas where every dollar I spent was equivalent to 3 dollars back in my home country. Also, there is this saying, “you use only about 5% of what you learn at university” which gets everyone with a right mind thinking, why attend university at all if you don’t apply the things you have learnt?

The mainstream media have got most of us into this fairytale story telling us that if we do not graduate with at least a degree, we do not get a job. Well, that is just one side of the story that appeals to only the employers, not the students.

Here are why our university and college education do not appeal to you students and is definitely not worth your parents’ hard earned money.

University Education is Nothing near Advanced Technologically

If you plan to take engineering and hope to get hands-on experience with high-end manufacturing machines. Think again, you might want to double your tuition fees to take up postgraduate studies instead.

If you plan to take commerce with the hope to graduate with all the skills needed to success in trading and investment, you will fail miserably because in university they teach you nothing about diversifying your portfolio. They teach you to diversify your portfolio in stocks, which makes you a loser every time the market crashes.

If you plan to take IT courses, prepare to meet lecturers who have no idea what they are teaching.

If you plan to take law and medicine, you graduate working your heads off with companies that pays you dirt.

Either way, by the time you graduate, all the things you have learnt is outdated and you will have to re-learn everything when you join a corporation.

It’s All About Business Mate

Very few universities actually promote real, practical, hands-on education. Education is now an industry, your vice-chancellors care not about your welfare as a student. Even if you’re excellent in your studies at postgraduate level, they hire you just to keep you as a tutor and pay you enough (you don’t want to be earning only enough your entire life) so that you can produce more papers to promote the university. Yay free advertisement.

Highest Inflation on Your Tuition Fees

Believe it or not, the inflation in the university and college education sector is one of the most inflated industries in the world. I did a search while I was surfing around the other day and found this.

I then checked this graph with the CPI index of Australia and learnt that the inflation in education even higher than the inflation in healthcare!  So I have come to a conclusion that this graph represents most of the universities and colleges around the world. So much for the importance of tertiary education.

Do you know that the money I spent studying in Australia can be used as a down payment for about 3 houses back in my hometown. Can I buy 3 houses in the next 4 years as a university graduate working for companies that pays me dirt? Very unlikely.

The Ever Growing World Wide Web

Every second, data as big as the Library of Congress is transmitted over the internet. You can imagine the whole library swooshing around the world in the network cable. Almost everything you need to know is available on the internet. In fact, most of the assignment given to you in university or college requires the use of the internet to complete them.

Why would you still need to pay a huge sum of money to the education institutes to tell you things that can be easily searched from the internet for free?

What Can We Do About This?

I guess we could form a union and go on a strike on hopes that the universities will reduce the tuition fees, which sounds extremely impractical and dangerous. On top of that, going on a strike is also something done by a person who has no control over anything; to simply put it, a university graduate who is being kicked around in the society.

So what are our options?

A few months ago, I met up with a friend called Fred at a cafe. Fred was complaining about his expensive tuition fees, he said that he should have taken his friend’s suggestion before he entered college.

His friend’s suggestion was this. Instead of paying a lump sum of your university savings to people who teaches you a lot of impractical crap, spend those money on your first few businesses and professional courses.

US’s average annual tuition fee is about 25,000 USD, a university course is usually 3 to 4 years depending on which degree you are taking. Fred’s friend suggested that you spend 20,000 USD on a new business and spend the rest attending courses that will enhance your professional skills.

Most of the time, your first business will fail. But keep in mind that you have 2 more years of savings to work on and usually you learn a tonne after your first business failure. Pool them together with the knowledge you gain from the professional courses you attend, I am sure your second and third (if not your fourth) business will be a success. That is when you will have control over your life.

Please bear in mind that I am not exactly advocating these kind of ideas. However, I believe it is something worth trying out if the universities and colleges keep on jacking up their education fees.

Yes, you guessed it. The award winning Sci-Fi movie The Matrix that depicts a real world ruled by artificial intelligence (robots); who placed human beings in a virtual world while using human’s body heat and electrical activity as a source of energy. The movie illustrates modern slavery in the world we live in … or is it so?

To spice up a serious topic such as this, let’s give a role that reflects a specific character or an object in the movie. From there, we will then name the relevance of each role.

Now we will jump straight into the first role …

Simulated Reality

Simulated reality is a world perceived to be “real” by human beings in the movie. The best role for this would be the mainstream media.

[Movie] The simulated reality is made to fool human brains into believing that they are enjoying life while the fact is that they are actually slaves powering the robots.

[Real Life] In real life however, the mainstream media is constantly feeding us with false information, instilling pictures into the minds of young children to be slaves as they grow up. Of course, this is not done in such a direct manner. What they tell you are something of these sort – “We offer you ZERO interest on the first 3 months of your credit card! Use them as you please, because we want you to be rich!” or “The economy is picking up as President Obama has prepared stimulus packages to boost the economy”.

Harvesters

Harvesters are the ones who maintain the power plant of humans batteries. The best role that portrays the harvesters are the “something” behind the throne, I will call them the “Ultra Rich”.

“There is something behind the throne greater than the King himself”

- Sir William Pitt, House of Lords 1770

[Movie] Harvesters’ job is to maintain and populate the fetus field while constantly growing the power plant for the survival of their own race.

[Real Life] The Ultra Rich’s job is to maintain us as slaves, have us work for them voluntarily (more like unknowingly) and strip us off our wealth. With business tools such as the Corporate Veil, it is still unknown as to who are actually pulling the strings behind the scenes. What is definite is that the government is not the ultra rich; they are the ones doing all the dirty work.

Source of Energy

The robots used human beings as source of energy in the movie. This is no different than the world we live in; the role to be played will be our “Hard Work”.

[Movie] When the robots in The Matrix are stripped away of their ability to use the solar energy, they turn humans into slaves as their main source of energy.

[Real Life] The Ultra Riches have been polishing their ability to enslave people since the dawn of age and are still perfecting it as we speak. With the use of debt, inflation and political overthrow, they can turn a country of free citizens into a country of hardworking slaves that will generate profit for their organization (Jamaican Water War).

War between Human and Robots

This is probably the only self explanatory thing here and is of course reflected by the unnecessary World Wars.

[Movie] In the movie, the conflict started when human discovered the first robot that killed his master. However, it is human as always, drew the first blood in both the war and Operation Dark Storm that is both self destructing in the end.

[Real Life] The World Wars however, was fuelled by nothing but greed to profit from the war. There is nothing more profitable to a Central Bank than country borrowing money from it to fund the war while repaying interest on top of the debt.

The Sentinels

The Sentinels are the machines that attack human whenever they are spotted. They represent most of us who are uninformed.

[Movie] These guys are the one’s programmed from birth to do all the destructions to the human society. They do not think for themselves. They only follow commands directed by their leader; that is to search and destroy human at all costs until they receive a command not to do so.

[Real Life] The ultra riches understood that human learn through education and observation. So they manipulated our Education System and the mainstream media; feeding us with irrelevant information perceived as important to survive in these harsh environments they planned for us. Overtime, these false information became a norm in our society; creating countless “Sentinels” around ourselves, telling us things they thought are facts. Thus the perfect “Simulated Reality” is actualized, brought forward by ourselves and playing into the hands of the Ultra Riches.

Get Informed!

This virtual world we created for ourselves was started by the Ultra Rich, through the use of education and the mass media. But eventually, it is us (and our close ones) who are actually doing all the damage by spreading information we thought are the truth.

You can start to get informed by being more sensitive to the information you receive and ask “why” questions. You will realize that most answer are the same, it’s either “that’s what we’re told to do” or “that’s how everybody does it”. If that’s the case, you know extremely well that you should take the information with a grain of salt.

The Ugly Truth

You will also learn that many people are not able to handle the ugly truth you told them, like Cypher in The Matrix. They are too engrossed to the entertainment and comfort offered by the virtual world that they find no reason to leave that comfort zone. There is really nothing you can do about these people, let them grow and soon they will realize the truth themselves.

Also, I am not saying that as a human being we should deprive ourselves from entertainment and comfort. In fact, I think we should enjoy whenever there’s an opportunity to do so; as long as doing so does not affect you in the long run (like using your credit card to travel around the world when you don’t even have a stable income).

In a Nutshell

This is a very long article and I do not want to have loose ends. I am sure some of you will be wondering if a world that is fair and square is even possible to achieve.

To answer that honestly, I have no idea. But here is what I think that will happen, answered by a role in The Matrix series.

Agent Smith

Agent Smith is the baddest ass in the movie that is always there to screw things up. The perfect role for this will be the Weapon of Destruction created by scientists.

[Movie] Agent Smith actually started out as a controlled AI program to keep The Matrix in order, until he was “freed” by Neo when Neo defeated him. He then starts to replicate himself like a computer virus until there was nothing left in The Matrix.

[Real Life] The Weapon of Destruction (Atomic Bomb, Nuclear Bomb) was also used to keep the world in order by ending conflicts such as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Warfare, however that is not what I believe to be now. When the time comes when all options used by the Ultra Rich has failed and most of us has come to realize the peoples who are actually screwing with our lives, we will face Armageddon.

I hope I am seriously wrong on this one.

To end this article, the movie did not illustrate real life modern slavery. Our modern slavery real life illustrated the movie.

Most of us perceive inflation in many different ways. Commerce graduates are taught in universities to look at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to determine the inflation or deflation of price for average goods. Normal citizens like us would normally gauge inflation on a daily basis through buying daily needs. However, the plain simple truth is that all these methods are delusional, incorrect and biased.

I once got into a heated debate about inflation with a person who knows zero about inflation and was telling me this, “I got a better computer system with my $1000 today than two years ago, now that’s fighting inflation”. If this is how you interpret inflation, reading this article will definitely be a treat to you.

Paper Money

Let’s talk a bit on our paper money since it is important to get to know our little paper friends if we really want to understand inflation.

I believe that at least 60% of the world’s populations are still presently uninformed that the paper currency they are holding now is not real money. Our paper money (credit in electronic form) is a Legal Tender*, meaning they are only worth something as long as the government says so.

Also, as we all know, counterfeiting money is a crime and you go to jail for printing money. However, the process of creating more paper money is nothing but a legal counterfeiting of money. To illustrate on that, new paper money is printed by a printing machine and new credit are just numbers added into the computer. This can be done legally by a Central Bank, and most countries have a Central Bank.

Now do you realize how disastrous this would mean to you and me when somebody can print money out of thin air? To answer this question, let’s find out how new money gets their share of “value”. A metaphor for this would be the number of children in a family. If you are the only child in the family, I’m sure you receive all the attention and are “worth” more. However if you’re from an old school Asian family that has ten or more children, you receive less attention and is “worth” less.

I know, bad example, but as you can see, new money seeps value from our current money and debase all the currency as a whole. This results in wealth being transferred away from our savings and investments to the people receiving the newly printed money.

My Definition of Inflation

So my simple definition of inflation would be nothing but the expansion of monetary supply that causes the debasement of our money and thus reducing our overall purchasing power.

The reason I said that relying on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is delusional and incorrect is because the main problem is not the increased price of goods. The main problem is the increase in money supply without the increase in economy output. This causes inflation and companies have to jack up their prices to survive the inflation.

The mainstream media blames price inflation on greedy companies, which is untrue for most companies. The media is the perfect propaganda tool being used by the government to spread their “fairy tales” to vulnerable and uninformed people like us. I strongly suggest you to think twice before believing anything on the TV or radio.

Legal Tender – Something offered as a payment legalized by the government

Imagine the internet you have now is being controlled by corporations that feed you with limited information they have selected, and charge you for it. If you are a website owner (or a blogger), you have to pay a sum of money to maintain smooth connection to your website. If you do not pay the premium, you will be put on the “Internet bus lane”. That is a world without Net Neutrality.

Actually, Net Neutrality is an individual thing, sort of like our rights on the internet to voice our opinions and to choose anything we would like to see/read on the internet. However, there are some corporations who would love to strip us off our rights and be in control of what we see and charge us for it.

Losing both our freedom and our hard earned money, if you can realize the logic here, it is nothing near to a win-win situation for us.

A country without Net Neutrality is China; any websites with unregulated content are blocked by their “Great Firewall of China”. I must say it sounds better than The Great Wall of China and it definitely helped the government to silence their citizens,  which is comparable to having ultimate authority over the slaves in the olden days (just minus the abuse and pain).

That is a serious violation of human rights. Do you want your country to be like that?

The only logical reason that we can accept grudgingly is that China eliminated Net Neutrality in the name of muting protests and riots, which is acceptable to a certain amount of degree. While for the US (and possibly the whole world after a period of time), they are doing it for the profitability of their corporation.

The internet has always been a Blue Ocean that encourages innovation and creativity into the market. If the government truly cares about innovation and creativity amongst their citizens, they would do anything to support Net Neutrality. Otherwise, the government just does not give a shit about their citizens.

To sum this article up, I will say that Net Neutrality is extremely crucial to any nation that promotes intelligence. The nation that supports Net Neutrality would prosper indefinitely due to the immense knowledge available on the internet. Any nation that destroys Net Neutrality first would breed a population that can be perfectly described by a mandarin idiom, “frogs in a well”, which is basically a metaphor for uninformed and dumbed down citizens.

Tell me what you think about Net Neutrality. If you truly see the importance of Net Neutrality, help spread the importance of it to everyone you know.

“If I have a million dollars, I will …” is a sentence that everybody can complete. However, only 10% of the population’s can actually achieve it and less than a handful goes beyond the millions.

I still remember exactly 6 years ago, one of my respective teachers talked about his dream of getting a million dollars. He was about 40 years old and he said, “If I have a million dollars now, I will retire, put the million into my bank’s savings account and siphon the yearly interest until I die”. He said the interest from the million is more than enough for him to live a simple life.

What he said made perfect sense to me while I was still a kid and it probably makes sense to some of you in the present too.

Nevertheless, if my teacher were to get his one million dollars 6 years ago, the million would worth significantly less (even with the interest) than 1 million due to inflation. Not to mention he still has government tax to pay, monthly expenditures, holiday trips, children’s education and random doodads to spend on.

The value of the million will decline over the years  and I’m not entirely convinced that he could buy his own coffin with the million he owned.

Look, I’m not here to mock my teacher’s financial knowledge and I’m definitely not here to teach you how to spend your million dollars. I wrote this article to raise the awareness of the constant decrease in buying power with our currency.

You may have noticed that price of goods have been increasing steadily over the years and packaging of goods have shrank while the price remains unchanged. Our salary on the other hand had not moved a bit. All these are signs of our currency declining in value.

So why would the currency decline in value?

It would take pages to explain why, but to keep this article simple and easy to understand, it is because the governments are printing money out of thin air. That is how our million shrank in value if it is kept static in the bank.

But banks offer high interest rates!

Well that’s spot on! But you’re not told the next few points. Your savings account’s interest rates are never higher than the inflation rate and that the interest on your capital is also taxed like a normal employee.

You see, bad advice comes almost from every corner of our society, even from your education institute. Here is another, “You won’t lose a penny if you save your money in the bank”. Of course you wouldn’t lose a penny, the 1 million you saved in the bank 6 years ago will always remain 1 million (or more), and it is the behind-the-scene stuff like inflation that is seeping the value of the 1 million away.

However, with proper education and planning, you can turn a million dollars into a few millions or even billions if you’re that lucky.

So, if I have a million dollars, I will definitely not save it in the bank. This does not mean that I should go on a spending spree too.

With the growing trend of internet socializing, it is no doubt that Facebook is one of the “must-haves” for people of all ages to keep in touch with friends and families who are miles apart. However, as futile applications start to blossom within Facebook, paired with some of the attention seeking nature of human being, socializing in Facebook has become not as fun as before.

1. When you add people you don’t know, introduce yourself

Have you sometimes got some unknown people you have not seen before in your entire life replying to your threads? And sometimes, that person just wouldn’t leave you alone? Isn’t it irritating?

So, when you add somebody you think they have not met you before, introduce yourself and let them know you want to be friends.

2. Don’t message people in Facebook, get IM contact and do it there.

Even though Facebook is meant to be a socializing platform, but chatting in Facebook is really a pain in the ass. Get the person’s Instant Messenger and do your talking there!

3. Do less quiz, because nobody gives a shit

Honestly, all these quiz in Facebook, they are all b.s. and are regarded as spam to me sometimes. You want to know how many partners would you sleep with and which sex position would you use? By all means, do it quiz but don’t publish it, because nobody gives a damn.

4. 10101 does not predict your future

Wow, you are 100% lucky today. Well prove it, go out, stand in the middle of the freeway for 30 minutes and come back alive. Machines do not predict our future.

5. Stop sending the same app/game/group/event invites

Ok you have just sent like 20 game invitations to 20 of your friends today. Don’t do the same thing tomorrow, chances is that we will click the magic link “Ignore all”, because Facebook won’t tell you we ignored you.

6. Virus affected friends

They just contaminate the news feed with unnecessary information and links.

7. Quit Whining on Your Status Update

I am totally fine with people seeking attentions and shouting out of joy in Facebook, I would even join in and share their happiness as well. What annoys me most are status updates like…

“Im sick of you”
“My life sucks”
“Bad mood today”

Or anything of those sort. Seriously, that is not really a wise thing to do if you ask me. It is not effective and the 500 friends in your Facebook list couldn’t care less what happen to you. In fact, for every 10 people you tell about your problems, 7 will be happy that you have a problem, 2 will listen half heartedly and only 1 would listen.

A better choice will be to find that 1 person that would listen and whine to that particular person.

8. Quit begging people to buy you in Friends for Sale

Another irritating status updates are those who are begging people to buy them in the application called “Friends for Sale”. If people want to buy you (as if they would) they will buy you without having you to beg them like a dog.

9. Don’t emo in your Facebook

Even though this is sort of like what I explained at 7, but I purposely have this part separated because I once had a friend who literally took a picture of his emo self and posted it all over Facebook. I don’t see why anybody should remain in an emo state for such a long time.

The lack of attention maybe…

Fortunately, Facebook has created a function called “Hide”, where we can hide any applications and they will never appear again in your news feed.

Nonetheless, there is this application that utilizes your photo and that is…

10. Stop playing applications like “FanCheck”

The last and the least favourite things, the FanCheck application. Whenever a picture is posted in your profile by FanCheck and 20 of your friends has been tagged, a human kid died. Whenever somebody commented on the application, a kitten died. Whenever that thread of comment is replied, the Earth becomes hotter by a certain degree. So, for the sake of all the things God had created for us, stop playing FanCheck!

Any articles categorized/tagged in “Indifferent Thoughts” are the author’s perspective on the world. Statements are neither wrong nor right. It is up to us individuals to decide whether to believe or to turn a blind eye on the matter. However, discussions are always welcomed.

Once again, a drastic move by Najib, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, he successfully placed a Malaysian team in Formula 1, the most expensive sport in the world. The team is named 1Malaysia and I have a feeling that they are up to no good.

What is 1Malaysia?

1Malaysia is actually a government made concept to unite Malaysians of different ethnicities and religions to achieve a better future. But from my little research on the 1Malaysia website, it seems that 1Malaysia is actually a marketing tool to market Malaysia and Najib himself. There is little about uniting Malaysians in that website.

Is 1Malaysia F1 Team Necessary?

No, I don’t think it is necessary. As you can see, Malaysia’s enrollment in Formula 1 is not merely for the sport, other aims such as the marketing of Proton, Naza and Air Asia is also included as well. These few aims have less than nothing to do with the actual concept of 1Malaysia.

The following is the reason why I feel that 1Malaysia F1 team is not needed.

Failed Marketing Strategy for Proton and Naza

I searched on the internet and found the famous and honest condemnation of Jeremy Clarkson on Malaysian cars…

What I don’t like about these Malaysian cars is you get a sense they were designed not by one man who wanted to make a great car, but by a corporation who simply like to make money – Jeremy Clarkson

To curb the marketability of Proton and Naza after such statement (for a sane person) would be to improve the value of every cent spent on their cars. However, as history repeats itself, Malaysian Government spent more money on marketing piles of rubbish.

Jeremy Clarkson’s influence to the motor industry is superior. If Najib thinks that throwing a Malaysian team into Formula 1 would help Proton and Naza increase their sales despite Jeremy’s statement, I reckon he should do more research before deciding on a wrong decision … again.

At the present, selling Proton and Naza cars around the world is like trading sand with gold.

The Government’s Hoax

We all know these governments’ ploy. For every cent spent, there’s a dollar passed under the table. Nuff said.

Malaysia is not ready for a Formula 1 team

Malaysia does not have the man power to run a team, even with the technology Lotus can offer. In current circumstances, I think Malaysia will end up being only financially involved in the team while all the technology is owned by some other corporation.

“The team will be using Cosworth engines with gearboxes provided by Xtrac and aerodynamics developed by FondTech.” – F1.gpupdate.net

If you look quite carefully, 1Malaysia is a F1 team running on other people’s engines, aerodynamics and gearboxes, and marketing a different car brand called Proton and Naza. It’s like selling homemade burgers at McDonalds.

The Bluffs

My view upon the establishment of a Malaysian Formula 1 team did not improve at all with these quotes I read about the team.

“This is the Malaysian team. The car was designed at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC), manufactured at the SIC, tested at the SIC and the car is Malaysian-made. Even the pit-stop team consists of Malaysians” – Najib (The Star)

This is what Malaysia’s respected PM, Najib said. Read the next quote…

“1Malaysia F1 Team, based at the factory of RTN in Norfolk, England” – F1.gpupdate.net

Compared and see how contradicting they are. First he said the F1 car will be Malaysian-made in SIC, GPupdate’s claimed that the team is based at a factory in England.

If I’m the shareholder of the team I would not want my car to be manufactured in England then send all the way to Malaysia to be tested. Somebody must have bullcrapped here.

Lies, lies and more lies…

Asked on the budget and the total investment by the Government, Najib said: “The Malaysian government’s investment is through Proton.” – The Star

Right, so now Proton has enough money to fund an F1 team after losing market shares to Perodua? Governments are literally begging Malaysian citizens to buy Proton cars, how would they have the money to fund the team? More like tax payers’ money is poured into some political farce again.

In a Nutshell

There is no doubt that the participants in the 1Malaysia F1 team will benefit technologically and financially from the sport, Malaysia will of course benefit as a whole as well.

However this does not change the fact that Malaysia do not need to participate in Formula 1. There are better and cheaper ways to improve Proton and Naza’s marketability. Let passionate people build Proton’s car. Do that and Proton and Naza would both prosper, with or without the Formula 1 team.

Any articles categorized in “Indifferent Thoughts” are the author’s perspective on the world. Statements are neither wrong nor right. It is up to us individuals to decide whether to believe or to turn a blind eye on the matter. However, discussions are always welcomed.

We humans spend a third of our lives idling in the world of internal darkness. Experts call that sleeping and we all know perfectly well that we are sleeping to rejuvenate our body and mind. Some people say sleeping is a waste of time, I disagree. I say a night of sleep without dreams is a waste of time.

This leaves me to only one option, which is to “watch movies” while asleep.

Sleeping Is a Waste of Time Until You Start Dreaming

The only reason that motivates me to sleep every night is the God gifted inaction called “Dreaming”. Nothing is more entertaining than experiencing various intense feelings and watching yourself in a movie while regenerating for the next day.

The Knowledge

Some hypothesis reveals that all sorts of ideas are generated through random thought mutation as we dream. We naturally disregarded some of them, but I would not be surprised if some superb ideas in this world are popped up in dreams, as parallel with the saying “The light bulb moment”.

At times, a dream could also make decisions for your life, decisions like which girl/guy should you pick. Obviously, it is the one that has been invading your dreams for the past three days! I suppose this must be the best way for girls to decide which guy is the best for themselves, since girls are always indecisive upon which guy to fall in love with.

The Experience

At the cinema, I am pretty sure you can endure 2 hours of horror movie and not even the slightest whimper could escape your mouth! However, in just 20 minutes of a frightening dream, you could wake the whole neighborhood up.

Have you experienced familiarity with new events before? It is called Déjà vu and many times, Déjà vu occurs in your dream. I do not have an explanation for this but somehow I feel on-top-of-things during a Déjà vu moment.

On top of the whole mambo jumbo, you also get to experience sexual intercourse while you sleep! It is termed as wet dream. Sex is supposed to be a tiring exercise but a dream enables you do it as you sleep!

A Dream Brightens Up Your Day

Have you ever waked up after a really sweet dream and felt like the dream had already made your day even though you just woke up? I am a big fan of this, it feels like your day had already started even before you wake up and the best thing is you will feel 100% throughout the day.

Dreams Are Addictive

Have you ever got disturbed by the shrieking alarm clock in the middle of a sweet dream at 8 AM before? Then you would stop the alarm clock and stumble back into your bed hoping that the sweet dream would return. Most of the time, it never came back but instead, you end up reaching school/office 30 minutes later.

Then the next day, you would spend the whole day sleeping, trying to recall the episode of “Love in a dream” your inner cinema played a day ago. I tried before, it didn’t work. If there is anything you can learn from this article, learn this. Don’t bother trying to continue any of your dreams, chances are you are wasting your time.

In a Nutshell

Look how boring and how many things you are losing out if you don’t dream at night. You go to bed and the next thing you know, you have 8 hours short to live in this wonderful world.

Some of you might argue that a dream lasts for only 20 minutes longest. Well I would say that 20 minutes of dream is definitely worth those 8 hours of sleep. It is quite disappointing though, that human beings can’t control the need to dream. If scientists build a machine that guarantees me sweet dreams every night, I would be the first to buy it.

However, I must confess that as addictive as dreams may be, we shouldn’t live a dream forever.

Surf the net or visit your nearest bookstores, I’m very certain there are mountains of articles debating this issue, all to no avail. Anyways, I am not here to put an end to that discussion either. These are merely my thoughts in reply to Men’s Gossips Concerning Women’s Makeup.

Men and Their Egos

I’m quite sure upon reading the first sentence, the womenfolks reading it must have at least smirked or giggled a little. After all, is there any other element that can be so closely associated with the male species? Since cavemen times, men have always been competing, from the biggest hunt to biggest houses to prettiest wives. They protect and defend so much so that more than few thousand years later, the characteristics have yet to be selected out.

Definition of “ego”:

• A person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.
• Psychoanalysis the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.
• An overly high opinion of oneself: some major players with really big egos.

That would be the long winded definition of ego by the Oxford Pocket Dictionary. But I much prefer the one by Urban Dictionary;

That thing inside my head. You know, the thing that makes me cooler than all of you.

Many times I think cases of chauvinism stems from uncontrolled male ego. Men think that because they are men that they should be out working in the world, making money, and providing the bread and butter of the house. Women, on the other hand, should just stay at home because that’s all they’re good for; food, children and the likes. Their ego dictates that just because their great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers have been practicing autonomy, so should they. I only speak for myself when I say that I do not mind men wielding their hard-earned egos. After all, who wouldn’t like it if someone else shoulders all the burdens and cares of the house?

Yet, this is if and only if they are able to live up to the expectations. Unfortunately, this is where the bane of ego comes into the equation. So he insists that I stay at home to take care of the kids? I would not mind, if he would stop complaining how the monthly expenditure is bursting at its seams. So he insists that I should prep myself up and stay as pretty as how I looked when he married me? I would, once he stops blocking the mirror with his potbelly.

Before I go on a tangent about double standards or compromising, let me just state my opinion that I think ego is what make up is to women. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t they use it to enhance what is already there and to cover up whatever that may be lacking? However unlike make up, ego affects other people as well. In an unlikely event where a certain female hurts another female to attain a certain blusher or something from the same rack, make up does not hurt anyone else. Ego, on the other hand, could involve people other than the perpetrator.

Imagine a husband who insists that he is right and refuses to listen to the pleas of a wife to send their child to the hospital; or a boss who stresses that the company sticks to an investment because he cannot admit that he made a wrong choice in picking which stock to purchase, or even a group leader who cannot acknowledge his mistakes, refusing to relinquish or delegate authority to his group mates… all because ego said so. Maybe the child would have survived, maybe the company would not have gone bankrupt and maybe the group would have achieved better results in their group assessment. Is it not like blind mice telling his comrades “Come, follow me!”?

Unlike in previous post where James gives suggestions on how girls could use make up to their advantage, I sincerely doubt I should go down the route of advising men to use their egos for the greater good.

The question here is,

Is Ego by Itself Is Justified?

To be honest, I don’t know.

Nevertheless, what I do know is that there is an enormous difference between what one calls confidence and ego, but unfortunately the line that separates the two is but a thread. The gray areas are so insignificant that it is no wonder how some men end up threading over into the dark side unconsciously. Women are attracted to confidence, not to ego. Men, look out for telltale signs such as when she starts avoiding you rather than draw closer even if you may be climbing higher up in the social hierarchy. Notice when she excuses herself or you run out of topics to talk about after only a short while of conversing? Rewind and see if the topic of conversation had been about your opinions, your achievements, your plans, your great plans for world peace. Common denominator – you.

It is difficult for one to want to cure ego because it is not like a fever that dissipates as soon as you pop a pill. Like everything else in life, ego involves work. You built it up, so you have to break it down too. Realize that the world does not revolve around you and stop dragging people into what you think is right, or what you think is for everyone’s sake. Involve others and try to place yourself in someone else’s shoes for once.

We no longer live in caves where merely starting a fire takes up about half the day and twice the frustration. Today the term, equality carries more weight than it ever did. To be fair, I have to admit that ego is not something generalized only to men. It would be stupid to say that only men have ego. Women have them too, especially in the corporate rat races at present. Still, for unknown reasons, a man’s ego always seems to be superior when compared to women relatively. Thus they get picked on quite often when it comes to men-women quid pro quos. Maybe we should look back at Mr. Caveman for some hard sought answers.

Thankfully, just as how women have evolved over the years, so have men. Most of them who face women bosses or those of their equal statuses are now able to swallow their pumped up pride and tolerate each other healthily. Of course, occasionally we still get the normal Chauvinist Pigs and their botox-ed self esteem, but you can’t have everything now, can you?

Ego, do not serve well in relationships. I cannot fathom why some men would use their ego as a springboard to attract girls or merely to boost their statuses. Don’t they realize that they would soon run out of air and like a hot air balloon, fall to the ground both shamefully and painfully?

Like James said, it is your personality that plays a bigger role after the first impression. If you were too full of yourself, there would not be any more space left for others and how would you be able to let her in then?

Any articles categorized in “Indifferent Thoughts” are the author’s perspective on the world. Statements are neither wrong nor right. It is up to us individuals to decide whether to believe or to turn a blind eye on the matter. Nevertheless, discussions are always welcomed.

Since ancient times, makeup has been a number one tool that women use to preserve, or should I say to enhance their natural beauty.  At the present, makeup is the bread and butter for women to look stunning and confident. In fact, some girls can’t even meet people without the magical powder applied on their faces.

The Truth

The truth is that we guys give a damn about your makeup.  Like any man, we love pretty ladies but like any human being, we hate being cheated by beauty. The cosmetic technology is so advanced that excessive makeup not only enhances beauty, it literally transforms beauty!

To elaborate further, women with excessive makeup are like the event of ordering a pizza. You think it will look as plentiful and as mouth watering as shown in the menu. But as the pizza reaches your table, you did not complain, instead you quietly finish it as you imagine yourself overturning the table because the pizza is not what the menu promised it to be.

The only difference is that in the menu, the words “Pictures are for illustration purposes only” are always written at the bottom. The same phrase however is not written on a woman’s face. So basically, excessive makeup clouds men from seeing the truth.

What Do Men Gossip About?

I often observe and have countless gossips discussions with my peers whenever a girl worth mentioning about passes by and these are the usual thing we talked about.

“Her face is brighter than her neck!”

The worst thing a girl can do to her face is to “ghostify” it by selecting the wrong colour tone of foundation. This is the most important one as I had seen many girls ruined their beauty with the wrong foundation.

Fairness is not the only issue when it comes to making up. So, stick to the basics and save the white powder for Japanese Geishas or the clowns.

“Man, those eyes are freaking huge”

Eye liners are meant to highlight and accentuate your eyes. A thin line around your eyes makes your eyes look brighter. A thick line on the other hand, gives you the eyes of a panda, which you had tried to conceal it with the under-eye concealers awhile ago.

“Those are the eyes of a Devil!”

Most Asian men like it all in black, your hair and especially your eye colour. We don’t give a dingdong how many colours your eyes can change with the help of contact lenses, we expect it to be black. As a matter of fact, coloured eye is such a distraction it is unexplainable how irritating they can be.

Don’t be surprised to have men talking to your boobs because your eyes are just too distracting to look into.

This is entirely different for white people though.

“The Eyebrows are fake mate”

More often than sometimes, I saw girls with a fake eyebrows. Fake eyebrows? How do you know? Fake eyebrows can be easily determined by eyebrows without furs. Meaning, a girl shaved her eyebrows away and draw a fake one with the coloured pencils they have in the makeup bag.

If you have ugly eyebrows, trim it, don’t shave it. Like I said earlier, guys like to see the truth.

“Why do they waste our time making up for minor events?”

Know when to look good, seriously.
On important events like a ball, annual dinners, prom, by all means girls, artistically paint yourself to look your best, take as much time as you want.

In your workplace, do apply some makeup so that you look energized. You don’t want your boss asking the reason behind your tired-looking face.

However, during informal friend gatherings, please, there is no need to spend hours to look like a supermodel when we are eating at a normal hawker center. Unnecessary things are not appreciated by the guys.

“The dress does not suit the face!”

Girls, if you want to beautify your face, select an outfit that suits the face will you? The makeup applied should go along with the image you wish to present to others. Don’t go out looking like a supermodel but dressed up like a nerd.

If you are going to a formal dinner and you have the perfect dress, but you don’t know how to makeup, get a friend or your mom to help out. It is not as bad as the example mentioned above but having some makeup would probably be a great confidence booster.

You Don’t Need To Be a Makeup Artist to Look Pretty

So you’re not as talented as your friends when it comes to makeup? Don’t fret, because a wise man once told me “Simplicity is Genius”.

Your appearance can only serve as an advantage to you as far as meeting new people is concerned. Your personality plays a bigger role after that.

Remember girls, guys adore you being pretty, just not to the extent of an entirely different you (which excessive or bad makeup can cause). Thus, men really appreciate that tiny little cosmetic magic that glamorizes your beauty.

Any articles categorized in “Indifferent Thoughts” are the author’s perspective on the world. Statements are neither wrong nor right. It is up to us individuals to decide whether to believe or to turn a blind eye on the matter. However, discussions are always welcomed.