God wills it!!! God wills it!!!

Not too long ago in my camp, I was in the bunk with my detactment bumming around. It was one of those rare days where there was nothing to do. My bunk mate came up to me looking innocent as a baby and asked me, "Eugene, what were the crusades?" Time stopped, I prayed for divine intervention hoping that the heavens will open and God himself would come down in all His blazing glory and answer that question with His unfailing and perfect wisdom. Of course that did not happen and I was left to my own devices, so I started, "ahem, well you see... well..."

Not a very good start. The crusades subject is not a matter I would take up with a Christian let alone a non-Christian, yet now I have to deal with this question asked by my bunk mate that is not yet a Christian. All I could do was smile and let out the involuntary and occasional "well...", "ahem...", "I think..." and the blabbering goes on.

"God wills it" was the rallying cry of the crusades, three little words that plunged mankind into one of its darkest periods in history all thanks to a Pope with nothing better to do. Pope Urban II was his name. But when I think of the crusades, I also can think of three little words, "what a mess." It is one thing to start a war to regain territory or to vanish an enemy, it is quite another to drag religion into it like what the crusaders did. I remember hearing someone commenting about the crusades like this, "never before in mankind's history did religion and dogma cause so much destruction as in the crusades." Well I say it was men who cause the destruction, religion and dogma was misused and was dragged along for the ride.

So I managed to get myself together and answer my bunk mate the only way I know how, with honesty. I told him about it as it is, not white-washing the unspeakable things the Christians did at that time. After that he gave me that enlightened expression and the subject of the conversation changed. Some of you might think I dodged a bullet, others might think I shot myself in the foot handling things the way I did, I am a Christian, talking bad about Christian history is not a wise thing to do.

But here's the thing, everything with a history has a part of their history they are not so proud of. For Christianity it was the crusades among other things, for Germany there was the Holocaust, for Japan it was the rape of Nanjing, examples of this abound everywhere, there are even many things in my personal history I would rather die than disclose and I am sure you have skeletons in your closets as well. I think it is how you face it that counts, is there a right or wrong way to do it? I don't know but it reveals a huge part of who we are as people. What goes around comes around in the most lethal and sadistic way possible. Trust me, I know about that all too well and I am sure most of you do as well.

Things you did in the past and even things your forebearers did in their past will come back to haunt you just like the crazed crusading forebearers of my Christian history did to me. Your history, where you come from, what you believe, whether positive or negative is a part of who you are like it or not. How you handle it determines who you are and what you will become, so I urge all of you to handle it with the utmost care.

Who is John Galt?

The ideal man, and no I am not talking about every girl's dream guy. I am talking about the philosophical ideal man. For Ayn Rand it was John Galt, for Nietzsche it was Zarathustra, for Aristotle... well this is what he had to say about it...

He does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises to give even his life, knowing that under certain conditions it is not worth while to live. He is of a disposition to do men service, though he is ashamed to have a service done to him. To confer kindness is a mark of superiority; to receive is a mark of subordination...

Such is the ideal man of Aristotle's philosophy taken from his book call Ethics. It is only one small section of the entire whole. I never pretend to understand Aristotle's philosophy but I think a laymen can at least understand the quote written above.

"Who is John Galt?" was a rhetorical question asked by characters in the book called Atlas Shrugged written by Ayn Rand. It is a phrase normally said sarcastically in frustration or futility because the people in the book can't seem to do anything about a world that was crumbling all around them both economically and morally. The rhetorical question ended up having an answer that came in the form John Galt himself. The ideal man, the "messiah" who came to set things right, bring justice, right the wrongs etc...

Ayn Rand was the creator of a philosophical thinking called objectivism, her philosophy, "in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." That was in her own words. In other words man should be a selfish being, living only to make himself comfortable and happy and he should care for on one else. That is the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Nietzsche is the father of nihilism. Nihilism as a philosophical position is the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. Life is meaningless, life is a fluke, God is dead. So where do we go from from a position like that? In his book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Nietzsche argues that since human existence is without meaning, humans must aspire to be more than human and make their own meaning in life. Thus in doing so, this group of humans will rule the earth and give it the reason to exist, they will also be superior than so called "normal" humans. He calls this group of humans "Supermen".

Now this is the scary part. Nietzsche greatly influenced a certain bloke named Adolph Hitler, Hitler decided that the "Supermen" in Nietzsche's book and his own Aryan race (If that was even his race, there are doubts about that as well) wasn't all that different. He decided to prove that by taking Germany to war and exterminating "lesser races", The Jews being the major victim here. And the list goes on, although I only covered three ideas there are many many more ideal men hanging around out there.

So after all of the babel, what is my point? Well you see, philosophy affects all of us whether we know it or like it or not. It affects the way we think, it defines our morals and ethics, it gives us something to aspire to, which is why philosophers create their ideal man and give them fancy names like Zarathustra. But these ideal men are just ideas, they are not real. People who tried to emulate them, did so with disastrous results, case in point, Hitler and personally I think if John Galt really did exist, he will be nothing more than a selfish bastard. All be it a very smart selfish bastard.

Also I am not trying to belittle people like Aristotle. Believe me, if anybody knows what makes an ideal man it is him. Considering his achievements, calling him a genius might be an understatement. But we have many practical examples of ideal men to follow, real people who despite their weaknesses and flaws turned out to be great people who made a positive influence to people and history. So next time you decide to emulate a philosophy's figment of imagination think again, it might not work as well as you think.

For Honor And Glory? Think Again.

For Honor and Glory. The motto of the Singapore Armed Forces Commandos of which I am a part as I serve my national service. I am well into my national service with about 7 months left to go, looking forward to my ord date like any NSF soldier would. But as I take stock of my time spent in my unit, stuff I have done being a "commando", things I have learnt. I wonder how much of it I can take to the world outside of the army. How much of the things I have experienced in commandos apply to my further studies, future job, my Christian faith etc.? The answer to that question as far as I initially saw it was a big fat zero. There wasn't any unique experience that I had gone through in commandos that I would not get anywhere else. I came to conclude that my 2 years in the army would be a total and utter waste of time. It was meaningless.

But surely that was not the case, I was certain to bring home something from commandos that I would not get anywhere else. Was it pride? Was it honor? Was it the money? No, no and no. Man, this 2 years of my life is beginning to look like a monumental failure. What topped it all off was this, I did not chose this failure, I had not chosen to go to the commandos, they chose me. Things were not looking very bright from where I was standing.

The turning point came during these few months when I went with my company for LRRP training in Thailand and the recent exercise Falcon operations. Those were arguably the toughest training that my company has been through but I saw everyone in my company including me holding on continuing with the training and encouraging each other along the way. Therefore I came to wonder what on earth would drive us the way it did to complete the tasks of a meaningless activity. What was it that stopped us from giving up, packing up and calling it a day?

Anybody who watched the movie "Black Hawk Down" would remember a scene here the end of the movie where one soldier would tell the other soldier, "its not about being a hero, its about the man beside you." (I don't think that is the exact quote but it gets the point across) I know some people would think that that quote is very cliche, yes I think its cliche too but it is true. Studies were conducted by psychiatrist on people that have gone through stuff like the gulf war. In it they were asked a series of questions, one of which was what kept them going when things got really tough in the battlefield. Was it thinking about their loved ones? Was it the recognition and fame they were likely to recieve when this thing was over? Was it about being a hero? What was it? Most of them said that what kept them going was the person beside them fighting alongside them.

So perhaps that is my answer, the thing that was keeping me and my mates going when training got tough was the person beside them, the knowledge that there are others going through the exact same thing. That gives us the resolve to carry on as we draw strength from each other and encourage each other at the same time, not honor, not pride, not glory (frankly I think those things are bullshit). I know that it sounds ironic but it is true.

So what is the lesson learnt? Well the normal human reaction when facing tough circumstances is to clam up, do damage control, we develop the "how can we help others when we can't even help ourselves?" mentality. Maybe that is not the way it is suppose to be done, perhaps if we try to help and encourage others who are in the same circumstance as us, we just might be helping ourselves in the process. That I think was my unique experience in the SAF Commandos.