It's Only Words?

Many English words have multiple meanings depending on the context in which they are used. Take 'plant' for example. It can mean an industrial plant. It can also mean biological plant - the tree that we plant.
See, we have just used another meaning of the word. It can be a noun, it can also be a verb.
When the context within which the word is spoken and the word is received is not the same, then mismatch in interpretation also arise. Because of that it is easy to label the same thing differently, depending on context defined by the user to justify the use of the label.
Take 'terrorists' or 'terrorism' as examples. Someone's terrorists are another warriors. Who is right, who is wrong? Or does that matter as long as everybody can live in peace and make the live of others matter.
From current events it appears that the lives of some people including their children are cheaper than others. Thus, the world stood in silence, helpless or hopeless, while bombs inflict countless damage - body and soul - to another fellow human. The real atrocities rage on, and somewhere else, another kind of war is going on. The 'war' on the right to use certain words and wordings...

Multidimensional Life...

One new year has just passed by. We are now well into the third day of 1430H. The new year 2009 is trailing close behind, and will be with us in no time.
From his new vocation Nakamora looked back. How many things now look different. How relationships and friendships change. How things that mattered before became reduced in significance. How things that were not very significant before became the center point. How similar concepts change in meaning in different context.
PESTELSS, that collection of dimensions representing the political, economic, societal, technological, environment, legislation, safety, and security spheres to him now has a new dimensions - a meta dimension, he would like to call it.
It takes on a new context and concept embodying life in general. Some remains just a thought in passing. Others could be practiced still.
Can the world prevent the senseless and cruel killings of the innocents.
Can the economic crises, if we can call it that, be cured.
Can the rise in social decadent among the youths and adults alike be arrested.
Can making the world better for everyone be the only motivation for pursuing technological progress, instead of for making better and more effective weapons.
Can the senseless and heartless exploitation of the environment be stopped.
and so on, and so on...

Caring for New Toys

When we were small toys are not just meant to be played around, but also to be thrown away, dismantled, and dismembered. Small wonder that product testing includes repetitive application of force, pressure, and everything else to ensure that they can endure rough handling.
Some of us however are extra careful when having something brand new. New laptops are handled carefully, its screen wiped clean of dust and thumbprints before and after every use.
Some even go to the extent of switching off the car radio and the air condition before switching off the engine, perhaps to prevent the car experiencing a shock arising from too many 'devices' going off all at the same time.

The Slopes Strike Back

Peaceful co-existence.
That's the phrase often used to describe development and the environment. Recent spates of incidents, or shall we say accidents, involving developed area at or near hillside shows that the co-existence was not a peaceful one. After some time, the slopes claim their rightful place... and we were shaken awake, temporarily.
But at the same time, elsewhere, armed with modern machines man continue to deny hills and mountains to continue their existence. They are not there to stay.

A New Ambience

The campus, almost 300 acres, is split in the middle by a river flowing in the north-south direction. He crossed the river more than twice weekly. The west of the river is dominated by a cultural activity center, engineering, and architecture blocks; the east bank is dominated by a masjid, library, administration and law buildings. The masjid, near the library, sits in the middle, about equidistant from everywhere.
The buildings are big with architecture that can inspire and uplift the spirit. Almost all buildings are of square construction with a courtyard in the middle. Walking through them we can see many perspectives. As he enters a door from one side he can see another across the well-maintained courtyard. That door leads to another wide walkway lined with decorated tiles in Islamic motives. Walkways are never plain, they have motives of some kind.
The masjid, academic, and administration buildings are all situated in a valley. The marhallah or hostels dotted the hills. Perhaps to make it easier for students to walk down to classrooms and harder to go back to their rooms. And so they would spend more time in the library or the many eating places scattered in the campus. Almost every building has its own cafe, and the variety of food available is enriching.
As he drive to the 'valley' every morning he relish the view of the low hanging white cloud lining the green mountainside over the horizon. The sight is refreshing...

Step Back to Step Forward...

Optimization. That is what life is all about. The cost function, that defines the objective of the optimization process, is multitude. Some are to be maximized, others are the opposite, depending on the expected impact of the activities on the final objective.
In general the overall objective is to uplift the standard of living and quality of life, according to individual definitions. Some bounded the definition of life within real life here, others projected that boundary to life hereafter. Whatever that is, in real world, individually we are presented with several choices: what to eat, what to wear, what to do, where to go, to be or not to be, etc.
How do we choose? Again, it is dictated by the need to optimize the cost function to attain some objectives. Objectives that are lined up by us as we traversed life with pre-determined time frames of attainment ranging from very short such as for transient objectives to the longer term ones or even perpetual one. In some cases we need to step back in order to move ahead. While traveling on the road, we sometimes need to slow down to change lane so as to have clear path ahead for moving forward; depending on individual concepts and definitions of what forward means. Truly, the Malaysian roads have a lot of lessons in life to offer, just by driving around. But I guess that must be true for other roads too.
Naturally we should be spending more time and efforts to attain the longer term objective compared to those expended for the short term ones, but this is not always obvious.