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Just on Wednesday night I was pretty fed up with my christian life. After finishing Josh Harris’s book I feel like my journey is moving in reverse compared to him, from being deep in a church to shallow non-commitment. I was fed up not in the sense that I was tired of God or felt bitter, it was more like my “fellowship life” which kinda means like “Social life” in church setting. Fellowship is social, that’s the whole idea of getting together on Sunday but it has the added dimension of socialising around God. At least that’s the conclusion one can draw when defining it from observation. Something special happens when God’s people gather.

Everyone can worship in private, responding to his revelation through the bible and receiving his word can be done alone, prayer is also to be done alone “in the closet”. That said, all the above activities are also to be done in a group setting. The early church gathered and broke bread daily. They prayed together. They listened to the word spoken by appointed elders together. Man’s social need has been there even in his perfect state, that’s why Eve was made for Adam, a companion that was like and equal to him because it was not good for him to be alone. Obviously the companionship was not just sexual or for reproduction, I’m sure she was just as much an intellectual and emotional companion as well as a work partner. It is almost recorded in genesis as if Eve was an afterthought but I’m sure God had it in his plan already. A long list of whys probably exist but I guess its not that important.

Time after time the fickleness of the human emotion still catches me by suprise though and as I said earlier this week, I find myself being more and more of a social creature as I grow older. I guess the more people grow on you the more they can really upset you and vice versa.

I’m glad I’m going to be in church this week. I told someone I feel permanently damaged already and only God can fix me. Perhaps the day will come for me to raise the anchors and move on. It doesn’t feel so soon and I’m hoping that day comes quietly and gently because I can’t take very much. It won’t be an easy journey but as they say, almost nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Sorry, its going to be filled with gear and stuff talk but there are legitimate thoughts for all people here who like to look and buy stuff in the last two paragraphs I guess. hahaha..

Well I’ve been trying to sell of my stash of cameras (everything that’s mine) except for those that aren’t exactly mine and those I wanna keep. That only includes my

1. Canon 5D + 28mm f1.8
2. Voigtlander Vito B
3. Minolta SRT102 + 50mm f1.4
4. Nikon 50mm f1.2
5. Canon G9 (for now)

Surprisingly short list. The rest are worth only about 500++ in total, nowhere near my 5D even. I guess I would have gotten myself a smashing Bessa R3a + 35mm f1.4 or a leica instead of everything else I’ve come to pick up here and there. Hmmm.. which made me come to the thought that its probable better to just get very very few things that you really like instead of getting something cheaper but not exactly what you want. YX said my G9 was (at that time) all I ever wanted. Well.. I must say I felt out of place using it for a long time and never got to really loving it even though I wanted it for so long. I still like my C5050 better if only it wasn’t so painfully slow. Bottom line is you never really know what you want until you get it. The g9 is a negative example.

The positive example is my 5D. After I got it I totally just stopped being interested in any newer DSLR technology (it was already 4 years old when I got it.. old stuff!) and I really think its pointless to upgrade to anything newer even though the newer stuff spanks the pants off the 5D. It satisfies all the needs and wants I have and is more than I ever wanted from a camera. Same goes with lenses.. I thought a 50mm f1.4 was good.. but the lens that I got stuck onto is the 28mm f1.8, much maligned but works for me. Other things I’ve bought that fit into this category are my speakers (Altec Lansing for $119 back in 2005), my Nokia Music Express phone (rest in peace), Apple iPhone and I guess my running shoes.

Now the obvious fact is looking at something breeds desire which feeds on itself. If you’re just a teeny bit interested, it’ll grow into something you will die without if you keep entertaining it. That includes everything, even people whom you’re not supposed to want. Anyway, sticking to the less sensitive things like material goods, it really helps when I don’t go scouring the forums for cameras and gear I really don’t even want or know of. Replace my camera obsession with your own thing like bags, clothes, shoes, computers, phones, ipods and you’d have contextualized it for yourself.

I guess, sometimes we can buy stuff for ourselves since we are supposed to enjoy the fruit of our labor. Even the ox and donkeys were not allowed to be muzzled as they worked on the grain but the turning point I guess is when we keep wanting something so badly it gets mis-prioritized in life. Buying stuff instead of saving for your future, spending beyond your means, gambling in order to gain more (bu4 lao2 er2 huo4) and  wasting time checking out stuff you don’t need or want (that’s me!). So much  time gets wasted.. I kinda regret wasting so much time now. hahaha.. and sometimes I get carried away wanting stuff more than wanting to read and pray or go out and do some work. That’s worldliness in its true form I guess.

So, I think i’d better rest! tomorrow I’m meeting one or two buyers after climbing bukit timah, then hopefully heading to church / young adults gathering. I must say its difficult growing up into this young adults thing. I feel so isolated because of the difference in lifestyle compared to all the usual people I’m around. haha.. still, there must be some meaning in life at this stage.

After 9 long years of T9 predictive text, I relinquish it for a virtual keyboard. Terrible feel, have to keep looking at what you’re doing and well, just doesn’t function like how I’m used to for all this time. The iPhone is just not so fantastic in that department. However its pretty good at a whole lot of additional things. Not to mention having gotten it basically free on the M1 take 3 plan its quite a good deal.

I was more interested in finding myself like how I felt after I picked up my 5D. I picked up something that was old (this is the 8gb 3G) but still wayy more functional and useful than I will ever need. Why get 16 or 32gb? is the 3Gs really faster? will I need a compass? Nike+? So after answering no to all the above, I guess it doesn’t bother me and thats why I think I’m getting older.. or maybe that’s the feeling you get when you buy something that you really just wanna use and don’t care about.

I think, however, I would feel different if i suddenly got myself an iPad or a 1D mk4. I think I might actually feel abit more happiness for a while. I wonder why that is so? And if both of the above cost $2 each, I wonder if i would still be happy or happier or would I not be interested? Is something unattainable or out of reach more desirable and satisfying? haha.. that’s a stupid worldly notion! But yet it has some kind of truth in real life. Perhaps this is why coveting and desiring something is super dangerous be it material, relational or something else.

Well, firstly I think my life has been too overwhelmed by digital media. Facebook, flickr, and google reader being chief culprits. While they all strive to make our social lives efficient, its strange how they actually suck up even more time because now you do useless things more efficiently. Although you do spend less time achieving a greater amount of useless stuff, the amount of information entering the brain is increased substantially in a shorter period of time. That crowds out alot of useful thought time. I think I’d like to change that abit and dumb down my life for abit. No facebook, no flickr, no google reader, no email even, progressively over the next few days. haha.. Impossible for a web monkey like me? watch me. If at the end of it I still end up the same, well.. it means that it just didn’t enrich my life in any way, a possibility that is very remote. I do suppose I will be able to get alot of reading, photography and job hunting done. Not to mention carry out some ideas that have just remained ideas for too long.

Anyway in other news, I just completed my final FINAL exam just yesterday. 25th November 2009. The exam was quick and unspectacular, I wrote till my hands cried out for mercy.. especially that final 5 minutes where I discovered I had missed out a question that I skipped. Also, I am pretty sure I’ve nailed everything down, just have to upload my thesis and I’m really done for good.

Its been a fantastic 4.5 year journey. From first year sticking around with friends in common engin and breezing through the modules, my second year of disaster results and pretty dull hall life with ZG, my third year first sem of quiet lonely lecture attendance which really got a little better once I had a lecture buddy in the second sem. My fourth year which was uneventful and went by like nothing and finally this extra sem I’m doing which has had its gan cheong times and slack times. All in all its been a wonderful self-discovering journey sometimes walking with God and sometimes walking my own way, still arriving at the destination safe and sound but not as well off if  I hadn’t strayed.

This marks end of academia and start of working life. Something I look forward to because of all the possibilities it opens up. A new journey which I will probably have to take all the way to the end of my life. Haha..  pretty happy.

Just some thoughts that are ultimately not that important but notable in living the Christian life

Living a double-life makes it impossible to share beliefs

Whether its vegetarianism, religion, study methods or some other inconsequesntial belief. Not doing what you claim to believe is a slap in your own face when you try and share it (eg. claiming serangoon garden won ton mee is best but you regularly eat parklane won ton mee when given a choice).

We can’t just live in our little church-bubble-life

This is a good read and I think I’ve said it somewhere before. Putting ourselves into the harvest by spending time with the unsaved builds relations and enables us to love in action.Since we are bound by physical limitations, we need to physically spend time with people in order to evangelize. Nobody will know you love them if you never show it. Its impossibly difficult to show someone you love  them without ever being there for them. Skipping church activities to be with family or the unsaved is well.. really nothing bad if you know what you’re doing.

Re-thinking things that have already been thought before

Its not necessarily a bad thing. I haven’t exactly formed my opinion of this. In fact, this is kind of what I’m doing all the time. Since the Bereans continuously re-evaluated new information they received maybe its not bad. I’m just wondering if not examining an opinion yourself is a good trade-off for efficiency in living life. Like, if we keep asking questions, life will be a minefield of questions every time something comes along and we’ll never be able to get anything done. Progress is built on previous progress but maybe we are capable of all the progress we need to have in this short life by just studying directly from the word and ignoring everything that might come along such as teaching methodologies, church practice and such.

How discipleship works and is carried out in this day?

No presentable thoughts.

I’m doing a philosophy paper and it feels like I’m writing a big blog post with citations from normal human authors.. haha.. anyway another quick stupid facebook saying from someone.

That’s just my opinion

I can’t begin to tell how many things I can say about that phrase. “who cares?” summarizes my thoughts best. This phrase seems to be a common end-all of any proposition that is cut down by some basic logic. When all else fails, say “that’s just my opinion” cos who can take away the right to another person’s own opinion right? That’s acceptable. What is not acceptable is the sheer stupidity of holding on to an opinion out of pride and not a quest for truth. Haha.. and then deleting it all cos you realised that you were wrong but am too afraid to admit it because you think people might think lesser of you.

That’s just one thought. One of the other thoughts begins with with a christian perspective, something like “only God’s opinion matters” or, your opinions can’t change anything..

There are so many other reasons why its stupid but I have to get back to my paper.

“It takes a lot of courage to have complete trust”

I just saw that on someone’s facebook status. Short of saying its stupid, it’s actually closer to completely doesn’t make sense at all while looking profound.

The truth is, trust is built up over time and following that is knowledge of the person and a sense of whether that person is deserving of trust. When a person is responsible with another’s trust, it doesn’t take alot of courage at all to trust him/her. When the person is scum, trusting him takes stupidity, not courage.

Why do we trust our Jesus for our eternal life?

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5:13

Because we know from the bible he is able and willing.

2 Peter 2:7 is interesting because it says lot was “just” which us not what we always hear about him. We usually just remember how he chose to live near Sodom and Gomorrah and how his wife was turned into a pillar of salt. I wonder how he felt after his wife became a pile of NaCl, or did they care so little about women that it was a matter of fact kinda thing. Anyway it’s too long and cumbersome to read on the train on my iPod in (oh man..) KJV.

So me and zg registered for the same tutorial without knowing! Haha. So it of great interest to me what a trained philosopher (my tutor) has to say. I’ve been very intrigued by how everyone misrepresents each other in arguments whether or not they are right or wrong.

Much maligned in Christian circles are the study of philosophy and psychology who most basic premise is really acceptable just like the study of other humanities. The problems arise once people start building on their baseless fleshly assumptions then everything starts going wrong, much like any other subject including theology and bible studies.

Interesting to me is what my tutor says about philosophy being a study of the meta physical which basically means there is no physical proof for it all. Everything is all in the mind. So basically philosophy in its entirety is completely futile without a base set of assumptions and a foundation. That is something only the bible has claim to – absolute truth. Of course since it is self validating it seems foolish to philosophers. Still Who cares if they think it’s dumb? they aren’t the ones who will judge you at the end of your life, neither do thy have the power to change lives and save souls.

This will be a pretty interesting sem. Another thing that suprised me is why my tutor is studying philosophy. “so that I can know what matters and live a fulfilled life”. Nowadays more than ever everyone seems like they need Christ to me. I hope she one day discovers the only one that can provide her that is a life in Christ Jesus and his philosophy.

Looking back at my first wedding stint, I realise my photography skillz have totally gone out the window. Not that I do worse now but I think.. I did really well that time. When I had no knowledge of so many “more advanced things” my photography was “like that” and now after a year and learning and shooting for so much longer it hasn’t improved and its still “like that”. That’s terrible! I conclude it must have been a few things:

• The “novel equipment” effect
  • where new and better equipment give you new perspective and
  • gives you the ability to get shots you didn’t manage before (I never really used a dslr much before this at all)
• The “steeped in wedding photography” effect
  • looking at joho’s photos (a wedding photographer) everyday eventually caused me to produce similar work
  • getting into the “wedding photog mode” also helps alot

So thats what I think it is. Now that I’ve picked up something new, I think the “novel equipment” effect is quite strong but I’m just not under pressure to perform that why I still produce point and shoot photos. Doing Benny’s wedding didn’t really do it for me.. felt my photos were blah actually. Possibly also cos I was always in a terrible spot that I couldn’t get anything anyway.

I need some jobs as a main photographer to kinda push me into the “mode” again, where I have the space and thick skinned rights to move around and stick lenses into people’s face because I’m the “official photographer” instead of having to wait around for the right angles to come to me.

Hmmm. I’m hoping that some jobs comes really soon as I actively search for them. Maybe its what I need and maybe its not (considering other things in my life) but whatever happens my God knows best.