Sunday, November 02, 2003

Causality. Action - Reaction. Cause and effect. The words of the Merovingian in the Matrix Reloaded. And a particularly interesting point to ponder considering recent personal experiences that relate to the principle of causality. To think that I believed the Matrix to be fodder for obsessed technophobes; a narrow-minded viewpoint it has proved itself to be. I find some of the themes in the trilogy rather pertinent and thought-provoking when applied to real-life events.

Most of us probably don't bother with thinking very much about the simple actions we carry out every day, since some of them are so routine and most others don't merit the expenditure of excess neurotransmitter substances. Then again, most of us simply shy away from the Herculean feat of trying to understand the causality of our own little actions on every person that shares the world with us, for to grapple with such wide-reaching concepts is beyond our capabilities, including mine. I'm still struggling to understand such a simple yet profoundly pervasive rule of life.

Admittedly, not all of our actions cause significant effects, and even if they do, we humans are most likely to be interested only with the effects on our person and downplay the impacts on others that we do not know. Sometimes, you can readily see the effects of your own actions. By skipping a queue, you inconvenience the people behind you. A simple example, but you would be surprised at how often it occurs in Singapore (or maybe not, if you're Singaporean). Then there might be other actions, which can summate with other actions of other people at other times and finally create an effect that profoundly influences others, or possibly even yourself. A rather difficult point to understand, but I am sure most of you out there have experienced days where every little thing that can go wrong does, leading up to a lot of frustration. The principle is generally similar, if you understand what I mean.

It would be interesting to ponder the type of actions that influence someone else's life in some significant way, and realise that, with some exceptions, such actions are motivated by the human race's inherent selfishness. As with all organisms, survival is a matter of competition and natural selection, even if the process is a lot less primal with us humans. Still, we are greatly motivated by purposes of enhancing our own benefits and furthering our causes, even if it may directly or indirectly inconvenience others or even change their lives for good. Even the most well-meant actions could have far-reaching effects. Ponder this simple example: If person A, who is trying to get to the 2nd floor of a building, squeezes into a crowded elevator when he or she could well take the stairs, he or she may be depriving person B - who is trying to get to the 6th floor - an elevator ride, thus inconveniencing B for A's comfort. Or this: In creating genetically modified plants that can be grown for greater yield, poor farmers suffer as they have insufficient capital to obtain such plants and thus lose out to larger agricultural organizations that have all the capital they need. Thus, the noble action of trying to feed a greater number of starving poor by increasing agricultural capital might end up depriving simple farmers of a living. I must say, though, that this view of the inherently self-motivated individual is a simple generalisation, and is only amplified to make us think about such a subject. It would be rather pessimistic to think of every person around you as selfish and scheming, but we must also realise that to think the best of everyone you know is too idealistic a view, and rather foolish as well.

Coming back to the original topic of causality after a long detour, I should now touch on something more interesting. It is usually all too easy to shrug off the effects on your actions on others, especially so in people who are rather insensitive. But I should say, having been through rather similar situations that were unpleasant to say the least, that it's terribly unsettling to have your own actions summate and hit you in the face when you least expect it. Maybe this is the thing they call karma; what goes around comes around. Almost like a boomerang, as ZF told me. I can attest to the terrible feeling of guilt, though the exact feeling is quite indescribable in its complexity. It's almost as if you can hear the Fates cacking away somewhere beyond your sight, and it gives you the belittling feeling of being merely a puppet in the gigantic puppet show of the cosmos. At least, that's how I felt, and it was truly unpleasant to have my ignoble selfish actions come back to haunt me. Well, no one's perfect, least of all me.

I'm coming to the end of this entry, and I do realise I haven't said why I got inspired to write about causality. Well, something happened yesterday that was kind of like the boomerang of causality or karma hitting me in the back of the head. To put it simply, em read one of my previous entries - where I joked about Lord John Grey and James Fraser - to my eternal mortification. Well, at least she didn't read the one about my maternal impulses, but I feel that the latter is a result of a deeper understanding of the feelings initiated by the former so the latter is actually more pertinent that the former. Just skip this paragraph if you don't understand.

Causality. Such complexity that I feel I but scraped the surface, but I leave the rest of the thinking up to you, if you feel up to it. A most interesting theme to mull over on a boring Sunday afternoon, eh?

Avaris / 11/02/2003 04:22:00 PM

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