Blank Slate

Time to blog again ppl, and now.. the topic is on...(drum rolls).. blank slate!!

Haha how boring and anti climax. Dont wanna give ppl the impression that i'm such a boring and philosophical person, but just dun know how man.. these are my thoughts, the thoughts of a humble, under-appreciated (kidding la, i'm not looking out for appreciation anyways) teenager STILL on crossroads, but saw the dim traffic lights. Things are getting abit less cloudy for me, but worries still unabating of course. My life has been revolutionising, from being plagued by my own emotions to being aware of it. I need to move on to appreciation! Ok before the real anti-climax arrives, i'd better fast foward my ramblings and pass on the mike to the inner voice in me. Today's discussion would be just 2 words - blank slate

Nature brought on each and everyone of us as a blank slate, an untainted prototype of human, readily accepting any form of influence and impact. The mind, the body, everything, ironically, knows nothing about existence. Our environment starts to mould our physical appearance, imbue character, infuse thinking, and trigger behaviour. We start to become alive. We start to respond and participate in the world arena. Most importantly, we form the circle of influence towards others, including those very senior in this world, and also not excluding new blank slates. Every word we say, every action, might not be recorded, but it certainly possessed an impact on the world. Every thought produces a wave, every action bestows progress. Every minuscle input by us changes our circumstance in someway, albeit often unrealised.

You would hear people saying that a blank slate will no longer remain one. When time marches on, the slate is coloured, tinted, tainted, adored, or maybe disfigured. Now this begs a very perplex question: Can we undo these changes, and return to the pure, demure state? Can we go back, make a choice, relive our lives, choose the influence, behave differently, and redecorate the picture of our slate again? A historian will vehemently deny this. But being a humanist like me, i say we can. We can choose to live all over once again. Not time machine or stuff like that. I mean the kind of live we envision how we should have lived in the past, applying it now. We can erase away all the markings, but we must first be aware of their existence, and who painted it on us. We must decipher the influence that has been brought upon us by the environment. We need to understand our makings. How did it happen?

Ok before you see stars, let me assure you that i'm still writing english. There is a reason for our behaviour, our actions. It is our beliefs and thinking. There is a reason for our beliefs and thinking, and that is our predisposition. And our predisposition has been the result of our interactions with the environment around us. Anything beneath would just be a blank slate.

Sun Tzi said that knowing yourself and others suffice to win all battles. Knowing yourself would logically imply that you win half the battle. In fact, people do not achieve 100 percent self-realisation. Many parts of us remain unexplored. But life moves on. We constantly react to the world in ways being governed by our innate, more often unaware of it as clear as we ought to. Its time to discover why we feel in this way, why we think like this, and why we behave in such a characteristic manner. It's time to be a third party in your life. Observe the being in front of you, yourself. Treat it like the computer in front of you. Understand it thoroughly. Understand the programming language. For example, you feel angry easily because you belief you are easily irritable. So what causes that irritability? Any past event, experience, trauma that probably cultivated that trait? Any influence that shaped your low threshold for tolerance? Give yourself some time to seek a solution. Find the underlying connection. Solve the puzzle. Seek the missing link.

With this mystery solved, you will be better able to live a well-informed life. You will see yourself in another way. You will better accept your behaviour, and can proceed on to make changes you desire. This is the power that i am referring, the power to reinvent ourself, to recreate our blank slate, and erase it again. To be able to master our destiny is to understand human tendencies, and to be the author of our stories.

Life is a drawing board, you choose the picture, the colour combination and you paint it yourself. There will always exist a chance for you to erase and redraw, but you must first know the reason why you drew it in the first place. Or else no matter how you repaint, you will always be unhappy.