Went kayaking with Wei Chuen, Joni and Tzen Wah today. It was somewhat less exhilarating than the first time, though. I want to go further, but the flimsy plastic kayak is possibly a bad choice for a seaworthy vessel. Sigh. If only I had been accepted into the Navy.

Lots of duty to do, the kind I hate most - recruitment for Freshmen Camp. My ability to get people to buy stuff is rather low, I am afraid. Mostly I find myself trying to give helpful information and directions instead of actually trying to sell my product. Luckily Leonard was around to help and we managed to net almost twenty freshie names. It doesn't seem a lot, but consider that we went for just about every single freshman there. Slim pickings for this batch of campers.

Chatted with Huishan a bit about her future as a producer/songwriter again. It's nice to have someone else who has some kind of ambition in mind, even if the person in question tends to tell you your ambitions in life are pathetic and boring. I see the same trepidation, the same uncertainty and the same despair over the lack of knowledge to enter the field. But what Huishan has is a lot of belief in herself. I think that's called 'practical irrationality', when a person uses irrationality to better performance. I'm sure you must have experienced something like that - psyching yourself up, telling yourself you can do it, convincing yourself something isn't as bad as it seems - with virtually no good reasons for doing so, but which helped. Call it false bravado, fake confidence, it's still helpful. And Huishan has a lot more of it than I have.

Read in Philosophers Magazine that people who are constantly depressed are more aware of their own positive and negative attributes - but which causes the other is still unknown. The phenomenon is known as 'depressive realism'. I think the majority of cynics in the world suffer form this, unless they grduate into psychotic idealism and end up killing millions like Hitler.
*'psychotic idealism' is a term I coined myself, nothing to do with Philo Mag

Of course, I wouldn't trade being slightly depressed for the insights I gain into myself. I remember a philosophical test about your beliefs about life, also from Philosopher's Mag, which classified life as a continuation of the body, soul and mind. I fall very strictly into the mind-alive category, I'm afraid. I would consider a person to still exist if his mental faculties were maintained by computer algorithms rather than brain cells, even if there were a thousand of them. Which is why I am rather disapproving of weak minded people who flock to the inspirational speakers in search to better themselves - to me they are suicidal. They would kill their own personalities for a new one. Isn't that thought scary? It's like having plastic surgery - essentially you're admitting your own weakness.

Not necessarily a bad thing, of course. People ARE weak. Rationally I know that. But the heart is unwilling.