I just finished reading Soul Mountain on the bus back from my motorbike lesson a few hours ago.

All 506 pages.

As I get older, I get better at finishing thick books, the last being the Brothers Karamazov, if I don’t remember wrongly.

Damn, broke my high E string while practising Clapton’s cover version of Freddie King’s Hide Away. I thought that would be impossible on a set of point 0.11s!

Oh well, I’ll blog instead and record what I’ve read. I stopped reading Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach again. Too rambling. I got further this time round than about 4 years back.

Also stopped reading Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian.

[afternote: have resumed reading Soul Mountain. Link [in Chinese] to an article on Soul Mountain by Gao. Some more links for my future reference.]

But I completed a short book on Genghis Khan.

Am currently re-reading Alvin Plantinga’s book God, Freedom and Evil after stopping in the midst of an involved modal version of the Free Will Defence a few years back. Hope to finish it. High quality philosophy book. Very clearly written, but still relatively demanding for the reader in terms of patience, energy and clear mindedness. At the end of the book, he presents an interesting ontological argument in terms of possible worlds. If and when I can clarify it to a satisfactory degree in my mind, I’ll write about it.

Am also trying to work through Ted Greene’s book on Chord Chemistry and Modern Chord Progressions. Funny guy, who unfortunately has passed away. “You will probably wonder why so many examples of this progress are given (“Look Mabel, this guy Greene’s gone crazy – more than twenty pages on the same progression.”)”. ???

Oh yes, I should record that pop piano lessons and my own supplementary reading finally gave me a very basic understanding of chords! I used to “understand” chords on the guitar visually, as shapes to be memorised. Now that I have some idea of chord formulas, I see why chords on the guitar take the shapes I learnt and how they can also take other shapes. This is progress. Should have learnt this long time back, it’s not that difficult at all, having a rough sense of what intervals e.g. “major second” etc are and how they combine to form chords and chord inversions. But maybe long time back, I wasn’t ready. Oh well….

Anyway, must keep Ted Greene’s advice in mind. Patience and determination are key to achieving goals.

A thought struck me when I was reading this passage from Alvin Plantiga’s God, Freedom and Evil on the way to work

The third theistic argument I wish to to discuss is the famous “ontological argument” first formulated by Anselm of Cantebury in the eleventh century. This argument for the existence of God has fascinated philosophers ever since Anselm first stated it. Few people, I should think, have been brought to belief in God by means of this argument; nor has it played much of a role in strengthening and confirming religious faith.

I thought to myself, actually most people I know do not come to believe in God through arguments. But strangely, most people I know suspend belief in God or have a belief that God does not exist because of arguments. Why this asymmetry?

And then I’m reminded of a passage from Raymond Smullyan’s Who Knows: A Study of Religious Consciousness

To begin with, why are some people so dogged in their belief that there definitely is no afterlife? They give so-called “rational scientific” arguments, which in fact, are extremely poor (for reasons I have indicated), and which are nothing more than sheer rationalizations. They what is the real cause of the insistence? I believe that it is so often that they don’t want to believe in or even hope for something which may never come about; they are frightened of the thought of living in a fool’s paradise. And so they would love to have an afterlife but believe that it is wrong to hope for one – it is ignoble to indulge in this egocentric kind of wishful thinking. And so when someone suggests to them that there might be an afterlife after all, their anxieties are aroused by their struggle to resist the temptation of indulging in wishful thinking!

Victims of wishful thinking versus not those who do want to be victims of wishful thinking? This is certainly an interesting, though probably simplistic way of drawing the line between believers and non-believers.

Just returned from RT not too long ago. Super low morale when I went back for my Phase 2 , which is three sessions a week, and did not see my kakis cos they passed.

Did a 3 km run in 19 min 30 seconds, the longest run I did in recent memory. Yesterday, my dear accompanied for my personal, non-RT 2.4 km interval training. Thanks dear!

That’s 5.4 km in two days. One step closer to fitness!

If I attend all my RT sessions this week, I would have ran 11.4 km this week. Man, running never used to be a problem, until the past year and a half or so.

RT and I’m reminded again of my BMT days, when I got my unfit ass into the army and struggled to cope with the fitness regime in army. The flashback happened especially when I was panting and running and when I had to do crunches on the open parade square like floor and look up in the evening sky as everyone counts “1, 2, 3, 4, ...”.

Must do better and keep at it!

Went for dinner with my dear at Blk 713, Clementi West Street 2, 包公.

The XO fish head bee hoon is not bad. We rate it 3.5 stars out of 5 stars.

Just returned from Hooha cafe at Pasir Panjang Village with my dear. Best T-bone steak and fried hokkien mee I ever had. We rate it 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. Recommended.

This is also recommended:

A picture of Abdullah Ibrahim. See also Guardian profile here.

Excellent music, food and company in a day. What else can I ask for?

From time to time, I realise I have a very lousy attitude towards life and work. And then I get reminded of the people who have it far worse than me in many areas but yet have infinitely better attitude. And then, for a brief moment that I wish could always stay longer with me, I gain a better perspective.

I used to swim at IE, along Dunearn Road. When I see disabled atheletes swimming, I’m reminded of how lucky I am, with a “normal” body. And yet, how useless I am, with a “normal” body, I’m still doing less with it than those disabled atheletes I see swimming; despite my “normal” body, I still have a far more defeatist attitude is compared to them. I always tell myself, learn from their attitude, their fighting spirit.

And then there is Jason Becker, whom I read about two nights ago. Check out the documentary here. How he coped with being inflicted by ALS at the height of his career with David Lee Roth, how, with ALS, he painstakingly composed music one note at a time, using a special software that allows his eye movement to move a cursor and his chin to click a mouse, and how despite it all, he never gave up and managed to maintain a sense of serenity without being beaten down and defeated by circumstances beyond his control. Read about his experience here, about how his family never gave up on him and devised an alphabhet board that relied on his eye movements to communicate with him when it would have been easier to just give up.

This post is for my future reminder and inspiration.

Recently discovered a very cool record by a very cool jazz guitarist. Recommended.

Just got back from Maju camp 3 hours ago.

Failed my 2.4 km run.

Passing time: 12 min 40 seconds. My time: 13 minutes 12 seconds.

Consequence: RT thrice a week from this Sunday onwards.

Reflection: Must admit, I’m really unfit.

Self-exhortation: Must do better.

To note: Felt very good after the run. Exercise relaxes me and gives me peace in a strange way that only a constantly distracted and anxious person like me can understand. Need to keep up with the running and not let my body waste away prematurely.

I passed my 7th bike lesson on the first try yesterday evening. Very happy. Think instructor “pang chan”.

I need to remember the following:

Lesson 8 pass then can take test liao. Must book circuit and road revision and lesson 8. Wish me luck!