balance

they say that everything in life should be done in moderation. ive also heard that everything tries to find its own equilibrium; that is, in nature, things seem to regress towards to the mean. yin and yang, light and dark, this and that - there are just so many opposing pairs out there which manifest themselves in the average, the in between, the neutral. well the point is that in many things, we are also encouraged to practice such balance in our lives. the question is, is the middle truly harmony? how much should we be tending to this model?

well for things like health, moderation is supposedly good. take a bit of everything and you cant really go wrong. i suppose the same can be said of almost every endeavour. they say too much of a good thing is... well a bad thing. but ultimately, is such restraint actually constraint? perhaps instead of trying to find the centre, the focal point, we should be indulging in both extremes? doesnt this also create a neutrality due to the mutual negation of polar opposites?

heh, personally i think its an interesting idea - to dab excessively in both light and dark - to get the best of both worlds perhaps?and a more thorough understanding of either? of course i guess this could be harmful in more ways than one. firstly from a moral standpoint, one should focus on doing jus the good, and ignoring the bad altogether. perhaps psychologists or whatnot wld say that such behaviour leads to the polarization of self as well - a split personality perhaps.

i guess at the end of the day, the question is moot, but life wld be so boring then, wldnt it. heh. after all, what is life but a search for new sensations?and how much of this can be achieved by 
constricting oneself? i say, why go for the mean, when you can go for the extremes and still reach the same product.

understanding

'It is usually only when we are faced with a foreign language or verse form that we have to rely on the mechanical use of explicit formulations; and we then find ourselves envying those who have never expereienced the need to learn them as rules. Renaissance scholars who were able to scan Latin verse only by dint of long labour marvelled at Cicero's description of the uneducated Roman populace jeering at an actor who committed a metrical blunder.' Derek Attridge, The Rhythms of English Poetry.

QQ. i do it for english too

i read the newspapers!

ok in the review section 2 days ago on the 25th, theres this 2007 Oxbridge Letter- Writing Competition winning letter by a Teng Ya Wen from HCI. but its a she. so im guessing its hcjc. but oh wait.. they're hcinstitution now.. anw. i quote:
"singapore cannot afford to have students who feel they have been rejected by the education system to become disillusioned with the country. people seek affirmation in their citizenship. if one were to hazard a guess, the "stayers" of the next generation would be those who have been convinced enough by the country's commitment towards developing her 
most valuable asset - her people - to reciprocate in kind." ok i know im quoting out 
of context here, but jus this short passage itself is... illuminating. 

writing

Anais Nin: we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.

arguably >3 times. well this is jus picky cos i guess the 2 r encompassed under retrospection. so anw its in the moment, in retrospection (during writing) and in retrospection (reading ur writing). so that makes it in retrospection and hindsight? lol.