Tag: literature

Posted in History & Literature

Eros And Psyche

Posted on by Jinavie

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful girl named Psyche. Psyche was so beautiful that she even caught Aphrodite’s eyes. Despite being the goddess of love, Aphrodite was known to be very jealous and felt threatened by Psyche’s beauty. She commanded her son Eros, the god of love, to put a spell on Psyche. Eros uses the Bow of Love and anyone shot by his golden arrows falls immediately and helplessly in love with the first thing they see.

Aphrodite came up with a devious plan to have Eros shoot Psyche and have frogs around her, making her fall in love with frogs and fall into a despairing relationship. But her jealous plan was overthrown by an unexpected event. When Eros first saw Psyche’s face, he became entranced and accidentally pricked himself with his own arrow. Thus, Eros became madly in love with Psyche. Aphrodite, enraged by this, cursed Psyche to never find a mate for the rest of her life. Eros became depressed from not being able to see Psyche and gave up shooting golden arrows. After he gave up his job, no animals or human fell in love and no new life was born. Aphrodite could not bear to see such a scene and begged Eros to start shooting arrows again, offering him one thing that he wanted. Eros said that he desired Psyche without hesitation and Aphrodite reluctantly allowed them to meet.

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While this happened, Aphrodite’s curse made no man come to propose to Psyche. Her parents became worried and asked the advice of the oracle at Apollo’s temple. The oracle stated that as she is destined to marry a monster, she must be placed atop a mountain in bridal attire. Accepting her fate, Psyche stood on the mountain but eventually jumped off a cliff in despair. But Zephyrus the West Wind caught her and brought her safely to Eros’ place, just as Eros planned. Psyche enjoyed a comfortable life in the beautiful castle with many maids at her service. However, her husband only came in the deep dark of the night. Whether it was because he feared Aphrodite’s wrath or the difference between a god and a mortal, he asked her to never try find out who he was and that if she truly loved him, she should trust him. But Psyche eventually fell victim to her jealous sisters’ scheme and her curiosity, leading to her accidentally dropping candle wax on Eros’ face as she took a peek at his face. Eros was awakened and became enraged. He chased her away and forbade her from coming back. Psyche fell in despair and threw herself into the river, but the river carried her to the riverside where the shepherd god Pan rescued and consoled her.

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At first, Psyche tried to find Eros while avoiding Aphrodite, but eventually she decides to plea directly to her. Despite her bravery, Aphrodite threw challenging tasks one after another at her like a mean mother-in-law, ultimately commanding her to retrieve some beauty from Persephone, the queen of the underworld (since travelling to the underworld signifies death, Aphrodite must have truly hated Psyche). 

However, Psyche was determined to see Eros even at the cost of her life. Admiring her commitment, a tall tower before the underworld gave her a hint. It told her to place two coins on her tongue and bread in each hand when going to the underworld. The coins would be to pay Charon the ferryman while the bread would distract Cerberus the three-headed dog guardian. She succeeded in seeing Persephone, who gave her a box of beauty and told her to never open it. But wanting to look beautiful in front of her lover (Eros), Psyche opened the box. The box did not contain beauty, but instead contained a death-like sleep from the underworld, putting Psyche in a deep sleep. Although he chased her away, Eros came back to see Psyche and found her in this sleeping state. He took the corpse-like Psyche and kissed her softly on her lips, awakening her from the deep sleep.

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Eros eventually sought help from the king of gods, Zeus, to persuade Aphrodite. After Zeus’ persuasion and seeing the love the two have for each other, Aphrodite accepted the relationship and Zeus gave Psyche the immortal drink ambrosia to make her into a goddess. The now immortal Psyche and Eros were married and had a daughter named Hedone (like in Hedonism), the goddess of sensual pleasures.

Eros symbolises physical and sensual love while Psyche is a Greek symbol for butterflies, the soul and emotional love. Ergo, Eros and Psyche represent the union of physical and emotional love into perfect love. Love and the soul are inseparable things. The most basic instinct of any organism is to reproduce and human beings have evolved that into the sacred concept that is love. To speak bluntly and without philosophy, from a purely biological perspective there is no greater purpose to life than to find a suitable mate and leave descendants. There is nothing more fundamental than pure love.

Posted in History & Literature

Satire

Posted on by Jinavie

독소(獨笑) (To Laugh Alone)

有粟無人食 (유속무인식) 
A household with great wealth lacks children, 

多男必患飢 (다남필환기) 
A household with many children is poor, 

達官必準愚 (달관필준우) 
Those who are at high positions are idiots, 

才者無所施 (재자무소시) 
Those with talent have no way to develop them.

家室少完福 (가실소완복) 
A house with complete luck is rare to find, 

至道常陵遲 (지도상릉지) 
Great morality is bound to fade away, 

翁嗇子每蕩 (옹색자매탕) 
If the father is thrift then the son is prodigal, 

婦慧郞必癡 (부혜랑필치) 
If the wife is wise then the husband is foolish.

月滿頻値雲 (월만빈치운) 
When the full moon is out the weather is cloudy, 

花開風誤之 (화개풍오지) 
When the flowers are at full bloom the weather is windy. 

物物盡如此 (물물진여차) 
Such is how everything works. 

獨笑無人知 (독소무인지) 
There is no one who knows the reason why I am laughing.

~ Dasan Jeung Yak Yong (a Korean academic from the late 18th century)

Posted in Life & Happiness

What Cannot Be Seen

Posted on by Jinavie

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is important is invisible to the eye.”

(from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry)

In The Little Prince there is a story that goes like this. At the age of six the protagonist, after seeing a picture of a boa constrictor swallowing an animal in a book, draws “Drawing Number One”:

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He showed it to adults and asked if the drawing frightened them. They replied: “Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”

Drawing Number One was not a drawing of a hat, but a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. However, adults could not understand the true meaning of the drawing. So the protagonist drew Drawing Number Two which showed the elephant inside the boa constrictor. The adults advised him to put aside drawings of things like boa constrictors and elephants that could not be seen and instead take interest in geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why he gave up his dream of becoming an artist.

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Even after growing up and becoming a pilot, he sometimes showed people Drawing Number One and asked what they saw. But they only saw the hat, never the elephant or the boa constrictor. Unlike when he was young, he did not try to explain the true meaning of the drawing and instead brought up “adult topics” like golf and politics.

Money, status, beauty… Things that can be seen can fool you just as an optical illusion does. Things that are invisible such as the mind, creativity, understanding and love are the only things that can truly bring you satisfaction. So how can we look for things that we cannot see? We can infer that the wind blows from the rustling of leaves. If the leaves are not rustling, it means the wind is not blowing. To find like-minded people, a “password” needs to be used, just as we used leaves to find wind.

The Encyclopaedia of Absolute and Relative Knowledge is like a “password” to me, just like Drawing Number One was for the protagonist of The Little Prince. It is something that can be used to see if the other person shares my way of thinking and beliefs. Whether it be a book, a picture or a quote, such a password that represents you as a whole can be very useful in finding a true companion. If they ask you why you write such a thing, what the meaning of the picture is or why you respect the quote, then they are not the one you were looking for. The person you are desperately looking for will never ask “why” but instead respond with honest curiosity. Yes, the correct answer to the password is an expression of childlike curiosity. Upon seeing that person’s pure smile, you will know: that that person can decode your password, that they understand you, that they will accept your everything. That person is the one you have been looking for to accompany you for the rest of your life.

Posted in History & Literature

The Great Dictator

Posted on by Jinavie

The following is the final speech given by Charlie Chaplin in the movie The Great Dictator (1940). To this day, it is considered one of the most inspirational speeches in modern history. (NB: video excerpt at the end)

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another.

In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think or what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural!

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the 17th Chapter of St. Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work that will give youth the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfil their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people! Now, let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!“

Posted in History & Literature

Printing

Posted on by Jinavie

Most Westerners are familiar with Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the printing press in 1450 which allowed the mass-production of books, namely the bible. In fact, the printing press is thought of as one of the crucial factors that triggered the Renaissance in Europe.
However, what most people do not know is that the movable type – a printing machine where individual letters can be rearranged and reused – was invented in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty two centuries before Gutenberg.

Before the movable type, Buddhist monks would carve out wooden blocks so that they could copy out religious texts with ease. But as this involved the monks having to carve out the entire text (often very long), it was extremely labour-intensive and everyone sought an easier method of mass-producing texts. The concept of the movable type was experimented with throughout the centuries, but it was found that woodblocks would wear out too fast. Although metal was the obvious choice, the technology was not developed enough to produce the fine letters.

In 1234, a Korean man called Choe Yun-ui finally devised the technology to invent the first metal movable type in the world. The process was very complicated, involving the making of durable clay moulds to hold the molten metal without breaking.
This was revolutionary as it meant that texts could easily be printed as all the printers had to do was rearrange pre-made letters in order rather than laboriously carving each one out. Metal movable types are also extremely durable and give a very clean print, unlike the wooden counterpart that tends to wear out or smudge. The metal movable type allowed for the mass-production of books which greatly boosted Goryeo’s culture and education within the poorer classes.

Korea was the leading innovator in the printing industry throughout history, with the earliest woodblock prints dating back to 751. The motivation to develop this technology was partly thanks to Buddhism. To ensure that Buddha’s teachings could be spread far and wide, Buddhist monks worked day and night to produce these texts. This was a critical job during the 13th century when the Mongol Empire was rampaging through the whole of Eurasia. As military force was insufficient to repel the invaders, the people turned to spirituality for power. Furthermore, due to the destructive nature of the Mongols, it was crucial to replace damaged texts to ensure that precious cultural heritages would not be destroyed. This was the main motivation for the creation of the metal movable type and to this day we can see the evidence of the state-of-the-art printing device in books from the 13th and 14th century.

One limitation still remained with the movable type – Chinese characters. At the time, Korea still used Chinese characters to record the Korean language (similar to how Chinese characters can be transcribed in pinyin form). As there are literally tens of thousands of characters, a massive amount of individual types had to be produced.
This problem was solved by King Sejong the Great of the Joseon Dynasty, who invented Hangul – the Korean alphabet. Hangul only contains 24 letters and is extremely logical in its construction, ergo it was a perfect system for recording language. It also meant that much less individual types were needed, making the printing process even more efficient.

Although the 20th and 21st century saw the Western Hemisphere leading science and technology innovations, it is important to remember that the East dominated the field for millennia before.

Posted in History & Literature

Land

Posted on by Jinavie

The following is the synopsis of a short story called How Much Land Does a Man Need?, written by the famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

A peasant man called Pahom was complaining of how he did not possess enough land to satisfy him. He lamented: “If I had plenty of land, I should not fear the Devil himself”. The Devil, hiding behind the stove and listening to this, decided to have a tussle with Pahom to teach him a lesson.

The next day, a lady in the village sold her estate, which was bought up by the peasants. Pahom too tried to buy as much land as possible and by utilising the land he pays off his debts and he leads a happier life. But despite having his wish granted, he was still not satisfied and desired more land. His obsession with his land began to cause troubles with his neighbours and he eventually moved to a larger area of land at another village.

However, he was annoyed that he was growing crop on rented land and wanted more land for himself. He found out that the Bashkirs in the village were simple-minded people with large amounts of land. Pahom decided to exploit the Bashkirs and went to them to negotiate the lowest price possible for their land. The Bashkirs counteroffered with a very strange deal: for a thousand rubles, they would let Pahom take a spade to mark out an area of land and claim it for himself. The only condition was that he had to come back to where he started to close the loop by sunset. Pahom joyfully took up the offer, thinking how stupid these people were.

That night, Pahom had a surreal dream where he saw himself lying at the feet of the Devil. The Devil was laughing maniacally over Pahom’s cold, dead body. After jerking awake from this nightmare, Pahom sets out to start marking out as much land as possible. He decides to travel as far as he can to maximise his gain. However, he forgets to take into account the time needed to come back to where he started and hurries back. Although he manages to close the loop by sunset, the exhaustion causes him to drop dead on the spot. He is buried in a hole measuring 6 feet long.

How much more land does a man need than a place where he can rest in peace?


Posted in History & Literature

Laconic Phrase

Posted on by Jinavie

The Spartans are well-known to us as some of the bravest and toughest soldiers in Western history, with a culture completely focussed on breeding the best of the best warriors. However, during ancient times they were famous for another trait.
Spartans were famous for stating their arguments in concise statements, able to express their ideas with just a few words. This type of speech was known as laconic phrase, named after the region of Laconia where Sparta was located. Laconic phrases are not only short, but extremely efficient and often witty. In fact, another trait that Spartans shared was a sense of dry wit known as laconic humour.

There are plenty of records, such as Socrates’, that describe the Spartan’s ability to effortlessly throw off pithy comments in retaliation. Ergo, the Spartans did not use little words because they were illiterate or did not value education and culture; they used as little words as possible to conceal their wisdom in a concentrated phrase. The Spartans deemed this a valuable skill as a true professional is efficient in whatever he does, including language.

Many examples of laconic phrase can be drawn from the historic Battle of Thermopylae – the battle portrayed by the movie 300 (which, despite a rather dramatic presentation, quite accurately portrays many aspects of the battle).

  • Before the war, a Persian envoy came to Sparta demanding an offering of soil and water – a traditional symbol of surrender. The Spartans threw them in a well and said “Dig it out for yourselves”.
  • This infuriated the Persian Empire and war broke out. As King Leonidas departed for the Battle of Thermopylae, he advised her wife: “Marry a good man and bear good children”.
  • When Xerxes of Persia offered to spare the Spartan army in exchange for their surrender and giving up their weapons, Leonidas simply retorted: “Molon labe”, which translates to “Come and take them”.
  • On the morning of the last day of the battle, Leonidas knew that defeat was inevitable. To boost his troop’s morale, he spoke the famous line: “Eat well, for tonight we dine in Hades”.

The Spartans’ efficiency with words and wit inspired many famous words over history. These range from responding to the enemy’s demand for surrender (at the end of the Battle of Waterloo, British forces demand the French surrender, to which General Cambronne replied: “Merde” or “Go to hell”), a pithy description of a disastrous situation (during the Battle of Imjin River of the Korean War, Lieutenant Colonel Carne – surrounded by the Chinese and his forces utterly destroyed – described the situation as “A bit sticky”), to the modern day epic burn.

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Posted in History & Literature

Deal With The Devil

Posted on by Jinavie

Faust is a famous German legend telling the tale of a man who sold his soul to the devil in a deal. The legend has been retold in many forms, in both literary and artistic forms, with the most famous versions being Christopher Marlowe’s and Goethe’s. The story goes as follows:

Faust was a very knowledgeable scholar who grew bored and disappointed of earthly knowledge. To seek more knowledge, he summons the devil, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles proposes a deal to Faust, suggesting that he will serve Faust with his magical powers and with knowledge beyond this world. In exchange, after a certain amount of time has passed he would seize Faust’s soul and send him to damnation for eternity. 

After making this pact, Faust proceeds to satisfy his wants by using the devil’s powers. Eventually he seduces a beautiful, innocent girl by the name of Gretchen, but ends up destroying her life instead of living a happy life with her. However, she is saved by her innocence and ascends to heaven. 

Faust, with his term now over and about to burn in the eternal inferno of Hell, is saved by God’s grace via his constant striving. It is also said that his salvation is largely brought on by Gretchen, now a symbol of the Eternal Feminine, pleading to God to save Faust. 

Although this is the tale that is familiar in modern times, earlier versions of the Faust story end in damnation, with the devil carrying away Faust’s irrevocably corrupt soul. Faust accepts his sins and his punishments, regretting making a pact with the devil and destroying the life of his beloved Gretchen.
Faust serves to remind us that although every person has a right to be happy and satisfy their wants, there are boundaries that must be followed. By satisfying one’s needs and wants by destroying someone’s life and causing harm, one is subject to eternal punishment.

It is fascinating to see that one could go to such length to attain more knowledge. Is ultimate knowledge worth your soul being damned to eternity? Or is it wiser to accept that the only way to gain true knowledge is by continuously learning and thinking rather than finding a shortcut?

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Werther Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people in the developed world. Every year, approximately one million people take their own lives – far greater than the number of people dying from liver disease, Parkinson’s or even homicide. Despite being one of the most preventable causes of death, suicide still plagues society.
Among the many factors contributing to suicide attempts (mental disorder being the major one), one of the more interesting one is mass media. The effect of mass media on suicide rates can be traced back as far as 1774.

In 1774, Goethe wrote a novel called The Sorrows of Young Werther, where the hero shoots himself after an ill-fated love affair. Shortly after publication, there were many reports of young men who used the same method as Werther to commit suicide. There were even reports of people dressing up like Werther (yellow pants and blue jacket) or leaving the book open to the passage detailing his death next to themselves. After this event, the book was temporarily banned to stop the “epidemic”. Since then, the phenomenon of copycat suicides has been called the Werther effect.

The human brain is trained to think about the information it receives. This applies to suicide as well and people with mental disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder are more prone to suicidal thoughts after hearing stories about it. This effect is amplified by the media tending to glorify or beautify such deaths (as the subject tends to be a celebrity or a fictional character), causing some people to subconsciously believe that suicide is acceptable. In essence, the Werther effect is a form of peer pressure where cognitive dissonance lead people to act irrationally because others in society appear to be doing the same thing.

The Werther effect is surprisingly effective in predicting an increase in suicide attempts after the publication of news regarding suicide. On April 8, 1986, a Japanese singer called Yukko Okada, only 18 at the time, committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of her recording studio. Her popularity meant the media were over the story like hungry wolves, reporting the tragic death in every form possible. Within two weeks, 33 young people (including one nine-year old) killed themselves – 21 by jumping from buildings. This episode was dubbed Yukko Syndrome and is one of the most famous cases of the Werther effect in modern society.

Just like in the original case of the Werther effect, the suicide could be fictional and still cause an increase in suicide rates. There was a German television show called Death of a Student that depicted a railway suicide of a young man at the start of every episode. After it began airing, railway suicides by teenage males increased by 175% in Germany. Curiously, there was no increase or decrease in suicide rates via other methods, suggesting that the Werther effect not only affects the choice of method, but also induces suicidal thoughts in those who did not plan on killing themselves.

In 1987, a campaign in Vienna to inform reporters about the Werther effect and the role of the media in suicides led to a dramatic drop in reporting suicides. This was followed by an 80% drop in subway suicide and non-fatal attempts, along with a decrease in the total number of suicides.

The Werther effect is a fine example of how words can kill.

Posted in History & Literature

Black And White

Posted on by Jinavie

The following poem was written by an African child. It was nominated by the UN as the Best Poem of 2006.

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow

When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray

And you calling me coloured?