numbers and fear

1 in 4. 15 in 60. 25 in 100.

1 in 5. 50,000 in 250,000.

2 in 5. 40 in 100. 200 in 500.

what do they mean?

nothing to the layman like you and i. yet experts use these statistics to relay information that make us worry. why and how so?

looking at it empirically is like looking through a microscope; the image is enlarged. consequently, it becomes 'more obvious' and the and effect on us - the consumer - is inevitably greater. this is what the experts wanted. and, of course, providing such data make their arguments more convincing.

however, if you start expanding the numbers to greater numbers e.g. "1 in 4" becomes "25 in 100" and to "250 in 1000", and so forth, you see that the probability is lowered; much, much lower.

take for example a recent statistic on breast cancer in singapore. it states that "1 in 4 women have been diagnosed with breast cancer." take a population of 4.8mil (i round down to the nearest hundred thousand) in singapore and estimate that about 40% of the population are women, that would be around 1.9mil. you would then be among 480,000 women to be diagnosed with cancer. that is a big group of people but you could also be among the other 1.4mil who aren't going to be diagnosed. the odds are different for everyone. and this is ignoring other contributing factors. should you be so afraid?

i am not saying that you should forget about taking that mammogram or keep postponing it but don't let the "1 in 4" figure scare you to hysteria.

on a more general note, i think we should be aware of the math done and figures shown. the numbers have been simplified for our understanding. but the implication may create some misunderstanding.

the r.e.l.i.g.i.o.n

we choose our mothers. before we are born, we have them exactly what we would like them to be. there is a catalog of mothers in heaven. and god lets us choose whom we want to be born from; and the life we want to live in.

and when we die, we don't actually die. to die means to cease living. but we still appear in people's memories. to some, we are still afresh in their minds. so i don't think we truly disappear. as long as we are remembered, we keep on living. we leave our physical body but we still live on. in the afterlife, or on earth. those stories that we were told are bullshit. can we prove that there is a heaven and/or hell? we were told, rather, cautioned, that we will receive our rewards and punishment in the 'afterlife'. i choose to believe that 'an afterlife' is just a word. what really happens, we don't know. we can't talk directly to god; we are too disgusting for that. only the purest of existence are allowed to, like archangel jibril (gabriel) and the prophets.

so when we die, don't believe what they say. they don't know it too. they just bullshit something 'rational'. it's inconsequential. think about it. it is something that is believed, but not proven. and that is how it is going to be for many time to come. it is quite enough to have a belief. that is substantial.

this is how i think we go:

1. we move from god's haven to someone's womb - to house us while we develop into a human form, like a caterpillar in its pupae stage - of our choosing.

2. we come out and learn about this new environment.

3. we find that it is enough, we tell Him that it is enough, we decide to move on.

4. we leave 'our body' and the dust layer behind. it is the dust layer that gets the punishment and reward.

5. while we move on to somewhere.

where to? i cannot prove. no one knows because we don't come back and tell those after us.

oh! i forgot. when we move on to somewhere else, we divide ourselves. we have some on earth, where we had stayed. and we have some elsewhere in the universe. the rainbow is a cosmic vagina. everything springs out from it.

when reading a book

when i am reading a book, a fiction book, i am now more aware of the writer's style and treatment of how s/he wishes to write. i guess i got it from dr s (the sensitivity part); she's a great teacher and i love to be taught by her.

the way the writer writes is heavily influenced by his/her culture. i notice this after reading books by eastern writers (the translation): murakami and toto chan write differently from jhumpa lahiri, likewise for orhan pamuk and catherine lim. but novelists from the same culture has got similar style. the general feel is similar, but, of course, personal style differs.

then i began to wonder about western writers. they differ too! murdoch writes different from atwood and auster.

this realisation made me excited to read more books by different writers from different cultures. it's showed me how powerful natural langauge is, and how much one's mother tongue influences one's thinking and aquisition of second and subsequent language - but this is for another time.

(perhaps, it's because of this my english "sounds" clumsy and i keep bashing myself about it.)

of course they're people gifted with the ability to acquire language quickly and communicate well in the respective language "rules". meaning when they speak english, it's neutral and not accented by their mother tongue. when they write in english, it "sounds" english.

this was what i realised when reading the translation of the writer's work. the japanese essence of murakami's works is retained in the translation, and the same goes for pamuk's. so although it has been translated to english, the essence of the original language the literature was written in is kept and that is important in understanding the writer's background and subsequently the culture s/he grew up in. it tells of the bigger story and the history of the anthology. isn't that just fascinating?!