Our thinking is as ancient as our ancestors

Do you think your mind is pretty modern? We are born in this century, and we always think we are modern enough. But I see in my life, in the news… we are always ancient although we live in 21st century.

I laughed immediately when I looked at this particular ‘nation news’ from thestar. This ‘news’ came as we entered 2006, but it also brought us back to 1006. I was wondering what this has to do with ‘nation news’, it doesn’t tell us anything about our nation. For me, I think it is just a story, or perhaps an advertisement which is designed to boost the business of gold abacus? Let me tell you a little about the ‘news’.

For Prosperity and Protection

“Carry a symbolic gold abacus in your wallet for prosperity and to protect you from harm.”

“Lynn Yap, 47, who is popularly known as feng shui queen and often invited for talks, said this year, which was the Lunar Year of the Fire Dog, would be a great year for business because it combined strong yang or “bright” elements.”

“In the first 15 days of the Lunar New Year beginning Jan 29, people should buy or receive calculators so that they would have lots of money to count the whole year round,”

“It is a year to get married and have babies. The year also favours males who stand a better chance in winning competitions, including singing contests.”

“The stock market will generally slow down a little due to cautious investors. But, there may be a sudden craze for horse-racing because it is about fire and earth elements,”

See what I meant? Although we are in the 21st century and we always think we are the modern ones compared to our ancestors. But we never notice our thinking is as ancient as them. Yap said “people should buy or receive calculators so that people have lots of money to count the whole year round.” Well, I also have something to say to the people. “people should buy or receive books so that people would be enlightened from the books and know how to differentiate truth and fake in this information age.”

I came across this wonderful sentence in an article written by a very smart Taiwanese man and I want to share with you. He explained a very great artist + antiques collector, why that artist forged a painting to cheat. “So you guys like arts and collecting antiques, and you want to come into this world, I(artist) have been spending my life in collecting antiques and I am an expert, you want to join this world to show how elegant you are? I am sorry, I have to con you, and you have to pay the price to learn.” I translated this from Chinese, I hope you can get what I am trying to tell you. Which is, the artist was doing that to fool the people, and you need brain and skills to distinguish REAL and FAKE. This applies perfectly to this century.

Choy