Renouncing his own intelligence might
be the cure for Antoine. His intelligence is a disease that seperates him from
his social life. By the age of 25, Antoine was at the end of the rope. Martin Page’s
take us through the satire odyssey to relinquish the burden of his mind by
trying different sorts of method; filling his mind with alcohol, remove the
neuronal dendrite and even venture into suicide course. The 160 pages of novel
take us through the roller coaster ride of his life. Every bits of suspense,
idealogy presented by Antoine and the hilarious moments makes this book an A
grade. Most important, we see how a person changes his life as Antoine find
what defines him at the end. Life is full of challenges but is still important
to accept who you really are. Never lose
sight of that.
“Quoting other people….because there are so many great
writers who’ve said so many great things that no one would ever need to express
their own opinion again”
“Medicine is all powerful, and has no choice but to submit to
it. Going to a doctor force us to abandon any power we may have ourselves; we
offer our body and dsyfunctions to the sorcery of medical science. “
“Sharks are leathally poison, but in their tissues, there are
chemicals that we use to make medicines for saving lives”
“The countryside, the air, the streets, the people,
everything had been affected by the violence of wars, by unemployment, disease
and daily misery of human overpopulation.
“have a brilliant future,accepted into the best, most
sought-after course..follow the path of success..be a CEO, be a president,.. I don’t
want to get to the end of the of my life and realize I’ve never realized my
dream”
“Let the new world carry him along and he even took some
pleasure in it: the pleasure of freedom within a set of framework, of
abandoning yourself to the flow…which obeyed every curve of the river.”
There are
people in this life for whom even the best things don’t work out. They could
wear cashmere suits and still look like tramps; be very rich and badly in debt;
be tall but lousy in basketball. I now realize that I’m one of that species who
can’t get the best from the advantages in life, for whom advantages can be even
a drawback.
They say
“out of the mouths of babes come the truth.” At grade school, it was the most
monstrous insult to be called a brain-box; later on being an intellectual
almost becomes a strength. But it’s a lie; intelligence is a flaw. Just as
every living person knows they’re going to die while the dead knows nothing…
It stays in
Ecclesiates “ he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow:; but I never knew
the joys of going to catechism with the other kids so I was never warned of the
dangers of studying. Christians are really very lucky being put on their guard
like that against the risk of intelligence at such an early age.; they’ll know
to steer clear of it all through life. Happy are the simple mind.
Those who
think there’s some sort of nobility in intelligence clearly do not have enough
to realize it’s a curse. My family and friends, my classmates, my teachers,
everyone’s always said I was intelligent.
I’ve never
been athletic; the last time my muscles were tested by a major competition was
playing marbles in recess at grade school. My skinny arms, my lack of fitness,
and my sluggish legs mean I can’t get together enough force to kick a ball
effectively; the only thing I have the strength to do is to scour this world
with my mind. I was to puny for sport. Intelligence was a fallback option.
Intelligence
is one of evolution’s features. In the days of the first prehistoric humans, I
can just imagine some little tribe where all the kids run through the scrub
chasing lizards and picking berries for dinner. They gradually learn from the
adults how to be perfect men and women; hunters, gatherers, fishermen, tanners.
But if we look more closely at the life of this tribe, we’ll see that some
children don’t join in the group activities; they stay sitting by the fire,
sheltered inside the cave. They’ll never learn to defend themselves against saber-toothed
tiger, or how to hunt; by themselves, they wouldn’t survive a single night. And
it’s not out of laziness, no, they’d like to be capering about with their
friends, but they can’t. When nature brought them into the world, it slipped
up. Within that tribe, there’s a little blind girl, a boy with a limp, another
one who’s clumsy and absent minded… So they’ve got nothing to do and video
games haven’t been invented yet, they just have to think and let their thoughts
do the capering. So they spend all their time trying to think, trying to
decipher the world, dreaming up stories and making inventions. That’s how
civilization was born; because a bunch of “ imperfect kid” had nothing better
to do. If mature never maimed anyone,; if the mold was always flawless, the
human race would have stayed a protohominid secies, quite happy with no
thoughts of progress, living perfectly well without Prozac or condoms or Dolby
digital DVDs.
I have the
curse of reason: I’m poor, single, and depressed. For months now, I’ve been
thinking too much and I’ve established with complete certainty the correct
relation between my unhappiness and the incontinence of my mind. Probing and
pondering and overanalyzing have never given me any advantages; They’ve only
played against me. The process of thought is not a natural one, it hurts; it’s
as if I were uncovering pieces of broken glass and length of barbed wire in the
air. I can’t seem to stop my brain or to slow it down. Probing and pondering
and overanalyzing is a kind of social suicide because it means that you cannot
take part in this life without inadvertently feeling both like a bird of prey
and a vulture picking apart everything it sees. When we try to understand
something, more often than not, we kill it and now I can feel the dangers of
this encroaching on me; cynicism, bitterness, and infinite sadness. You very
quickly become good at being unlucky and unhappy. It’s impossible to live if
you’re to aware, too thoughtful. In nature, awareness is an exception; you
could even postulate that it’s an accident because it gives no guarantee of
superiority or of particular longevity. In the context of the evolution of
species, it does not represent any better form of adaptation. In terms of age,
numbers and occupied territories, insects are actually the masters of planet.
For example, the social structure of an ant colony is far more effective than
ours will be, and there isnt’t a single ant with a chair of Harvard.
Everyone’s
got something to say about women, men, policemen, and murders. We generalize
according to our experience, to suit overselves depending on what we understand
within the slender neuronal networks and in the context of our perception of
things. This faculty enable us to think quickly, judge and take a position. It
has no intrinsic value, it’s just a system of signals, of little flags all
wave. And everyone defends their virtues of their own advantages, their sex,
and their positions.
In a debate,
generalization has the advantages of simplicity and of making arguments more
fluid so that they’re readily understandable, therefore they have greater
impact on listener. To translate that into mathematical terms, discussions
based on generalization are like additions, simple operations that are so
self-evident they seem convincing and relevant. On the other hand, a serious
discussion would seems more like a succession of equations containing several
unknowns, intergral, and reshufflings of complex numbers.
A learned
person taking part in a discussion will think they’re simplifying things, and
all they really want is to make deletions, alterations, sticking asterisks at
the end of words, putting footnotes at the bottom of the page and endnotes at
the end of the book to explain what they’re really thinking, and from where it
stems. But in a casual conversation at the end of a corridor, at a sparkling
dinner party, or in the columns of a newspaper, that can’t really happen:
there’s no room for vigorous accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, or honesty.
Virtue is a rhetorical handicap, completely insufficient in a debate.
Men simplify
the world with words and thought, and that’s how they create their certainties;
and having certainty is the most potent pleasure in the word, far more potent
than money, sex, power all combined. Renouncing true intelligence is the price
we have to pay for having these certainties, and it’s an expenditure that we
never even noticed by the banks of our minds. In this instance, I actually
prefer those who don’t huddle behind the cloak of reason, and come out and
admit the illusory nature of their beliefs. Like a believer admitting his faith
is just his own belief and not preemption on the truths of the world.
There’s a
Chinese proverb that goes something along these lines: a fish never knows when
it’s pissing. The same applies perfectly well to intellectuals. An intellectual
is convinced of his own intelligence because he’s using his brain. A mason uses
his hands, but he too has a brain that can say,”hey ! That wall’s not straight
and anyway, you’ve forgotten to put cements in between the breeze blocks.”
There’s a dialogue between his hand at works and his mind. The intellectual who
works within his mind doesn’t have that dialogue; his hands don’t pipe up and
say,”Come on, man, you’re really goofed up! The Earth is round.” Intellectual
doesn’t have that distance, that discrepancy, so he thinks he has or can have
an enlightened view on every subject
Intellectuals
obviously aren’t the only people infected with intelligence. I’m convinced that
intelligence is a defect shared by the totality of the population, without any
social distinctions: there’s the same percentage of intelligent people amongst
history teachers and Breton sea fishermen, amongst writers and typist.
One thing
that can be conceded is that, even if we get no guarantee of intelligence from
familiarity with great works, using our minds and reading the work of geniuses,
it does not at least increase the risk. Of course, there will be people who’ve
read Freud and Plato, who can juggle with quarks, and tell the difference
between a peregrine falcon and a kestrel, and who’;; still be an idiot. All the
same, by being in contact with a multitude of stimuli and by exposing the mind
to an enriching environment, intelligence can potentially find a breeding
ground just like any diseases.
Page, M. (2004) how I become stupid. Antoine Anyone who can grasp this concept deserves a
clap for yourself =) The highest level of comprehension is to be
able to place yourself within the scene and experience the thoughts of that
person.
The Education Ministry had endorsed “guidelines” to help parents to identify gay and lesbian “symptoms” in their children so they can take early corrective measurements.
The guidelines list four symptoms each of gays and lesbians: Symptoms of gays:
Have a muscular body and like to show their body by wearing V-neck and sleeveless clothes;
Prefer tight and light-coloured clothes;
Attracted to men; and Like to bring big handbags, similar to those used by women, when hanging out. Symptoms of lesbians:
Attracted to women;
Besides their female companions, they will distance themselves from other women;
Like to hang out, have meals and sleep in the company of women; and
Have no affection for men.
“Once the children have these symptoms, immediate attention should be given,” the guidelines warn.
Seminars
According to Sin Chew Daily, the guidelines published by Yayasan Guru Malaysia Bhd and Putrajaya Consultative Council of Parents and Teachers Associations, and endorsed by the Education Ministry, were launched during a seminar in Penang yesterday.
The seminar on “Parenting in addressing the issue of LGBTs (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders)” was organised by Yayasan Guru Malaysia Bhd and officiated by Deputy Education Minister Mohd Puad Zarkashi (right).
Penang is the fourth state to hold such a seminar, after Selangor, the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Perak, and yesterday’s seminar in Penang was the 10th in the country.
Puad is quoted by Sinar Harian today as saying that the exposure of symptoms of gays and lesbians was the best approach to address the spread of such unhealthy phenomenon among students.
“Youths are easily influenced by websites and blogs relating to LGBT groups. This can also spread among their friends. We are worried that this happens during schooling time,” Puad told some 1,500 teachers and parents.
The guidelines were distributed to all those who attended the seminar.
In an immediate response, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin sent out this tweet message: “I wear fitted, v-neck t-shirts. I’m okay.”
