My Mom's Younger Days

It was a Friday night. The citizens of Kuala Lumpur treasure this time of the week for it is where they come back to life, take some loads off their mind, have fun and just relax. On the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, in a place called Gombak, my sisters and I were up in a room on the second floor of my house. Being nerds, my sisters were studying despite the next day being a holiday.

''I have 72 students in my class, so I have to find a way to stand out!'' she said. Typical of a nerd, or an attention seeker.

I sit in front of the computer, browsing for new guitar chords to play. Then my mom came up and sat on the sofa, exhausted from entertaining her friend’s visit. After minutes of browsing and still having no idea on what to play, I decided to play songs I already knew. Old songs. No, really old songs, 60’s and 70’s old. Songs from that era were always my choice when winding down. So I started playing ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ by John Denver. Suddenly, my mom started being my backup singer without me hiring. Surprised that she remembers the lyrics well, I turned to other songs just to test her memory. Jambalaya by Hank Williams, she remembers. Yesterday by the Beatle’s, she’s an expert. Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, it’s as if she’s saying ‘Owh come on, that’s all you got?’ I continued with the The Bangle’s Eternal Flame, Carpenter’s We’ve Just Begun, Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence. She remembered the lyrics of all those songs!

She told me the songs took her back to her younger days back in the 60's and 70's where she and her friends would go camping, gather around a fire, someone plays the guitar and they start singing together. I can imagine such wonderful days. I’ve always wondered, because they don’t have CDs or cassettes back in those days, do they actually wait for their favourite songs to come out on the radio? Mom said ‘yeah, most of the time’ but told me grandpa got a gramophone, the one that played black discs, so she can buy the records. She then asked me and my sisters if we know how to ‘twist’. We told her we had no idea what she’s talking about. Then despite being tired and exhausted, as if her young soul had taken over her again, she stood up and did a twist. It was something like this:

So then we know what a twist is. She said she and grandpa used to do twists together. Back in those days, the girls wear beautiful polka dot dresses and men wear pipe- bottom pants to twist and dance. People in the army were the 'hot' guys back then. But they're always away. So the girls would have to wait for months for their lovers to come back home. In the meantime, they would exchange letters, and wait anxiously for the postman to come. Later in the 70’s come the age of 'flower power'. During that age mom likes to wear hippy clothes and wear a large necklace, the ones like the huge 'peace sign' you see in movies. She even wore my grandfather's shirt coz it's baggy. Flower power. Cool, huh? We asked if she sings the songs along with dad back in those days. She said no, because ayah ‘budak kampung. So all he knows in Amy Search and Black Dog Bone. Haha

I can imagine being in such an age. When I look at the lyrics of songs back in the 70s and 80’s, they’re all about, peace, love, nature, happy lives. Pleasant songs, in short. I tried to compare with the songs we have today. Okay, some are still pleasant, but most of them are downright nonsense. Lady gaga’s full of nonsense. Eminem’s full of hatred, Katy Perry’s full of 18SX. Okay, I do listen to those songs, the beats are fun, but when winding down, relaxing, having a perfect cup of coffee, reflecting on life...nothing beats the 60s and 70s retro hits

I was playing Sound of Silence, looking at the chords on the monitor. Then I realize mom wasn’t singing along anymore. I turned to look at her, she already fell asleep, smiling. I can guess, her dreams took her back into her polka dots in the 60s..good night mom, have a nice dream! =)

The Last Call

“You, medical student, come here!’’

I was in the wards, as usual exhibiting non-purposeful movements in, out, and around the wards when suddenly that deep voice came from behind. I turned around. The voice belongs to a specialist consultant. ‘Oh shit’, I thought. ‘He either wants to scold me for lying around the wards without purpose or wants me to run somewhere and fetch him some blood’. I came towards him anyway

“You, undergraduate student right? Come here and auscultate (listen to) the patient’s lung. Tell me what you find!’’

Dang, breath sounds. I wasn’t prepared for this, but hoped to get it right this time. The curtain around the patient’s bed was closed. Without hesitation, I went in. Inside, there were nurses around the bed, must be 4 to 5 of them, because I remembered I felt like drowning in there. Judging by the looks, the patient must be in a critical condition. I took out a navy blue stethoscope from my white coat, wrapped one end around my neck, and adjusted the round shaped object we call ‘diaphragm’ at the other end. I put the cheap plastic piece on my ear, the diaphragm on the patient’s chest, and started listening.

Perhaps there was too much noise. The nurses around me were talking loudly to each other. What are they doing here anyway? I got irritated. I couldn’t hear a thing with them in here! I pressed the earpiece harder towards my ear. I listened again. Still, there’s nothing. I rechecked the diaphragm, twisting the cord clock and counter-clock wise again. There’s nothing wrong with it. By that time the nurses had stopped talking and started giggling. I decided to get some hints and ask one of the nurses.

“Uh, nurse, what does this patient have’’ I asked

“What does he have? Hmm…well, I’m not really sure’’. She had a sinister smile, then the other nurses giggled harder.

I was in an awkward situation. Then, the curtains open abruptly. It was the consultant.

“Hear anything?” he said

I had read the patient’s note before. It said that the patient has ‘bibasal crepitations’, crackling breath sounds you hear in your stethoscope when auscultating patients with certain lung disease. I had an impulse to say it, but I decided to be honest, and glad I did:

“I couldn’t really appreciate the sounds, doctor’’. He had a similar sinister smile as the nurse before.

‘’Do you know what’s a last call?’’

‘’Last call?’’ I asked

‘’Yes, last call, you know how to do it?’’

Then it came into my mind. Last call. I heard of it in TV series. That was when everything fell into place. The noisy nurses, the inaudible breath sounds, the eerily silent chest, the closed curtain. How couldn’t I realize earlier, that there was a resuscitation cart next to the bed? How couldn’t I notice the chest wasn’t moving? Or there’s not a heart sound along with the breath sound? No wonder the nurses were all over. Perhaps I was too nervous by the specialist suddenly asking me to examine the patient, or perhaps his instructions to ‘hear the patient’s lung’ confused me, or the nurses overwhelmed me. Of course I couldn’t hear the breath sounds...

I was auscultating a dead patient!

Having understood the specialist was playing tricks on me to make me learn a valuable lesson, I confirmed the patient’s unresponsive pupil with my pen-torch, confirmed the pulseless carotid on the neck, confirmed the inaudible breath had heart sounds, and made the last call. It sounds something like this:

‘This patient, Mr Y, announced dead at 3.45 PM, 23rd of December, 2010”

I learned a great lesson that day. Do you know that in the midst of the stormy disaster, the most tranquil place to be is in the eye of the hurricane? That's where I want to be in the midst of a disaster. To remain calm, controlled, careful, focused and observant, even when the world is in a storm.

Belief

"Belief is a state of mind in which trust or confidence is placed
in some person or thing"

I’ve always wondered, do we really live in the physical world we call reality, or do we live in a world we create ourselves, right inside our craniums? If we really live in the physical world, why don’t our actions reflect reality? I have observed that most of the actions we do are based on what we believe. Seeing is believing, but we rarely disbelieve things that we don’t see. Do you not believe in air?

A child, when told there’s a monster in the cupboard will start believing in it. All the child’s action will be based on that belief, no matter how mommy tells the child that monsters doesn’t exist. The child becomes scared, anxious and will have trouble sleeping. It is as if once the belief has been implanted inside the mind, it intensifies and sticks, almost impossible to eradicate. The reality is that there is no monster inside the cupboard, but the child’s action is not based on reality. It is based on what he believes. Only when one day the child has grown up to realize that monsters don’t exist, and stop believing that there are monsters in the cupboard. I call this ‘the awakening’. The awakening is a sudden moment when your belief shifts. It could be a change into a belief that reflects more of reality, but it could also be the opposite.

Let’s take it to a more grown-up context. What if there is someone you hated somebody so much you wanted to kill him. Then somebody told you, you don’t have to kill him, he’s already been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. Then he goes on to tell you that he was acting so annoying lately because of his cancer, he was distressed. Then you’re attitude towards the guy you hated changes. You believe you understand his sufferings. Your actions will be based on that belief. You will start treating him better, and probably forgive him for whatever annoying things he had done. But what if what your friend told you was a lie? The guy’s perfectly healthy, but in your mind he’s not. Without knowing the reality, your actions are based solely on what you believe. You treat him as if he’s dying. But isn’t it better and less stressful to feel compassion towards the guy anyway? Him having the disease or not?

Our brain is a goal-seeking organ. Once it believes in something, when a belief is deeply seated inside the mind, it will move our muscles, makes us tick, and we go towards the things that we seek. Things that we believe in. If we believe that we can, we can. People whose belief is firm and strong, when the world contradicts their belief, they seek not to change their belief. They seek to change the world

Suppressing Depressing Thoughts

Have you ever heard the phrase: "Jangan benci Cikgu, nanti susah nak masuk ilmu ape yang dia ajar, fail exam nanti!". Here's a scientific look:

As I mentioned in one of my post, memories are stored in chain. When we learn, we can't take in only the knowledge into our memories, but also other things associated when we study the knowledge, for example, who was teaching it, the place where you study it, the book you read it in, or even the color of the writing (that's why colorful notes work better for remembering). We store a whole chain of memories instead of just the memory of the knowledge. The same is with recalling what we've learned. When we recall what we've learn, a chain of memories are brought up into consciousness. If the first time you heard about 'Napolean Bonaparte' was when teacher A taught you, recalling facts about Napolean will automatically bring up the image of teacher A who taught you about it.

Now, here's a brain fact:

"Our brains tend to repress the memories that we find depressing"

We can see this in people who survived from post-traumatic disorder. People suffer post-traumatic disorder after going through traumatic, or painful and depressing experience. Throughout the phase of the disorder, the patient is continually in a state of depression because he or she can still remember the traumatic experience. When doctors asked about the traumatic experience, the patient can recall the event in vivid details. But our brain has a defense mechanism to overcome this depression: by attempting to forget or repress the bad memories forever. After the patient is free from the disorder, we can ask the patient to recall back the memories of the traumatic experience. Surprisingly, the patient will forget most of the experience, the details become blurry, and sometimes, the patient don't remember at all! The brain was successful in repressing the bad memories.

The details of the events was forgotten because it was chained to the memory of the traumatic event, and our brains tend to repress the memories that are depressing. So, the event, along with all the details was somewhat 'erased' from our minds. The brain hasto do this in order for us to survive. If we voluntarily keep on replaying the bad memories, our brain will fail to impliment this defense mechanism, something wrong will happen to our brains. This can lead to schizophrenia, or in common words insanity or craziness. People who chose not to forget or let go off their traumatic memories are the ones most likely to become crazy or insane.

In learning, it is hard for us to recall what we've learned when the memory of the knowledge is chained to something that we hate or find depressing. This is especially true when we hate the person that is teaching us the knowledge, or even if we hate the environment we're studying in. Firstly, when we hate the teacher, we would most probably choose not to bother what he or she says. So one thing is that less memory is stored. Secondly, even if we do listen and try to remember what the teacher says, the memory of the knowledge is chained with the memory of the teacher. Remember that we recall in chains, so we can't recall what the teacher says without recalling the memory of the teacher. Since our brains will try to repress things that we hate or find depressing, the knowledge, along with the memory of the 'hated' teacher, will be repressed and forgotten.Same goes to the environment we study in. If we find the place or school we study in is depressing, it takes a lot more effort for us to take in and recall what we've learned. Everything is chained, so if we hate one part, the brain will try to repress the whole chain of memories, including our much needed knowledge

On Intelligence

A quick update on what I've learned recently. Lately I've been doing much reading, which left little time for writing, but don't worry, its not like I'm going to stop writing. Isn't writing with more knowledge better?

I read in the book 'On Intelligence' by Jeff Hawkins about, well, as the title suggests: Intelligence. It states that intelligence can be defined by a simple equation:

Intelligence = Memory <-> Prediction

I'm going to elaborate a little on this. Memory is everything we store in our brains. It could be our own experience, what we've heard or seen, or what we've read. Prediction is the ability to guess accurately what will happen next. In the equation above, intelligence is the interrelatednesss of memory and prediction. We predict things based on our past memories, based on what we've experienced before. Like a medical student can predict that this patient has this disease because he read somewhere in the textbook that the symptoms of this disease fits the patient. In mathematics we learn by steps until we can solve a mathematical question. The first thing we do is memorize the steps. We repeat and memorize the steps until one point where we don't have to memorize anymore and start predicting. "Oh, I've seen this equation before, and I know how I can solve this". You start predicting and automatically know what to do next and get to the answer.We predict at every, and even in the simplest levels, and its all based on memories. An example of everyday life is predicting your friend's voice. Your brain does this predicting unconsciously so you don't realize its happening. Even before your friend starts saying anything, your brain predicts how his voice will sound like, and when he starts to speak, your brain will acknowledge the prediction. Let's say if suddenly your friend starts to talk, and what comes out is not his voice but your Uncle's voice. Now wouldn't that be weird? Your brain feels that its prediction is violated, it will become confused, and you will start paying attention to the difference.


So basically, the more you read, the more you experience, the more memory you have. Predictions are based on past memories, hence the more memories, the more predictions you can make. Now that would make you more intelligent right? Not necessarily. Reading a lot stores a lot of memories, but without the ability to predict, the memories are for nothing. Prediction is based on past memories, but not just one or two memories. Prediction is based on the combinations of memories, because nothing in this world is exactly the same as you read it in a book, or exactly the same as your past experience. The most intelligent people in the world are not the ones who remember the most, but the ones who can relate from one memory to another, and make predictions from it. In business, the market is never stable. An intelligent businessmen won't make an investment based on what happened to the market yesterday. He makes prediction of the market tomorrow, based on the market yesterday, the day before, weeks, month, even years before. He predicts a pattern, does an analysis, and invests according to the pattern.

A good doctor is not a doctor who sit in his room all day reading textbooks. A good doctor is a doctor who routinely meet different patients with the disease, note the similarities and differences between them, detects a pattern, and predicts whether the next patient has the same disease. He predicts the course of the disease, and expects what manegement to be given next if this happens, what management to give if that happens. These predictions can't be found in textbooks. The occurences of disease is different in each and every area. A disease might be common in one place but not another. So a doctor bases his predictions not only by the textbooks he reads, but also from the area and environment of the place he works in.

Do you know the mere difference between reptiles, mammals and humans? Reptiles and other non-mammals don't have a neocortex, the layer of the brain where memories are scattered and stored. So they can't remember, so, intelligence is out of the way. Mammals have neocortex, but covers a relatively smaller area than humans brains. So, they can store memories. However, their neocortex is only 3 layers, in comparisons to humans which have 6 layers of neocortex. This difference, it shows, prevents the ability of mammals to predict. Humans, having 6 layers of neocortex, is blessed with the ability to predict.

That makes us different from animals. Non-mammals don't have memories, you can teach an iguana to use a hammer for a million years and it won't even recognize that you've been its teacher for a million years. Mammals like monkeys have memories. When taught to hammer nails again and again, they will soon learn to hammer nails, but they can't predict. So all they know is that hammer is used to hammer nails. Humans are blessed with the ability to predict. We've seen and known that hammers are used to hammer nails, but we also know that it can be used for other stuffs. Like breaking open things

So basically, without memories, we are iguanas, without the ability to predict we are monkeys, and with both the ability to remember and predict, we are intelligent human beings.

Conclusively, to be intelligent, we need to gain a lot of memories, and smart to associate them into predictions. As the equation goes:

Intelligence = Memory <-> Prediction

So go read and experience a lot of things in the world, but always intelligently associate what you've learned with one thing or another. Prediction, after all is the key to success in life. Successful businessmen predicts the market, successful architects predicts the future buildings, successful fashion designer predicts the future fashion trend, successful engineers predicts the future technology...the lists goes on and on...