Steven Sim

Plato, Forms & Wittgenstein

In my philosophy class in USM, my teacher has been expounding the concept of universals, in particular Plato’s theory of Ideas.
The problem with the presentation is the usage of the word “ideas”; while we have come to understand an idea as a thought in the  mind, Plato meant for it to be something outside the [...]

A Dangerous Inception of The Malaysian Dream

This article was originally published here: Malaysiakini

What is the most resilient parasite? A bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood. That sticks, right in there somewhere. [Points to his [...]

I Woke Up In Jakarta

After experiencing the notorious Jakarta traffic congestion! After breakfast, I was in for a two hours’ waiting at the airport, then two hours’ flight to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. I reached Jakarta about 3pm Malaysia time and from the airport, it took me slightly more than four hours to arrive at my hotel at Kemang. The [...]

Political Narratives

In my MA thesis, I proposed that the question about meaning of life is actually one about the coherence of the story we tell about life. Recall I wrote once, that,
“Naturally however, human beings are drawn to experience coherence and unity. For e.g. we see shapes rather than mere dots and lines, our brain with [...]

Pitting Spirituality Against Religion?

I had a short discussion over lunch with a friend of JR about spiritualism vs. religion.
It all began with him saying he is a vegan due to spiritual and health concerns when I asked him whether he is a vegan because of health or religion?
My accidental lunch mate went on to say that there is [...]

The End of Men

I just finished reading a very lengthy article from the Atlantic Magazine titled The End of Men.
The apocalyptic title does not do justice to the chill one felt at the end of the article.
I for one felt dreadful, not because women are being empowered but because the quest for gender equality should not end up at [...]

Book: Propaganda by Jacques Ellul

I know I have been missing from this blogging business. My blog was down, again, for a while and the discontinuity took a toll on my writing here. I am actually looking for a new server to host this site. Any good service to recommend, one with a reasonable price?
The reason I am writing this is [...]

Making Cupcakes

My friend ET, who is a real top notch pastry chef, offered to teach me how to make cupcakes today afternoon. I was trying to decide between two conference papers I had to write of which the abstract is due this weekends and spending the afternoon learning from a master (trust me on this one!).
It [...]

Oscar Wilde’s Malaysian Connection

JR has been quite fascinated with Oscar Wilde ever since she watched Dorian Gray. Not only did she write two blog posts about the movie (here and here), but she is now able to give a Wilde-quote for any situation we are in.
The movie was based on Wilde’s only published novel The Picture of Dorian [...]

No.12: Phase 1 Completed

After about 3 weeks, the first phase of no.12 is finally completed. To recap, JR and I have a  to-do list which I published some time back:
1. enlarging the living room2. re-tiling certain portion of the house3. building a new fence and gate4. fixing a new automated gate and a new glass door5. putting up [...]