The Razor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

So simplicity over plurality?

Perhaps by far, the Occam's razor has been the most interesting aspect of clinical studies of the year. It is not always true, especially as the dear Proffesor said today, in old age, infancy, and many other genotypes of people. But its a beautiful concept nonetheless, and one i agree with. For in all our complexity and multiple diagnosis, perhaps what we are looking for is that one single explaination, a one truth if you may, to answer everything.

And you may tell me, that's perhaps taking the easy way out. Or perhaps that not what the razor's talking about anyway.

And of course. We all know that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is not 1, but 42. 

Past the point

There's a point, they say.
Halfway between the island and the coast.
Midpoint between half-empty and half-full.
The second when dawn become morning, and dusk becomes night.

And it's that point that I find myself wondering if i had past. If while smelling the roses, i had unwittingly wandered by. If while burying myself in books to pasts tests, I'd missed it knocking by my door. Some call it, the point of no return. That magical moment where the banker says 'no more bets'. That moment when you click 'Buy' on a website you swore moments ago never to shop on again. The second, the balls passes the line pass the goalkeeper's outstretched hand. That instant, when the scalpel hits the skins and makes the first incision, or may be the second, or the fifth. I wondered if mine had past the moment i decided to do medicine, or perhaps its was the day i decided to apply, or the day i paid my school fees, or the day i finished year one. Or perhaps the day have not arrived, perhaps it will never arrive. And perhaps we will be always able to choose our paths, be it now, or later in life.

Once again, i find myself thinking in poker terms. Its always a hard decision, when you have half your chips in and the opponent calls you. You have a chance, to perhaps go for the win. But with the chance to win, comes the chance to lose everything. Yet it is a chance you have to take, for you have so much in it already.

They say medicine is a calling. And I once heard it calling my name. I hear it still, time to time, when i find myself looking at a sad child, stricken with illness, or a man, spirit beyond broken repair, sometimes, when my compassion rises within me. But its not those time i am concerned about, its the hours i find myself wandering the hallways of the living dead, or finding myself having great difficulty bringing up that compassion when all i can think of is what am i going to ask next, or sometimes worse, when i feel sometimes perhaps that i shouldn't be there at all.

And its worse sometimes. When i feel myself not up to the tasks at hand, not prepared to give my life for others. When selfishness and laziness triumphs over selflessness and energy. When fatigue wins the war of mind and body.

And i wonder, if its something every student go through, to become a Doctor, to become a teacher, to become an engineer, to become a linguist, to become an actor, a singer, an artist, a unemployed. Do we all struggle with ourselves to win that fight? And what do we win, can passion be won? or cultivated? or is there somewhere, a calling involved.

The idealist in me is fighting for survival. fighting to no go past the point. 

wrong side.

Its possible, i guess, to wake up on the wrong side of a bed even if there's only really one side of the bed you could get out off. You get one of those days where nothing seems to be going right, where you are forced to end off your email with thanks when there's none meant, and regards when the only regards is the ones you find in a italian mafia movie, cue godfather saying, 'Send my regards to his parents for me'. And then you turn to cook, and find fungus in your oyster sauce, and that the electric stove you've switched on for 5 minutes was actually not on at all. And you wish for a little luck, not that a little luck is ever enough.

And i guess its time like this that you have to take a step back. Pull out that bottle of Gin you have in your fridge. Add a little bit of fruit juice. And take a sip. And perhaps sit in front of your computer, guitar by your side, and muse about the world, and its coming and goings.

Couple of weeks back i talked about regaining a little of that confidence, a little bit of ego i have lost. And it seems now, and time to time that it just isn't me anymore. I hear the alpha male movie characters telling me that i'm becoming soft. and therein i guess lies the intrincities of the gardens of destiny, you never knows which paths leads where and what happens if you try to retrace your steps. Funny thing this life is, it changes with you, tripping you when you see no stone, yet lifting you when you're at the bottom of a well. Bob Marley comes to mind, 'Sold I to the merchant ships, minutes after they took I, from the bottomless pits'.

And it seems my mind is floating everywhere. Maybe due to the alcohol. Maybe the melancholy. But in any case, I don't think i can write much further.

Oh wells. Till next time.

Of forgotten words

You know how you sort of remember from the past, say a poem you wrote, then with feelings and emotions and magic, and now you just want to re-read it for its 'artistic value' or what not. So you open your computer, dig up the oldest files. And then you fail to find it. And then you remember it's in the old com at home, but yet none of the computers at home are as old as that poem which to be fair isn't that old. I guess that's what having a 'lesion' in your brain feels like. Like you know the memory is somewhere, but yet also know that that somewhere is beyond reach. And trouble is, such lesions are more often than not, irreversible.

Funny how our physiology reflects part of the world. Perhaps earth is really one big organism. And we are the cells, making 'lesions' while constantly renewing. Haha. No wonder so many has referred to ourself as the human cancer. Well, hopefully we find a cure to this cancer then.

Curious word this 'lesion', being used to describe anything from a missing chunk in the brain to a wart on your nose. Just curious.

'to hold them in their carpals'