Happy New Year 2010

First of all, just to follow conventional opening style, Happy New Year 2010!

On the first day of a brand new year, I shall, however, pen down some deep-seated thoughts I have had in mind, especially after watching the anime Naruto Shippuden. Yes, don't be surprised. Watching Naruto does stimulate one to reflect and examine about life itself, at least it works on me.

So in this particular arc of the anime, it deals with whether the attainment of peace is achievable or simply a fantasy. The antagonists deny that peace can be achieved by love itself because love breeds anger between people, and subsequently evolves to become hatred and soon, everyone seeks revenge. With hatred, it breeds more hatred, and this cycle continues on such that peace is thus never possible - peace is a mere utopian world that everyone is dreaming of.

The main protagonist, Naruto, couldn't give an answer to how such chain of hatred could be resolved. In the end, he successfully enlightened and convinced the antagonist by saying that with faith, anything is possible. Naruto has been entrusted by his Dad, teacher and captain to find out the answer to how peace could be attained as they, too, desire to achieve peace. And Naruto believes in what they believe in. So he gave the answer "faith" and he would continue to find the key to break the vicious cycle of the breeding of hatred, to bring peace to the world.

While reading the online manga, I also wanted to find out how can we put a stop to this unending breeding of hatred amongst people. It is only human nature to feel angry if somebody were to harm somebody whom you love. Why would the person want to try to harm him/her whom you love? There are many valid reasons one could think of but the most compelling one would be the different ideology each individual has. I.e., because Person X sees Person Y as a threat to the safety of X's nation due to different ideology, out of love for his citizens, X declares war on Y's country. Such phenomenon is not uncommon in today's world. There, a classic illustration of Love -> Anger -> Hatred -> Seek Revenge -> Peace impossible.

At present, I still haven't found the key to prevent such unfortunate chain of emotions leading to unrest. Perhaps humans are all selfish and because of this selfishness, not even love, such a powerful emotion, can enable us to achieve true peace. So does it mean that by eradicating this wicked emotion - selfishness, we can then achieve peace? I have no idea. Maybe there would be other factors which we have overlooked now that would still lead to the same unfortunate ending. Or it might be that like what Naruto has proposed, faith could do the trick. As an idealist, let us put our faith in God and in ourselves that grace and humaneness in the world is, alas, possible.

One of the resolutions I have for myself is to forge eternal friendship with those whom I have thought I could communicate with spiritually and subsequently, developed a heart-based connectedness. Basically, I wish I could have friends with whom we could understand what each other is thinking without the need to explicitly voice out. How lucky one would be to be able to find such friends! Imagine your friend can understand you inside out, what a great companion you have found for yourself in your life! He/She would do the appropriate and necessary to complement with how you are feeling so that you guys can fully enjoy yourselves during that special moment. How wonderful!

Thank God for allowing me to meet some great friends, be it in schools or in NS. Not that I like NS but it's just that I treat it as just another social gathering where God has let me meet some great friends. Thanks to 2 particular friends, one in JC and another in NS, who have introduced me into the world of God and Jesus. :D