Preference

Hey you! This is one of those "Joel articles" where he tries to impress imaginary people with his claims about " I understand everything about everything there

is to know - let me tell you my GREAT opinion". Well, nah... he is just reacting impulsively to a lot of IMHO kind of patronizing talk. IMHO stands for "in my humble opinion". It is just that many times when people use the word IMHO, they normally finish the sentence/paragraph with pretty proud statements and conclusions.

Joel isn't going to say that whatever written below is some IMHO kind of thing - since he knows with some degree of certainty that they are true. But of course, being a fallible human who makes mistakes and becomes stupid at many instances in life, there are mistakes. But I know some of you people out there think of

yourselves very highly and say things like "since there are mistakes, let us discredit whatever he says and treat it as just ANOTHER opinion". Please, grow up. I know you relativistic people. You think you are a genius, but you are not qualified to teach as a teacher, to argue as a philosopher, to think rationally like an

engineer - but HEY! you are a genius! Please, forget about reading the rest of it and marvel at yourself, you ALWAYS have a good time doing that.

Oh! I remember a joke! Not quite a joke if you are THE joke:

There is girl who was chatting with her girlfriends and couldn't stop talking about herself. And so her friends listened and listened to her bragging about herself over lunch for more than an hour. And suddenly, she realized she has spent too much time talking and not listening. so she said:

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I spent so much time talking about myself. So, it should be you turn to talk...So, what do you think of me?"

EEESH......

Now, probably some of the things below will sound self-righteous, and at different points someone might actually ask "What makes you think that is RIGHT?". What I can say is that these things are what I work out (at least I think so) from the Bible - have pondered over it logically, do not claim to have fully achieved it (far from it actually) - nonetheless, it is something I prefer and actively strive towards. Here goes.

Joel would want himself to be a passionate person. By passionate, I mean REALLY PASSIONATE. Somebody who knows what he is doing in life, has a strong drive to do it well. If he doesn't, he should work hard at finding it out. But of course, since Joel is a Christian, he doesn't want himself to be passionate about just everything in life. Joel wants to be passionate about very few things in life.

*pause*

actually, Joel is trying to cover up what he really wants to say. The fact is that Joel has a lot of expectations of other people and really wants to write an entry about "what I would prefer to see in other people". But that sounds SO SO SO...er... So not quite right since there are always people who complain about the

whole world except themselves. So now he covers up by saying what he expects of himself. You sly! But then again, if I write an entry about what I expect of myself, what kind of egoistic guy would keep bragging about their expectations of themselves?

Hmmm....

What kind of guys actually spend so much time thinking about themselves....

Hmmm....

Why.....


EVERY OTHER GUY!

That egoistic race!

Of course. Right, good, Joel is normal in covering up. People would just think that he is like every other guy.

*resume*

Continuing from where I left of - Think of loving your wife. You want to love your wife passionately, not EVERY WOMAN. Likewise, Joel doesn't want to be passionate about everything, He wants to be passionate about the Jesus kind of things. Being passionate about Jesus isn't just concentrating on one tiny area in life. Since following Jesus has implications on every sphere in life - godliness has everything to do with life, just life a life passion more or less determines your

life direction - since that, Joel has to be very careful about his life and what he gives his heart to. Having said that, Joel would be really angry with himself if he is lazy. He thinks that laziness is a manifestation of a lack of passion and drive. While he remembers that sometimes he just conveniently forgets about his aim in life, he also remembers that the kind of "conveniently forgetting important things" are not really forgetting, but simply being wicked for a prolonged period of time until he becomes indifferent to what is holy and good.

And yes, he has a strong dislike for the same yuck-ness he sees in others. He has resorted to the word "yuck-ness" because some think it too "OUCH" if he uses the word wickedness on others, but Joel thinks that using the word "weakness" is just playing the victim. It is like saying "oh, i have the 'less passion gene' flowing in my veins" kind of nonsense.

Joel knows Kenneth who puts in a lot of effort to try to be both considerate and passionate. Now, anybody who have tried that would know that instead of saying "considerate and passionate", "considerate BUT passionate" would sound more normal. It is a hard thing, not to balance them out, but to demonstrate them in a timely manner - that is a hard, VERY difficult. Joel aspires to be more like Kenneth.

Yes, Joel hates nonsense. He loves jokes, he loves to laugh. But there is this whole "other category" of not-so-funny-jokes where people play the victim, give lame excuses, and patronize one another with illogical nonsense. They are really not funny. I suppose most of us know it when we hear some really really out of place excuses like "traffic jam"(when they just live 10 minutes away), or "your opinion is really interesting"(when obviously you really want to say: that was the dumbest thing I have ever heard).

But Joel enjoys having fun, teasing himself, and sometimes inappropriately teasing others. He needs to work on that - the teasing others part. He has a friend called Andy who is working hard to come up with clean jokes, and finding more ways to make others laugh by teasing himself (and not others). Joel respects Andy for that kind of love he has for others(and many other things). One day when Joel grows up, he will be funny in a godly way. Ooo.... that sounded so wierd that it just sent a chill down my bones.

Funny and godly.

*double chill and goes to the toilet*


Ahem..Joel wants to be like a kid. He wants to be really happy when he is happy, he wants to be really sad when he is sad. Besides that, Joel wants to be VERY angry when he is angry. He doesn't want to be some human-zombie trying to fit into our sometimes not-so-healthy-culture where laughters, tears, or anger is restrained. Joel has a STRONG dislike for people like that but he has to learn how to love them and be mindful for them.

But essentially, Joel has no desire
whatsoever to have less emotions. He thinks he is "quite there", but needs some polishing and balancing on the "caring for the other person" and being "considerate" - you know? like being rightly angry but not venting them on others, like being rightly angry about appropriate things and actually solving the issue instead of shouting at everyone?

While Jesus is of course the ultimate role model in the things mentioned above, Joel particularly wants to mention more on Jesus on this one. One of the reason Joel loves Jesus is because Jesus cries, loves deeply, talks funny at times, and knows how to get mad. Joel loves how Jesus makes fun of self-righteous people, although Joel doesn't quite enjoy it to find himself being one of them at times - but Joel knows that self-righteous people aren't quite worth much except to be poked at. Joel loves Jesus crying and scolding, because that is a very human thing to do.

Most of the humans Joel know aren't quite humans. Of course, quite a handful of them are secretly being humans - and they stop being humans when they meet other people. Then when they go home, they cry quietly on their bed in the stillness of the night. Joel understands to some extent why that happens, wants to sympathize with them (and himself, plus think of himself as the victim of society), but do not desire to excuse himself or anybody for that matter for our own fears and failures.

At this point, Joel is sick of using politically correct words like fears and failures, and weakness. Please think of wickedness whenever you see those words.

Thank God Jesus isn't like some politically correct politician. Thank God Jesus is The Perfect Man that Joel can look up to. Oh God, Please destroy those pictures that portray Jesus as some semi-gay figure with fair skin and long straight hair and deep blue eyes...

But anyway, Joel went through that whole "I am secretly a human" phase back in high school. It was a lonely experience, quite scary and sad. If you are reading this and you are somebody like that, lets talk! I'd love to talk with you! I'll TRY to be gentle! = ) Can't promise anything, but I'll TRY... like for a few minutes. But if I were you, I'd prefer a good Christian girl. or a good Christian man. Yes, MAN. Christian boys.... hmmmm, maybe not.

And yes! Joel would love to marry a real human. and of course, whether that comes true or not, Joel wants to be a real human. A wonderful thing he learnt from married Christians is that "Don't just say I want this and that kind of spouse, be the this and that(godly and matured) kind of spouse, and if whoever you are looking for doesn't appear, you have at least got your part right with God".

A note to that, Joel needs to remember that this is a fallen world. While expectations of God are perfect (which is good), expectations of humans (myself included) often have to be somewhat scaled down. Joel has known people (himself included) that say big things, great expectations of himself, only to see himself failing at every point the next week. He has seen guys that say: I want to marry a girl who is A, and a character that is B, and C, and D... to see them going out with a girl that is the complete opposite of that.

No, it wasn't some special love at first sight. Its just that whatever was said earlier was partly nonsense, and partly fairytale. The opposite is the real thing, partly due to desperation and selfishness, and a whole lot of invalid reasons which astrologers come up with.

Hmm, after all have been said and NOT done, now there are just so many things to work on: like Joel's character. Hmm... working on that would probably take a life time. But if he keeps looking over his shoulder and compare himself with his peers, he probably have to take more than a life time. If he continually blogs about these kind of things, then it would probably have to take a little more than 2 life times.

Lets go to sleep and wake up tomorrow morning to study for the upcoming exams. And there is prayer meeting later with some guys! Sounds like something helpful to keep me focused on Jesus during crunch time! And oh! Joel went for Queen's Birthday Convention at St. Andrews Cathedral and got a photo and a signed book from Phillip Jensen! Good stuff, save it for conversations.