Avalon

Curse of Expectations

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

"Sometimes expectations really curse us all."

We were talking about music and I was saying how I admire some of the works of certain lyricists or singers, because of their particular style of writing that never fails to enrapture and engage me. My friend, in his reply, said, "You will likely have some form of expectations when that person has new works." He even quoted a line from one of my favourite song: 接近带来期望，期望换来失望的恶性循环。

His words definitely ring a familiar bell, especially when I realised how much I have relied on this sense of familiarity and pattern of expectations when it comes to listening to music, or perhaps it's just that I took the liberty to tie it in with the recent ongoings in our country.

The great Aristotle was influential in his time, and his theories and philosophy were held in high regard by intellectuals many years after his demise, but he himself got many things wrong, and it is these wrong things that were incorporated into unchallenged dogma, both in religion and in science. Scientists try to fit their observations into the geocentric model (that the Earth is the centre of the universe and the sun and other planets revolve around it) just because "Aristotle said so", and the mistaken model gets propagated and became an error carried forward. Until someone decides to question that model.

People come to respect authority, the one that they put in place themselves through offering their unconditional acceptance and support. They expect the authority they esteem to be right, (of course they must be, or how foolish I would appear), that the high benchmark created will be "set in stone", incorruptible and infallible regardless of the weathering forces of time. There is a thin line between support and idolisation, and I would believe the former is when one still has his senses and are still making good use of it. What I mean is when one gives support to someone or some organisation, he looks the person up, hears what he delivers, smells his intention, tastes his ideas, and feels his heart. (obviously not literally). I also mean "sense" very much in the common and rational manner. Idolisation, however, generates a cycle of acceptance and allegiance, very much as though one has become blind to every other thing but the object of ones idolisation, and this more than deprives ones senses, in all sense of that word, of their noble work.

Of course, a person or an organisation becomes well-established as a figure of authority because of the merits they produced at first. But after setting that high benchmark, do they work incessantly to remain at that top through refining what they propose, or do they cover up their flaws after uncovering them later just to remain the incumbent. Can early achievements overshadow the many other mistakes and inaccuracies that follow? Aristotle influenced how future generations think with his dual processing method, of moving into a general, universal theory from details and using general laws to predict particulars. Very revolutionary and that's how we derived deductive and inductive reasoning. Yet the same person also created the aether, the weightless material that existed in the heavens and is supposedly responsible for the "circular motion" of the planets by driving them around much like wood chips in the river. Very elegant. Very compatible with the Greek notions of perfection and harmony in the heavens. Very wrong. However, great minds have been stumped by this very idea. 1600 years after Aristotle's time, renowned French scientist Rene Descartes also came to support the idea of the aether and believed this is the fluid that fills up the space in the universe, rejecting the idea of the vacuum that we now consider general knowledge. Even up to the 20th century, some scientists still believed the aether existed, until the Michelson-Morley experiment proved otherwise.

We get cursed by expectations that we develop. We mistake, possibly unconsciously in our bid to be consistent in our beliefs, that past glories may set the precedence for future excellence, and we pledge our loyalty and pin our hopes on the ones we have subscribed to. They can be giants in the academic field, influential leaders, successful people in their specialised niche, eventually earning or redeeming the rightful place as the authority. But it might be down to the role of supporters to reflect on the validity and relevance of these figures of authority, not to cause them to end up as tools that seek to perpetuate legitimacy in their specialisation and in the process, become authoritarian in imposing and insisting their ways.

At least one expectation will remain eternal and everlasting: That nothing is constant, and change will always come to pass. But then, whether we harbour this one expectation, is another cause.

Envoy of the Stars @ 6:52 PM
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