What are Friends for?

Previously I had lent a substantial amount of money to a friend. I din really want to but my friend pleaded it out basing on the length of our friendship and that the loan can be repaid easily once the cash flow is resolved. In my moment of weakness, I relented because I believed the loan was within the ability of my friend, and with the condition that this is only a one time thing (which was also acknowledged by my friend). While it wasn't repaid on the promised date, it was eventually repaid in full 3 weeks down the road.

Unfortunately and as predicted, i was asked again to provide a much larger loan, and to which i did not agree to. And to my relief, this issue was not brought up again.

In retrospect, the following things are observed :

1. All borrowers will always say that the loan can be repaid easily. But they will usually miss the first promised date of repayment, be it due to time needed to transfer or gather their money.
   


2. A suspicion that the refusal to provide a subsequent loan will sour the friendship. (i.e you have the money sitting in the bank anyway, why not lent your friend? or the guilt factor playing its drama in your mind)
   


3. I would think that i am normally generous with friends in terms of treats and probably a loan of few hundreds dollars can be dispensed easily as i believe our friendship will be treasured over a few hundred bucks. In the event, the loan is unpaid despite one reminder, i would not asked for it back. But the value of that friendship will be reassessed.
   


4. However, a substantial amount is way too serious to test a friendship. This particular sentence makes me wonder about my own values. Is money more important than friendship? Am i really money-minded etc etc.
   
   The answer was in my memory. More than 5 years ago, when i loaned a few hundreds of dollars to another friend during the early days of our working lives, i sms " what are friends for" in reply to his sms of "thanks". The retort from this friend was that friends are not meant for borrowing money and it was not easy for him to lower his pride to ask for a loan. So this was not to be taken lightly. No one wants to borrow from another person if they could help it.
   


5. When you do lend money to any one, the recipient will always feel pressured when you ask about repayment or even talk about money/finance etc. Either they will think that you do not trust them or there is no intention to repay. And they will accuse you of it. This is human nature. As a result, you will feel guilty.

The conclusion to this post? It is in your heart.

No man is an island

NYT reported that "What Are Friends for? A Longer Life" on 21st April 2009.

Treasure your friends and hopefully they do too.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Jane Austen and Zombies. Who knew it could be a best seller. It is available at Amazon.

And a new genre is born. Makes your wonder what other classics can mix well with mindless corposes.

How dark is Dubai ?

The Independent published a commentary "The Dark Side of Dubai".

Most of it is true although i had never experience it second hand. Maybe a bit sensationalised i guess.

UAE was a young country with mininal natural resources and cultural/historical roots then. Also with a heavy religious culture setting, their society are tightly close knitted and quite impermeable. Since the discovery of the black gold, the country was thrusted into modernisation on turbo drive. While they may be a bunch of shrewd people, you can feel that they are just begining to learn to adapt to globalisation. Their society still remains guardedly close to the many foreigners running about on their pavements. Majority of the Emeratis keep to themselves, except for those who had stepped out to experience the global village.

There are of course subtle changes being brought about by globalisationa and the foreign culture that are invading their land. These can be mainly observed by contrasting their younger female generation, particularly their teens and young adults, against their blackly-claded elders. Hot pants maybe frowned upon by the elders, but fashion is still fashion for their younger counterparts.

With regards to their treatment of the environment, I agree that UAE is in urgent need to re-assess their strategy on the environment. Seriously.

The ecological damage inflicted on the war with the desert and the environment should be looked at by the administration. This is not the first time that the sea at Dubai was observed to be dirty. There was even a news article some time back reporting on this issue. At the very same beach area.

The modern history of UAE began with the black gold. Will it outlast its supply? Only time will tell.

Your morals will be controlled some days

Saw this article that the Brain's moral centre or wisdom centre is located.

Image the day that we can control our own or other's behaviour with medicine or chemicals.

You want to be a bad boy, pop the red pill.


You want to be a SNAG, pop the pink pill.

You want to kill some one day, pop the black pill.


This day is not that far off.

House, S3E6

"You may not get everything right, but you couldn't get everything wrong either." - Cameron