Yesterday, with the help of my fellow readers, I have successfully run an experiment to illustrate how our mind is more opened to a suggestion when it is personalized. If you are interested, you can read about the experiment here.

First of all, I would like to thank all my good friends who assisted me in this humble research of mine. Some even send me messages via friendster :). Appreciate all the help and only Allah can repay your kindness.

A question was asked, whether or not the letter I wrote describe you perfectly and this is to be answered in term of percentage. 15 friends participated and the average percentage of all of their answer is 74.67%

A better way to describe it is that out of 4 person asked, 3 would say it describe them 100%.

I obviously don’t know you. so how come some of you totally connect with the letter? Here’s why

1) The letter was written FOR you

• Firstly, it is because you believed that the letter was totally written for you. And that I am your best friend in real life and know you by heart. Once you have establish this in your mind, it is always easier for the mind to associate what I wrote with yourself.

• This had been widely used in the whole world. The best example would be the horoscope. People are categorized according to their DOB with mythical creature as a symbol. This subconciously had opened our mind that everything said about that particular group (capricorn, sagitarius etc) is very true. People sometimes follow the advice given by the horoscope religiously.

• Do try yourself, read ALL the horoscope, with an open mind… don’t you think all advice and description do seem true at one point?

2) We are never alone

• Most importantly, I would like to stress that everyone and I mean everyone is given the same package of emotion. Everyone at one point in his life will experience anger, frustration, loneliness, boredom, happy, hypocrite. What ever feeling exist in the dictionary (good or bad) is already included in the package. The difference are just maybe the experience associated and the intensity of the feeling.

• Some live their life with the feeling anger buried deep down in their heart, some shows them once a while, some was walking with the word “anger” written in the forehead. So everybody can be described as angry.

• “So? what’s your point?”, you may asked… My point is this – We can be seen as a very social kind of person with friends around anytime of the day, but deep down we SUFFER / ENJOY our feeling alone. The truth is, we are never alone. and don’t ever think that nobody will understand you. You must understand yourself first.

• Let say, you want to share and describe the sweet taste of a banana to your African friend, you must first taste the banana before you describe it. Otherwise you will think that nobody really know a banana.

• Do you know that almost all suicide case in the whole world began with the thought of being completely alone and that nobody will understand him/her.

This is basically my own thought and I am no psychologist. So feel free to disagree with me. Hopefully together we will better understand ourselves. Or maybe you guys can draw any other conclusion from the research. Please share it here.

————— Personal Note ————————–
I suddenly remember the movie “Buli” played by my favorite actor Afdlin Shauki. In the movie, the doctor (Nasha Aziz) said “being a psychologist in Malaysia is very hard. People here don’t like to admit that they have a problem psychologically.” So it’s not a surprise, children for no apparent reason was killed and charred remains were thrown away to four places (check the news for more info) nowadays. I pray the person who did this be caught and cut into 4 pieces.On a happier note, one scene in the movie did bring back the smile on me.
Patient : (dibalut seluruh badannya) Tapi doktor saya demam je
Doctor : Takpe kite balut dulu

🙂

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I have an idea and in order to present it to you, I will need your help with an experiment. Can you please help me with this one thing?

First of all, I want you to believe that what I’m writing / typing right now is meant for you. No one else but you. Just imagine that I am writing a letter to be sent to you. Close your eyes for 5 seconds and convince yourself that we are actually best friends in real life and that the following paragraph is written to you. Ready? Open your eyes (which is a pretty weird request since your eyes were closed heheh)

/letter starts

Hi! This is banji and I’ve been asked to describe something about you. Hm where should I start? You may not be aware but people around you DO care about you. They sometime seem to be occupied with other things but seriously they think about you all the time.

You sometimes were left at the end of the day confused. So many things to do and so many things to decide. Life can be not fair for you sometime when other people seem to live their life exactly the way you dream yours. You are so confused that sometimes you feel both strong and weak at the same time, so happy and yet nobody actually know the screaming inside. It feels like you will always wonder whether anybody else out there is feeling the same thing, or are you just alone here.

/end letter

So my question is, do you think what I said about you is correct?

For those who participate, kindly tell me how much percentage do you think is correct? 100% for absolutely describing you and 0% for dead wrong. You can provide the answer to me at the comment section, shoutbox or even email. Anonymous answer will also be appreciated.

I will explain the experiment tomorrow based on the feedback I received. By all means, if you can come up with a conclusion to this experiment, please share it here kay.

Update – You can view the result and the analysis here.

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Summary – Defining craziness
Thinking back, luckily the incident in the previous post involved drunk. It would be a different case altogether if it involved crazy people.

Today’s post is dedicated to define the word “crazy”. I’m not referring to the people who talks to himself, or those in the Hospital Bahagia. I am actually more interested in the crazy things we, normal people, do everyday.

The best definition of “crazy” in my opinion is “To do the same thing but expecting different results from it“.

One good example to illustrate is hoping to wake up at 6 am when we sleep very late in the morning, obviously we will be late to work, waking up at 7am. Tomorrow.. we do it again, going to bed very late, and we expect to wake up at 6am? That is just crazy.

I guess, we always hope that luck will be on our side once in a while. Doing the same thing, and maybe with luck.. we get up at 6am.

The thing is, depending on luck is a very inefficient way of doing things. When you want to wake up at 6am, you must try sleeping a bit earlier. If that still doesn’t work, maybe you can get a louder alarm clock. or ask someone who do wake up at 6am and wake you up.

The same goes to other things in life

• Relationship – you irritate your girlfriend when you smoke, and you don’t want to. just quit smoking.. don’t expect your girlfriend by luck will change and accept it
• Health – you gain weight and you want to lose some. you must then control your diet and exercise. There is no way you can lose weight if you doesn’t change anything in your lifestyle.
• Material – your computer always hang when you swith it on and you wish this wouldn’t happen. Send the computer for repair. The problem will always be there if you didn’t do anything.

Imagine those who gamble at Genting with no particular strategy to win, spending hundreds on their luck. Repeating the same methods of throwing dice, expecting to win. Don’t you think that’s crazy? Or maybe you can share other craziness happening everyday in front of you?

————— Personal Note ————————–
I have had the opportunity to go inside the Genting Casino one time I went there for a seminar. No I dont gamble. I will never bank in my hard-earned money there. I just went there to see what’s it like. And from the way I see it, psychologist will make a fortune there 🙂

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summary – Impossible things now may be possible tomorrow
What if suddenly we found a time machine and go back to see Hang Tuah. He then asked us how is the life in the 21st century. We may answer like this.

• We can chat with anybody from anywhere in the world (via internet)
• All information ever existed can be search in mere seconds (via internet)
• We can see what happen around the world the moment it happen (television)
• We can cook without fire (microwave)
• We can fly (aeroplane)
• We can travel around the world in less than 80 hours

Think about it, for us these are nothing new and very common. But to Hang Tuah, he must think that we are just bluffing him. There’s no way all that is even possible.

If we travel back even further, maybe to the caveman period, they may even think that we are supernatural being or even god with all these common technology.

That is why I always believe that in time we will understand the mystery of God’s creation that is now assumed to be unexplainable and spiritual. For example :

• Other dimension – where djin and satan resides
• Space travel at speed faster than light – israk mikraj
• ESP – extra sensory perception

Now if only there are people researching this.. hm

Note – Hang Tuah is a Malay legendary warrior back in the 1400

————— Personal Note ————————–
I am actually a big fan of Hang Tuah’s legend. I may not support him in some decision he made like the execution of his brother, Hang Jebat. I don’t even know whether he existed or not. But, in an indirect way I think he is still the main motivation for me to study silat during my study. I still remember, my colleague and I actually go to Kuala Terengganu four or five weeks before our final to participate in the training organized there 🙂

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