You know life has gone wrong when

1. You go to work with the most disgrutled look on your face for two consecutive days
2. You are so upset with working OT for the pittance of SGD350 that nothing in the world seems to be able to comfort you
3. You show outright disrespect and impatience for your boss who is almost indubitably one of the most inept, distracted and ill-disciplined women you've met in your life
4. You gripe at how everyone else leaves before you even when you're not on duty and are therefore supposed never to go home last and lock up the miserable office
5. You grouse over how the buses never come to take you home and the weather is dismally wet and grey and you feel like you're worse than a slug pulverised by an avalanche of table salt
6. You are bitter over how your elder brother gets the parental attention, when your dad who is almost always at home takes the trouble to fly out to chauffeur him home in the rain, when you have to worm your way home with 10,000 other people on the bus
7. And as if the world hasn't yet come crashing on you, your dad makes you cut up a whole honey dew when you just get home, simply because you happen to be in the kitchen in the most inopportune of moments, but your brother who is nice and dry and comfortably seated in the living room reading the papers and munching on some pastry, is inoculated against such humdrum rubbish.
8. You - after all the abuse both in the office and at home - storm up to your room and collapse on the table but are either too tired, too vexed or too fed up to cry.

I'm completely wasted and have been so since my day ended after the last meeting. Yesterday ended with me quivering for no apparent reason again. CG came online twice to chat with me, but I was just too tired and upset to talk properly with him, so I practically left him alone and let him leave me alone.

Hell, I've never felt more abandoned. Not met up with Wilson and gang for the week, not talked to anyone properly for the week, and all the while I've just been shuttling from office to home and back to the office. I know that something in me is crumbling away and I'm desperately looking for some prop to keep me up. All the time I've been thinking how much better those guys who get to do research are. Just because I'm physically too healthy, I'm left in this hellhole and abused by all those fools who are so pathetically irresponsible I end up doing all the nonsense and the work keeps piling up because no one wants to do his own work. And all the MCs that my colleagues are taking don't help. Some day soon, I'm going to stamp my foot down firmly.

I need some meaning, some impetus in all this monotony. My brain is dying, I'm dying, my heart is dying, and honestly, I don't know what is left in me that isn't yet dying in this stultifying and suffocating madness.

I've taken to reading poetry on the bus now. I'm re-reading the anthology I bought when I was in Narita airport, an anthology by Zagajewski, a Czech poet. It's almost like the precious moments I have on the buses to and from work are now my personal moments, moments I have to myself and only to myself. So Zagajewski's 'Canvas' becomes my soulmate, and I let her speak to me, as I speak to her myself. It's just like how I used to preserve time and the venue that my close friends and I used to meet in JC; I never liked it when any other party came to use it, even if legally speaking, those were public spaces. But this time, well I'm glad I own the book; sometimes maybe then, friends can be bought. Ok but I don't want to know that Canvas is a mercenary friend. No I don't want to have to lug on board all the baggage of Canvas being something as cheap as that. Pecuniary vocabulary begone!

I'm tired. I need the wine downstairs.

《长沙》。 毛泽东作

独立寒秋， 湘江北去， 橘子洲头。 看万山红遍， 层林尽染； 漫江碧透， 百舸争流。 鹰击长空， 鱼翔浅底， 万物霜天竞自由。 怅寥廓， 问苍茫大地， 谁主沉浮？

携来百侣曾游。 忆往昔峥嵘岁月稠。 恰同学少年， 风华正茂； 书生意气， 挥斥方遒。 指点江山， 激扬文字， 粪土当年万户侯。 曾记否， 到中流击水， 浪遏飞舟？



今或偶感慨一时，顿有聆听琴声之趣。然，侬于此一念竟痛感消逝年华，如箭光阴孰亦不留，区区役役，冉冉光阴，可怜物是人非矣。《大江东去》一曲，大师拂弦一罢，果真荡气回肠夫！余音千山袅绕，入耳之竟是空谷寥寥，霜海悬天，人踪具灭之荒凉景象。古人云：曲终人散，或为如此焉！昔日乐事，今朝苦闷，犹如易安居士所言：纵有千种风情，更与何人说？悲夫！

Life is an abandonment, when memories linger in the abyss of the gaping hole that is the human memory like ghosts that cannot be exorcised by the light of dawn. When the breath reeks of mouldy alcohol, when thoughts are emancipated from the painful bounds of reason, when straight lines become twisted like the tormented boughs that are the arms of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, life becomes an abandonment.
Life is like me now, when I can hardly open my eyes, when my stomach was belching incessantly because of something I ate or drank wrongly, and when I still decided to down a full glass of wine despite declaring today during the judging round that I do not drink. I think I am close to indulging in my own narcissism, in my own foolish belief that my body will not break under the weight of my soul. The wine is a promise I made to myself. I needed to drink it before I went to bed.
I know not any more what my speech means, what the words that chain my thoughts are, and what my fingers that dance on this black keyboard make out. 'Tis just like the fiesty pulse of an old man who refuses to die, just like the dour petals of a flower that spring forgot to take away with it when she died after summer came. Wine does beautiful things; it makes you forget what you need to remember, so that you forget what you are here for, so that life then becomes finally less of a pain and more an analgesic. If life were nothing but chemicals, then life is joy, because then chemicals have no life of their own, and then life becomes predictable, becomes at long last that one thing that one can control. Alas life is anything but. Life, life is a poison that ends almost forever the bliss of lifelessness. It is that malady, that malediction the moment we come out of our mothers' wombs, the moment we are brought to believe that life is beautiful and happy. For life is about false hope and true disappointment, about death and deceit, about misery, malice and medicants.
I ramble like I drag my feet through the desultory leaves of autumn, through the pellets of rain that fall in October. I run through the spaces on this screen like the work that awaits me are hot on my heels like rabid dogs. I tire. I wane. But other than myself, who else will live with me? Words are only the audible froth that come forth from a delirious fool. The eye is twisted and the tongue is tied. The view is therefore contorted and the speech denied. What lies therein a mangled soul, but the gibberish of the world that thinks it so wise, so wise indeed that all die as fools and none ever more alive.

新しい本はかいているんです。これはほんのじょぶんです。

比较哲学，有时亦称为跨文化哲学，是一门当哲学家为了解决某些哲学问题而有意将不同文化、语言、哲学思想相提并论或进行对比而形成的哲思方式与研究。比较哲学家往往将现代或古典西方思想与古典中国、印度、伊斯兰思想作对比。这种哲思方式赋予当代人文社会的一大贡献就是把数百年来往往没有太多交流的不同思想史进行比较与研究，从而让我们能够更全面地了解不同文明或民族过去、甚至现在的思维方式与视角。

尽管在数十年或百年前，所谓的全球化与国际化的现象已经席卷世界许多区域，但我们无可否认的是，这些民族交流往往只停留在极为肤浅的金钱资源交易上。多年来所谓的全球化在许多方面只是一种西方化，而在经济发展方面稍为逊色的亚洲各国就在名义上予“全球”各国有一定影响力的全球化过程中变成了匿名失声的“自由贸易伙伴”。从西欧工业革命的兴起到东南亚殖民地时代的终结，尽管世界东西两端都进行空前的金钱贸易活动，西方商人与政治领袖并没有对他们东方的贸易伙伴或殖民地里的移民或其文化历史背景太感兴趣。更糟的是，当西方人以自己所惯用的文明发展标准来衡量东方人的文明历史时，他们所得的结论是西方文明的鹤立鸡群。这只将西方人的民族优越感推向高峰。

然而，这样的自我封闭在当代已经不再是足可支撑的处世态度。萨穆尔 • 汉丁登（Samuel Huntington）的著名书作《文明间的冲突》（The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order）首版印于1997年，而该书的主要理论又源于作者1993年发表的学术论文《文明间的冲突？》。如果过去的政治势力重视的一直是各国的经济利益与跟前的政治潮流，那么汉丁登在这些作品中早就认出20世界末到新纪元开端时期世界政治进程的逆转：非西方各种民族的文化、思想、历史各自都有其特殊的重要性[1]。诚然，历史告诉我们经济推动力的大小在现实生活中会受到相当的政治影响，所以政治给历史带来的催化作用一直都没有被史学家、政治学者忽略。但事实上，史学家、文化文明学者与政治学者都不擅长于与彼此进行对话[2]。当今阻碍社会科学学术界蓬勃发展的一大原因就是社会的今与昔间似乎存在着不可填补的缺口，而进行跨文化、文明研究的西方工作者往往又拘泥于自己前辈流传下来的特殊文化与学术透镜，最终就可能造成曾经辉煌的西方思想在同样曾经辉煌的西方文明史的囚牢里逐步蜷枯的悲剧。如果汉丁登与众多学者的忧虑是正确的，那么随着冷战的结束与东亚与印度的经济崛起和911事件后中东与东南亚恐怖组织的逐步猖獗，世界已经从双极性（bi-polar）演变成多极性（multi-polar）的政治舞台。毋庸讳言，直到今天，许多亚洲国家在迅速变迁的国际社会里都极力寻找自己的文化根源，但它们也认识到在一定程度上，它们的理想还是携带着从西方引进的文化包袱。许多亚洲国家（就连中国）都向往着欧美的法律体系与逻辑理论的标准，殊不知这样的体系源自古罗马、这样的标准源自古希腊。尽管如此，我们也不能否认亚洲许多文明也有着自己特殊且不朽的文化象征与代表，而这些代表往往也不愿潜流在西方为它们设下的窠臼与框框里。

先拿伊斯兰教的主要神学思想。对许多神学者来说，能够与伊斯兰教相提并论的宗教只有两个：犹太教与基督教[3]。但尽管三个宗教在各自的圣文里都清楚列出敬仰上帝的领导人应该如何治理国家的许可与禁忌，但在很多方面，由于基督教与犹太教类似的历史进程，世俗势力与宗教势力逐渐分道扬镳，宗教与政治之间的关系就显得虚弱了。然而，伊斯兰教对世界上许多伊斯兰信徒而言还是秉持着一种在西方人眼里属于较为特殊的政治视角。他们比起许多西方宗教信徒更为提倡一种神权制度（theocracy），所以宗教与国法在这些伊斯兰信徒的眼里就成了难以分解的概念。伊斯兰文明思想的演变从本身是一门极为丰富的历史与哲学变迁过程，我在这里无法细细分解。但可以肯定的是，早从公元661年起（既先知姆哈马·阿督拉去世29年后），辉煌的阿拉伯史便开始了。处于大马士革（Damascus）的巫玛雅的（Umayyads）朝代（661-750）、处于巴格达的阿巴西的（Abbasids）朝代（750-1258）与处于开罗的法的弥的（Fatimids）朝代都是阿拉伯史的重要章回[4]。就在这数百年间，伊斯兰神学、伦理、哲学、文化、习俗、政治都蓬勃发展。在这段期间，伊斯兰地理学、哲学与天文学正通过伊斯兰西班牙着力影响着西方。到了1258年，尽管吉思汗将阿巴西的国度击败，蒙古军队还是被伊斯兰文明的全面发展深深吸引住，最终决定摒弃自己原先的文化，选择了伊斯兰视角与宗教。

再拿中国重要政治奠基者孔丘与其重要语录《论语》。当代世界主要的文明社会中，可能除了伊斯兰国家受到了《可兰经》与伊斯兰教的巨大影响外，可与之争上下的一本书或一门思想就是儒学与《论语》。儒学在塑建、构造汉民族文化心理结构的历史过程中，大概起了无可替代、空前绝后的重大作用。不但自汉至清的两千年的专制王朝以它作为做官求仕的入学初阶和必修课本，成了士大夫知识分子的言行思想的根本基础，而且通过各种层次的士大夫知识分子通过他们撰写编纂的儒学经典和各种“族训”、“乡约”、“里范”等法规、条例，入学的基本观念在不同层次的理解和解释成了整个社会言行、公私生活、思想意识的指引规范。不管识不识字，不论身份的高低贵贱，不管是自觉或不自觉，《论语》所宣讲与论证的“道理”主张皆已代代相传，长久渗透在中国两千年来的政教体制、社会习俗、心理习惯和人们行为、思想、言语、活动中了。西方之所以重视多元论（pluralism）、强调相对的怀疑主义（scepticism），所以在它漫长的文明历史中也找不到任何具有如此影响力的一部书或一种主张。同时，尽管中西方二千年来都有一定的帝王专制主义，而这种主义又给社会带来一定的社会阶层意识，但西方却一直都没有如同儒学那样贯穿精英与民俗的习俗与伦理体系。儒学把“大传统”与“小传统”紧密相联，造成中国文化传统的一个重要特点：精英文化与民俗文化通过儒学教义相互渗透。

然而，尽管在一定程度上，《论语》在其社会历史政治影响力能与《可兰经》相提并论，但中国也没有像基督教、伊斯兰教、犹太教那样的宗教。对人格神，许多士大夫知识分子都处于似信与非信之间，采取的似乎仍是孔子“敬鬼神而远之”的态度。在民间，中国宗教史所表现的只是某种多元的信仰和崇拜对象（如玉皇大帝、妈祖、观音菩萨等）。就算他们膜拜的是历史人物如关公、岳王，甚至孔子本身，这些膜拜者还是因人因地而异，而且大都是为了祈福避祸、去病消灾，有着非常现实的目的。即使在这种多元且自利的民间宗教中，奇迹宣讲也并不突出，主要还是在倡导儒学的人伦秩序和道德理念作为人生准则。从这里我们或可以说如果这些膜拜者可以算是某种宗教的信徒，他们的宗教可与源自不可知论者（agnostic）孔子的伦理思想共存。中国历史上的“三教合一”观念一直以来都相当盛行。孔子、道教、释迦牟尼的和平并存既出现在近千年前的宋代文人画卷中，也仍然保存在今日民间的寺庙里。这样的宗教观念持续有千年之久，而儒学与孔子如果真要被列入西方的社会分类观念的话，顶多只算得上半个宗教。同时，严格按照西方哲学标准而言，儒学只称得上是半个哲学。儒学不重思辨体系和逻辑构造，孔子很少如柏拉图式的“形”论（Theory of the Forms）与抽象思辨、康德式的“纯粹”理论、黑格尔式的逻辑建构。孔子常论的是具体的“如何”问题，而不是概念问题。而这些表面上极为实用的回答和讲述，却仍存在着一种深沉的理性思索，同样充分具有深邃的理性品格。如果能够暂时脱下西方哲学的透镜接触儒学，这种思想大概称得上是中国独有的实用性哲学。换言之，正因为他靠的是理性而不是奇迹来指引人们，所以孔子不是耶稣。他靠的是人的思想而不是神的威严，所以孔子也不是先知姆哈马·阿督拉。同时，正因为他的语言不是空中楼阁，而要求一定的实际生活经验与感悟，所以孔子不是柏拉图，《论语》也不是《城邦共和国》。

这种哲学在有些西方学者看来不能算是哲学，因为在他们眼里，哲学就是现实生活中提炼出来的理论和逻辑思维，哲学既人对生活反思后的升华，所以将反思从逻辑的高位拉下以至回到生活实用技能的层面来，从定义上就是一种反哲学的态度，根本称不上是‘哲学’。但我们也可以看到西方自从19世纪反学术、反学者主义的兴起后，哲学也开始与现实生活扯上直接的关系。我们看到实用哲学的创建与流行，甚至到今天，实用哲学已经自成一家，儒家思想也不能单因为它对现实生活的强调而让它登不上世界哲学的大雅之堂。对于这番争辩，我将在下文进行进一步的探讨。

从伊斯兰教到《论语》，从宗教到哲学，我们都可以认识到，不同的文明可以在不同的时空中奇妙地对同样的几个基本的问题痛苦地思索几百年、几千年。他们甚至可以因为自己笃信某种信念同时又无法接受与自己信念不同的社会而与各种文明大动干戈，在政治舞台和沙场前线上水火不容[5]。这样宏观地诠释世界文明史就意味着比较哲学的巨大社会使命感。既然不同文明都面对这几个亘古通今的难题，我们或许应该认真对待各种具思考价值的信念，哪怕它们都来自我们对之生疏的文明与传统。诚然，我们也必须认识到，这些传统所面对的问题不一定永远都和我们所面对的问题完全相似。尽管如此，我们不应该完全否定或接纳某种思想体系。反之，我们应该尝试在文明与文明、传统与传统之间建造思想上的桥梁。只有在互动和相互探索过程中，我们才可以为自己的问题找到答案以及遏制未来由于彼此的不解而可能带来的悲剧与冲突。
[1] Huntington, Samuel (2002). The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order. p29. Great Britain, The Free Press.
[2] Barton, Greg (2005). Jemaah Islamiyah: Radical Islamism in Indonesia. p26. Singapore, Singapore University Press Pte Ltd.
[3] Armstrong, Karen (1999). A History of God. Great Britain, Vintage Press.
[4] Akbar S. Ahmed (2002). Islam Today: A Short Introduction to the Muslim World. pp. 57-9. London, I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd.
[5] Armstrong, Karen (2000). The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Great Britain, HarperCollins Publishers.