The Realms of Intelligence as Applied in a Fast Changing World

The Realms of Intelligence as Applied in a Fast Changing World

“Quo vadis?" Syndrome (Where are you going?)

Dr Abe V Rotor

At this point I will give you an exercise, workshop style, to really find out where you are going. Imagine yourself as a sailboat in the sea. This will take five minutes. On a one-fourth piece of bond or pad paper draw yourself as a sailboat faced with the realities of life. Express yourself in relation to what you think and feel, your plans and dreams, with your surroundings and environment. Show your values such as self-confidence, courage, direction and purpose, etc. Use your vivid imagination.

The next five minutes will be devoted to the evaluation of your drawing. Exchange papers and score according to these criteria. Use Scale of 1 to 10 (1 is very poor, 5 fair, 10 excellent).

1. Size of the Sailboat
“I saw myself very small, I can get swallowed up by the sea. I don’t stand a chance in a storm.” (testimony of a teacher) Note: You can be a Gulliver

2. Size of sail over boat
“I’ve grown too heavy, too big. Material things… comfort zone… That’s it - my sail is small I can’t move fast. I’ve been left behind” (From a businessman)

3. Other boats
“I am afraid to be alone. I need someone to talk to, to play with. I am not a Robinson Crusoe. But I love competition. A weekend is boring if I miss my team.” (Jimmy, basketball player)

4. People
“Siyempre naman, boat yata ako. What are boats for? I carry people, as many as I can.”(Ka Tacio, barangay leader)

5. Destination
“I’ve been a drifter all along. I did not even know what course to take. I felt lost all the time until I shifted to law. I ended up a businessman.” (Alias Atorni)

6. Creatures all
“What a beautiful world – colorful coral reefs, seaweeds, crabs, starfish, coral fish. I can spend a whole day here, painting, diving or just to while away time like the birds in the sky, and dolphins riding the wave. Who says it’s lonely out here? Look there’s a sea gull perched on my sail.” (Manny de Guzman, painter)

7. Sky, sea alive
“Beware of doldrums, they are a prelude to disaster. The eye of a storm is calm. So with life. Catch the wind, ride on the wave, if you want to reach your destination.” (Quoted from a homily at UP Chapel, Diliman, QC)

8. Artistry
“Spontaneous art exudes natural beauty. It is art in the fundamental sense. And what is the impact of the drawing? (AVR)

9. No wasteland
The whole paper must be filled up - the sky, water, land. Potential opportunity is lost when we do not catch it. Opportunities in life come but once. Capre diem. Seize the moment.

Add the scores of all the eight criteria. Now add twenty (10) points, to make a perfect score of 100. The bonus represents providence.

Return the papers to the owners. Analyze your strength and inadequacies. Continue working on your paper with new input as I play the violin for you a Filipino composition, “Hating Gabi” by Antonio Molina. Make your work a masterpiece and treasure it as a daily reminder to ponder upon.

Awareness builds values, or awaken those values which have been lying idle or dormant in our sub-conscious mind.

But we can only become fully aware of ourselves and our potential for goodness if we know what our faculties are, and how we are going to use them. What are these faculties?
Multiple Intelligence (The 8 Realms of Intelligence)

All of us are endowed with a wide range of intelligence which is divided into eight domains. It is not only IQ (intelligence quotient) or EQ(emotional quotient) or any single sweeping test that can determine our God-given faculties. Here in the exercise, we will explore these realms. With a piece of paper (1/4) score yourselves in each of these areas. Use Scale of 1 to 10, like the previous exercise

1. Interpersonal (human relations)
Sometimes this is referred to as social intelligence. Leaders, politicians excel in this field. “They exude natural warmth, they wear disarming smile,” to quote an expert on human relations. Name your favorite person. I choose Nelson Mandela, Condolezza Rice and Henry Kissinger.

2. Intrapersonal (inner vision self-reflection and meditation) Priests, nuns, poets, yogis, St. Francis of Assisi is a genius in this domain. Didn’t Beethoven compose music with his inner ear? Didn’t Helen Keller “see” from an inner vision?

3. Kinesthetics (athletics, sports, body language, dance, gymnastics)
Michael Jordan excels in this domain. Now think of your idol in the sports world, or in the art of dance. Lisa Macuja Elizalde is still the country’s top ballet dancer.


4. Languages or linguistics
There are people who are regarded walking encyclopedia and dictionary. The gift of tongue in the true sense is in being multilingual like Rizal.

5. Logic (dialectics, Mathematics)
Marxism is based on dialectics which is a tool in studying and learning. Likewise, this realm includes the intelligence of numbers – math, accounting, actuarial science, etc. This is the key to IQ test. Einstein, Newton, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle are my choices.

6. Music (auditory art)
Mendelssohn, Mozart, Chopin, Abelardo, Cayabyab, Lea Salonga – name your favorite. Beethoven is one of the world’s great composer, yet he cannot dance. I like to listen to Pangkat Kawayan play Philippine music.

7. Spatial intelligence (drawing, and painting, sculpture, architecture, photography)
The great artist, Pablo Picasso, was robbed in his studio. Hog-tied, he carefully studied the robber, the way an artist studies his model. After the incident he sketched the face of the robber and gave it to the police. The police made a 100 arrests but never succeeded in pinpointing the culprit. The sculptor Rodin wanted his subject to look as if it is melting. What could be a better expression of poverty for his masterpiece, The Burghers of Calais?

8. Naturalism (Green Thumb, Relationship with the Natural World)
There are people who are said to have the “green thumb”. Their gardens are beautiful even with little care. There are those who can predict weather, and tell you if the fish bites, or it is a good hunting day. They pick the reddest watermelon, fullest macapuno nuts, just by feel and sound. Good doctors, I suppose have the green thumb too.

What are your top three? Can you see their relationships? Relate them with your strength. On the other hand, in what ways can you improve on the other realms?

Make full use of your strength. And remember there are early and late bloomers. Nothing is too late to be able to improve on one’s deficiencies.

Maybe you lack a good foundation to explore your talents in a certain domain. But why don’t you catch up? Do you recall late bloomers who succeeded in life? 

Fly, fly high and be happy like the birds. Just don’t be Icarus.

Reflect on the following:
1. Your strength and you weakness
2. Your “idols” and models
3. Resolution and affirmations

x x x

Reference: Light from the Old Arch, V Rotor (UST Publishing House) 2001

Sustainability and Waste Management through Recycling

2008 National Environmental Conference, SPU-QC

 “Learn recycling from Nature – the passing of seasons that govern the cycle of life.”

                                                                                                                               - AVR

Smog (smoke and fog) blankets a city for days or weeks. Smog comes down as acid rain.

“Everything on earth and in the universe undergoes a cycle, a beginning
and an end, and in between a period of growth, stability and senescence.
Yet no cycle could succeed unless it is part of an interrelationship with
and among other cycles in the biological and physical world, each lending
a vital role aimed at a holistic and perpetual oneness apparently designed

by an unknown hand.” - AVR

Dr Abe V Rotor

Conference Resource Person

When asked what is the best way to keep “balance of nature”, an old man living by a small mountain lake atop Mt Pulog answered, “Leave Nature alone.”

I expected a different answer because the book says man is the “guardian” of living things, and of all creation for that matter. 

But how could it be when the earth is five billion years old and man’s arrival is not earlier than two million years ago?

The difference in viewpoint is further aggravated by direct conflict between man and nature throughout the ages.  And our Darwinian view that survival is an ultimate struggle.

Then this relationship took a different turn. Now the enemy of nature is man.

                                          

“The ultimate test of any civilization

is not in its inventions and deeds;

but the endurance of Mother Nature

in keeping up with man’s endless needs.”

- avr

But such thought is folly. We are still governed by the laws of nature.  Our advantage is not necessarily the advantage of nature, and vice versa. Man’s periodicity of time and space is so brief; it is not even a wink of nature.

Now allow me to take up the subject assigned to me – does recycling enhance sustainability? On the point of nature yes.  Let’s look into these phenomena.

1. Lightning is Nature’s quickest and most efficient converter and recycler, instant manufacturer of nitrates, phosphates, sulfates; it burns anything on its path, recharges ions. Lightning sustains the needs of the biosphere, it is key to biodiversity.

2. Fire is the Nature’s second tool. While fire is indeed destructive, in the long run, fields, grasslands and forests are given new life by it. Fire is a test of survival of the fittest. It re-arranges organisms and assigns them in their respective places. It gives chance to younger members, such as trees in a forest, to take over the older ones, rejuvenating the whole forest itself. It is the key to the continuity of life.

3. Volcanoes erupt to recycle the elements from the bowels of the earth to replenish the spent landscape, so with submarine volcanoes that keep the balance of the marine ecosystems, including those at the deep ocean floor. 

The Tale of the Potted Tree

A scientist planted in a pot a tree seedling    1/2 kg in weight, 1/2 meter tall.  He placed 20 kg of soil, and watered the plant regularly. After one year the sapling weighed 5 kg and reached 2 m in height. The weight of the soil is still the same – 20 kilos more or less.

But where did the incremental biomass (4 1/2 kg) come from? Gain in biomass is stored energy (of the Sun) + stored matter (water from the soil, and Carbon Dioxide from the air.) This is the Principle of Photosynthesis, which is the foundation of a complex system of energy flow in the biosphere – a system than encompasses interrelationships between and among organisms through a food web.

1. Perpetual Rhythm of Recycling on the grassland, field and forest.
2. This helps explain Homeostasis or dynamic balance in any ecosystem such as the Tropical Rain Forest

What are the practical applications of this phenomenon?

1. When we eat rice, we get that energy and release it in the form of work
2. When we burn firewood we release that energy in the form of heat and light.
3. When we step of the gas we release a bit of the sun stored millions of years ago.
4. A compost pile shrinks and releases heat and gas.
5. Wildfire clears forests, smoothers pasture; carcasses become part of soil; farm wastes become organic fertilizer.

 The Laws of Nature always prevail

•         Seasons, weather and climate

•         Life cycle and alternation of generations

•         Food chain, food web, food pyramid

•         Continental drift, volcanism, ice age

•         Naturally occurring Cycles –

       - Carbon

       - Nitrogen

       - Phosphorous

       - Calcium

       - Water      

       - Other elements and compounds.

Be keen with the Continuity and Perpetual Rhythm in Nature

•         Rhizobium bacteria restore N balance in soil.

•         A forest or pasture grows back after fire.

•          A volcano erupts, lava settles into fertile soil.

•          Termites break cellulose into simpler compounds.

•         Regeneration follows a typhoon or flood.

•         Tides and currents keep the sea in a state of balance. 

The key is Homeostasis or Dynamic Balance is the ability of Mother Earth to adjust with changing conditions through time.

Living to Non-living, and Back

Organisms are born; they grow, reproduce, then die. Inorganic matter is transformed into organic matter, and back. Elements form compounds in the non-living world (nitrates, phosphates, sulfates, etc.), to organic compounds (amino acids to proteins; fatty acids to fats and oils, etc) in the body of living organisms.

Recycling in home and community gardening includes composting, raising of animals and fish, integrated with beautification, health and nutrition. 

  

Recycling leads to the development of many products. Fruits in season that otherwise go to waste are made into table wine. Typhoon or drought affected sugarcane make excellent natural vinegar and molasses. 

Recycling with the Beast of Burden.  The Carabao is the most efficient feed converter, a living garbage processor. Its digestive system can extract sufficient nutrients from roughage even during long dry spell.

Recycling through range poultry. Crossbred with our native chicken, these chicken thrive on palay and corn, forage, leftovers, ground shell, etc. They are more economical to produce, tastier and free of antibiotic residues, and growth hormones.

Recycling with Goats. Anything that grows in the field is food of goats, from weeds to crop residues. Goats are excellent gleaners, leaving no waste on the farm after harvest.

Recycling helps in controlling destructive organisms such as the mosquito, which is food of fish, spider and bat.

Recycling in home and community gardening includes composting, raising of animals and fish, integrated with beautification, health and nutrition.

Recycling wastes from wet markets Vegetable trimmings, and waste from fish and animals require efficient collection, segregation and processing into biogas and organic fertilizer. 

Recycling is building farm ponds at the basin of fields to store rain water and runoff water for summer use. It is also useful in duck raising and fish culture.

Recycling means maximized impounding of rain water and runoff water through efficient watershed management to insure all year round supply of clean water of lakes and ponds for domestic and farm use.

Recycling is building a multipurpose Small Water Impounding Project (SWIP) for recreation, irrigation, fishery, and power generation.

Don’t waste Nature’s Gifts - tap them instead. Examples: Lantana, natural pesticide; oregano, natural medicine; chichirica, cancer drug; pandan, spice-condiment; and eucalyptus, liniment and cold drops; bunga de China, toothpaste  

The Principle of Recycling

Recycling in nature through the action of microorganisms: bacteria, algae, protists (amoeba, diatoms), blue green algae

Recycling of fibrous materials with fungi. Other than roughage and fuel, rice hay is used as substrate for mushroom growing.  The spent materials decompose easily into organic fertilizer.  

Nature’s nutrient converters are simple life forms such as lichens, algae, mosses and ferns silently working on inert materials, converting them into nutrients for higher organisms.

We put back to Nature what we do not use. So that it will be used in the second generation, in the next season, in another process, and by other users. Recycling is a continuing process; like a circle (continuum). Recycling helps homeostasis, increases production, enhances sustainable productivity.   

  

Recycling is attained through different methods:  

•         Biological – Trichoderma, a fungus, in composting

•         Enzymatic – Wild sunflower in compost, urea in hay

•         Mechanical – Shedding, decortication

•         Fermentation – Silage, retting, biogas digester

•         Burning – Rice hull ash

•         Any combination of two or more of these methods

So what are the elements that are recycled?  Let’s take as example the naturally occurring elements in the human body, as a reference. 

Farmers should recycle rice hay back to the soil, and must not burn it. This is the reason.  These are major nutrients removed from soil by the rice crop.  Here is a comparison between the amounts absorbed in the straw as compared to those present in the grain. (Grain versus straw, kg nutrient/MT)

•         Nitrogen:     10.5 - 7.0

•         Phosphorus: 4.6 –  2.3

•         Potassium:   3.0 - 17.5

•         Magnesium: 1.5 -  2.0

•         Calcium:      0.5 -  3.5

Rice straw contains 85-90 percent of potassium (K) of the biomass.  Thus much greater amounts of K must be applied to maintain soil supply where straw is removed.

By recycling rice straw after harvest we compensate for the poor efficiency of the crop to use soil nutrients.  Generally we get little from the fertilizer we invested in our crop. Typical fertilizer efficiencies are as follows:

•         30 to 60 % for N,

•         10 to 35 % for P, and

•         15 to 30% for K.

Recycling of rice by-products mainly straw and hull increases yield and reduces cost of production .  Before recycling anything, reduce potential waste through good quality control. Reduce post harvest loss in rice that runs to 40 % of the harvested palay.

The 7 Rs in Waste Management

1. Reduce -  plan to limit potential waste
2. Replace with environment-friendly materials  
3. Regulate depends on effective governance
4. Recycle - re-use in original or new form.
5. Replenish. “Pay back” what you get from nature. 
6. Reserve for tomorrow, next generation, posterity.
7. Revere - reverence for life, respect creation.

 The Limits and Drawback of Recycling

Phenomena vs Man-induced Disasters - Floods which are accompanied by erosion and siltation do occur, but become frequent and worst with the destruction of watershed.

Recycling on the farm should avoid non-biodegradable materials such as

•         Plastics

•         Oils

•         Metals

•         Shells, rocks, glass

Watch out for toxic materials

•         Toxic metals: Cadmium, Mercury, Lead

•         Hospital and medical wastes, including radioactive materials

•         Pesticide residues, especially dioxin

•         Industrial wastes, like acids, Freon, alkalis

Oil Spill Recycling – no way.

•    Not with hydrocarbon compounds; not in the case of oil spill. The Petron oil spill in Guimaras in 2005 destroyed thousands of hectares of marine and terrestrial irreversibly upsetting ecosystems and depriving the residents of their livelihood.  

 

Heavily polluted Pasig River

Recyling is not recommended where pollution  is heavy and unabated such as this mudflat.  Silt in clean environment is excellent garden soil. 

Inefficient technology generates wastes.

•         Such is the case in sugar milling as observed at CADP, Nasugbu, Batangas. Sugarcane bagasse continues to accumulate in spite of its many uses as fuel, glass making, manufacture of paper and cardboard. 

•         Many companies simply throw their waste into waterways.  Example: Mine tailings are simply dumped into the river gorge of Benguet, flowing down the sea and polluting rice fields.  

          Nature Prayer

       

          When my days are done,

let me lay down to sleep

on sweet breeze and earth

in the shade of trees

I planted in youth 

and old;

and if this were my last,

make, make others live

that they carry on 

the torch,

while my dust falls

to where new life begins – 

even an atom 

let me be with you 

dear Mother Earth. 

- avr

References

1. Cabiokid (2008) PowerPoint presentation by Bert Peeters

2. Enger ED and Smith BF (2002) Environmental Science, A Study on Interrelationships 8th ed McGraw-Hill
3. IRRI (2002) Rice Production Special Supplement, Los Baños, Laguna
4. PCARRD (1999) Processing and Utilization of Crop Residues, fibrous
Agro-Industrial By-Products, and Food Waste Materials for Livestock & Poultry Feeding, DOST
5. Rotor AV (2004) The Living with Nature Handbook UST Publishing House
6. Rotor AV (2007) Living with Nature in Our Times, UST Publishing House
7. Rotor AV (2008) Living with Folk Wisdom, UST Publishing House
8. Rotor AV (2007) Learning Biology PowerPoint presentation
Acknowledgement: Internet Photos

Ten Cardinal Rules for Good Behavior

These popular quotations are traced to Thomas Jefferson.  He became president in the election of 1800, the third president of the US and also a founding father. 

Notations by Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Avoid the “Manana habit.”

2. Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
Be independent, don’t depend on others unnecessarily.

3. Never spend your money before you have it.
Frugality is a virtue; thrift its twin.

4. Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap.
Keep your money instead. Avoid impulse buying.

5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
False pride really hurts most no other than the bearer.

6. We seldom repent having eaten too little.
More people die of excessive eating that leads to illnesses and obesity.

7. Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
Whatever you decided and did is all yours to bear its consequences.

8. How much pain the evils have cost us that have never happened.
Anxiety adds unnecessary burden to reality with a heavy price to bear.

9. Take things always by the smooth handle.
“Take it by the horn,” is real test, but not in everything we do.

10. When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.
Spur of the moment steals good judgment. Always remember AJA (Analysis, Judgement, Action, in this order.) avr

Author's Note: I grew up with these quotations instilled in me and my siblings by my dad who studied in the United States before WW2 .  He graduated in Bachelor in Commercial Science at the De Paul University in Chicago.

Omar Khayyam's Thematic Quatrain - an Interprettion

"Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow."

 Quatrain XI from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Translated by Edward FitzGerald

Dr Abe V Rotor 

1. There's a 5th edition to FitzGerald's Ist edition of Quatrain XI as cited above, which came out long after his death. It is numbered Quatrain XII.  This fifth version retains basically the same style as in the first version. .  

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!" 

2. The Rubaiyat was quoted in the film The English Harem (2005): 

"Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire// 
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!// 
Would not we shatter it to bits-and then// 
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"

3. A 1967 translation of the Rubáiyat by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah, became controversial.  It was questioned as to its origin, which among the possible sources, could be that of FitzGerald. Here is the 11th and 12th quatrains.  

Should our day's portion be one mancel loaf,
A haunch of mutton and a gourd of wine
Set for us two alone on the wide plain,
No Sultan's bounty could evoke such joy.

A gourd of red wine and a sheaf of poems —
A bare subsistence, half a loaf, not more —
Supplied us two alone in the free desert:
What Sultan could we envy on his throne?

4. Published in 1979 by Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs, their edition provides two versions of the thematic quatrain. Although it was criticized, it is claimed to be a modern version, "as literal an English version of the Persian originals as readability and intelligibility permit"

Q 98.
I need a jug of wine and a book of poetry,
Half a loaf for a bite to eat,
Then you and I, seated in a deserted spot,
Will have more wealth than a Sultan's realm. 

Q234.
If chance supplied a loaf of white bread,
Two casks of wine and a leg of mutton,
In the corner of a garden with a tulip-cheeked girl,
There'd be enjoyment no Sultan could outdo.

5. In 1988, the Rubaiyat were translated by a Persian translator, Karim Emami and was published in Paris under the title The Wine of Nishapour, a collection of Khayyam's poetry by Shahrokh Golestan. Emami was an outstanding translator of English.  

Example from Emami's work:

It's early dawn, my love, open your eyes and arise
Gently imbibing and playing the lyre;
For those who are here will not tarry long,
And those who are gone will not return.

Example quatrain 160 (equivalent of FitzGerald's quatrain XI in his 1st edition, as above):

In spring if a houri-like sweetheart
Gives me a cup of wine on the edge of a green cornfield,
Though to the vulgar this would be blasphemy,
If I mentioned any other Paradise, I'd be worse than a dog.

6. In 1991 Ahmad Saidi (1904–1994) produced an English translation of 165 quatrains grouped into 10 themes. His quatrains include the original Persian verses for reference alongside his English translations. His focus was to faithfully convey, with less poetic license, Khayyam’s original religious, mystical, and historic Persian themes, through the verses as well as his extensive annotations. Here are selected quatrains.  

Quatrain 16 (equivalent of FitzGerald's quatrain XII in his 5th edition, as above):
Ah, would there were a loaf of bread as fare,
A joint of lamb, a jug of vintage rare,
And you and I in wilderness encamped—
No Sultan’s pleasure could with ours compare. 

Quatrain 75:
The sphere upon which mortals come and go,
Has no end nor beginning that we know;
And none there is to tell us in plain truth:
Whence do we come and whither do we go.

Quatrain XI in his 1st edition:
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

Quatrain XII in his 5th edition:[2]
"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

7. One of the title pages of Principia Discordia (1965), a co-author by the pen-name Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, features apparently a popular version which runs like this -
A jug of wine, 
A leg of lamb 
And thou! 
Beside me, 
Whistling in 
the darkness. 

8. In the opening chapter of his book God is Not Great (2007), Christopher Hitchens quotes from Richard Le Gallienne's translation of Khayyam's famous quatrain: 

And do you think that unto such as you 
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew 
God gave the secret, and denied it me? 
Well, well--what matters it? Believe that, too! 

9. The title of Daphne du Maurier's memoir Myself when Young is a quote from quatrain 27 of Fitzgerald's translation: 

Myself when young did eagerly frequent 
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument 
About it and about: but evermore 
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

10. · The Supreme Court of the Philippines, through a unanimous opinion penned in 2005 by Associate Justice Leonardo Quisumbing, quoted The Moving Finger when it ruled that the widow of defeated presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. could not substitute her late husband in his pending election protest against Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, thus leading to the dismissal of the protest.(Wikipedia)

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

What's the meaning of the phrase 'The moving finger writes'?. Whatever one does in one's life is one's own responsibility and cannot be changed. What's the origin of the phrase 'The moving finger writes'?. This line originates in Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the poem The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. ~

Computer Addiction Leads to Drug Use

  Dr Abe V Rotor 

Did it ever occur in your mind that drug abuse is connected with computer addiction?

      People, especially the young – children and adolescents - who sit before the computer hours and hours everyday – even before they start using drugs, are already potential drug users. This is a thesis which I shall try to present and defend in this article.

     These are premises of my contention.

        Computerizing whether for school assignment or just entertainment consumes precious time and energy.  Time for hobbies, rest, reflection, exercise, socialization, or for quiet and peace.  In short we have disturbed regular time management – the way our predecessor in pre-computer time made use of 24-hour cycle – so with 30-day monthly cycle and longer. In short the computer has not only reset, but tinkered with, the biological clock.

     What does this mean?

      We do not follow our regular sleeping habit, because the computer demands no strict time limit or schedule. Imagine also that a favorite program on TV is on the computer, especially DVD programs. Computer addicts may become night owls. Others have developed cat napping which can compensate partly lost sleep. Not following regular sleeping habits may lead to insomnia.  Many drugs today are for insomniacs.   Abuse of sleeping pills is reminiscent of some prominent victims, among them was Marilyn Monroe who died of overdose.

     The ever increasing features of the computer making today’s state-of-the art in computer shades the 1960 predecessor a hundred folds more proficient. Pretty soon we will be groping and grappling with artificial intelligence like dealing with a university professor, and a genius at that. Already chess games with the computer is like playing with Karpov or Kasparov. War games need the intelligence and skills of  Napoleon Bonaparte on land, and Horatius Nelson at sea. The computer does not only trace the campaign of Alexander the Great who attempted to create the largest empire on earth, but continue the campaign even after his death.

     Entertaining, isn’t?  Definitely yes, but at what price? Hear this. Hour-after-hour uninterrupted concentration.  Irregular meal substituted with fast, if not junk, food. Strained eyes (and also ears).  Sustained suspense leading to cold hands and feet, and increased pulse rate and heart beat, while the muscle contract – an antithesis of balanced exercise. Soon you need a drug to calm you down, such as valium and prosac. Headache and therefore you take analgesic. Hallucinations in your sleep which may lead to insomnia. 

     So what is the pre-occupation of the young today?  It appears to be a syndrome instead, a syndrome of three components, namely:

1.     Mental Concentration

2.     Social Detachment

3.     Physiologic Imbalance

4.     Time Waste

5.     Indeterminate Purpose

Pose for a moment before proceeding to read this article and imagine yourselves as a victim of this modern syndrome.