Why life? What is the purpose of life-existence, if just live and will die one day? And we even don't know when the end of our life is. I have my own philosophy: "Everything must have its own motive"; this means that we live for one or more things. Prem Rawat stated that we live to fulfill our thirst and this makes us feel good. We are thirsty for water, due to our physiological desire, but this thirst has its beginning and end, we are hungry for food, and this hunger has its instigation and end, moreover hunger will hurt us if we eat too much. Life is not any easy thing, if we place ourselves in the rational pattern. To me there is only one way to be immortal: "sharing your knowledge, skills and other potential awareness". I would put "Sharing knowledge, skills and other potential awareness" into different words, since I think these three words have different meanings and connotations. It (the three: knowledge, skills and potential awareness) refers to a path that has a beginning, but has no end, a hunger that always has sustainable improvement into the next and next generation, a thirst that will never hurt you or contain virus and a mean to bring countless positive consequences. I am using too imaginative terminology? May be yes, but because I think that life is difficult and it takes time to understand our lives. Let me just bring very simple examples, by asking you a question: are we better than the one deceased like Nou Harch (Cambodian), Chourn Nart (Cambodian), John Lock, Plato, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Mother Theresa, etc. No, absolutely not. We are living, but we are not worth than those already deceased. We are not respected than those already died. Those people, as I already mentioned above, have eternally brainwashed me and other academic persons. So why these people seem greatly socially active, but in fact, they have long passed away? One answer that I can find is "they share their knowledge". During their living era, they always shared their knowledge and I even think that, they tried to share every of their knowledge contained in their minds. This is, I have versioned, their immense way to be immortal. Cambodia, until today, still lacks of human resource, since knowledge sharing is not paid a particular attention. One of the most important ways for human development is though self-expression. But to me, self-expression seems very far away from Cambodian people; young and old alike. Another reason is that self-expression has been thought as a dangerous business and unprofitable. So if these are the obstacles, what are we living for? It is time for Cambodia to start knowledge sharing, mostly amongst the academic activists (students, professors and other private and public employees). What are the ways of sharing knowledge? There are many methods regarding sharing knowledge such as, teaching, but for me, the most important strategy for sharing knowledge, skills and experience is "publication". Today, due to modern technology, we have much potential to share knowledge, skills and experience; Internet, periodicals and publishing books. Cambodia is lacking behind other regional countries and the world in term of publication and this is one of the reasons that make Cambodia lack of genuine professionals. There are many publications in Cambodia, but nearly all of them relate to total entertainment, sexual provocation, stars, fashion, cosmetics, ornament, eating and drinking. I do not oppose these relaxation-publications, but I can't totally accept these. I haven't seen any academic periodicals/groupings. I have heard some about academic periodicals and groupings, but these are too weak in term of finance and readers; far behind other entertainment magazines. Another reason that undermines publication is that because government pays evilly little attention to intellectual property. How can a writer have incentive to write, if her/his original work is prevalently copied without asking for her/his permission? She/he takes three months, six months, one year, five years to write a book, but as the repercussion, only one copy of her/his book can be sold and illegally and pervasively copied. Moreover, the next writer never uses the reference to the original writer. This makes the original writer loss her/his identity and achievement. Government should (must even better) instigate incentives for reading, through national or private televisions, schools, universities and the government offices themselves. Media should play integral part in educating the public, but because of education is not profitable like the business, knowledge sharing is seen as nonsense. Who would bear the gravest consequence? Government must be more comfortable if they don't have to advise their citizens too much, because most of their citizens are educated. "Every path has its end and won't be eternal. Educational path has no doom and always demands betterment" Coined by Lay Vicheka, (2005) |
