Walking Each Other Home

It's that time of the year again--the eve of a new one. I left the office early today to do some banking in USJ. Then I decided to linger at the Starbucks nearby to finish off some work. After that, I went for an early vegetarian dinner and set off home.

Now I'm back in the sanctuary of my room to reflect on a year that just passed. It felt like I had worked the entire year without taking a break--which, in essence is quite true. I certainly did not take a holiday and I did not have any boondoggle trips out of the country. As a matter of fact, I did not travel out of the country at all for the entire year.

Overseas travel has become such a commonplace affair these days; everyone talks about their foreign holidays, as if it is another trip to the neighbourhood store. The usual destinations are of course Korea, Thailand and China. Since I did not travel anywhere, let me recall what has been significant to me for the past the year.

These days, I do not yearn for new experiences anymore. What I seek to achieve is to internalize good practices that I've been meaning to put in place. Perhaps the most significant thing for me is to reestablish a blogging habit--at least once a week. This I've been pretty successful in maintaining. Monday is both my vegetarian and blogging day now.

For the past years, I've also treated my work as a kind of 'workout'. It is like going for a walk everyday. Work is simply exercise for the mind. It keeps me mentally sharp. Work need not be such a turn-off if we know how to portion it and not to place too much importance to its outcome. You give your best to each task and move on to the one. The important thing is to continue learning and sharpening one's saw.

On the audiobook front, I think I sat through more hours of lectures than the average undergraduate. 2018 has been a year of history for me--I wanted to give myself a firm foundation on European history. The good thing about knowing history well is that it helps you to put so many other things into perspective. Everything you read suddenly becomes so much clearer.

I've also been meditating on a daily basis. I consider meditation an act of mental hygiene. As physical exercise is to the fitness of the human body, so is the practice meditation to the mind. Work, exercise and meditation are the triple medication I take regularly to maintain my physical and mental health.

As for my relationship with others, I do not aim for grandiose gestures. I only help people I'm close to and within my small sphere of influence. And over the years, these relationships have been both educational and rewarding. It is heartening to see people grow and change for the better.

For the country, 2018 has been a momentous year. A lot of people has expressed disappointment over the performance of the new government. But I beg to differ: I think we have over-achieved. Being an observer of the politics in this country ever since my school days, I know the solution to many of our problems cannot come overnight. Good things take time. But we humans are not known for our patience and perhaps understandably so, for our lifetimes are short.

And with the passing of each year, we become more conscious of our own mortality. Life is fragile. The impact we make in this world, for most of us, is hardly significant. But every one of us is significant in our own ways, in our small spheres of influence: a father, a mother, a friend or simply a helping hand.

Everywhere on social media, you see people's desperate need for attention and acceptance. We are all doing the best we can in the only ways we know. Everyone's path is different and each of us has, outward appearances notwithstanding, our secrets hangups and neuroses.

My wish for the coming year is that we see each other as fellow human beings who are all seeking to understand ourselves better. Let us all be kind to each other, for as Ram Dass so eloquently put it: We are all walking each other home. Happy New Year.

Eve of Enlightenment

Last Monday I was blogging from Penang. Today, on Christmas Eve, I'm back home early after having a nice vegetarian dinner with an old friend. No loitering at the cafe today and certain no Christmas countdowns with friends at the pub like in the old days. I'm typing these lines in the comfort of my bedroom, among my clutter of books.

Christmas is a happy time. Everyone is in a good mood because it is year-end; people are clearing their leave; school holidays are on and the weather is rarely hot. The only thing that spoils the mood a bit are stupid statements made by religious bigots.

I have friends who think that religion is the cause of a lot of our problems. I am not unsympathetic to that view but I am also aware that we are all, by nature, spiritual creatures. We will always create religion, like how we create music and other works of art. It is an expression of being human. If we ask ourselves: of what purpose is religion? It is no different from asking, of what good is art?

I've already posted many blog articles about religion. What occupies my mind most now, on Christmas eve today is a sense of gratitude. I am grateful that I do not have a religion and because of that, all religions are accessible to me. That thought makes me infinitely happy. There are no barriers to me: nothing is taboo when it comes to learning about our place in the universe. All religions provide certain insights.

Just within the stuffy confines of my bedroom I have the Quran, different versions of the Bible, The Manual of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw and even a book about the disappearing religions of the Middle East. Being surrounded by such diversity of thoughts and ideas gives me a great sense of pleasure.

Every morning, I look forward to new insights, to new moments of epiphany, inspired by the company of wise men who left their wisdom in their writings. Every piece of insight opens up new areas for exploration, new intellectual frontiers to be conquered.

It is an edge-of-the-seat excitement that makes daily living such an adventure. Everyday is like a Christmas Eve to me: I feel like I'm always on the verge of experiencing an ever-unfolding series of epiphanies. By having no religion, every day is a holy day; every evening, an eve to deeper enlightenment.

A Past in Penang

I'm blogging from the Penang Airport. The accommodation that I booked is not ready yet, so I decided to loiter a bit at the airport and do my obligatory blog post for the week.

Penang brings back a lot of memories. It feels strange to fly here from KL--a route that I used to do a lot in the early days of my career. In fact, my first job after graduation was here at a factory in Bayan Lepas. I didn't like Penang then: for someone who grew up in a small town, it felt like I was going backwards. Work means something in an exciting urban city like KL or Singapore. At that young age, I certainly did not appreciate the eclectic charms of Penang.

My stint here was brief, but I had good memories here. I had a beat-up Honda Civic which I drove all over the island and Butterworth. I especially liked driving driving into the ferry to go across to Butterworth. My other favourite places are the cinemas along Penang Road. I used to spend every night watching movies there after work and then had some nice nasi kandar at one of the stalls along the side alleyways.

Things were much cheaper then. I could afford to eat and drink quite often at the Equatorial Hotel, City Bayview and the E&O Hotel. Ah, the E&O was my favourite place; there was a lounge called 1885 with a couple of lady crooners belting out classics to the accompaniment of a piano. The beachfront walkway at the hotel had a great view of the harbour--especially on New Year's Eve when fireworks shoot up into the nightsky from the anchored ships, illuminated the still and dark waters of the straits.

It was a romantic time. But I was restless and yearned to be back in the real city. Penang felt like a petty and provincial place. I had everything a young man my age then would have been pleased with---freedom, a steady job, money, love and friendship. But I had other plans. Embarking on a live of yuppiehood wasn't my cup of tea. I wanted to do some soul-searching. That led me to other adventures, which I will recount probably, in my usual oblique and fragmentary style in other blog posts.

Well, I'm back in Penang. This time it is a short business trip. I'm enjoying the book that I brought with me--a Conrad--after finishing an elegant and scholarly tome by Bernard Lewis. I look forward to spending two leisurely days here in Penang, mixed with a bit of work.

Penang is a very different place now. Many of my friends who had started their careers in Penang with me have also taken root here. I'll probably spend some time catching up with some of them. They all have beautiful families and successful careers now. While I am still the tramp that I've always been: Never staying put for long in a city--a wanderer across time and space. Well,I'm older now but to me age is like the version number of software--the higher the figure, the more stable it is. Being back in Penang gives me a good opportunity to reflect on myself, when I was version 1.0.

Turning Philistines into Connoisseurs

I was trying to scan a QR code using a new tablet at the office today and was struggling to get it to focus on the object. No matter how hard I tired, the camera simply failed to scan the code. Well, it's a cheap tablet anyway. I can't complain too much. There's nothing wrong with my software either--the camera just couldn't focus sufficiently well on the range that I was aiming for.

That got me thinking about the human mind. I think we are born with a specific 'focal range' for our minds. Instead of objects in space, the mind has the ability to focus on specific subject matters. Some people have a talent for numbers. They can remember, manipulate and see figures very clearly in their minds. Numbers happen to lie within the focal range of their minds.

During school days, I'd noticed that some of my friends just did not have the aptitude for science and mathematics. No matter how hard they tried, they just couldn't get a grasp on the subject. It is as if symbols and equations just lie frustratingly beyond the focal range of their minds.

I also know of people who do not dig poetry. They approach poetry by trying to focus on the meaning of words and sentences. Sound, rhythm imagery and metaphors simply do not register naturally in their sphere of comprehension.

Can these type of mental 'blindness' be corrected? Can someone be trained to be good in mathematics? Can you teach someone to appreciate poetry?

I would say, only to a certain extent. You can teach someone to analyze a poem in terms of its form and structure. But the moment you do that, you've already killed the immediate beauty of the piece. True, the technical structure of any work of art has its beauty. But this is akin to the beauty you find in physics and mathematics--noticing the order underlying the apparent chaos.

People who are blind to science fail to see this aspect of beauty, whilst people who find poetry meaningless often fail to perceive the direct effect of words on the mind that goes beyond meaning. Robert M. Pirsig in his famous book, 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' called this classical beauty versus romantic beauty.

Somehow we all have blindspots in our minds: some subject matters simply do resonate with us. How do we penetrate these blindspots? Classroom type of teaching won't do it. I think this is where meditation comes in. There's nothing mystical or magical about meditation--it is simply gym-work for the mind.

Through the practice of meditation, we increase the sensitivity and focal range of the mind. That's how I see it. The capacity of the mind is vast and most of the time we are only tapping a fraction of its capabilities. We can further tune, calibrate and develop areas of the mind that lie dormant within us.

Formal learning helps to develop the mind to a certain extent. But every sportsman know, to excel in their area of sports, you need targeted exercises to build strength in specific muscle areas. You cannot excel simply by playing the game everyday. Proper work in the gym is required.

Similarly, meditation helps to build those mental muscles that would ultimately help us to extend its focal range. And with increasing capacity to perceive subtleties and nuances in any subject matter, you would learn to appreciate its beauty. And ultimately, all philistines can be turned into connoisseurs.

The Habit of Happiness

Let me write something brief today as my schedule is a bit tight. Usually the small everyday things suck up all your time: WhatsApp messages, unexpected technical problems from production, an urgent request from a friend. It is year-end but I'm still struggling to complete a lot of work. I think I made some progress today, despite only spending half-a-day in the office.

My goal is to make progress everyday, no matter how small. That's how work gets done. I make it a point to go to office everyday, even though I don't really have to. There's value in routines and habits. They are like railway tracks that force us to move in a specific direction everyday, unconsciously. By going to office, I end up working and making progress. And by driving to work, I get to listen to my favourite audiobooks--something which I look forward to everyday.

I read, or at least try to scan through two dead-tree newspapers a day. I'm old school: breakfast with papers is a must. Before breakfast, I usually listen to CNN while doing my daily routine in the bathroom. There are some good sites that stream CNN live--the US edition, which I prefer.

In the office, while working--depending on what tasks I'm doing--I also listen to podcasts, which are lighter and easier to listen to compared to audiobooks. I skip lunch on most days, as I find it very disruptive to work. Throughout the day, I would take short breaks to browse at news sites and to answer messages on my phone. I try not to respond immediately to text messages--they could suck up your entire day.

If I need to socialize, I prefer doing it on weekdays, after work. Occasionally, I would have a dinner appointment. I enjoy catching up with friends, at a cafe or quiet drinking joint. If I'm not with someone, I would be eating alone at the mamak stall or at a cafe like this (today it's O'Brien's).

Back home after a long day outside, I would start winding down with some relaxing music--usually some Baroque or Classical music (I love Spotify). I'd probably log in to Facebook (which I don't install on my phone), to checkout the latest on the social media scene. I would also try to write longhand in my journal. I'd do some reading on specific topics that interest me, making notes in another one of my many notebook. The last thing for the day is usually a session of meditation. After which, my sleep would be heavenly.

That is my typical weekday routine. I am a creature of habit. And being on the auto-pilot of habit, something I've come to realize and appreciate over the years, make me immensely happy. And that happiness itself is ultimately another habit, which can be cultivated.

Dreams from a Dystopia

I'm blogging from a Coffee Bean cafe today. This particular outlet is quiet and pleasant at this hour, this brief slot of time which I reserve for blogging every week.

I shall not dwell on too serious a topic this week as the last post about WW1 and emptiness was a rather bleak one. Moreover there's a Christmassy feel in the air now as November ends and December is approaching. What a great month December is! It's definitely my favourite time of the year.

My day at the office today was mostly spent having discussions with my colleagues. It happens that there are quite a number of tasks that we need to complete before the year ends. Most people are also starting to clear their leave and plan for year-end vacations with their families. And I, being single and not much of a family man looks forward to an uninterrupted month of productive work. No holidays or vacations for me.

Come to think of it, I have not been travelling much for the past decade. The only country that I've travelled to during the last five years has been Bangladesh!. For a while I was making regular monthly trips there.

Strangely, I've never blogged about my experience there. I think part of it is because all my trips there have been rather stressful ones: difficult customers and equally difficult business issues. I am actually glad that I do not have to go there again in the foreseeable future. That chapter of my life is thankfully closed.

The most memorable thing about Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is their buses. Dhaka, like many Third World cities, are congested with cars, trishaws, three-wheelers, pedestrians and beggars. What's fascinating about their buses is the sheer misery of their condition--they all look like they've been salvaged from the vehicle junkyard. But everywhere in Dhaka, these much-battered and dented rickety metal ribcages which pass off as passenger buses are always packed to the brimmed. You see sweaty faces peer back at you from rusted frames of broken windows and windscreens as they lumber across the congested city roads like condemned autobots from some Transformer purgatory. And if you've been stuck in Dhaka traffic before, you'll know that you will get many opportunities to study them closely: your taxi will likely be pushed so uncomfortably close to them that you could easily wind down your window to touch the crinkled bodies of these metal beasts.

I was utterly fascinated by them. I considered them works of art, metal behemoths sculpted by the harsh daily struggles of Dhaka traffic. They became a source of amusement for me as I fantasized about authoring a coffee table book on Bangladeshi buses. One with many full-color pages of these monsters from an industrial dystopia in all their magnificent glory.

These were the daydreams that occupied me as I was stuck for two hours in a hired car, inching my way from Gulshan to Mothijheel. There in my island of calm amidst the chaos, I see the hot struggles of humanity all around me, of people cast helplessly into the world, each carrying dreams of their own within, perhaps not unlike mine.

The Curse of Emptiness

Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!

from Peace by Rupert Brooke

We live in a time of relative peace, or at least in a country which is fortunate enough to be located in a region with peace-loving neighbours. Our generation has no direct experience of war.

My parents lived through the World War II and the Japanese occupation of Malaya. WW2 defined and shaped their generation. We can only imagine the horrors of war through Hollywood movies and history lessons. But they seem so distant and remote. It is no wonder that every generation has to learn the lessons of war anew.

European countries welcome the onset of World War I in August 1914 in a mass exhibition of misguided patriotism. It felt like the right thing to do--a war to end all wars and one that would finally give a worthy cause for a restless generation to prove their worth. How wrong they were. A generation of young men was sacrificed because of it. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

Do we possess the wisdom and foresight to avert future wars? Far from it, I'm afraid. For the simple reason that a human lifetime is short. Lessons from history books only enlighten the privileged few who bother to learn. Invariably, we are driven by our selfish instincts, not only to survive and procreate, but to possess and to dominate. Hence, we continue learning the lessons of history the hard way--through war and suffering.

For we humans are not creatures of pure reason. What defines our humanity are our passions. And passions get easily inflamed by rhetoric and beliefs. We are but suckers for the romance of ideologies and religion, without which we feel empty and restless.

Every new generation is blessed with energy and cursed with emptiness. Emptiness is merely directionless energy. Harness them wisely and channel them towards progress and creation. The alternative is simply war and destruction.

Unhurried Happiness

"...you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you're not in a hurry."
- Paul Theroux, The Happy Isles of Oceania

I'm back at my usual Starbucks spot on my blogging day. I didn't know what to write today but the quote above occurred to me. It's something I remembered from Paul Theroux's Happy Isles of Oceania. I think it was a quote from a guy he met on one of the islands in the South Pacific. The man was slowly building a raft to sail somewhere.

The image of a guy slowly gathering pieces of wood to construct a vehicle to go somewhere seems like a picture of pure happiness to me. A lot of the software I write had been done rather unhurriedly--one line at a time towards some near goal, which upon attainment becomes the building block of a bigger goal. At some point I would be amazed at the complexity and amount of code that I have written. Did I do all that?

I've learned through experience that if one plans carefully, one need never hurry. Every finite amount of work, if it is to be done correctly, requires a finite amount of time. If you reduce work to small chunks, each quantum of work can be tackled unhurriedly, without the distraction of the larger goal. The mind can become very focused on the task at hand.

I spent the whole day at the office today and delivered my unhurried quantum of work. That piece shall become the building block of tomorrow's work. That's how I progress everyday. One line of code at a time. One true sentence, as Hemingway would say.

Let me be clear here: being unhurried doesn't mean that one is a slow worker. It simply says that the performance of every task has its specific optimum speed. When you are driving on the highway on the middle lane and has no intention to overtake, you have to adjust your speed so that you are not hogging the traffic. There's an optimum speed for every highway (usually slightly above the speed limit).

Being focused, present and unhurried is the most productive state of mind. There's great satisfaction in going through life that way. Everything is translucent under the clear light of the present moment. When one is in a hurry, life goes by in a blur. So, never hurry. Find your optimum pace. You can go almost anywhere that way.

The Examined Life

I didn't blog yesterday because I was held up at the office until pretty late. Today is Deepavali and I spent my entire day working at home. There are festive fireworks going off in the night sky now, which always put in a reflective mood for blogging.

The late afternoon rain, which seems to be a daily occurrence nowadays did not prevent me from jogging in the park just now. I always feel good after a good run. Part of my joy of running is being able to do it while listening to an audiobook.

Over the past decade, I've listened to countless audiobooks and audio courses on a wide variety of topics, especially when I'm driving. This has been the most rewarding aspect of my life in KL. It total compensates for all the hours that I've got stuck in traffic commuting to and from work.

Come to think of it, I've had this habit of listening to audiobooks ever since the 90s. At that time, I only had a cassette player in my beat-up Nissan Sunny. But that was enough for me to enjoy so many audiobooks, while driving around KL.

When I was working in Singapore, I took the bus to work. My Walkman was my every-present trusty companion. Among the good memories I had while talking the daily commute from Bishan to Clark Quay was listening to great books like Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Hardy's, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Kafka's The Trial. I loved the simplicity of my life in Singapore--renting a small HDB room and taking the bus to work and having dinner at the local hawker center. I can't think of a happier time in my life.

OK, perhaps the only other time I felt happier was when I was living in a small hotel in Jakarta for 2 years. Because the taxi commute to work was short, I didn't listen to many audiobooks then. But I read oh so many books all over Jakarta. When I finally moved out from my hotel, I had to ship two boxes of books by TNT back to Malaysia.

Perhaps it is the contentment of simple living that made me a confirmed bachelor. One can even accuse me of being too easily contented. But I know that the purported joys of starting a family have never held any attraction for me. I amuse myself by thinking that perhaps had I been born in another age (maybe in Medieval Europe), I would have been a monk in a monastery, happily studying scriptures and illuminating manuscripts.

What I feel deeply these days is a sense of gratitude. Gratitude for living in an age where knowledge is available in great abundance. We can be disciples of all the wisest masters both living and dead, if only we are interested. The only thing that's finite is our time and energy.

Some choose to find happiness in the material world out there. There's nothing wrong with that. To each his own. We are all born different. Everyday, I examine life, peeling off one layer only to find many more layers of awe and wonder.

Life is infinitely rich, if we care to see clearly. I might be ignorant of many things but after everything that I've gone through in life, I know this one dictum to be true: the unexamined life is not worth living.

The Essence of Non-Attachment

In recent interview I read, one of my favourite actors, Sir Anthony Hopkins was asked on what advice he would give to you actors. This is how he answered:

The trick of life is to not care too much. Care a little bit but not too much. Ask nothing and expect nothing.

I thought that summed up my personal philosophy about work quite well too. One may ask: doesn't that sound like a rather callous attitude towards things? Shouldn't we pour our hearts and souls into every undertaking and ensure that it is fruitful to us?

Let me give my take on this Hopkins Principle. Firstly, let's make it clear that by 'care a little bit but not too much', it doesn't mean that you are disinterested in your work or not giving your best. That's simply not being involved in life and his statement doesn't imply that. On the contrary, the greater challenge in life is being involved a hundred and one percent and yet, not having the arrogance to think that you have complete control over the outcome.

We often get emotionally attached to a project that we've put in a lot of hardwork into. We crave praise and recognition. To not expect anything in return, is a massive challenge to anyone. Imagine, burning the midnight oil for a project and your boss did not even acknowledge it or worse still, attributing it to someone else! How would you handle that kind of situation?

Let me put it this way: if you start off an undertaking expecting a specific monetary reward, recognition or praise from a particular audience, then you are not looking at the full picture. The outcome of any work definitely has many effects and consequences. You are always rewarded for your hardwork. Often you just do not see it.

Ask yourself one question: Have you learned anything from the project? If it is real project, most definitely. You've had an opportunity to perfect your craft. Are you a better performer compared to who you were before the project? If the answer is yes--there, you already have your biggest reward.

'Caring a little bit' means caring for the right thing. Focus on something that to you is a sure thing or you would not even consider embarking on the project. Will you get to learn anything from it? If the answer is no, it usually means that you have not raised the bar for yourself. There's always something higher you can achieve, personal goals that you can target for every project. It need not even be known to others. You set it yourself and you strive to achieve them as a by-product of what you do.

What about actual rewards and recognition? Isn't that part of success?

Yes, but let that be flexible because not everything is under your control. Recognition comes in many forms. Good work will always be recognized, if not by your superiors, by your peers and customers. And that, I consider a very good investment, which will bear you even bigger fruits in future. If you don't expect a specific external outcome and you pour in everything that you've got towards the goal that you've set, you would have accomplished your job very well. You've already walked away with your reward: you are a better person. The rest is bonus.

Life becomes very rewarding when you've learned to do things without expecting anything in return. The opportunity to work is already its reward. You have a role to play and in exercising that role, you've benefited yourself through its experience. I shall not repeat my "work as workout" philosophy again but you can read it up here.

"Ask nothing and expect nothing". But put everything into whatever you do. That's the essence of non-attachment.

To Read, To Live

My friend Dan asked me a very interesting question over email last Saturday. Dan lives in Silicon Valley, and I've not met him for more than a decade. He was my colleague during the heady days of the dotcom boom and we've remained in touch over these years mostly via e-mail.

Dan and I both share a passion for reading. We'll often recommend each other books. The question he posed to me was: Do I ever abandon a book half-way? He tries to finish every book he starts, no matter how dull it is.

That got me going immediately on a long exposition on my reading practice. Obviously I've abandoned books halfway before over the years, but I always felt guilty doing it. Hence I've devised a kind of methodology to avoid this. What is my methodology?

I always have a main read. This is a book that I'm committed to finishing no matter what. And while I'm reading this, I also invest some time to evaluate other books that could candidates for my main read. Like a software developer, I fork out from the main branch, to explore new features. This evaluation process could involve reading the introduction and the first chapter of a book. By qualifying them, I recruit new candidates that will be 'merged' into my main reading branch, once I'm done with the current one.

Occasionally, these branch reads could prove to be more interesting than the main one. You simply do not want to put it down. When this happens, you make sure that you finish it within one to two days. And then you return to your main book. These distractions are 'one night stands'. You always return to your main partner. This happened to me recently - my one night stand was Billion Dollar Whale. I received it by courier on Saturday and I finished reading it on Sunday night. And then I returned to the book I was reading at the time: The Upstarts, by Brad Stone.

So far, I've been quite successful in adhering to this process. I've also become reasonably good at sizing up books before reading them. Some books are more suited for audio-listening, some are to be savoured the old-fashioned way--one dead-tree page after another. I'm a big audio listener but I'm not into e-books yet. That might change in the future, as I'm facing storage problems for my books.

Currently I have a lot of books lined up to be my main read. I don't buy as many books as I used to as my backlog of books can already last me a lifetime. There are books that will never get read. But at least, all the books that I've bought, I've had a brief fling with.

Books are like people you meet in your life. Some will become lifelong friends. Some, you'll only brush by briefly. Life is not one or the other. In a blog post I wrote more than a decade ago, I mentioned that people are like books. Every human interaction, every page you leaf through, enriches your life. Read and ye shall live. So read, as the archangel so wisely exhorted.

Viral Sickness

Today is a relatively easy day for me. I spent the morning doing some light coding work and after that drove to my meeting in Puchong at 2pm. Meeting lasted until four and then I decided to go for a haircut. A visit to the barber is something that I try to squeeze into these in-between blocks of time. Today's schedule is perfect for it.

After my quick haircut, I had a good vegetarian dinner and voila, here I am, parked at my favourite Starbucks cafe for my weekly blogging session. I have a list of topics that I want to blog on. But today I just want to do what bloggers usually do: bitch.

What's my beef? I'm just tired of petty and trivial issues that go 'viral'. I think we pay way too much attention to them. I know, strange thing for me to say for I'm dedicating an entire blog post to this topic!

I suppose it is the nature of social media, (which itself is simply a projection of our natural human need to connect with others), that contributed to the preponderance of such viral incidences. Before the advent of such technologies, rumours, scandals, gossips and issues travel by the snail-paced word-of-mouth. It is due to the amplification power of technology that the effect is magnified and making it such an annoyance.

I'm ready to accept this as a side-effect of technology. Most of the time, I ignore viral messages that keeping popping up multiple times in my WhatsApp chatgroups an Facebook timeline. I'm kind of immune to them. But what perturbs me most is when viral events become news themselves, warranting space even in dead-tree newspapers and broadcast TV. Many news programs on TV nowadays even have a dedicated segment on things that have gone viral in social media.

First of all, what even qualifies something as 'viral'? The fact that it happened to make an appearance in the editor's favourite chatgroup? A lot of the so-called viral news reported in the newspapers are not even widely known until the print media declared them as having gone 'viral'. Putting them official in newsprint immediately, without doubt, made them viral with a capital V.

News like this and this are not worth reporting. And the people online who participate in such pointless arguments online are not worth highlighting.

When people go online, they tend to become vile and vicious. Perhaps we reveal our true selves under the cloak of anonymity. Perhaps I'm doing exactly like what they are doing--venting online. so let me end this post before I start hating myself for doing it!

The Audacity of Greed

The definitive book on the 1MDB scandal, Billion Dollar Whale by the two intrepid Wall Street Journal reporters, Tom Wright and Bradley Hope has been selling like hotcakes in Malaysia. It is actually quite difficult to get hold of a copy as the local stores are perpetually out of stock.

I was lucky that I had pre-ordered the book before it went on sale. It arrived by courier rather auspiciously on a Saturday morning, the eve of Malaysia Day, 15th September. Initially, I had no intention of reading it yet, as I was in the middle of another engrossing book but after reading a couple of pages, I couldn't resist continuing. It was such a page-turner that I finished reading this 400-page book in one-and-a-half days.

As a Malaysian, I roughly know about the major facts in the 1MDB scandal from various blogs and news-sites which had bravely publicized it. But this book ties all the facts neatly together in a single very-readable narrative.

The last time there was such excitement over a book in this region was Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography, The Singapore Story. I was living and working in Singapore then, but I couldn't get hold of a single copy there. I finally managed to get my hands on a volume at a bookstore in Jakarta. I also paid a premium for it. I think it was also right after the 1998 riots there. The entire city was quiet but I remember spending happy nights there at the Regent Hotel, enjoying that blockbuster of a read.

I'm not going to review the Billion Dollar Whale here. But what struck me most about the story is the leading character in the 1MDB fiasco, the infamous Mr Jho Low. The sheer audacity of his guy! And what foolhardy brilliance! The result is a riproaring real-life tale so full of fantastic scenes and events that it is an inevitable candidate for a Hollywood movie--and not surprisingly it is already fast on its way.

It makes me reflect on the nature of greed. Greed is such a blackhole that once one is sucked into the field of its gravity, one can never get out. As a society, we tend to put rich people on a pedestal. We gawk at their fancy cars and large mansions; we envy their glittering lifestyle of lavish parties and expensive toys. We take that as emblems of success. But are they?

Perhaps greed, as Gordon Gekko puts it, "has driven the upward surge of mankind". I simply see greed as latent energy, which can be channeled into any cause. There's wise and unwise use of this energy. The Billion Dollar Whale chronicles an unwise application it. Ultimately, Greed is not unlike what they say about fire--a good servant but a bad master.

The Altar of Existence

On an undisturbed day at the office, I usually work non-stop from 10.30am to 6pm, without stopping for lunch or coffee break. Today is one of those days. Despite a long day at the office, I'm still not able to accomplish as much as I wanted to. Everyday is a struggle for greater productivity. But at least today, time was utilized fully. That makes it a satisfying day.

Having had my usual vegetarian Monday dinner, I'm back home relatively early because I decided to blog from home instead of at a cafes. I was actually tempted to postpone today's blogging session because I still plan to put in another session of work tonight. I have quite a backlog of work and I'm eager to clear them all within this week.

But I also want to maintain this habit of blogging weekly. So here I am typing these aimless lines. Blogging can be a relaxing break from work--a bit like letting loose your fingers on the piano keyboard. Blogging like this brings back a lot of pleasant memories from those days when I was doing it on a daily basis in Indonesia.

The news from Indonesia today is however rather grim and sad--more than a thousand people killed when a tsunami hit the town of Palu in Sulawesi. It brought back many sad memories of the one in 2004 which hit Sumatra and Sri Lanka. I consider myself lucky that during my years of travelling and living in Indonesia, I've only experienced some minor tremors in Jakarta. Whenever natural disasters like this happen, some will say it is God's wrath; the more philosophically inclined ones will plunge into a discussion on theodicy: why do bad things happen to good people.

It is an age-old question that yields no satisfactory answer. The universe is the way it is. The human race has no special position in it. There is no guarantee that we as a species will never be wiped out from the face of the earth. We are but one of the myriads of manifestations of intelligence in the universe. We come into existence, like a flower that blooms momentarily in the forest before fading away. While it is in full bloom, let us honour its moment of beauty.

Work to me is like that: it is honouring Life. Work is an offering on the altar of existence. Like this simple blog post, like my next work session which shall begin after I click publish.

Amplifier of the Human Ego

My old friend PC meets up with me every now and then for coffee. Usually we catch up at our favourite cafe in Puchong. PC is an entrepreneur who has built a quite successful company providing IT and automation solutions to enterprises. Even though he is the CEO of the company, he is still very hands-on in dealing with technical issues that crop up on his on-going projects.

He seeks my advice sometimes and I would try to help him in whatever way I could. I admire PC for his energy and drive. Usually people of his age would already be thinking about retirement and enjoying the hard-earned fruits of their labour. Not PC. He has a vision of bringing his company to the next level. And unlike me, who is still happily single, he is equally happy being married with 2 children.

Like me, he does not believe in retirement. While I work as a form of spiritual exercise, he works because he has a vision for his company. He is worldly in the positive sense. But even a worldly person can also be driven by noble goals. He has a vision of transforming the world using technology for the better.

My relative 'other-worldliness' is actually not in-congruent with his temporal quest. I see technological advancement as an inevitability. The human mind is forever innovating and my friend and I are just part of this grand play of cosmic evolutionary forces. Technological advancement is a game that I partake in. The only difference is that I do not have any personal attachment to its consequences.

Some of the consequences of technology will inevitably be bad. Technology is always a double-edged sword. It is an amplifier of the human ego. Take social media for instance. Facebook and Twitter allow us to amplify our thoughts and emotions to a degree that was unimaginable before. Everyone has a global broadcasting station. Inevitably every tiny virtue or vice that lurks within the deep recesses of our minds will be magnified and projected to the world outside.

All medication has its side-effects. The side-effect of technology is cyber-bulling, pollution, spam, scams and alienation from nature. We as a global civilization has never been as connected as we are now, yet the closer we are electronically to each other, the wider the gulf it is between us when it comes to politics and religion.

Like it or not, we'll have to live with technology. Once some innovation is introduced into the world, you cannot put the genie back into the bottle. So let's learn to live with it. One thing that I take comfort in is that, all enduring systems, if not stretched to a breaking point, are self-correcting.

Society will readjust itself, put in place the necessary checks and balances and forge an optimum path forward. That, I would take, perhaps for the sake of sanity, as an article of faith, in this world where technology is as ubiquitous, and at times, equally as noxious as the air we breath in.

The Key to Quality

I love these hurried posts, squeezed between my busy daily routines. I was supposed to have blogged on Monday, but it was a public holiday and that disrupted my routine. Yesterday I had a dinner appointment and I had to rush through some work at night. But I'm back and blogging from the Vivo cafe at the Empire Shopping Mall.

Last week, I managed to catch a local movie, One, Two Jaga produced by Bront Palarae and directed by Namron. It was a most engrossing film--something which I can rarely say for local productions. A movie about corrupt cops and foreign workers played delightfully by a cast of experienced actors. Zahiril Adzim and Rosdeen Suboh paired the new-paired cops--the former young, single and idealistic, the latter a seasoned cop who has to "go with the flow", taking petty bribes in order to provide a better life for his family.

Indonesian star, Ario Bayu plays an Indonesian construction worker, Sugiman. He is legally employed but gets himself into some difficult situations when he tries to protect his sister, Sumiyati (Asmara Abigail) who ran away after being ill-treated by her employer.

There's another sub-plot involving Filipino worker, Rico (played by Timothy Castillo) who has to resort to some desperate measures to solve his money problems. This second plotline unfortunately suffers from a lack of development due to the greater focus given on the main protagonist, Sugiman.

I particularly liked Rosdeen Suboh's performance as Hassan, a corrupt cop who does what he does because he sees the futility of playing things by the book. He is simply being realistic in order to survive, having a young family to provide for. However his partner, Hussein (Zahiril Adzim) sees thing differently. In the end it is his uncompromising ways that drove everything to its violent conclusion.

The movie started and developed well, keeping the audience very interested in the fate of all the characters. My only gripe is the ending, which I felt was a bit too abrupt and didn't give enough space for denouement. The many bleeped out conversations also diminished the gritty feel of the movie, leaving me wanting for more. I wish they'll come up with a director's cut, which should restore the original vision and intent of the producer and director, without the constraints of censorship.

Despite these flaws, it was a movie I enjoyed. One Two Jaga is what every local movie should aspire to, at the very least. When it comes to quality, our local film-makers should be like the idealistic and stubborn cop Hussein--always uncompromising. That is the most important key to quality.

One True Sentence

I almost forgot that today is my blogging day as it is a public holiday. I spent the day at home, mostly doing some work while listening to some of my favourite podcasts. Work these days usually mean writing code.

I don't consider myself a very good programmer but I still seem to write better code than many of the people I hire. Which is why I end up doing most of the tough work myself.

Coding helps one to discipline the mind--it is an exercise of breaking down a large problem into smaller chunks. Each chunk is then constructed using building blocks available from the programming language. A good programmer ensures that these chunks are themselves building blocks, which can be reused to tackle future problems.

Re-usability, maintainability and simplicity are my goals whenever I code. They are not always achievable but I try my best. I consider programming a workout for the mind, very much like running on the treadmill. I am grateful that I have a job that allows me to keep myself mentally fit.

Coding is an easier job compared to writing. There are an infinite number of ways to express a thought using words and sentences. One could stare at a blank page for hours without any results. Coding on the other hand is logical--there's always a way forward. The programmer's challenge is to go about tackling it in the most efficient way.

Despite coding being an 'easier' task compared to writing, sometimes the task could be rather daunting. Especially so when the piece of software you are developing has many interdependent parts, and you are building onto something that's already running live. The migration of new code into production can be a nail-biting affair. Any carelessness will break a live-running service. This is one unique challenge that a prose writer will never have to face.

But whether I'm writing code or prose, I always remember Hemingway's advice in A Moveable Feast:

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.’ So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

This was exactly what I did when I started this post: one sentence at a time. There's always only one task to do: One sentence. A single line of code. Continue doing that, and you'll reach the finishing line.

The Art of Forgetting

I've often been told that I possess a good memory. I would recall anecdotes about friends and events which everyone else has forgotten about, sometimes to the embarrassment of the people involved.

Strangely, what I remember well are rather unimportant things--trivialities and small observations about events and conversations, which others would not bother to notice, let alone remember. But ask me how much I paid for my current laptop, I would never be able to recall with sufficient precision.

I seem to remember only 'interesting' things. Prices, phone numbers and dates--these are dull facts to me, which do not possess colour or emotion and hence do not lodge in my mind. What makes something interesting is its ability to invoke other memories or to stir one's thoughts.

Stopping to rest at an outdoor restaurant on way back from Bandung 15 years ago, I caught the smell of something familiar, something that reminded me of Silicon Valley. It was then that I realized that the pleasant and all-pervasive aroma of eucalyptus, which pervades the Bay Area in California. It brought back happy memories.

What gets buried in the recesses of our memories are impressions--sights, sounds and smells, which resurfaces when the right trigger is present. For memories do not exist in isolation, every new impression is linked into an ever-growing nexus, lashed tightly by the emotions associated with them.

While having a good memory has its advantages, what must not be overlooked is the ability to forget. I've learned how to forget too--it is a very useful skill. How so?

For example, we wouldn't want to carry grudges and hurt feelings all our lives, would we? It is indeed very difficult to forget something that has caused you a lot of pain and anger. This is where that art of forgiving comes in handy. For forgetting and forgiving go hand-in-hand.

Forgiveness means acknowledging the pain that you are feeling and allowing it to work out its natural energy, after which, it will inevitably subside. We feel perpetual pain when we relieve anger or hurt again and again, never allowing the energy of the event to discharge itself.

When you let go of things, its valuable essence will seep into your psyche. After which, you will never relive it with a similar intensity again. You will find that you would have forgotten many of it details and ultimately, you will find peace.

Forgive but don't forget, some would say. Yes, but just focus on the forgiving part. Through forgiveness, one learns that forgetting is never an issue, for the lessons of the experience have already been assimilated into our soul.

Like how we never forget how to ride a bicycle: The pain and bruises of every fall have been well-forgotten, and it is through them, that we are the better rider we are today.

Crazy Ripe Bananas

It's that golden hour again on Monday for me to blog. And as always on the first working day of the week, it is my vegetarian day. I'm having some simple pasta at this quiet cafe here at the Empire Shopping Centre, Subang Jaya as I type these lines.

Now, what shall be the topic today? Guess what, I'm going to write about a movie I happened to watch last Saturday--the one that's getting all the press worldwide lately - Crazy Rich Asians.

The movie is getting all the limelight and rightly so because it is the first rom com with an all-Asian cast from Hollywood, not to mention being the first all-Asian major studio production since the famous Joy Luck Club 2 decades ago.

I had enjoyed the Joy Luck Club, based on Amy Tan's best-selling novel when it first came out. Crazy Rich Asians is also based on a best-selling novel by a Singaporean American, Kevin Kwan. I had ignored the novel, when it first hit the stores because I thought it was a story about the nouveau riche of mainland Chinese. In any case, I don't read popular bestsellers by new writers very much, as my reading list is already filled with must-read books by established (usually dead) authors.

By chance, through casual reading of some interviews with the cast of CRA that I recently found out that the novel can't be simply be dismissed as another pop trash. It is actually a satire focusing on the lifestyle and intrigues of a rich Peranakan Chinese clan in Singapore. They are not only old money rich, they are crazy rich.

That kind of stirred my interest--I can actually learn something from this. Even though it is fiction, the book is based on Kevin Kwan's childhood experience growing up in a similarly rich family in Singapore. I think he introduced something unique to the Western reading public--a glimpse into the world of the Anglicized Chinese in South East Asia.

The interesting thing about these families is that, though they are educated in the best boarding schools and universities in West, they are subconsciously ruled by the values and traditions of their Chinese heritage. They are at once, the outcasts and the outstanding members of the community. Looked down by some as bananas ("yellow on the outside, white on the inside"), envied by others as cosmopolitan Asians, at ease with the West.

The movie is actually an uproariously funny romp of romantic comedy. I enjoyed it thoroughly. More so because it was partly shot in Malaysia, with our very own Michelle Yeoh playing the pivotal role of the tiger mum of this clan and the dashing half-Iban Henry Golding as her son who is bringing his ABC girlfriend, Rachel (played by Constance Wu) on a trip back to Asia to meet his family. The plot, like all movies of this genre, is full of cliches but is thoroughly redeemed by its clever use of them.

One can see why this movie means so much to the Asians in America. The immigrant Chinese community in the West have always struggled with their identity. Stereotyped and often having to live with the token representation of the Chinese/Japanese/Korean member of a movie cast, they are finally represented as they truly are--smart, confident, with a life and identity of their own.

The movie, as expected has stirred debates among Asians as to whether it is a true representation of their community or is simply pandering to Hollywood ideals of glamour and success. One can see from the sheer emotional connection that many of them feel with the movie that it says something that has never been said before, about a community that has a rightful place in the world.

Some Asians in Asia will find all the fuss about this movie rather perplexing, especially those who have been educated and brought up in their native languages (What identity crisis?). There have been equally big movies with even bigger stars playing to less niche markets in the East.

That is true, but this is Hollywood: the time is finally ripe for bananas to have their day in the sun, and deservedly so. I think Kevin Kwan's trilogy too has earned a place in my already packed reading list.

Rengineering One's Life

The act of blogging has to come easily--almost like firing off a casual email to a friend--for one to blog consistently. It shouldn't be a chore, at least for blogs such as mine which are simply personal musings and harbours no further aspirations beyond that.

When I was working in Indonesia, I blogged daily because I had a fairly regimented routine. I would leave work to take a taxi down Sudirman and Thamrin, alighting near the Hard Rock Cafe before dropping by at my favourite cybercafe. Internet connection, let alone broadband was not so easy to find then. It was there at the cybercafe (5000 rupiah for an hour of access), that I made wrote most of my blog entries. It was a beautiful period in my life.

Blogging has not been a routine of mine since I came back to KL, more than a decade ago. I did blog but mostly on special occasions. The greatest obstacle to me blogging here, back in my homeland is the absence of a simple, solitary lifestyle, which I had enjoyed in Jakarta, one which permitted the Muse to work its magic on me.

There's less time to reflect here in this hectic city of KL. Always, there are chores and responsibilities that occupy my after-work hours. And work itself for the past decade has an intense and exhilarating struggle of self-imposed challenge. That period of titanic struggle, I'm happy to say, has eased a little, but still my regular work occupies a greater part of my waking hours.

How did I find the time blog today? Ah, this is actually a small experiment I'm trying to conduct on myself. You see, I am always trying re-engineer my life for greater productivity and effectiveness. For an activity to become part of one's routine, it has to be almost an unconscious habit. I want to find those bits and pieces of time that get lost in between the large chunks of activities that occupy one's waking hours. Most of us are short of time, but at the same time we also waste a lot of it by not planning our daily routine well.

For example, being stuck in traffic is one of the biggest time wasters here in KL. But I've turned it into one of my most productive periods by listening to audiobooks.(I've written a couple of blog posts on this). The other thing I notice nowadays is that we waste too much of our time surfing the Net or texting on our smartphones. These activities are like time vacuum-cleaners--they will just suck up all bits and pieces of time. Why not spend less time on that and read a book or blog instead?

Reading is something that I still do very regularly. It is a habit that has never left me every since I was a child. Without reading, I suppose I would not consider myself to be living. Books are the intellectual fuel of my life. Reading anchors my day--first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And every other bits and pieces of time I can sneak in a book during the day is a welcome bonus.

I've also found a slot for exercise--jogging--in my busy schedule. I run at a nearby park on weekends. This activity has been successfully integrated into my life. The key to integration is simplicity. There should not be too many obstacles for one to perform the activity. Running is an easy form of exercise because you do not need a membership to a gym or fancy equipment to perform it. Wear your running shoes and off you go. Once or twice a week is good enough.

Vegetarian Mondays is another activity that I've successfully integrated into my life. I go meatless at least one day a week--if for some reason it is not convenient on Monday, I'll try to meet my quota on the following day. I do not need to be over-ambitious. Just being a vegetarian a day a week is good enough, for now. I've been practicing this successfully for probably 8 years now.

Meditation is another activity that I've successfully incorporated into my daily routine. This is an interesting topic, worthy of an article of itself.

And how do I propose to do that for blogging? Once a week is good enough for now. I won't be too ambitious. No lofty topics--just simple musings like this post. You need to find that golden hour somewhere within a particular day in a week. Today is the day. Now is the hour!

So I've successfully done it at least for this week. Let's see if this is sustainable. I'm an engineer. To consciously engineer one's own life is the greatest challenge one can embark upon for it potentially can also yield the greatest reward.

System Administrator of the Mind

When the city is emptied of people, the mind is freer to reflect, as it happens every year during major festive holidays. It is Chinese New Year again and it is one of the best times of the year to remain in the city. There's a certain nostalgic languor in its sunlit, car-free streets, redolent of quieter and simpler times.

I've made many reflections during Chinese New Year celebrations in the past about the nature of Chinese people and their culture. It is an admirable culture that is resolutely forward-looking, progressive and materially expansive. I am Chinese, and to some degree I am either genetically or culturally-driven by its social values and ethos. However I see these Chinese impulses in me as another "module" in my mind, in line with modern neuro-psychological models of the mind. At times, this Chinese mental module occupies a dominant position, and on other occasions, depending on the task at hand, its influence gets diminished by other equally strong modular traits which rule my brain in a kind of "separation of powers" governance model.

We experience and interact with the world with our minds. The mind is all we've got. The mind is our window to the world and this window is far from transparent--it shades and colours our perception of reality. Our genetic and cultural programming always influence how we view the world. It is therefore important for us to be aware of the intermediary filters that preprocess the flow of information between us and the world.

We must be cognizant of the fact that all human views have biases, because of our built-in cultural lenses. That by itself is not a sin, but to be completely ignorant of it, is. If we are all prisoners of our cultural biases, how then do we factor them out in our daily interactions with the world?

It is easy for us to point out the mistakes of others but when it comes to examining our own faults and biases, we hit a conundrum: it is like trying to see the spots and blemishes on our spectacles while we are wearing it. And this is where the practice of meditation comes in.

Meditation is that specific training devised for us to train our minds to see its own contents and processes more clearly. The way I explain it to my IT-literate friends is that meditation is like typing the command "ps -ef" on a Unix operating system. It will list down all the processes that are currently running on the time-shared multitasking system. The interesting thing is that, the "ps -ef" command itself, will also show up as another process that is running in the system.

All system administrators are also skilled with using the "kill" command to terminate any processes that are no longer serving any purpose and could be hogging system resources. "Kill" is another process. It takes another process to kill other processes. All processes have their own specific powers.

In meditation, we introduce a process (a thought): observe the breath and try to kill other processes that try to compete with it for system resources. ideally, there should be one process running, but the mind being what it is will continually trigger new processes into the system. You as the meditator, just have to kill them as the arises and allow only that single process which you intended to run. That's all there is to meditation. It takes skill and practice to be a good system administrator of our own minds.

When we have gained a certain amount of "mindfulness" as meditators like to call it, we are better at knowing what are the processes that are currently occupying our minds and decide whether they are appropriate for the moment. This skill alone makes us better and happier people because we are no longer slaves to our thoughts, but instead masters--or in Unix parlance, the "root user".

All biases, prejudices and impulses are mental processes introduced by the many modules in our mind. Sometimes they are useful, sometimes they are detrimental to our personality and mental health. Allowing them to hog system resources can result in bigotry, selfishness and other ugly personality traits. Processes are just tools. Use the right too for the right occasion and use housekeeping tools like 'ps -ef' and 'kill' to keep things in check.

Now you see how the mind works? I started with a reflection on Chinese New Year and the characteristic of Chinese culture and I ended up talking about the 'kill' command on the Unix operating system! Unix is a great operating system, or which its core--the kernel--is simple and robust. It's richness comes from its huge repertoire of commands, which are simple application utilities, written by different people and bundled together in its various distributions over the years. One of the many commands is "wall" - (abbreviation of 'write-all') which can be used by the system administrator to send a broadcast message to all users in the system. Example:

$ wall 'Gong Xi Fa Cai!'

Broadcast message from kenny@Tangerine (pts/0) (Fri Feb 16 12:50:39 2018):

Gong Xi Fa Cai!