Intelligence and Intuition

Intelligence and Intuition

All of us take pride in being intelligent. We see it as a big insult if anyone calls us stupid. But at the same time, we do not hesitate to label people whom we don't like, "stupid".

But why the big fuss about intelligence? It is but only one aspect of the mind. People who take too much pride in their intelligence often develops an inflated ego. They look down on people who worship idols or other forms of personal gods; they latch on to certain pseudo-philosophical theories about spirituality and religion and then refuse to investigate further. That is the greatest pitfall to spiritual progress for "smart" people like this. They trust their logical brains so much that they have forgotten how to use the intuitive aspect of their minds.

A person with a keen intelligence, if he knows how to harness this talent correctly, possess a great tool towards developing spiritual wisdom. Intelligence alone however is not enough to give a person insight into the greatest mysteries of life. To penetrate the ultimate secrets of the universe requires a mind that fuses instinct, intelligence and intuition.

The mind is vast, like the ocean. A lifetime is not sufficient for us to master this powerful instrument. The more we sit down quietly and observe our thoughts, the more we realize how little our everyday intelligence amounts to. It is superficial and trivial. And yet, we take so much pride in it; we allow it to reign supreme, filling our minds with ego-driven opinions and assumptions--as illustrated so well by the Zen parable of the overflowing cup.

Intelligence is but a tool and no doubt a necessary one. It dispels darkness, cuts through muddle and helps one to forge a logical path forward. At some point, intuition has to be awaken for one to move on to the next level of spiritual development. Initially intuition is unreliable, and often contaminated by emotional influences. But once one has mastered the clarity of mind needed for intuition to surface, we begin to feel its power.

Although the power of insight comes in momentary bursts, it is these flashes of intuition that elevate us to the next level of spiritual evolution. Intelligence brings us to the launching pad. But it is intuition that ultimately propels us into wondrous new realms which we did not even know existed.

A Jakarta Break

A Jakarta Break

I've been very slack in carrying out my blogging duties lately. The usual excuses: work, travel and errands. But it's good to be able to finally squeeze some time between my social and work commitments to type in these few lines from my favourite Internet cafe in Jakarta.

Yes, I've been here in Jakarta since Wednesday with two other Malaysian friends of mine. As usual whenever friends are around, the routine will consist of the mandatory visits our favourite eating places and nightspots. I also had to sacrifice my usual routine of catching up with my Indonesian friends here. But it's okay, I'll have all the time in the world to do so when I come back alone here, hopefully in the not too distant future.

Being out of touch with Indonesia for the last couple of months, I didn't realize that Dewa has already released their new album--Laskar Cinta. I happily picked up a copy at Sarinah yesterday. I'm also planning a visit to the QBWorld bookstore after this to check out the latest Indonesian publications.

After my tiring project in Sri Lanka, this semi-business trip to Jakarta is indeed a welcome break. Things seem to be bustling again here: Starbucks are sprouting up everywhere--a new one just opened at Wisma Metropolitan 1, where my former office is located. I can imagine June, Eric and Edwin smoking happily here everyday, sipping their steaming cups of latte. How I wish I'm still working here!

There's sad news too: my favourite Indomie place is closed. I later found out from June that the owner Watie passed away recently. I was shocked and devasted. We are going to miss her Indomie tremendously because she knew how to make it precisely to our specifications--not overcooked and garnished with liberal slices of raw cabe (chilli).

I'm flying back to KL this evening. I'm glad to have made this trip, even though it is a brief one. I managed to do some necessary banking that I've been putting off for quite a while. Don't know why, I feel a bit reluctant to transfer the bulk of my savings here back to Malaysia; it makes me feel like I'm slowly relinquishing my beloved Indonesian life. It's like breaking up with a lover, but I guess one has to move on. There's much to do back home...

The Energy of Life

The Energy of Life

It's difficult to blog when you are physically and mentally exhausted after a whole day out there in the city meeting up with people and running tedious errands. But then again I don't see blogging as an obbligation; it's more of a therapy--an opportunity to relax, observe my thoughts and watch them slowly subside into the subconscious.

By writing down thoughts, they reveal themselves in greater clarity, allowing me to make better decisions in life. I've learnt never to rush myself into making decisions. Nature has an organizing principle and it is good to allow thoughts time to "sink in", and to let things find its own level. A state of mental clarity is reached when we know how to let thoughts live out their lives in our heads. Every thought has a lifecycle and its effects; observe it and be cognizant of its effects. Only then does one know how to deal with its consequences wisely.

Right now my head is swimming with thoughts and ideas. But after typing a paragraph of two, my mind will be exhausted and a lot of the thoughts would have subsided because they have consumed their share of energy.

Where did the energy go? They have manifested themselves into words, which are disseminated like seeds throughout cyberspace. And now these seeds are sprouting in your mind as you read this. Sometimes they will not find a single fertile soil to flourish on but sometimes they trigger a frantic burst of life.

When you have gained a better understanding of the spiritual aspects of life, you will see everything in terms of energy. There's nothing in this universe but energy; and energy finds manifestation in a myriad of fascinating forms. We are all born with our personal store of energy. When the energy is in motion, it is manifested as thought and action.

To live is to utilize this energy in the most efficient manner, This energy can be be easily lost as random thoughts and unproductive action. Every minute, every second, this energy is dissipating away, like heat. If we do not harness it to create more possibilities (more seeds), then we are not living life to the fullest.

To master this energy is to master life, and the universe.

Killing Someone You Love

Killing Someone You Love

Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a chain-smoker in his youth, often finishing four packs a day. He started smoking young, when he was still a teenager and the habit intensified during his years as a struggling writer.

After he was married and had children, he was still smoking heavily. One day, a doctor examined his lungs and told him that at the rate that he was smoking, in two or three years time, he would not be able to breathe anymore. But still he found kicking the habit of smoking the toughest thing he could ever do. He simply couldn't work, read, eat or sleep without a puff.

Then one day he happened to ask a psychiatrist friend to explain why the addiction to tobacco was so difficult to break. The psychiatrist gave him a simple answer:

"Because for you, quitting smoking would be like killing someone you love"

The answer triggered a flash of insight in Marquez. In his own words:

It was a sudden burst of clairvoyance. I never knew why and did not want to know, but I put out the cigarette I had just lit in the ashtray, and with no anxiety or regret I never smoked another one again in my life.

It is interesting how we are only able to grasp an idea or concept only when it is framed in a paradigm that we can identify with. No one writes better about the pain of love than Marquez (read Love in the Time of Cholera). When his psychiatrist friend likened quitting smoking to the pain of giving up the person one loves, only then did he found the strength to completely walk away from his old habit.

If you have someone you love but he or she keeps on hurting you and is not deserving of your love, you have to have the courage to walk away from the relationship. And when you do, you don't turn back because the strength to do so might not come to you again.

We all have loves that we ought to kill. When the opportunity arrives, take it. Only then can one live life afresh.

Bedazzled Boy

Bedazzled Boy

I'm glad to have a short break before my next project commences. It is a good time to sharpen the saw so that I continue maintaining a healthy freshness towards my work. There are challenges too, even in these easy-going periods between projects for I can easily get sidetracked by the many trivialities of everyday life.

Today I dug up and dusted my old collection of The Great Artists--a weekly publication by Marshall Cavendish, which I had dilligently collected during my university days. Each issue featured one great master, with colourful reproductions of his works together biography, commentaries and historical context. I owe it to this 96 issue collection for my knowledge of the different schools of art from Baroque to Rocco, from Impressionism to Expressionism.

At 4.50 ringgit an issue, it was beyond the means of a student (for my daily budget then for meals and transport, was only 5.00 ringgit), but I persevered for almost 2 years, waiting eagerly for each week's new release. That was twenty years ago; today, you can get the entire content in one interactive CD.

Flipping through this collection of mine reminds me of those heady student days of mine, when the hunger of the mind far exceeded that of the flesh. Even now when I'm mired in the worldly cares of adulthood, I try to remind myself ocassionally of the many diverse interests I had when I as a student, simply to keep my youthful enthusiasm for knowledge alive.

I think it is this enthuasism and spirit which drives me on especially in my line of work when staleness and fatigue can creep in so easily. I am happy that my curiosity for knowledge has not waned after all these years and I know deep down inside, I'm still a boy, in awe with the wondrous beauty of the world around me--a boy who "wandered lonely as a cloud", bedazzled by the occasional burst of daffodils lying on his path.

A Place to Call Home

A Place to Call Home

On Wednesday evening, after I'd completed my presentation to the client, I decided to relax a bit at the Checkerboard of Galle Face Hotel, watching the sunset. With a good book for company and a bottle of cool Lion beer in my hand, it was a moment of sheer bliss. I didn't do much reading though because the light was fading and the mesmerising sight of the crimson sun slowly dipping into the horizon over the Indian ocean engrossed me completely.

I am happy to have pulled through a very difficult project with reasonably good results. Before the next one starts, I'd want to get a couple of things out of the way first. Now that I'm back in KL, I need to get the renovations on my "new" apartment done so that I can shift some of my stuff over there immediately. I am sorely in need of space. I said "new" because the place was actually ready for occupation over a year ago but somehow I've not been able to find the time to put in the basic infrastructure.

So many real estate agents have called me to enquire about the place but I've rejected all offers to have it rented out. I'm not planning to shift over to this place for the foreseable future either. All I want is a permanent home for all the junk that I've collected over my years of travel. I may not need a permanent home myself but they do.

I have also planned another trip to my second home--this time it is only partially for business. Well, I deserve a small break after all the hard work I've put in over the months. I am hopping that my upcoming projects will be in Indonesia but it looks like I'll have to be spend quite a bit of time in Colombo. At least the beach and the sunset there is something that I can look forward to. Perhaps like Sir Arthur C. Clarke, someday I will like the place enough to call it home too.

At the Galle Face

At the Galle Face

For my stay in Colombo this week, I decided to check into the oldest hotels here, the Galle Face Hotel. Colonial-era hotels have always held a fascination for me and the Galle Face, in terms of history certainly ranks up there with the other grand dames of Asia like the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, Strand in Yangon, E&O, Penang and the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok.

There are people who advised me against staying here because according to them, the rooms are old and in a state of disrepair. And with the hotel's attention currently focussed on the construction of a new luxurious wing, there's also fear that the older part of the hotel will fall into a greater state of neglect. But they forgot that I'm not the typically travelling businessman looking for the sterile comforts of a five-star hotel. As always, I'm intrigued by places with a lot of history and is game to try quirky places with lots of old world charm. The Galle Face hotel, with 141 years of history, certainly fits the bill.

Like many other old hotel, the Galle Face has played host before to a whole list of illustrious celebrities before and certainly has its rumoured share of ghostly inhabitants. My room is hollow, echoey and spacious, facing the Galle Face Green right in front of the hotel, with a beautiful side view of the Indian Ocean.

The floor of the hotel, which is entirely wood, transmits the sound of footsteps clearly; one can hear people approaching along the corridor outside one's door all night. The corridors are gloomy, the scant incandescent lights make the place feel as if it is still being illuminated by candlelight. But that somehow adds to the spooky charm of the place.

The sea-facing restaurant here--the Seaspray and the Verandah--are the jewels of the hotel. They are popular gathering places for the locals in the afternoons and evenings. The view from here is spectacular in the evening; one can sit at one of the outdoor tables, sip a cool drink and watch the sun set over the Indian ocean while being lulled by the sound of waves breaking restlessly on the beach.

I certainly look forward to spending the next few evenings relaxing here with a good book. There's a lot of work ahead for me here but I'm sure glad to disappear from KL for a while. It feels good to be able to live the life of a ghost sometimes.

Sleep Less in KL

Sleep Less in KL

I'm trying to blog while waiting for my dinner appointment here at KLCC. Feeling a bit tired today because I've been sleeping late every night. Last night, I wanted to do some reading before going to bed but fell asleep with the lights on.

I've blogged about sleep a couple of times before. One of my favourite advice for people who have difficulty sleeping is not to try too hard. Don't bother changing into your pyjamas or switching off the lights. Go to bed instead with the lights on and tell yourself that you are just lying down for a short while before resuming work. A bit of reverse psychology works sometimes because we tend to fall asleep when we are not supposed to do so.

I rarely have problems sleeping because I'm usually dead tired every night. I only encounter difficulties two or three nights every year and that's usually because I had "accidentally" caught a nap earlier in the evening due to fatigue and end up being wide awake all night.

I've been trying for many years to rise and go to bed earlier because I think it is healthier that way. But somehow my body has it's own set of ideas. (Or is it my mind?) For some reason, have this built-in desire to sleep less.

You see, I am often "reluctant" to go to bed early. When my body tells me it's time to go to sleep, my mind will plead: "Another half-an-hour of reading or surfing please?". Half an hour usually becomes two hours and I'll end up sleeping at three in the morning.

Maybe tonight is a good time to hit the sack early. Hopefully my dinner with friends doesn't adjourn into a drinking session. If that happens, I'll find an excuse to leave early--I certainly don't want to fall asleep on the wheel while driving home. Happened to me way too many times in the past. Can be a very dangerous thing--I might end up sleeping forever!

The Only Skill I Possess

The Only Skill I Possess

For obvious reasons, today is such a wonderful day for me. But I must not be too distracted from my work as I have an important week coming up. Time for me to get back to "match fitness".

When I was a student, I always prepared for exams as if I was a sportsman following a strict training program that would allow me to peak at the right time. In the university, I wasn't the type who paid attention in class. I found lectures extremely boring and wasn't very good at taking notes.

There were also too many other intellectual distractions for me: even though I was an engineering student, I was equally interested in the humanities. I spent most of my time in the library reading poetry and history, because I felt the subconscious need to balance the "overdose" of technical subjects in my course. They only problem was when it came to exam time, I had to struggle desperately to catch on my coursework.

Usually one month before the final exams, I would chart out a "training program" that would allow me to digest the entire year's engineering course within a couple of weeks. But first, I had to make sure that I had a complete set of lecture notes for all the subjects. The few girl students (there were not many in our engineering class) who sit at the front rows usually had the neatest and most detailed notes. During exam season, photocopies of their notes were in great demand.

But lecture notes alone were not sufficient. They were just good indicators of what the lecturers emphasized in their courses. To thoroughly grasp all the subjects, I had to immerse myself completely in them. And that meant camping for the entire month in the library.

I found that the best way to study was to make my own notes. It was a very laborious process that required a lot of cross-referencing. But you gain two important things out of this exercise: One, the process of making notes help you to remember and puts your mind in a "seek mode". In this mode, the mind is constantly probing, questioning and comparing. That is the key to understanding any subject.

A subject that initially appeared like a daunting wasteland of incomprehensible facts suddenly transformed itself into a landscape with distinctive characteristics. Slowly but surely the terrain is absorbed into both your conscious and subconscious mind. Once you know the "landscape" of the subject, remembering becomes relatively easy.

Secondly, the notes you make serve as good memory joggers or checklists which you can quickly scan through the night before the exam. Hence such notes should not be too detailed or lengthy. Details should have been digested already in the one month run-up to the exam. The eve of the important day itself is for one to go through the entire checklist and "cache" all the important facts in one's short-term memory.

Using this technique, I successfully navigated through my four years in college. So even now, whenever I'm preparing for important technical presentations, I still use the same technique. And because I cover many diverse fields in my line of work, I normally have to make sure that a couple of days before the presentation, I immerse myself completely in the nuances of the subject matter at hand. I stop reading any extraneous things and stick to a mono-subject diet.

Sometimes you don't have the luxury of "a couple of days" to prepare. But luckily my years of self-training have taught me how to instinctively grasp the overall idea and concept of any subject very quickly. It's like setting up a Christmas tree: the important thing is to get the tree (concepts) properly and firmly placed first. And then the decorating ornaments (details) can come in later.

Again and again, I realized that the most important skill I learnt from my student days is the ability to pick up a subject very quickly. Sometimes I feel, that is the only skill I have. And that skill alone has saved me on countless occassions throughout my working life.

Travel Arrangements

Travel Arrangements

It's difficult for me to make travel arrangements when my client can never give me a definite confirmation for the date of our meeting. It's alright if I'm travelling to Indonesia or Thailand as there are many daily flights available to those countries, not to mention a choice of budget airlines too. But tickets to less popular business destinations such as Sri Lanka can be quite difficult to get if you do not book early. Hotel choices are also very limited and expensive. Travel agents also make life difficult for you by insisting on early confirmation for hotel bookings with full prepayment for the entire stay.

I make a lot of my travel arrangements online. I wish there are more hotels like the Millennium Sirih Hotel in Tanah Abang, Jakarta--I can always get a room there through the Internet, even at the very last minute. Their rates are also quite reasonable--I especially like the "no breakfast" option, as I usually don't take any and don't like it bundled into the room price. More importantly, I don't have to prepay for an x number of nights. You see, when you go on business trips, you are never quite sure how many nights you are going to stay. So if you are to cut short your trip due to whatever reason, you lose out because you have already paid the full amount to the travel agent.

The good thing however about some prepaid packages is that they can be very good deals. The rate that you get if you book directly with the hotel are undiscounted list prices. Travel agents--both online and brick-and-mortar ones--usually give you a better deal but you have to commit yourself to the package and the inflexibility that comes with it. The general rule is that, if you choose to book last minute and still want complete flexibility, then be ready to pay premium price for it.

I'm glad that the world is going back to work tomorrow. All these public holidays are no good for me as I cannot get things done. I've been sitting in KL for far too long already and I'm getting stale, lazy and restless. I need to start travelling again. I've already got my flight tickets, now I need to decide on the hotel...

Compass of the Heart

Compass of the Heart

Whenever I think back of my childhood, I feel lucky that I grew up in a small town. Childhood is so important because so much of one's character is built during that period. When we become adults, somehow we all end up living in big sterile cities devoid of the simple pleasures that some of us as children were fortunate enough to have experienced.

But every generation laments an era that is no more; and what's gone always seem better in retrospect. I try not to indulge too much in nostalgia because it can easily become a form of escapism. But I recognize that the past contains such a wealth of memories which I can tap for inspiration to face the future. A few lines from William Wordsworth comes to mind:

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;

What gives me the enthusiasm to continue gaining new experiences in life is the thought that everything I do now will become a source of further strength for me in the future. The storehouse of beautiful memories can only increase with compounding interests.

What I choose to pursue must also reflect what I am genuinely interested in and not something that I do to keep up with the Joneses or what others think should be the way to live life. That way my life is a unique expression of what I am. To be able to do that is to live life authentically because we owe it to ourselves to pursue what we truly believe in, deep down in our hearts.

Everyone of us leads a unique life. We are all fellow travellers whose paths have come to cross momentarily, here on this blog, on this page, on this very sentence. But we will all continue forward, along our individual paths, ever-faithful to the compass of our hearts.

Philosophizing about Shopping

Philosophizing about Shopping

With the coming Monday being a public holiday, there's a long weekend ahead. I'll need to plan it carefully so that it is not wasted. I've already crossed off a lot items on my long list of errands but it is a list that continues to grow all the time. It's also the end of the month again. Time to start paying those dreaded bills...

I'll probably fork out some time to do some much needed spring cleaning too. I've already taken care of all my old books and papers; now I have to start tackling my old clothes. At least 50% of my wardrobe needs to be discarded. Which also reminds me that I have to spend some time shopping for some new office clothes. I've been working from home for more than a year now, so understandably, this part of my wardrobe needs some serious replenishing.

To me, shopping for clothes is one the dullest activities in the world. (Could be because I have very dull tastes when it comes to fashion). But I am often amazed at the kind of patience that women possess when it comes to this particular "chore". They could spend hours browsing and queueing up outside the fitting room to try out various different pieces, but end up buying nothing.

I'm not sure about other men, I try to be quick when it comes to deciding what to buy. Browse, choose and pay. Of course, that doesn't mean that one doesn't choose wisely. I simply put on my consultant thinking cap whenever I shop: Assess, Analyze and Execute. You deal with one phase completely within the given time-frame and move on to the next one. Don't dilly-dally.

To find the best bargain in town, one often has to spend a lot of time browsing and comparing prices from many different shops. I do that too sometimes but I try to "timebox" the process because after a certain point, the time and energy you have to spend hunting for the best bargain does not justify the savings anymore. These intangible costs need to be quantified and taken into consideration too. I consider time a very expensive commodity simply because it is not a replenishable resource. Money-- at least I'd like to believe--can be potentially infinite.

Shopping can be a very time-consuming affair. Even if you have all the money to buy all the shoes that you desire in the world, you won't have time to wear them all. I used to buy a lot of electronic gadgets--PDAs, computer accessories, cameras etc--when I was in Singapore. Then I realized how tedious it was having to go through the same ridiculous cycle over and over again: figuring out how to use them, fiddling with their parts and accessories, not to mention having to find space to store and manage all the messy pieces of cables and chargers. I'm through with buying gadgets now.

I'm sure many of us will take the opportunity to do some window-shopping over the weekend. Inevitably you'll end up buying something, and most likely it's going to be something that you don't really need. There's nothing wrong with that. If the experience of shopping itself gives you pleasure, then by all means. Like what gamblers like to say, you are just paying for the pleasure of the experience itself--no different from paying to enjoy a good meal or to watch a movie.

So let's not waste time philosophizing about things too much. Just relax and indulge in whatever activity that brings you "pleasure" over the weekend. Happy shopping!

Mental Energy

Mental Energy

The mind and the body need to work in tandem for maximum performance. By watching our diet, having enough rest and exercise, we can keep the body fit and energetic. Healthy people are always full of energy. A heatlhy body helps to bring about a healthy mind. But there are also other factors that affect our mental energy, which we do not often realize.

Why do we lose interest in our job or lack the motivation to carry on sometimes? An energetic mind is characterized by alertness, creativity and enthusiasm. How do we ensure that we maintain that kind of mental state consistently? Why does the thought of work immediately make some of us feel tired?

I believe we can achieve an energetic state of mind by managing two things well:

1. Goals
2. Resistances

The mind tires easily when it lacks direction--there are no goals for it to go after. So our thoughts meander around aimlessly. There is no focus when it comes to channelling one's mental energy, so it gets dissipated in many aimless activities that bring no cumulative result. The outcome is frustration, boredom and lethargy.

We need to have a focal point for energy to be accumulated, streamlined and applied efficiently. We can be very busy everyday in the office--answering phonecalls, talking to colleagues and attending meetings--but we could still end the day without accomplishing anything tangible. We must always start the day with a few specific goals in mind. What do I need to get done today? Then we go after them.

These goals or targets need not be big. It could be simple things: a report to be completed, an important e-mail to reply to, a quotation to send off; but if if we start our day with these clear goals in mind, then the mind knows its priorities. At the end of the day, it gets a high from knowing that it has achieved its goals and this "high" feeling provides a rush of fresh energy that rejuvenates the mind. These small daily wins keep us constantly motivated because we always end our day with a sense of accomplishment.

Mental energy also gets lost too due to mental resistance. This mental resistance results from all the things that prevent us from going after our goals--our fears, our lack of confidence and our doubts. Everytime we encounter these resistances, we have to waste energy mulling over them, hesitating and finding excuses to avoid moving ahead. As a result, we lose our momentum forward and end up feeling mentally tired.

Hence, mental resistances must be identified, tackled and removed once and for all. It's good mental housekeeping--we remove these obstacles so that we are not constantly impeded. To overcome these resistances, we need to knock off all their supporting reasons. If we don't tackle them head-on, our fears and doubts gain strength with each passing day because we all have a subconscious habit of collecting justifications for their existence. We have to realize that fears and doubts are but illusions--mental constructs that disappear the moment you remove their shaky foundations.

Once the mind knows where it is heading (goals) and sees a clear path towards it (no resistance), we will immediately feel lots of mental energy to forge ahead. Nothing in the world can stop us once we know how to harness our mental energy!

The Forgotten World

The Forgotten World

Had a good jogging session this morning at the park, which had the effect of making me feel physically exhausted but mentally refreshed. A fresh mind is clearly needed to tackle all the nitty-gritty activities of the coming week.

When you are jogging outdoors, you are constantly focussing on your movement (one step at a time) and your relationship with the environment. You have to watch out for passing traffic, rocks and pebbles on your path, drains and potholes, dog poo and other urban hazards. It demands concentration but it clears your mind from the usual mental noise that runs incessantly in one's head.

The neighbourhood park beside the mosque is the nearest oasis of green for me here. But it is good enough. There are workout stations to do sit-ups, press-ups and other simple exercises. It serves as an outdoor gym for me to get a quick (and cheap) workout to kick-off my day.

I love doing physical exercises outdoors. It's not only the exercise, it's the trees, grass, sky and the morning sunlight which makes it all a very invigorating experience. You feel you are communing with Nature and Nature has so much to share with you. Even a brief hour cavorting on a small patch of an suburban park is a much welcome respite from the humdrum existence that is our everyday city life.

Whenever I see bright sunlight and blue skies, beautiful thoughts stream into my mind. Sometimes you feel a bit sad thinking how artificial our lives have become: we spend the greater part of our work-day staring into a computer screen and cooped up like caged animals in air-conditioned buildings. At the end of the day, we relax by again staring into another screen--the television.

But this is the life that we, so-called civilized men, have chosen. And we call it progress and prosperity. I suppose it is inevitable. We will spend greater and greater portions of our lives living in virtual worlds. Someday we'll create trees, leaves and sunlight in these worlds that will feel, smell and taste as real as the real thing, if not better.

And we'll probably need a Chosen One to wake us up one day and show us that there's a real world out there that has always been in existence. But somehow we have all forgotten about it.

The Capital of Asia-Africa

The Capital of Asia-Africa

Eighty leaders from Asia and Africa representing two-thirds of the world's population ended their summit in Bandung today in commemoration of a similar conference held 50 years ago at the same venue, Gedung Merdeka.

The conference in 1955 was a monumental event because it was the first that the leaders from so many newly independent nations met in one place. Freed finally from the shackles of colonialism, there was great optimism and hope in the air; these young nations could finally determine their own future and "do the right thing" for their own people. The success of the conference inspired the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The conference 50 years ago was opened by Sukarno. The venue, Gedung Merdeka, was formerly a social elite club for the Dutch, known as the Societiet Concordia. The hallowed halls of Gedung Merdeka were graced by the presence of the who's who of post-war Asia and Africa: Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru; PM of China, Chou En-Lai; President Nasser of Egypt and Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, among others.

I'm quite familiar with the conference because I did some research about it for my article on Bandung which I wrote for a magazine two years ago. Many of the conference delegates then were placed at the Homann and Preanger Hotel--both which are still standing today, although they have gone through substantial renovations since.

This morning, the leaders nostalgically retraced the historical walk from the Homann Hotel to Gedung Merdeka across the street (renamed Jalan Asia Afrika), which their leaders took fifty years ago on the opening day of the summit.

I've spent a couple of weekends during my time in Bandung, loitering around the Jalan Asia-Afrika area, snapping photos and checking out all the historical landmarks there. Gedung Merdeka today is a museum exhibiting photos of the 1955 conference. In the main conference hall, one can see life-sized wax figures of the leaders who attended the summit, with Sukarno standing at the podium, giving the key-note address.

What a stirring speech Sukarno gave, delivered in English with his sonorous Javanese accent. He urged the newly independent nations to emulate Indonesia: "Brothers and sisters, Indonesia is Asia-Africa in small...Make the 'live and let live' principle and the Unity in Diversity (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika) motto the unifying force which brings us all together...".

The conference was a great success. Nehru captured the heady feeling of optimism generated from the conference in his closing speech by declaring Bandung "the focal center" and "capital of Asia-Africa".

The Asia-Africa conference of Bandung in 1955 perhaps marked the pinnacle of Sukarno's reputation as one of the most prominent leaders of the Third World. It was a time of great innocence. All the Asian-African nations were soon to find out that gaining independence was the easy part; the path towards successful nationhood is one fraught with enormous challenges.

How many Asian and African countries can claim to have achieved success? Many have even retrogressed through decades of civil war and despotic governance. Malaysia, which was only on the verge of gaining independence then, has been relatively successful in comparison. We could do a lot better of course but we could so easily have descended into chaos too. It's a struggle which every generation will have to fight. Nothing is to be taken for granted. Each generation must be reminded of the lessons of history.

What will the next fifty years bring? Bandung today is plagued with pollution and over-congestion. Everyone laments how much things have changed over the years: the cool weather, the verdant hills of Parahyangan, the rich charms of the Sundanese culture, the Art-Deco architecture of Bandung's Golden Age--they are all disappearing under the name of progress. I've spent a lot of time studying what Bandung was like back then but what will it look like in the future?

Who knows, maybe I'll be able to revisit this topic again in fifty years time :-)

The Struggle

The Struggle

I dread having friends calling me late at night, asking me to go out. These are usually friends from overseas who happen to be in town. I used to play host to a lot of visitors when I was working in KL ten years ago. I knew all the popular nightspots well then, but not anymore. These days, a quiet night at home is a most welcome bliss.

Saturday nights are a bit different these days--the live telecast of the EPL matches have become the focal point and highlight of every weekend for most men. I don't really enjoy watching soccer matches in pubs because the commentaries are usually drowned by the noise. And those who watch soccer together with their buddies at watering holes usually like to bet. I'm not a fan a gambling either.

It has been a year of heartbreaks for me when it comes to the performance of Liverpool. I've lost count how many times I've sat down in front of the TV on a Saturday evening looking forward to a scintillating performance from my favourite team only to see them lose in the most pathetic fashion to bottom-of-the-table teams--like in today's match. I think I'm going to stop watching them play for the rest of the season. I'm also determined not to blog about Liverpool or soccer anymore, unless the miraculous happens: Liverpool wins the Champions League.

How does one deal with disappointment? I guess by taking whatever positives that one can from the experience and moving on. Work-wise, I've had a relatively productive Saturday, spending about four hours working from the Coffee Bean Cafe at USJ10. The past week has been relatively unproductive for me because of the many errands that I have to take care of. I have difficulties with the weather too; it's been a terribly hot week here in KL, with wild torrential rains in the evenings. There were flash floods in various parts of the city yesterday. Luckily I wasn't on the road, having gone home pretty early.

I'm looking forward to a better week ahead. I need to control my environment and manage my time better. It's always a struggle, but then again, nothing comes without a struggle. Liverpool struggles to perform whenever they play away; I seem to struggle whenever I'm back home in KL. I blame it on the weather and all the distractions, but I guess it's my fault for not being able to deal with them better. It's a difficult struggle alright but it's one that I'm confident of coming out tops. I hope Liverpool plays the rest of their matches with the same kind of spirit too!

Insulting the Consultant

Insulting the Consultant

I'm sure everyone has heard hackneyed jokes about consultants being people who con and insult their clients for a living; or the consultant is someone who comes in to solve a problem and stays around long enough to become part of it; or the consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time, and then keeps your watch. Just do a google search, there are as many consultant jokes out there as there are on lawyers and blondes.

Like it or not, I still have to call myself an IT consultant because that's what I do for a living. But I think it is good not to take yourself so seriously sometimes. So today, I'm not going to blog about anything serious but instead I'm going to laugh at my own profession a bit and share with you all some of my favourite consultant jokes. Enjoy!

Q: What's the definition of a consultant?
A: A consultant is a guy who knows 99 different ways to make love, but doesn't know any women.


The classified ad for a large multinational corporation says:
"Wanted: CEO needs a one armed consultant, with a computer science degree, MBA and 15 years of experience." And true indeed, a one-armed man with the right paper qualification was finally chosen for the job. Curious, the candidate asked the CEO, "I understand most of the qualifications you required, but why 'one armed'?"
The CEO answered, "I have had many consultants before, and I am sick and tired of hearing with each advice the phrase 'on the other hand'."

Sign in a headhunter's open market in darkest Africa:
- Ordinary brains $9 per kg
- Engineer brains $12 per kg
- Doctor brains $11 per kg
- Accountant brains $10 per kg
- Consultant brains $97 per kg
Asked to explain the high cost of consultant brains, the proprietor said "You don't know how many consultants we have to catch to get a kilogram of brains!"


A man walked into a consultant's office and asked about the rates for a study.
The consultant answered:
"Well, we usually structure the project up front and charge $50 for three questions"
Shocked, the prospective client asked:
"Isn't that awfully expensive?"
"Yes", replied the consultant, "and what is your third question?"


A man walks into a Silicon Valley pet store looking to buy a monkey. The store owner points towards three identical looking monkeys in politically-correct, animal-friendly natural mini-habitats.
"The one on the left costs $500," says the store owner.
"Why so much?" asks the customer.
"Because it can program in C," answers the store owner.
The customer inquires about the next monkey and is told, "That one costs $1500. It knows C++ and J2EE."
The startled man then asks about the third monkey.
"That one costs $3000," answers the store owner.
"3000 dollars!!" exclaims the man. "What can that one do?"
To which the owner replies, "To be honest, I've never seen it do a single thing, but it calls itself a Consultant."


I think almost anyone who has stayed long enough in the corporate world has the potential to become a consultant, if he's not one already. Let me give you a simple test: How many of the following words or phrases do you regularly use in your daily conversations, e-mails or reports?

- synergy
- win-win
- value creation
- gap analysis
- methodology
- matrix
- KPI
- strategic
- core competence
- reengineering

If your score is between 0-3: you haven't caught the consulting bug yet but stop reading so many reports written by consultants before it's too late!
4-6: You definitely aspire to be one. I bet you are lunch buddies with the AT Kearney guy who is working on a strategic business plan for your company and shares the same cubicle with you.
7-9: You are already a consultant. You probably go to work in a white shirt and tie, spend 8 hours a day building pretty Powerpoint slides and would feel very naked without your computer laptop bag slung on your shoulders.
10 out of 10: You are beyond hope. But at least try to not refer to love-making as a "win-win" thing, will you?

Forgetting Pain

Forgetting Pain

People say I have a good memory because I can remember trivia about people's lives very well. But strangely there are also things that I can never seem to remember, no matter how hard I try. A good memory is always an asset but I think it is equally important for us to acquire the "skill" to forget.

The skill of forgetting is a useful one because there are things in life that we would simply want to forget--such as painful experiences, embarassments, grudges or slights. Even though we can never completely erase the effect of such unpleasant experiences--we wouldn't want to do so either because we need to learn from them--it is important that we don't relive them over and over again until we are overcome by phobia.

The lesson of any painful experience is to be learnt once, and after which one should move on. If we sincerely desire to learn and to move on, then the mind is immediately reprogrammed in a way that it is always ready to handle similar situations in the future. It is not in memory anymore, it is already "hardwired". There must be acceptance of pain so that the lessons learnt are internalized. To hold on to pain is to prevent the soul from digesting its important lessons.

Pain is a catalyst for the soul to rearrange its constituents and to grow into a more stable state of organization. Once the effects of pain have already been assimilated, we should not hold on to its source anymore. We release it back into the universe. There is no point in holding on to hatred or grudges because they'll only warp the soul and cause repeated injuries, like a a thorn lodged in the flesh. Let the mind forget but allow the soul to "remember" through learning. Once learnt, there's nothing to remember anymore because it has already become a part you.

Pain is a benevolent teacher, not a punisher. We can always learn from pain if we have the desire to transcend it. You are a better person today because of the pain that you've experienced in the past. The soul is willing to let go and forget because it has outgrown its childishness and is not perturbed by such painful experiences anymore.

There will always be fresh pains for us to deal with in life. Everytime they come, we attempt to distill their purifying essence and hopefully allow the soul to be nourished by it. We know we have finally let go of pain when we can afford to smile when reminded of them. A smile is prove of the soul's maturity. When certain memory still rouses anger or hatred instead of a smile, then we know we have not outgrown the experience yet. Let it go. Forgive and forget. Only then can the soul grow to its full potential.

Mundane Creativity

Mundane Creativity

I simply love the basement parking at Ikano Power Centre in Mutiara Damansara. It is clean, bright, spacious and very well-maintained, unlike many of the dinghy subterranean catacombs that we have in most other shopping malls. Even though I don't do much shopping myself, there are a couple of malls that I frequent pretty often because they are convenient places for me to do some work, eat or meet up with people.

I go to KLCC a couple of times a week, mostly for meetings. However the Wi-Fi hotspots there, especially at Starbucks, are a bit too crowded to work from. And you usually bump into people you know; so don't expect to be able to work there uninterrupted.

The Summit in Subang Jaya is a good place to work from on a weekday because it is pretty quiet. There's both Airzed and Timezone Wi-fi service at the Starbucks Cafe there, which is good because sometimes one of them could be down. Furthermore parking there is very cheap--one dollar for the whole day.

In choosing a Wi-fi hotspot to work from, the first thing I check is the availability of power outlets. Sometimes that is even more important than an Internet connection. The Starbucks cafes are the most laptop-user friendly--all the newer ones have ample power outlets and their tables and chairs are the most comfortable for working.

I usually change places to work whenever I face mental roadblocks. That's the good thing about being a nomadic worker--you can always change your environment and get fresh ideas in the process. Whenever one feels that one is stuck in a mental rut, one must know how to break one's pattern of thoughts. Changing the working environment is one way; simply taking a break and doing something completely different is another.

Which is why it is important for one to seriously pursue an interest or hobby that is completely different from one's work. You get to exercise a different part of your brain. If your everyday work is mostly analytical, try to do something creative--like painting or playing a musical instrument.

I personally like drawing and painting a lot but I don't have the luxury of pursuing them independently. So what I do is to incorporate them into my work. How? I build a lot of work-related presentation slides--mine are always full of colourful diagrams and pictures.

I take "creative breaks" from my work by drawing presentation slides using Powerpoint. My proposals and reports are usually full of pictures because I know most people don't like to read words, they tend to look at pictures. I try to make my dry technical reports read like comics--pictures drive the narration.

There are always ways to make your work creative, no matter how dry or dull it is. No? You see, even thinking about how to make your mundane work more creative is itself a very creative thing to do. So start being creative!

Learning from Stupidity

Learning from Stupidity

It is strange to be sitting at a cafe in a busy mall on a Sunday, doing my work. Everywhere around me, I see people looking relaxed in their faded T-shirts, bermuda shorts and slippers while I'm hunched in my seat, eyes locked on a flickering 15.4 LCD screen, deeply engrossed in my cyber-chores.

I want to pick up my momentum for work again before my next overseas trip. It can be very difficult to summon enough enthusiasm and energy to continue doing your work day in day out because after a while, they become so repetitive and tedious. Even though I wouldn't call my work repetitive because project work is never so, the subject matter that I deal with can quite be tiresome--networks, data centers, storage, middlewares, databases and other boring stuff like that.

The challenge for me is to find ways to inject novelty and creativity into whatever mundane task that I'm doing. Even though I'm tackling a problem that I've dealt with before, I'd try to find alternative approaches to it. I enjoy looking at things from a different perspective and I am always eager to see if there are more efficient ways of doing it.

I'm also very curious to know how other people think. Do they view the situation or scenario the way I see it? If not, what's the difference? And how do they arrive at their point of view? What is the paradigm that they adopt? Do they have a unique insight that I've somehow missed?

The way I think is influenced by many factors: my upbringing, my education, my life's experiences and the books that I've read. No two person travel the same path, so it is not surprising that we all have our individual ways of thinking. When a person says or do certain things that I find disagreeable, I am more interested in understanding why he thinks in the way he does rather than to go on a frenzy of criticism.

Our work could be tedious and tiresome but if one tackles it with an exploratory mind, always seeking to learn and to understand, one will always find freshness in it. No one can claim that he or she has learned enough. We can even learn something from people whom we think are "stupid". Didn't Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) make a fortune from observing the stupidity of the corporate world?

So be grateful that there are so-called "stupid" people in this world because they can be your teacher too. Why do we think they are stupid? What makes them think in the way they do? How does the world look like from their "stupid" perspective? But most importantly: how sure are we that we ourselves are not stupid???

Elusive Signs

Elusive Signs

My blog entry on this day two years ago was entitled A Meditation on Time. I remember writing that on a dull and unevently day in the office in Jakarta, when the hours seemed to drag by so slowly. It's about time for me to reflect on how much my life has changed since then.

Not much actually. My thinking is still very much the same; I'm still stubbornly single and independent and I still love Jakarta as much as I did then, if not more. Even though I don't mind staying in one place for the rest of my life, I still cannot imagine myself being married and leading a family life. I'm sure married life has its joys but I think I can live without it--at least for the foreseable future!

Of course for women, it is more difficult. When they hit the age of 30, some of them start getting very edgy. They see their youth and beauty fading away and the pressure they get from family and friends can be quite unbearable. Sometimes I think there should be an association or club to protect single women from such unnecessary harassment! What's wrong with being a single woman in your thirties and forties?

I have a good female friend who recently got married in her forties. And the recent marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla, who are both in their late fifties, has certainly invigorated ageing hearts. Middle-aged single women shouldn't worry too much about not being able to find a life partner--there's always the "divorcee market" that they can tap into. Divorced men probably make better husbands too: they are older and more stable and having gone through a failed marriage, they know all the pitfalls very well. Given a second chance, I'm sure they will be more appreciative of the opportunity.

I personally don't believe people should rush into getting married. Why should finding a life partner be such an obsessive preoccupation of ours? Go get married when you truly and sincerely feel that it is the right thing to do. Don't do it out of fear, insecurity or family pressure.

What then are the signs indicating that it's time for one to get married?

Don't ask me: I'll tell you when I see those signs myself!

The Natural Frequency of the Soul

The Natural Frequency of the Soul

One whole week for me in Malaysia to get my life back in order again. As usual, there are bills to pay, accounts to update, invoices to send and payments to chase. And I haven't filed my income tax in Malaysia for some time because I've been working overseas. This year I'm getting my accountant to do it for me. My rule-of-thumb now is to outsource whenever I can.

Some of my friends are lucky enough to have very capable wives who can take care of all these nitty-gritty things. The only problem is that once they delegate these tasks to their spouses, they have to be completely transparent about all their transactions. The approval of the "CFO" will be required before any major financial decisions can be made. I know some men even resort to stashing a portion of their income in secret bank accounts (often overseas) to finance their "clandestine" activities.

Being a bachelor has its obvious advantages. You only have to be accountable to yourself. Such freedom and independence can be very difficult to give up once you get used to it. People like that (yours truly is a good example) must be aware that there's a fine line separating freedom and selfishness. People who are in a relationship are forced to learn how to share and sacrifice. It is a difficult process no doubt because we all bring our individual selfishness into a relationship. But in going through this laboriously painful process, one learns that pain itself can only be lessened by diminishing one's selfishness.

Single people have to learn the lessons of selfishness in other ways. If they comprehend how the mind and soul works, they will consciously learn how to dissolve selfishness before the gravity of ego collapses to the point of no-return.

The Buddhist Lovingkindness Meditation is a very good way to dissipate selfishness--it reverses the inward-looking tendency of the ego and transforms a person into a luminous soul that vibrates with altruist love.

Our popular culture likes to look at romantic love as something wonderful and virtuous but we must also realize that the love between lovers is always tainted with selfishness. It is the tug-and-pull between two selfishly possessive souls that cause all the ups-and-downs in a typical romantic relationship.

But still, learning how to love someone, albeit selfishly at first, is a good starting point towards Altruistic Love. God's love is altruistic. Only by suffering the pain that selfishness brings, one learns how to relinquish one's ego and allow the soul to vibrate at its natural frequency--the frequency of Altruistic Love, the love the emanates from God Himself.

The Soul of Religion

The Soul of Religion

To kick off today's blog entry, let me quote one of my favourite spiritual gurus, Vivekananda:

Are all the religions of the world really contradictory? I do not mean the external forms in which great thoughts are clad. I do not mean the different buildings, languages, rituals books, etc., employed in various religions, but I mean the internal soul of every religion. I believe that they are not contradictory; they are supplementary. Each religion, as it were, takes up one part of the great universal truth, and spends its whole force in embodying and typifying that part of the great truth.

- from the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 2.

In reading Vivekananda, I can scarcely find anything that I disagree with. Vivekananda expresses eloquently what I've always felt to be true about religion. I've been a lifelong student religion and I must say it is a fascinating subject that both bore and intrigue me at the same time.

The rules and ritualistic aspect of religion usually bores me because most of the time their practitioners have forgotten what they are actually meant for. External forms suddenly become more important than the spirit of the religion itself. And these so-called religious people who spend their entire lives fussing about the minutiae of rules and rituals are surprisingly looked up to as authorities who are infallable and untouchable.

Religion intrigues me because it is universal. To me it is simply a natural stage in the evolution of mankind--a halfway point in the flowering of human consciousness. I cannot understand why certain religions have to be so defensive when confronted by scientific theories such as human evolution. Evolution does not contradict any religion of the world at all. To say that it does is to completely misunderstand the meaning of religion.

When I say religion is universal, I'm not merely implying that every religion teaches us to be moral and hence every religion is "good". If that is the only value of religion, I suggest that we do away with them completely! We don't need religion to teach us morals--it's too high a price to pay. What is so difficult about morals? Every mentally fit person knows what is moralistic behaviour simply becase socially unacceptable behaviour would eliminate an individual's participation in his or her society. A society with a high percentage of immoral people will self-destruct over time. It is in an individuals's interest to remain within the moral tolerance of the community that he or she lives in.

A society exists simply because there's a critical mass of good souls who seek to promote the greater good over selfish interests. If the critical mass does not exist, then we'll just remain on a lower rung of the evolutionary scale. No big deal. Animals still live "happily" despite being subjected to the harsh laws of jungle. We can alway fall back on that.

Without some measure of integrity, honesty, trust and magnanimity, no society can hold together. Religion happens to provide an "easily understood" framework which worked very well at certain periods in human history to yank civilization to its next level of spiritual evolution. But unfortunately, these frameworks are sustained by souls who are imperfect--men who who are egoistic, selfish and lustful and they conveniently use them to perpetrate their own interests at the expense of the trusting masses.

Men will always be imperfect. Only once in a while a bright soul--a spiritual leader or prophet--appears to reshape the course of human evolution.Their mesages strike a cord in us simply because we already possess them inside us: that spiritual core is already there all the time, lying dormant. These wise teachers merely unleashed them.

There's so much unnecesary debate over religion. The divine truth is something that is to be experienced personally and not to be found through endless arguments and certainly not through the good graces of certain "authoritative" religious figures.

Deep down inside, the soul of every religion is the same. The answer is right there inside your soul. Search yourself. You know it to be true.

Refreshing Surroundings

Refreshing Surroundings

Having completed a major deliverable for one of my projects, I managed to allocate time to sift through some of my old files which have been gathering dust in a corner of my house. Most of the stuff there are more than a decade old. Reading printouts of some of my old e-mails brought back nostalgic memories of those early days of my working life. Sentimental though they were, I chucked most of the files away. Time to give those dead trees a decent burial so that their souls might be able to nourish some fresh trees.

Before I left Jakarta, I also disposed off all my project files. Initially I had wanted to go through them all one by one and save items that might be useful. But after going through one or two of them, I realized that it's too time consuming. I asked the two OBs (office boys) to bring the trolley and cart them all away. It was a great feeling to be free at last from the weight of the past.

Spring-cleaning is a very therapeutic and even necessary exercise. I call it a process of "matter over mind". By removing old and unnecessary things from your surrounding, you make space for new things to enter your life. If you do not know how to free yourself from certain self-defeating thoughts, start by clearing or rearranging the physical things around you first. And that includes people. Your mind will start to think differently.

Which is why I always advise people to travel as a way to rejuvenate themselves. I personally have many opportunities to take up longer term jobs in Malaysia but I simply don't like to be tied down for months and years in one place. I'd rather go for short-term projects across the region because it is easier for me to remain motivated when I'm constantly on the move. My income is a bit more uncertain that way but that's okay. It's more fun meeting new people all the time and getting a chance to take a peek into their worlds.

But Indonesia for some reason is a different story for me: Everytime I go there, I feel like settling down there forever. There's something mysteriously alluring about the place, something which I still cannot explain. A great portion of my blog is an attempt to comprehend all these irrational obsessions of mine.

Looking through my old files, I also understood why certain periods of my life were so difficult to get through. You learn from them and hopefully become wiser by each passing day. Now I know how to detect those signs early and everytime they rear their ugly heads, I consciously initiate a change in my surrounding. And that makes all the difference.

A World with a View

A World with a View

Time for me to write about something more serious. It's the start of another week, so let's psyche ourselves up with some motivational pep talk.

All of us would have experienced periods in our lives when we feel very demotivated, when life itself appears to be like an endless series of repetitive and meaningless tasks. Where are we heading? And when we reflect on all our childhood dreams and how we have fallen short of them, we can't help but feel like a failure sometimes. Could we have done better?

Now, if we constantly regret the past and start gathering together all our failures in life, then we will always feel like a failure. How the world and our lives appear to us is dependent on how we decide to view the world. Yes, we decide how the world appears to us. We give ourselves meaning. Even the most mundane tasks, if executed positively, carries meaning.

The mind is a wonderful instrument if we know how to use it. If I ask you to start picking out everything that's red in colour in your room or office right now, you'll be surprised at how many previously inconspicuous red objects that you can spot in your environment. Look around you, there is a lot of red colour in the world after all, because you have ordered your mind to start noticing it. Repeat with the other colours: blue, green or yellow. You will realize that there's a very fine line separating a world that's blue from one that's red or one that's green or yellow for that matter. We decide what we want to notice.

People who plunge into depression cannot see any positives in their lives at all because their entire frame of mind has been unconsciously programmed to look at everyone and everything as being unsympathetic, unfriendly and oppressive. It is an emotional abyss that can be very difficult to extract oneself from, once one has plunged into it. But there's a fine line separating depression from exuberance; one just need the right triggers.

Some people are always very moody--they go from being very cheerful one day to very sulky the next. These are people who let external events flip them from one state to another. We control our minds--not the people around us or external events that are beyond our control. We decide how we should react to them because there's a space between stimulus and response, which we own. And that is the most important piece of real estate in the world!

The world is a mirror that reflects back on our own mental state. The mind filters input and synthesizes reality. To change the world, change the one inside first. All it takes is a decision, an effort of the will, a willingness to want to see things in a more positive manner. Why should that be so difficult? Go ask yourself. Heck, it doesn't even consume any calories!

Healthy Vices

Healthy Vices

When I was in Jakarta, I used to consume a bottle of wine every week. But I don't consider myself a wine connoisseur--most of the time I drink cheap table wine from the supermarket. In KL, I only drink when I go out with friends and that's usually beer.

Being a seasoned boozer, it's quite difficult for me to get drunk. People usually get drunk because they do not know how to pace themselves. Once upon a time, I was into clubbing a lot and that was during those good old days before the police started doing breathanalyser tests. The greatest challenge for me then was to drive all the way home to Subang Jaya after a wild night of boozing in town. Sometimes I'd just sleep in my car until I was sober enough to drive or I'd take a shorter drive back to the office and slept there instead!

Alcohol intoxicates the mind, which is the main reason why many religions forbid its consumption. It is like taking drugs, one can get addicted to it. People are fond of drinking because it is a form of escapism: it makes them lose their inhibitions and forget about their problems. But escapism doesn't interest me because the real world is more interesting. I enjoy drinking because I like the taste of wine and beer--it's as simple as that. Some people like eating, I just prefer drinking.

Can I live without consuming alcohol? The answer is definitely yes. All it takes is a "simple" effort of the will.

Then why not?

Not yet. Anyhow, I've toned down a lot--I'm a very moderate drinker these days. But the real reason is that I want to consciously maintain some "healthy" vices in my life.

Why? Because I don't want to end up being a monk, which I have a natural talent for! I want to reserve my right to stop drinking--it's a "pleasure" to be kept for the right time and ocassion, in the not too foreseeable future.

If I do stop drinking one day, nothing will prevent me from taking the next logical step of becoming a vegetarian. As a matter of fact, there were short periods in my life when I did dabble with a vegetarian diet. But it's not the right time yet...

Wine drinkers like me derive particular pleasure from reading about the many health benefits of drinking red wine. But I'm not a health freak; if I do stop drinking, it will be because of spiritual reasons.

The other vice--smoking--is not a problem for me. I've never really been a smoker, even though I did indulge in some social smoking once upon my time. But through some deft reverse psychology, I've managed to overcome even the temptation of taking a social puff.

Womanizing is too costly a vice to indulge in, even though most men I know have a weakness for it. If you want to waste your time and energy, there are less costly ways of doing it. Go surf the Net or watch TV.

I think it's good to maintain some "healthy" vices or life would be so terrible dull, don't you think? I've chosen mine, what's yours?

The Paralysis of Perfection

The Paralysis of Perfection

I have a great juggling act to accomplish this coming two months with three projects in the pipeline. This will surely tax my multitasking capabilities to the limits. I am sometimes frustrated at my inefficiency--I work too slowly, often fussing over tiny details. I'm certainly not happy with my current utilization of time. Hence I have identified two areas that I need work on:

One: I tend to consume too much time to achieve the level of quality that I desire. People who are perfectionists pay an unnecessarily high price in terms of time and energy because in most cases perfection is neither expected nor required. I wouldn't say I'm exactly a perfectionist, but I think I sometimes suffer from what people call analysis paralysis, which is probably worse!

Two: Internet surfing consumes too much of my time, without me realising it. I surf mostly to check the latest news and to research on certain technical subjects. But as every avid surfer would know, one link would lead to another and suddenly two hours would have slipped by easily.

IT professionals like us also have this false belief that without an Internet connection, we cannot do our work. This is certainly not true. We have a bad habit of wanting to be connected all the time because it gives us the comfort feeling that we are in touch with the world. Most e-mails are not that urgent. If things are really that urgent, people will call you.

Most news are also not that important. How many versions of the same news do we need to read in a day? I know very well it is a complete waste of time for me to check every British news website for the Liverpool-Juventus match report. But I can't help it sometimes, because good news is so addictive.

Getting rid of these two bad habits will hopefully make me more efficient in terms of time utilization. But bad habits die hard. This is precisely the reason why I try not to rant too much in my blog--I don't want to reinforce my bad habits. It is better to use the habit of blogging to reinforce positive behaviour so that they too become an ingrained habit after a while.

But again, that's the perfectionist in me speaking. And I have to stop writing now because I can feel analysis paralysis beginning to set in!

The Zombie March

The Zombie March

It's been a long time since I last joined the rush-hour traffic going towards KL. I had a seminar to attend at nine this morning, so I left home from Subang Jaya at seven plus. It took me more than an hour to reach Jalan Sultan Ismail. I was quite happy to be able to squeeze in some time for a quick breakfast at one of the roadside stalls.

A decade ago, I used to do this everyday, driving down to KL from my home in Subang Jaya to work. During that time, it was worse: there was only one exit from Subang Jaya--the so-called "KFC exit" (after the KFC outlet there, which had since made way for a widened exit), and I remember having to leave home at 6.30am to avoid the massive congestion there.

On the road together with the other cars, all lined up in a bumper-to-bumper crawl towards the city, with every driver looking blank-faced, eyes fixed in a dull distant gaze, one couldn't help but feel as if one is part of a zombie march--the grand march of the Malaysian workforce towards some mindless middleclass utopia.

That's the life many of us still lead everyday. I haven't had the chance to experience that for a long time. Being part of that zombie march again this morning actually made me feel a bit nostalgic for those old days.

Maybe those were better times, I really don't know. Everyday we went to work, and everyday we watched the skeletal frame of the Petronas Twin Towers and Menara KL rising slowly from the rubble of construction. We were reaching for the skies and we were all part of a grand dream.

Where is that dream now? Are we much happier people now? I really don't know.

All I know is that the zombie march goes on...

Apocalypse Then and Now

Apocalypse Then and Now

"I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends...

You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us."

- Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now, played by Marlon Brandon

Surprisingly, I managed to find time to watch two of my all-time favourite movies again over the weekends: Apocalypse Now (Redux) and Havana. I really should be doing this more often for watching movies is such a wonderful way to relax (not to mention educational too) and one never gets tired of watching some of these classics again and again.

Perhaps among the two, only Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war epic, Apocalypse Now can be considered a cinematic classic. The other one, Havana--a Casablanca-like romantic love story starring Robert Redford and Lena Olin--was universally panned by critics. But that doesn't deter me from enjoying it. I love the soundtrack and Redford remains on of my favourite actors. But let me blog about Havana next time, because today I'm in the mood for Apocalypse Now.

I first watched Apocalypse Now (released in 1979) as a kid at the old Rex cinema in KL. It was during the school holidays and the only reason why I watched it was because I had expected it to be an action-packed war movie. How wrong was I! I didn't know then it was to be one long, winding riverboat journey into the Heart of Darkness--a three hour surrealistic meditation on the moral ambiguity of the Vietnam war. At that time I didn't know anything about Francis Ford Coppola's reputation as an auteur nor Joseph Conrad's novella from which the movie was based on.

But even then I was impressed by the cinematography, especially the first appearance of Marlon Brandon--playing the renegade Colonel Kurtz--with that awesome bald head of his bobbing in and out from the shadowy darkness and the stunning sequence of a helicopter attack on a Vietcong village, accompanied by the stirring strains of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" (where Robert Duvall uttered the now famous line: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning").

At that time, I only understood the plot very vaguely--Martin Sheen's character, Captain Willard is supposed to terminate Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz "with extreme prejudice" because he is already deemed insane by the US army. The movie was long, dark and meandering--like the river journey undertaken by Captain Willard deep into the the jungles of Cambodia to find Kurtz. I remember many in the audience left before the movie ended--it was definitely not your typical flag-waving WW2 afternoon matinee.

Despite my difficulty then in following the story, I laboured through the three hours, because what I saw was sheer visual poetry--it was a cinematic experience at its most sublime. The "understanding" comes initially at the subconsciously level and only later through reflection, over many years, was I able to slowly comprehend its intricate themes and messages.

During my university days, I spend a lot time in the library reading about the films of Francis Ford Coppola. And I learnt to understand some of the more subtle nuances of the film and gained a healthy respect for the laborious art of film-making. I read how the making of the movie itself on location in the Philippines was one mad massive undertaking, not unlike the Vietnam war itself.

Coppola himself had to self-finance part of the movie because it was way over-budget; he shot almost 200 hours of film footage and the massive project almost drove him to a nervous breakdown. There were other setbacks too: Martin Sheen, the lead actor, suffered a heart attack during shooting and the set built in the Phillipines jungle was at one point, destroyed by a tropical typhoon.

When the movie was released on video-tape, I bought a copy and watched the movie countless times over the years. I still have that moldy tape with me but I've since progressed to DVD--the so-called "Redux" version, which was released in 2001 with an additional 49 minutes of unseen footage. In this version, Coppola has completely reedited and digitally remastered his original masterpiece. I bought the DVD a couple of years back as a collector's item and didn't watch it until yesterday when I dug it out quite by accident from one of my storage boxes.

Viewing Apocalypse Now Redux makes me miss those student days of mine when I was quite fanatical about movies. And even now I continue to discover things from the film that I've never noticed before. The proof of a good film is that it gets better with each viewing.

Apocalypse Now definitely ranks up there among the best films ever made. It sets the benchmark for subsequent movies about the Vietnam war (some of which have become my favourites too like Oliver Stone's Platoon and Kubrick's Steel Metal Jacket). Its powerful images have remained with me all these 25 years, ever since I first watched it as a schoolboy one fine afternoon at the Rex cinema on Jalan Sultan, KL.

"The horror...the horror..."

Judge and Budge

Judge and Budge

I must reserve a blog entry for Wong Kar Wai's 2046 which I only managed to catch on my Singapore Airlines flight back from the Philippines. As usual any Wong Kar Wai movie would require at least three viewings to fully appreciate its visual lushness and emotional nuances.

I managed to watch it twice during my flight, but that is still insufficient for me to do justice to the movie. So I'll reserve my comments for the meantime and write about something else today. I also need time to fully digest its multifaceted theme of love, memory and time.

I think we tend to rush to judgement about things too easily. We don't even ask ourselves whether it is even necessary to judge. Why do we always need to label something or someone good or bad?

The mind has this habit of judging simply because it dislikes uncertainty. We want to put things into boxes so that we know how to sort them out easily. When things can be classified and categorized neatly, we can make decisions quicker.

The world is made simpler if we can label everything and everyone either black or white, enemies or friends, instantly. It is a habit programmed in our genes and honed by evolution. In the jungle where only the fittest survive, our mamallian ancestors had to made split-second fight or flight decisions. Uncertainty equals death and extinction.

But in our daily lives, not many situations that we encounter are life and death ones. What's wrong with leaving things inconclusive?

We will always find some people difficult because they live by a different paradigm. They are just different, not necessarily bad. They might do things which we disapprove of or even hurt us, but still we can respond appropriately without judgement. Too many negative judgements breeds hatred. Hatred is one emotion we don't need to carry around unnecessarily because it saps too much of our mental energy.

I think it is important for us to feel comfortable with uncertainty. Uncertainty does not mean ignorance. It is in fact an expression of confidence in our ability to revise and self-correct.

Things are just the way they are. If we need to make a judgement call at some point, we are fully aware of our fallibility. A judgement call is merely a small test--a sampling procedure to gather more information so that we can reduce our level of uncertainty.

No judgement is ever final. It is part of a constant process of refinement. Judge and budge--that's how we should move forward.

An Acute Hunger

An Acute Hunger

Last night Sophia and I had dinner at a pub at the Greenbelt 3 Mall in Makati and later we watched the popular Filipino band Side A perform. I normally avoid live bands because most of them assault my ear-drums but these five guys were great. Their repertoire consisted mainly of light and easy ballads--probably the only kind of pop music which I have the inclination to listen to these days. Sophia was crazy about them; she brought along her favourite Side A CD and was able to get the autographs of all five members of the band.

We had a great time together but because of my early Thursday morning breakfast meeting, we had to leave before midnight. It's Thursday today and it has been a long day for me but I'm finally back in KL--back to my unfinished work, my huge pile of unopenned letters and a list of errands to run. But it looks like I'll have to start checking the calendar again to plan for my travels for the next two months. Unfortunately I don't see an opportunity to squeeze in a trip to Jakarta.

I've been stuffing myself with adobo and garlic rice for the past couple of days in Manila. My Singaporean friends like to tell me how bad the food in the Philippines is but I have no complaints. I actually kind of like some of their dishes like adobo, tocino and salpicao. Filipinos seem to eat a lot of meat and they usually have rice for breakfast. Probably not the type of diet that would appeal to health-conscious people.

Now I'm back to my even more unhealthy Malaysian diet of nasi lemak, nasi kandar and roti canai. Well, maybe someday I'll decide to be a vegetarian and give up alcohol altogether. When that day comes, maybe I'll be too old and too sick for it to make any difference.

But perhaps I have a saving grace--I'm a light eater and I dislike over-eating. I find the torpor that comes with a bloated stomach rather disgusting. And even though I enjoy good food like everyone else, I'm not addicted to it.

I look forward to meal times more for the company of friends than for the food itself. Even eating alone can be fun because you get to do some reading while waiting for your food to be served. So much of my reading is done in restaurants, food courts and cafes. You see, when it's mealtime for the stomach, it's also a convenient feeding time for the mind. And to me, the hunger of the mind is much more acute than that of the body.

The Pinay Network

The Pinay Network

I haven't exactly been working that hard here in Manila so far; meetings have been sparse but they've been very fruitful. Blogging has been intermittent for the past couple of days because of a few reasons--mainly it's because I hate to pay 10 USD per-day for the broadband Internet service at my hotel since I only get to use it for a couple of hours everyday.

My nights here have not been adventurous either. I reacquainted myself with places that used to be familiar to me--the area around Shangrila Makati, mainly the malls at Ayala Center. Six or seven years ago, I was more into clubbing and the nightlife. I remember lots of fun nights at places like Hard Rock Cafe, Zu and some of the bars at P. Burgos.

But I'm such an intolerably dull creature these days; I've been spending my evenings quietly at the hotel lounge, drinking the excellent local beer Red Horse (the "strong beer" from San Miguel), deeply engrossed in my Marquez book.

To prevent myself from succumbing to my hermetic habits, I've decided to go for dinner with a good Filipina friend of mine tonight, Sophia, who happenned to be back here from the States. (It's interesting to note that in Malay, we refer to the country Philippines as "Filipina" but here the word is used as the feminine form of "Filipino"). Sophia has been living in the US for a couple of years now but she's back for the Holy Week/Easter celebrations, which is the most important celebration for the Philippines people.

Those who have Filipina maids will know that they are a very closely-knit community--clannish and chatty. News and rumours travel faster than the speed of light on the "Pinay Network". (Filipinos and Filipinas refer to themselves as "Pinoy" and "Pinay" respectively). If you have a Filipina wife or girlfriend, don't even think of flirting around with another Pinay! It is no surprise that Philippines has the highest volume of SMS traffic in the world.

So, enough of Marquez for this trip, I'll look forward to a good dinner with Sophia and friends tonight and enjoy all the latest gossips from the Pinay Network!

Green & Easy Sunday in Makati

Green & Easy Sunday in Makati

Manila city is very quiet because of the Easter holidays. A lot of the shops are closed and I believe many of the people have gone back to their hometowns in the provinces. The emptiness of the Makati business district--where my hotel is located--made me feel lazy to make any explorations around the city. So I mainly vegetated back in hotel, doing some light reading and drinking beer at the lounge.

When I arrived yesterday evening at the airport, I was keen to see if a lot has changed in Manila since my last trip here five years ago; I was happy to observe that they are still very fond of the colour green. Filipinos seem to like that colour very much--the floor of the airport is green, all the signages are green, roofs are green and when you go on the streets, you notice that even the letters on the car number plates are green.

The other thing which caught my attention previously was that there seem to be more coconut palm trees in the Philippines than anywhere else I've been to before. Even right here, from my hotel window in the middle of the business district, I can see them sprouting up in unexpected places, their drooping branches adding an air of langour to the place, making me feel even lazier.

I've lost contact with most of my Filipino friends; many have emigrated to the US. I've got to start making new ones here again, which shouldn't be a problem because Filipinos are among the most friendly and easy-going people I've ever met. They are always ready to laugh and have a good time. I get along very well with them.

I mentioned about the terrorist treat in the Philippines yesterday. The Philippines Daily Inquirer I read this morning however was very reassuring: it quoted the police as saying that the capability of the Abu Sayyaf to carry out bomb attacks in Metro manila has become "almost nil" following their seizure of almost 600 kilos of explosives recently. But an AFP report today says that police have defused an explosive device found near the Spanish embassy building right here in Makati yesterday evening.

But life goes on as in any other city in the world which faces terrorist treats. When you are here, it doesn't feel so bad. The "greenness" of the environment and the easy-going nature of the Filipino people puts one at ease immediately. I could easily get used to living here too...