The Magic of Football and the Mind

It's the start of another week and I just had my simple dinner at O'Brien's. I will blog about something light for a change. As a matter of fact I'll just ramble on about nothing in particular.

The English Premier League just ended yesterday with Manchester City pipping Liverpool to the title. Both teams have been great all season. I'm particularly proud of this Liverpool team as I've been an ardent supporter ever since I was a scrawny teenager who was crazy about football. I played quite a lot during those days, as a left-winger and striker.

I was quite good at scoring goals then as I had a pretty accurate shot. The thing that gave me an edge over other boys my age was that I learned to play football correctly through books! During those days, all of us did not have the benefit of any kind of coaching in school. The PE teachers would just throw us a ball, and we'll be happy to kick about in the field. Not many knew the proper techniques of shooting, passing, volleying and heading. I learned all that properly because I bothered to read a book by George Best, who illustrated very clearly all the various basic techniques of playing football.

I particularly remember his advice on shooting: there are 3 spots to aim for, just inside the goal posts. I practiced a lot on my shooting. I often aim for the inside of the posts--goals that sneak-in after rebounding off the posts gave me the most satisfaction. I was so obsessed with playing football that I even practiced shooting in my mind, every time I see any doorway, or gap between two objects that resembled goalposts! I would imagine how I would shape my foot to strike the ball in front of me if I happened to be in that position relative to the 'goal'.

That mental training prove to be very effective. I developed good instincts in front of the goal: I was often quicker than my opponents in the penalty area. My shots usually hit the target as my shooting instincts were very well-honed through these mental practice sessions.

I later found out that many professional sportsmen use these mental visualization techniques too to perfect their skills. A lot of what happens in our minds determine the quality of our work in the physical world. Which is why the mystery of the human mind is one of my favourite topics of study.

During my university days, I bought a few academic books on the philosophy of the mind. I didn't manage to read them then as the technical topics discussed were too difficult for me to comprehend. But the books sat on my library shelves all these years and the other day, I happened to browse through them again. Suddenly I found that I could now follow the discussions in those pages. It took me so long to reach this stage but I'm glad that I am closer now towards understanding some of the mysteries of the human mind than when I was a sophomore in college.

I did not progress much as a footballer after I went to the university but at least I know feel that I've made progress in my understanding of the philosophy of the mind. This is an area that I think even after centuries of scholarship, we are still no closer towards resolving some of the age old debates like the mind-body problem or the nature of consciousness. The advent of the digital computer and advances in neuro-biology have in the recent decade contributed a lot to our understanding of the mind. But we are still far from getting any absolute answers towards these great mysteries.

The mind pondering the mind is perhaps the biggest conundrum of all. But I think this is where the answers to some of our deepest questions on life, religion and ultimate meaning would lie. And so I continue pursue them with as much obsession as I had, when I was a football-crazy teenager, dreaming of scoring goals during those slow and dull late-afternoon geography lessons in the classroom.

Life Vectors and their Architectures

I'm blogging earlier than usual this week, on a Sunday before the start of the week. Right now I'm comfortably seated at Starbucks, 1 Utama Shopping Mall, sipping my Americano with my laptop and a good internet connection. I've already done some amount of work-related stuff. Looks like it is a good time to take a break by offloading my thoughts onto a blog post.

We live as thinking and feeling creatures. Thoughts and emotions: these are the two main activities of the human mind and body. We act based on what we think is rational and what we feel is right. Thinking and feeling animates us and that is reflected in our actions. Action is a vector with two dependencies: thought and feelings. Thought gives us the direction or purpose, feeling gives us the magnitude or strength. It is completely analogous to a mathematical vector, which is defined by direction and magnitude.

Thought gives us a direction and when a thought is energized by passion, action results. Every moment of our lives are defined by these 'life vectors'. When our life vectors are well aligned, our lives are purposeful and meaningful. Achieving the defined purpose of our lives make us 'happy'.

But what determines the direction and purpose of our lives? How should our life vectors be aligned? Do we even have control over them?

Let's examine the two parameters of the life vector closely. Thoughts seem to randomly appear in our minds. Feelings arises, based on what triggered them. We feel sad, happy, angry, inspired or motivated based on what we see, hear, taste and smell and also the thoughts that we either deliberately or accidentally introduce in our head. Sometimes, when we have a mission--like a job that needs to be done, we introduce specific thoughts--an action plan--that needs to be executed and we pursue them with deliberate action, driven by feelings of different qualities, depending on the situation. If the plan is important--perhaps even a matter of life and death, then the feelings that accompany our actions could be fear and stress. If the action involves doing something that we have a clear liking for, then there's motivation, joy and excitement.

How successful we are in aligning our life vectors to our overall goal in life, determines how happy, successful and meaningful our life is. But what determines this overall goal or purpose that we want to direct our lives toward? We feel very uncomfortable and even unhappy when we are aimless. When we do not know where our lives are heading. When there's no clear idea of the path that lies ahead of us. We try our best to define this Purpose, for without it, life vectors become very random. Thoughts and feelings arise driving us hither and thither. We feel tired because energy is dissipated everywhere. This wastefulness of energy makes us feel weak and dispirited.

Like a machine of which every part has a purpose and function, life needs a well designed architecture. An architecture provides 3 important qualities: predictability, efficiency and coherence. Let's examine all three of them.

We want to be clear what to do in life. That's what I mean by predictability. I need a daily ritual: wake up, shower, pray maybe, go to work. When encountered with certain situations in life, I know exactly what to do because I have clear guidelines or rules--a code of ethic for my conduct. This code will also help me to make decisions in life. I know exactly what to do because I have this algorithm with all the rules embedded. I do not need to a lot of deep thinking to figure it out.

As a result of this ease of action, I never need to waste time groping around for the right solution. I charge ahead in life with purpose and confidence. I feel strong and vigorous because all my actions are clearly aligned and precise. No energy is wasted in deliberating, exploring, experimenting through a process of trial and error. I achieve optimum efficiency.

There's coherence in my life because every aspect of my existence, social, moral, intellectual and emotional support each other and are part of a harmonious whole. That is what an architecture provides. Coherence is what gives us a sense of meaning and beauty. Life is beautiful when we see all the components of its machinery working in harmony, each an equally vital cog in the overall scheme of things. Isn't such a life ecstatically beautiful?

Now that we understand the need for a Life Architecture, let me give you the most common candidate for it: Religion.

It is our unconscious yearning for architecture that make us susceptible to religion, or any other ideology for that matter. Religion is a collective, organic architecture that is easily available and widely adopted by many of us to give us the predictability, efficiency and coherence that we yearn for so much. Is it the best solution for humanity and are there alternative architectures that are better suited for us?

I shall leave that question open for now--a life vector that I am injecting into the mix, to stir up you existing architecture, whatever it may be. Sometimes architectures morph into new ones when internal and external changes are introduced.

The Battle Against Biases

The biggest difficulty in navigating our everyday deluge of information is avoiding the trap of cognitive biases. It disturbs me that people fall into these traps easily, most notably confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias rears its ugly head every time we notice a 'confirmation' or 'prove' of an unsubstantiated belief. Say, you happen to drink a lot of beer after work with your friends one day. On reaching home you felt some stomach discomfort and had to relief yourself in the toilet. The next day, you had a late night whiskey session with another group of friends after dinner. You went home and had a nice sleep that day. A couple of days later, you again go out for beers with your office mates. This time, you go home to the some stomach discomfort.

What can you conclude from this experience? Drinking whiskey is better because beer gives us diarrhea? I have a friend who believes just that. He had a few bad experiences drinking beer after work and he arrives at the theory that his body cannot take beer anymore. Nowadays, he only goes for whiskey.

But I've been drinking beer with this friend of mine for many years and never had I heard him complain about it. What changed? It so happened that another friend told him that he got diarrhea after drinking beer, which made him recall that he himself experienced the same thing before. There you have your confirmation: drinking beer causes diarrhea. Did they consider the possibility that perhaps on those occasions that they were drinking beer, they were doing it with an empty stomach? Perhaps that is the cause of their stomach discomfort? No, the beer theory is more sexy.

We like to come to easy 'truths' like that. Once we have latched on to our favourite theory, we only notice incidences that support it and ignore cases which don't. A lot of superstitions take hold that way. They discount the role that chance plays every time a 'confirmation' of a theory occurs.

More often than not, people only needs one or two data points to form an opinion. How often have you heard people say the food at a particular restaurant sucks after only sampling one particular meal?

In a way, we can't help it. The human mind likes to simply the world around us so that it is easier for us to make decisions. We like to box and pigeonhole things after one or two experiences, so that when we encounter the same situation again, we can make a quick judgement. We don't like uncertainty and nuances. We like binary decisions. Yes or no. Good or bad. This or that. Tye make the world so much simpler for us.

I try to notice these mental biases in my everyday life. The mind simply loves to latch on to biased opinions because it feels good to be certain. You feel decisive, even authoritative. Everything fits in nicely into boxes. But unfortunately the world is not like that. It is continuous, messy and full of nuances. To see that world clearly, one has to battle against these natural mental biases. Believing this could be another biased opinion of mine. But the difference is that: I am totally aware of it.

Truth or Taste?

I've not written about religion for a while but the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka made me ponder about the subject again. What more is there to be said about religion? Are we as human beings better off without religion?

I've suggested before that religion should be treated as a hobby. I might have sounded like I made the statement in jest, but over the many years that I have deliberated on this matter, I seriously believe that is this paradigm shift that we all need to adopt.

No one would kill me if I insist on listening to Barry Manilow love songs as my preferred choice of music. When it comes to music, people understand that this is a matter of individual taste and preference. Even if I insist on blasting Mandy loudly on my stereo at home, my neighbours might sneer at my choice of music but they will never say that I am offending their aesthetic sensitivities. And no one in the right frame of mind will hope that one day everyone listens to only Jazz or Keroncong. Of course not. Music is a matter of taste, not truth.

That is the problem with religion. People think that religion represents the truth. When they think it is the Truth, they want to shove it down everyone's throat--because it is supposedly good for you.

Why are we so certain that the religion of our birth or the religion which we happen to adopt is the Truth? What makes you think that your epiphany is truer than mine?

If my friend tells me that his wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. I would understand why he said that. And I wouldn't be wrong to say that my friend did not mean what he said literally. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. To my friend, who loves his wife so much and appreciates her many good points, she is the most beautiful woman in the world.

Why can't we have the same attitude towards religion? Isn't it silly to kill and commit atrocities in the name of religion?

We are reluctant to relegate religion to simply a matter of personal taste because it is supposed to answer the most important questions of our existence: Why are we here? Where do we go after death? Why do we die? What do we have to do in this life? How can we be assured of safety and happiness? How can we be protected from pain and death?

These are all very serious matters, which religion claims to provide answers. Music, like good food, is merely for our enjoyment. Religion on the other hand, is a matter of life and death.

That is the crux of the matter. We want to be sure that the religion we adopt actually answers all those questions. And whatever, they are, it had better be right for we can never know the answer with absolute certainty. If I do not have the right religion when I die, I might suffer eternal damnation in hell.

But can you be really sure you have the right answers? Does killing people and obliterating other people's beliefs guarantees the truth of your religion? What makes you think your religion is right and others wrong?

You have the right to insist that you are in possession of the absolute truth. You feel it inside. You have been divinely inspired. Your life has been transformed even since you follow your god. Your religious leader gives inspiring talks on the glory of your beliefs. You feel a oneness with the divine, and you feel you are part of something bigger than yourself.

What makes you think others have not experienced what you experience? What makes you think you are right and they are wrong?

We have every right to firmly insist that we are right and others are wrong. I only have one small wish: grant the same right to others. There's enough truth to go around. It is not a zero sum game. There are enough gods for every human out there to worship and praise. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

And let me listen to my Barry Manilow in peace.

The Way of Wisdom

I actually missed my blogging session yesterday because I had a dinner appointment after work with a friend. I had dinner at the MG Cafe and after that I had some errands to run. Upon arriving home, I forgot all about my usual Monday blogging routine.

Which is why I am blogging now, in the morning at the office. I enjoy the daily routine of going to the office. The ritual of dressing up and driving to my place of work allows me to set up the right frame of mind to work. I've always believed that a bit of pressure everyday is a good thing. It's like doing yoga: you need to stretch yourself a bit to develop strength and flexibility. The office is also a good place to socialize. I don't usually take lunch, but sometimes I join colleagues during lunchtime just to banter with them.

I don't have a particular topic to write about today. Or at least, I can't think of any right now. But I'm just going to let my fingers do the walking (or typing). Whenever I'm in the office, I think about how to make my day as productive as possible. Productivity becomes a challenge whenever you don't have a dateline to deliver a particular thing. So I do have a list of 'personal projects' to occupy these idle periods in between customer-related projects.

Personal projects are for learning purposes and to prevent unnecessary idleness. In my line of work, the only skill that's required is the skill to learn--for everything gets obsoleted very fast. There still many fields that I have not mastered. So these lull periods between major projects are extremely precious--it is the time when you can actually pick up something new. But that is provided that you have the discipline to do so.

I know many people while their time away on social media. That seems to be the default activity for everyone nowadays. People are so 'informed' these days but I doubt if all the information gets transmuted into knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge arises from a fusion of information, feeling and action. Information is just the raw material. It can so easily become waste material, if it is not digested and channeled into some useful purpose. Which is why projects are important. You only gain knowledge by applying information and through this process you experience pain (if things go wrong) or pleasure (if things work out well). It is the crucible of passionate action that transmutes information into knowledge, and when knowledge becomes instinctive, it is called wisdom.

Wisdom is instinctive knowledge. The transmutation of knowledge into wisdom requires time and practice. It doesn't happen overnight. It is like facial recognition--the knowing is instant and instinctive. It is a holistic knowing that transcends analysis. Every time we do something, we have to ask ourselves: are we cultivating more wisdom? If it is, then it is a worthwhile action. It is productive. There is no shortcut to it. It is a daily act of cultivation. One action at a time, one day at a time. And today is no different for me. Work. Action. That is the starting point and the path to wisdom. And may there be many more days like this.

The System of Solitude

I've always felt comfortable living alone. I spent many years overseas fending for myself alone, and have enjoyed every moment of it. I have to admit: I am a solitary creature and I make no apologies for it. As a matter of fact, I think, it made me a better person.

People who enjoy being alone are often labelled anti-social and selfish--implying that they have no liking nor care for other people. But if you care to observe carefully, so much of our social interaction are surprisingly self-centered. Posturing, boasting, bragging and gossiping are pretty common-place behaviour whenever two or more humans meet. The person with a ready supply of juicy gossips and scandalous rumours are often the life of a party.

You see, we socialize mostly to reaffirm ourselves: we need the acknowledgement of others. Every agreement and nod from a fellow human being feeds the ego. The ego survives by comparing itself with others. We also need others to ease the mortal pain we all carry within us--the pain of existence.

I know many people cannot stand being alone. The moment they are left alone, they feel restless and fearful. Fear that she has been left out by the rest of the world--that dreaded feeling of loss and abandonment. Lovers feel that more acutely whenever they are separated from each other. They have grown so accustomed to the presence of another individual in their lives that the act of separation is akin to a severing of physical body part. Couples are in essence emotionally con-joined twins.

I often tell my friends that being married and having a family is like taking a postgraduate degree by coursework. There's an alternate way of getting a postgraduate degree--by research. Being single and unmarried is pursuing the latter path. It is much more difficult because the course is not set for you. You have to pursue the task of perfecting your own soul yourself. And it is much more difficult because one is often blind to one's own faults.

When you have a family around you, your strengths and faults are constantly being tested. Through pain and suffering you correct yourselves, adjusting your own behaviour to accommodate or sometimes to dominate others. Through the jostling of daily social interactions, you are constantly rubbing your prickliest parts against others. Often this is a painful process. I've likened this before to pebbles in a stream. If we allow the river of karma to do its work on us, we all become enlightened pebbles in the end--like those smooth rounded pebbles you see at the bottom of a forest stream.

I understand the challenge of living life alone. I have no illusions. I have to set my own course for self-perfection. I like it that way because that is the nature of my soul. The life of a householder may be perfect and even happy for some but for me, happiness is the opportunity to experience things clearly, alone. Every experience has to be distilled by an undistracted mind. It is like trying to do a self-portrait. It is much easier to pose for someone else to paint you. Doing it yourself means realizing the self-bias that exist within, and forcing yourself to look at your blind spots, in a way that could be uncomfortable.

But solitude doesn't equate loneliness and melancholy. Every mystic and saint can attest to you that their moments of spiritual ecstasies are glimpse through intense states of solitary prayer or meditation. Solitude and its attendant angst shapes the soul from within; society sculpts it from without, through the instrument of pain.

Joy, insight and happiness, of its purest kind come through solitude. The real happiness of social life, if one thinks about it, also comes through moments of recollection. The essence of the human experience has to be extracted through a digestive system of solitude. Without it, the soul simply ceases to grow.

Technology and The Wisdom of Gods

I spent the weekend de-cluttering my closet and filing my income tax. Yes, it's April again, the cruelest of months. The beginning of the month is also the time to settle all my credit-card bills. Housekeeping chores like these are made more palatable by listening to audiobooks or podcasts. That's how I get myself to do more tedious stuff nowadays, and kill two birds with one stone.

Technology has changed so much of our lives and if are not careful in how we use them, we can literally get used by technology. I'm happy to read that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook has now suggested regulations on social media.

I use social media very sparingly these days. I was among the earliest users of Twitter and Facebook. There were hardly anyone in Malaysia there during that time. I used them because I wanted to learn how to apply some of their tricks to the SMS service that I was building then. At that time, no one could foresee how much social media would impact our lives. We were just happy to be able to link up with our long lost childhood friends again through social media.

By and large, technology has improved our lives. I remember at one time my Encyclopedia Britannica which I bought in the early 90s was my most prized possession. Now it sits like a museum piece on my bookshelf. It is a miracle that we can read about any subject that we can think of just by asking Google or Siri. Knowledge on demand. What a miracle of technological progress!

But as I mentioned in a previous blog post, technology merely amplifies everything blindly--both the good and the bad. While we don't see any downside to what an abundance of goodness can bring, we cannot say the same for the bad. The internet and social media in particular, is a very powerful platform for the promotion of both good and evil. As we saw, in the Christchurch shootings, even a deranged white supremacist gets a platform to broadcast his demented views to the world.

While social media claims that they are merely a platform, the fact that this global platform is controlled by private corporations, with profit motives is a big problem. A corporation is almost like an organism that only cares about its survival and wellbeing, which is measured purely in dollars and sense, or in business-speak, shareholder value.

It is by sheer luck that a few companies ended up controlling platforms which operate almost like critical global public utilities. The rise and fall of nations and societies could be determined by these social media platforms. Whilst traditional broadcasting media like radio and television are regulated and licensed industries, social media are not. But they are certainly much much more powerful than their technology predecessors. They profit from our medatadata--the information about our clickstream, location, sites we frequent and people we follow. They exploited data to the hilt, when regulations are still clueless about the consequences.

Now we have learned about the effects of social media the hard way. These social media corporations make as much money as they do now simply because they have exploited a loophole. Now, the side-effects have outweighed the benefits. Time for regulation and anti-trust laws to check them. And check them we must.

Technology is always neutral. Humans are not. When technology allows us to project our biases and prejudices into the world in degrees unimaginable before, we have to pause and take stock of where we are heading. We learned that with nuclear energy. Now, we are beginning to understand the disruptive impact internet, not to mention the ominous cloud of artificial intelligence.

Technology will afford us the the power of gods one day, but we have also to ask ourselves: do we yet possess the wisdom of equally divine proportions to wield them properly? The answer is clear: we don't. So let's proceed with caution and humility.

Experience and Meaning

We live in a culture that values experience. The whole of social media is filled with pictures and stories about how everyone is having great experiences: "Look at the food I am eating!", "Look at where I am!", "Look at how happy my family is!", "Here, I am having a wonderful time with friends!", "Look at how cute my baby is!", "Checkout my new expensive outfit!"

For people of our milieu, to live is to enjoy many experiences--especially travelling to exotic places and eating unique food. On our deathbed, we would reflect on the rich experiences we've had and say to ourselves: it has been a good life.

But is that what life amounts to? A collection of experiences? Is 'enjoying life' simply eating and travelling with family and friends? What are experiences anyway? Sensory input? How does one judge the quality of sensory input? Is the value of one's life simply the quality of his sensory input?

There was a time, (and it is still true for some communities today), that life here on earth is to serve a higher ideal--to worship a higher authority, God, so that we may enjoy a blissful afterlife. Happiness is not here in this life but elsewhere--when we die. Or one could be a peasant whose duty is to work the land for food and protection from one's lord or king. Happiness is enjoying a bountiful harvest, having enough for your family and children to eat and wear. Is this life, a lesser life?

By today's standards, it is. Of course, being able to enjoy different experiences all over the world is a better life, you would say. I get to live life to the fullest! How foolish to even question that!

But if pleasant experiences are all we need, are we willing to hook ourselves up to a virtual reality machine where all these experiences are pumped into our senses like a perpetual dream? We've seen this scenario before in many science fiction movies. It is closer and closer to becoming a reality now. Is such a life then, a good life?

No, you would say. Virtual reality and the real thing are different. But what is real? All you ever experience are just signals from your neuron. How do you know where these signals come from? As the philosophers like to point out, you could be a brain in a vat. You could already be living in a simulation, like Keanu Reeves's character in the Matrix. How do you know what is real and not?

Well, since we can't be sure. We might as well enjoy the ride. Experience, share, experience, share, experience, share and die. I presume such a life would be considered a happy life. Or is it?

What other options do we have? Is that why we feel an emptiness inside, which can only be filled by some meaning? But what is meaning anyway? Is 'meaning' a value that we aspire to have in our lives? Is bringing up a family, or starting a business, enjoying the company of friends, or being a devout Hindu something 'meaningful'?

Is meaning just an sensory experience? Doesn't look like it. Meaning appeals to the mind rather than the senses. Meaning seem to give some kind of intellectual weight to whatever we do. To do something 'meaningful' is to serve a higher purpose.

Is that why one becomes spiritual or religious? Or decides to 'serve the people' by becoming a community leader or doing charity work? Is 'meaning' simply the promptings of the ego? Isn't the ego like a higher 'sense' that needs gratification, like how our sensory bodies crave for experiences?

Experiences satisfy the senses. Meaning satiates the ego. If we spend our entire lives pursuing these things, does it make it a good life? Can I say that my life is better than yours because I do more 'meaningful' things?

The senses are forever searching for experiences. The brain then rationalizes and organizes them into meaning. Is that what life is about? Well, I am just a provocateur. You have read these lines; you experienced the imagery of my words. Now you go and fill them with meaning. I am done with my weekly blog post and I am moving on to another experience!

On Kindness

Someone who often confides in me told me recently that my advice is sometimes not practical because I am too kind. She cannot follow my example because other people would step on her or take advantage of her kindness.

I admit that I am someone who is not vengeful and forgives others easily. I often advice people to let go and just move on. Why reiterate again and again how bad other people are and how much you have been wronged?

I told her that if other people take advantage of her kindness, it is their problem. You have done your part. Learn whatever lesson you can from the experience and move on. To dwell on unhappiness is to create unnecessary karma. When you suffer pain, suffer it mindfully, once and for all. If you truly know how to take pain consciously, you only suffer it once. To avoid, deny and dwell on pain is to make it pathological. Allow your karma with that particular person to end there. That's what the spiritual teachers mean by 'working out' your karma. Forgiveness is the greatest karma-buster.

I have lost money before due to kindness. But that's alright. Money is often the smallest price you can pay. It's just tuition fees to learn whatever lesson you are supposed to learn at that point in your life. Consider yourself fortunate when your suffering can be quantified with money. Settle your dues and move on.

What if the amount you lose is astronomical? Then ask yourself, why did you plunge so much money into it? Is it due to greed? Or perhaps it's your ego? You wanted to show to the world how generous you were? Whatever you lose, it is the right price for the lesson you learned. Be grateful that the price for this unhappy experience is spelled out so clearly in dollars and cents.

Sometimes, the cost is not so obvious. You keep on investing in your pain in order to rectify some perceived wrong that you think others have inflicted on you. So you pay with time and energy. You become obsessed with getting back on the person. You wanted revenge. Good luck on your adventure!

To take advantage of someone else's kindness is a character flaw. You can cheat, lie or take advantage of other people only so many times in your life. You pay a very heavy price for the small tokens of benefit that you gain by exploiting someone else. Enjoy it while it lasts for they don't. The greater suffering awaits you. Nature, if you understand it well, abhors injustice. Let nature take its course.

Do not hate such people. Just learn your lesson and avoid them. Allow them time and space to heal their handicap. Have pity and mercy on people who have to learn things the hard way. Feel grateful that you have learned yours by paying a much smaller price.

So understand that kindness is not a weakness. On the contrary, I think kindness, if applied correctly, is pretty cool.

A Reasonable Relationship

Today, I'm blogging from PappaRich Cafe, Citta Mall. It is actually pretty close to my office. I like this Mall because it is quiet and not very well-known. Well, the basement parking gets flooded every time it rains heavily but apart from that, the design of the mall is very good--it is open, airy and surrounded by greens.

It is a very relaxed setting for me to reflect on today's topic, which I've been thinking for the past week. It is about relationships and how they can be sustainable.

Now hold on, I can already hear howls of protests out there: What does a confirmed bachelor like me know about relationships?

First, hear me out. By relationships, I do not only limit it to the romantic relationship between a man and a woman. I want to consider all human relationships: between siblings, between parents and children between business partners, between colleagues and between friends. What do they all share in common?

Firstly, why do humans need to relate to each other? We are social beings and the key reason for the success of Homo Sapiens is because they can communicate, socialize and build consensus that benefit everyone. By connecting to each other, we can be bigger than the sum of our parts.

And of course, men and women are biologically attracted to each other because procreation is the main driving force of evolution. We need to perpetuate our genes and are constantly finding a member of the opposite sex who could assist us to carry out this task. So no matter how hard we try, we will inevitably succumb to this impulse.

But sex alone doesn't make a relationship. A couple needs to live together, plan for the well-being of their kids and chart out a course for the future together. It is a lifelong partnership for two persons who has different genes, upbringing and probably culture too. Each person's worldview and personality will be different.

First rule of a relationship is that: it is not going to be easy. Both parties need to do a lot of work to maintain it, even if in the beginning both seem compatible. A business partnership usually begins with a lot of optimism: We'll build the best product out there and we'll conquer the market. But a business vision is the easy part. The real work comes when you have to deal with the day-to-day drudgery of hardwork, coupled with the question of who is responsible for what and how much should each founder be compensated for.

Business partnerships and marriages are very similar in many aspects. It is about discovering your partner's strengths and weaknesses along the way, and how they meet or fall short of your initial expectations.

Do you have the stamina to last through the entire lifecycle of the relationship? The 'fun' part of a relationship is just 20% of the equation. 80% of the time you'll be dealing with issues which you think your partner or partners should be doing better or doing more.

It all boils down to expectations. We as individuals only know how to see things from our own personal perspective. When Mary goes to the bathroom, she expects her comfy toilet seat to be where it should be: down. But when John goes to pee, he gets irritate that he has to pull up the toilet seat again.

Looking at things from another person's point of view is a skill that we don't naturally have. We have to work at it. Both parties in a relationship have to work very very hard at it. But unfortunately we are naturally selfish. We 'care' for our loved one because we need them around to guarantee our own happiness. What we care for is actually our own happiness.

A business partnership is not based solely on reason--no matter how well you draw up your business plans and product architecture. A big part of it has to do with the emotions of the people executing them. Do they have the perseverance, enthusiasm and patience to continue pursuing them day in, day out? What if you do, but your partner doesn't? Or maybe your partner seems to be giving 80% of what you are contributing?

I don't have a formula for a successful partnership or a romantic relationship. I only know that all parties need to have the humility and the awareness to see where each one is coming from. We all need to rub against each other, sometimes painfully, in order to find out where we stand. In a way, when we partner with each other, we are bringing our individual neurosis into the system. Most of the time, we can't see our own flaws. But to your partner or partners, that's probably all they see. If both parties start with the recognition that they are flawed creatures and that the relationship is just an opportunity to correct those flaws, then I would think perhaps, there's a glimmer of hope.

Judgments and Measurements

Last week I wrote about ego management and why we sometimes like to rant about the world. When I was writing it, I thought my writing was quite awful--my points were not well-organized and I was rambling. But never mine. It's only a blog post that no one reads.

But I read it again just now, a week later, I felt different about the piece. I thought it was actually pretty good. Sorry for the self-congratulatory note. My ego needs a bit of pumping today, I guess.

Actually the previous paragraph was meant to illustrate the subject of my blog post today--self kindness. We are often too harsh on ourselves. Everyday, when we wake up and look at the mirror, we see all our flaws. The mind-filter at work again. Every time we do a presentation, conduct a meeting or meet someone important, we always think that we didn't perform as well as we should have. But the fact is that, whatever we did was good enough. We are just too self-critical.

Self-criticism is good when it serves as a reminder for us to constantly improve. Unfortunately, we often take it too far. We always think we look bad in a photograph but your friends don't see that. You look exactly like how you normally do. Every day you put down yourself more than anyone else. The fact is that most people don't notice your flaws and even if they do, it is of no concern to them. They are too busy worrying about their own flaws!

Being kind to yourself is not a weakness. Set a high standard for yourself by all means when it comes to the performance of a task. But if you fall short, do not hit yourself too hard. You have an outcome and every outcome is another data point for you to gauge your performance. There's no emotion involved in that. Note it down and identify its causes. Then move on.

Too much self-criticism can be pathological. If you measure your height and it turns out to be 170cm. It is just that. You are not too short, nor are you too tall. The judgement is relative to the situation. If you are 12 years and you have that height, you could be considered very tall. But if you are an adult Asian male, you are probably average. If you are a woman, people might even say you are tall.

Let's have more measurements and less judgement. Judgments has a sense of finality to it, whereas measurements are just progress reports. We can measure and set reasonable goals for ourselves. You are not a failure if you fall short. There's always an incremental goal that you can reach. Get a win from a smaller goal and then progress from there.

Life is lived through a series of incremental improvements. As long as we know which direction that we want to go, and we make progressive movements towards it, we are living a good life. Measure, assess and readjust. As long as you keep doing that, you can only be closer to your goal.

Ego Management

I left office at 5pm sharp today because it was time for a break after working continuously for six hours. It is rare that one gets to work without being interrupted by phone-calls, messages or conversations with colleagues. But today was one of those days when I managed to focus a hundred percent on my work.

Monday as always, is my vegetarian day. I had a salad bowl for dinner and here I am, parked at my Starbucks to do my weekly blog post. You can say, I am generally happy whenever I'm purposeful and productive. Most of my days are kind of like that. I am aware that most people use their blogs to rant about things. I generally do not have such an urge.

Where does this urge to rant come from? Perhaps from pent up anger and frustration. Resentment accumulates easily. We read stupid statements that politicians make, we encounter bad drivers on the road, we deal with difficult people in the course of our work. Usually we don't get to express our anger and dissatisfaction in the course of our day. Hence the need to find an outlet to release them.

Which is well and good. But one must ask oneself: why do resentments build up in first place? Think about it. Why can't feelings of goodwill accumulate instead and we end our day brimming with smiles? Is it because we want to be angry and resentful?

Let's acknowledge this fact: the mind is a filter. We experience the world through the filter of the mind. For most people, this filter is a negative filter--it tends to only admit experiences that trigger anger. But why does this mind-filter prefer anger-inducing experiences over joyful ones?

It is because the ego prefers it. The ego can only sustain itself through a feeling of superiority. We want to be angry at other people so that we can feel that we are better than them. The more we criticize others, the more the ego inflates. The ego is a balloon that needs its daily dose of hot angry air to maintain its shape.

All pain is caused by the ego. Being resentful is painful. Trying to be who you are not is painful. But isn't the human ego an essential part of our psychological makeup? Yes, the ego is part of our personality. In some way, it is why we are born into the world: to work out our in-born ego.

The problem begins when we do not know what is the 'optimum size' of the ego. The ego must be at ease with the world. It is like getting the air pressure on your car tyres right. if you pump it up too much, your car is going to be very bouncy and it might even cause them to burst. Too little air, your drive won't be very smooth.

So the ego is like your tyres. You need just the right amount of pride to keep it at optimum size. It keeps us going in the world without too much friction. If you have too much of it, be prepared for a lot of hard knocks. Good ego management is the key to happiness. Life becomes a much smoother ride that way.

The Light of Incidental Understanding

Today I had a meeting with a friend in Puchong, so here I am at the nearest Papa Rich Cafe, having my vegetarian nasi lemak dinner and doing my weekly blog post. It's the beginning of another busy week and I'm glad that I have the opportunity to blog before diving deep into my work.

Over the years I've found a way to cope with work-related stress. We tend to treat work as too important when in fact it is not. How many times have we rushed to deliver presentations and proposals only to have decisions delayed or projects simply cancelled in the end? Customers often make use of vendors to do the hard work for them. My philosophy is that, whatever I do must have learning value. I don't mind doing 'stupid work', which does not come to fruition in terms of monetary rewards, but I still benefit from acquiring some new knowledge or skill in the process.

I realized that, what drives me is a desire to learn. Learning gives me a high. There is no greater pleasure than the pleasure of understanding--that sudden clearing away of obscuring clouds, to reveal a clear vista of comprehension. Big life-changing eureka moments are rare but those small aha moments do come on a daily basis. One must seize and relish them every time they appear.

They could come in the form of an insightful remark by a friend, or an inspiring moment in a movie or a touching passage from a novel. It could also come in the middle of a humdrum corporate meeting. The workplace is the arena of interaction between many egos. By observation how other people's egos work, you get to know your own better.

Every little insight we gain throughout the day contributes to our growth. Over time we will come to realize that the major hindrance to our spiritual growth is actually our ego. The more we diminish our ego, the higher we soar spiritually. Spiritual growth is fueled by the nourishment of understanding and accelerated by the elimination of the ego. The ego blocks the our arteries of spiritual nourishment. Hence we should pay as much attention to the accumulation of the ego, like what we do towards cholesterol levels.

Ego is merely fear congealed. It is a protective layer that the soul creates to help us avoid pain. But it soon becomes a hindrance to our growth. By opening up our vulnerable self, we allow the light of understanding to shine into the dark corners of our soul. So let there be light, and watch a universe unfurl itself from within.

The Conundrum of the Mind

What a hectic week it has been for me. Only now am I able to settle down for my weekly blogging session. My five-year-old Dell laptop refused to boot up on Monday night. So I had to spend the next 2 days evaluating various options. Finally, I decided to repair it and purchase a new one at the same time---because it'll take 2 weeks for the parts to arrive, and I cannot disrupt my immediate work schedule.

Here I am typing this blog post from my brand new HP laptop. Took me a whole day to set up my favourite Linux OS and all the tools required for me to do my development work. I think I should be all systems go again from tonight.

But let's get this post out of the way first, because blogging is both a break and a preparation for work. As a break from work, it allows me to use a different part of my brain after a whole day of churning out computer code. And as preparation, it allows me to gather together my thoughts, evaluate priorities before attacking the next portion of my work.

Reading and writing lubricates the mind. After a whole day of grinding out code, the mind needs recuperation. Therefore, I choose to write on subjects that are not directly related to my work. That way, a part of the brain gets to rejuvenate itself while another does the heavy lifting on a totally unrelated matter. By exercising different parts of the brain, you build up your overall mental fitness.

The mind is such a great tool when it comes to tackling problems with the external world. But when it comes to our internal world, it often IS the source of our problems. You can blame that on all the unnecessary worrying and incessant self-criticism that reverberates in one's head. Our everyday mind is rarely at peace: it feels insecure and seeks reassurances; it amplifies the improbable. It simply has no sense of proportion. The human mind is poor in handling the unpredictability of everyday affairs.

The first step towards taming this unruly mind of ours is to realize its nature. Once you know that it is the mind that is the biggest culprit in torturing itself, you gain a better sense of proportion. Everything is alright--at least in that instance when you have that particular worrying thought. You are alive and thinking thoughts. You are still in possession of your body and mental faculties. You just have to allow the mind to find its resting point. Just step back a little and observe.

Observe your thoughts without judgement--for every judgement is another thought, which spawns off further judgments of their own. If we know how to observe our thoughts without reacting, we possess the key to this eternal conundrum that is our mind. And that is the whole practice of mindfulness, which shall be the subject of future blogs.

Rising Above the Mob

It's that time of the year again when every word uttered, every gesture expressed has to connote optimism, growth, expansion and well-being. All negativity, gloom and apprehension has to be swept away in cacophonous bursts of firecrackers, the clanging of cymbals and the thumping of drums.

Melancholy is absolutely anathema to the Chinese, especially during the time of Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. Oracles and geomancers are consulted to ward off evil, bad luck and perceived hindrances, and should favourable opportunities arise, to leverage them to the hilt. Everything, absolutely everything, must be geared towards a better and brighter future.

A people with such an attitude are unstoppable. You don't engage them, you unleash them. And because of this, they are admired and feared in equal measure. This surge of Yang energy is determining the direction of the world now, like an unstoppable tsunami. The world of the future will be a very different place. As one empire, like an actor who has delivered his lines on stage, takes its bow, another enters in his fresh and garish costume, to the rousing cheers of the audience.

To be born a Chinese is both a blessing and a curse. It is like one is being carried forward by a surging mob, towards a direction not necessarily of one's choosing. But one relents, because the mob always rules and if one goes with the flow, one partakes in its power.

If the mob has a weakness, it is its insanity. Its satisfaction comes from steamrolling everything in its path. It is driven by an unconscious frenzy. But a roused mob is never a happy one: it only possesses an unquenchable thirst.

And if one has the wisdom to rise above the mob, and yet still be able to harness its energy, happiness may not be such an elusive thing after all. Thus one wishes that the Year of the Pig brings such a happiness to everyone.

The Ultimate Addiction

I'm blogging today from the Main Place Mall in Subang Jaya. I take pleasure in finding vegetarian food in the most unexpected places. Usually most cafes would have at least one or two items that are vegetarian. It's good enough for me and I'm happy to be able to blog comfortably here at the Mr Roti Canai outlet.

I'm going to write about addiction today, which I think is a very important topic. I read in the papers that gaming addiction is a very serious problem among today's youth. Many of today's social problems are caused by addiction--not only to drugs, but also to gambling, alcohol, sex, food and more recently, gaming and social media.

Why do we get addicted to these things so easily? This is a very interesting area in neuropsychology research. Studies indicate that we get addicted to things because certain substances or behaviour hijack our brain's pleasure circuits. Usually 3 different effects contribute to the process of addiction. Firstly, these substances over-stimulate our pleasure centre, an area in the brain called the nucleus accumbens; they also trigger the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that brings forth craving and finally they impair the pre-frontal cortex, which is responsible for planning and decision-making. Most addictions are due to the vicious cycle of these 3 effects.

Sometimes I do suspect that love is also an addiction. Lovers certainly behave like addicts. They can't get enough of each other, yet they are never perfectly happy together. When they breakup, as lovers often do, they suffer great withdrawal symptoms--just like hardcore junkies.

Now, do I suffer from any addictions? Certainly not to gambling. I hate gambling. I don't smoke either. I'm fond of alcoholic drinks but I'm not addicted to them. I can go alcohol-free for months but when I do get together with friends, I most certainly enjoy my drink and can hold it very well too.

Some might accuse me of being addicted to work. Well, am I a workaholic? It may appear to be so for I'm always 'working' on my computer. But do not be deceived, I'm not actually doing work-related stuff. The computer happens to be the main tool for us to do many things: learning stuff, shopping, paying bills, consuming content and also managing our lives. Hours in front of the computer does not mean I'm a workaholic. I'm just doing many different things. Like now: I'm blogging on the computer--for pleasure, mind you.

If I can be accused of any addiction, it has to be to learning and understanding. I listen to audiobooks and I read on almost any topic under the sun because I am infinitely curious and has an insatiable appetite to comprehend things. I am fond of books--a fetish perhaps but certainly not an addiction that disrupts and destroys one's life.

Is there such a thing as 'positive addiction'? Can a health junkie who craves exercise, fruit juices and quinoa be called a 'positive addict'? There's at least one author promoting the term. But I think we are perhaps abusing the word, addiction. Positive addiction is an oxymoron. Let's just stick to developing 'good habits'.

I have a deep interest in the science of addiction because I see many people suffering from it. How do we wean off an addiction? If we understand how we get addicted to things, we can use some of its mechanism and apply them to the process of learning. For learning is also process of association using pleasurable rewards.

All developers want to create addictive products. Being a developer myself, it is important for me to understand the psychology of addiction. The world is apparently driven by addiction. The more I analyze people's behaviour, the more I believe that addiction makes the world go round. We navigate through a minefield of potential addictions everyday. Now, can one be addicted to not being addicted? Hmm...that's a thought.

Selfie-Examination

Yesterday was Thaipusam and a public holiday, which was why I missed my weekly blogging session. I had some family and social obligations to attend to. All in all, the long weekend was a productive one. I was pretty happy with how I spent it.

Today feels like I've had a productive day but almost the entire day was spent trying to resolve some technical problems which I am still struggling to find a solution to. But let's leave that aside for I'm now parked at my favourite cafe with a nice hot Americano, ready to while away my time, blogging.

What a delight it is to be taking my "fingers for a walk", as I used to refer to blogging. Part of the joy of blogging is that, you are under no pressure to write about anything in particular--or at least on this personal blog, which carries no specific theme or agenda. All I do is chalk up miles--covering blank spaces with my aimless ramblings.

You see how easy it is to blog about nothing. And then you latch on to something, from nothing: A lot of our lives are spent doing nothing. We spent hours texting or surfing aimlessly, reading gossips and superficial news; we spent evenings and nights binge-watching our favourite TV series; we get stuck in traffic making pointless excursions to the hottest nightspots or eating places in town. That's how we spend our lives. We call that living.

Our entire lives are spent pursuing distractions. It is as if, the mere exposure of a moment of silence and repose is an abomination to be avoided at all cost. All you see on Facebook are pictures of people 'having a good time' at places which their friends would envy. At the end of our lives, we'll look back at our collection of happy selfies and tell ourselves: we've lived a good life.

My philosophy in life has always been: to each his or her own. We live the life we choose. If eating gives you pleasure, by all means go and pursue all the gastronomic delights that life has to offer. Some, usually men, find sex the ultimate pleasure and devote all their time towards that pursuit.

What is a good life? This has always been a question debated by philosophers throughout the ages. I am old-fashioned in this regard. I subscribe to Socrates' idea of an examined life as a life worth living. What is an examined life? It is a life observed. To use a more Buddhist term, a mindful life.

There's nothing wrong in leading a hedonistic life. To pursue pleasure as a form of distraction is to avoid examination of oneself. If you are enjoying something: examine the sensation of pleasure that you feel. What is the essence of that experience?

There: I am enjoying the exquisite pleasure of standing before the majestic sight of Borobudur in Java.

That could have been another great selfie moment for me. But I did not have a camera phone then. I went there alone, off-season. I took a slow overnight train from Jakarta to Yogjakarta. In other words, the entire journey there was quiet, meditative and attentive. I thoroughly enjoyed that excursion because it was more than another tourist trip--it was a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is something that involves the body and the soul. Something that transforms.

A selfie moment can be deep meditation on the superficiality of life. You need to take hundreds and thousands of selfies to be able to penetrate the essence of selfie-taking. One then gains an understanding of the fears and insecurities of the ego. To look beneath the veneer of smiles and see the desperation that drives each and every one of us. And there you have the spiritual value of selfie-taking. It is as if we need to expose our images to the world so that our inner selves are reflected back to us, in its essential nature.

In other words, everything we do, every moment that we spent our lives, can be examined. Especially a selfie. A selfie is meant for the world to see but look closer: we actually see our inner selves. And there in the very act of snapping and exposing are epiphanies awaiting.

Fire and Forget

It has been 2 weeks into the new year and I've been pursuing my daily routines as expected. I'm a creature of habit. I'm the type who works best one my own, alone. Just me give the task, I'll find a way to get it done.

In the military, they use the term 'fire and forget' for the kind of missiles which have the ability to find its target on its own. You just press the button and let the missile do the rest. Fire, and forget.

Actually the expression can be used both positively and negatively on people. If an employee is expendable, you can fire him and promptly forget about it. No loss to you. This is the opposite of the other type of 'F&F' employee whom you only have to assign a job and he'll get it done. Like yours truly. Unfortunately, ever since I've been in a position to give orders to others, I have found the negative F&F types more prevalent than the positive ones.

In software, if there's an API call or feature which allows you to fire-and-forget, that is usually a good thing. It means the system is intelligent enough to schedule and execute the task without you having to put in any extra effort to manage its execution. It means that the system has some inherent intelligence built in.

Personally, I try to apply the fire-and-forget paradigm in the spiritual realm too. I've mentioned karma yoga in many previous posts of mine. This concept is also related to the Buddhist principle of non-attachment. Do not expect to be rewarded for anything you do. But that doesn't mean you do things irresponsibly. On the contrary, a karma yogi sets his mind and body completely into the task at hand--be it a mundane task or a good deed--but simply attaches no expectation of reward to its completion: Just fire and forget.

Firing and forgetting makes life simple. Trust that the universe has an inherent intelligence to do the necessary accounting. You reap what you sow. If you do something sincerely and whole-heartedly, there's always a payoff. In a corporation--it is usually more work. The boss would obviously assign more work to those whom he can trust. There you have your reward: Trust. Guess who he's going to promote when there's a new opening?

I can hear complaints: don't these kind of workers get exploited by unscrupulous bosses too? Yes, but the situation does not last long. Nature has a way of balancing itself. A mistreated worker will inevitably find himself in another organization that recognizes his contribution. If your company does not recognize you, the industry will.

The machinations of the universe is simply too complex for our small minds to work out. In software development, you try to keep things small, self-contained and modular. I apply this principle to life in general. 'Reward' in life is a system level property. What you see are the input and immediate output. The experience of processing inputs and producing outputs is the only outcome that concerns us. If you focus on just that, the reward of work is immediate: Data, knowledge, experience.

Your job is simply to fire and forget. And let the reward missile find its way to you. Often in unexpected ways.

Markers and Milestones

This is my first blog post for 2019 and I'm happy to be continuing my momentum and commitment to write weekly. Blogging is not as popular an activity as it used to be when I first started this blog around 16 years ago(!). I suppose this would be a good topic to kick-off the year: Why blog at all?

Obviously I've blogged about this topic before. But it's worth a revisit, especially when it is plainly obvious that no one (besides yours truly) reads this blog at all! So why bother?

Even then, when I first started blogging, I did not bother to promote this blog. I've on many occasions likened this blog to an 'exercise book'--a place for me to scribble and 'take my fingers for a walk'. It is where I can practice spontaneous writing, like how some people doodle on the margins of books or on the back of napkins.

I've also likened blogging to 'singing in the bathroom'. People who do so often sing with as much gusto as someone who performs in a live arena of adoring fans. Blogging is not exactly like writing formally for a journal or newspaper but it is close. You would want to 'perform' as if you are doing so.

During the height of my blogging fever when I was living in Indonesia, I blogged everyday without fail for almost 2 years. I wanted the pressure of datelines--that dreaded feeling of panic when faced with a blank screen with not a single idea of what to write. I think that was very good practice. It helped me to hone my writing skills a great deal.

That, I think, was the practical reason as to why I blogged. I just wanted to improve my writing. A performance artist can only improve when he performs publicly to an audience. And the blogging audience is a forgiving one. It is as close as one could get to being a regular newspaper columnist.

There are other more psychological or even spiritual reasons for blogging. I've blogged about this before too: I called it 'writhink'. The best why to work out one's thoughts is through writing. When I write, I am actually analyzing how I feel towards certain subjects. Through the act of writing, I understand myself better. I know where I stand on certain issues.

When thoughts are written out, they manifest themselves into the world, as something almost physical. They can potentially affect changes in the real world: thheir potency is unleashed.

This blog is also a repository of all my ideas and opinions in its raw and uncurated form. In fact, 15 years ago, someone told me that I have enough material in my blog for a book. If I cease to exist in this world, this blog would still float around in cyberspace, like some cosmic debris in interstellar space.

Looking back, I'm glad that this blog exists. If I had typed or wrote these words elsewhere on pieces of paper, notebooks or documents, I would not have had the discipline to preserve them in such a pristine order and form as this blogged has to all the articles that I've posted. It is a treasure trove that I can continue to mine for years to come. If you want my opinion on a certain topic, I'm quite sure I can send you a link to a related article here in this blog.

And most important of all, blogging makes me happy. Everytime I posted something to my blog, I clocked in another milestone. It's another personal marker in cyberspace, another moment of reflection on life's journey. And may there be many more of such milestones and markers here this year.

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.