The Chariot of Success

Last week's article was a little bit sombre, as I reflected on death and the difficulties of family life. Today, I'm back in my favourite mall, Nu Empire, Subang Jaya, to write about something more upbeat, since everywhere I go, I'm surrounded by the gaiety of the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations. 

I've written many blog articles about the Chinese people and the significance of the CNY celebrations. Here's what I wrote in an article 10 years ago: 

"The ethos of the Chinese is growth and expansion. Gloom is anathema to the spirit of Chinese New Year. To move forward with a healthy sense of confidence and optimism is how one should lead one's life. Attaining prosperity and material success in this world is the happiness one seeks as a Chinese."

In another article entitled "The Chinese In Me", I wrote 19 years ago, I reflected on my attitude, as a Chinese, towards the pursuit of material success. Rereading that, I realised how little I have changed since then. Material success to me is still a 'bonus', which, if it comes my way, I will receive with gratitude. But I do not treat worldly pursuits with disdain; if anything, they are actually good opportunities for us to practice non-attachment.

'Success', if the word can be used at all, is always pursued on two fronts: material and spiritual. On the material front, you aim to accumulate as much wealth as possible; on the spiritual side, you attempt to minimise your attachment to these worldly gains.  You constantly subject yourself to the following stress test: if you lose everything that you have gained tomorrow, will you still be alright? 

One might ask: What's wrong with embracing and enjoying all the material delights of the world?  Well, there's nothing wrong with enjoying all the earthly pleasures that come our way, as long as they do not make us vulnerable. How so? Just think of how often we get addicted and dependent on the luxuries of life. Having enjoyed the convenience of a car, you cannot live without one anymore. Having slept with air-conditioning your entire life, you now twist and turn in your bed, whenever there's no electricity.

By all means, enjoy all the fruits of your success. But enjoy them with gratitude. What it means is that you appreciate the fact that they are all temporary in nature. Everything could be gone in a flash. Economic collapse, wars and other natural disasters could rob you of everything. 

How resilient are you in the face of financial ruin? Are you able to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start all over again? Building resilience is an important part of success. Wealth can be a fragile house of cards if it does not stand on firm spiritual foundations. 

The coming Chinese Lunar New Year is the year of the horse. In the Upanishads, the metaphor of the horse and the charioteer is often used to explain how the senses, represented by the horses, bound to the chariot (body), can only be controlled through the intellect (charioteer) and the mind (reins), which then ensures the safety of the Self or Soul (the passenger). 

Let's all welcome the Year of the Horse, mindful of the fact that the pursuit of our senses will always have to be skillfully tempered by the mind and the intellect. Godspeed!

Reflections on Relations

In just a day, my aunt's condition took a turn for the worse and I found myself back in Johor Bahru to attend her funeral. All that is now over and I'm taking an early bus home after this. 

I had returned on my last trip via the ETS but I couldn't get a ticket this time. Weekend trains, I found out, are usually fully booked. However travelling on executive buses is not a bad alternative for there are single seats that are also quite comfortable, and some with very good on-board WiFi connection too. For this trip, I had taken a bus from TBS (Terminal Bersepadu Selatan) in Taman Tasik Selatan. The southward journey was a breeze; the 5 hours just flew by, with me catching up on podcasts, interspersed with short but much needed naps. 

These trips to JB have been educational for me. I met and talked to many people along the way, catching many glimpses into individuals from different walks of life. I had so many interesting conversations with Grab drivers, about their lives and families, which I should write down perhaps as material for future articles. 

My aunt's passing also made me reflect on the relationship between family members and relatives. As someone who has chosen to be permanently single, I've often wondered if I had simply reneged on my responsibility to perpetuate the family line. But I've also seen among my relations, how difficult marriages can be.

It was Tolstoy who famously wrote this first line in Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". It suggests that, the cause of unhappiness in families, is often due to specific and individual issues. My own observations suggest that unhappiness will inevitably arise in any family usually  due to personality differences. You can never resolve these differences fully; families that thrive have simply found sensible workarounds. 

All of us are unique creatures, each with a unique set of genes and personal experiences. Immediately our 'boundary conditions' are different. And these initial starting points determine the kind of behavior--good or bad--that gets expressed.  From what I see, people are mostly determined by their genes. It is difficult to overcome natural genetic tendencies. 

Families are often unhappy simply because everyone thinks and behaves differently. What is of priority to one member is taken lightly by another; living habits often differ and as a result, resentment builds up slowly over time, initially below the surface, but  soon manifest as hatred and arguments.

We tend to see other people's flaws but is completely blind when it comes to our own. Furthermore each family has a power structure, which inevitably give rise to feelings of jealousy and bitterness between members. If there are sick and elderly members in the family, there could be disagreements over who is supposed to or has not done enough to care for them.

Ram Dass famously said, "If you think you are enlightened, spend the weekend with your parents". When we are dealing with our family members,  our deepest flaws are often exposed. To recoil in anger is the instinctive response. 

My aunt died of multiple old age issues in her eighties alone in a hospital. She was a divorcee with two estranged sons--cousins whom I never had a chance to get to know, who could no longer be contacted. My aunt was lucky to have my elderly uncle who had patiently cared for her, sending her to an old folks' home when she needed daily assistance and had finally completed his familial obligation, arranging for a simple Christian funeral to send her off from this life.

Death makes us reflect on the meaning of our own lives. Ultimately, the things that matter are the relationships you have, with your parents, siblings, relatives and friends. A lifetime is finite. My aunt had lived and died and the only remnants of her existence are dry ashes and bones in an urn. It was brotherly love that had given her this last bit of dignity and her memory lives on, at least in this blog article of mine, now consigned to posterity.

Life's Pilgrimage

"To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road... is wisdom"

- Ralp Waldo Emerson

I'm a bit late in posting my blog article of the week because I've have been busy tackling family obligations and now I'm on a short trip to Johor Bahru to visit an ailing aunt. I'm stealing a bit of time at this Coffee Bean outlet here at the KSL Mall to record the whatever random thoughts that bubble up. The Chamomile tea puts me in a relaxed mood and hopefully, I'll be able to churn up some decent writing.

Sometimes it is good to break out from one's regular habits to see life from a slightly different perspective. Come to think of it, I haven't travelled at all for the last, perhaps 8 years, since my last trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh. I caught an executive bus down to Johor Bahru last evening and arrived here right after midnight.  The feeling of checking into a hotel and sleeping in a strange hotel room, actually brings back many fond memories of all the time that I had spent living on the road, outside Malaysia.

For some people, the single life can be the most depressingly lonely kind of existence. But strangely to me, it only gives me a feeling of self-sufficiency and contentment.  The hotel room here is a basically a larger version of the one I had stayed for 2 years, as a long-term guest in Jakarta, more than 20 years ago (!). I recorded why I felt so happy staying there then in this blog article, written then. That phase of my life has passed but I am still the same person, a contented and happy being...perhaps, a spiritual nomad now?

The cliche "life is a journey, not a destination", often misattributed to Emerson  carries a much deeper insight. It is not just a journey to me, it is a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a journey undertaken to reach a spiritual site--the birthplace or tomb of saints or any other locations deemed 'holy' through associations with prophets and spiritual teachers. What makes a journey a pilgrimage is actually not the destination, but the process of reaching it, which in the days before jet travel, involving a lot of danger and hardship. 

A pilgrimage is like a walking meditation because you have an overriding spiritual goal, but at any moment in time, you have to focus on the task at hand--the discomforts of your journey, the threat of being robbed or lost and the ever-present possibility of death, away from the safe comforts of your home. It is the process of overcoming all these obstacles that constitutes the pilgrimage. The destination is just the cherry on the cake, at the end. The real reward is the inner transformation of the traveller. 

All great sagas, epitomising the Hero's Journey, are in essence pilgrimages -- for example, Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, Divine Comedy and the Pilgrim's Progress.  the protagonist undergoes a lot of hardship in his journey, which ultimately changes him. 

You don't have to physically travel anywhere to go on a pilgrimage. Your life is already a pilgrimage--towards Death. Whatever challenges or hardship that you go through in life are meant to transform you for the better. So take them head-on; suffer the pain consciousness and be grateful for whatever blessings that come your way, because they help to nourish you on this journey. 

You don't have to join the hip crowd and hitch-hike to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain to declare to the world via Instagram that you are on a spiritual pilgrimage. Your life is already one, and we are all fellow pilgrims.

The Spiritual Roots of Religion

It's that time of the year again: post-Christmas, the serenity of Yuletide is suddenly replaced by the boisterous anticipation of Chinese Lunar New Year that looms ahead. To the Chinese, the new year only really begins after this major celebration is done and over with.  Business outlets are now all decked in festive red, with themes referencing the coming year's zodiac animal--the Horse.

I'm blogging today from a kopitiam at Nu Empire, Subang Jaya, with the incessant drone of CNY songs pumping into my ears. Lately, I've been taking my time to explore all the various possible activities that I could embark upon in the coming year. I'll just sit back and see what bubbles up in terms of promise and excitement.

One thing's for sure though: I'll dive deeper into my exploration of spirituality in general. If you read the articles in my blog, it is clear that spirituality is a recurrent theme. Today, there is a trend among some to declare themselves as "spiritual but not religious"--SBNR in short. This SBNR term probably became common-place when dating apps and sites allow users to choose this as an option when asked to specify their religious affiliation.

What is spirituality? And what differentiates it from being 'religious'? If you look for definitions of spirituality, it is often defined as a kind of inner yearning or search for meaning, transcendence and connectedness to something greater.  This to me is the foundation of all religions. Spirituality appears to be something universally sought after by humans in every culture. Spirituality, when expressed outwardly and socially becomes a religious practice. 

Institutionalised religions offer a simple and convenient way for people to express their need for spirituality.  To be spiritual without being religious, is often looked upon by the religious as some kind of a cop-out-- like having free love, without the constraints of marriage. But one would certainly agree that a healthy marriage has to be built on a foundation of love.

Most of us are born into a particular religious tradition.  We are introduced to religious rituals and practices, which often becomes something associated with a kind of cultural obligation that is devoid of meaning. This is why many abandon their religion of birth, only to find their spirituality in another religion. Or they could be 'born-again', into their faith when they happen-chance on an experience in life that makes them rediscover the meaning of their religion.

Sometimes it is essential to break out from the stultifying constraints of one's religion of birth to realise one's innate spirituality. This is why you see more religious converts becoming fanatical zealots. The 'spiritual awakening' that makes one convert (which I have equated to the experience of falling in love),     can often be a life-changing event that injects meaning into a life that hitherto had been empty and lost. 

I see religious traditions as reservoirs of knowledge, which if understood in context, would constitute a kind of wisdom, that could inspire and guide a community through the vicissitudes of life. Context is key, and that is why religion under an unenlightened zealot could even be harmful. It is seductively easy to simply adopt religious practices blindly in the name of piety. 

There is no virtue in appearing outwardly pious without a spiritual underpinning. Sometimes, the scaffolding of religion is a useful starting point for the spiritual quest; sometimes they are an obstacle. 

What's important is realising that we have an innate need for the triple-quest of spirituality: meaning ("My life has meaning"), transcendence ("I am more than this mortal body")  and connectedness ("I belong to a much larger whole"). The doctrines of institutionalised religion provide elements of all three. But these are but the roots of your spirituality. Your growth begins here, now.

The Art of Spiritual Prompting

I'm blogging early this week because I have a lot of ideas swimming in my head. All these ideas deserve their day in my blog. In fact, I keep a list of future blog titles that I plan to tackle whenever I'm inspired to do so. I'm writing this from Coffee Bean at what used to be known as the Da Men Mall. This mall is undergoing a makeover, and it has changed its name to EasyHome. For now, the place is quite deserted. I'm happy that at least Coffee Bean is still here. I've spent many productive hours here in the past before working on my projects. Let's see if I can also make this session, fueled by a hot Americano, a productive one too.

Today, I would like to discuss the concept of 'prompting', which has become familiar to us in the era of LLM-based generative AI tools like ChatGPT.  There are so many YouTube videos and articles out there that teach you how to coax LLMs to produce better outputs using the correct prompts. Apparently, it's mostly the quality of the prompt that determines the quality and accuracy of the generated response from the LLM. It's basically baked into the way LLMs work, for the LLM's response is composed of the predicted words or tokens that probabilistically match the context of the question or preamble text provided by the user. 

The surprising thing that LLMs have taught us is that what we would normally consider as 'intelligence' has a lot to do with how we associate words and string them together coherently to produce thoughts and ideas. LLMs weave words together like threads in a tapestry, predicting the next strand until meaning emerges. 

With a correctly engineered prompt, we could induce the LLM to output a chunk of code, even an entire application, that works right out of the box. Nowadays, you see many content providers trying to show off their coolest "one-shot" prompt-engineered application on YouTube. 

Let me now try to tie the concept of prompt engineering to spirituality. Intriguingly, all religious traditions--scriptures, their iconography, rituals and liturgy--serve as a kind of hyper-prompt to induce some kind of spiritual insight. For example, the student of the Bible would claim to be divinely inspired (or perhaps prompted?) by the text to experience certain epiphanies. Without the required contextual input of scriptural text coupled with his life experiences, he certainly would not be able to gain the same insight. 

Religious awakenings often come unexpectedly in a flash. It is simply the culminating effect of the right multimodal prompt. It could be an evocative turn of phrase from a religious verse, or a chance conjunction of events--golden sunlight through the clouds, the swell waves in the ocean, or the reverberating call for prayer from the mosque--that evokes a sense of awe and mystery, which immediately points to glory and the existence of God.

All spiritual traditions are collections of curated prompts that serve to produce in the believer states of divine rapture. The LLM gains its intelligence by seeing the interconnections between words through its laboriously trained neural network. Religion acts as a similar framework for believers to tap into its potential network of embedded wisdom. 

Just like how LLMs under certain conditions could hallucinate, religions could also induce their followers to go astray with false beliefs. The line between wisdom and violence can often be a fine one. We should learn from how we use LLMs and apply the same principles to religion. Only correct prompting would determine if the output contains erudite insights or hallucinatory dogma. Whether in code or in scripture, the art of prompting reminds us that wisdom depends not just on the system, but on the care with which we ask our questions.

The Ripples of Karma

Here I am starting off 2026 with an early blog article. I am now free to work from anywhere, since I no longer have to attend online meetings. Today, on this first working day of the year, I'm writing this from Komugi Cafe at Main Place, a cafe which I am quite fond of. Earlier this morning, I was up early for my morning walk in the park, where I listened to a lecture on the subject of karma by an academic who has studied it from a Hindu and Buddhist perspective.

I agreed with most of his views about karma. For example, the popular notion of karma is that it is some kind of cosmic law of retribution, and that is not exactly correct. Karma, or at least the way I choose to understand it, is just action and its effects. 

There is no 'good' or 'bad' karma as such. The effects of one's thoughts and actions (which also originate from thoughts) are a complex interaction of many forces. But every tiny little thought has a consequence in the universe; at the very least, it will change the state of your mind. Neuronal connections are reinforced or disinhibited as a consequence of the thought. The type of change that happens is dependent on the existing state of your complex neural network.

The state of your mind now determines your next thought (and hence action). If you have been cultivating thoughts of hatred towards someone, the likelihood of you taking an action that will lead to negative consequences in your relationship with that person increases. You could have avoided it if you had dissolved your hatred at its conception. That's how you 'burn' karma. Samskaras are just latent states which you had cultivated over time. 

How do you dissolve karma? That's where meditation comes in. When you meditate, you can observe all these subtle impressions of the mind. Everything that distracts you when you meditate consists of latent karmic forces, which you had inadvertently cultivated in the past. Understand their origin and allow them to dissipate their energy by channelling them into some positive action. If you sincerely forgive someone who has wronged you, that karma is immediately dissolved. End of story. You close the account. That's one way of 'burning' karma.

'Bad karma' only arises when many negative thoughts have accumulated and reinforced themselves sufficiently to snowball into some physical circumstance that causes you suffering. Do not rejoice too much over 'good karma', for it is also a transient state, which momentarily appears to bring you some pleasure. Gratitude is the right attitude to 'enjoy' your karmic windfall, lest it may inflate your ego, which again could lead you karmically astray. Let go, dissolve, recharge and redistribute. Let our actions and reactions even out the imbalances in the karmic continuum. 

What about actions from our past lives? Doesn't the belief in karma also imply the belief in reincarnation and how we reap the consequences of our good or bad actions from previous lives? Well, I would suggest that understanding the effects of karma within your lifetime is already a good start. Whether we have past or future lives is a slightly different discussion, because it involves your grasp of what life is, and how you view yourself, your personality, with all your idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, in relation to the universe. As long as you see yourself as this limited being, you will always have past and future lives. We will leave this as the intriguing subject for a future blog article. 

When you grasp the karma that is latent and manifesting at this very moment, the past and the future are immaterial. Learn to handle the karma of the moment, and you will see that all of existence is a continuum, and karma is nothing but its ripples.

Bookending the Year

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

            - William Blake 

Christmas came and went rather swiftly because it has been an eventful month for me. There's still some residual work which I plan to finish off over the next two days, after which I'm done with corporate work, for good. 

Thinking back, the feeling of freedom that I feel now is a bit like what I felt when I decided to leave Singapore in 2001. That opened up an opportunity for me to spend two great years in Jakarta, where I made many good friends, many of whom I still keep in contact with. Christmas and New Year are great occasions to reinforce our social ties.

The other day I had lunch with M and her boyfriend at her apartment in Bukit Jalil, which has a beautiful view of the park. M happens to have a Yamaha digital piano too, and I took the opportunity to flex my fingers on the keyboard, rattling off tunes from her music book. I was glad to discover that my sight-reading held up well and had not deteriorated much over the years.  It is my hope that in the coming year, I'll be able to fix the broken keys on my own piano and start playing regularly again.  

M cooked some delicious pasta and steak specially for me. In keeping with the spirit of Yuletide, we had a good time talking about Christianity and the virtues of forgiveness--a topic which I've written about frequently in my blog here. The wine and conversation flowed free and the hours flew. Before we realised it, it was already evening.

After I took leave of them, I loitered around at the Pavillion Mall. Since it's already year-end, I decided to indulge myself a little by buying some books at the beautiful Tsutaya Bookstore. I picked up three books that reflect my rather eclectic taste -- William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Goodbye Mr Chips - a novella published in 1934 by James Hilton (who also wrote the The Lost Horizon) and the more recent, Why Machines Learn--the Elegant Math behind Modern AI - by Anil Ananthaswamy.

I'm familiar with some of Blake's poetry and his paintings but surprisingly I do not own any copies of famous Songs of Innocence and of Experience. This hardcopy version that I bought contains prints of his original paintings which had accompanied the original edition.  

But why "Goodbye Mr Chips"? Well, first of all, I am familiar with the title, because it was published in the sixties in a Reader's Digest Condensed Book edition. My father happened to have a copy, which was then securely locked in his glass-enclosed bookshelf. As a child, I had spent hours, nose pressed against the glass, reading the myriad book titles on the spines of these tomes.  Even though these titles were both physically and intellectually beyond me, I had wondered about the worlds that they would one day open up for me. 

"Chips" is about an old English schoolteacher, a Mr Chipping, reflecting back on his life. For some reason, I've never been inclined to read it, even when I was old enough to be given access to my dad's book collection. Now, perhaps for obvious reasons, the story of a retired man reminiscing about the events in his life seems to resonate with me. I plan to read it, as soon as I can.

I bought the AI book because it contains a lot of history and maths, which is quite surprising. I am fond of popular science books that weave history and ideas together, and this one stands out because it does not shy away from mathematical equations. I applaud the author and the publisher for being brave enough to do that.

These are the ordinary things that make life worth living: friends, food, music and books and nature. Happiness comes easily if one appreciates the simple pleasures of life. As Blake so eloquently put it, even a grain of sand and a wild flower, could inspire such awe and grandeur. 

The Amplification of Desire and the Perfection of Wisdom

It is the Christmas season, and my social calendar is getting full. Yesterday I had a great lunch and drinking session with all my colleagues at Lalaport. It was a Japanese buffet lunch with free-flowing liquor, and we stuffed ourselves full with endless servings of sake and sashimi. After that gluttonous feast, we adjourned to another place nearby where we celebrated with more beers.

Everyone wanted to release some pent-up frustration after a challenging year. Come year-end, we'll all be saying goodbye to the company. There was a mixture of sadness and relief, but overall, the vibe was good, and the camaraderie was great.

I want to continue prioritising social engagements in the coming year. Travel is not on the agenda yet, but I won't dismiss the possibility outright.  Who knows, maybe I'll even blog more often. I have some online classes to attend right before the year ends. It'll be a good opportunity to acquire some new skills for the brave new world of AI that's opening up before us.

In the age of AI, how should we position ourselves? For one, it'll force us to raise the bar on productivity and quality. What used to take a team of people to perform could be accomplished by a single individual. AI could also help us to iron out all the imperfections that exist in our human output. Better quality is to be expected. It will be an exciting future and also a scary one.

Will our jobs be threatened? For sure. But new human needs will also be conjured up; new roles will be created as a result. AI will help us to imagine new possibilities. Humans will pursue their endless desires and amp up existing ones. We could also end up as hyper-stimulation junkies, forever dependent on AI for fulfilment. 

AI is currently my trusted companion for the exploration of knowledge. If I have an addiction at all, it is to knowledge. I'm training the LLM in my head, so that I continue to get fresh insights, which then become the starting points for even deeper insights. It is the compounding effect of insights that elevates the spirit. This is my definition of spirituality. 

There's so much to hone, so much to perfect, so much to do. Just like how the right prompt will trigger the LLM to output the answer we want, we must constantly prompt our own minds to bring out the spiritual being within. AI will become our ultimate tool for the perfection of wisdom. 

Which part of humanity will triumph in the end: the AI-amplified desire for pleasure or the ever-deepening quest for spirituality? Let's find out together!

Work that Works

I'm indulging myself in some unhealthy food at McDonald's, Putra Heights — some Chicken McNuggets, a strawberry sundae and some iced lemon tea. Having washed down my food, I now have an hour to write a blog article before I pick up mum from the hairdresser.

It's particularly noisy here this Saturday afternoon, and certainly not conducive to me for writing any deep reflective pieces. The day has been dedicated to running errands; replenishing cleaning supplies and toiletries, settling miscellaneous matters online.

I'm feeling quite relaxed, though,  after completing most of my work yesterday. The overall mood is good, as everyone is anticipating the festive season ahead. I am also grateful that I had the opportunity to catch up with some old friends over the past weeks. And I certainly plan to do more of this in the coming year. 

Ever since the pandemic, my social engagements have dwindled. One of the drawbacks of working from home is the absence of after-hours interactions with colleagues. However, the physical isolation of WFH did not prevent me from chatting with colleagues over Teams. Over the last five years, I have become friendly with many of my overseas colleagues, occasionally bantering about the performance of our favourite football teams, sharing work experiences and recommending each other Netflix shows.

I told a junior colleague of mine who is uncertain about the future of his job that, over time, one finds that one ends up being recommended or recruited by friends, and so it is the network of friends that matters most in one's career. It has certainly been true in my case. I've switched jobs just to work with people I know well. The comradeship built from having fought many battles together is invaluable, and it carries on even when one is no longer working in the same company. 

Work is more fun when you are just 'hanging out with friends', rather than performing tasks that one is obligated to do, just to earn one's paycheck. Monetary rewards, at least for me, should never be the main objective for work. Rest assured, it will come as long as one does good work. So one should not worry too much about one's remuneration. 

Sometimes, intangible rewards like gaining a good reputation for delivering good work are more valuable than anything else. The people who know you well know what you are capable of. You will always be sought out when the right opportunity arises. 

The best CV is the one that is etched in the minds of the people you've worked with. A job is an opportunity to serve and help others. You could be taken advantage of, even purposely overlooked by management. Turn the other cheek. Wisely. Not out of timidity, but agility, because you see things before others do, and proceed to make the necessary adjustments. 

That way, you build wisdom and resilience, which will serve you well in the future. Every pain is an opportunity to distil knowledge, to strengthen character. That way, your work, no matter how hard, always works to your benefit. 

A Lifetime of Simple Moments

December is my favourite month of the year. The rains that inevitably come with it feel like therapeutic cleansing for all the emotional grime that had accumulated since January.  Today I'm in Cyberjaya, having one of my regular Saturdays, tapping away happily on my laptop, with a pot of Earl Grey brewing away beside me and some Mozart playing softly in the background.

The way human memory works is that we tend to forget typical days like these. We recall the highs and lows of life: special moments of ecstasy or despair, but the rest collapses into a featureless mass of vague impressions, which we associate with the passing of time.  

But I make it a point to value these featureless days. When 'nothing' is happening, and all you get are the safe and familiar, it is actually pure bliss. When I think back on my time in Singapore and Jakarta--two cities that I recall with great fondness--the impressions that linger in my mind are formed by the many ordinary days I had spent reading, eating and drinking at favourite cafes and restaurants. It is a strange, blurred-out amalgamation of days experienced, a sort of superimposition, as if each day is a translucent sheet, stacked together, and held up for view against the light.

Taken together, they define 'happiness', as I see it. Happiness that is greatly cherished with heartfelt gratitude. That is how I look forward to the future--to be made of many such uneventful days, but bliss nonetheless. Days of tea and music and writing and thinking, punctuated by insights that come like heavenly revelations. 

We live, we love, and then we fight over all the petty little things that we humans, for some inexplicable reason, care about. In the end, they all do not matter. We return to dust, together with all the trivialities and banalities of our brief existence. They did not matter before we were born, and should definitely not matter when we die.

And that is what makes life beautiful; its fleeting sweetness made sweeter by the realisation of its own sweetness. This C minor chord struck in the Mozart sonata I'm listening to, the sip of aromatic Earl Grey on my lips, these words that I tap out on the screen--these are all luscious moments of sweetness, which I appreciate the instant they are experienced. One sweet moment, followed by another to make a life.

A lifetime is nothing more than a sum of simple moments—each luminous, fragile,  yet complete. Each sip of tea, each musical chord, each word tapped magically into being is a revelation in itself. To live wisely is simply to hold them up to the light and let their translucence define happiness. What more could we ask for when the sum of such quiet joys already makes a life whole?

Night Thoughts from the Abode of Trees

The abode of trees -- that's what I called my hometown, in a poem I wrote as a teenager. And today I'm back to the place which had been the nursery of my adulthood dreams. 

The trees are no more of course, long crushed to the ground by lumbering tractors which had appeared one day, flattening the rubber estate, turning the playground of my childhood into housing estates for the newly prospered villagers, yearning for middle-class comforts.

Surprisingly, I could still hear the nocturnal insects, scattered descendants of the winged creatures that had been the companions of my pastoral youth.  Alas, those majestic trees are gone! The nocturnal choir has lost the sacred resonance of its cathedral!

I shall be back here more often, to find the remnants of my dreams, perhaps with the hope of rekindling some of the fire and passion which now lie smouldering beneath like peat fire. Yes, it is that reacquaintance of childhood which I wrote about here two weeks ago. And today is perhaps the beginning.

The birds that sing incessantly at dawn--I know they shall greet me with their cheery chirp again.  Those heavenly usherers of the resplendent sun, bursting forth with the pomp of a conquering force. May they blaze a path ahead for my forgotten dreams.

I've learned so much in my sojourn to the world out there. But now I'm back to share the tales and travails of my life's journey. How I had resisted the lure of the siren's song, and in my lowest ebb, I had found strength in the memory of my childhood companions--the birds, insects and trees, which I'm now returning to, like Odysseus falling back into Penelope's embrace.

I know, even in their absence, they had always been present, in faith and in spirit. And the quest had always been to return again and again, and again, to find new beginnings. 

The Music of the Soul

Coffee Bean, located at Subang Parade, has been in operation for over two decades. I've been coming here regularly all these years, working on my laptop every time, tackling the various projects I've taken on. I'm sad to see that the Starbucks cafe located on the opposite side has closed down; it was another one of my favourite working spots.

I suppose I will start working more from cafes next year, since I will be enjoying more flexibility again. I feel more relaxed in cafes, being anonymous in the crowd, drowned in ambient noise. Hopefully, I will also be more productive and creative in my output.

There's a piece of news that caught my attention this week about JD Vance, the US Vice-President, who talked about his Catholic faith and how he hoped that his Indian wife, Usha, who has a Hindu upbringing, would one day convert to his religion too.  It disturbed me a little bit because the first thought that came into my mind was: Why not the other way round? Wouldn't it also be equally plausible that JD Vance gets converted to Hinduism instead? 

I guess what troubled me was the Vice President's religious chauvinism. I admire the Catholic faith, and I can fully understand why Vance would find his spiritual awakening there. But how much does he know about Hinduism? Why does he think that a Hindu (at least someone born into the faith) should be converted to Catholicism, to be 'saved'? Are certain religions superior to others? Is monotheism better than polytheism?

People who have read my posts about religion on this blog will probably know my position on this matter very well. The religion of your choice is a matter of taste, similar to one's preference for music. To feel a certain sense of superiority of one's religion over another's is to exhibit one's ignorance about spirituality. It's like insisting Baroque music is superior to Jazz. Limiting your knowledge or listening to only one particular narrow genre of music is to miss out on a whole gamut of auditory pleasures that are available out there. 

You can have your favourite genre, and if you are a professional musician, very likely you'll also specialise in one. If you are a devout Catholic and find meaning and peace in your faith, congratulations to you. You already have the spark of spiritual insight within you. Feel free to share your joy and insights with others, but be humble enough to realise that other religions are equally rich and insightful.  To insist that your religion is superior to others and that people should be converted to yours, to me, is the most troubling aspect, and my biggest beef about religion. Humanity should outgrow this spiritual naivete. 

There will always be a multitude of religions, just like the many varieties of music that human civilisation has produced. New forms and genres will be created because current ones will evolve to meet the changing zeitgeist. There are no 'deviationists' in religions, only creative innovators and improvisers. 

Let a thousand flowers bloom; let there be a marketplace of religions, because spirituality is a basic need of every human. Bloody wars will continue to be fought over them if we choose to embrace a chauvinistic attitude towards faith. 

JD Vance could one day even become the President of the United States. How beautiful it would be if he, the Catholic convert and the First Lady, perhaps becoming a born-again Hindu, sets an example to the world as an interfaith First Couple, acknowledging and celebrating the spiritual diversity that's humanity's beautiful heritage. No human should be forced to embrace any religion. And if you should choose to be agnostic or atheistic, that's equally fine. 

The true measure of spirituality is not conversion but compassion. Religions are the music of the soul—none superior, but simply attempts at being human. Humanity's task is not to choose one over another, but to learn how to play together. 

The Reacquaintance of Childhood

It's raining heavily outside, and here I am in my apartment, hoping to write a few lines to kick off my blog article for the week. The rainy season has arrived, and as always, it is warmly welcomed—it's my favourite time of the year.

The patter of raindrops on the roof and balcony floor lulls me into a nostalgic state of mind, bringing back memories of school holidays. I feel like that these days--a schoolkid waiting for the year-end holidays, having slogged through another drab year of schoolwork. As a kid, you had no worries — holidays meant play and more play; the future was a limitless stretch of possibilities, golden with promise and the unbridled joy that life could offer.

One believed in one's invincibility and that progress is an inevitability, and the world will receive us in its warm embrace; that success and riches are our birthright. That's the innocent optimism of a child, still untouched by the tempests and turns of life. It is a sad fact of life that adulthood often tears away this veil of innocence, only to reveal life in all its harshness.

The tragedy of life is that we dismiss innocence as the inconvenient ignorance of childhood, which had to be, at the first opportune moment, discarded for good. How wrong are we! Little do we know that the divine dwelt in those free and innocent hearts, kindling the creative fire that fuels an entire lifetime of endeavours.

As life tests us with its multitude of tribulations, we hide behind an armour of defensiveness, of deceit and deception. We seek the bright lights in the distance, thinking they are the promised stars of our tender years. We tried to play by the fair but unwritten code of childhood, only to be deceived and denied at every turn, leaving the soul bitter and bruised.

But let's despair not, for the child is not dead, only in deep sleep, collapsed in a slumber of boredom. If we could gently rouse the resting rascal, we might yet catch that undimmed glimmer in its awakened eyes. 

It is thus imperative that they should make acquaintance again, the adult and the child, synthesising worry and wonder into something called wisdom. For youth and age are not sequential stages on the ladder of life, but vital ingredients that bake this cake called life. 

Perhaps it is destined that only in the twilight of life do their paths cross again. The culmination of one's life is but the reacquaintance of childhood. It is the denouement that life presents, before the Great Sleep descends.

The Natural Effulgence of the Soul

I'm feeling very relaxed today, enjoying my coffee and bagels at The Coffee Bean outlet at Nu Empire, Subang Jaya. I'm planning some of the activities that I will pursue next year, when I'll be completely free from my daily grind of work. It feels a bit like the long year-end school holidays that I used to look forward to as a kid.

Holidays to me do not necessarily mean a vacation to some exotic location. That's what most of my friends and colleagues do: trips to China, Japan or Europe, Northern Lights cruise or scuba-diving in some remote island resort. I'm no longer infected by the travel bug as much these days, even though I would not rule it out completely from any of my future plans. 

As a kid, I was interested in painting, especially in oils. My school holidays were spent happily immersed in some landscape or portrait project. But that is not a hobby I would want to revive for now, at least. I used to sketch a lot too, but having not done so for most of my adult life, I feel that I've lost a lot of my artistic spontaneity with pencil and pen. Calligraphy was also one of my childhood hobbies. I am toying with the idea of reviving these activities since I do have a large collection of fountain pens. It's a great excuse to put them to good use.

What I definitely crave most is to be able to play the piano again. My digital piano, back in my Cyberjaya apartment has some dead keys and I hope to get them fixed. I'm certainly no virtuoso on the keyboard, but I'm a pretty good sight-reader, a skill which thankfully I've not lost. I keep a collection of sheet music in my library too--the piano sonatas of Beethoven, Chopin's waltzes and nocturnes are among my favourites. I dream of caressing the keyboard again, trying my hand on some of the modern pieces too like Astor Piazolla's famous slow tango, Oblivion, Ryuichi Sakamoto's The Sheltering Sky and maybe Morricone's Love Theme from Cinema Paradiso.

I'm happy that all my favourite pastimes do not cost that much money to pursue. One of the joys of the internet is that sheet music for any of your favourite music are easily downloadable for free. I remember the first e-commerce purchase I made in the mid-nineties over the internet, before Amazon or even Google was a household name, was the sheet music for As Time Goes By, from that famous "play it again, Sam" scene from Casablanca. I remember that moment as almost miraculous--sheet music, in a pdf file, a digital good, delivered instantly to me on my computer upon payment. The dot-com era had truly begun!

These days, music--the food of love--seems to be flowing in my mind again, as if I'm in love. Yes, I am in love--in love with life, with all the simple pleasures that it offers; I'm filled, even bursting with gratitude for the little blessings that I receive everyday as an adherent of secular spirituality. When your happiness is not subject to outward appearances and the approval of others, you are unassailable. When all the petty little attachments of life are discarded--swept off like dirt on your car windscreen, what's left is simply Love. For Love is nothing but the natural effulgence of the soul.

The Wisdom of Work

When it comes to time, all of us are equal: we are given 24 hours a day. How we make use of that 24 hours makes all the difference in the world. The bum in the street and the billionaire lounging on his private yacht have all made very different decisions that brought them to where they are today.

It is true that some people are creatures of circumstance, having been born in families deprived of basic needs like food or shelter and some are born with silver spoons in their mouth. Those of us who have to eke out a living would have no choice but to spend a greater part of the 24 hours doing something that would allow us to live the rest of the hours doing what we personally choose.

The simplest division of a day is to have it sliced into three:  a third devoted to work, an equal amount to leisure and the rest to sleep.  If one is blessed with the opportunity to do meaningful work which one also enjoys, then that's a perfect life. All my life, I've attempted to do that.

I've always accepted the fact that there's no such thing as a perfect job. Even if you are working for yourself, running your own business, there will be aspects of your job which you would not be so fond of--like chasing for payments, reading and responding to tender documents, managing difficult employees and handling unreasonable demands from customers.  But you take it in your stride, even with some gratitude, because it is still better than toiling under the hot sun or cleaning dirty toilets.

The key to tackling tasks that you dislike is to reframe it. Instead of lamenting the fact that you are again forced to do something you dislike, ask yourself: what could you learn out of it? Nothing, you might say. But doesn't it allow you to practise patience and discipline? How could the boring task be done more efficiently? Is there a way to make it more enjoyable?

Even if you think what you're asked to do is completely stupid, the opportunity to learn something out of it is still present: why is it so stupid? How would you have done it differently? Or perhaps you think it is stupid because of your own egoistic sense of superiority? 

Often employees subconsciously express their hidden resentment against their bosses, by complaining about their jobs and questioning the management's decision. Every time such dissatisfactions arise, question yourself instead: what is the real cause of your resentment? 

Do your work seriously and responsibly, but do not take it too seriously. It may sound contradictory, but it is not. Doing your work seriously means that you do not compromise on quality, no matter how trivial the task is. Not taking things seriously means that you put things into proper perspective: most likely the thing that stressed you most is actually not a matter of life and death. No one is going to die if you fall short, despite your best efforts. Perhaps your ego might get slightly bruised but that's alright. Learn from it. Move on. Next task please!

Every time you do something, you inevitably become better at it. Even a repetitive task, like data-entry. Seek ways to do it even more efficiently. Is there a Windows short-cut which you do not know of? Is there an Excel formula or macro that could help you automate the task? 

Work does not have to be that intolerable. Most of the time, you get to help someone else down the line to do their job better.  That's how colleagues become friends. In my long IT career, I'm fortunate that I've never found myself in any work environment that is toxic. We had a lot of fun playing hard and working hard. In the end, work, if you know how to treat it right, is just an opportunity to hang out with friends.

The Greatest Superpower

You are paid for what you do because you offer value to the world. It could be something as simple as your time and energy. The more skill you offer, the better you will be compensated. And remember, it is a free market out there; everyone is offering something which they think is of value and if someone else perceives the value, he or she will be willing to pay for it.

How much value you are offering to the world determines your worth. Often you are deemed valuable because you solve your customer's pain. They are grateful that someone is willing to do some difficult or 'dirty' task on their behalf. Your skillsets could be very unique and difficult to acquire. You had to go through a lot of pain to gain the experience which you now have. And that process of undergoing pain, honed your skillsets and hence imbued you with value. 

My job is to solve technical problems. On the outset it appears to be a simple one. If you know the subject matter well, you should be able to logically troubleshoot issues and offer solutions. How do you get to know your subject well? 

Sometimes there are formal trainings for specific products or skillsets, such as programming. Most of the time, you have to learn things on your own, usually the hard way, through trial and error. And that is a painful process. 

But that's alright. Because you can take the pain. You do not see the problems that are presented to you as 'stress'. You see it instead as a challenge and an opportunity to learn. And there-in lies  your unique value-proposition: what kind of pain can you take that other people can't?

What others see as pain, is an opportunity for you to offer value, simply because you have the skill and wherewithal to overcome the pain easily. It is pain that you 'like'. And if you are good at identifying the types of pain that you can take on behalf of others, it becomes your skill.

We often wonder with gratitude that there are people who would be willing to take on 'dirty' jobs like unclogging the sewage, or disposing off rubbish. But if you ask people who do that for a living, they would say that they are used to it. What is your unique pain proposition? What kind of pain don't you mind?

Sometimes it is simply not minding the boredom. There are tons of boring jobs in the world and if you are willing to take them on, hey, that's another skill which you can put on your CV. One man's meat is another man's poison. The more poison you can take, the more valuable you are to the world.

Make yourself resilient. Why nitpick or complain over small things? Why stress unnecessarily over issues that are ultimately of no consequence? When you are able to position yourself in a place where you can absorb all the pain that others choose to avoid, you have a great advantage. 

As they say, no pain, no gain. Even better, if you could transform pain into pleasure. For example, going through the pain of tackling a difficult problem, could help you gain a lot of valuable experience. That is the pleasure that you will get out of the pain. 

The perception of a person's value is often his or her resilience to pain. All the pains of the world are simply opportunities for you to offer value. Welcome pain. Tame it and make it your friend. That is the greatest superpower that you could acquire.

The Happy Hours of Life

I decided to blog from Chilli's, at Citta Mall today. Initially I had wanted to sit outdoors but that section was closed and so I settled in into the cool-comfort of high-table seat inside.  These are my thoughts today, in between sips of the house red wine and spoonfuls of their nice spicy beef soup.

I'm looking forward to a new phase of life next year when I should be able to pursue more of my personal projects instead of being tied down to a nine-to-five job. That was how I used to live before the pandemic, but I had chosen to take a regular work-from-home job out of curiosity during the Covid lock-down. Having been out of the corporate rat-race for more than a decade, I wanted to find out more about the tools and processes used by multinationals today.

 I did learn a lot from the stint but I also found that the experience of getting regular income, with all the executive perks had diminished my appetite for risks. I needed to cast myself out into the world again, to regain my survival instincts. Fate, apparently has conspired in such a way that the opportunity for such an adventure has opened up again. The question is: do I still have what it takes to regain my old touch?

My mental agility and acumen, I'd like to believe, is as good as ever, if not better. There are certain advantages that age bestows upon us: most notably, wisdom. One's youth is often blessed with a lot of energy; but unfortunately they are also wasted on foolish endeavours. But then again, it is also the foolhardiness of youth that brings out the sage of later years.

The bane of advancing age is cynicism. One should be very careful with the preponderance of pessimism that often accompanies the onset of years. Often it is simply a defensive stance taken by us to deflate the enthusiastic endeavours of the young, simply to shield us against the pain of our exclusion.

Cognisant of our tendency to hide behind the veneer of respectability that comes with age, I am always reminding myself of the idealisms which had forged my growing years. How different am I today, compared to who I was 20 years or even 30 years ago?

One thing's for sure: my appetite for knowledge has never diminished. I would even say that it has intensified.  This lust for understanding has surpassed all other yearnings that are of the flesh and I see that as a positive development. 

Like the Gnostics, I truly believe that salvation is to be found via Gnosis, or knowledge of the divine, which one has to pursue not only with the yielding softness of faith, but also the bold thrusts of reason and intellect. Knowledge is indeed power but can this subtle power be transformed into a force that moves and moulds the material world?

Does one inevitably seek a blissful retreat from the world for fear of not being able to stomach its vicissitudes? These are the ruminations that occupy my mind on this hot Saturday afternoon,  perched behind a high-table in a TexMex restaurant. Do I still possess the tang and spice of my passionate youth? Or has all that been distilled into the wine-like essence of maturity?

I don't know. Since, it's already 3pm now, I shall continue mulling over them with some Happy Hour beers. 

Music-woven Memories

Another Saturday afternoon in Cyberjaya: I'm listening to some of my old CDs while typing these lines, with a pot of Al Kbous tea brewing beside me. It has been an eventful week at work, events which have interesting repercussions for the future. But I guess I've been through such situations many times before in the past.  

But let's come back to my CD collection. Rummaging through my storage boxes, I realised that I have quite a number of movie soundtracks albums: The English Patient, The Lover, Somewhere in Time, Havana, Out of Africa,The Matrix Reloaded among others. Listening to them brings back happy memories of those particular times in my life. 

The English Patient is one of my favourite movies, one which I never tire of rewatching. It reminds me of that time in my life when I was a bit of a wanderer, travelling to Indonesia every other week from Singapore, enjoying both the solitude and friendships forged during my many sojourns. I saw the movie multiple times in the theatre when it was running. And it never ceases to tear me up every time I watch it.

The Lover is a movie released in 1992, starring Leung Kar Fai and Jane March, based on the French autobiographical novel, L'Amant by Maguerite Duras. The composer for the music in both The English Patient and The Lover is Gabriel Yared, one of my favourite movie soundtrack composers, together with Ennio Morricone and Vangelis. 

Like many other arty erotic movies, The Lover was panned by critics when it was released, but I think they ignored the fact that it was a very well-made movie with great cinematography and music. Both elements combined well to evoke the passionate yet ultimately hopeless love story between a French teenager and a wealthy Chinese man in colonial Vietnam. 

I didn't get to catch the Lover in the theatres as this being an R-rated movie, was not released in Malaysia then, but I managed to catch it on VHS tape, and later read the English translation of Mageurite Duras' book.  Like the English Patient, I consumed and enjoyed all 3 media--movie, music and literature for these works, giving me a complete experience them.

The soundtrack of Havana reminds me of the Rex cinema, where I watched the movie three times on 3 consecutive afternoons in 1990. This movie basically rips off the plot of Casablanca,  setting it in Havana instead. It is love triangle between a gambler, played by the recently departed Robert Redford and Lena Olin, playing the wife of a communist revolutionary, Arturo Duran, played by Raul Julia. 

Again, this is another widely-panned movie, which for some reason I love to bits. I think it captured the excitement and romance of a love story set against the backdrop of the Cuban revolution.  I only managed to get the soundtrack album when I was in Singapore, a decade later. 

Perhaps I am a sucker for romance set in exotic locations. Out of Africa, again starring Robert Redford is another example. The soundtrack music was composed by John Barry, whose most famous creation is the iconic James Bond theme. 

Out of Africa is based on a memoir by Danish author Karen Blixen, who published the book under the pen name Isak Dinesen. In many ways, the movie pushed all the right buttons in me by having all the elements that I'm fond of: exotic locations set in the colonial era, travel, books, music, literature and even featured a fountain pen, in a scene where Redford's character gives his personal pen to Blixen (played by Meryl Streep), encouraging her to write down her stories, which she had so skilfully conjured and narrated extemporaneously over dinner. 

Writing about all these movies makes me want to rewatch them again. Memories are woven into our minds by music. Just a few notes from any one of their themes will immediately open a floodgate of sights, sounds and feelings,  transporting me again to those days when I was a much freer soul. Perhaps, it's time I explore the same freedom again... 

The Infinite Stack of Abstractions

I did not blog yesterday because I spent the whole afternoon catching up with my expatriate colleagues at Tamarind Square, Cyberjaya. As always, whenever I'm there I could not resist browsing at the BookXcess store which led me to purchase 6 books. One of them is a thick biography of Mozart, which I should put on my reading list for, probably next year.

I'm feeling a bit more relaxed this weekend as I have a slightly better clarity of certain directions which I will embark upon next year. As always, I will try not to allow ego, greed or fear to dictate the decisions that I'm going to make. I'd like to think that the universe makes decisions for me and by removing selfish considerations, the best option will always manifest itself.

I'm writing these lines at Tim Hortons today. I don't have a particular topic to focus on; I just want to enjoy the quiet vibe of the place, let random thoughts surface into consciousness, and simply noticing them. To be able to do so dispassionately is a skill which vipassana meditators try to cultivate.

When you are just the observer of your thoughts, you are basically establishing a higher level of abstraction. Thoughts become the atomic element in this model. They have a specific lifecycle: they arise, have their brief moment in your mind and then die away, spawning the next thought in the process.  

When you say that you are observing your thoughts, there's an implicit 'observer' in the model. What and where is this observer? For the meantime, let's take it as you--whatever you want to label it: mind, soul, consciousness, self or awareness.  Now ask yourself, what defines 'you'? Is there a personality behind this entity called 'you'?

Where does the personality come from? You then realise that, what defines this personality is its reaction to all the thoughts that arise. You claim that you are merely observing them. But are you really? 

The level of reactivity you have to your thoughts define how successful your abstraction model is. If the observer participates in his thoughts by reacting to them, then the line between self and thoughts are not well defined enough yet.  Sooner or later, you'll get caught up in them. You dive into your stream of thoughts, causing complex currents and ripples, losing your detached observer stance in the process. When that happens, you will feel pain or pleasure. Reaction to these influences the next generation of thoughts. And that is how karma works.

Why should we practice observing and being detached from our thoughts? To establish one level of abstraction, so that we can move on to the next. Pain and pleasure are simply ontological elements of the mind and body. When you can see the chain of thoughts that lead to them, you have already cultivate a level of skilful awareness that allows you to observe macro-trends, if you will. They become your new ontological building blocks.

You begin to see typical patterns in these chains of thoughts, and you are able to predict their lifecycles, just from a glimpse of its rising trend. This pattern recognition ability is what we would call wisdom. The intelligence of recognition and the non-reaction to the thought chain, dictates its optimum resolution.

By non-reactivity, we are detaching our lower-Self--the one that is closely attached to the body, so that we operate from a higher level. This high-level observer, is just another level of abstraction. After a while, you begin to recognise that, it too has its more subtle reactivity--the higher Self also possesses ego! It's just a more complex one, which demands an even higher level of awareness to untangle.

And that in a nutshell is the spiritual journey. We develop wisdom from better recognition of our thought patterns and behaviour. The mind and body is a self-monitoring system that is also self-refining. We can wallow in the drama of human action and reaction our entire lives, without any self-reflectivity. That's fine, but you will always suffer the extremes of pain and pleasure, learning in the most inefficient way.

Wisdom is simply the development of ever higher levels of abstraction; the observing self becomes an object of observation by an even higher self. Is there an end to this seemingly never-ending stack of abstractions? Well, let's find out.   

The Adventure of Education

Pavillion, Bukit Jalil is such a busy mall on weekends. I had lunch here with Myra earlier and after loitering around for a while, decided to just park here for an hour to write my blog article of the week. A lot of thoughts went through my head over the week and here I am trying to run through them and see what theme or themes that I could latch on to for today's ruminations.

I was listening to a discussion about education this week and as always there's a lot of criticism about our Malaysian education system. Though there is acknowledgement and agreement about importance of education and how it should be reformed, there is little agreement on what actually should be done. What and how should we be teaching our schoolchildren and what medium of instruction should we be using? Is that even important at all? Should we be emphasising STEM? How should we incorporate AI into our education system? 

I've heard views that range from "Maths and Science should not be emphasized in early education" to "Coding should be taught together with basic maths" to "Philosophy should be more widely taught" to the usual conservative views which believe that all education should be anchored in one's religion, or at least with more emphasis on civics and morality. Other common complaints are that our education system is too exam-oriented and students rote-learn things, which are only important to pass exams.

Let me add my own idiosyncratic view here. I don't think there is a perfect answer. I don't think changing the medium of instruction to English will also make a significant difference. The 'system' can only do so much; it's the teachers that make all the difference. We remember teachers who have inspired us in certain particular subjects and they are often the reason why we ended up liking or disliking them.

Kids today already have access to all the knowledge and information that they need through the internet; libraries and schools are no longer the main conduits of knowledge.  Teachers however are the difference between a run-of-the-mill education and an outstanding one. One could also argue that, we could find the best teachers on Youtube now. Teachers who used to inspire kids in school now end up being content creators online. Online classes in a way does help in bringing more quality teachers and teachings to more students but virtual classrooms lack the social interaction which real brick-and-mortar schools provide. 

The social aspect of education--sharing, exploration, play and even competition are what schools should focus on to make itself relevant in an age when more and more of our interactions are being shifted, for better or worse, into the virtual world.  There-in also lies the greatest challenge in education--where do we find the quality teachers that make all the difference for our public schools? I don't think we can. 

But maybe better pedagogy can be built into the system, since we might not have the personnel to deliver the quality? The solution seems to point to the use of technology. Our centenarian former Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir was a big proponent of that. His insistence on using English for Maths and Science was laudable for its intent, but I suspect its implementation brought all sorts of issues, not to mention opposition from language nationalists.

I guess the solution lies in empowering average teachers with the necessary aids, for example good quality Youtube-style educational content to the students. Every subject should be introduced with a well-made video introduction. This would be followed by discussions and deeper expositions led by the teacher. Class activities in the form of questions and answers are important. Pop quizzes should be conducted regularly, to gauge understanding and for the students themselves to get a sense of how much they have absorbed the lessons.

I guess, this is nothing new and to a certain extent is already being done. What's probably missing is the structure where the audio-visual content is treated as primary, with textbooks and other learning activities as supplementary ingredients. Good students will always excel and take the extra mile on their own to learn. They are the least of our concerns. The challenge of education is to bring a whole mass of students who are not interested in learning the subjects taught in school because they are 'boring'. They are boring simply because of the way they have been taught in school, that is, a textbook-centric delivery of dry facts, with minimal audio-visual empowerment and the participation of students. 

Every subject should be as exciting as a season of Game of Thrones (minus the sex and violence). And because it is video-driven, they would have a mental image of the subject, seared into their memory. Year one science becomes season one of the science drama, which students follow with a sense of the entire story-arc. A subject is a story, with introduction, climax and denouement. 

Reading and writing are still important but they have to be done as part of class activities. Read aloud in class, write as part of the pop test. Students should be taught how to deliver output on the spot. Have students, evaluate each other's work as part of the class activities. Real education happens when no one is afraid to make mistakes and everyone is encouraged to constructively judge and be judged.

There will be a sense of coherence when every subject is like an episode in an on-going saga. Class activities become an opportunity to discuss the show that they have watched together. Class activities should be like a fan gathering for students to eagerly share extra pieces of 'trivia' they have gleaned from their own reading of the textbooks and also an opportunity to show-off in a positive way.

We are driven by stories. And all folklores are basically stories that teach the values of a particular culture. We should use technology, creativity and content that aligns with the habits and lifestyle of our generation to deliver good education. Make education a fun adventure, which our students can enjoy, participate and perhaps, who knows, even learn something?

The Music of Creation and Destruction

Today, I'm writing from Citta Mall, which I am quite fond of because it's a relatively quiet mall with a lot of outdoor eating tables where I could sit with a book or computer. But since it's a pretty warm day today, I decided to sit inside the air-conditioned cafe to summon the Muse.

I'm feeling very relaxed today after a short busy week, spent catching up on work. I believe I have mentioned somewhere in this blog before how social media is an amplifier of the good and the bad. For the past weeks, the world has been discussing the assassination of the American right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The shooter, who is now in custody is a 22-year old by the name of Tyler Robinson.  His true motives have not been fully revealed yet but in text conversations with his room-mate, who asked why he had committed the act, he was quoted as saying: "I had enough of his hatred...Some hate can't be negotiated out".

Why had he felt such 'hatred' from someone he has probably never met or talk to before? Most likely he had been exposed to Charlie's right-wing rhetoric through social media. Charlie has a daily podcast and had many live events debating those who disagree with him.  I'm sure many of us in this part of the world had never heard of Charlie Kirk before his horrific assassination. 

I follow US politics very closely and I fully understand the sentiment from both sides of the aisle. This so-called hatred that exists between the left and the right has never been amplified to such a magnitude before. The algorithms of social media has bifurcated society into two extreme camps, simply because we had allowed our attention to be consumed by the personalised content pushed to us.

 Whether we are left or right leaning, we'll be served content that reinforces our biases all day. Addiction to social-media is in some ways worse than being a drug junkie. The former transforms you very subtly into a bigoted extremist holding a single viewpoint with zero capacity for nuance; the latter simply destroys your body and soul. 

Rather than dying slowly from a drug addiction, you are instead transformed into a TikTok-infected zombie carrying a binary view of the world: extreme left or right. zero or one. We have now carried the digitisation process from our information technology into the social realm. We no longer see the varying shades of grey: either you are with us or against us.

How do we rectify this? Unfortunately, the genie is already out of the bottle. In a way, it's part of the inevitable evolution of technology and society. The universe is dispassionate. It has no obligations to us humans. But one thing's for sure, all cycles exhaust themselves ultimately. Oscillations will dampen; new tensions will build up elsewhere and a fresh round of thesis-vs-antithesis begins again. Yes, Hegel was right. It's the basic dynamic of the universe. I see it as the Nataraja, dancing to the music of creation and destruction.

Intellectual Manna from Heaven

I'm hit with another long weekend again, which I had originally thought to be just 3 days but it turned out to be 4, with the actual public holiday, Malaysia day falling on Tuesday, 16 of September. Monday is the extra holiday announced by the government. 

This long enforced hiatus from work could cause me some problems because I'm sure there's a huge backlog of issues to clear come Wednesday. Therefore I'm planning to do some work this weekend, like what I used to do. Weekends, at one time were my most productive days. I would park myself for the entire day at some cafe to tackle some difficult tasks.

Today, Saturday is my only personal time for blogging, reading and socialising. But this weekend, I don't have any social engagements. I will spend more time planning some future projects and maybe spend some time reading at a pub or cafe.

But first, let me embark on my weekly ramble in cyberspace. Every morning when I walk in the park, listening to some podcast or audiobook, I would occasionally get some insights about a particular subject; it could be something related to spirituality, science, culture or politics. The topics I wrote about here in my blog are often the result of such mini-eureka moments.

But let's talk about the subject of insight, in general. What exactly are insights and how do they occur? A moment of insight, is often a flash of realisation or intuition about a particular subject. This moment of realisation, I've likened it to a tumbling piece that falls from the top slotting in perfectly, with some deft manoeuvring into the gap of a row of  blocks in a Tetris game. I wrote about this 21 years ago (!) in a blog article here called Tetris of the Mind. That article was the result of an insight I had in Indonesia, which gave me a better understanding of the Chinese so-called Book of Changes: the I Ching. I have not fleshed out the details of this insight in any blog article yet--even after 2 decades!. Maybe someday I will. 

I realised that any insight I have completely alters your understanding of the world. It clears away confusions and often ties together isolated and disparate truths in your mind. You see the bigger picture and glimpse a grander vision of the universe.  It is the thrill of gaining insights that keep me going. Happiness is having new insights everyday!

When you have a lot of thoughts and concepts existing in isolation, they build obstacles in the mind, not unlike rows and rows of Tetris blocks with gaps in between. It's worst when they are buried deep down below: all the upper blocks need to be crushed before they can be accessed. But what great satisfaction one gets and we see multiple rows Tetris blocks disappear, when the right piece fall into place, kerrush! It is the metaphor of a eureka moment.

One of the things that I also like to do is to reread pages from my old university textbooks--it could be mathematics, electromagnetics or machine theory; I always gain a better understanding of the subject and would wonder why I never understood the concepts the same way then, when I was an undergraduate student.  But it also means that my mind has improved by leaps and bounds since then, through experience and the accumulation of many small insights. I guess I should judge my younger mind less harshly.

The more I read and listen and experience life, the more Tetris blocks of insights will fall into place, transforming the very substratum of my mind. And may they continue to tumble from the sky, like intellectual manna from heaven! 

Hobbies and Hobbyhorses

I am able to blog today because it is a public holiday here in Malaysia--the Prophet Muhammad's birthday, which is celebrated in many Muslim countries. This is a much welcome break for me--the second public holiday for the week. 

Malaysians are 'lucky' because, being multi-cultural and multi-religious, we have many public holidays. For Islamic-related holidays alone, we have five--the two major ones being the Hari Raya Aidil Fitri and Hari Raya Haji (Eid Al-Fitri and Eid Al-Adha), together with Nuzul Al-Quran (Muhammad's Revelation Day), Awal Muharam (New Year's day based on the Islamic calendar) and today's celebration of Maulud Nabi (Mawlid Al-Nabi). 

I'm not very good at taking leave from work. I'm happy that there are these public holidays which kind of force me to take a break. A healthier work-life balance is what I'm trying to cultivate. I walk every morning for an hour, but that comes at the price of a shortened sleep-time, which is something that I need to address too. I actually might have to abandon regular work altogether to be able to achieve the perfect balance...

My 'problem' is that I have too many areas of interests. Each one of them is a rabbit hole that, if pursued seriously, could consume an entire lifetime. Not only does each interest contend for my leisure time, they also eat into my living space. No matter where I live, my room is always cluttered with books. Even when I was living in a hotel for 2 years in Indonesia, my hotel room was also filled with books, much to the chagrin of housekeeping.

My current bedroom here in Subang Jaya is cluttered with computers, monitors and other computing accessories, and of course, books. In my Cyberjaya apartment, I have a digital piano, Denon amplifier and speakers, my old CDs, more abandoned computers and parts, a digital piano and the bulk of my book collection. I used to have a large Sun workstation monitor, which I have thankfully gotten rid of. 

I used to enjoy oil-painting during my teenage years, inspired by painters like Constable, Renoir, Monet and Michelangelo. But I am reluctant to revive that hobby for, again lack of time and space. I don't want my home to be cluttered with palettes, canvases, half-squeezed paint tubes and dirty brushes.  Every obsession or hobby consumes money, time and space. But hobbies seem to be my main objective in life--pursuing my various interests and obsessions, at the expense of a 'regular' life of a householder.

I avoided having a printer and have been able to get by without one. Recently I also acquired an e-Ink reader--not specifically for e-books--but for easier reading access to all the various PDF documents and papers that I have accumulated in my hard disks, without having to chop down more trees.

I used to enjoy digital photography too but I realised that is another rabbit hole, that's probably not worth a chunk of my lifetime. Video production should also be one of those things that interest me, because i love movies so much. But these days, I hardly go to the movies anymore; even Netflix streaming ones have become a rare luxury, which I can only enjoy at the expense of sleep.  

Audio books and podcasts are good alternative sources of knowledge and entertainment, but they still consume time and mental attention. Digital content has the advantage that they do not consume physical space, which I realise, is the major challenge in any kind of hobby. You can build a studio, library or workshop to pursue all your hobbies serious, but every kind of workspace requires housekeeping and maintenance, which is always a drag.

I have a large collection of fountain pens--another hobby which I allow myself to indulge in, because pens, thankfully do not consume that much storage space. And my excuse for permitting myself this luxury is that pens have utility value: I use them to write in my journals and notebooks (which also clutter my room). Maybe one day I'll blog about my favourite fountain pens, and my equally large collection of inks!

I've also mentioned before, part tongue-in-cheek, part in exasperation, that religion should be treated as a hobby.  In my case, this is literally true, religion and spirituality is a huge area of interest, not unlike painting or music. I have a great desire to understand the philosophy, psychology and history of religion.  As one can see from topic of many of my blog articles, religion is indeed a hobbyhorse of mine.

With so many interesting hobbies to pursue in life, how could anyone be bored? If work itself, is also a hobby, then this subject of work-life balance will never come up. Thomas Alva Edison famously said: “I never did a day’s work in my life, it was all fun.” Yes, let's all work on our hobbies, and have fun.

Of Independence and Utopianism

I have a long weekend ahead because tomorrow, Sunday is Merdeka Day and Monday is the replacement holiday. Surprisingly I'm not feeling that tired today even though it has been a very busy week for me. I'm also looking forward to a lunch gathering on Monday with some old friends.

Since we are celebrating our 68th year of independence tomorrow, I'll reflect a bit on affairs related to our country, which I actually dislike writing about because I don't see anything new that I could contribute. The internet is a cesspool of political podcasts and punditry, and many watch simply to reinforce their already entrenched beliefs. 

I see human society as dynamical systems which tend towards specific attractor states. These are stable patterns of behaviour, which any society has a tendency to latch on to. Cultural norms are strong attractor states; so it is inevitable that the different races in Malaysia have a tendency to stick to their familiar habits. 

We abhor racial stereotyping but stereotyping is basically the negative aspect of the mind's natural tendency to recognise patterns. Like it or not, we stereotype all the time. The moment we make general sweeping statements, even innocuous ones like: 'Malaysians are very friendly and hospitable people', we are stereotyping this species of people called 'Malaysians'. This tendency to categorise, classify and pattern recognise is part of our brain's natural intelligence. The brain's neural networks learn by reinforcing recurrent patterns that it sees in nature.

Is it any wonder then that there are racial prejudices in every society? Malaysia is no different and that is the biggest obstacle towards national integration. It is not possible to artificially impose a language and a culture on a society. Communist countries 'succeed' to a certain extend, at great human costs. Society will always evolve its own culture and habits. 

When you put different groups of people together, each with their own attractor states, these states could coalesce to form new ones. There will be dominant states, that will be augmented by foreign ones, sometimes diminishing its original flavours but at times enhancing them too in surprising ways.  

We are often torn between tradition and change. A country has certain traditions simply because these are attractors states of the system at a particular period in time. But with immigration, technological and other global changes, new states emerge. Sometimes new countries are formed because the zeitgeist has evolved. Hegelian dialectics are always at play.

Communism was attractive to intellectuals at one time because it promised a utopian society that appeared to be fair and seemed to be supported by reason. Marxists believe that one of consequences of the Industrial Revolution is the rise of a class of asset owners who own the means of production. They profit unfairly through the exploitation of the labour class, from which the real value of a product is actually derived.  

Why should the means of production be concentrated in the hands of the lucky few who end up enjoying a disproportionately large share of the profits? Why can't society share all its resources and distribute wealth equitably--'from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs'?

But society and markets being complex dynamical systems determine their own stable attractor states.  The free market system, with minimal government intervention has proven to be a better generator of societal wealth than any centralised ideology-based mechanisms, no matter how noble its aim.  The government can regulate, stimulate and sets certain boundaries, but by and large, the complex individuals who form society inevitably find their own zones of comfort, in other words, attractor states.

And that's how it should be. We are the country we are today, due to circumstances of history and geography. The cultural intermingling of diverse peoples, in this land where the trade winds meet--the 'Nusa Antara'--made us who we are. That is our strength and advantage. As long as we continue being open, adaptable and progressive, we'll always prosper. And true independence means that we are free to think on our own, lest we fall into the seductive trap of ideological or religious utopianism.

The Zealot and the Drunk

I'm on a vegetarian diet today and so I ordered some plant-based meal from the pub here for my early dinner. I enjoy blogging from a pub because I tend to feel more relaxed in such places. I plan to spend a couple of hours here and will probably grab some beers after finishing this article.

We all know that excessive consumption of alcohol leads to drunkenness, characterised by a loosening of inhibitions, slurred speech and impaired judgement. That is why it is unwise to drive when one is in an intoxicated state. 

The mind has so many mental blocks, and when people drink, they temporarily remove them. This makes people more relaxed and social, and this lack of inhibition sometimes making people do  things that are socially inappropriate. That is why most religions prohibit the consumption of alcohol. Alcoholism could also lead to all sorts of long-term health issues. 

Why then do people drink? Well, same reason why people play computer games, binge on Netflix serials or stuff themselves with junk food. We all want to take a break from the stress of everyday problems, and find ways to trigger the release of all the feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and endorphins. 

All pleasurable experiences could lead to addiction, when the brain's pleasure circuits are hijacked. It is easy to get addicted to anything that's pleasurable. Almost everyone craves for their favourite food. We even celebrate that: look at how many Youtube videos and TV programs that are dedicated to food. 

Gluttony is considered one of the 7 deadly sins by the medieval church. Even the consumption of coffee was debated by Muslim scholars during the 15th and 16th century, when its popularity began to surge and coffee-houses became boisterous social interaction hubs, prone to licentiousness. Today, we celebrate the consumption of coffee in all its variety. 

What is prohibited by the religions of the day will be determined by the zeitgeist. There is no right or wrong to it. There will always be purportedly religious people who will behave in a holier-than-thou attitude, condemning others for their failure to strictly follow the rules and regulations of their sect, when they themselves succumb to the deadly sin of pride.

Anything pleasurable consumed in access will tend to lead to bad consequences, whether it is inappropriate behaviour or long term health issues. Religion should help people to cultivate responsible behaviour and alleviate the suffering of the human condition. Everyone is simply trying to cope with the circumstances that they are in, in the best way they know. 

Excessive indulgence in religious fervour should be abhorred as much as alcoholic drunkenness. The religious zealot who bays for the blood of sinners is as repulsive as the abusive drunk who hurls obscenities after a few drinks.  If you know better than others, lead by example. Truth will alway shine like a beacon. Inspire others with the sheer joy of your path. And you bet I will drink to that. Cheers!

Food of the Mind

I'm enjoying some Al-Kbous tea today together with a nice poke bowl lunch, which I had ordered from Grab. Maybe this will be my dinner too, I don't know.  I might go for some beers later. Let's see how it goes.

If I go to a restaurant or cafe, it is mainly to read. Food and drinks are mere accompaniments to this my main activity. And because of this, I am often oblivious to the taste and quality of the food that I'm consuming. I am often surprised when others have very strong opinion about the culinary merits of each place. As I've written in a previous article, I try not to be judgemental about food. This makes it easy for me to adapt my diet to any place that I find myself in.

Last week I wrote about the "food of love"; maybe today I'll write about the food we feed our minds. In the age of social media, we tend to stuff ourselves with content which gives us that rush of dopamine. The endless scrolling on the smartphone, consuming Tik Tok or YouTube videos is not unlike our habit of munching junk food. Both are addictive, and have questionable nutritional value to the mind and body.

Unlike the food I eat, I try to be more choosy and discerning about the content that I consume.  When it comes to feeding the mind, I am a health freak.  My favourite activity of the day these days is my morning walk in the park where I clock-in my required number of daily steps while listening to quality podcasts or audiobooks. My choice of audio content is deliberate--usually it is a mixture of current affairs, philosophy, science and spirituality. 

Even during office hours, whenever I'm performing some mechanical tasks that do not require thinking or talking to people, I would be listening to some audio content. My perfect work day is one where all I do are repetitive, even boring tasks that do not require much thinking. This frees my mind for consuming more useful content via audio. 

When the mind is doing work that requires thinking, like writing this blog, then music becomes an accompaniment, to inspire, enhance, induce and flavour my output.  The best music is the sound of nature--the rush wind in the trees, the patter of rain on the rooftop, or the chirping birds at dawn. Reading outdoors, something which I did a lot as a kid, is such a great joy. 

The good life to me is simply this--being able to afford good food for the mind and having the time to enjoy them.  We are lucky that most of the things we consume online these days are almost free. Even a monthly subscription to Spotify is only around RM20.00 (the price of a meal, which often can be skipped), considering that fact that it me access to the entire corpus of classical music available in the world. I can't believe my ears! Well, if audio content be the food of the mind, play on! 

In Harmony with the World

I've been taking it easy since yesterday (Friday), when I took a day off from work. I have to start using up my leave before year-end, perhaps taking alternate Fridays off.

I rarely take leave that's longer than two days, because I hate catching up with work after a long lay-off. If I leave work, it will be for good. It's something that I've been thinking serious for a while now. 

But I guess, I'll always be working, just not work that I have to do as an obligation. It has also been tough for me for the past year as I had to juggle between work and being a care-giver for mum. But I am heartened by the fact that mum has recovered well from her operation and I'm just there to make sure that her daily exercise and meals are well-taken care of.

Today, I'm here in my apartment-library, nicely settled down with a pot of freshly brewed coffee, and as always, listening to some good classical music from my antiquated sound system.  Only the other day I found out from ChatGPT that Mozart had written only 18 piano sonatas. I'm very familiar with the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven, and had always assumed that Mozart had a much larger output of piano music. But now that I know there are only 18 in total,  I am taking it as a personal project to get familiarised with each and every one of them, intimately. 

I already know Mozart's K457 C minor sonata well, even as a child because my neighbour used to practise that every day, as part of her piano examination piece. I'm eager to enrich myself with the rest of Mozart's sonata repertoire. Every piece of music, especially classical ones, once embedded in my mind, becomes a part of my living soul. It has the same effect as a good book read thoroughly--its thoughts and ideas are intricately woven into my personal philosophy and everyday discourse.  

Music, unlike literary works, have a more subtle, but no less enlightening effect on the mind. There are no clever facts to understand or digest, but it provokes an emotional response in us directly. We can't help but be moved by it. And in responding to music, we train our neural networks, to be cognisant of the tug and pull of rhythm and harmonies, which underly all the natural processes in nature.  The soul is forever decorated with the motifs and patterns of all the pieces of music you've listened to and know by heart.

In Twelve Night, Shakespeare likens music to the 'food of love'.  It fuels and feeds the emotional currents of all human affairs. We can program our minds, evoking different moods for different purposes by feeding ourselves different types of music. Which is why I like to put on Baroque music, whenever I embark on some serious work. It immediately puts my mind in a very relaxed state, allowing good ideas to surface spontaneously. 

There's something primal about music and every culture and civilisation has created some form of music before. Music is simply the raw energetic pattern of life. Themes, variations, counterpoint, tension and resolution are all elements of human interactions.  When we express ourselves with music, we are just replaying patterns in nature. The better we are in listening and copying them, the more in tune with are with the world. We must all hone our musical sensibilities so as to be able to live in harmony with it.