My Mobile University

Living in KL means a lot of time spent in my car. Fortunately I have a consolation: audiobooks. For the past few years, I think I've listened to more books than I have read.

Not only have I "read" many of the latest non-fiction--Malcom Gladwell's Blink and Outliers, and Tim Wu's The Master Switch among others--through the audio medium, I've also sat through many lectures in subjects as diverse a the philosophy of religion, Russian literature, history of classical music, the human body and movie appreciation. My car has become my mobile university; driving is no longer a chore, it is something I even look forward too these days.

I also listen to a lot of poetry--Yeats, Shelley, Dylan Thomas, Edgar Alan Poe. I even sleep with my iPod: my favourit bedtime listening are philosophical talks on religion by Alan Watts. I've been using my first generation iPod for maybe 7 years now and it is the best investment in gadgets I've ever made.

What joy it is to be able to carry a whole library of wisdom right in your breast pocket. Listening is so easy--you just plug in your earphones and lo and behold, the author talks in your head.

Whenever I need a bit of break, in between heavy sessions of academic lectures, I'll dive into my portable collection of classical music--Chopin, Mozart and a bit of Baroque music will usually put me into a very relaxed and blissful state. Ah, instant knowledge, instant relaxation!

I used to buy audio cassettes and have a huge collection of audiobooks in cassettes. But nowadays, I get my audio content from Audible, commiting myself to more than RM500 of audiobooks every year as a Gold subscriber. I have more than a hundred books in my audio wishlist, and the list is still growing.

Unlike many of my IT friends, I'm not exactly an Apple aficionado; It concerns me not if the latest iPhone is thinner, lighter, comes with bigger screen and supports LTE. The iPod is all I care about. With the iPod and Audible, the world's knowledge--the pleasures of life--is always an 'earshot' away.

Qualities We Need

This is my first blog entry for the year, and hopefully there'll be many more to come in the coming days and months.

My daily routine these days is pretty regimented, with very little chance of variation due to the many work and family obligations that I have. Well, even a bachelor has family commitments--old folks to take care of, mortgages to pay and properties to maintain. And these are tough economic times for everyone. We'll all need to hunker down and weather the storm the best we can.

It is tough times like these that really test our resilience and character. We must remain steadfast and never waiver in our self-confidence. To stand still is to regress. Trudge forward, if you can't jog or run. The key is to keep on moving, and to continue learning.

Learning never stops. Everytime we read a book, we always learn something new. It is impossible to read without learning something in the process. Even works of fiction. Sometimes you'll learn even more from well-written works of fiction.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks, as I believe our ears are under-utilized as an input channel. We "abuse" our ears by subjecting them to noise and random sounds. Sadly, only the blind know how to use their ears as a serious instrument for acquiring knowledge.

The Chinese Lunar New Year celebration is coming up next week. Let's welcome the Year of the Ox by reflecting on the qualities of this animal: strength, resilience, toughness and hardwork. Exactly the qualities we need to tackle these trying times.

Tales of Survival

Two full meals a day is just right for me: brunch and dinner. My ideal routine for the day would be: wake up early in the morning to kick off the day with some work, then take a break during mid-morning to run errands and do brunch, before resuming work in the afternoon and early evening.

The early morning work session is great--it allows me to put in 3 solid hours of work before other people even begin their day. I reserve this 3 hours for "real work"; this includes any task that require a high degree of concentration, such as writing, analysis, coding, researching and planning. Thinking work. The rest of the day, I know I'll be constantly occupied with phone calls, meetings and e-mails--"regular work" or work that does not require deep thinking.

My ideal daily routine is broken whenever I have early morning meetings in town. Then I'd have to start off early to join the rush-hour procession of cars to the city. Usually I'll use the one-hour drive to enjoy a good audiobook or listen to my favourite podcasts.

Driving is never dull when I have my iPod with me. My current "read" is Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. This is an exciting account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's famous expedition in 1914 to the Antartica, to attempt an overland journey across the icy continent. On their way there, their ship, the Endurance was trapped and crushed by the frozen sea. It is a nail-biting (frost-biting?) tale of survival in the harsh sub-zero temperatures of the Antartic seas, a gripping saga of men forced to stretch to the very limits of their endurance. Even when I was trapped under the hot KL sun in a traffic-jam listening to the audiobook, I shivered and froze together with these men, as they overcame every obstacle that Nature threw at them--blizzards, stormy seas and treacherous ice floes--to rescue themselves from one of the most treacherous and inhospitable places on Earth.

Tales of adventure and exploration like this are such wonderful reads. A couple of years back, I read an exciting account of Magellan's journey to circumnavigate the globe--it was a satisfyingly thick hardcover book which I had lugged together with me during one of my projects in Bangkok. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I recently found an audio version of the book and so I intend to "reread" it again soon.

These tales are also very inspiring; they demonstrate to us the strength of the human spirit in overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We sometimes think that we face similar situations in our lives too--intractable personal problems that bother us day and night. But tell yourself to find comfort in the fact that no matter how difficult the challenges are, it is nothing compared to what these explorers had to face.

In fact, hardly any of the challenges that we face in our humdrum middleclass existence is a matter of life and death. I haven't heard of a yuppie starving to death before. Most of the time, it's just the ego that needs to suffer a bit of bruising. Compare that to losing a leg to frostbite.