A Different Kind of Writing

This blog is almost 14 years old. Last night I stayed up late reading some of the old entries that I wrote when I was living in Indonesia. I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed reading them. It is quite interesting to see how much my thoughts and my life have evolved over this period of time.

During that time, I blogged daily, mostly from the cybercafe. All entries were written within 1 hour--the block of access time that I usually paid for. It was a simple, carefree and happy life. I'd loved the freedom of living alone and the daily discoveries of life in a foreign land.

Fast-forward to today. I have not set food in Indonesia for perhaps 8 years. I have kind of lost a bit of my wanderlust. Which probably explains my hiatus in blogging. For the past 2 years, the only travel out of the country that I made were business trips to Bangladesh, of all places. Life has been very different for me.

I'm glad that I have this blog as a depository of my personal ideas and experiences. Rereading some of my old blog entries inspires me to continue writing. To be writing consistently, the activity has to be woven into one's daily routine. I had one in Indonesia because my life was very well-regulated then. I was living alone in a hotel room and life was simple. I had likened it to living in a monk's cell. I was like a monk, spending my days in study, observation and deep contemplation of life.

I've come to believe over the years that one should always tackle life head-on. To face whatever challenges that one is presented with strength and fortitude. All of life's experiences are, to use Ram Dass's words, "grist for the mill". We experience what we experience because of the way we see the world and the way we respond to our experiences. Every experience is in a sense perfect.

I've always enjoyed writing. It is the best way to know oneself. I called it "writhink". I still keep a longhand journal, even though the entries are sparser than what they used to be. I've never been overly attached to periods of happiness nor be troubled too much the occasional sadness. Equanimity has always been my attitude towards life. I enjoy all the good things in life and I've also come to realize that one doesn't need a lot of money to enjoy life. Most of the good things in life are actually simple and cheap.

An old university classmate I met recently asked me whether I still write. He is not aware of my blog but he remembered that I used write short-stories and had even won a writing prize before. I jokingly told him that I write code mostly nowadays because it is a much more profitable enterprise.

Which is actually not far from the truth. Over the past decade I've been writing a lot of software. It is different from what I used to do in Singapore and Indonesia, which was mainly technical selling and consulting. I was never a software developer, even though I had a good conceptual grasp of software technologies. But since I returned to Malaysia, I have been writing software. I suppose it is another form of "writing". I type instructions, constructing elaborate logical structures to achieve certain applications and effects. There's artistry and skill involved.

To write--be it a grammatical sentence or a line of computer code--is to make things happen. The software I wrote certainly did make things happen, albeit in an understated way. Even though it didn't make me a fortune, it did support me over all these years. And they were difficult years indeed when I had to divide my time between work and caring for my Parkinson-stricken dad.

This year marks a slightly different chapter in my life. Perhaps I'll write more frequently on this blog. Perhaps not. Whatever it is, I will be writing. For to write is to live. I've also been toying with the idea of writing in a different language--and I'm not talking about a different programming language. :-) The thought is intriguing indeed. At the meantime, whether it is code or text, I will certainly continue reading, writing, and thinking. And the thought of being able to continue doing these things makes me, momentarily at least, happy.

The Art of the Possible

One thing is consistent throughout my years of blogging: I've avoided the subject of politics--the raison d'être of many other blogs in cyberspace. I steer clear of political topics not because I abhor the subject; far from it: I do have firmly held political views and follow the local political scene closely, but I'd prefer to keep my opinion to myself. The closest I'll go is to reflect on politics, as a subject, philosophically.

Political debates tend to stir a lot of passion among readers. The Malaysian blogosphere is already filled with way too much partisan vitriol; I do not care to add more to it. Technology, the Internet in particular, is a double-edged sword: both the good and the evil are equally amplified. It is also a sad fact of human nature that the vilest, meanest and the most fantastic half-truths often get the most attention.

When political idealism is charged with extreme religious fervour, it becomes a potent mix. Inflammatory rhetoric can often lead to physical violence. This stems from the fact that political and religious world-views have deep psychological roots. Our personal experiences (usually painful ones) and our cultural programming play a big part in shaping them. We all want to preserve our own comfort zones and tend to be wary of change.

From a superficial perspective, there appears to be universal values that we all share--justice, liberty, freedom and economic prosperity. But when we look a little bit closer, we find that there are deep cultural and philosophical differences on what these abstract concepts mean, and how we, as a society, go about achieving them.

Bismarck once said that politics is the art of the possible. We can either take this statement negatively (there are no principles in politics, everything is negotiable) or otherwise (always seek the most pragmatic solution, given the circumstances).

Ideally, all political debate should be driven by the need to explore what's possible. Without it, political rhetoric, is all hate-fanning and fear-mongering.

The Thought Gardener

When I was blogging on a daily basis, I was driven mostly by a desire to learn. I wanted to learn about myself--how my thoughts stand on their own, bare and naked on a public blog. It wasn't important that I had many readers; just the possibility there could be someone reading my entries imposes a certain form of discipline to my writing.

That was what I strove for. I wanted to use the discipline of blogging to not only record my thoughts on my varied fields of interests, but also to hone my writing skills.

This is different from writing in a personal journal; there you don't need to worry about an audience. Blogging requires a bit more care, but yet remain casual enough for one to experiment and let go. A blog is a good practice ground for a writer. It is like an artist's sketchbook, where raw ideas emerge in bold strokes of the pen.

During those years of blogging, I realized that I wrote most naturally when I was writing on spirituality. Spirituality and religion are subjects that I returned to again and again. These are areas which I had spent an entire life contemplating about. And I still have a lot of thoughts that I want to explore and share.

These past few years have been busy ones for me work-wise. I am still striving for balance between the material and the spiritual side of my existence. I try to infuse spirituality into whatever task that I am doing. I am mindful of every impulse that stirs in my mind. I observe them and follow their perambulations; I trace the roots of their lineage and track their lifetimes.

Some thoughts are seeds that bear fruits. Some thoughts are like cancer that can only destroy the body. The fruit-bearing thoughts, I nurture them with tender loving care; the cancerous ones, I kill them mercilessly.

Here in this blog, I hope to plant some of these fruit-bearing thoughts, May they flourish in time.

Blogging with Scribefire

The reason why I'm blogging today is simply because I wanted to try out this blog client - Scribefire, which is a Firefox plugin. For many years I've been using Bloggar as my client--especially during my days in Indonesia. At that time, I blogged daily from a cybercafe. I remember having to download and install the client everyday onto the PC that I happened to be using, because the owner cleaned up all unauthorized applications regularly.

Bloggar was good enough for my purpose, until these last couple of years when it was not regularly maintained by the creator, and it didn't keep up with the changes in the Blogger.com API.

I know many bloggers blog directly from Microsoft Word, which is capable of posting to most of the popular blog sites, but I prefer a lighter client. I tried LiveWriter for a while, but didn't find it fuss-free enough for my liking. And I must confess, I'm no big fan of Microsoft applications, nor am I an Apple freak. I like my computing platform to be light, unintrusive and doesn't try to call attention to itself. It should just fade into the background.

I still have Windows on my notebook, but most of the time, I boot from my Ubuntu partition. I find it easier to do my development work on a Unix platform. SSH terminals are my best friends because I need to log on to the server all the time. And Ubuntu certainly feels faster and lighter than Windows.

So this is my first entry using the Scribefire plugin as my Blogger client. So far so good. I've been able to insert links quite easily. And if this gets posted successfully, I'm going to start using it regularly!

Careless Thoughts

Why do I suddenly feel like blogging today? It has been months since my last entry.

Blogging used to my way of relaxing after a hard day's work. It allows me to organize my thoughts and let my fingers do the talking.

Maybe it's because the HP Netbook I'm using now is the perfect tool for blogging. The keyboard is excellent; the size of the screen just right to accomodate one blog entry. It feels so natural to start blogging whenever I open up this Netbook.

Work occupies most of my waking hours. My sleeping hours these days have also been drastically reduced. More work and less sleep is no good for me. I'm feeling very exhausted.

I listen to audiobooks more than I read these days. I go to bed with my iPod. I listen while driving. I am actually more attached to my iPod than to my cellular phone. Which is why it is logical for me to upgrade my iPod to an iPhone. Two devices finally merged into one. But I'll have to wait for the price to be more reasonable first. No hurry.

I am not a gadget freak. I outgrew that years ago, while I was working in Singapore. My room then was cluttered with devices and gadgets and I decided then that enough was enough. These days I try to keep my life simple. My secret goal is to live without a car one day. That will be a great achievement.

A carefree, car-less life. I think it is quite achievable.

Gymnasium of the Mind

I'm on leave and that gives me a bit of space to think more clearly.

When I was in Jakarta, I used to blog daily even though I didn't even have a notebook PC at home then. I blogged from the Internet cafe: an hour there was just enough time for me to put down my daily reflection and to catch up on the latest Malaysian news. I even wrote longhand in my diary everyday.

I've lost a lot of these habits since I came back to KL (5 years ago?). Slowly, I need to cultivate these good habits again. Writing helps me to think--it puts space in between thoughts and helps me to see them with greater clarity.

I haven't been watching movies at the cinema regularly too for the past few years. This is another activity that I miss a lot. Movies give me lots of ideas and I often get inspired by them. Books, movies and music -- these things enrich life, adding colour and tone to our humdrum existence.

And of course people too. Meeting friends and strangers add to the myriad of possibilities that life has to offer. Every movie watched, every blog entry written, every conversation with a stranger or friend is another brushstroke in life's canvas.

To blog is to to distill and to savour the essence of life's experiences. It also helps to keep my writing skills sharp. Now I'm like a footballer during off-season break: my fitness is at its lowest and my agility gone.

A blog is like a gym for the mind. You have to use it regularly to keep yourself in tip top condition mentally. I'm certainly not in good form now. But give me time, slowly, I'll regain my touch...

A Life of Leisure

I've finally managed to complete my long overdued upgrade to the new Blogger template. When I first started blogging in 2003, Blogger didn't have a lot of the features which come standard with any blogsite today: things like comments, tags/labels and blog titles were not supported.

Only paying pro-Blogger users were allowed to upload pictures to their blogs. We had to integrate comment services and picture-hosting from other free service provider sites; blog entry titles had to be hardcoded in HTML. That is why you still see these ugly double titles appearing for all my old posts. And also, now that I'm using the Blogger commenting feature, all old comments are not displayed anymore.

Even though I have been blogging less and less frequently lately, I don't intend to stop doing so. I'll blog whenever I find those bits and pieces of time in between more "important" tasks. There are so many things vying for my time, but this year, I hope to allocate more time for leisure activities such as blogging.

Despite my hectic work schedule last year, I'm quite surprised that I still managed to read quite a number of books. Among the books that I thoroughly enjoyed last year were Chin Peng's autobiography, Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History; Marquez's Memories of my Melancholy Whore, Theroux's Hotel Honolulu plus all the 3 volumes of Ted Miles's diaries. In general however, I'd usually go for non-fiction, unless there's something interesting from Marquez, Kundera or Theroux.

One of my many eccentricities is a fondness for reading musical scores. Classical music is one of my major passions, and I find my enjoyment of the classics greatly enchance if I am able to read and listen to the music at the same time. Hence I also collect musical scores. Whenever I go to Borders, I'd try to check out their collection of music books. Among my most treasured possessions in my library now is a wonderful five-volume set containing the complete piano works of Beethoven, which I'd chanced upon in Jakarta.

The Internet is a great place to download sheet music and so many of them are available free. I also find musical notation visually and aesthetically pleasing--it's like calligraphy. (Calligraphy is also one of my many interests).

I must admit: I have way too many hobbies to pursue! That is why I am always reluctant to take up things like golf or diving--they are simply too time-consuming and not to mention, expensive. There are only so many hours in a day, and so many days in one's lifetime. I have no choice but to prioritize.

I've always believed in the healthy formula of 8 hours sleep, 8 hours work and 8 hours leisure in a day. If we manage our time well, we should have sufficient time to enjoy our favourite leisure activities, and also to blog about them too!