One True Sentence

I almost forgot that today is my blogging day as it is a public holiday. I spent the day at home, mostly doing some work while listening to some of my favourite podcasts. Work these days usually mean writing code.

I don't consider myself a very good programmer but I still seem to write better code than many of the people I hire. Which is why I end up doing most of the tough work myself.

Coding helps one to discipline the mind--it is an exercise of breaking down a large problem into smaller chunks. Each chunk is then constructed using building blocks available from the programming language. A good programmer ensures that these chunks are themselves building blocks, which can be reused to tackle future problems.

Re-usability, maintainability and simplicity are my goals whenever I code. They are not always achievable but I try my best. I consider programming a workout for the mind, very much like running on the treadmill. I am grateful that I have a job that allows me to keep myself mentally fit.

Coding is an easier job compared to writing. There are an infinite number of ways to express a thought using words and sentences. One could stare at a blank page for hours without any results. Coding on the other hand is logical--there's always a way forward. The programmer's challenge is to go about tackling it in the most efficient way.

Despite coding being an 'easier' task compared to writing, sometimes the task could be rather daunting. Especially so when the piece of software you are developing has many interdependent parts, and you are building onto something that's already running live. The migration of new code into production can be a nail-biting affair. Any carelessness will break a live-running service. This is one unique challenge that a prose writer will never have to face.

But whether I'm writing code or prose, I always remember Hemingway's advice in A Moveable Feast:

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.’ So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

This was exactly what I did when I started this post: one sentence at a time. There's always only one task to do: One sentence. A single line of code. Continue doing that, and you'll reach the finishing line.

The Magic of Living

I was thinking about writing something about the subject of happiness, when the thought occurred to me: hey haven't I written about this many times before? A simple search reveals that this is indeed the case.

In an entry entitled "The Happiness List" (Nov 5, 2005), I wrote about how one can be made happy by the simple things in life. In "The Happiness of Small Things" (Jan 7, 2005), I wrote: "We define our own happiness. Happiness to me is just a simple and quietly fruitful life".

Those words we written more than 10 years ago. And my view about happiness has not changed at all. I still believe what I wrote in "A Diamond Soul", that happiness cannot be achieved by manipulating the external world; real happiness comes from an inner transformation, a spiritual realization, a crucible of pain, which forces us to relook our life in a different way. Perhaps joy is a better word for this deeper happiness. Most people find this transforming joy through religion (another one of my favourite blogging subjects).

Our real-life situations are never ideal: we have relationship problems, we face work-related pressure in the office, we have financial worries and we are concerned about our future. These non-ideal circumstances make us "unhappy". But if we look closer at it, they all stem from a need to control what is in essentially beyond our control. We can never dictate how others should behave towards us, nor can we predict what tomorrow will bring. All we can do is do what we do, to the best of our abilities, to continuously grow and learn with each moment of experience, be it a painful or a pleasurable one.

Some people find happiness in family life--the bustle of kids and large gatherings with relatives. Some like yours truly find happiness in simplicity and restraint--not owning much and not desiring extravagantly. The simple and ordinary things in life already make me ecstatic. An insightful sentence from a book, a sublime movement from a sonata, a beautifully executed piece of cinematography from a movie--all these things give me enormous pleasure and joy. I certainly do not need the peak experiences that come from bungee-jumping or careering at high-speed in a fancy sports-car.

Every word I write is an emanation of joy--the joy of being able to think, write and express. Every time I write, something is created out of nothing: suddenly a thought from my mind is now lodged in your head. Isn't that magic?

When one has an opportunity to create magic everyday, one has absolutely no excuse to be unhappy.

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.

Returning to the Oasis

To write again in this blog is like going home again after a long absence. I can't believe this is my first entry for 2012! Where have I been all these time?

I started blogging, I believe, in 2003, which makes this blog almost ten years old. I was enjoying my time in Jakarta then: I remember blogging from an Internet cafe in Sarinah, disciplining myself to an hour of blogging everyday (They charged 5000 rupiah an hour).

Those were certainly great times. Life in Jakarta was filled with discovery and possibilities. I wrote, I read, I explored and I made a lot of friends. I was freer than a bird.

And how I'd read: I had a book with me all the time and any spot that would allow me to sit quietly and undisturbed would be turned into a reading nook: on trains chugging my way across the Parahyangan mountains, in rustic Sundanese restaurants drowned in their hypnotic strains of gamelan music, at street corners after hearty meals of bubur ayam, serenaded by the ever-present buskers (pengamins), in my happy hotel room--half-watching BBC News on TV--after another satisfying day of wandering all over Jakarta.

Not only did I blog, I also wrote longhand in my journal: one page a day for 2 years, maintaining a habit I had started when I was working in Singapore. I had a maxim then: If something is not written down, it did not happen. One writes to live. Only through writing, life's events are thoroughly absorbed and assimilated into one's soul.

I have been doing a different type of writing these past years in KL: programming. Writing computer code is in many ways, a simpler task than writing prose. The vocabulary of programming is much smaller: everything is precise, deterministic and logical.

Prose writing, in comparison is a struggle--there's always that dreaded blank page, with the ever-blinking cursor mocking you from the computer screen, and there you'd sit alone searching, waiting for that elusive word or turn of phrase that would capture in perfection that thought you have in mind.

After years of wandering in the desert of computer code, now, or at least tonight, I stumble onto my old familiar oasis of a blog--the sweetness of its waters feels like balm on my soul.

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.

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...

The Art and Science of Proposal Writing

I spend most of weekends working from a nearby Starbucks cafe. It is here that I grapple with my multitude of programming problems and hack out my technical proposals and presentation slides.

One thing I've found out being an IT professional all these years: writing code is a lot easier than writing proposals. Coding can even be fun sometimes but technical proposal-writing is always a chore. In programming, most of the time, you know what needs to be done. The challenge is executing it in the simplest, cleanest and most elegant way. Writing code that works is a no-brainer, it's writing good code that's the real challenge.

A proposal is essentially a sales pitch. You are basically putting forth your value proposition--bringing the potential customer's attention to your strong points(and taking the opportunity to indirectly highlight your competitor's weakness), reemphasizing your expertise and commitment and justifying your pricing.

In any IT project, pricing is important. But what's more important is being able to give the customer the confidence that you or your product can do the job. The decision-maker's job could be at stake here. Put yourself in his shoes: can you trust this vendor to help you look good in front of your bosses?

Confidence is an intangible thing which you subtly project through your approach and professionalism. A professionally-written proposal goes a long way towards achieving this goal.

It's easy to hire programmers but finding a good proposal writer in the IT industry is like looking for a needle in the haystack. Writing is a lot of hardwork, especially technical writing. It requires someone who appreciates technology and enjoy stringing words together to illuminate difficult concepts.

Besides being able to understand technology and being able to sell them using words, there's a third skill that's required of a good proposal writer: the ability to illustrate technical architecture and concepts using diagrams. Most engineering diagrams that I see are very badly drawn. Engineers are usually obsessed with getting the interconnections between different components right but they don't have a sense of proportion, balance, contrast and colour coordination.

You see, a good diagram is also like a good proposal. It organizes things systematically for the eyes and the mind of the reader. What does the reader see at first glance? It must work like a good advertisement billboard: the main message must be immediately evident. Example: it's a star topology, or there are 3 major components in the overall architecture or client components are grouped on the left-hand-side, server components on the right. A good technical illustrator must be aware of all these things.

My personal philosophy on good proposal writing is this: it must read like a comic book. The first thing a person does when he receives a proposal is to flip through the pages. In the process of flipping, it's usually the diagrams that catch the eye. If you have a sufficient number of well-captioned diagrams scattered all across the proposal, they alone should be able to convey the gist of the story.

Does that mean that a good IT proposal writer must be a salesman, an engineer, an artist and a writer all in one? Yes and no. Yes, because all these different elements must be present to produce a good proposal. No, because these skills need not necessarily come from a single individual. If a team of people with different skillsets can combine them together effectively, then they can come up with a good proposal.

And one more thing: if you have a team of people working on a proposal, you also need a good proposal manager. He is the person who carries that big picture in his mind, understands what needs to be achieved, sets timelines, ensures that everyone delivers their portion on schedule and integrates them together into a coherent whole. This is a very challenging task, especially when a proposal involves components from multiple vendors and partners. In other words, the proposal manager must be someone with good project management skills.

Does such an ideal proposal-writing team exist in most IT organizations? Very rarely. Usually the task of coming up with the proposal is dumped onto the pre-sales engineer. He's expected to be the salesman, the engineer, the writer, the artist and the project manager. Good luck to him!

Reclaiming Silence

Life has been noisy lately.

The challenge for me has always been to remain engaged in the world without getting entangled in its myriad intrigues. One must learn to swim in a world of noise, without getting drowned.

Underneath all the noise is the ever-present silence; this silence is a sanctuary. It is the bedrock of one's sanity. And so I shall continue to write for to write is to reclaim one's silence, and hence one's sanity.

The mind knows when it is losing its inner silence. Judgement goes haywire; instinct misses its mark. Sloth and torpor creeps in. The mind needs recalibration. The body needs purification. The soul needs rediscovery.

How does one handle this constant assault of noise?

Understand its underlying structure of entanglements--the sources and sinks in this continuum of energy. Realise the fact that some of the noises come from yourself. Know your own contribution to this world of noise. Noise equals inefficient usage of energy. The perfect machine generates no noise.

No noise comes out from a purified mind. Everything that comes out from such a mind is music. This music lives in the air as if it has always been there, as if it belongs there--like the evening breeze and the sweet scents from garden flowers.

To produce music, one must have a sense of rhythm. The rhythm of the ticking clock; the rhythm of night and day; the rhythm of human affairs. Master this rhythm.

Life is perfect when work has the effortless quality of music. Work is produced naturally from the instrument of the mind and body. Like music from a jamming session. We are totally immersed in a beautiful world of rhythm and harmony.

Music springs from silence. And silence is a part of its orchestration. Once you have silence, everything else falls into place. Words will have the sound of music.