Judge and Budge

Judge and Budge

I must reserve a blog entry for Wong Kar Wai's 2046 which I only managed to catch on my Singapore Airlines flight back from the Philippines. As usual any Wong Kar Wai movie would require at least three viewings to fully appreciate its visual lushness and emotional nuances.

I managed to watch it twice during my flight, but that is still insufficient for me to do justice to the movie. So I'll reserve my comments for the meantime and write about something else today. I also need time to fully digest its multifaceted theme of love, memory and time.

I think we tend to rush to judgement about things too easily. We don't even ask ourselves whether it is even necessary to judge. Why do we always need to label something or someone good or bad?

The mind has this habit of judging simply because it dislikes uncertainty. We want to put things into boxes so that we know how to sort them out easily. When things can be classified and categorized neatly, we can make decisions quicker.

The world is made simpler if we can label everything and everyone either black or white, enemies or friends, instantly. It is a habit programmed in our genes and honed by evolution. In the jungle where only the fittest survive, our mamallian ancestors had to made split-second fight or flight decisions. Uncertainty equals death and extinction.

But in our daily lives, not many situations that we encounter are life and death ones. What's wrong with leaving things inconclusive?

We will always find some people difficult because they live by a different paradigm. They are just different, not necessarily bad. They might do things which we disapprove of or even hurt us, but still we can respond appropriately without judgement. Too many negative judgements breeds hatred. Hatred is one emotion we don't need to carry around unnecessarily because it saps too much of our mental energy.

I think it is important for us to feel comfortable with uncertainty. Uncertainty does not mean ignorance. It is in fact an expression of confidence in our ability to revise and self-correct.

Things are just the way they are. If we need to make a judgement call at some point, we are fully aware of our fallibility. A judgement call is merely a small test--a sampling procedure to gather more information so that we can reduce our level of uncertainty.

No judgement is ever final. It is part of a constant process of refinement. Judge and budge--that's how we should move forward.

An Acute Hunger

An Acute Hunger

Last night Sophia and I had dinner at a pub at the Greenbelt 3 Mall in Makati and later we watched the popular Filipino band Side A perform. I normally avoid live bands because most of them assault my ear-drums but these five guys were great. Their repertoire consisted mainly of light and easy ballads--probably the only kind of pop music which I have the inclination to listen to these days. Sophia was crazy about them; she brought along her favourite Side A CD and was able to get the autographs of all five members of the band.

We had a great time together but because of my early Thursday morning breakfast meeting, we had to leave before midnight. It's Thursday today and it has been a long day for me but I'm finally back in KL--back to my unfinished work, my huge pile of unopenned letters and a list of errands to run. But it looks like I'll have to start checking the calendar again to plan for my travels for the next two months. Unfortunately I don't see an opportunity to squeeze in a trip to Jakarta.

I've been stuffing myself with adobo and garlic rice for the past couple of days in Manila. My Singaporean friends like to tell me how bad the food in the Philippines is but I have no complaints. I actually kind of like some of their dishes like adobo, tocino and salpicao. Filipinos seem to eat a lot of meat and they usually have rice for breakfast. Probably not the type of diet that would appeal to health-conscious people.

Now I'm back to my even more unhealthy Malaysian diet of nasi lemak, nasi kandar and roti canai. Well, maybe someday I'll decide to be a vegetarian and give up alcohol altogether. When that day comes, maybe I'll be too old and too sick for it to make any difference.

But perhaps I have a saving grace--I'm a light eater and I dislike over-eating. I find the torpor that comes with a bloated stomach rather disgusting. And even though I enjoy good food like everyone else, I'm not addicted to it.

I look forward to meal times more for the company of friends than for the food itself. Even eating alone can be fun because you get to do some reading while waiting for your food to be served. So much of my reading is done in restaurants, food courts and cafes. You see, when it's mealtime for the stomach, it's also a convenient feeding time for the mind. And to me, the hunger of the mind is much more acute than that of the body.

The Pinay Network

The Pinay Network

I haven't exactly been working that hard here in Manila so far; meetings have been sparse but they've been very fruitful. Blogging has been intermittent for the past couple of days because of a few reasons--mainly it's because I hate to pay 10 USD per-day for the broadband Internet service at my hotel since I only get to use it for a couple of hours everyday.

My nights here have not been adventurous either. I reacquainted myself with places that used to be familiar to me--the area around Shangrila Makati, mainly the malls at Ayala Center. Six or seven years ago, I was more into clubbing and the nightlife. I remember lots of fun nights at places like Hard Rock Cafe, Zu and some of the bars at P. Burgos.

But I'm such an intolerably dull creature these days; I've been spending my evenings quietly at the hotel lounge, drinking the excellent local beer Red Horse (the "strong beer" from San Miguel), deeply engrossed in my Marquez book.

To prevent myself from succumbing to my hermetic habits, I've decided to go for dinner with a good Filipina friend of mine tonight, Sophia, who happenned to be back here from the States. (It's interesting to note that in Malay, we refer to the country Philippines as "Filipina" but here the word is used as the feminine form of "Filipino"). Sophia has been living in the US for a couple of years now but she's back for the Holy Week/Easter celebrations, which is the most important celebration for the Philippines people.

Those who have Filipina maids will know that they are a very closely-knit community--clannish and chatty. News and rumours travel faster than the speed of light on the "Pinay Network". (Filipinos and Filipinas refer to themselves as "Pinoy" and "Pinay" respectively). If you have a Filipina wife or girlfriend, don't even think of flirting around with another Pinay! It is no surprise that Philippines has the highest volume of SMS traffic in the world.

So, enough of Marquez for this trip, I'll look forward to a good dinner with Sophia and friends tonight and enjoy all the latest gossips from the Pinay Network!

Green & Easy Sunday in Makati

Green & Easy Sunday in Makati

Manila city is very quiet because of the Easter holidays. A lot of the shops are closed and I believe many of the people have gone back to their hometowns in the provinces. The emptiness of the Makati business district--where my hotel is located--made me feel lazy to make any explorations around the city. So I mainly vegetated back in hotel, doing some light reading and drinking beer at the lounge.

When I arrived yesterday evening at the airport, I was keen to see if a lot has changed in Manila since my last trip here five years ago; I was happy to observe that they are still very fond of the colour green. Filipinos seem to like that colour very much--the floor of the airport is green, all the signages are green, roofs are green and when you go on the streets, you notice that even the letters on the car number plates are green.

The other thing which caught my attention previously was that there seem to be more coconut palm trees in the Philippines than anywhere else I've been to before. Even right here, from my hotel window in the middle of the business district, I can see them sprouting up in unexpected places, their drooping branches adding an air of langour to the place, making me feel even lazier.

I've lost contact with most of my Filipino friends; many have emigrated to the US. I've got to start making new ones here again, which shouldn't be a problem because Filipinos are among the most friendly and easy-going people I've ever met. They are always ready to laugh and have a good time. I get along very well with them.

I mentioned about the terrorist treat in the Philippines yesterday. The Philippines Daily Inquirer I read this morning however was very reassuring: it quoted the police as saying that the capability of the Abu Sayyaf to carry out bomb attacks in Metro manila has become "almost nil" following their seizure of almost 600 kilos of explosives recently. But an AFP report today says that police have defused an explosive device found near the Spanish embassy building right here in Makati yesterday evening.

But life goes on as in any other city in the world which faces terrorist treats. When you are here, it doesn't feel so bad. The "greenness" of the environment and the easy-going nature of the Filipino people puts one at ease immediately. I could easily get used to living here too...

Memories of Manila

Memories of Manila

I'm blogging this from my favourite halfway stop, Changi airport, on my way to Manila. It would probably appear as if I had purposely planned to go to Manila for the Easter weekend, but when I made my appointment a couple of weeks back, this coming week is the only time I could fit into my calendar. Flight was difficult to get, so I had to fly out today, in time for Easter Sunday tomorrow.

I didn't mind because I haven't been to Manila for almost 5 years and I kind of miss the place. Manila is another one of those congested and polluted Third World cities which I am particularly fond of.

Now it looks like I've chosen the most dangerous time to go to the Philippines. Every Western embassy seems to be issuing out alerts, warning against travel to the country. Today's news tells of the Philippines military foiling a bombing plot targetted over Easter.

Well, I suppose having lived in Indonesia for over 2 years, I'm quite used to "living dangerously". Manila is very similar to Jakarta in many ways--lots of slums, horrendous traffic, corrupt officials and rich Chinese businesses. The Mel Gibson movie "The Year of Living Dangerously" was actually filmed in the Philippines. Some of the "Indonesians" in the movie actually speak with a noticeable Tagalog accent.

But I think Manila is a more dangerous city than Jakarta. Unlike in Jakarta, the Abu Sayyaf and JI terrorists don't only target bules or Mat Salleh places, here every target--LRTs, buses and malls--is a legitimate one for them. Kidnappings are frequent occurences. I guess I'll have to be extra careful.

Despite all that, I'm actually more fond of Manila than Bangkok. The Spanish and Catholic influence there makes it a more romantic city--it feels a bit like being in a South American banana republic. But it has been many years since my last visit; I'm not sure whether it's still the same. I'll have a weekend to find out.

Greed is "Good"

Greed is "Good"

One of my all-time favourite movies is Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone. I first saw it at the Cathay cinema in KL, during my university days. The most memorable scene in the movie is Michael Douglas' "greed is good" speech. That has become one of the most quoted lines of our time. The movie also won Michael Douglas an Oscar for best actor.

Is greed good? To quote Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas' character in the movie):

"Greed, in all of it's forms--greed for life, for money, knowledge--has marked the upward surge of mankind"

Is greed the force that drives men to achieve their dreams? Isn't civilization itself built on the foundation of greed?

If you are greedy, it means that you are always trying to accumulate more than what you actually need. You don't know when to stop. You want to life live to the fullest, to experience as much success as possible, to earn so much money that you can afford to do all the things you've always wanted to do in life, plus more.

Well, what's wrong with greed then if you don't harm anyone in the process?

The answer lies in the tagline of the movie: "Every dream has a price"

What's the price of greed?

A greedy person can become so self-centered that he forgets that wealth and joy bring manifold returns only when they are spread around. A greedy person succeeds in the short run because his energies are focussed on getting the things he desires. Focus and energy are obviously essential ingredients for material success.

But whatever success he gets will never feel entirely satisfactory; because a greedy person by definition is never contented. A greedy person is also the loneliest person in the world. The only friends that he has are equally greedy people like him.

When greedy people meet, they are constantly thinking how to manipulate each other for self-benefit. They could become temporary business partners based on their mutual lust for wealth but such partnerships usually end bitterly because greedy people do not know how to share.

Greed can drive a person to succeed, yes. But the price for it is emptiness, loneliness and ultimately unhappiness. If one is willing to accept that as a price, then go ahead.

My take is that the price of greed is too high. There are better ways to achieve success, and they are not necessarily harder too. The returns are better because they come in both material and spiritual forms.

How?

Just replace the word "greed" with "passion".

The World of the Senses

The World of the Senses

I've been in KL for almost three weeks already and I think it's probably time for me to start packing for another trip. I've been spending too much time working from all the Coffee Beans and Starbucks around town. Another trip overseas will help me to freshen up mentally. But it also means that I'll come back with even more work.

I haven't been jogging for over a week now. I'm itching to resume tomorrow morning, if I can only pull myself out of bed early enough. When it comes to exercising it is very easy to lose your momentum. Once you stop, it takes enormous willpower to start again.

I mentioned before that when it comes to time, we are all born equal--all of us have 24 hours a day. Some of us make better use of it than others. Perhaps some people have the luxury of having more free time because they don't have to work so hard for a living. But free time is useless if it is simply wasted away satiating the cravings of our senses. Work can also be useless if it doesn't contribute to our growth.

Even when one has already possessed every material want, one still has room to grow--emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. The soul is always growing because it is its nature to do so. At some point, it will come to some religious awakening--a flowering of consciousness.

This could be a good or bad thing, depending on how the person handles it. I've likened it to the experience of first love. It is at this very point that some fall by the wayside to become bigots and extremists.

Every good and bad experience in life contributes to our growth. How much we grow depends on how well we distill the wisdom from our experiences. We always think of knowledge and wisdom as a some kind of content that we slowly accumulate in our brains. It is not. It is actually a process of clearing away the cloud of illusion that hides us from the truth.

And as the haze of ignorance is slowly dispelled, we begin to catch a better glimpse of our divine nature. Ultimately, everything we seek for is already inside us, shining with crystal clarity. We are simply too engrossed in our world of senses to see it.

So we go about our lives, seeking ever more gratifying experience from our senses and wallow in its endless stream of pain and pleasure.

Healthy Pain

Healthy Pain

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
- Bill Shankly, legendary Liverpool manager

These days only Liverpool's performance can give me the emotional ups-and-downs that a lovesick schoolboy would experience. I didn't watch the all-important Liverpool-Everton derby last night because I have become superstitious: everytime I watch my favourite team play, they tend to lose.

So I decided not to tune in to ESPN last night and went to bed early. But it wasn't a very restful sleep: I dreamt about the match all night. The dreams were incoherent but they all seemed to indicate that Liverpool had won. I woke up at 5am with a cautious anticipation of a Reds victory.

I immediately checked the results from the web and was quite overjoyed that my intuition was proven right. So the hope for Champions League qualification next season is still alive for Liverpool! But there are eight matches to go and we're still 4 points behind Everton. Bolton, a point below us, is also breathing down our necks.

It's going to be an emotional roller-coaster ride until the end of the season. There will probably be many depressing mornings when I'll wake up to find that Liverpool has lost or dropped points. Sometimes I wished these things didn't matter to me so much. But like being in a romantic relationship, one has to take the pain and the joy together.

I suppose it is good to suffer a little bit of "healthy pain" sometimes. When you are down, you realize how vastly different the world appears to you. And you begin to gain a better insight into the mental state of someone who is plunged into deep depression. Imagine how infinitely more hopeless and lost, such a person feels. Imagine how difficult it is for him to snap himself out of that self-defeating state of mind.

The good thing about being a fanatical supporter of your favourite team is that you learn how to handle the emotional upheavals that come with victory and defeat. Especially defeat. You learn how to lift yourself up again and look forward to the next match. For there's always a next match to look forward to; a next season to get things right. I guess we need to learn how to approach life with the same kind of optimism too.

The Rhythm of the Universe

The Rhythm of the Universe

It's been a long time since I wrote anything about Sukarno. I'm not going to start now, but allow me quote from his famous "Year of Living Dangerously" speech, delivered on Indonesia's national day, August 17, 1964:

Revolusi adalah satu proses. Puluhan tahun kadang-kadang, berjalan proses itu. Pasang-naik dan pasang-surut akan kita alami berganti-ganti; pasang-naik, pasang-surut itulah yang dinamakan iramanya Revolusi. Tetapi gelora samudera tidak berhenti, gelora samudera berjalan terus! Iramanya Revolusi! Iramanya Revolusi!

(Revolution is a process. Sometimes the process takes tens of years to unfold. It will rise and fall in turn; this rising and falling is what we call the rhythm of revolution. But the waves of the ocean do not cease, the oceans churn continuously. How rhythmic is revolution!)

Like revolutions, our lives too unfold in a rhythmic wave-like nature. Expect periods of highs and lows. The important thing is not to be too demoralized when things are feeling down. We need to stiffen our resolve, hunker down and weather those down times so that we are prepared to spring back when the first opportunity arises.

When we are at our peak, we must also realize that the experience will not last forever. Having reached the top, we feel very self-confident. This self-confidence must however be tempered with humility so that we are not carried away to the point that we forget that there's still a lot for us to learn, and that there are always higher peaks to climb.

The ability to master the rhythm of life--this up-and-down nature of everyday existence--is the key to a peaceful life. If you are at sea long enough you will get a feel for its rhythm--you know when the waves are coming by smelling the air and feeling the subtle vibrations that enter your body. You can then take better advantage of the currents to take you where you want to go.

Over time, with age, we get a better sense of rhythm. Some people have a better knack for it than others. We all know how some people are hopeless at the dance-floor simply because they have no sense of rhythm. This sense of rhythm comes from an ability to feel the music--to enter into the emotional flow of the song and to allow all bodily movements to blend gracefully into its pulsating beat.

By being sensitive to the natural rhythm of our existence, we face less friction in our daily lives.

How do we become more attuned to this rhythm?
By silencing the noise that's in our heads.

How do we silence the noise in our heads?
By listening to the sound of silence.

If you listen hard enough, you'll hear the rhythm of the universe.

Past, Present & Future

Past, Present & Future

Yvonne: Where were you last night?
Rick: That's so long ago, I don't remember.
Yvonne: Will I see you tonight?
Rick: I never make plans that far ahead.

- Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz.

The present is the key to success and happiness. Our past has driven us to the point where we are at now. Like it or not, where we are all the cummulative results of our past actions. We take the responsibility for it. We accept it and we learn from it.

The future has not revealed itself yet. But what we do for the present determines how the future will unfold. Maybe we cannot control all the factors that determine the future. Luck plays a part, as does fate.

But the things that we can control make all the difference. We can determine how we react to the world. We determine what action to take in response to a situation. We become a victim of fate only when we lapse into "unconsciousness"--when we are not mindful of our words and actions.

When we do not try to consciously fill every present moment with thoughts and actions of our own choosing, our baser instincts will gladly take over--we become slaves to emotions such as anger, fear, hate or jealousy. When that happens, we are merely a conduit for the painful energies of the past to continue influencing the unfoldment of our future in a negative way.

Start with forgiveness. Forgive ourselves for our past failings and forgive those who have hurt us before. The act of forgiving is a powerful one because it frees us from the painful energies of the past. Once we are free from the contaminants of the past, every moment that presents itself becomes virgin soil, full of nourishment and promise. We can then seize it and attach a seed to it--a positive thought or action--that will bear us fruits in the future.

That's all we do: we plant the soil of the present with our seeds and Nature will do the rest. A seed does not need to plan how to grow into a tree. It merely grows into one.

The Weapon that Women Wield

The Weapon that Women Wield

My friend R., an American who recently returned home after living for over a decade in South East Asia, e-mailed me recently to tell me that he is struggling to adapt to life there. He wrote: "The women here are fat and always look 10 years older than their age".

I can't blame him. When he was living in Bangkok, he had two young mistresses; he was living together with one and seeing the other whenever there's opportunity. His Thai girlfriends treated him like a king, even though they knew very well that he has a wife back in the States. A decade of pampering in the East has made it difficult for R. to adapt to life back home.

It is probably a bit surprising that there's indeed such a thing called true love, which ultimately binds a man and a woman together for life. Despite his infidelities elsewhere, R. still chose to return to his wife, for deep down inside he loves her. He could have easily chosen to settle down with a younger and prettier woman in Thailand but in the end, the strength of a relationship is not based purely on lust (though it often provides a good starting point). So my friend R. obediently endures a lesser existence back in the United States of America, because true love always triumphs over lust.

Conclusion: a man will always return to the woman he loves, even though he might conveniently hop into the bed of a few others along the way.

But hold on there: from a woman's point of view, that is not good enough. And understandly so. There's no question that a man will not tolerate a bed-hopping spouse; why shouldn't men be subjected to the same moral standards too?

Maybe the male-dominated world out there gives women a raw deal. I've blogged before here and here on how easy it is for men to stray, simply because whenever and wherever there's a need, there are more than enough willing suppliers. For the male traveller in a foreign land, sometimes it is easier to find women than food.

Should women then take all this lying down (pun not intended)? Is there something that they can do against this injustice? What weapon can women wield against men?

I belong to the male species, so it is politically incorrect for me to suggest anything :-) But one can find the answer within the problem itself. I have already given a bit clue in a previous posting.

Perhaps some words of wisdom from the Marquise de Merteuil, played by Glen Close in the movie version of Dangerous Liaisons, will serve to clarify my point:

When one woman strikes at the heart of a man, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.

Body Talk

Body Talk

After taking my mind off work completely on Sunday, I feel a lot fresher and energetic today. Driving around town in the stifflingly hot weather last week had taken its toll on me. I felt the first rumblings of sickness creaping into my body. So I decided that a full day of complete rest would be my remedy.

And it worked. I'm back on my feet again, ready to pounce on the world. It also got me thinking: most of us don't really spend our weekends resting. Yes, we don't go to work, but we continue occupying ourselves with a thousand and one other diversions--shopping, movies, TV or clubbing until the wee hours of the morning. These things help us take our minds off work but unfortunately they don't help to rest the body. We are continuously bombarded by a variety of sensory input which automatically triggers a series of chemical responses inside us. Hence the body remains hyperactive. If you believe what Daniel Reid says in the Tao of Detox, the body needs at least a few days of complete rest before the elimination system can start kicking in and thoroughly remove all toxins from the body.

When it comes to health, we all have our pet theories. I am inclined towards the natural healing school, though I'm not fanatical about it. I dislike taking any kind of medication, even health food in tablet form, because I have this superstition that anything that's processed will have some harmful side-effect. Of course, I am not consistent in following this principle either (I'm too fond of Indomie and Maggi Mee).

I utterly dislike soft drinks (they are too sweet) but I'm fond of alcoholic ones. I like cheap, simple and unelaborate food but sometimes I think I stretch my luck a little bit by eating at visibly dirty places by the roadside. I cannot claim that I take very good care of my body (though I try hard to spend time listening to it), but at least I cannot be blamed for spending more money on my car than on my health. You see, I don't even bother to take care of my car at all! I consider owning a car a big hassle--I would rather do without it someday.

But I suppose we all can't escape from taking care of this all-important vehicle that we own--our body. If we believe what the Theosophists and mystics say, we have a total of seven bodies that overlap one another--the astral and etheric bodies being the most well known ones. Well, someday I'll blog about these esoteric things.

For the meantime, let's be grateful that this body that we possess is still serving its purpose well. Someday, we'll have to discard it, and when we do, hopefully we'll possess enough wisdom not to be too attached to it.

Therapeutic Travel

Therapeutic Travel

Last year during this time, I was spending a lot of my time in Bangkok. This year it looks like Sri Lanka will be my frequent destination. And of course, Indonesia will always be there in my itinerary whether for business or for pleasure.

The thing I like about being on the road is that you always arrive at a new destination with a renewed enthusiasm to work. When you stay in one place for too long, you tend to get lazy and your bad habits start to take over you.

A friend asked me yesterday, if I ever feel bored or lonely whenever I'm travelling. Very rarely so. There's always something to do. I'm always interested in the local people's culture and habits. I look forward to wandering the city streets alone, whenever I get the chance. If I have my camera with me, I also try to capture some of the interesting sights along the way. And one is never short of people to chat with--even beggars can be interesting people to talk to.

The opportunity to be alone is good, even therapeutic, because you get to reflect on a lot of things. Back in KL, life is often very hectic: you are constantly occupied by family, friends and errands. Sometimes you cannot see things in its proper perspective. I often see people getting caught up with their emotions, being angry and agitated over very insignificant things. Only when you get some distance between yourself and your regular life, will you know how to differentiate what's important and what's not.

For people who are in a relationship, short periods of separation can actually help to enhance it. Absence can make the heart grow fonder, provided both parties are commited to each other. We tend not to see our partner's good points when we meet them too often. The quarrel of lovers is very tiresome because it is usually over very petty things. Smart lovers know how to maintain a "strategic distance" between each other so that the strength of their love becomes evident: you can only feel the strength of a rope when you stretch it out tautly.

Travelling alone is good. It can help keep your relationship with your loved ones back home strong and alive. Of course, for some married men, travelling for business is also a great opportunity for them to fool around a bit. But that's another story for another blog entry :-)

The Regular Life and the Quest for Meaning

The Regular Life and the Quest for Meaning

Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino): So you never wanted a regular type life?
Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro): What the fuck is that? Barbeques and ballgames?

- Heat, directed by Michael Mann

To some people, the so-called "regular life" is pure bliss and happiness: a stable and well-paying job, a suburban home filled with the boisterous activities of kids growing up. To others, it is a depressing middleclass nightmare.

In the movie Heat, Al Pacino played a burnt out, twice divorced cop who is totally consumed by his quest to hunt down a big-time robber on the run played by Robert De Niro. In one memorable scene at a cafe, the cop and the robber sat down to have a rather civil conversation together over a cup of coffee. And they both realized how similar they are to each other--only that they are on different sides of the law. "I do what I do best, I take scores. You do what you do best, try to stop guys like me", said De Niro's character.

They certainly do not have the "regular life". It is as if they are cursed to go through a life which they know will not bring them the regular type of happiness but still they cannot escape from "doing what they do". Both are hunters driven by the mysterious thrill of the hunt.

Some of us are like that too. We know we are born to do something with our lives. We feel a primeval urge inside that drives us to pursue things that we feel we are destined to do. It probably won't make us happy in the conventional sense but it certainly would give our lives a whole lot of meaning.

What is this "meaning" that is so important to us? Why would we rather have "meaning" than a "regular life"? Isn't a regular life meaningful in its own way too?

I might not be inclined myself to lead a regular family life, but yet I do not think people who choose to do so lead a life any less meaningful. We all define and find our own meaning in life. And it is the quest for meaning that drives us on.

In Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, he recounted how there were some prisoners who actually died not because they were wounded or ill but simply because they couldn't find any reason to continue living in the horrible conditions of the concentration camp anymore. One day, they just "decided" to die.

A family man can certainly find meaning in building a happy and harmonious home. It is a task that is as noble and challenging as any other more "romantic" quests: The householder is no lesser than the painter who strives to produce a masterpiece work or a scientist who seeks to formulate a breakthrough theory that would be the crowning achievement of his life.

Sometimes we might not even know what kind of meaning we are looking for because the quest for meaning is a journey rather than a destination. All we know is that this journey would consume our entire lives.

I don't Eat Grapes (They are Sour Anyway)

I don't Eat Grapes (They are Sour Anyway)

Thinking back, I've been quite lucky that I've always been employed by companies that gave me a lot of freedom and lattitude to do my work. Working for IT vendors rather than for end-users also helped in a way. I would have found the end-user environment a bit too restrictive for my taste.

It's always fun when you are working for a vendor that is still small and growing. You define what you need to do and you go out and get the job done. In a sales environment, you are more externally focussed, going out to win deals and projects rather than being preoccupied with internal processes and procedures, and the inevitable office politics.

Of course, one can never escape from politics in any working environment. We like to say that we hate office politics but we do not always realize that we all, consciously or unconsciously, participate in it. The moment you think you deserve recognition for your work, you have already planted the seeds of politics.

Sure, we all want to be recognized and rewarded for what we do. We want to move up the corporate ladder, earn more money and enhance our standing in society. If we desire all that, we have no choice but to take the politics that come with it. The alternative is to be a hypocrite and pretend that we do not care about all those things and end up sulking or complaining whenever our achievements are overlooked.

Being the idealistic person that I am, I've never bothered to work myself up the corporate ladder. Perhaps there's a hint of sour grapes there :-) But my philosophy has always been that, one's standing and prospects do not only depend on one's performance as seen through the eyes of one's superiors. If you do good work, you will always be recognized and respected by your peers in the industry. You don't have to stab or manipulate people to move your way up. Neither do you have to be an ass kisser. By producing quality work, it is inevitable that you will be rewarded, directly or indirectly, sooner or later, tangibly or intangibly, if not in the present company, elsewhere.

Again, I am putting complete faith in Nature's Perfect Accounting System. Yes, I'm naive and foolish. And I probably deserve my lack of success in the corporate world.

You see, if you care not for the things that other people crave for, you are unassailable. Nothing touches you. To borrow a famous phrase from the Bhagavad Gita, "weapon cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot wet it, wind cannot dry it". Despite my "lack of success", I can still pay my bills and I certainly enjoy life as much as anyone else, if not more.

I pursue the life I choose, and I'm willing to pay the price for it. In the end, don't we all?

The Sweet Lightness of Being

The Sweet Lightness of Being

I am glad that I have this habit of scrawling the date on every book that I purchase. I was flipping through my yellowing paperback copy of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being when I realized that I bought the book almost thirteen years ago: 14 April 1992. I remember the book touched me deeply when I first read it.

Of course, I had also watched the movie version starring Daniel Day Lewis, Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche in Singapore roughly around the same time. It was one of the first "R" rated movies shown there and it created quite a sensation then. If I remember correctly, it ran for a long time, almost a year in the theatres!

I enjoyed the movie very much but the book, understandably has more depth. The story centers around the philandering lifestyle of a surgeon, Tomas and his relationship with two women of very different personalities, Tereza and Sabina. It is a book that's worth a reread because Kundera has a very unique way of writing. He has a peculiar fondness for stopping his narration of the story midway to pursue a philosophical point. You are being forced to listen to a philosophical lecture, but you don't mind, because Kundera is so illuminating.

I'm not interested to do a book review here but I want to quote a passage from it (Part 5, Chapter 10):

Men who pursue a multitude of women fit neatly into two categories. Some seek their own subjective and unchanging dream of a woman in all women. Others are prompted by a desire to possess the endless variety of the objective female world.

Well, I suppose I don't belong to either category because I don't have a habit of pursuing a "multitude" of women. But of course I know many men from both categories.

The former wants to find his dream woman, and every relatioinship that he's involved in would leave him unsatisfied because the subjective ideal of a dream woman in reality does not exist. So he is never happy.

The second category of men would not refuse any opportunity to bed a woman--no matter how unattractive she is. These men are the happier ones because they are never disappointed. Every woman is the promise of a new experience and a different adventure. Variety to them is the spice of life.

Men of the first category are the more troublesome ones. He will marry alright, but the one he chooses as wife is a compromise. He knows that she doesn't fit his vision of the ideal woman, but on certain key areas, she does. So on that basis, he marries her. But still he will not give up his search for his dream woman. The moment he sees some woman outside who appears to fit the bill, he falls for her. He declares his love for her. But again and again he finds that no single woman can meet his standard of perfection--all of them carry a small piece of the jigsaw puzzle. So in the end to be happy, he has to love them all.

And surprisingly, the ones that you find happily married are men that belong to the second category. They will usually end up choosing a woman whom they they think they can accept on a daily basis as a life partner but will still continue to look for variety outside. Those extra-marital liaisons would be purely for sex and nothing else. They wouldn't be so stupid as to fall in love. What's the point? You only need one wife; so keep her barefoot and pregnant back home and keep those mistresses at a safe distance, purely for pleasure.

Now, since I claim that I don't belong to either category, where then do I stand? Browsing through Kundera's book, I found the passage (in Part 1, Chatper 14) that has somehow lingered in my mind these last thirteen years:

His love for Tereza was beautiful, but it was also tiring... Now what was tiring had disappeared and only the beauty remained.

Saturday found him for the first time time strolling alone through Zurich, breathing in the heady smell of his freedom. New adventures hid around each corner. The future was again a secret. He was on his way back to the bachelor life, the life he had once felt destined for, the life that would let him be what he actually was.

For seven years he had lived bound to her, his every step subject to her scrutiny. She might as well have chained iron balls to his ankles. Suddenly his step was much lighter. He soared. He had entered Parmenides' magic field: he was enjoying the sweet lightness of being.

The Right Moment

The Right Moment

"I am all right, right now" - Gurudeva, Merging with Siva

Perhaps some of us could be feeling very miserable now--facing deep financial problems, trapped in an unhappy marriage, hating our work, feeling lonely and demotivated. But if we analyze it carefully, our lives only become unhappy if we continue regretting the past and never stop worrying about the future.

For most of us, we are actually quite "alright", right now. The present is "perfect" because we are alive, we are thinking and we can make choices. If we are convinced that this particular moment is alright, why should the next moment be any different? Or the one after that, and so on?

Well, one could argue that this is simply blind optimism. Perhaps. But then we could also ask ourselves: how else should we live life? By complaining perpetually about how miserable life is? By blaming the world for all our problems? By cursing how unlucky we have been in life?

We fear a lot of things about the future because it is full of unknowns. Those unknowns could hurt. But then again, those unknowns could be filled with goodies too? Why should we be so pessimistic? I suppose we are pessimistic because we are bracing ourselves for the possible pain that could hit us. We dare not hope too much for we fear that we will not be getting them and then the pain will be too much for us to bear.

So we would rather choose to start suffering future pain now. At the same time, we are also dragging with us the burden of the past. Hence every second of our lives is filled with fear and apprehension because the moment it arises, it is already contaminated by the past and threatened by the future.

We cannot change the past. We do not know what the future will bring. But we can control the present. We own the present. At the moment, I feel perfectly alright. Everything is right. I am in no mortal danger. I am typing these words, and I am at peace. (At the same time, you are also reading these words, and you are at peace).

The present is all we have. All we can experience at any one time is this moment. Gone. Yes, this moment. Gone. And we only know one thing: everything about this moment seems right. No? Gone. Right? Gone. Hmm... Gone. OK... Gone. Right... Gone. Right. Gone. Right. Gone...alright, alright! I'm all right, right now!

The Pressures and Pleasures of Projects

The Pressures and Pleasures of Projects

A very tiring overnight flight brought me back to KL again. My trip to Colombo has been pretty fruitful one; I managed to bring the project to the finishing lap. But there are still a few critical hurdles to cross and I need to ensure that my week in KL now is spent very productively.

One day of rest and no more! I need to resume work while the facts are still fresh in my head. It is always a challenge to juggle two projects at the same time because once you leave one behind to concentrate on another, you tend to lose track of the first one. It becomes extremely difficult task to pick it up again later.

That's what happened to me with the Colombo project. The year-end holiday season, the tsunami disaster and my trips to Indonesia derailed me slightly. But I'm glad that I'm back on track again. It's such a difficult project too because the client's expectations are high.

Sometimes I wonder why I choose to do what I do because it is such a difficult job. I have to handle so many different disciplines of knowledge at the same time, understand the people and politics in the customer's environment within a short timeframe and conjure up some kind of solution that is palatable to everyone--often out of nothing, all on my own.

I jokingly told my Sri Lankan partner, Duhan the other day that the work I do is not possible if I'm a married man. He agreed with me because he has seen how mentally consuming the task is, not to mention the sheer amount of time that I have to spend on it.

But I try not to look at my work as some kind of pressure. I've always treated work-related pressure positively and work itself is nothing but a workout that helps me to hone my skills. A project is a journey of learning and self-discovery--one enters into a lot of unknown and uncertainty but whatever the outcome is, one definitely learns something from it. The principle is: do not be too emotionally attached to the outcome. Give it your best, complete it and move on. Pass and move.

Again, we have to remind ourselves that work is not a matter of life and death. The people behind them are more important. To me, the real reward of project work is actually the people that you get to know along the way. You are able to experience a slice of their world, and enrich your own in the process. Well, I suppose people read blogs for the same reason too...

The Pace of the Pen

The Pace of the Pen

I've been sleeping and waking up very early here in Colombo. Maybe it's because I'm still sticking to Malaysian time which is two hours early. I'm enjoying the solitude here; from my room I could hear the waves crashing on the shore below and the sound lulls me to sleep every night.

I hitched a ride on a three-wheeler back to the hotel from office yesterday. The journey from Mawam Mawatha to Galle Road cost me 100 rupees (around 1USD)--probably about the same amount that I would pay for a bajaj ride of similar distance in Jakarta. A taxi from the hotel would have cost me 400 rupees.

My exploration of Colombo Fort has been quite frustrating because many areas near the harbour are cordoned off by armed soldiers, leaving me wandering among streets filled with money-changers and gemstone dealers. I had dinner at the Taj Restaurant on Chatham Road--Sri Lankan fried rice with beef. The food was okay but the restaurant was a bit too dark for me to linger and read.

Instead, I adjourned to the World Trade Center where I had a cup of latte at the Barista Cafe. There I read a little and spent some time writing in my journal. It's been a while since I wrote longhand, and maybe I have even forgotten the pleasure of doing so. When you write by hand, thoughts have to be slowed down to the pace of your pen. When thoughts are slowed down, you get better clarity in your thinking. You notice the nooks and nuances better.

More importantly, you realize that all that hurrying doesn't really get you anywhere faster. Like driving in a congested city, you are just darting from one bottleneck to another. You merely end up queueing up at the tollgate with the car which you overtook moments ago on the highway.

The languid pace of life in Colombo--the slow setting of the crimson sun over the western ocean, the lazy breaking of waves on the shore, the sputtering of three-wheelers in every street--has kind of tappered down the speed of my thoughts. But I have no complains: it's very peaceful living life at the pace of the pen.

Alone in Colombo

Alone in Colombo

I rarely take the buffet because I'm a small eater. But last night, I decided to become a glutton and tried the seafood buffet at my hotel. The spread was sumptuous: massala crab, prawn and calamari curry and a host of other culinary delights. I helped myself to a few large servings and washed them all down with two glasses of red wine. After that I crashed to bed early.

Before dinner, I had a chance to take a walk up Marine Drive, watching the evening sunset. There's a nice lighthouse perched majestically at the end of the road. Unfortunately the romantic setting was spoiled by the sight of many barbed wire checkpoints along the way, manned by armed soldiers. Sri Lankans have been accustomed to living under the shadow of terror due the decades of civil war between the Sinhalese government and the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) separatist movement.

The World Trade Center opposite my hotel and the Bandaranaike international airport at Katunayake have become terrorist targets before. So it is not unusual to see armed soldiers manning critical sites in the city. They don't even allow you to take pictures of some of the places--like the old parliament building along Galle Road, a beautifully grand building with a distinctive Greco-Roman architecture. But I feigned ignorance during my last visit here and managed to snap a couple of pictures before the guards stopped me.

The touts have been harassing me again with their offers of becoming my tour guide ("you're lucky sir, there's an elephant festival downtown and today is the last day"). Fortunately they don't venture up Marine Drive because I think the guards would not allow them.

The area where my hotel is located is also known as Colombo Fort, which used to be an old Portuguese garrison. It's surrounded on three sides by sea with a moat on the remaining side. It's the oldest part of Colombo with a lot of old colonial shophouses. It's kind of like a more lively version of Sunda Kelapa and Taman Fatahillah in Jakarta. Sunda Kelapa today unfortunately looks like a garbage dump.

Unlike my previous trip when I had a couple of Singaporean friends with me, I am completely alone in Colombo this time. Usually I get to know a city better when I'm exploring it myself. Reclusive people like me likes isolation and are perfectly happy being alone in a strange city.

Unfortunately work occupies my entire day and I only have one or two hours of daylight everyday to explore the area near my hotel. But I'm slowly getting to know the city better. At the moment, my feelings are still neutral but who knows, someday I'll be in love with this city too--like how I fell in love with Jakarta. And to be able to fall in love, one needs to be alone first.

Evening Thoughts in Colombo

Evening Thoughts in Colombo

For some reason I'm still feeling quite tired since arriving in Colombo on Sunday evening. There's a two-hour time difference between Colombo and KL but I don't think jet-lag is the cause of my lethargy.

MAS has a code-sharing arrangement with SriLankan Airlines, and I ended up taking a SriLankan flight because all MAS and SIA flights to the Indian sub-continent usually depart at around midnight. Arriving in a foreign country late at night makes you feel extremely disoriented. The SriLankan Airlines flight arrived at 5.30pm local time, which was perfect. Unfortunately it's a slightly longer trip because from KL they stop by in Singapore for an hour to drop and pick up passengers.

It's the hot season here too, so the weather is dry and humid. But at 31 degrees Celcius it is nothing compared to the 38.3 degrees that we have been experiencing in Malaysia recently. Business class hotels in Colombo unfortunately leaves much to be desired--most of them are old, crumbling 70s-style hotel which do not deserve the 80-90 USD a night price tag--the type with pigeon-holes behind the check-in counter, and an array of wall clocks showing the time for London, Paris, New York and Tokyo ("we're international").

The only saving grace is that most of them have a view of the Indian Ocean, where you can lounge by the pool and watch the sun set in the evenings while sipping a vodka martini. Perhaps one can even consider it "romantic"--it has that 60s luxury that's redolent of Sean Connery's James Bond movies. But the sight of Red Cross workers staying at the hotel jolts one back to the reality of the recent tragedy which had struck this country.

Food in Sri Lanka is good--it's similar to South Indian fare, with excellent rice and curries, very suitable to my taste. I usually don't have problems with food, wherever I go to. As long as there's a long cool beer to wash down what I stuff into my mouth, I'm fine. People who are on a low carbo diet will probably cringe because they usually serve you huge mountains of rice, which I can never finish. But I see my Sri Lankan friends devouring them up with routine ease. ("That's why we have big bellies", they told me).

Many of the hotels are clustered around Galle Road, which runs along the sea on the western side of the city. Along the beach, families and couples take evening strolls and the "bajajs" or three-wheelers as they call it here, would buzz their way up and down the road, trying to pick up passengers.

There's a pleasant small-town feel to Colombo. Life unfolds at an unhurried pace and going everywhere feels like taking a leisurely stroll. And I remember the small-town of my youth--families gathering at the padang in the evenings, the crimson twilight gathering behind the rubber trees, the colonial houses perched on the hillside and the bustle of birds swirling above my heard...

Off to Serendip

Off to Serendip

I'm quite glad to be flying again because the weather in KL has become quite intolerable. Even though rain brought a bit of relief last night, I believe by midweek we'll be enveloped in the depressing heat and haze again.

The last time I went to Sri Lanka, a couple of months back, the weather there was very pleasant with blue skies and bright sunshine everyday. I'm looking forward to more of that in the coming week when I arrive there later this evening.

I didn't get to see much of Sri Lanka on my previous trip due to my tight schedule and the difficulty in fending off tourist touts who pestered me everytime I walked out from the hotel with offers of sightseeing tours and young women. I must find ways to be more elusive this time.

I don't expect a tight schedule on this trip. This is just a continuation of the work that I had started on my previous visit and this second trip of mind has actually been postponed many times due to various reasons. (Of course the tsunami disaster also disrupted business a bit in Sri Lanka).

But I'm told that things are back to normal now. So I'm eager to regain my "match fitness" and finish off my remaining work there. My problem is, I find it so difficult to work whenever I'm back in KL sometimes. I'd rather be travelling more often from now onwards to keep up my work momentum.

With the insufferable weather that's going to plague us for at least another month, there's no incentive for me to spend time in KL. So I'm off to Serendip!.

The Cessation of Thinking

The Cessation of Thinking

"You see, it's all very clear to me now...the whole thing. It's wonderful."

- Astronaut Dave Bowman in 2010: Odyssey Two

The life that we experience is nothing but a continuous stream of thoughts. A person with an undeveloped mind has very little awareness of what goes on inside his mind. He reacts to his world of sight, sound and touch and thoughts arise in his head automatically, which in turn triggers other thoughts, ad infinitum. He usually wields very little control over what he thinks; he merely responds to the situation around him and his reactions are determined by his thinking habits.

If such a person does not make an effort to train and observe his thoughts, then his learning can only come through the conditionings of pain and pleasure. The person has to experience a random course of punishment and reward inflicted by life's experiences for a very long time before his mind can slowly perfect itself. It is certainly not a pleasant way to improve oneself.

We can choose to train ourselves to control our thoughts if we have a better awareness of its processes. Which is the whole point of meditation. Meditation comes in many forms. Often they involve some form visualization or deep concentration on a specific object, sound or thought. In essence meditation is a deliberate act of observing thoughts and thinking itself, so that the mental muscles for controlling them can strengthened. It is an act of halting one's normal stream of thoughts, so that the next thought can be introduced deliberately. And when that can be successfully achieved, the meditator attempts to will himself to not dwell on any thoughts at all, in other words to completely blank his mind.

That is very difficult to do. No matter how hard we try, we cannot free ourselves completely from thinking. The moment we do anything, it is always preceded and followed by a thought. Nothing happens without a thought. Even when we are sleeping, we dream and dreams are just another form of subconscious thinking. Every word, every sentence that I write here are the result of thoughts which comes out of my thinking mind.

Thoughts make the mind and vice versa. To eliminate thought is to eliminate the mind altogether. And what happens when we get rid of the mind and stop thinking altogether? Do we cease to exist? Do we die?

I'm again lapsing into my usual mystical and esoteric mode: When we cease to think, what's left is pure Being, or what Eckhart Tolle calls the Now, or Presence. That is the real you, free from all the cause and effect of thinking and the illusory image of self created by the mind.

Yes we die. But it is the illusory self which dies leaving behind something that is still you--not the old egoic, self-centered self that you formerly identify with--but something that is omniscient, free and boundless. Something divine.

When you glimpse that awareness that is pure Being, you merge with that Godhead that has always been inside you. You've come to the the beginning and end of thinking. And when you do, you'll know with great clarity and insight what all the religions in the world have been trying to tell you.

And you'll probably wonder why we fight so many bloody wars and have so much bitter dispute over something that is fundamentally so simple, so clear, so wonderful.

The Soul of the World

The Soul of the World

Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.

- The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Sometimes you come to critical junctures in your life when you have to make difficult decisions. It could a new job offer, a major financial decision or a change of direction in your life. No matter how long you mull over it, you still can't seem to find a clear answer.

One day you appear to favour one decision and the next you find yourself flipping over completely to the other side. You try to be logical: you list down all the pros and cons of each alternative on a piece of paper; you analyze it, weigh the points carefully and attempt to come to a "logical" conclusion.

Still you are not so sure. You try to get advise from people you trust but different people give you different opinions based on their personal biases. In the end you still have to rely on your own personal judgement. And you spend sleepless nights, tossing and turning in bed searching for the right answer.

I have a personal rule-of-thumb: I never suffer more than one sleepless night over a problem or decision. One sleepless night is enough; In the morning I will always have the right answer. All logical considerations, in the end reduces to a gut feeling: you will know deep inside what is right. That feeling is the cumulative result of all your analysis.

When you suffer many sleepless nights over a decision, you are basically over-thinking. You are trying to juggle all the pros and cons in your mind but you end up frustrated because they are subjective and cannot be quantified and analyzed like a mathematical problem. Thoughts keep spinning round and round in your head without any logical conclusion. The mind goes into an infinite loop. You are attempting to find a logical solution when there's none to be found.

I believe that when you have done enough conscious thinking over a problem and still find that there's no apparent answer, then the answer has to come from the heart. The heart observes everything that the conscious mind does plus more: It is also in tune with the Soul of the World, with the Wisdom of the Universe.

This is equivalent to a religious person seeking an answer from God. To seek divine guidance, one must open one's heart completely, be honest with oneself and be willing to accept any outcome. One must not resist. One must embrace the Soul of the World.

The answer sometimes may not be one that is easily acceptable by the conscious mind. It may require one to give up certain things which one holds dear to; it may also force one to face certain truths about oneself. But trust this Inner Voice, it has all the wisdom that your intellect lacks--for it comes from the Soul of the World.

Snail Mail Meditation

Snail Mail Meditation

I guess I'm going to refrain from bitching about the heat in KL which has been keeping me indoors. This is the kind of weather that makes one fall sick if one is not careful. My body tells me that I need to recharge my batteries but I have so many errands to run this week--mostly bills to pay.

I charge most of my bills to my credit card from which I pay through Internet banking but unfortunately there are still a couple of bills that require me to write and post a physical check. That to me is the most tedious task of all. Writing a check can sometimes be a real test of your spelling ability (how to do you spell "15"--fifteen? fifthteen? fiftheen? ), and then sometimes you have these odd amounts such as 15,237.34 (fifteen thousand two hundred and thirty-seven and cent thirty four only...do you need a hyphen between thirty and four?)

Once you have overcome that, comes the next challenge: posting it. Sometimes you need to write the address on the envelop yourself, which is another tedious task; and of course you also have to find stamps for it. (Can I use a thirty cent stamp to post to Singapore?).

If you happen to run out of stamp supplies at home, then there's no choice, you have to make a trip to the post-office and face all the hassle that comes with it (parking, queueing, slow counter clerks and the ubiquitous "tutup" sign). And after you have successful overcome all those hurdles, you'll still have to put your trust on Pos Malaysia's snail mail system to deliver your check on time to the intended recipients. All that trouble just to update a couple bytes of information in the database.

I guess the only way to handle the tedium of it all is to treat the whole exercise as a meditation: you focus on doing one task at a time, executing every tiny task in the sequence like a monk counting his prayer beads. This requires great clarity of mind, focus and an awareness of the present. If we are irritated at the slowness of the process, then we tend to make mistakes. The mind must always be anchored in the present: accomplish one quantum of task and move on to the next. After you have finished the entire sequence, let go of the outcome completely--do not be attached to it. Let the universe (Pos Malaysia) handle the rest. Pass and move.

Every chore in our daily life can be a meditation. If we are mindful of what we are doing, we grasp the real essence of our being. Once mindfulness has become a habit, then we are always calm in the face of life's challenges and as a result, we able to make wiser choices in life. We become in tune with the (snail mail) rhythm of the universe and all our actions will consequently be more harmonious with our surroundings. One can distill wisdom even from a snail.

Yes, after taking six flights over the past five days I really need to slow myself down to the pace of a snail again...

The Illusion of Life

The Illusion of Life

I'm on my way home to KL via Singapore. I don't mind spending a couple of hours transiting at Changi airport because the atmosphere here is very pleasant: free Internet stations are everywhere plus the entire terminal has Wi-Fi. It's also fun to check out all the latest electronic gadgets that they are selling at the duty-free shops.

I slept through my entire one-and-half hour journey from Jakarta. For some reason I'm feeling a bit tired, even after a full day of rest in Jakarta on Saturday. I even went to watch a movie at Plaza Blok M. I vow to find time to watch more movies this year because good movies can be very inspiring and thought-provoking.

When we live our lives in the same surroundings and getting the same sensory input everyday, our minds can become rather dull and the consequence of that is trite thinking. Movies are a good way to inject fresh sensory input into the mind, triggering fresh new lines of thought and ideas.

Watching movies in the theatre is always preferrable to viewing DVDs in the comfort of one's home. First of all, no matter how high-tech and mammoth your home theatre is, nothing beats the picture and sound quality that one can get in a proper cinema. But more importantly, watching a movie in a theatre is an immersive experience--you go in and enter into another world completely; you are enveloped in darkness and your concentration on the movie is total and absolute. That makes all the difference.

At home, you are simply too comfortable: you tend to go to the toilet a bit too often, you take breaks to raid the fridge; phones will be ringing plus a thousand other things will distract your concentration away from the movie. The end result is a watered-down experience. It's good enough if you just want to follow the plot of the movie and perhaps marvel at some of the flashier scenes; but you'll miss all the subtle nuances that make a movie great.

I think writers can also improve their craft by studying movies. A film director has to tell a story--which can sometimes span across a few generations--within two or three hours. Hence no fat can be admitted. Every scene, every piece of dialogue must contribute to the overall plot. Good movies need to control its pacing and rhythm--you need to achieve the right balance between slow and fast scenes and build up to a climax, also not forgetting how to blend music and colour skillfully to enhance the mood of every scene.

A good movie, like a good book, stays in your mind forever--it becomes a part of you, part of your life's experiences. It is not unlike a love affair; you always come out of the experience, changed. And after a while, you begin to realize that life itself has the illusory feeling of a movie too...

On Money, Time and Energy

On Money, Time and Energy

Spending a day in the office here in Jakarta clearing up e-mails and paperwork. Thanks to Internet banking, I'm able to handle my finances remotely. That saves me a great deal of time and hassle. I really look forward to a quiet weekend in Jakarta to reorganize my thoughts.

Whenever I tell people that I'll be spending the weekend in Jakarta, they always assume that I'm keeping a harem of girlfriends here. I can't blame them; the one consistent fact I've observed in every country that I've worked in is that expatriates are never short of female companionship. It is up to them whether they want to choose short or long-term ones.

Actually these relationships fall on a spectrum: At one end of the scale, you have the universally recognized "short time" and "long time" female services that you can always get "on-demand". At the other end, you have the relatively steady affairs--the lived-in girlfriends and "pseudo-wife" type of relationships.

There's always a price to pay for indulging in any of these relationships and the currrencies are money, time and energy. For the first category of relationships, you pay with money alone; and for the second category, you pay with a combination of all three.

Some native women find expatriates more desirable because they are supposed to be "rich" and offer them the promise of a better life. One can find these SPG archetypes in any Third World country.

Expatriates tend to find local women easy targets because they are usually friendly, loving and accomodating towards foreigners. But women are also instinctively smart (often without they themselves realizing it): they know how to manipulate men's affection to get what they want. But some long-term relationships between expatriates and locals do have happy endings. You do find many bules living happily in Indonesia with their native wives and kids.

When men get involved with women, money, time and energy will definitely be spent. What do you want to get out of your investment? Pure sexual pleasure? Emotional and intellectual companionship? Spiritual bonding? If you have more than enough money, how much time and energy are you willing to spend on one woman? You choose your own investment portfolio.

Just remember, time is definitely finite. Energy is not always replenishable--because it takes time to do so. If a relationship saps so much of your energy that you cannot even concentrate on your work anymore, then you will have to rethink your investment strategy.

If you think you can always pay for the woman you want, you only attract women who are forever after your money and risk living a life that is emotionally empty. The old adage is very true indeed: there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially when it comes to women. You always have to pay--with money, time and energy.

KL-Singapore-Jakarta-Bandung

KL-Singapore-Jakarta-Bandung

I didn't have time to blog for the past two days because I've been on the road since early Wednesday morning, catching the flight to Jakarta via Singapore (had to fly SIA because I had to use up my Krisflyer frequent flyer miles before they expire).

The flight from KL was delayed slightly, making me miss my connecting flight from Changi. Luckily I was able to get the next available SIA flight departing at 12.50pm. Good thing about going to Jakarta is that you gain an hour--I arrived 1.30pm at the Cengkareng airport. Unfortunately the trip from the airport to the city center took me as long as the flight itself. Still I managed to drop off my luggage at the hotel and arrived only a bit late for the meeting with our partner at the Jakarta Stock Exchange Building--well within acceptable jam karet standards.

And then early this morning we took the 6.30am Deraya flight to Bandung. We almost couldn't make it for our nine o'clock presentation at the client's place: The flight was initially delayed for half-an-hour, which was still okay, since the journey would only take 30 minutes. The plane, as usual for such short internal flights, was a sputtering turbo-prop plane (not the slightly better-looking CN235 used by Merpati. It was something else--I can't even identify the make or model ). We took off at 7.00am and was happily airborne for ten minutes before the pilot announced that we had to turn back because of some "masalah teknis".

The plane landed back at the Halim airport. All passengers had to troop back to the waiting room to wait for them to prepare another plane; luckily they had one. But somehow the look of this replacement plane--sitting tiredly on the tarmac and being fussed over by ground technicians--didn't instill any confidence in us either.

Fortunately it didn't take long before they announced for take-off again. I was quite relieved when the plane lifted itself up from the runway and remained flying even after initial 10 minutes, carrying us over the hills of Parahyangan towards Bandung--Kota Bunga, Parijs Van Java!

So we survived the flight and presentation, returning to Jakarta via a Merpati flight on the same afternoon itself. Now I have the next two days here in Jakarta to recuperate from all the hardwork I've put in over the CNY holidays. I hope to use this opportunity to pysche myself up for the next project, which will be in another city, another country...

TGIM

TGIM

I'm probably among the very few who will thank God that it's Monday again. Finally life can go back to normal: I am able to resume my quiet jogging sessions in the morning while everyone else--still reeling from the stupor of Chinese New year gluttony, boozing and gambling--rushes off to work again in reluctant panic.

I am also feeling a bit more relaxed today because I've finally completed the proposal which I've been working non-stop over the holidays with my counterparts in Australia and Indonesia. And I almost forgot, it's Valentine's Day again.

I know of at least two types of people who dread Valentine's Day. The first category consists of all those single people who do not have anyone to spend Valentine's Day with. 14th of February becomes the loneliest day of the year for them. But they should not despair. There are people who organize Single's Valentine's Day dinners, where one can join and meet new friends from the opposite sex and perhaps get a head start for next year's Valentine's Day.

The second category of people who also dread Valentine's Day are the more interesting ones. These are the two-timers, usually men. When you have more than one "special" girlfriend, Valentine's Day becomes a bit of a scheduling nightmare. Who should you have that romantic dinner with? Well, the best arrangement is to dine with one and sleep with the other. Or better still, forgo the costly dinner altogether and get the first one to settle for an early romp.

But seriously I think Valentine's Day is fast becoming the most unromantic day of they year, simply because it has become such a commercialized affair. Restaurants, gift shops and florists are the ones who end up celebrating the most. I dread the day when girls start demanding organic roses...

Thank God I'm through with all these Valentine's Day nonsense. I agree, I'm that kind of dull and unromantic bloke who deserves to suffer singlehood forever. But don't know why, I can't seem to thank God enough for it :-)

Of Cathedrals and Harems

Of Cathedrals and Harems

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

- Antoine de St Exupery, Flight to Arras

Even though I am not exactly a fan of flying, I often reread St Exupery ("The Poet of the Skies") to get infected again by the depth and intensity of passion for this favourite pursuit of his. His meditations on the pleasures and challenges of flying, are extremely inspirational and provide me with many "Tetris moments".

We all have our passions in life. Some drool over cars, others cannot refrain themselves from trying out different types of food and I have one particular friend whose sole purpose in life is to bed as many women as possible, because that to him is the ultimate pleasure.

It is these passions which give our lives meaning and keep us going. Some like St Exupery, will even go to the extent of risking their lives for it. Our lives and everything around us will be very dull--like a pile of dead rocks--if we do not infuse them with passionate pursuits. If we have passion, we see cathedrals instead of rock piles and we endeavour to bring these cathedrals of the mind to reality.

To my Cassanova friend, instead of cathedrals, he sees the world as a harem from which every woman is game, and he lives his life true to this belief. He is willing to pay the price for his pursuits. I may not share his passion but I respect his conviction.

St Exupery paid the ultimate price in his pursuit for flying. We will all build our own cathedrals and pay our price for it in one way or another. By paying the price, we get to learn the lessons God has intended for us in this life. So go build your cathedrals and harems, for the alternative is to wander amidst a perpetual desolation of rock piles.

Night Thoughts of a Night Owl

Night Thoughts of a Night Owl

I admire people who are able to go to bed early and rise at the break of dawn. I think it is healthier that way. The mind is clearest after a good night's rest. If you are able to wake up say at 4.00am and then put in two hours of solid productive work, that can sometimes be better than your entire day's output.

Unfortunately I am more of a night owl--writing, reading and surfing late into the night. Waking up early can be a bit of a struggle. Night-time is a good time for reflecting on the day's events, digesting their effects and consequences and distilling the wisdom out of every action and reaction.

I try not to carry over unresolved emotions to the next day. Whatever happens today, ends today. And tomorrow you begin with the wisdom that you have acquired from all your cummulative life experiences until that very point. We wake up everyday in the morning a wiser person.

Sometimes it feels like we are going downhill, especially when we are experiencing a bad patch in life. Don't fall into despair or be disillusioned. Consider it a time of consolidation and internal resolution. We have to take a step backwards so that we can move two steps forward. Without going through the carthasis of the experience, we'll never move on to the next level of development.

The butterfly always emerges from its pupa stage a beautiful creature, ready to take on the world with a bright new pair of wings. We too will need to go through stages in our lives where we undergo certain metamorphoses from which we emerge transformed. Something in us dies with each transformation to allow something new to be born.

So we die every night to enable us to be born again in the morning, a brand new person.

The Temple of the Soul

The Temple of the Soul

I've been blogging everyday since coming back to KL. Work and Chinese New Year obligations have kept me home-bound for the past week. The weather has also been terribly hot lately--the kind that make people fall sick easily. It is important to be able to detect the early signs of sickness by listening to the body. That simple practice has helped me to be relatively free from illness over the past many years of my nomadic life.

Yogis and spiritual teachers often liken the body to a temple, where the soul resides. Like a temple, its sanctity must never be violated. A clean and healthy body is essential for the soul to flower to its full potential. It is our earthly obligation and our karmic duty to maintain purity of the body. The body is the soul's spiritual vehicle, which is why all spiritual practices advocate certain ritual cleansing, relaxation exercises and dietary restrictions.

Before we can learn to control our minds and elevate the soul to spiritual heights, we must learn to do proper housekeeping of the body. If we cannot even take good care of our physical body, how can we even hope to move on to the greater and more delicate task of mastering the mind and the spirit?

The practice of Hatha Yoga is very good because it helps the body to maintain balance and harmony. Agitation of the mind is often reflected on the body and vice-versa. People who find it difficult to calm the mind can start by relaxing their their physical body first. Once the muscles start obeying your mental commands, then your mind will follow suit. The body is a convenient door to the mind, and ultimately the soul.

The only thing bad about being too body-conscious is an unnatural attachment to it. The body is merely a temporary vehicle; and like any other biological form, it will eventually wither away and die. If we are too enamoured with the beauty of the physical body, especially our own, we are merely setting ourselves up for a massive fall later on.

We will all grow old, weak and wrinkled. Accept it as a condition of life and see it as a graceful process of biological transformation. The body will still decay no matter how much we try to prolong its youth and beauty; but the soul will always rise to greater heights, if we bother to cultivate it.

Some of the more advanced Buddhist meditations require the practitioner to meditate on the foulness of the human body. This is to counteract and neutralize our natural tendency to be attached to the beauty and pleasures of the flesh. This practice is not recommended for the amateur meditator as it can bring adverse effects to the untrained mind. It is sufficient for the layman to realize that the mind has "gravity", and it will always be attracted and attached to sensual pleasures and physical beauty; but one must not be too identified with it, or one will find the eventual separation from it very painful and traumatic.

Enjoy the beauty of the physical form; let your senses play with it and savour its transient pleasures for what they are. But work diligently to set your soul free from its stubborn bondage. For it is this bondage that cause us so much sorrow.

The Sundanese Soul

The Sundanese Soul

A Singaporean colleague who was with me in Bandung the other day commented that Sundanese instrumental music is very "Zen". I understood what he meant.

The music, sometimes known as kecapi suling, is typically performed by a small ensemble with instruments such as the kecapi (a kind of zither), suling (bamboo flute) and the gamelan degung (Sundanese bronze gong, which differs somewhat from the Javanese gamelan) and together they make a very soothing combination of sounds. It is very traditional of course, perhaps even a bit repetitive and monotonous to the unaccustomed ear, but nevertheless it never fails to induce a very relaxed state of mind in the listener.

To me kecapi suling is the perfect background music for a nice Sundanese meal of nasi timbel with tahu, tempe and gurame. Many hotels in Bandung also have live Sundanese ensembles playing at the lobby, which helps to add an ethnic feel to the atmosphere besides soothing the weary traveller with the magic of their languorous music.

The slow undulation of a suling melody over the subtle twang of kecapi strings, urged on by the rhythmic pounding of the gamelan degung is an aural blend that seeps gently into one's soul, bringing a deep sense of inner peace; it is a pleasurable calm that arises naturally, not unlike being caressed by the cool breeze that rolls down from the hills of Parahyangan.

Sundanese instrumental music is often used in Indonesian spas and health clubs to lull you into a blissful stupor while mojang priangan masseues slowly spread ylang-ylang over your body and tease the strain out of your tired muscles.

Everytime my thoughts go to Indonesia, and especially Bandung, the center of Western Javanese culture, soft strains of Sundanese music would automatically fill my head. To me, the music represents the soul of the Sundanese people, full of grace and provincial simplicity--qualities increasingly lost in today's world.

Again, I'm writing like a hopeless romantic, longing for a pastoral paradise that does not exist anymore. But through Sundanese music, I can recapture at least a bit of that elusive dream: of misty mountains and fertile farmlands, of verdant vales filled with sun-glittered streams--those dying strains of the Sundanese soul!

Fireworks and Incense

Fireworks and Incense

It's strange how people still bother to give me angpows during Chinese New Year. I realized yesterday that I still have not opened last year's angpows! Even when I was a kid, I never really did look forward to receiving angpows; everytime I received one, I'd chuck it into my drawer and would instantly forget about it. Perhaps I should make it a point to donate my angpows to charity next time.

I suppose there's more pleasure in giving than receiving. But being single, I'm not qualified to give out angpows yet--that privilege belongs only to those who possess the "good fortune" of being married.

So every year I continue pocketing these red packets from relatives and couples who will without fail take the opportunity to advise me to do something about my prolonged state of bachelorhood. I don't really bother, because I treat their remarks like how I treat those angpows--receive and forget.

One day when I have the time and inclination, I'll take the trouble to open up all the red packets that I've accumulated in my drawer and who knows, I might find enough there for me to retire. Perhaps then I'd start doing something about my bachelorhood :-)

But there must be something that I like about Chinese New Year. Let me think... as a kid, I used to like the fireworks. These days I find them kind of disturbing--they remind me of gunfire and bombs. It pains me to hear of children getting hurt playing fireworks every festive season. But I can understand the excitement that kids find in them. Sometimes the smell of fireworks do bring back nostalgic memories of my own childhood...

Once upon a time, I used to think that life should be lived like fireworks: one strives to pursue one's ideals to the very extreme and one must not shy to go out in a blaze of splendour. That is a very romantic notion of life, inspired by Byron, Rousseau and perhaps even James Dean.

These days I'm a much more mellowed person. I don't even see myself as a candle, glowing steadily in the dark; instead I'll be very happy if I can be likened to a stick of incense, burning and spreading its fragrance ever so quietly, into the night air.

And with every word that I write on this blog, perhaps a bit of that fragrance gets spread into cyberspace too.

Spiritual By-Products

Spiritual By-Products

Chinese New Year celebrations are always noisy and boisterous. The Chinese like things to be loud, grand and full of gaiety. Not a hint of gloom or doom is to be admitted during the festivities.

The Chinese would wish each other good fortune, good luck, great prosperity and wealth--never peace of mind or wisdom. To the Chinese, those things would come after one has made one's fortune. Money will buy you a secure future (= peace of mind) and allow you to afford a very good education (= wisdom). The Chinese are such successful emissaries of materialism because they are hardworking, practical and thrifty. These are all very good qualities that one should emulate. It is a very simple and effective formula for worldly success.

Being Chinese, I naturally would have these qualities in my "kernel". However I personally find the promise of material success insufficient motivation for me to wake up every morning with a great sense of purpose and enthusiasm. To me, anyone who is ambitious and willing to work hard will definitely gain some measure of material success. In a way, it is not too difficult.

Material success do provide us some comfort in life and one should never shy away from the challenge. However to me the greater challenge in life is to achieve worldly success without compromising one's peace of mind and to be able to achieve that as a by-product of one's quest for knowledge and wisdom.

Through education, we learn to turn information into knowledge; and by applying knowledge usefully in the world, we inevitably gain material wealth. It is a given. We fail only when when we are lazy, sloppy and allow ourselves to be sidetracked by a thousand and one distractions.

Wisdom arises when knowledge is distilled for its essence and absorbed into our system. When we have internalized knowledge as such, we no longer have to consciously think whenever we act--we can "feel" what is right everytime. That is wisdom and it is wisdom that brings us closer to of God.

Everything that I pursue in life: my love for the arts, my passion for science, my commitment to work, my interest in people and places are all driven by a quest that is fundamentally spiritual in nature. It is this spiritual quest that makes me spring with enthusiasm up from bed every morning. It is the spirit that yearns, it is the spirit that drives, it is the spirit that ultimately triumphs. The rest are just by-products.

The Answers Within

The Answers Within

I know Chinese New Year is sometime this week but I didn't realize that tomorrow is already New Year's eve. These public holidays always catch me by surprise, as I don't bother to keep track of them.

I'm back to the rather depressing heat and humidity of KL but I look forward to the light traffic in the city during the holidays. It's unlikely that I will go anywhere as I'll have to be online most of the time, working remotely on a proposal with some partners.

Chinese New Year is a happy time for kids; when I was younger, I used to look forward to it. It was a time for reunion with old friends back in my hometown. But having shifted to KL for so many years now, I don't even bother to go back to my hometown anymore.

Come to think of it, all my male friends back in my hometown are already married. They are all preoccupied with raising kids, paying the mortgage and growing fat. Physically all of us might have changed a lot, but whenever we meet, we realize how little we have actually changed inside. We still talk and joke like young schoolkids.

We all choose our individual paths in life. Most would choose the path of the householder--raising a family and building a beautiful home. I would think that is a good way to work out one's karma if one does it out of a sincere desire to love and share. But many chose the path out of fear: of peer pressure, old-age and loneliness.

Peer pressure comes from giving too much weight to what others think about you. No one knows you better than yourself, and what's right for you. So your own opinion should carry more weight than others. Listen more to yourself and just imagine you are living in the Land of the Blind. You determine your own happiness and sorrow, not others.

Physically, we all see our youth fading with each passing year. Women worry that they will not be attractive to men anymore. Men worry about losing their hair and virility. But life is more than the physical layer. Physical decay is an inevitability; I don't want to bring up the Second Law of Thermodynamics again but to try to cling on to something that's beyond our control is a certain cause of sorrow. Botox injections and cosmetic surgery will delay things for a while but at some point we have the accept the inevitable--like how we all have to accept death. Acceptance is something so simple yet so hard to do. Acceptance is a spiritual skill that one has to master sooner or later--it is the key to inner happiness and contentment.

Loneliness is something I've written a lot about. We are lonely because our biological instincts drive us to seek partners of the opposite sex and also because emotionally and intellectually we yearn to connect to others, to feel a sense of belonging to the wider community. There's a void inside if we don't fulfill those needs. But we must also realize that the void exists in four layers. Meeting the right partner will help fill the bottom three layers to a certain extent. But the ultimate emptiness--the spiritual void--will need to be filled, not by someone else but by yourself, from within.

We live our lives seeking approval, friendship and love from the external world--a world which changes, decays, transforms and is ultimately impermanent. Sometimes, we need to look inside, for the answer to all our unhappiness often lies within.