Unleashing the Dormant Dragon

The Chinese celebrate their new year today and it's the year of the dragon, a mythical creature that is much admired by them as a symbol of strength and greatness. The archetype of the dragon lodges deeply in the psyche of someone brought up within the Chinese culture. It defines his or her attitude towards life.

I've mentioned elsewhere before that the Chinese are masters of positive thinking. Darkness, gloom and melancholy are not 'romantic' to the Chinese mind. No, the offsprings of the Yellow Emperor do not like to wallow in defeat or self-pity; they are instead pragmatic, positive and progressive.  If Dostoevsky claims that the Russian soul is a dark place, then the Chinese soul would be its complete opposite.

The Chinese celebrates growth and expansion.  One has to be materially successful first before one can benevolent and charitable. Magnanimity is a natural by-product of worldly success.  A street-wise smartness is a virtue and pre-requisite to a bright future. The young must be hardworking, be respectful of elders and sifus, and be willing to take the necessary hard-knocks in life to move ahead.

The stereotype of the rag-to-riches Chinese business tycoon, exemplifies this ideal and is the pinnacle of what the Chinese considers a noble person in society. Success is always social and should be celebrated loudly and boisterously. 

Chinese New Year season is that time of the year when one is ambushed everywhere by the pounding drums of the lion dance or the loud crackles of firecrackers. 'Wake up from your gloom!', 'Join the march towards success!' 'Conquer the material world!'. It is in-your-face and unabashed. It is the secret of the community's success, wherever they choose to settle down in the world.

The dragon is the apt symbol of all this positive energy.  A dragon child embodies this potential for growth and expansion.  Nothing stops a dragon when it is set on something. Once someone has internalised the dragon soul, it is almost inevitable that something fruitful and positive will result. 

Unlike the fear evoked by the reptilian dragons of our evolutionary past mentioned in Carl Sagan's book, The Dragons of Eden, the Chinese dragon is the kundalini that lies sleeping in every soul. You just need to stir it, and off it goes to chase after its fireball of success.

There's a dormant dragon in each and every one of us. Like Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, If you know how to tame, control and ride your dragon, it is your greatest ally. But remember, one must always be its master not the slave. The role could so easily be reversed, if one is not vigilant. 

The Season for Renewal

The Season for Renewal

In that dreamy state between sleep and wakefulness early this morning, for a moment I wasn't sure where I was. A surge of panic seized me: was I late for my morning lecture? Couldn't be--I'm already done with all my lectures for the week. Was I in some remote Javanese city? What time is my train departing for Jakarta? Was I late?

I woke up and realised that I was in someplace unfamiliar: home. I didn't know what I should be doing, for I don't have a regular routine yet. There's an uneasy feeling that I was somehow wasting time: Shouldn't I be at the Internet cafe, typing a report on my laptop, or just heading somewhere?

In actual fact there are a lot of things that I have to start doing. First I have to clean up my room and clear some space for all the junk that I have accumulated during my years away from home--those debris of past experience that I constantly mine for meaning.

It is tempting to take thing easy at home. One can easily sink into a stupor of sloth and languor if one is not careful. I need to maintain that austere discipline that I had kept all those years that I was away. I have to start building good habits.

It's Chinese New Year. Instead of treating it like a distraction like what I've always done in the past, perhaps I should make use of this auspicious occasion to embark on a new beginning. Spring is the season for renewal and regeneration. I must remind myself that I am Chinese and the Chinese are a very pragmatic and positive-thinking people. Sometimes I feel the Chinese already have all the virtues expouded by motivational gurus like Anthony Robbins embedded in their very culture.

The Chinese New Year celebration itself is nothing but a massive parade of positive thinking affirmations and symbolisms. Everyone participates in an exchange of well-wishes--for wealth, success, good fortune and prosperity. The din of lion dances, the gaudy display of reds everywhere coupled with the cacophony of of firecrackers help to break old patterns of thoughts and rouses the mind for greater achievements ahead.

So join in the revelry, savour its vigour, feel its vibrance, embrace its positive spirit--'tis the season for renewal. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The Quiet Grace of Sattva

The Quiet Grace of Sattva

I'm keeping an extremely hectic schedule these days but hopefully this phase will pass and I'll get to blog more regularly. Finally, the city will be quiet for a week with everyone going back to their hometowns for the Chinese New Year holidays. It's a much welcome break indeed, but for me it's time to catch up on my backlog of work.

Before that I have to open my previous year's angpow! I have such a bad habit of receiving angpows every year and then forgetting about them until I realize that it's that time of the year again. I won't mind the spare cash though--saves me a trip to the ATM machine. I'm sure everyone noticed how horrendous the queues at the ATMs and banks have been these past few days. (Why do Malaysians use so much cash?)

Celebrations for the Chinese Lunar New Year is as usual a noisy affair. The Chinese are very rajasic people, that's why they do very well in business. The New Year celebrations is a time to stir up the yang energy so that the year kicks off with a certain expansive force. Everything has to be in loud auspicious red; every word, gesture, thought and action has to be forward-looking, energetic and progressive. The Chinese are the masters of positive thinking.

But I think the challenge that most Chinese people face is balance. In their zeal for material expansion, they sometimes forget that the yang has to be balanced with the yin. They want things to happen fast but don't realize that sometimes you need to let things find their own rhythm.

This unrelenting drive for progress is definitely the key to the material success of so many Chinese, but sometimes I feel they don't always see the price that they have to pay for it. I think a bit of Javanese ethic--alon-alon asal kelakon--would bring about a healthier balance in the Chinese soul. The Javanese mind is so full of sattva (calmness, serenity, purity), but the Chinese often mistake that for tamas (dullness and inactivity).

There are also people who think that they are full of sattva, when in fact it is just an excuse for indulging in tamas. That is something that the Chinese fear so much--perhaps too much. Inactivity = dullness, stupidity and uselessness.

The sattva state is not one of inactivity, but one of harmony and balance, of grace and wisdom.

While we immerse ourselves in the happy and boisterous celebrations to welcome the auspicious new year, let's all not forget also to welcome the quiet grace of sattva into our lives. It will certainly make all that material wealth that we strive so hard to acquire so much more meaningful.

Happy Chinese New Year!

A Nod to Nuance

“When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life…”

            - Friedrich Nietzsche  

The gaiety and bousterousness of the Chinese New Year is hopefully behind us now. We can all dive back into our work and look forward to an exciting year ahead. Chinese New Year always seem to me to come at an inconvenient time:  that is, right after we've had thoroughly rested and refreshed ourselves during the Christmas and New Year break, and now, ready to pounce right back to work. Suddenly, there's another excuse to delay things for another month or so. ("We'll start the project after CNY"). But this year, we have the fasting month of Ramadan coming right on the heels of CNY.  There will be a prolonged mood of lingering festivity, which will only end after Hari Raya itself. 

Personally, I'm trying to get back into the rhythm of weekly work. Now that I have the opportunity to define what I want to work on, I want to use the time wisely and efficiently. My weekly blog articles are still going on schedule. I am here today at Komugi Cafe, hoping to complete this article and dive back into a few of my pursuits. 

While I was watching some interviews over Youtube just now, I noticed how frequently interviewers like to force their guests to choose between two different extreme options:  for example: Is AI going to bring forth a new era of scientific and medical breakthroughs, which will solve many of our problems, or is it going to doom humanity, destroying jobs and making us slaves to machines? 

The real answer is always nuanced, somewhere in between. But we don't like answers like that. Yes or no; good or bad; positive or negative--our minds crave for exact binary answers, which helps to simplify our worlds. We just want someone to tell us what to do. Left or right? Up or down? One or zero? If we have that clarity, we can execute immediately, without thinking.

Unfortunately, the real world is always nuanced. This is where wisdom comes into play. Intelligence is the ability to find solutions to different problems; wisdom is knowing the right amount of action and the timing of its execution to achieve the best outcome. Not everything is black or white; it's always a shade of grey. What is the right proportion of black, mixed with white, to get the shade of grey we want? That takes wisdom, which comes from an instinct honed by experience. 

Having a nuanced understanding of a problem means we must have a large context window (not unlike LLMs). We do not only look at a handful of pros and cons and then pick a side; instead, we assess the situation consciously and subconsciously, allowing all facts to slowly find their level in our minds before applying the right thinking model for the best outcome. It is often slower, but certainly better than rushing into action.

Sometimes, no action is better, because some situations resolve themselves over time. Any action will be disruptive if what is required is time for forces to play themselves out. This is especially so when parties involved in a situation are emotional. Any action performed out of anger or over-exuberance tends to be unwise. Let things find their level first, and then decide. 

Even when one has decided and acted, one could still end up on the wrong side. But knowing that one is wrong is also part of wisdom. When it is clear that a mistake has been made, simply notice it and take that as a signal to correct course. Adaptability and agility are qualities that are compatible with a nuanced understanding of the world.

Unfortunately, in the world of social media and political discourse, being nuanced will not gain you many followers, simply because your message does not appeal to emotion. Clickbaiting works by highlighting an extreme view that hooks you in immediately. Nuances confuse the mind. The social media mind does not think; it simply emotes. 

In our fast-paced world of instant action and gratification, let's try to slow down a little so that nuance has a chance to seep into our decision-making.  Nuance is not indecision or hesitation; it is simply wisdom in motion.