Random Life Tips

Interesting Things I Learned from Tim Duncan:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/43584/the-unthinking-brilliance-of-tim-duncan

-Whenever you play, don't be too high or too low in your emotions. Find a balance.

-Unthinking: The pinnacle of high-speed thought that is so fast that it can't be registered consciously. Might be known more popularly as the concept, "instinct". It arises from rigorous training in right methods and thorough thinking (or planning) beforehand.

Interesting Things I Learned From Dad Today:

1) Apply to jobs even if they say they have a min. year requirement. Though you may not be eligible for them, there may be junior positions that the companies need filled.

2) Consider adding a short summary of your personality traits. "The whole point of a resume is to show what kind of person your education has made you. What was created from all that education? A lot of people will just make lists..."

"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."

http://www.helpalvingetintoschool.com/





Although my support for dear Alvin was lessened by  the revelation that he (the one who started an online campaign to gather support for a university appeal) already had a course that was, in fact, a very easy point of entry for appeal into his course of choice, I can understand and respect the approach of a person who uses such desperation attacks, given that I have used them before in the past.

"LAZY, DESPERATE journalism student offers $30 for 30 (to 45) min interview:

Hi.

Due to laziness and other numerous character deficiencies, I have no interviewee for my final journalism class paper.

If you're 1) acing your examinations and overflowing with free time, 2) in possession of an interesting or incredible life story/background/hobby or skill, and 3) compassionate or profit-oriented, I would love to offer you $30 to share your story with me.

If you're interested, please message me on Facebook with a general description of your story and why it interesting. Do leave your handphone contact as well if you're comfortable doing so.

I can meet you anywhere in Governors, or anywhere else on campus that suits your convenience!

Thanks :) And also... HELP!!"








It was a thrilling and desperate and dramatic and brave (and shameless) attempt to ace my final journalism assignment by emailing about 300 course mates for help.


As awesome as I feel about it though, I only came to that point because I hadn't planned my studies properly in SUNY Buffalo.


At the end of the day, the determination to try something stupid, and the success that resulted, both came from God. He tells us about the relationships between diligence, determination, and foresight in Proverbs [6: 1-11] : 





1 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, 
    if you have shaken hands in pledge for a stranger,
2 you have been trapped by what you said,
    ensnared by the words of your mouth.
3 So do this, my son, to free yourself,
    since you have fallen into your neighbor’s hands:
Go—to the point of exhaustion—[a]
    and give your neighbor no rest!
4 Allow no sleep to your eyes,
    no slumber to your eyelids. 
5 Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, 
    like a bird from the snare of the fowler.
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; 
    consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
    no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer 
    and gathers its food at harvest.
9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? 
    When will you get up from your sleep?
10 A little sleep, a little slumber,
    a little folding of the hands to rest —
11 and poverty will come on you like a thief
    and scarcity like an armed man.

Writing: For Fun

I just saw a quote today that sums up what I've been thinking about writing for some time:

"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." -Rose Franken

Starting and ending with a joyful appreciation of what writing does for a soul- that is what is even more important than the passion for perfection. Passion and maturity in thought sharpen proficiency, but it is silliness that got us moving and will keep us going: the silliness of playing and laughing as we write; the silliness of single-minded conviction about something that cooked up in our heads. Without it, I think passion can derail to jealousy, or envy, or obsession.

Trust and joy- they're important for our relationships with God, and for all the things in this world that we choose to love as well :)

Self-Editing

A while ago, I was toying with the idea of editing blog entries. It occurred to me that I could refine them to the point that they were as picturesque and provocative as the posts of the oft read.

Edit posts that no one reads. Posts on a personal blog meant for sharing thoughts and feelings rather than scripted performances or essays. It sounds a bit insane, doesn't it?

At the time, I thought it would make me a better writer. I was thinking at the time that it was a measure that would lead to excellence, that pointed toward a higher level of rigor and discipline. Original, unshaped posts did not possess quality. Improving them meant improvement of myself. It made sense.

Lately I have been spending a lot of time improving. Playwriting, journalism practicums... I dedicated a lot of time, offered up a lot of energy to learning the techniques, the methods, the structures, and these disciplines that were completely new to me. Pursuing them took up many of my days and almost all of my thoughts. I feel I have learnt much, but perhaps that is just the euphoria of passing through a difficult stage. In reality, I don't really know if I've learnt enough.

I went through all that stress thinking it would make me a better writer.

"Abt six mths till e big day! Gasp! Time's been flying cos of e work i've been drowning in... :s" -Random Facebook friend



I'm only working part-time right now, but I realize that I feel exactly the same way. The days seem to be blowing by rapidly. They are unmemorable. Each day, I have felt rushed and hurried. Prayer is impersonal. Time spent with friends is not fulfilling. I try to enjoy the company of my friends, but in the back of my mind, a little part of me is whispering that every hour spent in such a way is an hour lost. It urges me to spend every waking moment at work, improving my skills and drilling into the heart of my story so that it will be great and I will be great and finally a somebody who is not a nobody...

I don't even work all that hard. It's the fearful thoughts of not doing enough that take up just as much energy as the work itself.

I realize: I need writing so much because I think it will make me great. I need to be great because I am afraid to be a nobody. I am afraid to be a low-salary, low-status, no-meaning nobody who struggles to survive in a rich, filthy rich country filled with hyper-capable, fertile-minded domestic product producers...

As Christians, we're supposed to let the God we believe in be the center of our lives. I'm supposed to trust that God has a wonderful plan for me, that he will provide for me everything that I truly need in life (though maybe not want) [Matthew 6:30]. I'm supposed to let God's love be the basis for my self-confidence in life; this is the best way because he loves us from beginning to end, but the things of this world always fail us. We can't base our self-worth on them. If it's skill that makes us feel good, that skill will fade. If it's the love of people... well, people can walk out of your life. If it's money, then we have to know that we can't take our money with us to see God in heaven. Christians are supposed to place God's love and his providence at the center of their lives.

In reality, that's a hard thing to do at times. Especially if life is not on track. The fear of "nobody-ness" is absolutely terrifying. It can drive you to be on guard every second. It can push you to toil endlessly. What if we lost focus for just one second and missed the boat to success? What then, if adventure and travel and love and luxury pass us by? Certainly, doctors and lawyers ruminate on such things much less frequently than the humble humanities graduate.

Laziness and complacency can destroy. They can cut off a future meant to be filled with all kinds of wondrous relationships and experiences and the occasional cool piece of stuff. I'm sure that my own complacency has already cut off many potential dazzling futures from my life.

Recently though, I've begun to think that something else can destroy. Namely, hard work fueled by fear. It's the kind of drive that makes you impatient with close friends and indifferent to the world around you. It's the kind of drive that robs you of your joy, and ultimately, your integrity as a human being. It is rooted in the fear  of being a worthless nobody, the kind of flavorless moneyless average Joe that doesn't play the star role and doesn't get married to a prettiful Singaporean girl-next-bungalow-door.

I was afraid, and so I kept editing. But it wasn't to become a better writer. A good writer - and I mean a really good writer - will want to communicate something from the bottom of his heart to his readers. In an imperfect but rightful following of God's example, he/she will want to think carefully about what he is creating, in order that the creation might bring something good, something positive to the world.

I just wanted to be a good-looking writer. I only wanted to be impactful, only wanted to make a splash. I didn't really care what it was that I wrote at that point.

The thought of being a nobody is frightening, and I want to be free of it. Not free of the responsibility to earn money and support my parents, not free of the responsibility to develop and believe in myself, but free of the need to fill myself with things, free of the desire to acquiesce to or rebel against those particular expectations of society that are meaningless. I want to be free from writing things with an eye to tailoring them solely for comfortable consumption. I want to edit what I write for the honest joy of it, not so that I can be well-regarded for spiffy sentences or flawless grammar.

It's hard to abandon this very logical obsession with hierarchy and rely on the love of an invisible God, a concept that seems so utterly illogical at times. What unshakable logic exists beyond the very human mindset of give-and-take? Perhaps there is none... I don't have an easy answer to explain this bond, this gift that I don't understand. I only know that when I remember his promises and the times I've seen his grace in my life, it becomes a little easier to accept the possibility of becoming an average Joe who is loved by an amazing God.

Nice Poem

ROBERT FROST – STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Adventure

Being a person who holds the dream of writing, I sometimes find myself thinking that, one day, I would go on an adventure to an alluring and mysterious land, a land filled with rich and exotic culture. Having gone there, I would encounter many fateful experiences. I would dialogue with practitioners of new philosophies and walk many roads with charmed strangers. The horizons of my mind would broaden till they contained a multitude of universes, universes that would spill out and write themselves on pages.

This is just a passing thought on my part. As a person, I am often content without having to travel to distant lands. For me, a person is neither more nor less exciting for having gone to a wide range of destinations. I feel a person's charm is determined by their wit, their good nature, and the level of connection they can make a person feel during a conversation.

Yet, this thought that has no real significance to me has popped up more often these days. Go on an adventure. Come back a richer and fuller human being, a being with the strength and maturity to make incredible things happen... It didn't really take much effort for me to realize: all this was nothing more than an excuse, a subconscious yearning of an escapist frightened of what the future held.

Knowing this (and knowing it keenly), it made me think about what "adventure" really meant.

What I concluded was that an adventure always contained three things: mystery, because every adventure involves discovering what is new or unknown, and excitement, because adventures are fun in a stimulating, breakneck sort of way.

Because many mysterious things are dangerous, and because many exciting things are also dangerous, adventure, an exciting unknown, most likely contains danger as well.

Thinking along those lines, I started to feel that adventure did not have to involve physical things like a faraway place or an exotic culture. You don't have to travel a thousand miles to find something you don't know. Such things can exist right outside our doorstep.

You could also find excitement close by as well. Anything can be exciting. A hot meal at the end of a cold, rainy day can be exciting. Playing DOTA on your desktop can be exciting.

"Danger" did not have to mean "a threat to life"; danger only has to be a threat, be it a threat to your emotional well-being or your sense of stability and control.

If this definition is a good one, then many mundane things in this world are actually adventures waiting to happen. Talking to the neighbor you'd never bothered to know is an adventure. Gunning for the job you were always afraid you wouldn't get is an adventure. Reaching out to an estranged, long-lost friend is an adventure. All of these seemingly mundane things could easily be called adventures, because sometimes it is the simplest and most normal things that are also the most frightening and rewarding as well. To me, real adventure is anything that stirs your heart and makes you honestly, sincerely doubt the boundaries of who you think you are.

Maybe-great future quotes by me Draft 1

"When we need a story and don't have it, we push ourselves to the edge. We squeeze, wring our brains dry of any remaining juices so that we can complete production. We do this assuming we are the source from which the story springs. But we're not. Writers are vehicles, vehicles of language and vehicles like any other. They need something to push them forward: fuel, gas, inspiration. To get that gas, they have to do what, in my opinion, is the most effective thing they can actually do in the long run, which is simply to read: Read enjoyable things. Read the things that nourish your soul and fertilize your mind. Good stories add to the "list of ingredients" that makes us who we are, and which we draw on to create new stories." -Lengthy reiteration of what many writers have said or thought in some way or another

For further consideration:

To do something great, you should either have everything, or have nothing.

To do something great, it is optimal that you have either everything or nothing.

Menial Work

Me and Aloysius

Ooi, Yongjie, and Brendan on ORD day

Half of Shift 1 from some Squadron Event; Warren Rama in the center

(There are certainly more "risque" pictures, but I shall decline to put them up for now.)

Initially, upon graduating from BMT, I was really depressed. I'd found out that the unit I had been sent to was the SBAB Field Defense Squadron, a unit of Regimental Policemen (RP) assigned to guard the airbase premises.

Security guards with special titles. It made me feel small. I had graduated from one of the toughest BMT units in my day, Ninja Company. We were supposed to be the best. I was supposed to be one of the best. I had entered it a scrawny and clueless kid who couldn't tie ropes or sign his own name to save his life. I left it... well I left it tougher than I was before. I was hardly what you'd call outstanding, but I felt I could proudly call myself "one of them."

1 year and 7 months later, my perspective on this had changed. I had spent the time doing unglamorous, repetitive things, but in that time I had also met people who changed the direction of my life permanently, and for the better. Aloysius, Brendan, Ooi, Yi Cheng, and so many others... I was a quiet and reserved person, coming from a generally quiet and reserved family. The people in my unit were open, frank, and warm in character. Meeting them changed my approach to people completely. It taught me to be warmer and more open to people, and to be comfortable in basking in the warmth of others. I learned to smile more, and that energy made me more proactive and confident. I think it was a big part of what helped me to do well in the first semester of school.

All that time spent at FDS involved menial work, but it was through that outwardly meaningless routine that I experienced how warm and trusting people can be.

Things haven't been so great, lately. As with all things in life, there have been great successes and terrible failures along the way. For a lot of reasons, there are some once-close friends in university who no longer speak to me. I did my best to fix a lot of these problems, but many times I was misguided, and I made mistakes. I can't believe two years have passed since then. Leaving those most popular, and admittedly genuine, groups of friends, I withdrew from the Sociology community as a whole. I felt like an outsider, like a reject for the first time in my life. Before that, I'd never thought about things like being in or out. It was only after getting in that I could fear the thought of being left out, or experience it for real. It made me lose confidence in myself. Avoiding interaction... avoiding connection and communication became a first instinct.

Looking back, I can't say I regret what has happened. Not because I think I was right in those matters, but because I was immature and had plenty of mistakes to be made.

In spite of all these things, God has been unfailingly good to me. That's something I hesitated to say in the past, but I think I'm just less inhibited now about mentioning it. And I mention this not out of disrespect to my friends of other religions or belief systems, but simply because this is a big part of who I am. I wish we could discuss it more at times, the things that happen that seem serendipitous and out of this world, that may or may not be owed to tides of chance and fortune, that may or may not point to the existence of a being greater than we are capable of imagining.

Things haven't been so great lately, but oddly it is not great revelation or earth-shaking miracle that makes me take heart, but menial work. Recently, I had a project where I had to give out 20 minute surveys to people. This involved me receiving a lot of flak from irate friends forced to take part. It also involved a lot of walking up to strangers and attempts at interacting in a friendly and approachable way.

I ended up doing something I hadn't done in a long time: smiling and bantering with others. It was time-consuming and admittedly low-value work, but in the midst of that I smiled and laughed with a fair number of people. It pulled me just a little bit out of the shell I'd cowered into.

For me, it was a reminder that there is value in many things that we don't immediately see. There's always something to be learnt or gained from all of our detours or daily activities. What helped me best in times like these was keeping an open mind, and trying my best to be clear about the meaning behind what I was doing.

Okay out of brain juice. End of post.

An Open Mind

This picture summed up a lot of the thoughts I'd been having recently about open-mindedness. A life full of assumptions, especially the assumptions we cling to out of compulsions, is empty. Assumptions built on reductive thinking, dismissals, and desperate distortions of thought (thought lacking integrity; hypocritical, incongrous thought) can lead to a world of misery.

Assuming things about others that aren't true, and assuming preconceived things about ourselves, can lead to a lot of pain. For me, that pain takes the shape of paranoia and depression. I feel frightened by my imagination of what others think of me. I feel mortified to see how far away I am from becoming what others expect of me. I despise them, and in doing so I despise myself for taking that seat of judgment, for hating others based on what a part of me knows are false assumptions about their character.

Recently, I went through a period where my automatic reaction to the works of others (and other people, more generally) was dismissive, or excessively critical and belittling. I would look at an article or piece of written work and feel nothing positive toward it: no feeling of engagement, no sense of wonder, no joy. Nothing. Instead, I often shifted into this cold, critical mindset. I would look at these works of others dispassionately, look down on them haughtily. I would only see the flaws. I didn't care at all for the content of what was written; none of it stimulated my thoughts or my imagination. When I saw these written works, my eyes were fixed on the way they were written, how well the words and sentences held up when read.

I became fixated, reading the words out aloud compulsively to the point that my voice would go raw from overuse. I would see words I did not know, and I would search for their meanings, not out of a sense of curiosity, but out of a desire to cover to a gap, to have no flaws.

I was obsessed with how the writing held up... and I was obsessed with myself, how well I measured up against those works. How much I was worth, compared to those people.

Dismissing. Belittling. Writing off. Ignoring. I was doing a lot of it. At the time I had no idea why. I would feel critical or judgmental easily if I heard comments that sounded false or prejudiced to my ears. It was also harder than usual for me to accept the criticisms or differing views of others...

I don't know when I started to snap out of that reductive and narrow frame of mind, but I do remember some of the things that happened that coincided with this change:

1) I had a realization that there is no one who has wiser ways than God, and that true wisdom on our part begins with acknowledging the fact of God's superior wisdom... Accepting this helped me a lot in areas of my life where I had been struggling to obey him for some time. By extension, it helped me to be more open to learning from people here on earth as well.

2) I told my Mom how I was honestly feeling about the future and my prospects.

3) I came to a feeling of peace within myself, admitting to myself (and to God) that I simply "did not know." I did not know what my plan for the future. I did not know if I would score well for this final semester. I did not know if I would be able to write a good play. I did not know what the future had in store for me.

4) I accepted that whatever happens with job searching, happens. I realized that my life didn't end or begin with a job, and that I couldn't keep avoiding my friends forever. I started talking with others again.

As far as I can tell, I was rejecting and criticizing others out of a self-imagined feeling of being criticized and rejected. I wanted to be sure of things; I was desperate to be correct...

I used to think that open-mindedness was an innate character trait possessed by some and lacking in others, but now I see that it also has to do with how confident you are in yourself (it reminds me of something Chris mentioned before. We need to be confident enough in ourselves if we want to feel good without having to make others small. When we have that confidence, we can recognize the true value of others and their ideas with unbiased eyes.

Beyond that, we also have to keep connected with others, honestly connected on emotional and intellectual levels. The hurried life is always threatening, pressuring us constantly to place things and people in tiny, convenient boxes. It tells us to do this to maximize on-demand, practical value, to treat one thing in one way to achieve one kind of task. But the truth of any one thing is always bigger than what we need it to be, and engaging unlike-minded others with frankness helps us to confront this problem head-on. We need their perspective as a counter-force against the reductive and thought-narrowing effects of isolation and acquisition-oriented, linear thinking. Real togetherness (as opposed to agreeableness) fosters a vitality-infusing mental biodiversity.

I also think we need to have the courage to face our problems and fears, and in doing so, maintain our mental integrity. We need to be willing to challenge our own suppositions and honestly question ourselves on the ethics, rigor, and truthfulness of our thought processes. We need to be bold, to not be frightened by thoughts of what is 'necessary' for survival. We need to be disciplined, to not be tempted by thoughts of what is 'easier'.

I went down a road of intellectual dishonesty once when I did my FYP. I didn't tell any outright lies, but I looked away from a lot of things. I decided to ignore a lot of questions that I shouldn't have. I never lied to any of my respondents in a literal sense, but I did take up their time for a project which I increasingly began to feel was not meaningful in the least. I was desperate. I caved in, intellectually and spiritually. The knowledge of that nearly killed me, nearly killed a living and very real part of me forever. (Post-edit: That sounds terribly dramatic, eh? But I guess what I was trying to say was that after that, it became hard for me to think clearly or truthfully because I had gotten so used to forcing my thoughts to agree with some kind of preconceived, shallow proposition.)

Being able to admit to myself that I was wrong saved me from that. Knowing that my God was a God of forgiveness and mercy saved me from that, and I just hope that whenever I forget, He will be there to remind me to choose to be honest for as far as it is right to do so...