Posted on

The joy of living like nomad and the ease that comes with learning to fail properly

Yesterday I suddenly experienced a drastic paradigm shift. For the past few months, I always attempted at creating a peaceful and quiet environment back at home to allow for better concentrate while at work. It was a lost cause. The presence of mom and dad plus little blackie gave me no peace whateverso. Any attempts at doing so would have resulted in immediate failure.  Only short spans of peace could be achieved, this was when everyone was out and blackie was having his afternoon nap.

Satheesh was kind enough to pass me the use of his wireless mobile card. It had been sitting much use in my bag for the past few months excepts on occasions when I had to do some off shore co-ordination when I was at Toshiba’s data center and service center.

It was morning yesterday when I took my laptop and aigo’s demo kit for a trip to Aigo’s main office. After some hiccups here and then we managed to settle the outstanding matters with Aigo.

I met up with Alena for lunch this Taiwanese eatery near east coast beach. Shortly after lunch, I took out my laptop and started checking some mails which Kelvin sent over a short while ago. Quickly I forgot the presence of Alena and concentrate on my work at hand. After 1 hours of solid uninterrupted work I decided to take a break.

We arrived at East Coast beach where I decided read a book. It was not long before she dragged me into roller blading with her. While she attempted hard at keeping her balance and fall as little as possible, I took the more practical approach, an approach which I unconciously acquired during my work as a software developer.

I started by concentrating my efforts on learning how to fall properly while on blades. In fact I fell more 30 times during the short span of that 2 hours on blades suffering no injuries whateverso. This was totally weird in contrast to the pained expressions passerbys gave when they saw the scene.

Alena on the other hand whil attempting to stay on her foot, minimized her falls to less than 10 times during this entire period of 2 hours, managed successfully to sprain her right wrist which left her feeling somewhat hindered in her movements for the rest of the day.

One interesting thing to observe is this. Taking the notion of falling for granted, I was thereafter truly able to focus my mind on acquiring the techniques to manage the skates properly. Fear (of falling) is truly a most unneccessary distraction in this scenario. Also 40% of my time during this 2 hour period was spent sitting on the bench observing the techniques strangers while on blades as well as chatting up with any particular blader whom I wanted to clarify in more details th techniques they. In some instances, I received weird and uneasy expressions from bladers unused to speaking with total strangers on the streets. However being mechiavellic as I am, staunchly believing that the ends justify the ends, I ignored these and continued on my conquest of the blades.

After that two hours on blades, I believe given another two to three sessions on blades I should manage nicely.

Once again, I have deviated. Back to the discussion on life as a nomad, we sat down at coffee bean and enjoyed some coffee, bossa nova music and the view of the beach at night, while I once again started to work on the net. It was truly great, getting the peace and quiet I needed to concentrate on my work while not having to spend an ounce of effort at maintaining it. Alena mean while took a chinese book on Business Management from my bag which started reading it.

We left for dinner at bugis area. Thereafter I sent her home before finding a spot by the Singapore river to spend the night. Thus it is, I woke up the next day having a great view of the sun rise over the marina promenade. I was truly feeling that life for me is once now again free and the way it should be.

Now I sit just across the street from Hotel Rendevouz in the lobby of the SMU Business faculty enjoying the afternoon breeze and the lively scenary while surfing the net and charging my laptop free of charge, courtesy of  SMU. Haha. I think today I will spend once again out doors, enjoying my new found freedom and space. Life is GREAT!

Posted on

New Zealand is calling!

Pasha went tracking in New Zealand in December and brought back a bone penchant from the Maori’s. It is now hanging off my neck along with the previous one I acquired years ago before I left the land. This new penchant symbolizes a new beginning.

14th of January 2010, inevitably I was brought out of Singapore, if not Philippines then Korea.  I eventually arrived in Korea and dropped by at Mansu’s place. We met when we were back in Auckland for student exchange.

Upon my return to Singapore Joseph another friend whom I met back in Auckland dropped by in Singapore for a visit.

The name New Zealand seems very visible of late. Just a while ago, I saw this advertisement by the New Zealand Government specifically targetted at Singaporeans. It was like an open invitation to drop by in Kiwiland to stay for long if we want to.

The northern winds has been blowing incessantly still, despite the fact that it is now February nearing the end of its season. Strangely, I have always this acute case of wanderlust when the winds from the north come visiting in Singapore.

Over supper, I kept turning these occurrences one after the other in the back of my mind. Is this a sign? Has Fortuna finally shuffled her cards and dealt a card from a new deck. This new path seems so clear all of a sudden and it is beckoning me along. And it seems to be pointing to the land of the Long White Clouds once again. Perhaps the stars have finally shifted. Coincidentally it occurred just when the predestined quest of aiding Alena in Singapore came to an end.

Inshallah as Sean always says. Perhaps I should settle all outstanding matters over here in Singapore and explore what New Zealand has to offer. If there is one thing Alena has giving me during the past one year’s quest, it is the knowledge that while my ascendence is ruled by Saggittarius (one constantly struck with an incessant wanderlust), my house of Sun ruled by Leo (The eternal pilgrim seeking the Holy Grail) deems that I will start craving for a glorious battle when the time comes.

I wonder what is the possibility of setting up a supply chain to New Zealand and Australia?

Already I have set my eyes on this office space which I am planning to occupy soon when the next project comes in.

Posted on

A web that is hard to escape from

I sat by the river of Kallang enjoying the breeze as the sun slowly set over the western horizon. it was the end of the year again and the winds from the north were blowing. The air was chilly. Certain parts of Singapore has been flooded today due to heavy incessant raining. Alena was with me entertaining herself. We sat beside each other, but as is normally the case, worlds apart from each other.

It so chanced across my mind the idea of what constitutes the shakespearen style tragedy during that very instance sitting there by the river with all these around me. In such normal tragedies the main character meets a bad end not because of his flaws but ironically because of his strength. A strength which in that unique instance of a situation becomes a fatal flaw.

Past few weeks the incentive to work for money slowly but surely evaporated like the morning mist with the coming of dawn. I was of the mind to step away for a while and do some journeying. What kept me working was but duty. To avoid no task, but to handle and deliver everything promptly as has been promised and agreed upon. Ironically, it was mainly due to closely sticking to this only mission statement and my lack of incentive for money that causes a contradiction.

My lack of incentive for money wishes that each project that comes in be the last for a while, my close sticking to my mission statement was like a magnet that inevitably attracts more and more projects and consequently money in my direction, additional of which I really have not much need of at the moment. It was hard if not impossible that other elements on this net of karmic cause and effect be convinced that my time and effort be inconsequential and not useful to their cause and agenda without my active involvment in betraying my cause and mission statement.

Metaphorically it resembled a Shakespearean style tragedy. One obtains not what one desires due not to his lack of strengths but exactly because of the existance of such strengths.

I continued sitting on the bench by the river pondering how I ever landed myself up in this web of things?

Posted on

Why money?

Recently I have been spending alot. More than what I have budgeted for per period time. In reflection though these spendings are not really derived from needs or necessity but seriously due to the lack of answer for this fundamental question? On good food and tonns on books.

Why the hell am I still wasting time working and making money? Seemingly I have made enough money for a long while a year or more perhaps given my predictable spending habits. Any extra money is but just some figures sitting in the bank account.

It seems money as a compensation for effort spent on work is just not really enough past a point.

Even though having spent way more than I should on what I dont really need, I still felt that something fundamentally was missing. I literally walked half of Singapore on foot the other day just searching for that missing answer. Dropped off a bus at fort canning park and slowly made my way on foot to Mount Faber and thereafter on foot back to Clementi traversing through the southern ridges. At some points in time, I did feel as though I could almost grasp at the abstract thing i was searching for however always it remained elusive.

The day after though when I just so happened to step into the National Geographic shop in Vivocity, I was totally blown away. Coming to a wall at the far end of the shop staring back at me was a huge map on the world on the wall, with each and every country and territory clearly demarcated one beside the other. Lying around the place too were photos and books on the exploits of fellow adventures to parts of the world hidden from most.

Yes! This is and remains the only reason as to my motivation for working my ass of making money. Alena’s living expenses aside. Without this goal of traversing the world overland or by boat, life becomes truly meaningless, despite the tonns of money to be made.

That night I made Alena a proposal. We must go to India and journey from the southern parts to the northern parts just south of the Himalayan region, if not Bhutan, Nepal than Kashmir. To go I must!

Posted on

Eternity be damned

On and off, I do join some folks for jamming sessions. Once in a while during those sessions, I do suddenly find myself caught in some songs where there were just 3 to 4 chords maximum that just kept on cycling mindlessly one after the other.

Such occasions are a real torture to the soul, most especially when you ran out of new ideas what to do over those re-current chords. The torture is especially acute when you know that there outside this 4 chords are a whole universe of chords to explore.

Lately observing the people around me that have entered the work force. It seems their daily lives are imposed strictly within the limits of those 3 to 4 metaphor chords. From an outsider’s stand point, life seemed unbearably tasteless, in a sense tortorous.

I suddenly recalled from one of my lectures in Computer security how random numbers one after the other are created. Random numbers in computing are articifically created through the segmentation of an extremely large prime number. Within the domains of the prime number, all occurances appear random. However once past the pre-specified domain, a pattern starts to appear and becomes painfully apparently

Example:

13 expressed in binary will be 1110111100110010001110

We take a section of 4 places each time at an increment of 1 place per interation

1: 1110
2: 1101
3: 1011
4: 0111
5: 1111

…

23: 1110

On iteration 24th we get 1110 which is exactly simlar to 1

What has first been interesting has started suddenly to become boring, unpredictable and uninformative (Law of Anthrophy) Each additional iteration becomes less and less significant.

Translating it back to every life, we start to live more and more like machines losing our souls to the daily toils of live all for this false sense of security, the need to modulate back to iteration 1, once all available iteration within the set has been exhausted.

Exploring the exceptions available within our limited environment, I suddenly found that though my life has been rather random thus far, it has started to modulate back unto itself. It is starting to get really boring.

The possible solutions I could think of are either to getting myself into a new environment or seriously attempting at getting myself old and senile way ahead of my time.

The first seems pretty hard, with Alena serving as the drag, chaining me to this limited set of permutations with her inherent god be damned need for security and predicability. The second seems highly impossible, considering the fact I am no from the medical field by training.

Perhaps a third then. I think I should quietly slip away once all work has been settled for the year. India looks pretty foreign and exotic a place to explore. Perhaps I should even volunteer myself to work there in one of those NGO venues. That’d be a nice change of sets.

Imagining a existance that last for eternity, where all possible permutations has be tried and exhausted, life be really tortorous that way. Thankfully, we dont live forever.

Posted on

A series of natural disasters – Water Elements

The later half of this years sees the multiple eastern parts of the world affected with water element based natural disaster.

Flooding in Taiwan (Water)
Flooding in India (Water)
Tsunami in Samoa (Water)
Indonesia (Earth and Water)

I wonder how true it is but some one even told Alena that she should change her name to remove the water elements in it, or else more bad fortune awaits.

I wonder if any Feng Shui Master could do any fortune telling with regards to this whole series of Water Element Disasters.

Posted on

chains chains and more chains…

What a night! Alena who sat beside me on the bench was once again in tears. I watched her, not knowing what to feel. She seemed totally agreeable with the first two terms I set for our relationship but not the third.

Term 1 : We will never ever have kids
Secretly still I think she is coveting that I will have a change of hearts 5 to 6 years down the road. Seriously though I have no intentions at all of bring another child to this world only to be imprisoned by life immediately. Memories of my childhood behind locked doors and grilled bars and afternoon stuck bored brainless in school are still vivid in my mind.

Term 2 : We will never ever commit to the purchase of houses
Was out with Madelyn the other day, heard from her she and her husband just got themselves in a 30 year mortgage. I guess they should be old and immobile by the time they finish paying off their loans. My life out of prison has just started, I am a freeman!!! I don’t really feel any motivations to head back in again for another 30 years of my life.

Term 3 : I will need to wander off alone for months
A life of wandering is the ultimate symbolism of freedom in its purest essence. Being restricted from such would be no different from a life of imprisonment, such a life is no life at all!

I wonder how she would not come to see of it this way? What is the point of keeping me around always, when I will only get more grouchy and restless, causing more annoyance than good to those around me with my presence. My feet is begging for the taste of hitherto unwalked paths and the horizon beckons.

It seems like I have over the past few months dug out all the most unlikely haunts there are to be found on this tiny red dot and am almost to the extent of being able to memorize all the places like the back of my palm. It was so torturous. I just need some new playgrounds to get lost in.

Truth is recently, the sight of my family and Alena only reminds me of the invisible chains they have in their hands. Chains they unknowingly but inevitably will use on me. Chain which Alena aims to build using her tears and quarrels and my parents their constant nagging. Instinctly I felt threatened, very threatened. Even my visit to my relatives yesterday didn’t help.

Oh yeah, this relative of mine was out with serious intent to do some brain washing. “????” The fruit thus fallen soon becomes the root. That was the four lettered gift she bestowed before I left. Prior to my departure, I agreed to have those four words written in my diary but nothing more. Quietly, I actually thought to myself she could go screw herself with that four word of hers. No offence but who is she to dictate how I should live my life. Just the thought of it left an extremely foul and pungent taste in my mouth.

Debts owing should be coming in over the next few weeks. I have finally put a curb to the two most massive drainage to my capital over the past 12 months, Alena and my parents.

I have paid my dues to my parents for the year at least and Alena is on the brink of starting her job in Singapore. Not that the pressure I exterted on her didn’t help. One could look at it as cruel but I don’t really feel the incentive to provide the fish forever. I don’t run a charity organization. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or in my case a constant free lunch. She has been feeling stressed recently from her job search. Hey tough life! too bad. Time for her to seriously get her kick together and move along.

Chains chains chains… All these chains, the time will soon come to drop them all. Lucky on the commercial side there are not much new bondages coming in. Good keep it that way. It will facilitate my shifting. Perhaps I am selfish, perhaps I am heartless. If such is the case, so be it. I only live once and I aim to live it!

Posted on

Next destination perhaps…

Of late, it seems like I am beginning to experience a growing sense of claustrophobia. On occasions when I was unfortunate enough to land up in the CBD area due to some business issues, I do see myself only reaching home in the wee hours of the night, just as so to avoid all traffic and crowd.

It seemed this place is getting so overcrowded recently. I can’t help but feel totally drained each time I set into to the train stuffed with people. This sardine tin can syndrome seem more and more the norm instead of the exception.

Thankfully Alena is finally settled in Singapore properly. She would be starting work soon. One battle, or I would rather call it a campaign, done and over with. In a sense I do really have to thank my lucky stars. We managed to pull through the past 1 year together without me eventually forced into some full time position, and thereby dragged inevitably into the rat race. Once more I managed to avoid being dragged into the mill where all souls get crushed to smithereens.

In retrospection, I just wondered how it all managed to happen and come together of its own accord. All these deals I managed to close and deliver these past few months. It was like suddenly hopping onto an express lane I previously didn’t know exist. Crossing path with Satheesh and then Peter through Justin.

Oh well, life always have its own store of surprises.

One thing though that was made very clear during these entire few months and further reaffirmed what one of the external consultant lecturers from my Technopreneurship classes as well as my cousin Johnson said is that people will always be willing to part with a large chunk of cash, if they can avoid a high level of pain as a result.

Scams and get rich quick methods don’t really work in the long run, as opposed to common beliefs. The only true way to survive and prosper is really to constantly seek out better and more efficient solutions to relieve the pain felt by other businesses.

Come to think of it, now that Alena is finally settling in, there suddenly is no longer any need for my presence. I don’t see any visible big battles nor conquest ahead of me on this path I am travelling along.

I told Alena that day about my need to drift along. I was surprised with her over reactions. I wonder why? We had our arguments. It is good that she finally come to terms with the fact that she is fighting a losing battle of attempting to tie down a drifter.

Attempt to tie me up and before you know it. I will be long gone. Recently I have been hearing the waves crashing on the shores of the Indian Continent. Perhaps that should be the next place I get myself lost..

Posted on

Haka (KA MATE! KA MATE! KA ORA! KA ORA! …)

Seems like a tough year, this one.

Things were pretty messy for me this year. I don’t know whether it is good or whether it is bad.

I managed to get myself involved in a good paying IT project at the beginning of the year for two months for a pharmaceutical firm. The pay I ‘ve got would have been enough to get me to Europe and start the next leg of my journey downwards to Africa.

However, I got myself involved with a girl the second day I got back to Singapore. Ouch! I was having a lot of dilemma deciding between her and my dreams all these while. I couldn’t just leave her and pursue dreams of my own, it would have been too selfish. But having her around requires that I provide a certain level of security and comfort, which she wouldn’t have been able to provide herself in this city. She is from the rural areas. It was pretty stressful financially for me. We sometimes quarrel over these things as well, when her wants are too much for me to provide.

So what happened next was that I got myself involved with another project which was even more lucrative but involved a certain amount of risk.

That one blew up in my face. My client became illiquid and I had no choice but to pay up the team of staffs I hired for the project from my own pocket which pretty much amounts to what I have earned from my previous one.

So basically it got me nicely back to square one all over again. Now I am half decided between looking for a full time job which would be highly torturous or hanging on with my existing group of clients. The income I get is about the same either way.

However considering the fact that my girlfriend would be getting back to Singapore soon and I would need to rent a house, pay for both our daily expense until she gets work(if she does), plus giving allowances to my parents, it is a lot of stress for some one who is incomes is irregular.

Then again if I do indeed get myself a full time job, the salary I do get would be just enough for all these expenses I I listed above, nothing more to finance my dreams. It is really like becoming a wage slave.

My heart is divided. I am still stuck with this question everyday. Having sleepless nights still. Constantly I pray for a possible path to open up before me or for death to come swiftly…

Posted on

Cold reading

Recently having gotten interested with astrology services on the internet, I decided to put my particulars into one particular site. The message I received was so convincing that I wandered the truth behind it.

Then again I recalled the fact that given a statement without anything to disprove it, the brain will automatically search for evidences to villify the truth of this statement.

Deciding to see how the actual system works on the internet I proceeded to the site of the fortune teller and started messing around with the site.

Pretty smart actually, the message, the only thing though is that it is a standard message for all to read except you are the one reading it and being convinced by it.

Click the refresh button or change the query string alittle and you will have either a different message from the whole collection of them or the same message again but with no name. Try it out yourself.

https://secure-astro.com/cgi-bin/request.cgi?p=request.cgi&r=2b&c=uht0s&f=tnel