Moving forward ...

Here I am, on the aptly named Sunset Drive in Miami, feeling like it's getting dark. I just had my performance review and for the first time in 7 years, I received an average rating. In the recent past, the Good and Very Good ratings I've attained are deserved on the back of both high growth of the business both on the personal as well on the system front. This is therefore not unexpected. I did hope for better, on the back of stepping into a new global role. That said, I know I have yet to secure my seat at this high table. So, hope remains.

Walking around Sunset Place, a stereotypical American mall, with my performance appraisal still percolating in my mind, He reached out. A store under renovation had smartly pasted famous quotes in the covered windows. One that spoke directly to me was Helen Keller's "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence". 

I was in Sunset Place primarily to visit the Barnes & Noble store there. I bought 19 items. A tote bag that snugly contained 17 vinyl records,  and a leather bound gilt edged King James Bible. The records are an ecelectic mix, as usual. From a couple of Beatles and MJ albums to folk classics of Neil Young and Van Morrison, Green Day's iconic Dookie, Journey's Greatest Hits, even a YoYo Ma orchestral record and one that simply called to me: Frank Sinatra sings out "Come Fly With Me".

The best revenge, Old Blue Eyes once said, is massive success. With that thought in mind, I am moving forward. 

Blowing my mind

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile

In the last quarter of 2016, I went on a shopping spree... for vinyl records. It was never a format of my time. The prevalent music medium was the 8-track (which played like a dream on my dad's old car), then the cassette tape (which I made many of my own mixes, including one that I gave D that won her heart :-)) and then the CD, followed by mp3 and the various assortement of digital music files. Vinyls were before my time. But good things don't die. They make a comeback. So from Barnes and Noble in Washington DC and Chicago to treasure hunting in Red Point in a Singapore warehouse and Retrophonic in Chinatown and of course a bunch of online orders, I easily tripled my initial collection (which were largely gifts from dad and my friend R).

So, many enjoyable weekends were spent n the basement listening to the smooth silky sounds that only a record can produce. And then I put on David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars...

If there ever was a transcendent moment in music this must be it. The lyrics and music envelopes one into an entirely new world: Mars?

“A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer threw up at the sight of that”

“Oh no, love! You’re not alone
You’re watching yourself, but you’re too unfair
You got your head all tangled up, but if I could only make you care,”

"Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up into his mind
Like a leper messiah
When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band."

Like Rubber Soul and Revolver, it changed my perception of music. This is a record I will go back to again and again.

And then there is the book. Vince Vaughn famously said that this was the last book he has ever read, and continues to re-read it. The book is Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. It takes a lot longer the read the book than to listen to Bowie's seminal record. But it is worth every minute. I am still working through it, to the detriment of my health. Often, some bedtime reading soothes me and ease my entry into deep sleep. (Although I must say listening to the rosary does it even better!).

Then a book like The Fountainhead comes along and I couldn't put it down. One page compels you to carry on into another and another. Until one has read all about Keating, Toohey, Wynand, Francon and Roark, it cannot be put down.

Photo credit: Decoechoes

This book caused me to break a rule I held dear. Because I love the words and the knowledge they embody, all neatly bounded in a book so much, I have never allowed a page to be deliberately dog-eared. But then there were simply too many profound pronouncements in this book that I couldn't store them in my mind. I had to mark out these pages, alas, with a fold on the corner of the page. Here are a dozen, and these are not even my favourite!

“I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference”  

“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.”

“There’s nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent. We can never really know another person, except by our first glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything. Even though we’re not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.”

“Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.”  

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons - a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.”

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.” 

“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?”  

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received — hatred. The great creators — the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors — stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”  

“But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.”  

“I don't wish to be the symbol of anything. I'm only myself.”
 

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”

“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”I do hope I will continue to encounter more records and more books like these. Stuff that blows my mind!

Family, Festivals, Fellowship

My dad pronounced suddenly over drinks this CNY that, "to get to know someone, you have to spend at least two days with them". He's a simple man, not given to saying much, let alone hyperbole . So, I am extremely pleased that he drew on his 75+ years of experience and wisdom.

He said it in the context of meeting Dawn's Aunt and family (M&M with N&N) whom he has met before but had no real recollection of. They had visited for CNY and Uncle M looked after my car many of which could not start or move. He diagnosed them all, changed the battery for one, topped up the motor oil of another and figured out the remaining issues with the third. He is one of Asia's top mechanic, a shining example of what it means to pursue one's passion wholeheartedly. So passionate is he in the field, that post his retirement, at an age when most would take it easy, he opened up his own garage and now serves high end customers.

It's a lot like my parents and parents-in-law. My parents too stayed in the sector and started, ran and then sold off a kindergarten. My father-in-law A kept busy with a variety of community and handy jobs, always looking to add value. Indeed, our house's look and feel owes a lot to him.

Their grandson J is charting his own course now, and staying true to this spirit. Indeed, the armed forces have a good practice of having family members write to the man in uniform as they are undergoing a difficult field exercise to help console and even encourage them. As I wrote my third such letter (the earlier ones were when he was in Basic Military Training and then in Officer Cadet School), I shared with him how proud I am of him, of his spirit especially: reaching high and always still looking out for those around him.

His sister and mom similarly love him for this and this extends to his family and friends too. We had a chance to experience all these for we celebrated two festivals in two months.

We hosted Christmas (named the best family Christmas celebration of all times!) where D truly outdid herself. We ate, danced, drank, massaged, performed, played, prayed, swam and watched over three days together. It could well be the last time (in a while) where every single of the family will be together for such a long time. And if you go by dad's maxim, we all got to know each other well!

Then we welcomed the chinese lunar year of the rooster and again hosted dinner and lunch, showed off fireworks, as well as procuring our traditional lion dance. This has gone on for over a dozen years and may also be one our lasts. Not that we have outgrown tradition, but rather it is now part of our history, part of us and shall remain for posterity. No doubt, from time to time we will request for them to perform again. Its only apt for as we all become digital embedded, we need the occassional (or more than ocassional) human interaction.

Photo Credit: D, whose photography skills though I seldom fete is really better at it than many others!

 

Fellowship is founded on real connection. And if there is a lesson about keeping family and friends in a festive mood, it is about staying in real touch, and as my dad would add, for at least two days!

The eye of the mind

The first camera I picked up was my dad's old Yashica and was immediately fascinated in how to frame an image. I bought my very own in university, a Minolta X-300, the most affordable SLR camera a student on loan and part time job could afford. I was impressed with fellow photographers, esp one special person who had with her a manual Nikon on our first date together. Its only fitting that I married her and we have two wonderful kids. They now have cameras of their own (M got an Olympus OM-D EM-10 and J a Leica V-lux Type 114) courtesy of their photo- mad dad. I even tried to impart some tips to them but their mind's eye would of course be completely different from mine. What they conceive and frame will be how they would like to see the world. As for me, the world I see, on this eve of the year of the fire rooster is a beautiful happy one. Not least because of the Mrs, the Mstr and the Ms.

 

 

Review of the OM-D EM-10: http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/03/28/review-olympus-omd-em10/

Review of the V Lux Type 114:   http://www.reddotforum.com/content/2014/11/leica-v-lux-typ-114-review-the-swiss-army-knife-of-cameras/

Journalling

Its been three years since I first started writing in this blog. I was in Jakarta, at the airport then. Right now, I am at my regular hairdresser's, here in Singapore, starting on entry #110. Its the longest sustained period of diary keeping. 

Back in my schooldays, I would typically start the year with a resolve to record key activities of the day. I would keep it up for a few weeks, and then as weeks turn to months, my entries would slip from daily records to weekly ones, and usually by the end of the first quarter, I would cease the endeavour altogether. Truth be told it was largely because as a student, there just wasn't too much going on and by the first 3 months of the year, I would have more than sampled every activity a schoolboy would experience for the year: class, homework, sports, test, results, friends, relatives and the occasional outing downtown (to either Emporium or Madam King's, the only large departmental store in town) or to my maternal grandparents' place in Batang.

Secondly, I probably got lazy ;)

And I remember one time I stopped because I saw my mom sneaking a peek into my diary. She had just returned from a weekend in Batang and dad had taken us downtown to the movies (if I recall correctly I think it was Jaws, or Abba the movie). She probably wanted to confirm what he told her and went to another source of news. I had left my diary on the closet and naturally didn't like the fact it's privacy was 'violated'.

Yes, that was the time when such recordings are strictly personal and nothing written was ever meant for another's eyes. Millennials today may not understand this fully as they live and record their lives for public consumption.

In any case, I moved on from keeping these short lived diaries to penning my thoughts when I travel. As I often ventured abroad (be it across Thailand, or Indonesia or even further afield to Japan, Europe and USA) my travelogue became my companion. I had taken to backpacking on a shoestring alone and having "someone" to listen to me helped!

Then I found my soulmate, D, who loves the written word and I would write to her almost daily, be it from Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Zürich when we kept up our Long distance relationship. These letters became a special and visceral part of our love; and indeed our feelings for each other are captured posterity in them.

The kids came after our marriage and I started writing to them instead. I had bought these sets of beautifully leather bound books in Florence and poured my words and emotions into them whenever I cannot be with the kids. In fact, even after the computer became my word processor of choice, I would still print out what I have documented and paste them onto these beautiful books.

And then the blogs came. I resisted it at first because unlike all other record keeping devices of the past, this one is not private. It's as private as someone's disinterest in me. So, at some stage, it could well become public. Enough of my social life is already on Facebook and my professional one on LinkedIn, though somewhat curated. And images I like are on Instagram. Still, beyond all that, I am comforted that for well over 40 years, much of what I have written will remain private or only meant for D, J and M.

School Life Rocks

M dear

I am reminded of a similar moment this like yours now more than 30 years ago. I was getting ready to leave my school, my classmates, my friends and my family behind.

Was there any anxiety? Yes, of course! After all, it's a new format of education (what with lectures and tutorials) in a new country with students whom are regarded the country's best. Not to mention, a new language of instruction.

Then again, I wanted this. I chose this path. I sought this new adventure. And like all adventures, there are unknowns and these unknowns cause the nerves to rattle with anxiety. Then again, the same unknowns herald excitement. I was so energised to meet new friends, new teachers, new formats, new location: all these add to the adventure, rather than take away from them.

My schooldays have made up some of the best days of my life, because I gave it some of my best!

In JC, I made friends who remain my very best today: they even serve as your Godparents and we all still meet up regularly. The topics of conversations have shifted over the years; now we all get excited over the General Elections. But the friendships we made as sixteen, seventeen year olds never shifted.

So, my dear M, let your spirit free. Make new friends. Be thrilled by new subjects. Explore your new surroundings. Enjoy every new sensation as they deserved to be. Remember what I had told you before, "You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.". So, go for it!

 

Thought I inspire you with a moment of levity. If you are nervous, just imagine how much more the boys are! Go on, enjoy yourself, my darling daughter.                                                Love, daddums

Clean slate

It's all in the mind.

We can always make a new beginning, and the new year is famous for resolutions. I have made some in the past but never quite saw them through the year. I did manage to keep one I made last year which is to run more than 365kms in the year.

I didn't have to do a similar one this year for I hope to make this a part of my life already: aren't these the best sort of resolutions?

In fact, I walked/jogged/ran for about 10km at the MacRitchie Nature Trail and deep in the trail, after taking in the fresh air, I prayed the rosary, dedicating each decade to the family and friends respectively.  He has blessed us all abundantly and I thank Him for that.  I then prayed for myself asking for God to grant me the Serenity to accept things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can and Wisdom to know the difference. These 25 words are part of a longer prayer but it already sums up a vital state of mind that all, especially someone in my station, need to have.

I've tried that yesterday and today as I started work in 2017 and engaged with two colleagues who I had trying times with. I must confess I still need work (just as they do too).

Till I succeed, the serenity prayer remains my mantra.