Category: My Abstract Life

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Whacky Thoughts

Summer Blog Episode 9 – Shortsightedness Versus Spelling Handicap (Final Episode)

I too am shortsighted.  So I am not here to poke fun at you, if you are or know someone who is shortsighted too.

Looking at the number of people around me who require optical aid or surgical treatment to see properly, I cannot help but to wonder from time to time what would happen if we were today magically sent back to the Stone Age where there is no such optical device or surgical technique to correct our flawed vision?

Most of us would be eaten by lions and tigers, wolves and wild boars.  If we were not eaten by the animals, we would have fallen to our death by stepping onto the wrong stone while fleeing.  Most of us would be mating without having a clear idea of what our partners looked like.  Until it was too late.  And prayed that our partners were not from the same sex.

Most of us would not be able to survive for long, set aside passing the genes to the next generation.  Evolution would place us – the shortsighted people – out of this Earth, which could be a good thing.  Because in time, in this game of survival, our population would once again be populated with human beings with good eye sights, who would be able to see the lions and tigers, wolves and wild boars, as well as those whom we would sleep and procreate with.

These days, I too cannot live without a spellchecker.  So I am not here to poke fun at you, if spellchecker is as important to you as it is to me.  I am unsure if the growing inability to see properly as a species is of the same magnitude of us being more reliance on spellcheckers.  I think in time to come, most of us would not be able to spell properly.

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Whacky Thoughts

Summer Blog Episode 8 – I Am Your New Minister For Transport

I had a dream.  I had become the new Minister for Transport.

*     *     *     *     *

Dear citizens, I have great news to announce.  As a small child, when I see that an average citizen has to pay up to $100,000 to buy an average Japanese car, I see something is not right.  For a wealthy country like ours whose citizens pay $100 to watch World Cup at home, we deserve better.  Therefore, I hereby propose to abolish the car tax system as well as the certificate of entitlement (better known as COE) that unfairly inflates the price of a car.  I am also proposing to ban the import of the cheap cars.  To retain the existing Cat A (car engine below 1,600cc) and Cat B (car engine above) COE concept, we shall have two types of cars on the road – Porsche 911 for the average citizens and Ferrari for the elite citizens.  Trust me, I have seen the numbers.  It works out more or less the same as what our citizens are paying today.

Some of you may challenge that without a quota or COE biding system – like we have today – it is hard to control the number of cars in our country.  Let’s look at it this way.  Even with such a COE biding system, for reasons beyond me, we still have problem in controlling the number of cars in our country.  So what gives?

Some of you may express concern that our government will miss out a lot of revenue from the inflated car price.  Oh please.  We make more with Electric Road Pricing (ERP) than you can imagine.  There are also some jokers who get miserably lost in around Singapore River during the ERP hours and get charged extra.  Jokers like me.

Look at it the bright side.  It is good for our image.  Imagine rows and rows of nothing but Porsche 911 and Ferrari (OK, I may consider bringing in Porsche Cayenne for those who insist on a large family car).  In the spirit of promoting Formula One, I would also propose to disable all the speed cameras when we are hosting the event.

*     *     *     *     *

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Reflection

Summer Blog Episode 3 – My Table In My Primary School

My memory of my primary school life has been fuzzy.  Of the few fragments that I remember, there were those wooden tables that we used at school, unlike perhaps the fine furniture students use today.  The surface though smooth, was uneven.  You could trace the texture of the wood and you could see the little holes of various sizes scattered over the tabletop.  If you had a wide imagination like I did, you would picture the surface of the table as the terrain of an unknown planet.  You could even draw a map and name the craters.

In my primary school days, we used pencils and rubbers often.  Instead of brushing the residue of the rubber onto the floor like I suppose every student did, I had developed this craze to bury it into the little craters on the tabletop.  I would press the residue hard using the end of a pencil or my bare fingers.  Soon, I was busy producing residue for the sake of filling up the holes.  It took a long time to fill up all the holes, large and small.  When I was done with the job, I would start to dig out the residue from one random crater and fill it up with fresh residue.  And the job never ended.

Unfortunately, there is no morale to this story.  I think I should have studied to become a dentist instead.

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Whacky Thoughts

Summer Blog Episode 2 – A Harem Full Of Girls And A Hard Disk Full Of Music

Cynthia often pokes fun at my ears.  She says my ears are promiscuous.  I used to buy many compact disks regularly.  My favorite pastime since the day when compact disk format was made popular was to camp at record stores, staring at the nicely wrapped disks trying to decide if I should buy just one more.  It was an obsession, before the time when consumers rely on listening stations and online reviews to decide if they should part their hard earned money in exchange for a forty minutes of an unknown piece of music.

I suppose there is an ounce of truth for Cynthia to choose that descriptor for my ears.  I suppose if you have a few girlfriends to juggle at the same time, you probably would not have a good memory on who they are, not even their names.  At times when I listen to a beautiful tune playing on the radio, I would turn to Cynthia and asked, “I think I have that song in my music collection.  But I can’t recall which one it is.”  Cynthia would give me a standard reply that my ears are promiscuous.

What happens to the days when we could remember the lyrics and sing along with the songs?

When I share with the people around me that my phone comes with a legally unlimited music download service, some are surprised while others cannot relate.  When I walk into a record store these days, I am no longer in my usual euphoric state.  The entire recent collection, I almost have it.  OK, I recognize the album covers, music that I have downloaded with a click of a button.  But I doubt I have listened to all.  It does feel good though knowing that some albums are inside my computer’s hard disk somewhere, ready to be listened to when my ears are free.

I reckon the idea of a harem full of girls is not to sleep with all, but keep some to look at.

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Whacky Thoughts

Life As A Business Analyst – A Comic Relief

Here is where I need to put a little disclaimer.  While the following write-up is inspired by things that I see and do during my nine-to-five job, all the characters and events are fictional and by no mean resemble to anyone or anything in particular.  That means to say, if you think that I am poking fun at you, it is purely your imagination!

*     *     *     *     *

Job titles often mean little.  When people ask me what I do for a living, I would tell them that I write to pay the bills.  On one side, I have a bunch of buyers representing a corporation who have the money and think they know what they want.  On the other side, I have a bunch of producers who have the skills and able to procure and create what they think the buyers want.  Think, is the keyword here.  It is near to impossible to transform thoughts into words.  Or collective thoughts into words that everyone can interpret in the same way (think about religion).  The buyers are busy talking.  The producers are busy crafting.  As for me, my job is to articulate the requirements in black-and-white so that the producers produce what the buyers want.  Or think they want.

All good requirements begin with something visionary, something bombastic.  Why?  It is simple.  Within a corporation, resource is limited.  In order to convince the shareholders to fund your great idea, it has to stand out from your peers.  It has to be inspiring.  If you can relate to the following illustrative story, you have worked in a corporation for far too long.

*     *     *     *     *

It begins with a one-liner that I have crafted after a brainstorming session with the buyers that represent our corporation.  It says: To equip our top team with vehicles of prestige and unparalleled power.  The buyers seem happy with that.  It is a bit vague, but who am I to complain?  I take this document to the engineers of our corporation and immediately, they frown.  One asks, “What do you mean by unparalleled power?  Can you be more specific?”.  Very well, I haven’t given much thought.  I know nuts about cars of unparalleled power.  If we start to ask the buyers about the required down force and aerodynamic development, the average damping of vibration after bumps, the type of engine (V8, V10, or V12), and maximum power and torque, I am sure we will lose them.  What shall we do?  I know we can’t afford a Bugatti Veyron.  What about a Ferrari?  With the end goal in mind, the engineers and I do a bit of reverse-engineering.  The requirement now says: To equip our top team with vehicles of prestige and unparalleled power in excess of 600 horsepower.  The engineers seem happy that they do not need to produce a car that is impossible to make.  The buyers would be happy not to read too much into the technical details.  In a strange way, our buyers can visualize horses better than engine design.

The next day, we present our ideas to the buyers.  They love the Ferrari.  Out of nowhere, one buyer talks about how the bumpy road is near his home.  More chip in on the terrible road condition in some selective areas I have not even heard of.  The meeting turns into a pandemonium.  I attempt to quiet the crowd and offer, “Well, it is a Ferrari.  Just go over the speed humps slowly.  Or take a different route!”.

One buyer attempts to wear the hat of an engineer (uh-oh) and asks, “Can’t we modify the car and attach a set of bigger wheels?”  “Like a custom build design?” I asked.  What about aesthetic?  Will it even work?  The engineer replies, “We can custom build anything“.  All the buyers nod with delight and as the presentation is drawing to an end, another buyer asks, “How many can fit into a Ferrari?”

Good question, how many do you need?  It has been a long meeting and no one wants to think anymore.  “There are some pretty powerful SUVs,” I offer.  But no, they love the Ferrari, with custom big wheels.  “Can’t we have an extension that fits as many as we want?”  I look at the engineers and here comes the standard reply, “We can custom build anything“.  The meeting ends with a refined requirement that says: To equip our top team with vehicles of prestige and unparalleled power in excess of 600 horsepower that can handle all road conditions and fits a group.  In my mind, I think of a limo, an elongated version of a beautiful Ferrari.

*     *     *     *     *

After some intense prototyping exercise, our engineers come up with the following design.

And the buyers are shocked by what they see.

*     *     *     *     *

A few months later, before we roll out our final product to our top team, I have received an urgent call from the legal and compliance department informing me that we have a non-compliance issue.  How so, I ask.  You are missing a few stickers at the back of the trailer, the caller replies.  By law, we have to display how many passengers at most we carry inside the trailer.  That is odd.  So I make a visit to the engineers and investigate what has gone wrong.

“You have not specified what is inside the trailer and we assume that we are carrying a bunch of monkeys.  We don’t need a sticker for that,” an engineer explains.  “Why would we do that?!  Just doesn’t make sense!”  “Since our buyers have no clue how big or what the group is, we called up Ferrari and asked if their engines are powerful enough to satisfy our needs.”  “And they replied?”  “They said: Our prancing horse can pull a zoo of monkeys with no sweat!”

“Since when we take requirement from our suppliers?!”, I ask in desperation.  The engineer shrugs, “Since the day we define what unparalleled power is?”.  “And by the way”, he continues, “we have to put a 60 kph sticker at the back of the car by law because of the trailer.”  “That is an awfully slow car with an imposed limit of 60 kph,” I protest.  He shrugs again and says,”We ask for power, not speed, yes?”

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Linguistic My Hobbies Reflection

“When I Was 18” – A Spanish Homework

“When I Was 18” – that was the topic of our Spanish homework.  In fact, our teacher Natalia left the age to be open.  It could well be when I was 16, when I was 24, when I was 30, when I was … OK, let’s stop here.  I mean, when I was 16, my life was not that exciting.  Maybe observing the gorgeous girls going in and out of the nightclub at the ground floor of my apartment in Hong Kong was one of the highlights of my being 16.  What about that romantic relationship with a girl a couple of years younger than me?  OK, that – was complicated.  Really complicated.

18 was – looking back – the turning point of my life.  One of those moments that was tantamount to a multi-facet metamorphosis – physically, mentally, and spiritually.  5,995 miles away from home, I was studying in UK.  The age of experimentation, the age of inquisition, and the age of doing just the opposite for the sake of because-I-can.  Sometimes in a good way, sometimes not.  To experience at all cost.  When you are that young, I guess empathy may not be high in your list.  Neither is self-preservation.  It is a time of having to face the consequences and to bear the scars, a time of learning and moving on.

When I was 18, I was used to walk afar, alone or with my friends.  We would walk miles to another town, to visit the pubs, get chased by the dogs.  A few years later, in another city of the same country, I would walk miles to visit Toy “R” Us, to check out the latest console game titles.  I would spend hours walking, in the cold or in the rain, day or night.  We would climb a crane and stand high up above the ground in order to embrace the chilly wind, feel the thrill down our spines.  One evening, my friends and I ventured into a privately owned woodland.  Occasionally we found shotgun shells on the ground, under a bright moonlight.  Flying creatures would suddenly pop out of nowhere and got us scared.  Or did we scare them with our trespass?  When you are that young, you do not think.  You act with your heart.  At the end of our night trekking, we would see a peaceful lake with swans.  Flying ducks would make a gentle landing onto the surface creating beautiful lines on the otherwise serene pliable gigantic mirror.  In the middle of the lake, there was a castle decorated with modern interior.  How nice if I could live in such a surreal surrounding.  Looking back, I sincerely cannot recall how many times I have visited that lake.  I think about those moments from time to time; I dream about those moments from time to time.  When hallucination mixes with memory and dream, what is real, what is created by my mind consciously and subconsciously?

When I was 18, I seldom slept at night.  My friends would drop by my room to chat, to listen to music, to do homework together, or to play guitar.  My English friends would teach me the culture of tea drinking, the English way.  I would teach them my culture of having toasted bread with butter and sugar.  They were surprised when I sprinkled sugar on top of my buttered toast.  I was surprised when some preferred to drink English tea with only milk and no sugar.  I suppose when you are young, you are eager to try almost anything.  And we would chat the entire night.  Do you remember the days when you and your friends suddenly have this revelation that the world is so screwed up by the grown-ups?  That we have millions and one ways to make this world a better place?  Do you remember the days when you and your friends started to question the core of our existence?  The future of our existence if there is one; the doom of our existence if there are none?  Questions, questions, and questions.  And we debated.  The entire night.

That spirit of being 18, that spirit of endless adventure and no topic is a taboo.  That carelessness, that care free attitude of life.  Young is the one that plunges in the future and never looks back – so said Milan Kundera.

Now, I wish I could write that in Spanish.  The result of my homework is a lot simplified.  I am going to post it here because first it takes great effort to compose anything in Spanish and I may as well post it here for my personal future reference.  And second, it is rare that I could get someone to correct my Spanish writing (thanks Natalia!) so here we go.

Cuando tenía 18 años, era un joven estudiaba que en Inglaterra.  Me gustaba caminar largas distancias, gran altura.  Mis amigos y yo caminábamos por el bosque bajo la luz de la luna.  O entrábamos a otra ciudad a pie.  Cuando veíamos una grúa, la subíamos.  Era peligroso.  Pero era joven, sin pensar mucho.

Cuando tenía 18 años, era un hombre tranquilo.  Me gustaba escuchar música clásica o melodía de ayer todo el tiempo.  Visitaba a menudo la habitación de mi amigo y escuchábamos la música pop.  Otra amigo me introdujo la música rock.  Y tocábamos las guitarras en la noche.

Cuando tenía 18 años, mis amigos y yo hablábamos durante toda la noche.  Hablábamos sobre chicas, sobre extraterrestres y ballenas, sobre política y los problemas de mundo.  Los problemas que pensábamos que podíamos resolver.  ¡Qué ingenuos éramos!

Cuando tenía 18 años, veía la vida como una aventura.  Ahora la veo como la rutina diaria.  Prefiero quedarme en donde estoy.

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Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 25 – Five Stories, Work Inspired

In this episode, I have five stories to share.  All are work inspired, somewhat.

*     *     Screw Bloggers At Your Own Risk     *     *

Recently, a friend of mine forwarded me a link to a juicy gossip that finds its way propagating through the social networks.  The subject of this gossip?  A man who works in the same bank as me, shares the same office building with me – in the past and in the not so distant future.  The body of the gossip, I must say, is nicely crafted and it is titled ‘Are You Dating a Cheater?’.  Real life episodes are used based on the blogger’s personal experience with this man and there is no mentioning of the banker’s identity.  Only with a hint.  An entertaining read while staying away from the possibility of getting sued for defamation.  The comment section of this gossip, however, takes on a life of its own.  Anonymous readers have stepped up to expose his identity, painted a picture of him not only as a cheater who promises the girls – quite a few of them – a relationship and delivers none, but also someone who is knowingly spreading sexual transmitted diseases.  Some readers speculated that this Westerner is under treatment for herpes.  At least one confessed that she has contracted chlamydia from him.

Another friend of mine at work asked if I would give my 2-cent here in my website with a friendly warning that the girls are ready to rip any man apart for those who dare to trespass.  My personal thought given the gravity of the situation with a disease spreading cheater on one side and a group of sexually active girls who may or may not practice safe sex on the other side?  Try not to screw the bloggers, literally and figuratively.  Or you could be more famous than you think, for the wrong reason.

PS. I do not intend to post the link here because curious as I may be, I have no means to verify the gossip except the banker’s name exists in our corporate global address book.

*     *     Are We Seeing The Same Work Life Balance?     *     *

I have this theory.  For some, long hours follow you wherever you go.  Here is what I observe.  Time and time again, I have seen friends and colleagues who constantly put in long hours at work.  Most of the time, they seem OK with the arrangement.  I hardly get to see them, for obvious reason.  Some may complain about it and continue doing the same long hours, for months, for years, for decades.  Then one day, they have come to their realization that not having a life is not OK.  So they found another job and guess what?  The long hours follow them.  And the cycle repeats itself.  If you are stuck in such cycle, time to rethink your priorities in life.

Recently, I have a conversation with a colleague on this very topic.  She told me that she loves a good work life balance and is having one.  Jolly good, I said.  What about that 6 to 7 pm meeting she was asked to arrange?  A request from someone who corrected me that 6 to 7 pm is in the afternoon, not evening?  She seems cool with it because she enjoys the flexible working hours.  And then it struck me.  Perhaps we are not seeing the same work life balance.  Perhaps all of us think that we are having some level of work life balance.  And it is OK.  Life goes on.

*     *     It Is Not Just A Desk     *     *

You know what my dream work day would be like?  Start with desk that I am entitled at work.  One that I could decorate with my personal items.  Such as my mug.  And if that desk comes with four walls, some windows, and a door, that would be ideal.  While some may have their career followed by a long hours monster, mine is haunted by a no desk ghost.  Looking at my colleagues who are doing more or less the same type of work as me and are entitled to a desk of their own while I am camping at one corner feeling thankful that I have a place to do my work for another month, it makes me wonder.

And no, hot desk is not a desk.  Although in my current predicament, it may well be a better option.  Changi here I come!

*     *     What Do You Want To Do?     *     *

One fine afternoon, by the Singapore river, I was having lunch with one of my mentors at work.  And she asked, “What do you want to do [with your career]?”.  Point-blank.  I was speechless.  The humor of it, if at all, is that I often ask this question to my friends whom seek advice or inspiration for their next career move.  Rarely do I get asked on that.

What do I want to do?

To be honest, I do not think what I want to do matters in an organization.  Not even what I can do.  People are put onto different roles guided by the process and so long as you can read, write, speak, and ask questions, you can do almost anything – in a generalist flavored environment that is.

What do I want to do?  Doing the same thing I am doing.  Not doing the same thing I am doing.  Gosh, life can be complicated.  Time to plan for my summer holiday instead.

*     *     What Did I Want To Be When I Was Young?     *     *

Finally, our teacher taught us pretérito imperfecto during yesterday’s Spanish class.  It is a tense used to describe some past events that no longer happen.  Naturally, the question of ‘what did you want to be when you were young’ popped up.  What did I want to be?  Believe it or not, when I was a very young boy, I wanted to be a bus driver.  And I ponder: why is it so hard to answer ‘what do you want to do’ as a grown-up?

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Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 24 – Obscure Observations Of The Ordinary Routines

Life is simple.  Most of the time, you are waiting for something to happen.  And you spend a good portion of your life doing cut and paste activities.  Or pure repetitive, routine type of work.  Even the pleasure that we seek comes mostly in a variation of cookie cutter recipes.  Or the same old thing that pleasures us time and time again.

The purpose of a job, to me, is to keep us productive.  Whenever I hear the comment “my job is mundane / routine / boring”, I cannot help but to think that most of what we do are routines.  And routines can get mundane over time.  You may imagine otherwise.  But the underlying remains.  Routine execution perfects processes that in turn increases productivity.  Increased productivity supposed to bring forth better rewards.  That is true until everybody’s productivity level is increased to the same level as yours, on the similar things that you do or produce.  You may get lucky and manage to bake the best cake in the world.  Make it big.  But still, the baking process remains the same.

*     *     *     *     *

Jesus once said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you”.  Every religion claims to be a religion of peace, teaching us to be just that.  Yet, we humans seem to be constantly in a collision course, with someone we know, with someone we do not know, do not wish to know.  It could be an email your colleague has sent to you, maybe copied to the whole world; it could be your neighbor next door playing Mahjong throughout the night and the noise only subsides in the break of dawn; it could be that driver who cuts three lanes of traffic endangering the lives of others because he or she does not want to miss the exit or the car park’s entrance.  Conflicts are surrounding us, as it appears.  So, what shall we do?

Deal with it.  The inevitable in life.  Don’t sweat over it.  Don’t swear over it.

*     *     *     *     *

These days, I am finding it hard to tap onto my pool of inspiration, when it comes to writing.  At first, I wonder if it is because I have spent too much time playing computer games.  But my life has been full of obsessions of some sorts.  If it was not computer gaming, it could have been something else.

Today, I had a meeting in town.  And hence, I got a chance to get out of my home and smell the air of the city.  Everything I saw stimulated my mind.  The cars, the faces, the little routines like the change of traffic lights for the pedestrians, the beautiful girls, the not so beautiful men, and soon, obscure observations began to surface.  That girl in my office sticking her entire hand into her skirt from the back to scratch, I suppose, her butt; those lion dancers inside an office lift not holding the door for me; faces that recognized me, smiled at me, on the street and I have no idea who they were; the tall blonde from across the street took off her high heels and slipped into a more comfortable pair of sandals.

And then, my writing engine starts to work again.  That little lubricant called anywhere but home.

*     *     *     *     *

We are thieves at heart.  And money is not the root of all evil.

Deep inside, I think, none of us wants to work for something we want and need.  If we know for sure that we would not get caught, and if we observe that the majority is doing it, most of us would steal.  We may even condition ourselves that what we do is not stealing (think piracy).  Because?

Because stealing is meant to be punished and if no one is punished (yet), it is not stealing?

The commercial world is smart.  They know we love to take without giving.  Money is a currency used to keep track of our productivity and to exchange products and services with others.  Maybe some love money more than they should, they would rather have the things that they want or do not want, free.  And so, some companies give out freebies.  Soon, more and more products and services are bundled as ‘free’.  But we are smart (I hope we are).  Nothing is free.  Someone, somewhere, somehow is paying for it.  It could well be you.

Money, is not the root of all evil.  The love of it, is.

*     *     *     *     *

Is it me or is it true that the festive celebration of Chinese New Year is not as festive as the good old days.  What gives?

Learning Chinese is no easy feat.  Yet, Cynthia has been working hard using all that she can to communicate with my mother in town.  This evening, over the dinning table, she asked, “What is the difference between Yoga, now, and cloth hanger?”

My mother and I were laughing in tears.  Indeed, the words of these three distinct concepts do sound similar when spoken in Cantonese.  Especially in the ears of a non-Chinese speaker.

*     *     *     *     *

When I wrote in Facebook that life is full of copy and paste, one friend commented: how about undo?

That is hilarious.  Yes, we spend much time undoing things that others have done, and things that we have done.

Categories
Reflection

Alcohol And I – A Story Of Our 2 Years Of Separation, Thus Far

Last weekend, I have quietly celebrated the 2-year anniversary of not having a single drop of alcohol in my blood stream.  I even faked drinking that glass of champagne on stage, during my friend’s wedding when I was the emcee and my sister’s wedding in Hong Kong and in Singapore.  Of the many questions I have received over these two years, the best one came from a young lady I met in the True Blood HBO blogger event: How do you function without alcohol?!  Since then, I have heard various versions of the same question.  It never fails to bring laughter onto the table.

How do I function without alcohol?

Looking back, I often wonder how did I function with alcohol.  Of course, those who know me in person would ask: Why this decision?  You could say that I have waited two years to publish this story.  Every now and then I think of how this should be written.  Obviously, it is a very personal matter.  And since I have decided to share my experience in the light that may empower others to live an alcohol free life, I have to wait until my approach is proven to work – at least for me – in order for my story to be credible.  To set the expectation right, this is a story of constructive sharing, and not a public confession.

At least that is my intend.

*     *     *     *     *

I can’t say that I enjoy drinking alcohol even though I have consumed drinks with an alcohol content ranging from a single digit up to 40%.  I have tasted what goes beyond 40% too.  Like that stuff the Greek drinks.  I can tell which alcohol label tastes better than others of a similar category.  My first significant encounter with alcohol was when I was 18, in UK, intoxicated by that one tall can of Carlsberg Special Brew.  My first encounter with a religion that bans alcohol was also 18, in the same school.  Prior to that, I have never heard that alcohol is not acceptable, religiously speaking.

Is alcohol bad?

Combing through what I have observed in my adult life thus far, it appears to me that we conjure more reasons to consume alcohol than not to – with the exception of those whose their religion has forbidden them to consume alcohol.  Drinking wine with your meal is good for health.  Drinking Vodka keeps you warm in the winter.  To celebrate, we open champagnes.  You join a party in a pub wanting to socialize with your friends and what do you end up ordering?  Sure it has to be a beer or a glass of wine or some hard liquor.  Someone is going to pressurize you to do so.  Someone is going to challenge you to drink more.  It is as though not able to hold one’s alcohol is an undesirable attribute, one to be laughed at.  Com’on!  You can do it!  Just one more drink!

*     *     *     *     *

I do not detest alcohol, certainly not those who consume it.  To drink or not to drink, is a lifestyle choice.  Some battle with alcoholism for years only to see their lives slowly destroyed by the rounds of relapses.  Some able to drink alcohol as and when they wish to, stop as and when they wish to.  As for me, I am old enough to come to the conclusion that I am not so good at moderation.  When I observed that my list of reasons for consuming alcohol seemed to have expanded each passing day, that was one of the signs to quit, for good.

The list would look something like this.

  • When I was having a good meal, I was used to open a bottle of wine – be it at home or in a restaurant.  But what is a good meal?  How about an OK meal?  Surely an OK glass of wine wouldn’t kill an OK meal?  Or vice versa?
  • When I was having good companions, a beer or two seemed like a good thing to kick start the mood.  Later on, on the days when I was not having any companions, while waiting for someone, I enjoyed reading a book or a magazine with a mug of cold beer in a warm day like every other day in Singapore.  Did I drink to kill time?  Or was I finding time just to drink?
  • When I was having a bad day, alcohol seemed to help.  When I was having a happy day, alcohol also seemed to help.  Later on, when I am having an OK day, alcohol again seemed to help.  Help what?  Alcohol seemed to have become a painkiller, an endorphin potion, and an multi-vitamin pill – at the same time.

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But you know what life is like.  Anything that makes you feel good, is bad for you.  May even kill you.  Looking back on alcohol consumption, what I miss most is how it facilitates the process of art creation – be it as writing or song crafting.  Being able to tap onto my pool of chaotic, unpredictable, and unrestrained creativity is, for lack of a better word, addictive.  So, what triggered the decision of staying away from alcohol and how did I do that?

The answers to the above questions could be a lot less dramatic and inspiring than you expect, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you ponder upon it.  Problems of this world often are solved by common, non-extraordinary solutions.  I dislike some of the side effects alcohol have in me.  We are still who we are, even in a state of intoxication.  We are still responsible to the things that we do, that we say, regardless how stupid these things may sound in the morning after.

But that was not the final trigger.  Wikipedia was.  One day I was researching on why I have alcohol flush when I drink.  The result is against everything I have come to know.  It could kill me faster than those whose faces don’t turn red when they drink.  So I woke up one day and have decided to quit drinking.  I must say quiting is not easy but it is a lot easier than I thought.  Strange as it may sound, replacing alcohol with hot green tea works for me.  Hot green tea seems to have given me a similar level of high.  Similar, not the same of course.  I suspect that it is less on the drink’s content and more at the symbolic level.  At one point, I have stocked up boxes and boxes of green tea bag at home.  And that wall of green tea was my last defense towards my bottles of wine and hard liquor that are still siting motionlessly at home tempting me to open and consume.  For months, I have been drinking cups and cups of hot green tea every evening.  Now, I am still drinking hot green tea every other evening, though not as often.  These days, I am into Ginseng tea and tea made with flowers.

I am happy that the days of drinking is behind me.  Day 208 of being a teetotaler, I drew a picture.  On day 730, I write this entry.

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If you wish to abstain from alcohol, you too need to find a personal reason that does not change by any circumstances.  And you have to find a way to replace your habitual drinking routine.  I still remember half a year into this voluntary abstinence of alcohol, I joined my friend for a drink in an Irish pub and I ordered a huge mug of diet Coke.  Think of the amount of money you could saved by that one decision that you make.

Categories
Reflection

Is Liking What We Get A Resignation To Life Or The Key To Contentment?

My favorite writer Doris Lessing once wrote: We learn to like what we get.  Seven simple words so accurately describe our current state of affair, in so many different dimensions.  But yet when I shared this revelation with a friend, her immediate response was: That’s called resignation to life.  Such is the beauty of literature.  It means different things to different people.

At times I ponder, if I am to hold firm to what I believe as a baseline to my quality of life and refuse to make compromises, is this a good virtue?  Or am I being inflexible?  After all, many people around me have been putting up with what they see as their accepted daily routines, what I may see as life could have been better and does not have to be this way.

Traditional wisdom tells us that there are things we cannot change, or cost too much to change.  To that extend, I often accept what comes my way, for the time being, and at the back of my mind dream of what better life could be like.  Who knows?  Doors of opportunity may open in the future if I have some ideas on what these doors may look like in the first place.

Once again, I have to relocate to a new office location.  And I think I have good reasons to dislike this recent change.  One may observe that this is a classic case of resistance to change.  For someone who has in the span of three years reported to seven different direct bosses, relocated three times – four if you count being stuffed inside a small meeting room for months as one location – I am not that resistance to change.

Yet, a part of me wishes things to stay as they are used to be.  Another part of me is aware that what I am now having is not ideal.  Maybe that is why change is hard.  Because we learn to like what we get.

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Given a choice, I would want to work where Cynthia works.  It saves on traveling time for I prefer to drop her off in the morning and pick her up in the evening – regardless of where our workplaces are – by car.  Time is precious.  Any added minute to the daily traveling time is, in my opinion, a waste of time.

Last year, I was relocated to a different part of town, away from the central business district.  The distance was still manageable, though not desirable.  As I settled down in my new area, I began to enjoy the surrounding environment.  The national library is nearby, eating places are not as crowded, and there are shopping malls and cinemas close to my office building.

This year, there is another relocation, somewhere far away from the central business district.  Very far indeed.

If you were to ask me today: Would you choose a job that requires you to travel to a place near to the airport every working day?  The answer is a straight no.  But I learn to like – or I think I like – what I do daily.  Besides, bonus payout will be in March, my share options will be matured in September, I am not going anywhere in the near future, am I?

Am I?

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One morning, I drove to my new office sorting out the car park application while familiarizing myself with the area, I could not help but to admire the smooth traffic to work, the blue sky and the green field and the sound of serenity – of the fountains and of the breeze.  There were hardly anybody walking on the streets, hardly any car drove by.  One man walked pass me with a cup of coffee and I had the urge to stop him and ask where he got it from in this remote area.  And suddenly it hit me: Why do people put up with the stress of working in the central business district?  The noise, the crowd, the pollution, and more.  Why do I put up with the traffic jam on the CTE highway every day?

One afternoon, as I drove out of my home, I looked at the office buildings nearby, I could not help but ask: How about working somewhere near where I live for a change?  Maybe I should visualize that as one of my doors of opportunity.

I mean, why not?