{"id":8025,"date":"2014-02-23T00:07:01","date_gmt":"2014-02-22T16:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=8025"},"modified":"2025-03-08T16:28:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T16:28:00","slug":"summary-of-entire-blog-part-4-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2014\/02\/23\/summary-of-entire-blog-part-4-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Summary of entire blog, part 4 (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing where I left off in Part 3<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Personal Development:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

How to live, and other final 2011 thoughts<\/a>. Worried about money; want to be financially independent. I feel like I should be creating, but spend time distracted by the mundane. Need to get rid of backlog and stop using it as a safety net.<\/p>\n

01: Water parades.<\/strong> Hydration is enforced in BMT, and it’s a good thing.
\n02: Hundred pushups challenge.<\/strong> Wanted to do 100 pushups. Never got past week 4.
\n03: A chapter a day. <\/strong>I’ll never encounter the mythical day where I get to read tonnes of stuff at once unless I schedule it. Better to take baby steps every day.
\n04: Brain Training. <\/strong>I used to be a Lumosity subscriber, and I’d play it every day. I stopped because my desktop PC at my parents’ place was starting to lag.<\/p>\n

Gamification: The power of chains and combos<\/a>. Don’t break the chain. Baby steps that erode mountains.<\/p>\n

Game Layer:\u00a0<\/strong>Just some notes from that scvngr guy on TED.<\/p>\n

Defining Education<\/a>. Ask good questions, seek out surprises. How should life be lived? How can one make a living, while living a ‘good’ life?<\/p>\n

Self-Schooling<\/a>\u00a0– “I have a bunch of things I’d like to do, and I’d like to learn how to do them.”<\/p>\n

When thoughts finally become actions.<\/a>\u00a0It’s strange how sometimes the important\/good decisions don’t feel like decisions at all.<\/p>\n

A list of my favourite movies.<\/a> Revisit.<\/p>\n

My MBTI Journey.<\/a>\u00a0It initially opened my eyes to a world of possibilities and complexity that I hadn’t considered, but then it became a reductive limitation. I had to discard the ladder after climbing up and over it.<\/p>\n

7 things I’ve learnt over the years<\/a>. Same old fundamental basics. 7: Unfriend the non-essential.<\/p>\n

\u00a0smart pain + truth telling + acknowledgement of self-betrayal<\/a>\u00a0“stop trying to please others; just tell the truth.”<\/p>\n

uneasy realization:<\/a>\u00a0I sometimes (if not always) generate stuff better on pen and paper than I do in an open browser window. Revisit.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

uneasy realization pt 2:<\/a>\u00a0I work better in short bursts than in long chunks, with rare exceptions.<\/p>\n

What would you do if you could do anything you wanted?<\/a>\u00a0Making bucket lists is a sort of escapism, but here’s mine.<\/p>\n

On entrepreneurship, and who I write for.<\/a>\u00a0I think this is just a feeble attempt at saying I want to do things that matter a lot to a lot of people. (Have to start with doing something that matters a lot to some people.)<\/p>\n

Being off social media<\/a>\u00a0makes you realize how little of it actually matters- only the conversations matter, really.<\/p>\n

exam as physical experience to be trained for<\/a>. Sitting down for 3 hours is something you have to work your way up to.<\/p>\n

Meeting Dr. Bruce Hood<\/a>\u00a0I had the privilege of interviewing an experimental psychologist, which was great fun for me.<\/p>\n

Money<\/a>. We don’t talk enough about it, just as we don’t talk enough about pleasure, about sex, about emotions, etc. Public school will probably never solve this.<\/p>\n

How would you live if money weren’t an issue?<\/a>\u00a0Trick question, because money is rarely the issue.<\/p>\n

Habits through connections.<\/a>\u00a0I write well after I read. Reading is a great cue for the routine of writing for me.<\/p>\n

Prescriptive Bullshit:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Didn’t make it to leadership school? Build your own!<\/a>\u00a0I was bitter about not getting the opportunity to even try for Officer Cadet School during my mandatory military service. It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.<\/p>\n

Conquer the challenge of creation (and writing).<\/a>\u00a0Pay attention to serendipitous discoveries. Don’t bother trying to write when in a bad state- first change that state. Utilize activation energy- read a book. Have a vague idea of what you want to explore, then explore it.\u00a0Figure out what puts you in a receptive state for creation, then do that.<\/em><\/p>\n

How to win at relationships.<\/a>\u00a0Be individually competent and sustainable. Seek mutually beneficial outcomes. Learn to see yourself as part of a team. Communicate.<\/p>\n

Variation and Selection: A Darwinian approach to relationship success<\/a>. “If you sabotage any sort of relationship without first trying a few different ways of making it work, you are shortchanging yourself.”<\/p>\n

When you smell the curry…<\/a>\u00a0get the damn prata.<\/p>\n

Sungha Jung and the 10,000 hour rule in real time.<\/a>\u00a0We get to watch this kid become a guitar master in real life, in real time, on YouTube over the years.<\/p>\n

Do what you hate.<\/a>\u00a0“Hate” in this case is how we feel about being unable to meet our own taste- when you have taste and you can’t satisfy it. (See: Ira Glass’s The Gap.)<\/p>\n

How do you know yourself?<\/a>\u00a0Do stuff, and see how you feel about it, and try different things. Act, reflect.<\/p>\n

Wannabe Big Ideas<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Gamifying Education<\/a>. School is obsolete- indoctrination camps + daycare. Games understand people’s motivations. Schools don’t. Schools aren’t in the business of motivating people. This is a problem. How would Blizzard redesign an education system?<\/p>\n

Nobody actually wants you to “be yourself”.<\/a>\u00a0People actually want you to be comfortable, skilled, smooth, not-awkward. That takes practice.<\/p>\n

Swarm Intelligence and God: How we already are a part of something greater than ourselves.<\/a>\u00a0We are the neurons of a great brain. If you think of god as the relationships between us, the spaces between us, then clearly- divisiveness, bigotry etc. literally hurts god.<\/p>\n

The beautiful flaws of language.<\/a>\u00a0It functions precisely because it doesn’t.<\/p>\n

On greatness and faith.<\/a> Faith is embodied, not professed.<\/p>\n

Selective bigotry.<\/a>\u00a0Selective compassion is not enough. It is not compassionate.<\/p>\n

You create your Facebook profile, your profile also creates you<\/a>. Credit to Nathan Jurgenson.<\/p>\n

Conversations.<\/a>\u00a0About meaningful exchanges. Not necessarily verbal.<\/p>\n

Spiritual Atheism: What is life?<\/a>\u00a0“Life is a pattern in time and space, a great dance from which we cannot stray too far from even if we tried. And this dance is neither fixed nor final- it is constantly mutating and evolving, and every new dancer\u2019s interpretations contribute to the larger picture.”<\/p>\n

Loyalty to country vs loyalty to humanity.<\/a>\u00a0Self vs. others, family vs community, so on so forth. Buddha left his family; how does such a trade-off become socially acceptable? Only on hindsight? History written by the victors?<\/p>\n

Dissatisfaction<\/a>\u00a0can be\u00a0a source of beauty if managed properly. Paul Graham wrote about this in wisdom vs.\u00a0intelligence-\u00a0Olympic athletes get tired too, they just get tired at faster speeds.<\/p>\n

Pushing the button<\/a>. If you could instantaneously redesign your life, how would you do it?<\/p>\n

Contemplating the universe.<\/a>\u00a0Because big numbers make us realize how small we really are.<\/p>\n

The Elevator Pitch:<\/strong>\u00a0We need more and better conversations. We don’t have to do things alone, or in a\u00a0vaccuum. We can plug into bigger, broader structures and\u00a0achieve\u00a0greater things together.<\/p>\n

How\u00a09gag\u00a0and\u00a0Tumblr\u00a0will save the world.<\/a>\u00a0By facilitating conversations between people who otherwise wouldn’t realize how much they had in common.<\/p>\n

The art of\u00a0overanalyzing\u00a0text messages.<\/a>\u00a0Exploring the nuances of digital communication and how we use it to communicate tone.<\/p>\n

Why does altruism exist?<\/a>\u00a0Selfish doesn’t serve us well any more, if it ever did.<\/p>\n

Singapore:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

DisGraceFu: Political Incompetence in the PAP<\/a>. In which I criticized Grace Fu for what I thought was a lack of political sensitivity. (I was being quite insensitive myself, on hindsight. I didn’t hold myself to any standards back then.)<\/p>\n

Ministerial Pay: Why Singapore should be a pirate ship.<\/a>\u00a0Lousy title, but the basic idea was that we need Singaporeans to feel more directly responsible for the survival and thriving of the nation.<\/p>\n

Chan Chun Sing further sabotages the legitimacy of PAP superdominance.<\/a>\u00a0This was an exploration of his famous carrot cake analogy to explain quality for $$.<\/p>\n

Ministerial Pay 2012: The one question nobody seems to be asking.<\/a>\u00a0Top earners have competencies but not a sense of public mission- WHY?<\/p>\n

Kiasuism at the Museum<\/a>. There are already high-resolution, professional photos of the things that you’re looking at, all available online. You don’t need to take your own pictures.<\/p>\n

Disparity in tertiary education facilities.<\/a>\u00a0A JC kid (Kwek Jian Qiang) complaining about ITE facilities. Instantly kena scapegoated.<\/p>\n

How do we get Singaporeans to look out for each other?<\/a>\u00a0I love that people queue for the trains these days. We need a few individuals committed to helping each other out. Spread the culture of reciprocity.<\/p>\n

Good policy marred by bad politics from MP Gan Thiam Poh.<\/a>\u00a0Just because something is the right thing to do doesn’t mean that people don’t get hurt in the process- so it never makes sense to be condescending, insensitive.<\/p>\n

Who is responsible for the integration of foreigners?<\/a>\u00a0Nobody, and everybody. We are eager to assign blame to people, but that doesn’t solve the problem. If we’re serious about solving the problem, we’ll have to do something about it. It’s not our job to, but thinking in terms of “who’s job is it?” is problematic.<\/p>\n

Value of the GEP.<\/a>\u00a0Said I’d tidy it up later; haven’t done that.<\/p>\n

SG Music<\/a>.\u00a0– Build frameworks together, pooling our resources, knowledge and experience.\u00a0One, two then three major Singaporean gigs a year, festivals on par with Baybeats (Rock For Good and Lime Sonic Bang come to mind).\u00a0Make it as easy as possible- for the general public to get involved, to find out about bands, and to buy music. (To learn this, I have to first learn to apply this to myself.).\u00a0Build the eco-system: photographers, videographers, bands, promoters, fans.<\/p>\n

Singaporean students lack drive; why ah?<\/a>\u00a0We crush the caterpillars then complain that there are no butterflies.<\/p>\n

Animal Farm and National Education.<\/a>\u00a0No one owes Singapore a living, we must ourselves defend Singapore- not just from external threats, but from internal ones, too. We can’t get too dependent on any one element.<\/p>\n

Depoliticize Singapore for economic gains, economy suffers<\/a>. An apathetic citizenry (see: Learned Helplessness) turns out to be economically limited in productive capacity. Encouraging tempered idealism may be the pragmatic way forward.<\/p>\n

4 worrying things about PM Lee’s worries<\/a>. I’m cringing a little at my writing, but I think the central idea was that… it seemed to me that he was addressing symptoms, not causes.<\/p>\n

non-directed JC-related rambling<\/a>. I think this is an early exploration of the ideas that will get me focused on thinking about procrastination, laziness, learned helplessness, apathy, etc.<\/p>\n

Singapore must transcend PAP-superdominance\/overdependence.<\/a>\u00a0Or we’re screwed. If we are hanging on to the form now, we won’t get to the form next. I hope the PAP is willing to self-disrupt.<\/p>\n

Singapore needs more designated smoking areas.<\/a>\u00a0It’s the best way to solve the problem of secondhand smoke. Give smokers a designated place. It’s the same reasoning why we have designated smoking areas in military bases, and why we have designated red-light destricts. Containment is the start of the solution.<\/p>\n

Refining my political stance: Why I no longer identify as anti-PAP.<\/a>\u00a0I started out fighting all-out for the underdog: it was relatively easy, and something I felt that needed to be done, even if it was sometimes ugly or insensitive. But since then I feel like I needed to transcend that- there are already a lot of people attacking the PAP every step of the way, so I think it makes more sense for me now to be more moderate, to fight for thoughtful discourse.<\/p>\n

Reclaiming the Singaporean narrative<\/a>. I think individual Singaporean citizens have more power than ever before to help influence and define the national narrative. Which is great.<\/p>\n

PAP superdominance.<\/a>\u00a0You get the picture by now.<\/p>\n

Lim Kopi Ah: Why so popular?<\/a>\u00a0Resurgence of nostalgia, people embracing their Singaporean past in a frantic scramble to hold on to some semblance of shared identity and common history.<\/p>\n

Compulsory seating for annoying aunties.<\/a>\u00a0“If I had the time, energy and artistic ability, I\u2019d write an entire series of comics with the auntie as anti-hero- immortalized now by the polka dot prints and the umbrella. The adventures of Auntie and Ah Lian. With guest appearances by Steven Lim, Aaron Tan and the like. Somehow I feel like they all contribute to the ridiculousness of Singapore, in a kinda good, funny way.”<\/p>\n

“We want a responsible media, reasonable discussion,”- DPM Teo<\/a>\u00a0This was after some JC kid wrote a “fuck you” letter to him on his blog. I sympathize with the kid- he’s young and wouldn’t have expected to get dragged into something so much bigger than himself. All he knows, from where he’s standing, is that things don’t look right. And I don’t think he’s wrong.<\/p>\n

The True Genius of skl0’s Master Plan<\/a>: She wins, no matter what the outcome.<\/p>\n

The best thing we can do for skl0: Immortalize her work.<\/a>\u00a0Ideas are bulletproof. You cannot arrest an idea.<\/p>\n

What would Lee Kuan Yew be like if he were born in 1990?<\/a>\u00a0He was idealistic, entrepreneurial, opinionated, self-directed, took risks.<\/p>\n

Teacher cannot shave head one! Unprofessional! Parents will make noise!<\/a>\u00a0One of the issues that’s very representative of my broader frustrations with education in Singapore. Real issues with real concerns are swept under the carpet for fear of “making waves”.<\/p>\n

Creating meaningful Singaporean art. <\/strong>“I like the idea the skl0 has given other artists something to think about, to work with, to rally around, to ruminate on.\u00a0Art is anything makes you think or feel something that you might not have otherwise experienced. Art to me is a bit of a weapon, or a tool, rather. It\u2019s a vehicle to say something.\u00a0What do we have to say? What is worth saying? If you\u2019re going to write a song, paint a picture, what is it for? What is about? What purpose does it serve?”<\/p>\n

Singapore arts and music<\/a>. How do we get people to care more, instead of having it develop in isolated silos? Consider Made To Stick’s argument about human drama and curiosity gaps.<\/p>\n

How do you feel about foreign talent?<\/a>\u00a0I hope everybody- FT, Singaporeans, the government, commentators- can be kinder to one another, and to push each other to be more compassionate.<\/p>\n

URA Graffiti<\/a>. The URA was just following rules, but being very stupid (in my opinion). I think they left them intact since? Update: Turns out that 4 days later, they said Haji Lane’s graffiti could stay<\/a>. Good!<\/p>\n


\nThe national conversation is lame, but the future looks good to me.<\/a>\u00a0At least we’re acknowledging that there was a problem with the lack of conversation. If we’re discussing the nature of the conversation, we’re a step ahead. Wish we could move faster;\u00a0go go\u00a0go.<\/p>\n

Staggering homophobia in Yahoo Comments.<\/a>\u00a0Singapore has a long way to go.<\/p>\n

Why is the death penalty carried out so secretively?<\/a>\u00a0If people\u00a0are being killed\u00a0on our behalf, we should at least know their names, their lives, their stories.<\/p>\n

So what’s PM Lee\u00a0Hsien\u00a0Loong\u00a0like in person?<\/a>\u00a0Really smart, really thoughtful, really nice guy. I almost wish he wasn’t, so I could hate on him, but I can’t.<\/p>\n

Meeting PM Lee: The Aftermath<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No, we don’t need to create “real space” for students<\/a>. Real spaces are all around us. School just has a habit of stifling them.<\/p>\n

Tong Yee<\/a>\u00a0and the great work he’s doing at School of Thought<\/p>\n

If “politics malfunctions if the PAP fails to deliver”, then we’re already screwed.<\/a>\u00a0“Who else is going to love you the way I do, huh? You’re nothing without me!”<\/p>\n

National Conversation: A\u00a0naive\u00a0attempt<\/a>\u00a0Just a bunch of stuff. I honestly think the dating scene in Singapore is something very worth exploring seriously.<\/p>\n

On the banning of Sex.Violence.Family Values<\/a>. I thought it was\u00a0unnecessary-\u00a0a very blunt, unenlightened way of dealing with it.<\/p>\n

Part 5 some other time.<\/em><\/p>\n