My blog

I just realised that I hate saying good byes. More and more so recently.

In the last 8-9 months, friends have left for studying overseas, to work or simply to pursue a different life in a different country. Parting seems to be getting harder but at the same time increasing frequency. Can people ever become accustomed to this? Or do we just resign to the fact that sooner or later this will happen?

Perhaps with each passing years, there is the realisation each parting may become permanent?

A satirical video produced by World Vision, depicting how “deprived” our youths are. Watch it and do “something real” about it…

Came across the terms “synthetic” happiness vs “natural” happiness today in a talk.

To put it simply, natural happiness is when you get what you want; synthetic happiness is when you can be happy without getting the things you want. Sounds paradoxical? Having a plethora of choices can be good – up to a point. Beyond that, range of choices – which many tends to equate to liberation and freedom – can more often than not lead to paralysis. Also, the raising of expectations means after making a choice you are inevitably left with a bitter taste: “It could have been better with the other choice…” This inevitably subtracts from the satisfaction you’d have if there is but a very limited number of choices.

Very enlightening and highly recommended.

• Dan Gilbert’s talk on happiness;
• Barry Schwartz’s talk on “Paradox of choice”.

Saw this funny incident from Seinfeld on TV last night.

Elaine was depressed and was wandering aimlessly in the rain. She cried: “I don’t know where I’m going?”

Peterman (the rich clothing guy who eventually became her boss and then was lost at sea): “Well, that’s the quickest way of getting to an unknown place” (or something to that effect).

For some reason, this scene got me thinking. For most of us living in big cities, be it in Singapore, or Los Angeles, New York, etc., we are always on the move and walking. While the pace of life is different in Singapore, compared to Boston, Hawaii, etc., has many people actually stopped to see what is around them?

Where is the journey going to take them? Back to repetition and mediocrity, or to some unknown challenges where you live on knife’s edge? Does anyone know or want to know how it’s going to end?

YouTube and the internet are truly turning our global community into a smaller place day by day.

This is particularly true when, a couple of months ago, I spotted a couple of friends in a clip of Javier and Andrea’s (world class Tango teachers) end-of-class demonstration. They were in Buenos Aires at the time and the clip was “hot off the press”, so to speak.

Well, you can imagine, to my great surprise, when I read about Deby’s recent house guest today and the guest turns out to be another person that I know! Also, it just so happens that I had heard news of her less than a week ago from another friend who is currently in Buenos Aires!! Well, it just shows that we are no longer as safe or as anonymous as we may think!

Been rather neglecting this blog of mine. Having a flu right also does not help much… Well, been watching the series Heroes lately so I thought the following is quite appropriate because the characters in that show are constantly asking why they were given the gifts (of special powers):

The real seeker of truth never seeks truth. On the contrary, he tries to clean himself of all that is untrue, inauthentic, insincere – and when his heart is ready, purified, the guest comes. You cannot find the guest, you cannot go after him. He comes to you; you just have to be prepared. You have to be in a right attitude.

Osho, 1931-1990

It’s hard to believe that it’s Cricket World Cup time again! In fact, seems not so long ago that Australia successfully defended their World Cup title and here we are, back for another edition of the premiere tournament for one-day cricket, pitting the best national teams against each other. For this year, the World Cup is being held at the West Indies.

Well, tonight is the second of the semi-finals. Sri Lanka had already convincingly thrashed New Zealand during last night’s first semi-final, ending their hopes of reaching their first ever finals yet again. However, the key game will be tonight’s showdown between the two titans of the one-day game: Australia vs South Africa. Given their past encounters, this promises to be an exciting nail-biter. No secret where my loyaly lies, even if it means dark eyes tomorrow – the games will start at 9.30pm local time and finishes somewhere around 5am, I suppose?

The final is this Saturday and I do hope that Australia will be able to move past South Africa and get a crack of making it three successive titles! It’s too bad that I will miss most of the first half of the final game because of the milonga I will be DJ’ing… 🙁

Go, go Aussies!