desperate for change

I was at the UBC Village the other day with a lunch companion:

“So, Alfred where shall we go for lunch? You know your way around right?”

Well, I haven’t been on campus for a while, but I am sure the Village’s got something. Let’s see… there’s Vera’s and look – it’s Red Burrito.

“I like Burritos.”

Yes, sounds good to me, but look at that line up. There’s that Japanese place upstairs…

“That place is pretty expensive.”

Okay, how about around the corner here? You can get teriyaki beef on rice…

In my entire life as I know it, I have never heard a Japanese restaurant ever referred to as expensive, with the exception of Tojo’s and Nobu (in New York).  I’ve been to some expensive restaurants in my life – I would hardly consider the one in the UBC Village as expensive. It’s all relative, I suppose.

(By the way, I am not going to identify the other person in the conversation – but I am sure that he/she would be able to identify himself/herself instantly.)

At first, I was thinking that I might have offended my lunch companion with the suggestion of an “expensive” place. But given the current state of the economy, I was actually glad that someone had some sense to consider the cost and say something about it, even though I was not particular cost-sensitive in this case.

Morrie had an interesting thing to say about culture: “[And] you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own.”

I sure would like it if my “culture” allowed me to be more openly frugal without being judged as being a cheapskate. I mean – I believe in properly paying for services and goods rendered; 15% tipping and all that jazz. However, I am willing to cut back on things I don’t need – like that new magazine or that expensive hobby.

I am not avocating a return to the stone ages by cutting back on “essentials” like cellphones and cars; I think that I would just like a more conscious attitude towards spending money. I mean, instead of spending money without thinking about it – think about it; be deliberate in what you choose to spend it on. It is your life energy that you are spending – you want to be spending it on something that is important to you. Or minimally, you want to be getting good value out of it.

As a conversation subject, money is pretty difficult to bring up – popular culture dictates our individual self-worth by the material goods that we have.  Also, the “things” that we spend money on allows us to have something in common to talk about: like the so-and-so restaurant I went to last week was pretty good; or how about that blockbuster movie everyone in the office has seen, which you haven’t seen yet?

How about we talk about the news instead – it’s cheaper. And if you have kids, talk about the kids.

In my “culture,” I would really like to have this kind of conversation:

Hey, babe… for dinner on Friday, let’s go to Cactus Club.

“Well Alfred, we’ve been going out to eat a lot lately. How about we eat in instead? Save some money for our Vegas trip…”

That’s some sexy talk right there babe… purrrrr…

“Blog more,” she said.

I know exactly what she was talking about – I mean, I haven’t had anything new since September. Was I uninspired? No, not really. Maybe it was the crazy hours of work that was sucking my energy? No, I had energy for my salsa class. I think that I was just in a bit of a rut. A kick in the pants was what I really needed.

Of course, the question is: Why would I even want a kick in the pants?  Why blog? Even Seth Godin admits that personal blogs really aren’t bringing home the bacon, so to speak.

While I am still inspired by the success of some bloggers, I realize that I am who I am. The world is already better off with a Steve Pavlina; I need to find my own blogging success as Alfred Pang, rather than trying to imitate or copy someone else.

What does this mean in terms of my writings? How will I define blogging success? For your information, I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of living off AdSense revenue through this website.

As an introvert, it is pretty difficult to get inside my head through conventional means. I am pretty sure that there are people who are similar to me. Writing is an exercise in getting ideas out in a clear and understandable representation. And for those of you that are keeping score, blogging is a “staying upwind” activity. (Upwind = hard, with an uncertain chance of success; forces you to think and become better as a result.)

All I want is for someone to read my blog and say, “Yes, me too. I thought I was the only weird one.” That is success for me. I don’t claim to have all the answers. I don’t even want to claim that I am adding significant value to your life through my writings.

All I want to do, is to let you know that this shiny InterWebs is full of strange and wonderful humans, just like you and me.

(I am working on a series of posts where I am trying to figure out what things are important to me.)

By the way, the title of this post is a rather bold statement for someone who’d likes sitting quietly at home and reading a book.

Perhaps, it was the book I was reading that gave me this insight.

Tuesdays with Morrie – This book has been on my radar for quite some time but I haven’t gotten around to reading it until recently. I am a bit jealous of the relationship that Mitch and Morrie had – a certain comfort and closeness that allowed them to discuss life’s hard questions. I think that this is generally hard to come in this secular Western civilization – one of the things I miss about not going to church.

Back to the book – I think that when you are staring death straight on, you suddenly have a very clear priority of what is important and what is not. One thing you might do is to reflect on the happy and memorable moments in your life. For myself, there are many: hanging out with my sister in LA; practising for Gala Ball with the help of my Mom; going for long walks with my brother (this was back in my high school days, when this was cheap entertainment); high school and university; all my past relationships; all the silliness that ensured when my friends get together; a certain crazy project at the office where I was working late nights with my boss (he speaks fondly of this particular project, lol).

I am sure there are many more – too many to list. What is the common theme in all these memorable moments? There were people!

I think that it is the natural for INTx types to be less social than average – I should know. Yes, I kinda loathe fluffy smalltalk; I recognize that this puts me at odds with most of the world. On the occasions where I make the effort to get to know someone better, I am generously rewarded with something that money can’t buy. This is what being human is all about.

So, go ahead: reach out and touch someone.

In our previous episode, our not-so-anonymous hero decided to call it quits for a while and take a break. Honestly, it was refreshing to not have any buzzing (i.e. thinking) in my head.  Brainless zombie good.

Then all of a sudden, it started again. How should I put it? The voice of some nagging phantom/narrator: “Alfred, you’ve rested for long enough, shouldn’t you be getting back on your quest?”

The quest of course is still resolving this odyssey business.

A friend of mine (i.e. voice of reason) recently pointed out to me, that I was still searching. I asked him straight up: how does one resolve this “searching” business.  His answer: it all comes down to figuring out what is important to you, right now and in the future.

For some reason, I went on to read up on something Paul Graham wrote: The essay where he was addressing the high schoolers. He suggests that instead of working towards a goal, we should “stay upwind.” I would paraphrase this in RPG analogy: while you are waiting for the plot to advance, you should kill monsters and level-up yourself. Staying upwind keeps you being productive instead of spending too much time fantasizing about the pie in the sky.

So, looks like I have two high-level goals to be working on:

• figure out what is important to me
• stay upwind

I think that the next couple of posts will be me trying to work through these items.