desperate for change

(This post is for those of you who’ve known me since high school.)

“Hey, are you Alfred?”

Yes.

“Thought I recognized you.”

Oh, can’t remember who you are…

“Rob, from Hamber!”

Yes of course, I remember – you graduated one year ahead of me.

“Can I sit down?”

Yeah sure, just having lunch here.

“You know what… I have something here for you…”

Oh really?

“Oops, I don’t have any money on me. But I owe you twenty bucks.”

No no, of course not.

“You know what I’m talking about right?”

Yeah, it was the Rubik’s cube. You know what… it was a total hustle, I can’t take your money.

“It was a fair bet right?”

Yeah, but you should make me do it again right now, just to make sure I can still do it…

“You did it back then – it was a bet, fair and square.”

We were kids and we did dumb shit.

….

It was odd running into Rob today at the mall.

In high school, I learned how to do the Rubik’s Cube using the layers method. Using this algorithm, I could do the cube easily in less than 3 minutes. This is no where close to world class time records, but it was good for a party trick or two. For some reason, on a particular day in physics class – I decided that it might be fun to try to hustle Rob for money. So I asked Rob – would you believe that I could do it in less than 5 minutes? At which point Rob was somehow be goaded into making a money proposition – in which case, I should easily make it. What I didn’t expect was a double or nothing proposition for 3 minutes, which is more of a sporting bet than the 5 minutes – I managed to clear it as well. At which point, Rob was a gentleman (but a mad gentleman) and handed over the money. It should be noted that the money was eventually returned later the same week – I felt kinda guilty and decided that I really don’t want someone who’s going to be mad at me for the rest of eternity.

So yes – I can boldy say that I hustled the cube for money like a pool shark. I was also able to do the Square One reliably in less than 5 minutes. Can’t remember how to do either to save my life right now, haha!

Good times, folks… good times.

I am reading a book of Buddhist essays entitled Hooked: Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume. There is an essay by Ruben L. F.  Habito which talked about three different types of desire that we can succumb to:

1. The Desire to Have More
2. The Desire to Know More
3. The Desire for Thrill and Pleasure

And when we talk about the desires, we are talking about indulging in them excessively. Most people have a good understanding of how the first one and the third one works.  For myself, the desire to know more is the vice of choice.

The desire to know more is unlike the other desires. You don’t get full from knowing too more – unlike eating more. It doesn’t create physical clutter like stuff does. You can indulge in the desire to know more, under the guise of being productive and strengthening yourself. In fact, with the limitless amount of data available on the internet, you can just go on and on aimlessly or as in-depth as you like; it is like wishing for a meal of your choice and getting it instantly.

For those of you who work in the software field, this is easily a never-ending treadmill of books, classes, and websites. Besides the actual art of software writing, there is also the business aspects like marketing, sales, management, and entrepreneurship.  Once you get hooked into keeping up, the limiting factor merely become the number of hours in the day. In the last couple of years, this has turned into a habit of staying up late – just to see if I could squeeze another ounce of tid-bit into my already crammed head.

Anything in excess is not good. In my case, I’m just continuously tired, usually with nothing to show for it.

So what now? I think that I just need to manage this like I would manage physical stuff and clutter: be more aware of what I am taking into my brain and be more deliberate and focus as appropriate and disregard what is unnecessary. One downside of non-physical clutter in your head is that it is very difficult to do housecleaning.

Another thing to do is to blog more. The result of this is that it focuses my informational in-take into a tangible output. This will reduce the aimless never-ending web surfing.

Of course, we should take a moderate approach – we can’t just stop reading and learning and go back to being ignorant. We just have to be more conscious about the goals of learning – it should be directed and I shouldn’t be “stuffing my face”, metaphorically.

Besides, I get enough computer time at work anyways. I need to learn to chillax.

The hardest thing in the world for me to do is to listen to that quiet little voice inside my head that speaks the truth.

Why is this? My head is full of other loud voices* that remind me to conform and please others. It’s also full of noisy advertising like: buy a new car or be hip like the cool kids. Or, you should worry about pleasing Mom or make the boss happy. And then there’s also the incessant money, sex, and rock & roll.

I feel like my personal growth for 2008 mostly came about when I do listen to the little voice of truth. My blunders happened when I don’t listen to the voice of truth and cave-in to the louder easier to hear clatter-chatter. (By the way, I would say that blunders are really character building opportunities.)

So what for 2009? Actions and thoughts based on thou-shalts or everyone is doing it is no longer going to cut it. Rather than looking externally for the truth, I shall look inward – and listen to that quiet little voice that knows what I really want. Note that the voice of truth is not necessarily going to give you the same answer as the voice of reason! What you want to do with it is your business, but it is important to acknowledge that truth – no matter how crazy, silly, selfish, boring, exciting. Listening to it lets you move on, and get on with whatever you need to be doing.

There are two ways that I found that works for me to get at the little voice. Method one, I could shut everything down (no music, TV, internet) and just listen; a variant of this is for me to formulate it in a long email to a friend (again sans distraction). Method two, I have someone that I trust throw “hardball” questions at me and I try to “catch” or answer them; the trusted friend should poke hard to ensure that the question has been answered as truthfully and honestly as possible. Method two is kind of like looking in a mirror to see inside ourselves.

The thing is, truth and knowledge really resides in us all this time. My endless reading, web surfing, and listening to people has cluttered my head and made it harder to get to this built-in voice of truth. Probably should cut down or at least be more selective about what I let myself read or listen to; we might deal with media-dieting in a future post.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to wish you all the best, in your quest for love, truth, and happiness for the new year! When in doubt, listen for the little voice.

(*Note: The voices are metaphoric and I really don’t hear-hear them.)