Simulation

Simulation is what computers do best. The most visible simulations are films where stories are made more believable by CGI production and editing. I sold simulation software for cancer treatment. Technical design has been revolutionized by computed simulation shortening product development to manufacturing cycles multi-fold. Quality and innovation have improved too for electronics, lenses, cars, airplanes, appliances....

Now that some tools of life have improved, how we use them and live have made little use of simulation. Thinking allows us to make models of reality, discuss it, change it, design it, question it, improve.... It's how academia operates. Abstract theories guided the invention of physical products where the industrial paradigm has served us for over a Century

Even before computers, smart people used budgets, projections, prototypes, trial and error, mock-ups, tests etc. to simulate something before doing or making it. It's not easy so many people still don't bother and dismiss simulation and modeling as a waste of time.

Not me. I love building models of anything: even institutions, relationships, history, rooms, plans, concepts, ideas, pathways, advantage, value, pictures, stories.... I don't like set plans but models that can adapt and change as things go. It's like a bottom line on which the future is based but not at all set in stone. After all, any mock-up can be erased and restarted with less to lose than the real thing.

With all the ranting I've been doing about new paradigms, how times are changing, institutions are tools instead of standards and change, I still thought my way out is to build a neo-industrial model company. I did not know the needed change would so profound and feel so painful. Old props that made me feel secure (even little things like scheduled meals, meetings, obligations just to make money), were all removed for me. It hurt because I was addicted to the unsubstantiated feeling of acceptance and fulfillment that my addiction gave me.

Some of my dependence on the industrial model of success were so deeply subconscious and subtle that I didn't know I still wanted acknowledgement from those who only want to relate to me based on what I do, how much money I had, or just because it was scheduled and where any personal involvement seemed taboo.

So in my personal doldrums, I was forced to face of all my personal inclinations, reactions, feelings, addictions. I am still experiencing withdrawal symptoms. My difficult time turned out to be a real-life simulation of a path towards personal and creative discovery free from the albatross of institutions.

It is difficult and painful because I was being weaned off of things that are everywhere. To navigate these obstacles and opportunities is only possible when I see the difference between them.

I am off the road ways of industrial highways and on the open waters of information, connectivity and expression that is seeking to replace the value we used to put on material products and over supply.

A Russian diplomat once told me he was "stuck between a jail and the big blue sea" (their version of a "rock and a hard place") because he did not know what to do with the freedom of open waters facing him after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I think I have been facing a simulation of the same problem.

The point of this simulation through difficulty or a trial by water and fire perhaps, is to make me stronger in who I am to face an uncharted, unscheduled, unplanned future: Both frightening and beautiful like an ocean of blue water.

Slow

In Hong Kong or any metropolitan city, the rush hour is iconic and points to energy, money, hard work, vibrancy... Yet innovation, art, beauty, value, design... cannot be hurried. Creating and change feel agonizingly slow and pointless.

My years of financial drought may be nearing an end. The temptation will be to rush around doing as much as possible as if I were in a race to achieve the most in the shortest time. This will work if the methods for progress, innovation and value just involved doing the same things over and over again. But we all know life does not stay the same. 

I learned how to change as a lifestyle and rediscovered that "Work hard. Take chances. Be very bold." is not about hurrying around. That was a movie line that I took with me as I entered adulthood at the end of my high-school years thinking I would face a life of exploration and adventure.

Unlike many of my peers, I am not interested in an empire, a castle or respect. I just want to create, discover and enjoy who I am. I lost that for a while thinking I needed to please some other people and institutions which caused me to impatience, to anxiety, to hopelessness.

I am not born to be a cog (nor even the top-dog-cog) of a machine, or to rush around protecting it. I am not done changing, growing, creating, learning, loving, enjoying that involves slowing down as much as having to adapt quickly when opportunities come. 

The parable of hare and tortoise is not an either-or. We need to slow down to prepare for the sprint needed to seize "quantum leap" moments our lives. If we are running around for the hell of it, we can miss the opportunities that beckon.

Confidence

In a film released when I was 3, "The sound of music", Julie Andrews (who pays Maria) sang "I have confidence in me"  on her way out of the Convent to face a problem family. Even though I was just 8 when I saw it, I knew the song could not possibly create confidence out of nothing.

The main reason for Maria's angst is because leaving the safety and shelter of the convent to face a confirmed difficult family. In fact, things would just get worse as Hitler occupied Austria and the family was forced to flee. Everything they depended on for security crumbled and safety would not be guaranteed as they left home.

This happened to me. After many years of making the most of institutions in my life to learn, live and work, I didn't mind moving on to new modes of working and living. Geography, language, culture were never insurmountable barriers. In fact I loved climbing these fences that threaten to separate us from each other.

Then after my short prison experience, year-long investigation and final acquittal it coincided with middle age, a change in the economy and dissolution of old business models, which all made my quest to find the next institutional refuge unsuccessful. I was like Maria who just couldn't find a way into the monastic life she wanted but was drawn into motherhood on her own.

I looked for help from friends who enjoyed their institutional success but nothing materialized. A word of encouragement would have been nice but I felt like they preferred to ignore my predicament altogether. Perhaps they wonder why at my age, I still had not "succeeded" in climbing a respected institution.

I thought I would just move on to a new job, a new location, a new culture like I had done over and over again to much "success". But after feeling persecuted by religious, legal, medical, business and even cultural institutions despite that I was trying my best to follow their perceived requirements, I was forced to find a new source of confidence.

Illness, misfortune, silence, loneliness all conspired to make me feel inadequate and scared of having no institutional shelter or the prospect of one. I'm not saying I refuse to work in a company or powerful organisation, ever. But I will never work "for" them.

I thought that if the institutions that treated me unfairly failed me, there will be better ones that take over. After years in the doldrums of my life, I discovered that the problem was my security, confidence and faith in the future hung on my success in the institutions in my life. With this attitude, even if I were to create a new business, it could easily take over my life. My hopes and dreams will then be merged with the success of my business.

It's like the haunting from prison had little to with bad memories but my misplaced faith that the institutions that put me there were evil so I needed to escape to a benevolent country, company, people...

Confidence must be rooted in the mystery of my life which needs to be discovered, as Science decodes Nature, philosophy seeks meaning, hearts yearn for love.... This confidence began as the conditions of life that are as rare as winning a lottery, gave us the opportunity to live.

What we end up creating, contributing, achieving cannot be our source of confidence if we want to rise above them. To rest in past success and wanting to reproduce the same thing over and over again is very much related to the industrial paradigm because it is assumed that what worked before must work now.

To embrace what awaits us tomorrow is more related to discovery and creating, than relying on tried and "true" methods of the past. Yes, my confidence is in the mystery of what I do not know because the opportunity to discover the answers will be exciting.

Mystery

There are days when I'm bothered because little things are left unresolved. Even appliance malfunctions, conversations in limbo, waiting for some result, pains and worries all can get us down. Other days even when facing life changing issues, I am filled with confidence.

Today my oven wouldn't turn off and I happen to feel timid at the same time. When I was in prison not knowing when I could get out, I knew I would and felt a boldness despite the fear. I have no idea why. Each one of us is a mystery in that, if you let yourself face the many feelings that used to guide our curiosity, creativity and love like a child again, we realize we really do not know who we are and what moves us.

We are at a juncture of great social-economic change due to the possibilities of the semiconductor, micro-processors and memory. This invention changed the last 50 years of society more quickly than ever in the history of human kind but things are about to change even faster. Can our industrial paradigm of growth, organisation and education adapt fast enough?

A factory is about making the same thing for the masses by the masses. It provided the things that has made every day chores easier so humankind is free do more important things.

This is the premise of the capitalistic driven growth after WWII. To build factories and institutions modeled after them including education, government, banks, retail..... it is assumed that pumping money to those who can build factory-like institutions would make economies of scale and create a perpetual profit machine.

This assumes people are generally satisfied with the same products as others. Only then will our industrial model be profitable enough to support institutions today. The success of this model with the deployment of information technology since the 1970's has made the industrial machine so efficient, we are replacing repetitive work with automatic machines (some of which are called robots, a word that instills fear for many). Many have more free time from chores and repetitive jobs than ever before to do more important things.

The new problem is we don't know what to do with more "free time". The industrial model is so deeply ingrained every segment of society, factories are the default paradigm for management, human resources, education where a person is defined by what you do.

Little emphasis is place on individual performance because the most important thing is the position of someone within the social-management machine. Hierarchy trumps real performance. Protecting the machine seems to be more important than the quality of work and life of each person in the machine. This is taught as the way economies grow and thrive in the industrial model.

Even free time is so viewed. Tour groups take people to see the same sites, shops, eat the same food and enjoy the same things. Sport is an industry where people can enjoy the same competitions in each country as if it were a predestined standard where each player must pay their dues at the chance of a top billing and winning for their team.

Not that all this is bad or evil in themselves. The options for free time are just standardized and offered as manufactured options under predefined rules and answers.

Mystery is seen as an obstacle in industry to be resolved with absolute conclusion like a TV program. Industrial paradigm manufactures multiple choice answers where other options are seen as abnormal and insignificant because "most people" don't want infinite choice.

Solving little understood questions is the essence of innovation. It is what people are born to do just as an infant instinctively explores their world. If we continue to embrace our hunger to explore, understand and create all our lives, innovation will the result.

What the semiconductor did was put logic into machines that react to different input automatically. These machines became smaller, faster and cheaper so quickly that we are carrying powerful programmable ones in our pockets today that used to occupy buildings just 50 years ago.

Yet, unlike the room-sized machines that needed to be reprogrammed for almost every new task using commands and code, we are now presented with applications that we pick and choose like multiple choice. Most users ignore the infinite possibilities event though each smart phone, notebook, tablet, desktop can be reprogrammed to solve any problem you want.

Mystery should be embraced by all humankind and not left for an elite to limit our range of choice due to laziness, incompetence or lack of knowledge. With the existence of "cloud computing" which is just a reservoir of computers that can be expanded ad infintum, capital based investment no longer guarantees growth.

I'm inspired to help build the models of growth that uplift the human spirit and take advantage of the logic machines in the air. The model to replace the industrial one is about intelligence, curiosity, collaboration, quality and more organic growth.

Free time should mean doing anything you like. And we should feel free to uncover this most basic mystery of life: What do I really want?

Sacré

"Le sacré du printemps", "The rite of Spring", "Frühlingsopfers" is the title of the symphony by Stravinsky which is also a dance. In each language different aspects of transcendence and the human response to the Season after Winter is different. It ranges from the sacred, to a tradition, to a sacrifice...

Celebration would be the most unbiased with the meaning behind the "rite" open to each person who observes or participates. The Chinese would use the word worship (拜) as in a temple to one of the many god's available for appeasement or request.

The object is the change from the cold deathly winter for plants to the newness of life in Spring. A resurrection, revival, reboot.... that stirs the frozen earth of extreme Winter with feelings of relief, of hope and warmth. The natural change is expected and can be savored or ignored, celebrated or mourned. It's up to you, how you feel, where you are in life.

There is nothing sacred about seasonal change really. It is wonderful, powerful, artistic, enjoyable, depressing, bothersome, boring, exciting all at once. Nature's art. You can react depending on how you feel. And it is all OK.

We have no control over this Art of Nature. It is important in that we change our lives around it. Yet almost no one discusses how to deal with it, we just do and adjust, reacting to it in any way we want. There is no fighting over what is Spring, how it is interpreted, if we believe it exists, how to respond to it, if you want to worship the Season, or not at all....

How wonderful it would be if we dealt with our institutions (which we can change) with such balance, realism and awe of its mystery. For humanity is just as mysterious as the Seasons, that our current knowledge is insufficient to fully understand, appreciate and develop. The effort to discover what is there rather than try to manipulate each other (peacefully or violently) would be sacred indeed.

Yet the tendency is to protect our temporary institutions as if they were holy, sacred, unchangeable at the expense of what is valuable in life. But nothing we create is meant to be the standard forever, just useful until the are not.

Like nature, our earth, our universe, there are processes that create the rare conditions for life which is sacred because we would not be here except for this chance to live.

Unique

In Whitney's final album, there is a revival theme. But because of addiction and perhaps depression, both she and her daughter passed before their time. Yet the hope of life is there in the art which survives with us who can still enjoy the music and the poetry.

Despite that some do not make it after a hard time (no matter the source of the hardship), their song, their hope and their love (no matter how imperfect) is truth. For it is the projection of our will that causes us to hope, to believe and to love. Whether what is done has wide financial, social or moral effect is not important, because all our lives are finite (famous or not). And any chance of leaving behind meaning is a legacy in the minds and hearts of humans of another generation.

For me, this music has inspired despite that the resonance of Whitney's voice at her peak has passed. The spirit was revived while she sang.

The 2 songs titles are antithesis to each other. The top one says "You'll never be alone" but the bottom one says "On my own" but both are uplifting. How can being alone be both good and bad.

I believe resolving our state of loneliness is the point of life. Maybe our first cry for air, for an embrace, for the source of life is because we feel alone for the first time. We fear death because we must face that moment alone.

In our lifetime, passion can push us to risky, untried ways of living, working, creating, expressing.... Such pioneering implies going on a journey by oneself. On my own. Alone. Unique.

And if you don't
Know by now I cant go back
To being someone else
Not anymore
I never had the chance
To do things my way
So now it's time
For me to take control
And I am not afraid
To try it on my own
I don't care
If I'm right or wrong
I'll live my life the way I feel
No matter what
I'm gonna keep it real, you know
Time for me to do it on my own

Strength

So what makes us strong? Many think muscles. Money comes to mind. A well equipped military perhaps. Status due to popularity, position, awards, respect, fear.... But is this really strength?

Most people wait to grow up, get some of the things mentioned already so they will feel strong or successful. None of these have much to do with humanity or who we are inside when we are all alone. Strength must come first from personal substance before the world around us can be overcome. Get it the other way around, circumstances will drive us from perceived power to desolate weakness.

Even those who proclaim they are strong because of God needs to be careful to define what they mean. Is the god in a box of our making? Or the infinite mystery that the word God implies. 

If a person's potential is great and unknown, then how is it possible to define God and assume our definition is all there is? To rest in our narrow understanding of someone and force the world to follow, would be condescending to a human being let alone the super being the the concept of God entails. Strength is about discovering the mystery of who I am and then who God is, even if you conclude we are all alone in the Universe.

Oh... He gives me
Strength to make it, Strength to take it
I've got the strength to know that
Everything will work out fine
Strength to suffer, Strength to conquer
I've got the strength to know the blessings
Of the Lord are mine
Oh...be strong in the Lord in the power of
His might
Know in your heart every battle He will
Fight
Oh...
My strength
(Strength in my darkest hour)
(He is my strong tower)
(Strength to know you're coming soon)
(I know your strength can be renewed)
Be strong, you be strong
I was strengthened in my spirit when
He spoke to me
No more fear, I have peace
Who the Son sets free, I know clearly is
Free indeed
Oh...
My strength
(Wait on Him, He's coming soon)
(I know your strength can be renewed)
(Strengthen my spirit, my inner man)
(He upholdeth me with His hand)
Oh... He gives me strength
(I can win a soul) I can do it
(I can reach my goal) I can do that, too
(I can keep the victory) I can do it
(For the oil of God's on me) I can do that, too
(If He tells me to wait) I can do it
(I've got the strength to obey) I can do that, too
(I can do it, yeah) I can do it

Deceived

Jonathan Butler kills it with this live performance of "Lies". I especially like the saxophone lady whose playing seemed to be tell off the liar in the song. Then there is CeeLo Green's Forget you (the "clean" version of the song). One celebrates and the other more to the point.

The lying I'm talking about is about me. I thought some were my friend whom I still remember fondly, rejected or ignored me for good reason (perhaps but that) was never revealed to me. It hurt that I still miss them. My lie is that I still think of them as my friend although the silence says otherwise.

Then there are my eccentricities, my abnormalities and mistakes that add up make me believe the lie. I thought it was pointlessness to dwell on times past but they the scars came back to haunt me after my recent trauma and misfortune. The doldrums forced me to see I was wrong to accept the judgment of normalcy. It's hard when everyone around you seems similar and I'm the odd one out when it feels like I failed.

Failure is the worst lie. I only fail at the standards I to which I subscribe. Cancel the subscription, and I'm good to move one.

Like the songs above, expressing what is pent up inside, helps me to let go of the judgement and see what is really important. Life goes on.

Relief

Before the primal sounding female singers became cool, this 1991 song "Pressure Pt. 1" almost screams "I need relief" and vents in a storm of Ahs, mesmerizing rhythms, chants, Ohs, more primal sounds, proclaiming the need to be relieved from the "pressures of the world" and then calms down a little while testifying someone is there to carry the load. Part 2 was in my last post.

This kind of music is rare in East Asia where the Chinese word to hold-in, to bear it, to tolerate: 忍 (the Japanese use it as the first character in ninja) makes venting a negative thing especially in men. This is reflected in music where such primal sounds, are avoided as being over the top and embarrassing. Pity.

We were made to cry, to shout, to scream, to mourn, to be silent, to laugh, to express ourselves in the primal crying that signals the first signs of healthy living the moment of human birth. Yet for social acceptance, we choose the hide our true feelings. It may save us from feeling shame in the crowd but the pressure that builds can explode at a later time causing more damage.

My family takes exception in that we don't hold back much of our personal pressure so we tend to work through problems. Yet when prison, an oppressive investigation (despite an acquittal), the fear mongering whenever I was contacted made me feel without recourse and near hopelessness except to escape.

Although my life returned to normal, my fear stayed with me. Seemingly for the first time in my life, all setbacks felt like a judgement on me personally. All inadequacies, bad comments I hear and incomplete tasks seemed to make me feel less valuable. So I just thought to live everyday the same, with no waves, would guarantee my fear would not return.

What is recorded in my blogs are feelings when everything I tried to get out of my situation seemed to fail, including those I thought were friends. Opportunities seemed to be no where. It felt like the darkest time personally, putting all my achievements and learning into doubt.

It was during my despair that new friends appeared, the best place I've lived in, new ideas, a patent filing, knowing what I wanted in life and finally, the end of my fear.

Even before my 18 days in a Chinese prison, I had an image of a window with the Sun shining through high above. It turned out to be a window in the large cell for 20 prisoners with a 3 story high ceiling. Lights always on and the afternoon Sun would stare down on us.

My fear caused me to see it like an eye of judgement. Yesterday, the condemnation disappeared. I felt like life had my back, more securely than before.

Because of the darkness and a drought on hope of the past years, I feel stronger, more alive and prepared for whatever the future holds.

Relief from the pressure of fear and having to hide. Finally.

Pressure

Pressure is about tension. It happens when equilibrium cannot be sustained. This is true in the physical world and our psychology. When the world seems to want us to change, our resistance causes pressure. Many choose to give in and live comfortably within predefined limits or social acceptance, some will rebel and others will seek to change it.

My last long-winded blog post is about how we give the power of institutions too much power over our lives. It is very complicated because there are so many obligations in life. Happy people manage to find the correct equilibrium among work, finance, relationship, leisure, service and rest, as they learn about their passion in life.

It begins with knowing who I am and testifying to that truth to everyone we love, nurture those relationships what make us grow and simplify the obligations institutions have on us. The focus on the bigger picture that being human trumps the role we take on is always a struggle. But only then will we have a chance to progress.

Institutional

Mainstream or banal journalism which is common in many democratic societies tends to see an issue or the world as "socio-cultural binary of "us" and "them"". I think we can agree this way of seeing the world by picking sides makes issues easier to understand, even though we equally suspect life is never black and white but consists of many colors. Over-simplification will please the crowds but it is dangerous for finding truth.

By picking a side, we choose to align ourselves with some group be it a country, team, company, family, race, religion, clique, fan club... whatever... and see anyone outside as unimportant or in opposition; it is using the binary optic to view life. If binary vision is dangerous in journalism, I think inhumanity comes from such arbitrary classifications that ignores the many possibilities that humanity could enjoy, if we dare to accept each other's "eccentricities".

The very alignments that may make life less confusing will also imprison us to the limits of such prejudices. I call all groups to which we choose to belong: institutions. They are human creations based on a similar understanding as simple as following someone to adhering to a set of written statements. Even the role of father or mother, male or female are institutions defined by social norms and ingrained presumptions. Being a parent can be very fulfilling but this role is not all that a person can be, despite the miracle of birth and growing in children.

There are of course bad parents and broken families, though evil is not what comes to mind when we become a father or mother. While it is easy to say fascism is evil, or totalitarianism or some religion or a political party... may be good or evil depending on which side we belong, if this binary view of institutions is true, it would mean perfection once we get rid of the opposition: "them". We wish life would be like a Halloween movie where the evil entity can be destroyed so the hero ("us") can live happily ever after.

But despite that fascism lost the war 70 years ago, we are still dealing with fascist elements everywhere. We call them by different names but the evil we fear continues. 

Hong Kong got it's civil awakening last year in 78 days of occupation of 3 major roads. Many are now socially and politically galvanized, calling the opposing camp evil. Everywhere, religion, race, income, opportunity, politics, nationhood and even gender continue to separate humanity into unimportant definitions when compared to the potential to which we are born.

The common denominator in humans is to create institutions to define our place in society. These contrived groupings are useful when we remember they were made by us and not some absolute law of the land. We are free to change how we live and change the parameters that define our role in relation to others, thereby redefining institutions. 

But when what we made become the object of our desire, our protection, our life instead of discovering the mystery of our unlimited potential as the human race... Therein lies evil. To be defined by something other than humanity will yield injustice, oppression, war, bitterness, unforgiveness.

No wonder the word institutionalized is negative. Yet most live according to institutional values without thinking about what it really means to be human.