..most philosophers formed the foundation of their main thoughts in their 20's...and ignited an innovative bomb to break through the status quo of intellectual territory (though these breakthroughs are often recognized only later in their lives)...then what? it seemed like most of them spent the rest of their lives refining & articulating their theories and responding to others' arguments...trying to make their theories perfectly logically sound...and less innovative progress...no more innovaitve bombs. they're on defense now.
is it a pity? are those latter works less valuable? who knows?
some bright young kid may be inspired by the summary or after thoughts in their memoirs instead of those "important works" introduced by mainstream textbooks...and that's the "time value" of ideas...
So what after the first bomb? Continue to attack & conquer the innovative front or solidify your fortress?
It doesn't matter as long as you keep your sincerity and someone out there gets inspired.
Saturday 28 February 2009
Friday 27 February 2009
Why we should not rush to stop global warming just yet…
No rubbish, highlights of an article by Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg:
India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently said, “India is very concerned about climate change, but we have to see the issue in the perspective of our imperative to remove poverty so that all Indians can live a life of dignity.”
Climate models show that for at least the rest of this century, China will actually benefit from global warming. Warmer temperatures will boost agricultural production and improve health. The number of lives lost in heat waves will increase, but the number of deaths saved in winter will grow much more rapidly: warming will have a more dramatic effect on minimum temperatures in winter than on maximum temperatures in summer.
…the European Union has made the inevitable, almost ridiculous proposal of bribing developing nations to take part – at a cost of €175 billion annually by 2020.
…Cutting carbon still costs a lot more than the good that it produces. We need to make emission cuts much cheaper so that countries like China and India can afford to help the environment. This means that we need to invest much more in research and development aimed at developing low-carbon energy.
Decades of talks have failed to make any impact on carbon emissions…we need to change direction, end our obsession with reducing emissions, and focus instead on research and development, which would be smarter and cheaper – and would actually make a difference.
John here. It’s the beauty of economics, and it’s how an economist makes meaning.
India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently said, “India is very concerned about climate change, but we have to see the issue in the perspective of our imperative to remove poverty so that all Indians can live a life of dignity.”
Climate models show that for at least the rest of this century, China will actually benefit from global warming. Warmer temperatures will boost agricultural production and improve health. The number of lives lost in heat waves will increase, but the number of deaths saved in winter will grow much more rapidly: warming will have a more dramatic effect on minimum temperatures in winter than on maximum temperatures in summer.
…the European Union has made the inevitable, almost ridiculous proposal of bribing developing nations to take part – at a cost of €175 billion annually by 2020.
…Cutting carbon still costs a lot more than the good that it produces. We need to make emission cuts much cheaper so that countries like China and India can afford to help the environment. This means that we need to invest much more in research and development aimed at developing low-carbon energy.
Decades of talks have failed to make any impact on carbon emissions…we need to change direction, end our obsession with reducing emissions, and focus instead on research and development, which would be smarter and cheaper – and would actually make a difference.
John here. It’s the beauty of economics, and it’s how an economist makes meaning.
Bright Young Talents & banking giants...
An acquaintance who used to work for a world renowned bank once told me his knock-off time was usually 10pm, because he chose to read through the tiny words on all the documents (including internal control manuals) he signed. It was impossible to do that if you want to knock off at 6.
Thanks to such over-prudence he saved himself from many troubles that befell his colleagues. The price? Pretty obvious.
He was a middle-level manager, and I wonder if his boss knew anything about that. Saying “talent is our best asset” is one thing (an easy one), saving them from systematic burn-out and utilizing them wisely is another.
Thanks to such over-prudence he saved himself from many troubles that befell his colleagues. The price? Pretty obvious.
He was a middle-level manager, and I wonder if his boss knew anything about that. Saying “talent is our best asset” is one thing (an easy one), saving them from systematic burn-out and utilizing them wisely is another.
Are problem solvers really what you are looking for?
When you join the crowd to condemn quants who engineered complex financial toxic they themselves did not understand…when you follow the continuous unfolding of this financial Armageddon and acknowledge the wisdom of those who voiced early cautions…
Imagine yourself in their boss’s shoes 5 years back.
Who were the real problem solvers that we all like, admire, and encourage our kids to become?
Who were the real problem solvers that helped you realize the company’s “vision & growth” and “create value for shareholders*”? (to this day I don’t understand what this means)
Who were the arrogant dudes that always threw cold water on your grandeur ambitions?
Who were the arrogant dudes that always got in the way when you were playing target-crashing hero?
Are problem solvers really what you are looking for?
Or, do you know what kind of problems you’ve got at all?
Imagine yourself in their boss’s shoes 5 years back.
Who were the real problem solvers that we all like, admire, and encourage our kids to become?
Who were the real problem solvers that helped you realize the company’s “vision & growth” and “create value for shareholders*”? (to this day I don’t understand what this means)
Who were the arrogant dudes that always threw cold water on your grandeur ambitions?
Who were the arrogant dudes that always got in the way when you were playing target-crashing hero?
Are problem solvers really what you are looking for?
Or, do you know what kind of problems you’ve got at all?
the accomplice to those correlation assumptions...
Came across another assumption/belief that helped brought the financial world to its knees…from a short book introduction by author of Dumb Money Daniel Gross…
“…the concept of a savings glut, arguing that America's twin budget and trade deficits could be traced not to a dearth of American savings but to a glut of foreign savings...Other worthies chimed in that saving money the old-fashioned way was a waste of time because the market was doing the heavy lifting for us. Economists claimed that the government measures of income used to calculate savings—which includes wages and salaries, interest on bonds, and stock dividends but which excluded capital gains on stocks, profits from selling a house, or withdrawals from 401(k) plans—were hopelessly behind the times. "The structure of the household portfolio has changed over time," said David Malpass, chief economist at Bear Stearns, one of the leading exponents of what might be dubbed the theory of Magical Market Savings. In 2004, Malpass found that, thanks to the booming stock and housing markets, the net worth of U.S. households—their assets minus their liabilities—stood at a record $48.54 trillion, up 9.6 percent from 2003 despite sluggish income growth. Why put money aside for a rainy day when your house and the market were doing it for you?”
So one interesting thing about social science is, (more likely than in natural science), whatever we believe is true is often something built on someone else’s guess (or you can call it definition/assumption,etc,etc)…and if you have the authority to replace/redefine the guesses, you can make new truth and, as we can see now, change the reality…
“…the concept of a savings glut, arguing that America's twin budget and trade deficits could be traced not to a dearth of American savings but to a glut of foreign savings...Other worthies chimed in that saving money the old-fashioned way was a waste of time because the market was doing the heavy lifting for us. Economists claimed that the government measures of income used to calculate savings—which includes wages and salaries, interest on bonds, and stock dividends but which excluded capital gains on stocks, profits from selling a house, or withdrawals from 401(k) plans—were hopelessly behind the times. "The structure of the household portfolio has changed over time," said David Malpass, chief economist at Bear Stearns, one of the leading exponents of what might be dubbed the theory of Magical Market Savings. In 2004, Malpass found that, thanks to the booming stock and housing markets, the net worth of U.S. households—their assets minus their liabilities—stood at a record $48.54 trillion, up 9.6 percent from 2003 despite sluggish income growth. Why put money aside for a rainy day when your house and the market were doing it for you?”
So one interesting thing about social science is, (more likely than in natural science), whatever we believe is true is often something built on someone else’s guess (or you can call it definition/assumption,etc,etc)…and if you have the authority to replace/redefine the guesses, you can make new truth and, as we can see now, change the reality…
simple assumptions for this complex mess...
Felix Salmon’s recent article revealed a couple of important assumptions that brought the world of high finance all the way (through crazy soar & fatal crash) to its current state:
- the default risks of complex securities are nothing but constant correlations between the default risks of different underlying loans;
- the (CDS) markets can correctly price default risks (i.e. these correlations).
Highlights of the article:
…an ingenious way to model default correlation without even looking at historical default data. Instead, he used market data about the prices of instruments known as credit default swaps.
…because an unlimited number of credit default swaps can be sold against each borrower, the supply of swaps isn't constrained the way the supply of bonds is, so the CDS market managed to grow extremely rapidly.
When the price of a credit default swap goes up, that indicates that default risk has risen. Li's breakthrough was that instead of waiting to assemble enough historical data about actual defaults, which are rare in the real world, he used historical prices from the CDS market.
...It's hard to build a historical model to predict Alice's or Britney's behavior, but anybody could see whether the price of credit default swaps on Britney tended to move in the same direction as that on Alice. If it did, then there was a strong correlation between Alice's and Britney's default risks, as priced by the market….
…Li wrote a model that used price rather than real-world default data as a shortcut (making an implicit assumption that financial markets in general, and CDS markets in particular, can price default risk correctly).
It was a brilliant simplification of an intractable problem. And Li didn't just radically dumb down the difficulty of working out correlations; he decided not to even bother trying to map and calculate all the nearly infinite relationships between the various loans that made up a pool…
The effect on the securitization market was electric. Armed with Li's formula, Wall Street's quants saw a new world of possibilities. And the first thing they did was start creating a huge number of brand-new triple-A securities. Using Li's copula approach meant that ratings agencies like Moody's—or anybody wanting to model the risk of a tranche—no longer needed to puzzle over the underlying securities. All they needed was that correlation number, and out would come a rating telling them how safe or risky the tranche was.
As a result, just about anything could be bundled and turned into a triple-A bond—corporate bonds, bank loans, mortgage-backed securities, whatever you liked. The consequent pools were often known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. You could tranche that pool and create a triple-A security even if none of the components were themselves triple-A.
The CDS and CDO markets grew together, feeding on each other. At the end of 2001, there was $920 billion in credit default swaps outstanding. By the end of 2007, that number had skyrocketed to more than $62 trillion. The CDO market, which stood at $275 billion in 2000, grew to $4.7 trillion by 2006.
At the heart of it all was Li's formula. When you talk to market participants, they use words like beautiful, simple, and, most commonly, tractable. It could be applied anywhere, for anything, and was quickly adopted not only by banks packaging new bonds but also by traders and hedge funds dreaming up complex trades between those bonds.
"The corporate CDO world relied almost exclusively on this copula-based correlation model," says Darrell Duffie, a Stanford University finance professor who served on Moody's Academic Advisory Research Committee. The Gaussian copula soon became such a universally accepted part of the world's financial vocabulary that brokers started quoting prices for bond tranches based on their correlations. "Correlation trading has spread through the psyche of the financial markets like a highly infectious thought virus," wrote derivatives guru Janet Tavakoli in 2006.
John here. In a layman’s eyes (like mine), it seems magical yet frightening. Piling one ‘informed’ guess (do we call it assumption? Or estimate? Or modeling?) after another, and a perfect storm was built…
- the default risks of complex securities are nothing but constant correlations between the default risks of different underlying loans;
- the (CDS) markets can correctly price default risks (i.e. these correlations).
Highlights of the article:
…an ingenious way to model default correlation without even looking at historical default data. Instead, he used market data about the prices of instruments known as credit default swaps.
…because an unlimited number of credit default swaps can be sold against each borrower, the supply of swaps isn't constrained the way the supply of bonds is, so the CDS market managed to grow extremely rapidly.
When the price of a credit default swap goes up, that indicates that default risk has risen. Li's breakthrough was that instead of waiting to assemble enough historical data about actual defaults, which are rare in the real world, he used historical prices from the CDS market.
...It's hard to build a historical model to predict Alice's or Britney's behavior, but anybody could see whether the price of credit default swaps on Britney tended to move in the same direction as that on Alice. If it did, then there was a strong correlation between Alice's and Britney's default risks, as priced by the market….
…Li wrote a model that used price rather than real-world default data as a shortcut (making an implicit assumption that financial markets in general, and CDS markets in particular, can price default risk correctly).
It was a brilliant simplification of an intractable problem. And Li didn't just radically dumb down the difficulty of working out correlations; he decided not to even bother trying to map and calculate all the nearly infinite relationships between the various loans that made up a pool…
The effect on the securitization market was electric. Armed with Li's formula, Wall Street's quants saw a new world of possibilities. And the first thing they did was start creating a huge number of brand-new triple-A securities. Using Li's copula approach meant that ratings agencies like Moody's—or anybody wanting to model the risk of a tranche—no longer needed to puzzle over the underlying securities. All they needed was that correlation number, and out would come a rating telling them how safe or risky the tranche was.
As a result, just about anything could be bundled and turned into a triple-A bond—corporate bonds, bank loans, mortgage-backed securities, whatever you liked. The consequent pools were often known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. You could tranche that pool and create a triple-A security even if none of the components were themselves triple-A.
The CDS and CDO markets grew together, feeding on each other. At the end of 2001, there was $920 billion in credit default swaps outstanding. By the end of 2007, that number had skyrocketed to more than $62 trillion. The CDO market, which stood at $275 billion in 2000, grew to $4.7 trillion by 2006.
At the heart of it all was Li's formula. When you talk to market participants, they use words like beautiful, simple, and, most commonly, tractable. It could be applied anywhere, for anything, and was quickly adopted not only by banks packaging new bonds but also by traders and hedge funds dreaming up complex trades between those bonds.
"The corporate CDO world relied almost exclusively on this copula-based correlation model," says Darrell Duffie, a Stanford University finance professor who served on Moody's Academic Advisory Research Committee. The Gaussian copula soon became such a universally accepted part of the world's financial vocabulary that brokers started quoting prices for bond tranches based on their correlations. "Correlation trading has spread through the psyche of the financial markets like a highly infectious thought virus," wrote derivatives guru Janet Tavakoli in 2006.
John here. In a layman’s eyes (like mine), it seems magical yet frightening. Piling one ‘informed’ guess (do we call it assumption? Or estimate? Or modeling?) after another, and a perfect storm was built…
Tuesday 24 February 2009
what if you were right?
...if you wonder why everybody else is thinking and acting stupid, while your own ideas are also regarded by 'them' as utterly stupid...don't balk...chances are you are right...though people will torture you with unprincipled share of pressure & prejudice & discrimination & inequality...until the system blows up...only then will we see more people come out and tell how they felt the same way as you did but thought they're wrong (or they're afraid of peer pressure) & keep quiet...lesson: we are all easily blinded by the given existing 'right' (so we were told) system and bury our common sense...
what if we had all voiced our doubts...? will we do that in future? will our voices be taken seriously?
No matter what Our answer is, it'll be a self-fulfilling prohecy.
what if we had all voiced our doubts...? will we do that in future? will our voices be taken seriously?
No matter what Our answer is, it'll be a self-fulfilling prohecy.
Capitalism 3.0? article highlights
Highlights of Dani Rodrik's article Coming soon - Capitalism 3.0:
Capitalism has no equal when it comes to unleashing the collective economic energies of human societies. That is why all prosperous societies are capitalistic in the broad sense of the term: they are organized around private property and allow markets to play a large role in allocating resources and determining economic rewards. The catch is that neither property rights nor markets can function on their own. They require other social institutions to support them.
The lesson is not that capitalism is dead. It is that we need to reinvent it for a new century in which the forces of economic globalization are much more powerful than before. Just as Smith’s minimal capitalism was transformed into Keynes’ mixed economy, we need to contemplate a transition from the national version of the mixed economy to its global counterpart.
This means imagining a better balance between markets and their supporting institutions at the global level. Sometimes, this will require extending institutions outward from nation states and strengthening global governance. At other times, it will mean preventing markets from expanding beyond the reach of institutions that must remain national. The right approach will differ across country groupings and among issue areas.
Related blog post here.
Capitalism has no equal when it comes to unleashing the collective economic energies of human societies. That is why all prosperous societies are capitalistic in the broad sense of the term: they are organized around private property and allow markets to play a large role in allocating resources and determining economic rewards. The catch is that neither property rights nor markets can function on their own. They require other social institutions to support them.
The lesson is not that capitalism is dead. It is that we need to reinvent it for a new century in which the forces of economic globalization are much more powerful than before. Just as Smith’s minimal capitalism was transformed into Keynes’ mixed economy, we need to contemplate a transition from the national version of the mixed economy to its global counterpart.
This means imagining a better balance between markets and their supporting institutions at the global level. Sometimes, this will require extending institutions outward from nation states and strengthening global governance. At other times, it will mean preventing markets from expanding beyond the reach of institutions that must remain national. The right approach will differ across country groupings and among issue areas.
Related blog post here.
Capitalism 3.0? My guess...
Dani Rodrik’s article on the coming Capitalism 3.0 (Capitalism 1.0 be Smith’s “minimal capitalism” & 2.0, Keynes’ “mixed economy”) was a good read. My understanding is, in face of the current crisis and an uncertain future for capitalism, he suggested ‘national-global’ dimension an important one to consider while fixing Capitalism, so as to adapt to new landscape of globalization, and to achieve a better balance between state and free markets.
But I just have doubt with the word ‘balance’.
Are we going to solve a new problem with the old way of thinking? Is it still the ‘balancing’ of state intervention and free markets in the economy(ies)? Is there a ‘right equilibrium’ for this?
We need more imagination and experiments.
My guess is, a government will become less and less like a government as we know it. So will business. So will NGOs. The underlying reality & assumptions have been shifting for a long time without our conscious & open acknowledgment. It’s no longer ‘state provides infrastructure and rules the businesses’, ‘only businesses are market players’, ‘NGOs do not make money’ that kind of things. There will be any imaginable kind of partnership and even eventual integration of these organizations when there are common benefits at stake.
And we will eventually get used to it.
But I just have doubt with the word ‘balance’.
Are we going to solve a new problem with the old way of thinking? Is it still the ‘balancing’ of state intervention and free markets in the economy(ies)? Is there a ‘right equilibrium’ for this?
We need more imagination and experiments.
My guess is, a government will become less and less like a government as we know it. So will business. So will NGOs. The underlying reality & assumptions have been shifting for a long time without our conscious & open acknowledgment. It’s no longer ‘state provides infrastructure and rules the businesses’, ‘only businesses are market players’, ‘NGOs do not make money’ that kind of things. There will be any imaginable kind of partnership and even eventual integration of these organizations when there are common benefits at stake.
And we will eventually get used to it.
how theoretical physicists affect the way we look at the financial crisis
Despite my great respect for the intelligence and imagination of many theoretical physicists, I’m not able to believe in one assumption (as far as I know) common among them: there’s one universal law/principle/theory that can explain anything & Everything in this universe.
The respectable intellectual souls’ quest for “The 1” over decades and centuries makes beautiful and mind-blowing theories, hypotheses, and stories. I’m just afraid ‘de assumption’is flawed.
Let’s look at a popular belief at this moment: a better/ comprehensive/ global regulatory framework can save us from the current mess for good. For politicians, promoting such belief may just be some political expediency; for us average citizens, if you believe in this, the root may trace back to Sir Isaac Newton, no matter how critical you are of the academia.
update: well, maybe we owe this old assumption to some ancient philosopher...
The respectable intellectual souls’ quest for “The 1” over decades and centuries makes beautiful and mind-blowing theories, hypotheses, and stories. I’m just afraid ‘de assumption’is flawed.
Let’s look at a popular belief at this moment: a better/ comprehensive/ global regulatory framework can save us from the current mess for good. For politicians, promoting such belief may just be some political expediency; for us average citizens, if you believe in this, the root may trace back to Sir Isaac Newton, no matter how critical you are of the academia.
update: well, maybe we owe this old assumption to some ancient philosopher...
Big Picture Thinking: another interpretation
What if there are only 23 seconds of the game left and you are 40 points behind? What if there are 1600 pages not yet read just one day before your certification exam? What if you still got 5 analysis reports to do just 1 hour before the meeting?
Don’t give up.
Don’t expect a miracle either.
Enjoy every single second left on the court, still give 100% to your passing & shooting & rebounding, Play the game like it’s your last.
Just sit down and read, one point at a time, and Learn the stuff.
Start with your first report, do Think and analyze when you put together those graphs & data.
There’s so much more to life than winning games, passing exams, and pleasing your bosses. Instead of freaking out and rushing mindlessly in such situation, why not actually put your Heart into it and just Do the thing (and Learn something from it)? Often then the path becomes clear, and if you are lucky, you begin to see the making of a miracle.
Don’t give up.
Don’t expect a miracle either.
Enjoy every single second left on the court, still give 100% to your passing & shooting & rebounding, Play the game like it’s your last.
Just sit down and read, one point at a time, and Learn the stuff.
Start with your first report, do Think and analyze when you put together those graphs & data.
There’s so much more to life than winning games, passing exams, and pleasing your bosses. Instead of freaking out and rushing mindlessly in such situation, why not actually put your Heart into it and just Do the thing (and Learn something from it)? Often then the path becomes clear, and if you are lucky, you begin to see the making of a miracle.
Sunday 22 February 2009
El Sistema Rocks
"After all this time here, music is life. Nothing else. Music is life."
Just go check out these Venezuelan teenage musicians in T-shirts...they are going to rock your soul...
And if you still got time, go check out Jose Antonio Abreu's TED Prize acceptance speech here.
Just go check out these Venezuelan teenage musicians in T-shirts...they are going to rock your soul...
And if you still got time, go check out Jose Antonio Abreu's TED Prize acceptance speech here.
"People want to Be Allowed to be Virtuous"
The first mind-blower, from Barry Schwartz's '09 TED talk, after AIS's latest "soul-searching" (the more precise missions of this weblog as well as the new layout have just been finalized).
Quotes:
"a wise person knows...when and how to make the exception to every rule...when and how to improvise...how to use these moral skills in pursuit (service) of the right aims...to serve, not manipulate the people..."
"...moral skill is chipped away by overreliance on rules...prices are the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisation...moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing..."
"...(on scripted curricula) scripts like these are insurance policies against disaster, and they prevent disaster, but what they assure is in place is mediocrity"
"...there isn't a formula to tell you how to get the people behind you, because different people in different communities organize their lives in different way..."
John here, same logic, Great Leaders are not about "skills" or formulas...they're about Hearts that really care and reach their people...
"people want to be allowed to be virtuous"
Why Barry's video got 450+ 5-star rating on youtube? Because he spoke our minds out loud (yeah speak our minds & justify our wondering out loud! This is exactly the reason Tom Peters and Seth Godin rock...)! We all(or many of us) know this system sucks and there are other ways that make more sense...yet we're still stuck in this system because...before the message is articulated and shot through the stifling air...before we unite and start a movement...as individuals we often have to take care of our own a** first (and now times are tough,man)...
"People want to Be Allowed to be Virtuous"...my interpretation based on real-life experience: we want to do moral things,sometimes it means sacrificing personal interests for noble reasons, we want to do it and then stand up proud & feel good about ourselves...while in reality (well i said this system sucks),moral choice often means being accused of rule-breaking, or financially punished, or misunderstood as hypocrites...
...and I'd call this "moral incentive"...
All these while I've believed the solutions to our world's challenges are incremental adjustments (through bold experiments) to build up more incentive-compatible mechanisms...I still do...great thanks to Barry's talk that shed light on the importance of Moral Incentives...
Quotes:
"a wise person knows...when and how to make the exception to every rule...when and how to improvise...how to use these moral skills in pursuit (service) of the right aims...to serve, not manipulate the people..."
"...moral skill is chipped away by overreliance on rules...prices are the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisation...moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing..."
"...(on scripted curricula) scripts like these are insurance policies against disaster, and they prevent disaster, but what they assure is in place is mediocrity"
"...there isn't a formula to tell you how to get the people behind you, because different people in different communities organize their lives in different way..."
John here, same logic, Great Leaders are not about "skills" or formulas...they're about Hearts that really care and reach their people...
"people want to be allowed to be virtuous"
Why Barry's video got 450+ 5-star rating on youtube? Because he spoke our minds out loud (yeah speak our minds & justify our wondering out loud! This is exactly the reason Tom Peters and Seth Godin rock...)! We all(or many of us) know this system sucks and there are other ways that make more sense...yet we're still stuck in this system because...before the message is articulated and shot through the stifling air...before we unite and start a movement...as individuals we often have to take care of our own a** first (and now times are tough,man)...
"People want to Be Allowed to be Virtuous"...my interpretation based on real-life experience: we want to do moral things,sometimes it means sacrificing personal interests for noble reasons, we want to do it and then stand up proud & feel good about ourselves...while in reality (well i said this system sucks),moral choice often means being accused of rule-breaking, or financially punished, or misunderstood as hypocrites...
...and I'd call this "moral incentive"...
All these while I've believed the solutions to our world's challenges are incremental adjustments (through bold experiments) to build up more incentive-compatible mechanisms...I still do...great thanks to Barry's talk that shed light on the importance of Moral Incentives...
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Be Yourself?
How do you know if you are being "who you are"?
Can you give a Really Precise answer and/or reply with a Sketch and/or simply Act it out right here right now?
Can you give a Really Precise answer and/or reply with a Sketch and/or simply Act it out right here right now?
Friday 13 February 2009
before imagination & creatitivity...
The most unbelievably amazing and memorable moments in a trip are usually those out-of-plan surprises not originally planned on the itinerary...
...the unknown path may lead you to a culture's origin...the flight delay may send you a lifelong partner...a whimsical midnight hike in late winter may turn out to be a life-changing experience...etc etc...
Realizing this...sometimes people can go too far in search of such experiences...planning a trip (or a life)with only wild crazy imagination and lots of creativity but no realistic plans & projections...unaware that out-of-plan events can happen only when there's a plan in the first place...
A plan and a pre-determined destination is usually not where we want and will settle in the end, as we travelers as well as the situation constanty change on the journey. However we need the plan and a tentative 'destination' to kick start our bold journey. For some people, it may help to start with something (e.g. a blue print for life) somewhat modest and realistic, then...while learning and exploring on the way...gradually enriching & extending & distorting & coloring & 3D-ing that blueprint with new ideas & imagination & random impromptu bold moves...
...the unknown path may lead you to a culture's origin...the flight delay may send you a lifelong partner...a whimsical midnight hike in late winter may turn out to be a life-changing experience...etc etc...
Realizing this...sometimes people can go too far in search of such experiences...planning a trip (or a life)with only wild crazy imagination and lots of creativity but no realistic plans & projections...unaware that out-of-plan events can happen only when there's a plan in the first place...
A plan and a pre-determined destination is usually not where we want and will settle in the end, as we travelers as well as the situation constanty change on the journey. However we need the plan and a tentative 'destination' to kick start our bold journey. For some people, it may help to start with something (e.g. a blue print for life) somewhat modest and realistic, then...while learning and exploring on the way...gradually enriching & extending & distorting & coloring & 3D-ing that blueprint with new ideas & imagination & random impromptu bold moves...
It's not about Obama, though
Read a criticism on Mr. Obama...
"...He came in with a huge amount of political capital, with the freedom to propose bold moves that might take control of events. And yet he is clearly letting events take control of him..."
...maybe as a politician he's got his difficulty...for those of us who aren't politicians...think about this: everyday, do we take control of events around us or are we letting the events around us control our lives?
N
othing new. Enough people talked about this already. Just another cliche reminder just in case you need it...
Live a purposeful life, squeeze at least 5 mins a day to clear and calm our minds, and listen to the compass within us...reach out to it...follow it...every move a component of a purposeful life...and take control of the events around us...
Bonus quote:
"Every moment is another chance" - from movie '8 mile'
"...He came in with a huge amount of political capital, with the freedom to propose bold moves that might take control of events. And yet he is clearly letting events take control of him..."
...maybe as a politician he's got his difficulty...for those of us who aren't politicians...think about this: everyday, do we take control of events around us or are we letting the events around us control our lives?
N
othing new. Enough people talked about this already. Just another cliche reminder just in case you need it...
Live a purposeful life, squeeze at least 5 mins a day to clear and calm our minds, and listen to the compass within us...reach out to it...follow it...every move a component of a purposeful life...and take control of the events around us...
Bonus quote:
"Every moment is another chance" - from movie '8 mile'
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