How has past experienced affected my decision making capabilities? In the forum I heard people talking about how sour their relationship with their families. How they’ve had prejudice opinions to their partners; these opinions which are formed because of the past experience, then, act as a mental barrier between them. So whatever the other parties are trying to say, they can’t get the real message through. At that point, that was clear to me that a person’s past experiences can act as a hindrance for them when moving on to a new level of life. In my life, sometimes, this happens.

To realise that we have options, and to live the consequences from the options that we take, those are two statements that I’ve learned in the last couple of years. I am glad that there is a pool of people here in this small island that shares the same opinion as me. In this country, to tell people that they have options is rather hard to do.

I had numerous conversations with taxi driver, and I could only remember less than 5 taxi drivers that spoke highly of their lives. There was one taxi driver that I could not forget. He said he drove the taxi because he was bankrupt. He put a smile in his face when he said that. He told me, “Young man, I’ve lived a very meaningful life. I celebrated when I succeeded, and had no regrets when I failed”. I was impressed. If I become a taxi driver, I would like to tell my passenger my kind of story and put a smile in my face at the same time.
I was rather surprised that there were plenty of sharing in the forum. People are very open. They’re still friendly, even after the event. Again, that’s a rare quality in Singapore. One of the things I hate about the people here in general is that they’re somewhat reserved. There are these kinds of thoughts hanging in the air, “I don’t want to speak up if I don’t have a wonderful idea”, “I don’t know you, why should I share my things with you”, “Speaking out meaning I’ll be the center of attention. I don’t want to.”

I shared my piece of story last night with these people. From that piece of story, I told them that I’m in the middle of a junction of different decisions. In the end of the story, I thought I knew the answer already. But I know this early morning, my mind is not sure about the answer that I wanted to take. That makes me confused again. I throw a question back to myself, what do I really want in my life.
The process of making a decision is hard, not only in business world but also in real life. But what is easy is to live up with that decision. And that’s the art that I’m trying to master.

In my previous entry, I wrote a theory about marriage which explains a man doesn’t want to be forgotten. To receive enough attention, I guess, is the nature of every living being. I think it’s a natural instinct. Just like my sister’s baby. She cries a lot, but when my sister picks her up, puts the baby on her arms, and starts attending the baby, the little cute creature will be quiet again.

Nobody wants to be forgotten, neither do I. Sometimes, for a man, it’s not manly enough if he says, “I need attention”, or “Thank you for being attentive to me”. So what he does is to give it back. He gives back his attention to the person that he values the most. That’s him being thankful.

I don’t know what I’m rambling about. I can see here that my writing skill has diminished a little bit. But I’m sure that it will be back.

(Mohammad Hatta, dikutip dari tulisan berjudul “sosiologi Budaya ‘Malas’ dan ‘Rajin’ di

Nusantara” karya Waruno Mahdi)

“Orang Barat sangat mengmoekakan hasil. Hasil ditaroknja dimoeka, laloe ia berichtiar mentjapai hasil jang sebesar-besarnja jang dikehendakinja itoe dengan membanting tenaganja jang ada…. Orang Timoer mengemoekakan tenaga. Tenaga ditaroknja dimoeka, dan dengan tenaga jang paling sedikit terpakai hendak digapainja hasil jang sebesar-besarnja. Ia sedikit menggoenakan tenaga, sebab itoe hasil jang mungkin ditjapainja dengan tenaga jang sedikit itoe sedikit poela djumlahnja.”

You’re right, my friend. The sun never waits and I’ve gotta pick my lazy bum off the chair.

There are two paths of railways which are branches of a single railway. The first path is the usual path in which the train always takes. The second path is no longer used, but it’s still working. A bunch of boys playing at the first path of the railway, and there’s a good boy trying to tell them not to play there; they’re not supposed to play there at the first place. But the boys ignore him and continue playing. This good boy has no choice but to play at the second path, alone.

A train comes with a high speed, and you’re holding the handle to direct the train to the first or second path. Which direction would you choose?

D mentions he’s gonna direct the train to the 2nd path as there will be less victims.

Relating it back to the terrorist activities, he mentions that terrorists shouldn’t use violence to push their ideologies. That’s not acceptable. They should use a more non-violent and educated ways which are gonna sacrifice less victims. Clearly, people at large don’t like this situation where they have to live in fears, or they have to live in the society which is filled by fears though themselves don’t feel anything.
For me, I think the reasons why terrorists or hardliners are doing it that way is because they are “desperate”.

They are desperate because their enemy, for example US is too strong and nobody dares to step up to the plate to challenge her. Not even the UN.

They are desperate because nobody listens to them. The extremist group in southern Thailand started to behead monks because they want media coverage to go BIG.

They are desperate because they want people to follow their ideas while they don’t want to understand or at least listen to other people thoughts.

Yes, there’s always a dominant player one at a time on the face of the earth. Remember the Roman empire? What about England and its Navy which conquered seven seas? And Germany with its military prowess under Hitler which defeated almost the whole Europe?

Now it’s US’ era, and they are enjoying it and trying to maintain their position up there. We’ll just wait and see, who’s gonna be the next dominant player. Is that gonna be China, India, United Asia, Muslim hardliners?

I, myself, don’t know who it will be. But one thing that I am sure, revolutions to change the status quo always come with sacrifice. And human lives are part of it.

It’s been almost 2 years since I graduated from univ. In may 2005, I think I was struggling with my final year project. Report writing, paper submission. On top of that, I was busy sending out my resume looking for a job. And it won’t complete without me saying that I received rejections more than receptions.With my extra experience in AIESEC and leadership position in some organizations, I thought I was well armed. But I was wrong. Unless the resume was very exceptional, what the potential employers wanted to see in it was grade; words like First class honours and such. And I’d say that NTU grading system was bullshit, a total bollock.

In may 2006, I was busy socializing. Partying and such. Live like there’s no tomorrow.
May 2007 has been a rugged ride. I started to think about what I want to do, how I should handle things, and such. I started to feel that I am responsible with my own actions. Higher self awareness if I can rephrase it. Hmm… maybe that sounds mundane, but hey… I’ve just got an enlightenment. Thinking about how I can cut the distance, my romance, careers, how I would want to go for a master degree.

I like what Eben Moglen words about how to change the world. There are two things to change the world according to him:

• Know exactly what you want
• Know exactly how to get it

According to John Nash, “An individual’s action depends on what is best for the group and what is best for himself”. I don’t want to change the world yet, so I’ll just change myself first.

You can`t make someone love you, all you can do is be someone who can be loved, the rest is up to the person to realize your worth. We spend too much time looking for the right person to love or finding fault with those we already love, when instead we should be perfecting the love we give.

Free your heart from hatred;
Free your mind from worries;Live simply.
Give more.
Expect less.

My hope for you is that you will finally discover the happiness within you.
When you feel down because you didn`t get what you want, just sit tight and be happy, because I thought of something better to give you. My friendship.
It is like wine, it gets better as it grows older.
When something happens to you, good or bad, consider what it means. There`s a purpose to life`s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry too loud.

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I totally agree with the last sentence, “there’s a purpose to life’s events, to teach you how to laugh more or not to cry out too loud”.

That was what happened to me for 2 hours, inside Airbus crossing Indonesia’s islands. No in-flight entertainment, no one to talk to, no pretty air steward to chat with… so I was by myself. My mind kept asking questions which I couldn’t answer. Constantly battling. When an answer comes, another answer will pop up instantly which will negate the previous thought.

But…. few minutes before landing in Bali, voila… I’ve got the thought which was satisfying. The island is magic. No wonder the island is called, the island of Gods, or an island of a thousand temples.

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I promised to marielle that I’m gonna write something about, Singapore as a handbag society, which the status of a woman can be valued from the handbag she posses. I know naught about handbag, so I need to do a little bit of research before I can write about that.

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Indogroove would be launched, but not so soon yet. I’ve got to find time to do that, otherwise I would procrastinate again and again. Before I know… suddenly peuffff… gone is the opportunity

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I’ve got dental braces and I’ll buy a book: How to Kiss with Braces. Not only that I will read that book, but also I have to start practicing it.

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Oh… OSIM triathlon. Will I die while running or swimming during the competition? If yes, then I would have to start my training sessions from this week.

If we put aside the concept of reincarnation, humans are only life once. Most of the normal people will think that their existence here in this world is important… meaningful. Thus, every single thing they do, they feel that it is a moment worth remembering. One element that makes this situation unique is this:

For example a person named X lives on the face of the earth. X wants his existence in this earth to be acknowledged; He doesn’t want to be forgotten. He needs other persons in order for his life to be remembered. Because of that, he cannot live alone; he needs other human beings.

In a marriage, the other person, let’s name her Y, will swear that she’ll be with X forever. Indirectly, she vows that she’ll be involved in every single thing in X’s life. She promises to remember all things, from BIG (like X is getting promoted, X could conquer mount everest) to small ones (X forgets to tie his shoe laces when going to the office, x is so happy because he can fix the pipe). The other people might remember the BIG achievements that X can do, but for mundane things… it needs a special person to witness that. And in the current society, this special person needs to be tied by a wedding band.

The needs for humans to be acknowledged and remembered as an individual is the reason of marriage. Life is only once, and they want it to be special. They long for attention, they don’t want to be lonely, … and they don’t want to be forgotten. Extend it to the other general events that happening around us then you can see why they happen. For example, web 2.0 booming, Virginia tech Massacre, blogging phenomenon, etc.

Let me focus back to marriage. According to what I mentioned above, and having learned the theory of Simulation in my class, is it fair to say that if X can create an environment that can simulate the function of Y, then X won’t need Y? The environment that I mention here is will consist of many individuals in X’s network. For example:

• If Y can cook very well, X only needs to find some people who can cook, and put them in his social network
• If Y can listen to him grudging everyday, X should find some people/things (like dogs) who won’t complain listening to him every day
• etc

So, this social network which simulated the capabilities of Y should be easily accessible. Everytime X needs something, this so-called ecosystem should be able to provide it in a reasonable amount of time.

Having learned the theory of networked computing, it’s right for me to say that a networked system is more capable than a stand-alone system. Because when one element fails in the networked system, it won’t destroy the whole function of the machine. In this case, the social network that X has built will prove to be more rigid and robust than Y, which is the stand-alone system.

That’s my theory of how to create an ecosystem to replace life partner.