Ian On The Red Dot

Richard Feynman learns how to get a girl to sleep with him:

“under no circumstances be a gentleman! You must disrespect the girls. Furthermore, the very first rule is, don’t buy a girl anything — not even a package of cigarettes — until you’ve asked her if she’ll sleep with you, and you’re convinced that she will, and that she’s not lying.”

It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that I somehow reached a similar conclusion that such a brilliant man arrived at:

So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.

Saw this tweet:

Unemployment is always caused by global factors, but employment gains are always due to the Resilience Package. Huat ah!

My government’s view on their contribution (and sometimes lack of) to Singapore mirrors that of my father (admittedly this is unfair to him):

When I did well in school:

Father (to friends): My son did well in school. Scored all distinctions.

When I did something wrong:

Father (to mother): Your son is late again. He doesn’t know how to be punctual.

Thanks to the awesome Pat Law, I got a chance to interview Irene Ang for SGEntrepreneurs.

While preparing the interview and doing research on Singapore theatre luminaries like Goh Boon Teck, I remembered a play that struck a very deep emotional chord within me when I first saw it – Lao Jiu by Kuo Pao Kun.

Will he let his family down? Are their aspirations his own? Torn between reality and dreams, modernity and tradition, Lao Jiu is determined to find his destiny.

It is funny how things tend to come full circle …

We have become blind to progress:

Louis CK being interview by Conan – ‘Everything is so amazing and nobody is happy.’

Why are you so terribly disappointing?

What happened to my bonus? What happened to my job? What happened to my country? Why can’t it all go the way it’s supposed to go? You mean having a kid won’t solve my marriage problems? Why don’t these drugs make me feel better? Where’s that goddamn waiter with my salad? Have you seen the stupid weather today? Is this really all there is?

Maybe this, then, is the ultimate upshot of our endless, self-wrought swirl of sour disappointment, of never having our impossible needs fully met, of constantly being thwarted in our desire to have the world revolve around our exact set of specifications and desires.

Our disappointment begins to curdle, to turn back on itself, poison the heart, turn us nasty and low. It shifts from merely being a national mood or general temperament, into a way of being. A wiring, deep and harmful and permanent. It’s all very disappointing, really.

Guys show love to each other by making fun of each other.

Harmless ribbing.

Three rules:

1: Don’t go for the jugular. When friends rib each other, they know not to go for a weak spot.

2: Don’t rib the other person to make yourself feel better or feel superior.

3: Spread the ribbing love.

If you are a victim of male ribbing, and,

1. Someone keeps going for the jugular, then know that he is a dick. Feel free to whack back. Everyone has a weakness. Use it. Find the green kryptonite and shove it up his ass.

2. If he is ribbing to make himself feel better – pity him. OR refer to rule 1. He is trying to establish a food-chain. No mercy.

3. If the love is being shared, don’t be sensitive. If the love isn’t being shared then:

a. If the whole group is ribbing you only, time to leave the group.
b. If only that guy is focusing fire on you, time to mobilize the group to whack him, but remember, if you are lower on the food chain this may potentially be fatal to your status in the group. If you’re not confident in your status in the group, then refer to rule 1.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

A couple of minutes ago, Christmas ended. It felt like a non-event.

Slightly more than 24 hours earlier, the Christmas celebrations started with a dinner with the girlfriend’s friends. Is it a problem that after all these years, it is still my friends and her friends instead of our friends? It is almost like we are preparing for a separation.

That’s your book. Ok, this is my CD. Yup, you can keep the dog. Ok, these are my friends. You can keep Jane. I’m glad to be rid of her.

Christmas eve dinner with friends followed by watching 2012.

When did that happen?

What happened to the drunken night of debauchery with nubile virgins stuck in a manger?

When did I give up excess for a night of nothing?

Christmas morning started lazy and painless enough. No throbbing headaches. No pressure to rush off to church to thank God for sending his beloved son to die for us so that our sins might be forgiven only if we accept his generous mercy, repent, and accept him as the awesome creator of this fine world we live in. Talk about no conditions.

Then I got a call from my Project Manager, “we have a severity one issue with the production system.”

Immediately my heart goes out to my wallet, sorry for the bonus it will never get to see. I had to rush down to the office to get something fixed. There goes my Christmas, totally lost to work.

And I was happy.

I was happy because now the day had purpose. I was going to be fixing something rather than spending time with the girlfriend at home doing nothing.

I was happy because now the day had purpose. Instead of praising an absentee God for a son whose work I never got to see nor will ever see, I was actually spending the day doing something which would produce a tangible effect.

Then what’s wrong?

Why am I feeling something is missing?

And why am I remembering what happened 10 years ago – the staying over at a friend’s place (vaguely remembering this was after watching ‘American Pie’) followed by the rushing to church to perform in a play for the morning’s service.

Something is missing and I think I’ve to go find it.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

said by Salvor Hardin in “Foundation“.

I have been using a variation of the above quote when describing the behavior of noob players in DOTA.

Vulgarities is the last bastion of the defeated.

A long time ago, after a chat with Rambling Librarian ( who had an awesome presentation at barcampsg3 ) I was reminded that if an idea was a good one, a lucid articulation of that idea will get the point effectively across.

Vulgarities is not needed for any sort of ‘impact’.

So, I’m going to reduce the amount of vulgarities spewed on this blog.

Whenever you think you understand how the world works, when you think your perception of the world is correct, it is important to realize the role of the observer. The observer by the act of observing changes things.

When I hear newly weds (or those soon to be married) discuss red packets at weddings, I get the distinct impression that to them, red packets and by extension the guests, are a means to cover cost. Now, is that how these couples feel, or is it just merely how I think they feel.

I know how I got the impression although I can’t remember whose wedding led to the impression. Many many years ago, I was invited to a wedding. Last minute. Like a few days before the wedding. When I attended the wedding, I was stuck at a table with strangers. The wedding was just one whole going through the motions charade.

Stand up to welcome couple. Sit down. Wait for first course. Watch video montage of photos. Eat a few more courses. Stand up for the couple’s second entrance. Toast the couple. Hear best man say a few words. Hear the speech from the groom. Eat a little more. Take photo with couple. Eat a little more. Walk out main entrance shaking the hands of the parents and the couple.

Singaporean weddings are so standardized that it would make Henry Ford proud.

I shared the incident of the last-minute wedding with some friends and the consensus was that I was a third-tier friend, invited only because a space opened up and the couple didn’t want to waste a slot (i.e. pay for an empty seat).

And so I developed a cynicism that activated each time I got a wedding invitation. Was I being invited because the couple genuinely wanted me there. Or was I a last minute inclusion because a more important friend couldn’t make it. Had they initially wanted me at the wedding but I was excluded because of space constraints and now they were more than happy that they could include me. Or was I there to make sure they didn’t get one less red packet.

You would think that I would know the strength of my own friendships with my friends to not be bugged by such questions. And it is true. For most weddings I’ve been invited to, I knew the reason I was invited and going – to celebrate an important occasion with friends I love.

But the questions became relevant when I started wondering why other people were at these weddings. Did my friends invite them because of their parents? Was it because the use of the ballroom demanded that a certain number of tables be filled? Were these extra tables subsidizing the couple’s desire to have a wedding in a ballroom at a specific hotel?

The thought process that goes through my head when deciding the amount to put into a red packet.

1. He/She is a good friend. I really want to give an amount to bless them.
2. But hey, don’t you remember, red packets are really just about covering cost (this is my arguably flawed perception of the thinking occurring in the minds of people getting married).
3. So what’s the cost of a table?
4. Ok, I’ll just give my share.
5. But wait, he/she is a good friend.
6. Ok, so I give enough to cover my cost and a little more.
7. Wait, can I afford to give enough to cover both the cost and the blessing?

The continuation of the above thought process is linked to how I see people react when they realize they didn’t get a red packet from a guest or that the guest gave below a certain benchmark (usually the cost of a table divided by ten) – they get upset.

Now, there are many reasons to be upset, some valid, some invalid, and one of them which I think is invalid is the feeling that the guest didn’t live up to the expectation of helping the couple not lose money for the banquet.

A valid one might be – I thought we are close friends, and well, they aren’t poor, so giving so little, makes me think our friendship is not valuable (sadly, whether we like it or not, money is a marker of worth and value in our society).

And so,

8. Since society has made it really just about covering cost (or rather since I think society has really made it just about covering cost), then, I’ll shall just put enough to cover cost. If that’s the standard, then, let’s play by it.

Which of course is rather petty.

Giving the red packet isn’t about how my married friends will react to the amount or about what their expectations are or even how society at large plays this game. It is really about me wanting to do right with my friends.

It is about me wanting to bless them as they enter the next phase in their lives.

In a way, I’ve missed the opportunity to think that way with 3 of my best friends – JS, HX and WS. I won’t make that mistake anymore.

Just for my own memory:

Many many years ago, for a GP essay, I wrote that a parent’s love is really just an expression of self-centeredness.

No time to elaborate on the theme but with the literature I have subsequently read, I realized I was rather prescient.

What was particularly interesting about the essay incident was that my GP teacher actually said in front of the whole class that she felt sorry for me.

Seriously, is it any shock that Tiger Woods fucked a bunch of other women other than his wife?

He is one of the richest, if not the richest athlete, ever. Give any man fame, power and money, let’s see if his head won’t turn*.

All this moral pontificating in the media. Fucking full of shit.

If Tiger Woods had suffered a career-ending injury and for some reason lost all his wealth, do you think this lady would have stayed around? She would have made for the exit faster than a certain former US President can unzip his pants in front of hot interns.

*Sidenote:

Yeah, I’m sure someone will say that there is this X guy who is famous, powerful and has lots of money who doesn’t/didn’t cheat on his partner. One of these below statements will be true:

1. He has been brought up with a weak conscience. One that gets guilty easily.

Internal monologue for most of these men:

“Oh, no, if I cheat on my wife, I’LL be SUCH A BAD PERSON.“

Notice the operative noun. It is self-centeredness, just expressed internally, instead of externally in the form of banging another girl.

But, wait, you say, some of these internal monologues have this line:

“If I cheat on my wife, if she finds out, she will be hurt.

“If she finds out…” The guy should only get any form of credit if the sentence was just “If I cheat on my wife, she will be hurt.”

Usually the above sentence is followed by,

“I can’t afford to lose her. She means so much to me.”

or

“If I cheat on her, I’ll be letting myself down, because I’ve failed the standards and morals I hold dear.

Again, it is about the self.

Always, about the self. It is just that people have different conditions on what hurts the self more. Depriving the little brother one night snuggled in a different hole, or …

2. His wife is the best thing his fame, power and money can buy, maybe even better than what he should be able to get. It is a ‘character’ play and the woman accepts him because of his ‘faithfulness’ and ‘love’.

Why do you think David Beckham only started cheating later in his career and marriage? Well, that’s because that was when he superseded Victoria of Spice Girls fame.

3. He hasn’t been caught.

**

You know what’s even more fucking amazing. Everyone is talking about how this ’scandal’ will affect his golf game, how it will affect his sponsorships. How it will affect the REALLY IMPORTANT things.

Yup, we sure have our priorities straight.