Technology as Religion

An article on innovation in the magazine Wired speaks about technology. In a secular world, technology is the new religion by giving meaning to people’s lives. New devices like the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Internet websites like Google or Facebook, WebTV and other such advances in technology drive people into a frenzy. Especially the Apple products and the recent hoopla on tablets are driving a lot of attention. The trend today is mobility, social networking, openness and access to information (i.e. Wikileaks). Its like people have found a new religion and it’s driving them to a sort of spiritual ardor. The new meaning of life for people is not discovering some new religion or mantra but the latest gadget.

Perhaps the recent technological advancement encompasses social interaction and connections. For instance, Facebook or Foursquare used in mobile devices like smart phones or tablets. It becomes a liberating experience to be able to achieve this sociability anywhere. The effect is like magic – to see faraway relatives and friends (even in different continents), communicate with them and see their pictures, videos and comments. Religion provided some sort of magic in the past – a sort of supernatural ability to transcend every day problems via faith. Nowadays the spiritual mystery is gone – replaced by scandals such as pedophile priests or worldly monks and so on. The magic no longer reside in the spiritual realm.

Nowadays technology is transforming people lives – from the outsourcing trend that are lifting millions of people from poverty in poor countries, to the connective ness and empowerment that technology brings to people (i.e. investing in the stock market, donating to the needy, self-publishing, Silicon Valley billionaires,etc.). Hence technology is an enabling mechanism similar to religion where blind faith can help people accomplish amazing things (ex. non-violence movements that topple governments or change the status quo for the good). Technology can be used to make radical changes; for example, recent riots in Tunisia where people use mobile phones to overthrow the president, fax machines in the communist Poland to aid the Solidarity movement, Internet usage in China, Facebook in the Obama campaign and so on.

At the individual level, the latest technology has reached a state where it’s considered magic. Everyone now has either a smart phone or a tablet or a game machine or a laptop or a network PC all connected to the Internet. The gadget becomes a liberating experience especially with all those applications in the Internet like dating sites, porn sites, blogging (for self-expression), self publishing, gaming sites and so on engage the attention of people. It is an interactive media unlike watching television which is a passive and a mind numbing experience. In fact, technology has the ability to return people into a child like state – full of wonder which is what religion tries to do – to be born again and see the world with the eyes of a child. Everything becomes possible with this mindset.

But isn’t this trend another externally driven, materialistic effort where one tries to buy happiness with the latest gadget? Perhaps the gadget is a metaphor for a religious device like a rosary or a koan or mantra or the Bible or some meditative practice. The effort to master and learn the technology is like a spiritual journey wherein one achieves nirvana when the trial is complete. Mastering the technology enables you to achieve your dreams or goals – be it as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, stock investor, writer, seek romance or porn, be entertained or educated and so on. In this analogy, the latest gadget is a means to an end – not an end into itself. So the satisfaction in buying the latest gadget is not to have the gadget itself but use it as a tool to achieve better ends such as staying in contact with your family with Facebook or sharing family videos in YouTube. Perhaps satisfying one’s desire will eventually kill that desire and thereby achieve bliss.

Know Your Worth

With the New Year, one gets in the habit of making resolutions. But resolutions more often than not don’t get fulfilled. Most resolutions fall under 4 general categories: health (i.e. losing weight), money (i.e. save more), mind (i.e. self development) and love (i.e. romance). One article suggests avoiding making resolutions based on a single task or goal. Instead, one should look into a broad theme where one could define certain tasks or goals under that theme to be more flexible. For example, one could think about improving financial literacy and a host of goals can be attached to that theme: invests more, save more and so on. I for one know that resolutions don’t get fulfilled as my resolutions for the past years has been to lose about 10 pounds. Maybe a broader theme is being healthier this year.

This topic was discussed during a recent Toastmaster meeting. There where only 4 participants but we went into a round of topics where New Year resolutions was one subject. I said that one must look for internal goals instead of external goals, i.e. inner peace as against buying the latest SUV. I have also been attached to the ‘increase one’s skills school’. I have created a spreadsheet where I list all the skills I have learned for the past 7 years as well as the trainings and activities I have attended. But I don’t feel any different now accept having bragging right to say ‘did that, done that.’  I guess the broad theme would be to keep one’s mind fresh, active and creative in order to be more competitive at work or perhaps to increase one’s cognition. This is a nobler goal than listing down one’s accumulation of skills or training certificates.

Sometimes the spreadsheet serves as a way to self-reflect; if one’s actions or activities where spent wisely. Sometimes it’s an attempt by the insecure to try to determine if one has arrived at an appropriate level of competency – to try to get a picture of oneself via the list and compare against one’s peers. From my list, it looks like I have too many trivial tasks as well as too much activity. Placing all these activities into a broader context like making the mind more agile or improve one’s cognition or delay the decline of mental acuity due to old age – is a more mature goal. I think I have succeeded considering the many changes I have undergone like moving to a different country twice in the last 10 years plus adjusting to new people, culture and ways of working. Perhaps one would have a difficult time if one did not undergo such self-improvement like I have in the recent decade of my life.

One goal that I have had since my youth was to be a writer. A goal I have not achieved yet - although I feel that I am close. It has taken me roughly a decade to realize and assess where I am in this journey. I think I have diagnosed my skills and where I need to improve and how to move forward. The next step is to have the will and motivation now that circumstances are right. Having a lot of free time, the accumulation of relevant experience, book reading and creative writing courses have finally inched me forward. I guess it’s more a voyage of self-discovery than anything else. There is a saying that one makes a long journey but finds himself in the end. I read an interesting book this weekend about the White House doctor – one of the longest serving doctors in that arena. She also happens to be a fellow countryman having been born in the Philippines.

It’s a great book to learn about the inner working of the US Presidency, the military and the Filipino American connection in the White House. The writer is the first Filipino American Rear Admiral who served with 3 presidents. The writer never lost her humble and down to earth tone. She writes about the Filipino American master chef, valets and stewards who work in the White House. There seems to a recent slew of achievements by Filipinos from different fields like Manny Pacquiao (i.e. seven world boxing titles), champion pool players, White House doctor, film makers and writers. I think understanding one’s heritage is the first step towards self-discovery and improvement. Being a writer pulls all these strands together as one has to find one’s voice. It’s not a matter of writing skill, experience or expertise but an inner understanding of oneself.

Among all the recent trainings, workshops and activities that I have attended to improve myself, I think the most useful has been Toastmaster. The experience has allowed me to find my voice and stand up and proclaim to an audience who I am. In most of my speeches I have to talk about myself or explain myself because that is what the audience wants to hear – one’s story and voyage in life. The effect has been a subtle change since I have been a member for nearly 5 years. It feels like an incremental and often unfelt change as one gets more confidence and self-esteem. I think it has opened doors to all sorts of experiences and improved the quality of my thinking. One tries to measure the past like looking into a report card to determine one’s progress. But one does not grow hair suddenly or be a famous person one day except achieve a feeling of inner contentment and, yes, peace.

Snow Fall

For the past 2 days we had about 5 to 9 inches of snow. So we stayed home and I worked remotely. I had no trouble connecting to the network but had some initial problems logging in. I tried to focus on working but had problems keeping my attention. I did attend some phone meetings, wrote emails, created a change ticket and called the help desk to follow-up an existing issue. Admittedly it was work at the minimum but I had difficulty focusing and working at the same time. The living room was cold although I wore layers of clothes to keep me warm. I went out and swept the cars of snow and started the engine to warm the car in anticipation of going to work the next day. I could not find the snow scrapper so I swept the snow away from the car with my gloved hands. It no longer snowed so it was okay to start clearing the snowfall.

The next day, I drove to office at about 9:30 am and some roads still had ice on the surface. So I traveled at about 5 to 15 miles per hour and all the cars kept a slow pace and the tires sometimes slipped and I could feel the car sway sideways because the tires could not grip the road. I was a bit nervous being the first time for me to drive under such conditions. But it was no longer snowing and the sun was up and I could feel the heat through the windshield. But it was not warm enough to melt all the ice so it was a convoy of extremely slow moving vehicles as we made our way cautiously towards our destinations. I realized later that it was foolish of me to go to work if I felt that I was not confident enough to drive. But I made it in the end and there were a lot of cars in the parking lot of people who made the same perilous journey.

It been a long time since the local county experienced such snowy conditions. A friend of mine remarked that these conditions existed in Northern places like Ohio but not in the South. But it was a good snow fall and the surrounding landscapes were beautiful in the snow. Yesterday after clearing the cars of snow I walked out of the subdivision, into the main road to see how it was going. There were a few cars on the road and some families where out in their thick clothes with their sleds. One family passed by me who were heading to the nearby park where they said there were good places to sled in the football field. Everywhere was brilliantly white like a blanket of cotton descended from the skies. I like winter landscapes and I hope to learn to ski someday if I have the chance.

This morning, a recruiting agent from Singapore called. She was asking questions about my friend and we spoke for an hour before our line was cut. My phone had exhausted its top-up value although I think I gave all that I could to her. I think it was a good interview. The lull in my normal activities due to the snow storm made me make You Tube videos with our vacation photos. I changed a few soundtracks of old videos and relived again the memories those images evoked. It seemed like a long time ago like it was another lifetime. The call from Singapore seemed to validate those wonderful memories. I spent the time at home looking at videos and enjoying my network television – watching Bloomberg’s Game Changers program with features on Steve Jobs, Google and Facebook. It was a good time to keep abreast of the industry to learn and try to forecast the future.

Yesterday, I worked beside the window where I could see the snowy landscape. It evoked a lonely and hollow beauty where together with the cold increased one’s feeling of loneliness. My mother is ill and in need of an operation and the weather contributed to a kind of helpless melancholy feeling that one is at the mercy of nature. I had trouble trying to speak to my family on the phone - at a different time zone and continent - a world away. I spoke to several people and I finally got to my mother lying in her hospital bed and she asked me if I was fine. She could not hear very well and she told me about herself in that way of hers and I could not do anything but listen to her voice and follow the flow of her conversation. I felt helpless without any power to do anything; just praying to God that nature should not have its way this time.

Southern California

Back from Los Angeles last night and arrived near midnight. It was 17 days of rain, cold and some brilliant sunshine. It was relaxing although I spent some early mornings working; checking my email, attending virtual meetings and phone conferences, doing tests, and raising tickets. Despite the work, my vacation was very relaxing. I had to work on Eastern Standard Time which was early morning in California. At least it preserved my vacation day as I would finish by 9 or 10 am California time. The last few days were not good though because I had a cold with some irritating coughing fits. Eventually, we flew back home in brilliant sunshine from John Wayne airport in Orange County.

I spent a lot of time watching old DVD movies that I missed as well as recent movies like ‘True Grit’ (Coen brother’s excellent western remake), ‘The Special Relationship’ (Clinton and Blair) and ‘The Blind Side’ (football feel good movie). I also watched the Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena and Orange Bowl football game in a new 60” plasma television. I also watched a lot of business shows (CNBC, Bloomberg), surfed the internet and read a lot of interior design magazines. We also went to the Barnes and Nobles book store, went window shopping, walked the malls and went to the Best Buy electronic shop and outlet shops near Palm Springs.

During the days when the sun was out, we were able to visit interesting places in Los Angeles like the new modern Catholic Cathedral, Frank Gehry designed Disney Music Center, LACMA, Tokyo town, China town and Olvera streets or Mexico town, the new west end (Staples center, Nokia theater, LA Convention Center). We also visited Solvang – a nice little Dutch town near Santa Barbara. This probably was the highlight of the trip for me – driving along the California coast passing quaint little towns like Montecito and Santa Barbara. We also went to the Richard Nixon library in Yorba Linda and the Newport pier at night. We had a nice Christmas party with games and gifts with friends and visited some relatives in nearby Moreno Valley for a New Year’s Eve dinner.  

It was a good time for my kids because they bonded well with their cousins. I finally learned how to play mahjong which I had wanted to do for a long time. I read or watched or thought a lot about the coming year 2011. It’s the Year of the Rabbit which is my birth year based on Chinese Horoscope. The stars seem to foretell good tidings for me on 2011. From my readings, it seems that mortgage rates will remain low, real estate values will still decline (except for some areas like California) with a possible up tick in the last quarter, technology seems to be moving to mobile devices like tablets and mobile phones and USA stocks may recover though some investors may still be hesitant.

The political front may provide some respite with the recent extension of the Bush tax cuts. This provides a second ‘stimulus’ for the economy and some people may hopefully invest in stocks. From my point of view, this will give me some extra cash which will provide an opportunity to de-leverage from debts. My plan is to pay off my second car loan and re-finance my housing loan into a 15-year fixed rate mortgage. I plan to learn more about web television and try to set up a video phone conference utility at home. I also plan to explore the web more (with an Archos 7 inch tablet device) especially in learning about new websites on finance and creative writing. I bought an illustrated companion guide about Stephen King which has some samples of his early writing.

I also bought a few books from Amazon about writing exercises and have a vague plan to complete my first book with the help of writing workshops, writing exercises and dictation. I plan to use my new gadgets and cloud computing to get me through this project. I also discovered a new writer - Trevor Paglen who writes about secret military or intelligence projects. It’s an interesting supplement to the recent books of William Gibson. All in all, my California vacation allowed me to relax, reflect, and discover new things and plan for the future.

My most important New Year resolution is to lose weight, finish my book, be focused and stop procrastinating, be tech savvy with the latest trends and devices and continue improving my financial literacy. I hope to be more organized and de-clutter my life and surroundings. I am inspired by the recent Man of the Year awardee – the Facebook creator who has achieved so much at any early age. I guess it means having the proper focus and drive to achieve one’s goals that is important.

D-Day

Deployment day is today after several months of work. Finally we are a breath away from go live. It’s been a long project with almost 2 years of unceasing labor, confusion, big breaks, difficult challenges, redemption and resolution. But the way is not clear yet. Today will be the first remote test. But everything will be in place with everybody on call to respond. The ball is with Big Blue who has repeatedly delayed the deployment that caused us to stay the weekend in Nevada. It was a good idea to stay because the allotted 2 day stay was really not enough. But it was a hair rising ride with combination of a structured methodology, agile methods and the usual seat of the pants confusion. Nevertheless, it has reached this point which is a major step despite what happens today.

There are a lot of problems in the start-up and most folks are spinning the story wrongly. One’s perception is the key and despite the difficult journey one feels that definite progress has been achieved. My old boss is leading the charge despite moving to a new position a few months ago. He is still fully invested and there is no way he could leave it alone. He even admits that he caused the mess. Sometimes I feel that he is thrashing out wildly like an old boxer using the old moves to fight the enemy but the enemy has evolved with the rules of the game changing as well. So he is like an old fighter fighting a young challenger with new rules. Fortunately, he is not alone and everyone is pitching in to help move the project along.

It was an eventful trip with a great weekend of travels around the lake, to the nearby mountains and ski-resorts, playing billiards, exploring the casinos and great food in different restaurants. Reno is an old mining town with vestiges of the Wild West. The cities nearby evoke memories of romantic time: Carson City, Virginia City, Border Town, Lake Tahoe. These are cities heard or seen in the old Western television shows or movies with legendary actors like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen. It’s a thrill to be in the actual place where all those stories actually happen. There is a large bronze statue in the hotel lobby of a horse and rider in tribute to the Pony Express. The Pony Express is that ancient relic of delivering mail where one rider handed off the mail to another fresh rider until the destination is reached. The bronze plaque says that the record was achieved in delivering the news of the victory of Abraham Lincoln from East to the West states.

Its fitting that the pilot is done in this city of pioneers where individual labor and sacrifice is the key to success. We will find out at the end of the day if everything will turn out well. Last night after dinner we went to the center of town to the excellent hotel Silver Legacy. It’s an old hotel – the best I have seen so far with elaborate carpets and well lighted places with elegant slots machines and gambling tables. This is an old replica of a silver mining rig that looks like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was designed by Eiffel himself for his friend, who was the richest silver miner in Nevada, The hotel was built in the site of the silver mine that made him rich. There was painting in the lobby of scenes from the Wild West – cowboys in horses, Main Street with dusty lanes. The huge silver rig in a dome that replicated the sky above gave the exact feeling of how it was like in those days.

Asian Pioneers

The Donner Party memorial is a few miles north of Lake Tahoe. It’s a memorial to the party of pioneers who perished in the terrible winter of 1846 and 1847 on their way to California. The pioneers with their families got caught in a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada. We went to the memorial after circling Lake Tahoe. We traveled from Reno. It was a spectacular drive with the mountain tops covered with snow. The mountains of the Sierra Nevada surround the city of Reno, which lies on a flat plain. The mountains around Lake Tahoe are snow capped but the mountains towards Las Vegas are semi-desert, with no trees or snow. These mountains are filled with rocks and large boulders and covered with brown earth. It is in striking contrast to the mountains towards California which have fir trees and snow.

The memorial had glass cases filled with old relics. There was one case about the Chinese laborers who worked on the Western railroads. Chinese laborers where often ‘shanghaied’ or kidnapped from China to work as indigent labor. The casinos in Reno are full of Asians mostly of Chinese immigrants. I can’t help but think that these Asians are the descendants of those railroad workers. The exhibit talked about racial purges and it would not stretch the imagination that these purges where aimed at the Chinese communities who have settled near the railroad stations. The nearest town is Truckee with a highway going to Reno. I can see the railroad tracks from the highway as we drove along the highway to Reno. The hotel I stayed in has slight traces of seediness, unlike the one in Las Vegas. These were a lot of young people in the hotel casino and most had their ski gear, ready to ski in Mt. Rose which is north of Lake Tahoe.

The television series ‘Kung Fu’ is about a Shoalin monk and his adventures in the west. A martial arts expert in the land of cowboys and Indians. At that time, it was a unique story because the history of the Chinese experience building railroads, the racial struggles, the rise in prosperities of Chinatown were never known. I had always thought about the rich merchant Chinese who lived in the Philippines and not the indigent Chinese laborers who were exploited in near slavery conditions. Slavery seemed to be the exclusive story of African Americans and the story of the other races that were treated harshly has not been told. So I was glad to see the exhibit about the Chinese laborers in the Donner party memorial. It was like their struggles and contributions are finally being recognized. The Chinese heritage and other Asian immigrants have every right to be in the country because of the contribution by their country men in the country’s development.

It’s like everything is turning full circle. It is ironic that China is buying Treasury bonds to keep the country functioning. Asian sovereign funds are helping Western countries survive their financial problems. Instead of the manual labor of the past, it is the money and skills that are the contributing to the economy. On a personal level, I am here for work, installing software in a warehouse, something that I have done many times in Asia; in Thailand, China, Japan and the Philippines.  Now the assignment is in Nevada, where Asian laborers have toiled in a previous century. In a certain way, nothing has changed and the world has always been a global economy, where different actors from foreign lands have always worked together. The pendulum has swung in the opposite direction with the East ascendant. It feels like one is riding a wave at the right time. There will be opposition as there usually is and the messy deployment in Reno is an example.

Experiential Learning

After going thru the ‘confusion’ of understanding ‘meta cognition’ and writing, one breaks out and realizes that it’s all useless mental churning again. It does provide a few moments of insight but disappears into the every day reality of writer’s block. Understanding ‘meta cognition’ does not provide concrete steps; only theory and eventual confusion. One can’t help but re-read the article and theories again with the confounding remark ‘say what again?’ So it’s back to intellectual masturbation. Happily one forces himself to attend interesting workshops where there are exercises that one does – an experiential type of learning rather than reading the latest studies on writing. I think this maybe the best way to learn ala Toastmaster. Perhaps it’s the best method for me - actual practice instead of book learning (but I do blog which should amount to something).

Another option is to attend a scribbler’s meetings where one gets to read one’s work in front of a group. These meetings are sponsored by the library and one get to listen to other would-be-writers and also get some friendly criticism of one’s work. One gets to share and read out aloud one’s words.  I guess it’s externalizing one’s deeply held ‘private’ work. One realizes that one would not have the confidence and ease to attend workshops or scribbler’s meetings without the practice of Toastmasters. It’s the missing link to one’s development as one would have gotten a fair amount of exposure in public settings without losing one’s composure. It’s like an act or role or armor the shrouds the person’s shyness or awkwardness; providing a basic polish to an otherwise raw exterior. Perhaps it’s also a re-structuring of one’s internal psyche into the glare of social interactions and public acceptance as speaker or writer.

Scribbler meetings are like the Inklings gatherings in Oxford where writers like C.S.Lewis and J.R. Tolkien read their works to their close friends. They would meet after work in nearby pubs or restaurants, drinking beer and having discussion well into the early morning. Great books have come out of these meetings like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the adventures of Narnia. These are not writers by profession but intellectuals or lecturers in the Oxford university circuit. The library has a new exhibit on the Inklings (after their excellent series on Lincoln) but I don’t think there are any lectures planned. So I borrowed books and DVDs on the Inklings.  The library has held a lot of interesting exhibits and lectures this year on personal finance, legal matters (wills and probates), Lincoln and now the Inklings. It’s the best library system that I have experienced so far, devoted to learning and improving one’s self.

Last Monday, on a dark and rainy night, I traveled after work to the nearby county to attend an interesting writing workshop. It was an interesting seminar conducted by a teacher who attended the famous Black Mountain College in North Carolina. After giving an inspiring lecture, we were divided into groups and went about writing poetry. The first step was to write in free form on 3 photographs one has chosen from a book. The second step was to pass one’s work to your group mate so he or she would encircle interesting passages from their point of view. In the third step, the work is passed to a third person who would list down in another paper those interesting passages. Finally, based on the passages, one would try to make a poem by rearranging sentences, editing, adding and deleting words. It was an interesting exercise where one would create poetry from a photograph after following a series of seemingly random choices by others.

My group individually chose 3 photographs: an old lady sitting in a room, a small town in the plains with a full moon above and snow capped mountains in the distance and a young woman bathing in an underground stream with sunlight peeking through the cave openings. The resulting poem that came out is listed below.

The Essence of Mystery

She is old and young
Arms outstretched
Staring out into the darkness
A windswept white cloud expanse;
She looks out into the distance
Mysterious aging landscape.