Reality Sets In

The election is over, one of the most thrilling and expensive spectacles seen today, a nail biting event for some that ended with an outstanding loss for the challenger (and the super-rich), all the more amazing considering that about $ 800 million was spent to unseat the incumbent and grab control of the upper chamber. Instead, the data driven campaign of the incumbent functioned like a machine, each tasks meticulously planned in advance and executed without emotion, like a leviathan inevitably succeeding due to its massive movement.  Wealthy conservatives were astounded: people like Donald Trump, Jack Welch and Karl Rove were victims of reality as the country moved towards the Democrats despite their best efforts to engineer an upset. But their forecast was not supported by polling data, the incumbent leading in all the swing states, notwithstanding the poor performance in the first debate, a well-planned ambush that triggered a sudden move to moderation by the challenger. All for naught as the fundamental truths have not changed despite the horse race in the national polls.

Until now I read everything about the election despite its completion last Tuesday, a political junkie forever enthralled by the analysis of the pundits, borrowing more books and DVDs to deepen understanding. Last week was a milestone for me: the election and victory of the incumbent, the completion of a network event where I delivered a short talk (less than 5 minutes), installation of software in a new environment, significant progress in my other project, golf in the weekend plus watching the new James Bond movie. Life in the new house is also pleasant, more space – physically and mentally, where everything is where I had planned as if all my past furniture was bought for this particular area in the new home. It’s as if everything is now falling into place that I realized that my physical journey has ended. The journey started with my move to Singapore in 2002, living in a condominium (5 years) then a government flat (2 years), then my move to USA; living in a townhouse (3+ years) and, finally, a purchase of a house that I feel I have turned full circle.

The remaining mission is to complete my journey and be a novelist. It’s like the year is settling toward a predestined conclusion: becoming a project manager, completing the projects planned for the year, progressing as a Toastmaster (35 speech projects), visiting New York and meeting old friends, moving house and finally being a writer. The political victory of the incumbent was like a talisman, someone I had studied for a while, reading his books and following his career plus the political events of this country – an activity I have been doing since my youth, before moving here and, finally, witnessing first hand – his growth seeming to mirror my own meager progress. I have learned enough that nothing will add or detract from what I already know – it is no longer the numerous factoids that interest me but the living of life. But serenity has not come yet; I have trouble sleeping recently, my mind churning with ideas that I am forced to meditate; to control my thoughts but to no avail. I seldom do my morning Tai Chi, leaving early for the rush to work, losing sleep; mind and body persisting in disequilibrium – preferring imbalance than balance; thus preventing a return inward.

Bad Golf

Last Saturday I got one of the worst scores in my golf game. I have been playing for nearly 4 months every weekend and I was improving but I now realize that I need to make radical changes. I have been fooling myself into thinking that my game was getting better but in the end I lacked consistency. According to my golf buddy, I need to start from scratch – change my swing, my posture, my stance and ball position, my mental attitude and so on. So I decided to stop playing for a while and work on my problems. I need to break everything down and start from scratch. Unfortunately, I lack the motivation and I am again attempting some short cuts, like practicing at home and using gadgets; instead of going to the driving range and perhaps getting professional help. But golf is a game for amateurs and I will continue to self-teach myself into being a better player. I will attempt this improvement by watching DVDs borrowed from the library, watching YouTube videos; taking video clips of my swing for self-analysis and reading self-help books.

Perhaps it was a confluence of events; doing too many things like taking online courses, fixing the house and feeling pressure at work and on the rental property as no takers yet that I decided to stop golf for a while. The rental property will hit me financially and I need to act within 6 months if there are no renters. Otherwise I will go bankrupt. Such is the fate for being ambitious. Unfortunately, I spared no expense in purchasing new stuff for the house – proving the case that decline starts with owning property. But I feel I have no choice – approaching middle age I need to give my family some pride and stability by investing in a decently sized house. Owning property does not make me feel more affluent; more like an investment such as buying stocks. I have purchased about 4 properties in my lifetime – one in the Philippines which I rent out for a pittance, a flat in Singapore which I sold and earned some profit and 2 properties here in the US: a town house which I am trying to rent out and a reasonably sized home where we now live.  Not an extravagant lifestyle by any measure but perhaps seizing opportunities when it presents itself.

Playing golf is an expensive sport; also feeds the illusion that one is well-off, and coupled with a nice home can increase one’s folly. I need to return to my desire to write and try to earn extra income, to practice golf smartly without spending too much. The coming months will show if I made the right bets. My Saturday golf game gave me relief from the stress at work and life but it was an indulgence and escape which I no longer can sustain without worsening my troubles. The poor golf score was only the trigger. Happily, this week was a time for self – reflection: in my Toastmaster meeting on Thursday I talked about visiting old friends in NYC last April; in the afternoon, we had a department meeting where each member was described with a specific paragraph: mine was about working in 14 different countries – a record that exceeds most of my colleagues. I guess I need to feel proud of my current state. Last week I read the short heroic biography of journalist Maria Colvin who was killed recently in Syria. I cannot help but measure myself against her life - one of constant travel, adventure and significant work in the world’s battle zones. I guess I am not doing badly.

Decline Begins with a Large House

A larger home brings space to one’s thinking. It’s like one’s petty concerns are lifted out of their usual rut. There is a feeling of having emerged from constricted thought that one realizes when living in constrained spaces; that is not conducive to transcendent thought; that one moves to television or to drink in order to rise above the small surroundings, especially if one shares space with others. Now the openness and light of a larger home have brought out the largeness of spirit. One has always thought that the mind should be impervious to one’s surroundings – a Buddhist belief I think with the image of a lotus flower rising amidst the filth of a dirty stream. One’s surroundings do influence you – so one must strive to make it conducive to higher thought. One no longer needs to rely on alcoholic substances to get mental space – a space Ekhart Tolle talks about when one must be alive to the moment without letting troubling thoughts mar one’s serenity.

Still the mental grooves remain; one still persists on living as before, forever throwing ceaseless activity to the mind, to keep churning as in the past. In the weekend, I managed to cram 2 miniseries while enjoying a golf game on Saturday morning. The German mini – series ‘Buddenbrooks’ from a novel by Thomas Mann, was an enjoyable and educational work.

Several weeks back I had watched the English mini – series ‘Downton Abbey’ which I enjoyed – another series about a wealthy family in trouble. Also during the weekend I watched the English mini-series ‘Traffik’ about the international drug trade with scenes filmed in Karachi - Pakistan, London - England and Hamburg - Germany. The mini-series was later made into a Hollywood film starring Michael Douglass. “Buddenbrooks” offers a detailed account of a wealthy German mercantile family, portraying 3 generations, whose decline starts when the descendants moved into a much larger home. As for ‘Downton Abbey’, a large estate is in peril with the death of their heir especially with the high costs associated in keeping the large estate.

So one wonders if decline starts with owning property, which is what happened in the financial crisis of 2009 when sub-prime mortgages brought the housing market down and has not fully recovered four years later. Debt and being over-leveraged are the ills of a society with easy credit, spurred on by securitization and sophisticated financial wizardry that brought down countries like Ireland, Spain and Iceland. This has become the crucial theme of the current election: does one vote for a financial genius - a wealthy business man who deals in maximizing profit and with deposits in off shore back accounts, or a political genius – a believer in the role of government to save people affected by the crisis; spending government money (i.e. people’s taxes) in the classic Keynesian antidote of fiscal stimulus to fight recession. Like the cavalry coming to the rescue, the economy is picking up, with lower unemployment reported last week, thereby bolstering the odds of the incumbent. Tonight is the last debate with the general election only 2 weeks away.

The Republican multi-millionaire has several large houses that one wonders if he is overextended. One is reminded of Donald Trump but without the extravagance and multiple marriages. But it all boils down to diligent labor not over-leverage – for example my plan for salvation, in case things go wrong, is to become a novelist – to write myself out of any financial predicament by sheer hard work and inspiration. A goal I had not had a chance to pursue due to the move and my predilection to read more, watch DVDs, attend online courses and play golf in the weekends. But next month is Nanowrimo month – where I have a chance to jump start my aspirations by completing a first draft of 40,000 words. I am still resting from my labors of completing 2 online creative writing courses but I think I have learned enough of the craft to move forward. I had also registered 500 books read in Shelfari.com, after finishing the book ‘God’s Crucible’ last week; an indication of progress since one must be a reader before one becomes a writer.

New Home

Since my last entry, I have moved into my new home, crossed a significant project milestone, quarreled with my boss, played golf a few weekends, cleaned my old flat and transferred and unloaded all my stuff into their new surroundings. No time for reflections except adjust to the new circumstances. In the meantime, my project manager left the project, after a last week of argument and tears, replaced by someone new to the company. During this period of change, I had to complete a lot of high stress activities: finish my writing course, continue the Coursera online subjects I chose, finish a design document, conduct meetings with contractors, undertake testing in 2 different software application, lead a project and hold meetings both in and outside the company (with contractors who were fixing up my old place).

To make things more difficult, I had to wake up early than usual, about 6:30 am since my new home was about 15 minutes father than my former home (7 miles vs. 12 miles), with a total travelling time of 30 minutes. In the past, these whirlwind events, coupled with the high stress of production problems which was finally solved in the first week of October, would have required me to write out my stress in my usual journal entries. The blur of activities would also have been calmed down by my usual morning tai chi which I seldom do nowadays. Instead my sanity and salvation seemed to be resolved with my Saturday golf games. The walk in the greens in the early morning, the golf strokes and shots to the fairways, the challenges and course management of game have relaxed my mind and allowed me to forget my troubles at least for a few hours. The result is that I arrive on Monday refreshed.

Looking back on my golf record, I have been playing every weekend for almost 3- 4 months. The regularity and relaxation had allowed me to survive the change of home, challenges at work, pressure of transfer, money problems and the distraction of the presidential election – an event which I have been reading about since my youth. Living right in the smack of it allowed me to experience first-hand the amazing transfer of power in the most powerful nation in earth. Strangely, this has prevented from watching the debates as my partisanship makes me too emotional to enjoy the event. Instead I prefer to skip the debates and read the next morning analysis; enjoying the recap in the New York Times channel in Google television during the weekends.

Of course, living in a much larger home, with nice views of the surrounding landscape, with large trees and undulating hills that have allowed me to relax more. I seemed to have lost my predilection for after work cocktails, instead plunging right in the Coursera courses. Next November is a coming challenge: to participate in the Nanowrimo novel writing month and to produce a significant draft of a novel. I wonder how I can achieve this task with all the online courses I am taking. But I think this will be a good end to the year which I started by attending the Gotham writing classes. Life is a constant flux and I realize that one should always keep moving. I wrote some good short stories that brought me back to my youth and of my days in Singapore. The new home has given me roots although I do not feel any sense of permanency, thinking that this is more an investment than a lasting stake in the ground. Much change in the air especially with the coming presidential election.

Disconnected

Yesterday my internet and cable service was mistakenly dis-connected; I had already lost my phone service last week.  It all started when I called the cable company to plan in advance, trying to do a good deed and have everything ready before the big move, explaining explicitly I thought, that I would be moving on the 20th or 21st of September which is safely two weeks away. But being clever and prepared is not a good thing; the company went out and dis-connected the service almost immediately. Morons do exist in all corporations, lying in wait like Laurel and Hardy ready to play havoc on one’s best laid plans. So one comes home after work without cable and internet, which is a catastrophe for some folks, and just hope for the best, drinking bourbon on the rocks. So I spent time last night and most of this morning working with the company to get back my services but to no avail. The best that can be done to re-connect my services is next week on 13 September. Just in time for my wife to be back home. At least I got my bill down by about $ 20 dollars.

I missed the president’s acceptance speech last night at the Democrat convention in nearby Charlotte, North Carolina. At least I was able to see some clips of Bill Clinton’s speech the other night, which was really a performance; one will not see the likes of him or even of Obama for a long time. The game is on in the  coming weeks all the way to election time, a political event that I have been reading about since I was a young man, watching movies and reading books back in Asia, comparing the event with local politics back home. Now I have a chance to experience it first-hand. I recall my first reading of American politics in Theodore White’s ‘The Making of a President’ series especially his book on the Kennedy election. This introduction led me to other books like David Halberstam’s ‘The Best and the Brightest’, also about the Kennedy years. The fact is John F. Kennedy is probably the first candidate to run for a presidential election in an intelligent and calculating way - against all odds, against an intelligent incumbent politician like Richard Nixon who was no slouch himself, and win. His victory became a template for ascending politicians like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

I guess it says something that recent Republican candidates are wealthy people, scions or married to partners from successful or wealthy families (both Bushes, McCain and Romney) excepting Nixon and Reagan while the Democrats excepting Kennedy and John Kerry, have risen from the ranks though Carter was a peanut farmer. But the argument does not really hold though recent memory seems to confirm this observation especially Obama and Clinton who have risen from nothing, using their own brilliance to strive ahead. So the support from extremely wealthy people for Republicans shows a clear bias in this election that some game is afoot. When my cable service was cut, my initial thought was a deliberate act to prevent people from watching Obama’s speech. I guess stress and paranoia and conspiracy theories come together. Happily I was not pissed off on losing my connection and being out of the grid. Instead I prepared dinner of minced meat cooked with garlic, onions, tomatoes and potatoes, watched the video movie Doctor Faustus, dozed off and read the chic literature on Brooklyn mothers. What a waste!


Early this morning I woke up early, took down my MP3 player and radio, connect it to a speaker and listened to NPR boradcast. At least I was not completely cut off. I made my way to work, slightly late, called the cable company and prepared for my meeting, which turned out well. Later I borrowed a MIFI unit and prepared for a weekend without cable television but with a plan to connect to the internet and complete my assignments on the online courses. It may not be that bad after all being disconnected.

On wanting to work

I sit here not sure about what to do, my mind scattered, shooting in different directions. Yesterday was a difficult day because of some emails I had to respond to, some seemed to be threatening, while others hopeful but needed a measured response. In the end I got it done, leaving the office near 7pm and going to the gym. Yesterday I missed certain appointments that I wanted to attend: a compulsory meeting and a racquet ball overview at the gym and felt bad about it. Nevertheless, I felt better after doing 30 minutes in the cross-trainer and a few minutes in the sauna. The exercise had invigorated me; earlier I did not want to go to the gym and exercise but was glad I did. I got home at past 8 pm; ate dinner of chili crab, rice and pork chop, a glass of wine and grapes.

This week is significant for me because it’s closing week, finalizing the transaction to complete a significant investment. I calculated the cash flow with a spreadsheet and planned a way to liquidate some investments in Singapore if cash is needed to keep me up. The fear is that one’s finances is being stretched, spending more than what one brings in. Luckily I have Excel and I think the spreadsheet tool is possibly one of the best things invented in modern life, with the financial planning that one needs to do to keep up. Going back to my story: I needed to call insurance agents, evaluate premiums, call the movers, and call the phone and cable company and so on so everything will be in place when the move is done in the coming weeks. My wife is not around so I had to do this preparation while doing a lot of housework.

Compounding the stress is the work on my 2 projects at the office, now kicking into gear as the year ends, plus the fact that I am attending 4 classes online: a creative writing class, gamefication, handling large data and model thinking. Stupidly I have increased my reading and watching movies, too. In Orhan Pamuk’s recent lectures, he wrote about his rush to read books, to find out about the secret center of the novel, like some hidden confidence provided by the author that will explain the meaning of life. I had that urge and I still have it now in my middle age but wasted in triviality; a constant urge to read the latest bestseller or some trivial Hollywood biography or Vanity Fair article or watch some obscure movie by a German auteur director. As Pamuk pointed out:  to be part of elite, to be able to have bragging rights that one is in the know – a cognoscente.


This is the rat race: a constant journey to be someone at least in one’s own eyes. What does one want really in life? For some it may not be more money, more houses and cars but maybe just being a cultural maven. This brings me back to work, where one is not motivated on the task at hand because one has no ambition to earn more. Instead the literary savant continues to read and find meaning from external things like books and movies and experiences. But recently, the writing exercises has made me realize that I am a long way from my goal – more work is needed but I see the way clear in my mind. It was interesting to see the documentary ‘New York’ last night. The episode featured F. Scott Fitzgerald – a writer I had not paid much attention, instead focusing on his friend Hemingway. Reading his short stories and life, perhaps he is much closer to my own than anyone else. I just missed the road that he had taken and instead indulged myself, following Hemingway’s clarion call.

The Secret Center

Orhan Pamuk offers interesting insights on the art of writing in his Harvard lectures. Using Schiller’s essay on naïve and sentimental poetry as a starting point, Pamuk ventures forth on his own experiences as a writer and reader. He chart’s the development of his craft that I admit offers the best framework of understanding the act of writing than most books I have read. His concept of the ‘secret center’ is something I have not read about from any other writer though he does quote some writers who have similar conceptions on a novels ‘center’. It’s an intriguing concept as the ‘center’ evolves organically and not planned or structured the way a writer started out to construct when he began writing his book. In fact, the novel’s ‘center’ may not be what the author had intended but results from the reaction of the reader as he reads the book. Hence, it‘s an unintended consequence of reading that formulates out of each readers make-up: his culture, upbringing, education, experiences and so on. But the ‘center’ is also evoked from the writer’s work as he writes his passages, his narrative and the objects and sensations he places on the page – all based on his own make-up, too.

Being a writer from a developing country, although the recipient of an ancient culture, specifically an Islamist upbringing with echoes of Byzantium and Ottoman legacy, Pamuk has the same sensibilities as writers from the third world. Specifically a culture where only a small elite writes for their own class, at least during the start of his career, where an enlightened mass of citizens don’t exists unlike in the developed world with universal education and a mass reading public. It’s an intriguing viewpoint that I appreciate: the question is raised: who do I write for? The Western reader where the mass market exist or the small elite of one’s country: the decision would impact the way the novel is written. This will sway the novel’s ‘secret center’ and Pamuk covers all the territory that would impact the developing writer. It is a unique and informed insight and he cites samples from Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Stendhal and other great writers who were not really consciously aware of the ‘center’ as a literary model. The theory of the ‘center’ is what distinguishes genre and literary novels and he proves to be a well-read writer citing popular authors like John le Carre as one who moves away from genre towards being a literary novelist.

His book is highly original (despite starting off with Schiller’s premise using Goethe as his model); I have not had such incisive insights from other writers who write about writing such as Ayn Rand, Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway. I attribute this uniqueness to Pamuk’s intriguing background where he comes off as a sophisticated or cosmopolitan writer from the Middle East, someone who has Western sensibilities with no hint of Islamist tendencies. Perhaps this is a reflection of Turkey itself; a modern secular state that abolished the caliphate – a truly revolutionary act (perhaps akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution) that boldly strives forward into the modern age by cutting its ties to the past. Indeed, abolishing the Islamic caliphate is like the Western states abolishing the papacy; thereby, getting rid of the Pope’s role. Hence, Turkey can be seen as heralding the future to the Middle Eastern, a call to modern ideas that has proven radical that only a few Islamic countries have followed. Perhaps being a native of Istanbul (or the former Constantinople) with one foot in Europe and one foot in Asia provide Pamuk with a synthesis that few Western writers (or critics) can understand but whom Asians can identify with.