Cabbages and Kings

i refuse to believe that i can't make my own life downright fucking awesome -- be that downright awesome change i want to see in the world.

and so i will!

When one does work, one should have a healthy mix of Divergent and Convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking is creative and exploratory -- devising all the possible solutions to a given question. Convergent thinking is the opposite -- applying filters, whittling, resolving issues. Quality work relies on a good mix of both at the same time. Be creative enough to conjure multiple good ideas, but stringent enough to find the ideal fit with your problem.

If you've spent too much time engaging convergent thought, you lose the ability to apply decisive judgment, and every solution can look equally enticing. Whatever the form of work you output looks equally feasible. Dangerously, this diminishes the challenge. And when the challenge goes -- that unknown probability of success that makes our hairs stand on end -- so does your willpower. (Dopamine hits us harder when we think we've an uncertain chance of getting a reward, versus when we know for sure. http://youtu.be/hrCVu25wQ5s)

As a workaround, spend time doing a mundane activity. Follow a script or do mindless task. Working within a fixed framework such as moving numbers in an excel sheet, filling out forms, or assembling parts, activates a part of your brain dedicated to action and efficiency. You become focused on the most effective way of achieving an outcome, and the sequence of steps necessary to get there -- helping you to Converge upon an ultimate, optimal outcome.

With your Convergence muscle flexed, proceed with initial task.

As for the other way around, Divergence can be exercised through the arts. Dance improvisation, for example, increases our ability at Divergent thinking. (Be careful of ballet though -- its structured exercises incite quite the opposite. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/31/peter-lovatt-dance-problem-solving) Watching a modern dance piece, listening to a concerto, or staring at a painting, introduce your mind to a wealth of unexpected connections. You never realized steps could be combined that way, that those sounds could be combined, that those strokes could juxtapose -- and the inspiration makes you draw connections of your own, outward to a more expansive and Diverse space and set of possibilities.

A good mix of these activities should help you tackle inspiration, and throttle your mystical muse to work to your good. Inspiration can be engineered, and we don't have to wait for the right moment to strike.


(..Just personal hack-patches for the frequent times I'm stuck at work. Like right now, which is why I wrote this as an enabler to crafting a proposal)

Even the wakeboard is slowly losing its lustre

Okay so it turns out I failed, which ah, of course bugs me. Now let's try to resolve some closure around that. I did learn a lot but have nothing to show for it, which kind of irks me since I was hoping to use it as a selling point for my MBA admissions essays. How that pertains to admissions.. well it's a bit of a leap but it certainly would have been a plus point (think.. self learning or something). It also puts a visible ding in my esteem, since it proves that no, I cannot in fact do everything I want to. At least on first try.

Not like I'm going to give it a second try though.. at least not any time soon. Quite a lot did sink in the first time, and I'm hard pressed to want to learn that much all over again. It's good nice (and unexpectedly solid) background knowledge for now.

But still. The lack of a material output puts me at a loss. :/ I am, after all, Singaporean.

you know how sometimes you have that 'what the fuck was i thinking' moment -- well yeah, here's me now, short some cash, short a lot of free time, short extra effort i could have spent on work, and prised to fail my cfa. bUT! Full of a whole host of financial/economic/accounting knowledge i didn't know before and am very glad to know and have had the trauma of learning. This soft, fuzzy, unplaceable comfort is worth very little to me.

Really, at best, it would only have been a mildly useful idea if i passed. i'm not sure what kind of lessons one should draw out of lessons like these. that i'm bat shit crazy? Well that's a start.

After starting work you sort of get that feeling of being eaten alive -- like you can't remember things any more, there's always deadline after deadline and life is ever rolling, time seems to become both extremely fast and extremely slow, you have this constant emotional and intellectual upheaval, eons go by without seeing your closest friends, you completely forget who you were trying to be, and altogether too busy to remember to care.

Really, it's quite horrible, it's like my brain (and general insides) don't belong to me any more but to ugly beige and maroon cubicle no. 19.

And then I'm just sitting in my bed, and suddenly I wonder now, How many times have I seen Celine Dion? Is it 4? 5? No, 6? Was it '08? Was it September? How old was I again?

AND NOW I KNOW LIFE HAS GONE HORRIBLY WRONG.

Seriously, I know it sounds trite, but to forget something that (probably shouldn't but) used to matter the Earth the Wind the Sun the Moon the Stars the Sky to me, and sort of have had it flit out of my brain with nary a goodbye, I see that I can expect the next few decades of life to be a giant, soul-stealing mind fuck.


Oh well. at least there's this scraggly little blog, keeping time for me since 2005, for all it's worth.

The new Michael Kors store that's opened near my place has thrown my system out of whack. As I try to study the hallowed Global Investment Performance Standards, I keep thinking of the gorgeous sequin toga and the sexy slingbacks I was playing-pretend in not long ago. Oh boy that was a sexy combi.

I have not the means to enjoy it all. Skiing? Sexay clothes? MBA? Roof over my head? Food for my children?

Ah the limited nature of resources. I must start angling my goals of mega awesomeness well.

Which, recently, have landed me browsing postgrad scholarships on my company website. It's almost like heresy, really. I feel like I've shockingly betrayed myself, but there it is, I'm considering working here for forever. FOREVER. Honestly, it's a pretty sweet, really stable place, where the work more often than not gives me heebie jeebies -- in the good, exciting sort of way.

Oh No.

Seriously, from taking classes from all ends of the Earth, escaping on weekend adventures, hop skip and jumping the world, exciting and ephemeral relationships -- to a 9-5 day, paying bills, keeping accounts, watching friends settle down, attending weddings, burgeoning babies.. Life is just sneaking up on me and becoming Different.

Zen is a lot harder to achieve than previously imagined. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm not very good at my work. Can't get projects, don't lend too much on the ones I'm on, just don't have the straight up technical expertise which is necessary and have the completely wrong mindset to be in this industry. Wondering if all the prospective value of my experiences will have the value I project.. but I guess SJ says to have faith in dots connecting. I don't know. All experiences seem very frivolous to me right now. CFA, extremely interesting, transient, meaning unclear, benefit to rest of life unclear, thankfully it's enjoyable. But if I fail it that will be another story. Wakeboarding.. expensive, hurts my dam knees so I really can't enjoy it like I want to. Really poor at work.. Not much else in life... friends are great company but still latched on to the one irritating handle... which was (is) some way to distract myself from the emptiness. Like what came out in my convo w Ying today, floating in a lagoon and seeing colours that reminded me so much of Stanford.. "when you come back the rest of your life will feel like shit."

i'll ask myself, Why, Carolyn, Why? What did you do all that for?

Took some time today to read through the entire of our quality assurance processes that basically define our every move. And I swear I'm practically depressed now wondering how companies will ever, ever be able to break out of the process bind to allow unbridled innovation. You want quality, and you want ideas. Every single process I encountered in the 52 pages of this document were 100% valid -- maybe a little crossover here and there but every step reasonable. Of course you want methodology assurance, of course you want risk management, technology assessment, effective resource allocation. Which completely 100% obviate innovation, and may I purport, real progress of any kind at all (and thus happiness. I swear, the sheer volume of these processes is physically unsettling.

There is no bare minimum -- once you're an established organization it is your due diligence to ensure quality. Every averted crisis is another font of SOPs to follow -- and your experience only grows and grows. It would be daft not to bring that experience with you. Or would it? What baggage are we allowed to slough to make the forward journey tenable?

Might I add that this has also thoroughly depressed my ambitions -- my juicy challenge for my middle ages has now become insurmountable.