Life in a nutshell

Okay. At this point in time I really shouldn't be doing this but argh.
So, life. I think that we generally follow either of two pathways (impossible to reconcile) - either keep running on the hedonistic treadmill, or giving everything up and being a monk or nun or something like that.

I came up with another analogy for this.

We are all little kids carrying plastic baubles/balls. Each represents something dear to us. Say, friends; family; wealth; etc. As we run along the path of life, invariably more attractive things come along the way that we try to pick up and carry along as well. So we bend down, stoop and pick them up. But eventually, there comes a point in time where if we are not cautious enough, all the balls may scatter everywhere. Then we pick up the balls one by one and continue doing what we've done.
Choosing to let go of all the balls, then, is like choosing to give up a hedonistic lifestyle - no more burdens. Yet most of us choose not to do so, because the thought of losing everything is exceptionally painful.

A beginner's guide to behaviour

Okay. So I enrolled in this course from Coursera (a website offering free online courses from universities around the world, sans Harvard and MIT because they have EdX, which is exclusive and serves the same function). The course is from Duke University with lecturer Dan Ariely. I thought that he suffered a stroke at first, but it turns out that he suffered burns on 70% of his body (if I remember correctly).

Anyway, I've been tardy, signed up for it on 1st April when it started a week ago. But ive already had some insights from the curse. Not exactly revelations though because I knew about it long ago, but I did underestimate the importance of this thing we call laziness. Or doing things by default. Basically, irrationality. And it does have links as to why The Talk Project has not really launched off yet. On yet another tangent, I've not been speaking much to people. It seems that the adrenaline that courses through the first time doesn't apply to the next few. So, very hard to all. BUT I'm going to keep trying and I hope that people do!

So, about this thing called irrationality. Dan mentions an example about doctors who have to choose between a default of forwarding a patient for hip replacement surgery and calling up the patient to ask him to try another course of medicine (ibuprofen) that the doctor forgot about in a scenario (version1). Mot doctors in this case act like good doctors and choose to call. HOWEVER, in Version 2, two courses of medicine are forgotten. Due to the simple hassle of two drugs, most doctors in this case choose to stick to the default mode and send the patient for hip replacement surgery. This incidentally also links to a TEDtalk on why we should use our brains and question what professionals (self-claimed or otherwise) say. Because they're not always right. TEDtalks are really fun stuff to watch and bring many ideas to you sitting and being a couch potato. Watch videos right here: http://www.ted.com/
Don't be lazy and choose the default of not even clicking!!!

So anyway, I can flesh this idea out a little more. Try testing the group of doctors when they're fresh in the morning and when they're tired at night. I'm pretty sure the default is chosen when we're tired. Oh by the way this concept I am talking about is called choice architecture. Sorry for not mentioning it earlier. The factors that affect our decisions are the environment, defaults, and the complexity of the situation - meaning that if one or more factors are in place, we tend to shut off and (worded in Singlish, something unique to Singapore) just "heck it lah". I'm pretty sure everyone has had this kind of experience at least once in their lives unless theyve been enlightened Buddhas since birth. That one-cent difference in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet when it's five minutes till knocking off? Conventional economics dictates that the opportunity cost of switching on the computer, changing a value and shutting it off is far greater than leaving the minor mistake alone and spending that five minutes staring into blank space (duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Cue dumb caveman noise.)
In sum, we tend to care much less about making choices and leaving it to the default when we're tired.

This kind of linked back to why Steve Jobs and Apple have been so successful as well. I'm assuming he knew about this concept and set about making minimalist designs centering around this idea, because his products follow this rule. For those who have been living under exceptionally huge rocks, when you compare an iPhone to any other on the market for instance, you get much lesser colours - black and white/silver. This even follows from DSLRs, which have taught people that good things come in few colours. So an iPhone must be spectacular compared to coloured bethren who have to appear sexier to appeal. Iphones are also notorious for making the choice for the laypeople (I'm assuming that tech geeks have the ability to hack and change the operating system as they deem fit). Ringtone? Alarm? Sorry, but you only get a finite number of tones to choose from. The words are either black on white, or in the negative. It turns out that letting people be their true nature (lazy) is great money.

And also that's why when I sketch stuff on my little book I try to limit the number of options available. Too many, and people won't buy it. Incidentally, the same problem arises when I go to hawker centres, those uniquely Singaporean landmarks - too many foods. And shopping malls (cant see why people spend their lives shopping. Girls.... An entire mystery onto themselves....) too.

I'm currently at the part where Dan talks about how retirement plans are made such that most people don't have one. Okay, perhaps they're naturally that way. But you have to opt-in and fill in troublesome forms; you have to choose from many different plans; and it's am important decision that affects your life. No surprise, then, that people just don't care enough in the present to get one. This is how we procrastinate.

So anyway. It does appear, as NNN criticised, that my idea is too sketchy. Who in their right mind would be rational enough to print out stuff, cut them and place themselves in uncomfortable situations when they could be gaining levels, chatting with friends virtually, checking social media? So the task for me now is how I'm supposed to make things easier for people to take up my idea. Got none, though... And of course, most people would simply like the post and (at best) share The Talk Project on their own Facebook walls. But making it easier for this project to go viral ups the chance of news reaching people who are dedicated enough to actually carry out substantial action.

So as a parting shot, I think that regardless of job, those who know the value of choice architecture and actively choose to go against the tide should be given chances of promotion. Because they're at least fighting to constantly be better as opposed to those who have nothing but paper qualifications. Not that those are bad to have. (: 

Republic Poly

I didn't know that this place was done by a famous Japanese architect.

Anyway, a lame joke:

What do architects say when they go to a pharmacist? 

..

..

..

"Can I have some pilasters, please?" 

Heh. Pilaster. Plaster. Hohoho. 

Okay, that wasn't funny. 

Nuggets of wisdom from Candy Crush

Now, I never intended to play this game. But anyway after trying out a level on my father's phone I decided to try it out. So I wasted a good portion of my spare time for a week, got to level 35, saw that I had to ask people o Facebook, and quit. So, lessons learnt:
1. Be prudent. Make your moves wisely after dileberating them.
2. Yet, there are times when you have to be spontaneous (such as during timed sessions). Make life fun. Don't always be a bore and think about work. We exist not only to make money, to do something we don't really like (hopefully not...) or to clock in hours to make the boss/girl/wife happy.
3. Grasp what is important in life (such as how to make multiple combos). Then, see the same pattern (such as in time trials or turn-based rounds) and apply the same method to succeed.
4. In life, there must be other people (such as your friends and family) to compete against, share information with, debate about. Help each other along the way, and you will be helped in return.
5. There may be people who want to reach level 275 ASAP. But what's the point in doing so? Treasure the process of getting there. And unlike in this game, life has no happily-ever-after Disney moment where happiness plateaus. Keep moving, keep learning, keep exploring, and keep doing things you love. With the people whom you love. 

Wisma Atria and Central (Chinatown)

Wisma Atria's lights are very pretty. The lights of the latter change colour slightly. For the former, I wanted to take a blur shot but my iPhone was too smart and auto-focused too fast. 

The view it to Clarke Quay from Central. When you walk up from the MRT/subway, you see a rather pathetic view at the first floor. Yet it is also rather smart in a way, because I think the architect meant for people to not really enjoy this little space with food signs blaring down at you and a huge lift to ferry office workers up but to cross over into an atrium and stare at escalators crisscrossing the main space. This second space is like a Sim Lim Square of sorts, that notorious building that provides quality hardware for techies and yet scams the living daylights out of poor tourists. I got quite curious about a shop with a long queue of people coming for free luggage and apparently after asking a dude on the MRT (whose demeanour reminded me of an architect where I'm interning) it transpired that this is a bank's scheme. Or credit card or something. Anyway. Yes, I got to feel a little frightened on the escalators because they were really chucking me in thin air. Central also reminds me a little of Orchard Central, where there's also a layout which people find disorientating. And the shops are a little too unprofessional looking and open to the public and small for such a space. So, quite clashy.

Architectural Wanderings

 

The escalators at HDB Hub. Looks like a cascade of light. Really pretty.

This building is curved and to me looks a little like a ship. On the right there's an alfresco-like area. 

Very monolithic with shiny brown tiles covering this particular elevation. Very striking, but the phone couldn't capture all of that.

The Talk Project

Okay, will upload pictures later. But anyway, this (as usual) came about because I was annoyed with something. So this something this time round is that I don't like people, ncluding myself, to be in the public and not chatting to each other. Why is that so? Is it because people have to protect themselves against others to prevent overexposure of social interactions? (I forgot which famous guy said that, but I learn it in GP. Thanks Mr C.) Or is it because of the smartphone era where people are wedded to their mobile devices, playing games like Candy Crush, watching Korean dramas, listening to music and (in my case) watching iTunes U lectures? Or could it simply be a case of conformists refusing to change the status quo because they don't mind it?

Anyway, to try and get people talking on the MRT and bus and in parks and whatnot to avoid awkward silences, I came up with this project one night, meaning I gave form to it two days ago. So it's still just me but I'm going to try and recruit my friends. Friends, watch out. Hehe. I want to see if I can be a "hub", someone who can connect to many different friends and help create a wave from there. It's also a way to see the power of social media. 

So what I'd like people to do is this: 
Route 1. Get a "namecard"; be inspired enough by me/ someone else to go home, surf the net to find a jpeg to print/scan in the namecard thing and distribute them around as well.
Route 2. See people posting a weird card like thing on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and changing their profile pictures to a picture that says Talk. Get intrigued enough to read on. Get the courage to spread it around. Get even more courage to talk to others on the way home when there's nothing else o do but play games. 

Will it be successful? Will it be a passing fad? Is a passing fad all that I want? Is it what most people who've tried stuff like this want? Probably not. But don't we all try and then hope for the best? So, I hope for the best. Perhaps in a year's time a miracle may have happened and when I'm out from NS on the weekends I see people being really friendly to each other, regardless of trying to protect their sanity from too many social interactions blah blah. 

Dreams

Actually, I'm not doing much for NUS scholarships application and USP for now (...)
SIGH
I wonder why )))))):
These are two things I really want to get! USP because I want to study architecture and take on something similar to liberal arts. Scholarship because it offers me the option of USP. And well... Who doesn't want free money? Free hostel fees (for the most prestigious of them all); laptop allowance; yearly allowance; THE CHANCE TO GO OVERSEAS WAHHH FOR USP TOO; and no bond! It's a dream come true... but will the scholarship board want someone who doesn't have straight A's, who doesn't have a single leadership position due to multiple insecurities; who has low self esteem?

But then again, do dreams come true if we don't try? Am I not trying? I don't want to be this self anymore, this person who slacks, who theoreticises but doesn't carry out what he proposes. I don't want to be an armchair critic. I don't want to keep sleeping away my weekends (my sleep was 9+ hours long these past two days. So am awake now to type all this.). I want to actively seek out and be what I want to be. I'll seek out my uncle for advice. Heck, I'll make plans to go knock on people's doors and see if they are intrigued enough to help me. (So help, please. Hehehe.) And if I manage to snag USP and/or a NUS scholarship (any one that allows me to go for USP!) I will honestly cry. Because these are things which I've never ever wanted so very badly in my entire life (apart from a certain someone). So I'll fight for it. And hopefully I touch souls. I get to touch my dream.

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Anyway. Moving on. I'll be trying to do something extremely rudimentary tomorrow because I suddenly decided to do it after a rather long talk and a rather long day which hasn't resulted in much concrete action. Please, whoever is watching over me... Give me strength. Strength to change myself and to change others. (Hint: is mentioned in one of the posts below.)

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Moving on on the moving on.

Yes.

To all the people out there in the world who actually somehow or rather chance upon my blog.

Do you have a dream? Or dreams?

Are you tryng to make them work?

Or do you think that you've seen it all, especially if you're an adult?

Especially Singaporeans... Are we, as a nation, keen to stay as a country with extremely high PISA scores but yet unwilling to translate into entrepreneurship? Are we satisfied with iron rice bowls? Do we not dream? Have we abandoned our dreams for the cold, hard reality that is so apparent to us?

Perhaps I'm still young, still innocent, still naive enough to dream.

But while this lasts, while I am not yet jaded enough to resign myself to simply churning out run-of-the-mill designs as an arhcitect (hypothetical scenario), I encourage you, dear viewer, to take a few minutes and think. Have you left your dreams to fade and die? Why? Why not keep trying?

I, too, have dreams. Dreams of going overseas, to study with the best of the best. Dreams that were punctuated by me being less hardworking than I should have. Dreams that were torn asunder by my A level results. But should we continue crying for ever? (I know I mope a lot... Maybe it'll stop in a few months more to come. Heh.) Shouldn't we patch up our dreams and continue to surf the wind and see where we go? Isn't there always the question, "what if"? (In no reference to what I wrote to James Lee, Author of the Mr Midnight series, as a primary school kid.) What if we don't stop dreaming? What if we all decided to pluck up the courage to stop regretting? What if we decide to change?

How many people have I met who have dissuaded me from architecture? Yet what am I afraid of? What happens when dreams are realised but aren't what we make them out to be?

But if we never try, we never know. This is the biggest lesson that my grades have taught me.

Because I am not content to simply exist and then have my light snuffed out a few decades later. Why continue wasting our minutes, hours, days, months? Whatever age we are, do we not want to be the best that we can be? Learn as much as there is to learn? Take in the beauty of the world? Do we really want to blunder through life before hitting a mid-life crisis?

So for our own sakes, I feel that we should pluck up the courage to change ourselves and our environment.

I personally find this the hardest thing to do, ever. But yet, I must keep trying. And I hope everyone else does too.