Tag: philosophy

  • A Humble Ego

    I noticed the disruptive force of popularity on me recently and I wondered if that may not be the root to all evil? My ego seems to be most stoked when I enjoy critical acclaim and recognition from others, but given a minute to reflect on the source of such acclaim, I’m quickly reminded about its fickleness. Not the acclaim, but the source. I’ve often contemplated whether or not maintaining a consciously humble disposition is possible, and this further convinces me that it’s not.

    The moment we’re aware of our humility, it plants seeds of arrogance because the knowledge of such a state being aspired to by many is reason to believe that we’re better than them for having acquired it. So the pursuit of humility remains elusive. I find myself once again debating each point I write and back tracking to remove my thoughts because it fails at the tests of logic. The logic that drove me to want to write this post suggests that if I remind myself of the basis on which people polarise towards the popular, it will deny me the reason to take comfort in their praise.

    We’re all weak. We’re all equally weak. What sets us apart is our ability to disguise those weaknesses as strengths. Where we’re weak in our need for recognition and affirmation, we’re strong in our ability to garner such attention. The avenues we choose to pursue as noble endeavours to garner that attention is what is displayed as a passion that others are drawn towards, all the while believing that we’re inspired, when in fact we’re satisfying our need to be recognised amongst those we admire.

    It seems life is an endless circle of vicious cycles. Even the cycle of life has its own viciousness that forces us to collaborate and collude in artful ways that distracts us from the cycle and convinces us that what we pursue is in fact purpose. I’m starting to wonder if it’s purpose at all that drives us, but instead a need to be distracted from reality? Like they say, a man sees the world too clearly from the mountain. It takes a brave man to embrace the reality that becomes evident in such a moment, while the rest of us paint pretexts and contexts that serve to convince us that we are in fact significant.

    Everything that I witness around me points to the innate desire to be significant. Even the most ascetic amongst us seeks the significance in the eyes of the one they adore or worship, while those that surrender the goal of acquiring such significance are prone to self destruct, sometimes completely. The effort to reach into their soul and convince them that their significance directly inspires our own becomes ever more daunting because if we fail to convince them, we risk stepping on the same slippery slope of self abasement from which we attempted to rescue them. Another vicious cycle.

    I guess the true reality is that the ego is only as arrogant as the observer. The one who witnesses the arrogance in others without seeing their weaknesses that underlie such repugnant behaviour are in fact the ones that are least in touch with their own weaknesses, or their own insecurities. When we believe that we’re better than that, we look condescendingly on those who are arrogant, but the moment we realise the collective weakness we share that gives rise to such outward displays of fear, we find ourselves compelled to view them with empathy instead.

  • Elusive

    Indulgence in distractions is a worldly pastime because it’s desperately needed. Reality, for the aware, will always be excruciatingly burdensome. Despite my most enthusiastic efforts to convince myself that the reality behind the burdens is in fact the truth, and that the burdens are in fact the distractions, I keep finding myself sobered up by the reality that I’m wrong.

    Living idealistically while trying to remain grounded in reality is exhausting. Being the optimist around a bunch of defeatists is exhausting. People are exhausting. And so is life. There is a natural inclination for people to employ their innate ability of osmosis to drain the life blood out of those that they polarise towards in times of trouble, while reciprocating with nothing more than a meaningless token gesture or a materialistic gift. Most people live on credit, but they’re so focused on their material debts that they fail to realise that their contribution towards the upliftment of those around them falls far short of what they take, which leaves the real debt unsettled.

    The good life, in this world, seems to be acquired when our volume of distractions exceed the reality of our responsibility. It’s no wonder then that the sense of fulfilment or completeness that we all seek is so elusive. That’s the thing with distractions. If you focus on sustaining them for long enough they begin to appear as essentials, while the truth that they were used to dumb down assumes the status of an unrealistic expectation. I guess that makes reality elusive as well.

    It’s not surprising then that life is as complicated as it appears to be. But in that there is a rub as well. If the majority is convinced that this life of distractions is in fact reality, the minority that realise the fallacy of it all will find themselves at odds with the prevailing logic, which regardless of its flaws, will significantly influence the level of peace and harmony experienced by the grounded ones. In that lies the gravest choice because the realisation of something can never be undone. We can never un-realise a truth that we subscribe to. The only way to truly change our grasp on reality would be to find meaningful evidence that convinces us that such a realisation was wrong to begin with, or perhaps insufficiently informed.

    In the absence of finding such relief, the burden of reality as we perceive it to be will never subside even if we successfully distract ourselves from it for most of our lives. I believe that the moment of clarity we experience before death finally overcomes us will be the moment when all distractions will finally be rendered impotent and the reality of our lives, our excuses, and our failings will suddenly grip our souls. That final wretched embrace will leave us yearning for the life that we always wished was over while romanticising death, but the romance of death will give way to the unalterable reality of its finality. Such finality will not spawn peace or comfort for the soul that was distracted during their life.

    I am convinced that there is an important point in all this rambling, although even that seems to elude me right now. Perhaps it’s the fact that my struggle has always been pitted in striking a balance between encouraging the wholesome balance of reality and harmony while finding it necessary to spurn the actions of those that detract from such a goal. One of my death bed regrets will inevitably be my inability to demonstrate the sincerity and intention behind my actions, which is easily hidden by my intolerance for obliviousness.

  • Distracted by Life

    Looking at the insecurity that lurks behind the eyes of the arrogant ones that I engage with on a daily basis is all that makes them tolerable, and keeps me sufficiently pacified in not wanting to expose their feeble-mindedness for what it is. The realisation of understanding the fears of another makes it very difficult to judge them harshly, or to treat them cruelly, no matter how well deserved it may be, unless of course my own fears and insecurities rise above theirs at which point being brutal comes naturally.

    But there is a more painful underlying reality that weighs me down and it’s difficult to grasp the true nature of it. I feel compelled to be patient whilst simultaneously feeling aggravated by the lack of action that such patience demands. Being caught between the need for restraint and the need for instant gratification is entirely uncomfortable. Stringing together any meaningful thought patterns becomes a challenge in itself given my nature. One of my greatest fears has always been stagnation of spirit. Seeing death around every turn, and sometimes in every breath, while knowing that I’ve not applied myself nearly as effectively as I know I am capable of. With this in mind, seeing the vacant stares from behind the arrogant facades only riles me up further, driving me to want to grab by the collar every walking dead that pretends to be more than they are while entirely wasting their life by assuming a posture that wins hollow acclaim from strangers that add almost no value in their lives other than the comfort of brief acceptance for the moment that they were beheld by such superficially guided standards.

    A rant, a rant, is all this seems to amount to, although I feel the angst in my chest driving me to want to articulate something that I believe is important but that I’m struggling to impart. Simply stated, I think people are distracted by bullshit. We’re so misguided by tokenism that we fail to realise how much we pursue that which is contrived, rather than the wisdom that should be derived.

    This is barely making sense to me even. Perhaps, after all, it is a reflection of my mind’s craziness relative to the embrace that I enjoy from the people around me. An embrace of common views and values that are rarely celebrated. That embrace of spirit or of being that is set aside in favour of the indulgence of practical benefits. Life is distracted in that way. We’re distracted by the practical reality beyond just what is practically needed, quickly slipping into the daze that drives us to believe that such a practical need is in fact the objective of our existence.

    I seem to be discussing the inevitability of death more often these days, with the constant reminder that it is an inevitable destination which therefore makes no sense to be feared, but should rather be embraced. The time spent fearing it results in a paralysis of thought and action, although some would argue that it in fact spurs such thought and action. The idealist in me drives me to believe that action resulting from fear is insincere, since without the repercussion being known, the action would lose its purpose, and therefore by default negates its value. Maybe not. Perhaps the realisation should be that acting with impunity in the face of such an undeniable reality is worse than acting out of fear, although the sincerity of the former would be far more admirable than that of the latter.

    But such idealisms hold little appeal for people still distracted by the practical reality of life. I naively believe that if we focus on the legacy of a life well lived, without courting the accolades of such a legacy, death will automatically be a welcomed destination. If our choice of spirituality, religion, or values that we subscribe to brings us balance and harmony with those around us as well as the world that is somewhat detached from us, then perhaps in pursuing such a balance without the constant fear of its repercussions on what is to take place beyond life, we may find that we will live a life of meaning and purpose, whilst also fulfilling the entry criteria for a death that heralds comfort and peace.

    It’s therefore ironical that in our pursue for peace, we tend to wreak the most destruction.

  • Inspired by Death

    When faced with the realisation of the finite nature of time, and by extension, life, it seems superfluous to be in search of inspiration to do that which I feel passionate about. Of all the day dreams and fairy tales that dot my imagination from my earliest memories, wanting to change the world was almost always a consistent theme, sometimes on a small scale, and at times in a much bolder way.

    I lack the patience to simply outgrow things because that implies a natural evolution of my being rather than an intelligent effort. Waiting for situations to change simply because with the passage of time it is likely to change is about as inspiring and meaningful as watching paint dry. Worse still, it holds the same sense of fulfillment as the act of counting the grains of sand in the desert. The remembrance of both the inevitability of death as well as the very finite limit it sets on our lives, often without warning, should be enough to spur me into action against every thought that I conceive without the need for any other motivator or source of inspiration. But it doesn’t. At least not as often as it should.

    The main reason I’ve always receded was because I saw no reason to proceed. An obvious statement with not so obvious implications. While the thought of death may spur me into action, it rarely has the same effect on those around me which frustrates me. That frustration is more reflective of my self-criticism of not being able to convey the urgency of life to those around me, and less about my contempt for their waste of life. So my choice to recede is because in the face of an unreceptive audience, any performance no matter how brilliant, is futile. So just as we need receptive hearts to inspire us to want to share a message, the absence thereof causes the words to dissipate into the lethargy around us.

    I sometimes grow impatient and aggressive when I’ve exhausted all reasonable measures to get through to someone that is blatantly destructive or oblivious to how they’re undermining their own potential, but once that final expression of exasperation is spent, the acceptance of it all descends and I move on to focus on more meaningful endeavours. Anything that holds the promise of fulfilment, not necessarily reward, is enough to engage my senses and pique my interest.

    I’ve often been accused of being obsessive with taunts of OCD hurled at me on many occasions, often cloaked as a joke. But my obsession is one that this world could use more of. My obsession is that I wish to leave every situation or every place in a better state than it was before I touched it. The net effect of my life must be more than just an accumulation of comforts and wealth, or a fulfillment of responsibility. It must extend to the upliftment of those around me, including myself.

    For this reason death inspires me. It inspires me because with each skill that I acquire, I feel a compelling need to use it to benefit another before the breath is removed from me and the skill is wasted. It will be wasted if it was neither used to benefit others, nor passed on as a gift to empower another. So before death reaches me, I hope to expend myself in ways that will leave as little wastage as possible for death to claim.

  • If Wishes Were Horses…

    I was reminded of that old proverb tonight. If wishes were horses, beggars would be riders. That’s how it often feels for me in life. Fortunately these bouts of wishing for what never was usually subsides within minutes, and rarely does it ever extend into hours or days. But that I wish or yearn for beginnings that were not intended for my life is something I can’t deny. Most of all, I often find myself wishing that I had sources of wisdom to draw on as I progressed through my years and my life experiences.

    Becoming an adult in a harsh world is difficult enough without such guidance. Finding your way amidst the jeers and ridicule of many while maintaining a single-minded focus on what you aspire to be is enough to try the tenacity of an angel. But I’m no angel, and fortunately the realisation of that struggle only hit me much later in life, well beyond that exhausting stage which made it somewhat more bearable. Perhaps that is the blessing of being oblivious at times.

    However, such struggles are never to be presented in single item purchases. They always seem to come in bulk purchases. Reflecting on those early years seems almost as if I had an idyllic existence at the time if I were to compare it to what was to follow. Painful lessons were learnt in my efforts to become a husband, and later a father. I’ve often felt twinges of remorse and guilt at the thought of the pain unleashed on others during those years of growth, but my saving grace is the knowledge that whatever I did, I did sincerely and out of genuine conviction for what I believed to be the right thing to do at the time. That’s all we can expect from anyone, isn’t it?

    Behaving maliciously is a sign of an infinitely more troubled soul than mine and I shudder at the thought, so as long as I don’t stoop to such levels, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I am not truly jaded or bitter yet. The cynicism though, is open for debate. The wisdom accumulated through years of unaided struggles can easily be wasted if we’re quick to assume that we were being punished, rather than being educated. Without such trials, mediocrity and fragility would have taken me in a sweeping motion to a place that would have seen me dependent and needy of support structures reserved for the frail of heart, and timid of mind. Yet from a young age the innate resilience of my spirit kept me going. It has always been a sense of resilience that I could never take credit for. I did not sow it, nor did I nurture it. In fact, it nurtured me.

    And now, after all these experiences that have shaped me into who I am today, I still feel lacking. I wonder if the weight of being independently resilient with nothing more than faith to rely on will eventually wear away at my resolve and render me brittle and fragile at a time when the weight of this life just becomes overwhelmingly burdensome. Faith must remain my companion if I hope to survive this ordeal of life with any measure of dignity that may remain. My greatest fear is that at some point I may be faced with the harsh reality that perhaps I got it wrong all these years. Perhaps after all my resolve, my self-proclaimed philosophies of life, and death, and my supposedly informed perspectives of what makes us human, and what gives life purpose, perhaps at some point I will be disemboweled by the truth of what was, and the realisation of how far off the mark I was. And suddenly, the reality of death and the purpose of life will seem like a story very different to the one I just lived, with barely a breath left in me to try again.

  • Managers, Leaders, and Collaboration

    Rather than quote case studies on this, I prefer to share a few random thoughts on what has proven to be effective for me and the teams that I have worked with. To unlock collaboration, you must abandon team meetings. It might sound counter-intuitive, but it works.

    Setting up regular meetings (like the ones that generally set the tone in most projects) run according to the text books of ‘best’ practices, sets the expectation that collaboration beyond your immediate accountability is constrained to only that time set aside for the meeting. When we provide structure beyond just delegations of authority, or accountability for delivery, we hinder performance and encourage individualistic approaches to dealing with problems facing a project, or a team. In other words, we inadvertently push the agenda of the hero rather than the team and we create the perfect climate and culture in which heroes thrive. Getting recognition for your efforts in a team setting of the type described here is a further catalyst to encourage lone-ranger behaviour rather than creating an environment conducive towards collaboration.

    Leadership by facilitation is a powerful skill that can unlock potential in teams and individuals in ways that no amount of coaching or mentoring will be able to equal. The reason why this is seldom practiced is because most leaders are managers first, before they are leaders. In more than two years of running a software testing team, among other functions, we have yet to have a real team meeting. Even when we had ‘team meetings’, it was ad hoc and focused on a specific concern or issue of alignment that needed to be addressed, rather than having a team meeting for the sake of meeting with the team. Regular informal interaction between team members that is focused on clearly defined objectives always yields much better results than dictating who is responsible for what. How often haven’t you seen bright individuals recede simply because they felt overwhelmed by the heroes and bullies in the team?

    Consider this. When you have a team meeting, the agenda usually includes items focused on providing feedback on outstanding actions, allocating new issues to someone for resolution/action, or providing general feedback to staff about what has transpired since the last meeting. All those agenda items confirm only one thing to me. Team meetings are focused on the allocation of individual responsibilities rather than team goals, but are disguised to look as if it’s a team effort that is taking place. To prove this, look around the table at your next meeting and see how many people adopt a sheepish grin when asked about whether or not they read the minutes from the last meeting?

    The moment we avoid establishing routine interactions, we set the scene for spontaneity. I work with various guiding principles in mind that inform the way I engage with others. One of it states that every individual is competent until proven otherwise. Another says that every individual is a mature adult until proven wrong. And yet another favourite is that every individual has an innate need to be recognised for their contribution while being allowed sufficient latitude to employ their personal flair of creativity in the way they arrive at the set objectives. These principles always foster a culture of mutual respect, accountability, and transparency. People clam up and become territorial when they feel like their significance is threatened or questioned. That significance is often challenged if they have reason to believe that their competence is being doubted or questioned.

    More often than not we don’t directly challenge anyone’s significance or competence, but the way in which we trust them, guide them, allow them to act independently, and respect the delegation of authority that we provide them with, collectively reveals how seriously we consider their input or their contribution. You’ll never be able to engage in a meaningful way if you’re managing by team meetings, because just as that sets the expectation for team members to primarily be accountable to that forum, it also sets the expectation that the manager of that team is only expected to engage meaningfully during that session as well.

    The more I try to isolate collaboration and aspects relating to leadership, the more they seem to become intertwined, and perhaps in that there is much truth as well. A manager will be prone to taking a rigid approach towards managing the outputs of a team if that is the limit of their confidence in being able to command the respect and commitment from the team. A leader on the other hand will feel much more inclined to trust, and provide principled leadership that encourages individual-level collaboration and accountability that align with the project or organisational objectives, without feeling a need to enforce their idea of how those objectives should be reached.

    There is an inherent desire in every one of us to want to contribute to a greater purpose. A leader will demonstrate, and therefore share their passion for the organisational goals which in turn will inspire their subjects to aspire to contribute towards the stated goals. However, a manager will assume the role of defining the individual components required to achieve that goal, and will subsequently delegate accountability for those components and then simply expect compliance in the achievement of those goals.

  • Why Time Travel is Probably Not Possible

    The concept of time travel, in my opinion, is more a desire founded in the weakness of us because of our collective regret over missed opportunities rather than a practical and needed solution to any of mankind’s ills. We struggle to live in  the present, to be conscious, and to be grounded because of the constant distraction of what we have yet to do or achieve, which makes it quite ironical that one of those distractions is our pursuit of the ability to travel back in time so that we can right the wrongs we spawned when wondering about some other time or place.

    The more I contemplate the concept of time travel from a purely logical perspective, the less likely the possibility of achieving it appears to be. There are a number of theories that abound by respected scientists that suggest that it is physically possible, but they remain theories, and hence what prompted me to develop my own theories to disprove this misconception that serves as nothing more than a fairy tale.

    I find it difficult to believe that we’ll ever be able to travel faster than instantaneous. What I mean is, we may be able to break barrier of the speed of light, but in doing so, we will only ever get as close as is humanly possible to moving from one place to another in an instant, or moment, or split second, however you wish to measure it; but we’ll never get there before we’ve left our point of departure.

    The entire concept of the speed of light being the holy grail for time travel is mistaken. We assume that simply because the light reflected off an object has not reached us yet, it means that it exists in a different dimension. It doesn’t. The fact that the light is still en route does not change the fact that the object is still physically in the same location. Stated differently, if I were to accelerate faster than the speed of light, chances are that I will find myself in a place of darkness because the light that I left behind is still catching up with me. Imagine the disappointment on the face of the man that eventually breaks the speed of light only to find himself bumping into objects that he can’t see because the light reflected off them has not reached him yet?

    In fact, even in that scenario there are flaws. That would assume that the objects whose reflected light can no longer be seen are all located in close proximity to the origin of his travels. Think about it this way. If I were to travel faster than the speed of light in a horizontal direction, only light emanating from sources in a similar trajectory (so to speak) would be left behind. However, and light traveling vertically would still reach me because I would be crossing their paths and not traveling away from them. So in order for me to reach that point of darkness, I would need to be traveling away from every light source in every direction simultaneously, or else I’ll always be crashing into other light sources.

    That all sounds really complicated so perhaps here is an easier way to explain my point of view. Traveling faster than the speed of light will only make me outrun the light itself, and will not make me travel through time, since time itself is not even measured by the presence or quantity of light. Time is simply a constructed unit of measure that is independent of our definition of it. We could call it 50 other names and define 100 different units of measure to measure it as opposed to the standard seconds, minutes, hours, days, and so on, but it would not change the very essence of time itself.

    Whether or not the light of an object is visible does not stop the entropy experienced by the object. In other words, I won’t remain forever young if I simply lived in a dark room all my life. So the fact that the light that should otherwise be reflected from my body is not visible, does not make me absent. It simply makes me out of sight but still present. So this entire focus on the speed of light to make time travel possible is simply absurd. We measure changes by the elapsed time of the event. We improve our productivity by more meaningfully using the time we have available. And then we delude ourselves into believing that we’re getting better at time management, when in fact we’re getting better at managing our lethargy and procrastination.

    Time is not what we need to conquer, but rather ourselves, our arrogance, and our pride that suggests that we’re so powerful and infinitely resourceful that we have the wit, the intelligence, and the capability to conquer any physical construct we find in our path. Time is not physical. It is not a liquid, a gas, a solid, or any other variation of matter in between. In fact, it’s not even matter, and doesn’t matter either. It’s the actions we do in the moments that pass that determine how well those moments were spent. When we lose sight of that, we end up trying to find ways to escape the reality of death by believing that we are capable of cheating it, starting yet another cycle of lethargy and procrastination to do that which matters, while falsely assuming that we’re engaged in endeavours that will improve the quality of life of mankind.

  • No Forever Afters

    It’s natural sometimes to feel fear when life suddenly takes a turn for the better,  because a history of disappointment or challenges conditions us to expect the worst.  So instead of embracing our new experiences,  we end up bracing ourselves for what we expect might happen.  It’s part of our survival instinct. However, because we’re protecting ourselves from a threat that is not present,  our body takes strain because of the imbalance it causes, which results in poor health and dysfunction. Unfortunately, at that point, the ill health causes us to turn to the modern medical professional first, instead of last.

    You see, when we have this imbalance that causes ill health, we’re conditioned to believe that something external to us has suddenly created an internal problem. A problem that we’re incapable of rectifying unless we bombard our bodies with chemical cocktails that will strip the paint off the wall if applied correctly. But tonight I don’t quite care about the stupidity of current mainstream health regimens. I don’t quite care for much at all actually.

    For some time now I’ve looked around and realised that no matter how much effort or expense is invested in the maintenance and upkeep of the structures around us, the moment that effort is complete, the decay starts setting in to prepare us for the next bout of maintenance. Everything in this world, including us, was designed to perish, to decay, to disintegrate into nothing at the end of being something. It’s a fruitless endeavour to focus on embellishing this world, or this life, but the fickleness of my nature always distracts me towards enticing challenges that lure me towards them under the pretence of it being an expression of my creativity, or in other cases, an opportunity to make the lives of others more comfortable or pleasant.

    Nothing lasts, not the intensity of the emotions felt when love is most inflamed, nor the bitter anger of the betrayal of that same love when it fades. It all dissolves into nothing as time erodes its memory, but yet we pursue the concept of forever after as if it was truly experienced in this world. It never was, and never will be. There are no forever afters, nor are there any fail safe remedies to outlast this world. All we can ever do is delay the inevitable, but the inevitable is inevitable, or else it would not be called the inevitable, yet, inevitably, we seem not to get it. It really is as absurd as that sounded.

    I know that I should be taking the lighter load for the road ahead. I know that the lighter load means less indulgences in materialism, and more in spiritualism. I also know that finishing my latest gardening project adds to that load, but my obstinacy, or perhaps my weakness, is that it is easier to feed my feeble sense of self-worth through accomplishing these celebrated goals, rather than to draw comfort from the fact that I would have successfully detached myself from this world a little more when I walked past that beautiful water feature without reaching to see if my credit card was in my wallet.

    This same weakness within me is what I despise in others. I often despise it even more because being surrounded with a similar weakness leaves me without a handhold to lift myself out of the quagmire of materialism. Living comfortably is a lie. A horrible lie that is unachievable. By our very nature we will constantly seek to improve what we have because that is the yardstick of success. Only those whose primary focus is a goal external to their immediate circle of influence or responsibility will stand any chance of overcoming such a weakness. Unfortunately such philanthropic or altruistic endeavours are also plagued with indulgence of the spiritual self because of our need to be acknowledged and validated.

    This world cannot come to an end soon enough.