The loss of innocence

It is not implausible. Not at all. For a man to live many lives in one life. But no matter what man he chooses to be in the multitude of men that all reside in this one individual.

Eventually the chastening passage of time will funnel this man to one realisation. It may creep up on this man unexpectedly like a thief in the night. But stand before him it will – the naked truth.

And when the truth stands before this man who has lived so many life times. He can do nothing but seek some measure of peace with it.

What may release this storm of memories from the distant past could well be a thing. Anything. An object. A faded photograph. Or a moment that recalls him back to the moment of his youth. And when this man slips into this other world. He can do nothing except look on like a dumb man transfixed by this object that stands in marvellous completion before him. At first he tries to summon his intellect to dismiss it. But it will not go away. It gnaws at him, compelling this man to strain hard to remember, but nothing yields.

Gradually that feeling of estrangement swells within him – he can feel it stirrimg in him like a coiled serpent and then it hits him – he realises that he has become a very different man from the innocent boy who once started this great experiment called life….has so many years gone by?….. And this man will begin to wonder to himself where is that boy now, who once saw the world through innocent eyes?

Where is he? 

The man peers into the mirror frantically, this time he searches for some lingering residue of the boy, but all he sees is a very hard and implacable man who has no feelings at all glaring back at him……..for a moment he doesn’t quite recognise the man in the mirror. It’s not me, he says to himself. Then he realises that boy is gone forever. Only the man in the mirror remains.

Many people do not understand what was the motivation behind the story of Franz Kafka and the doll. It has been a subject of intense speculation for nearly over a hundred years now.

But I know why the author felt compelled to do what he did that afternoon in the park in Berlin. I know. But I much prefer to keep this to myself….the horror, that is…the horror.

The story goes like this – one afternoon when Kafka was walking in a park in Berlin – he came across a little girl who was crying. She had lost her doll and was desolate.

Kafka offered to help her look for the doll and arranged to meet her the next day at the same spot. Unable to find the doll he composed a letter from the doll and read it to her when they met.

“Please do not mourn me, I have gone on a trip to see the world. I will write you of my adventures.” 

This was the beginning of many letters. When he and the little girl met he read her from these carefully composed letters the imagined adventures of the beloved doll. The little girl was comforted.

When the meetings came to an end Kafka presented her with a doll. She obviously looked different from the original doll. An attached letter explained: “my travels have changed me… ”

Many years later, the now grown girl found a letter stuffed into an unnoticed crevice in the cherished replacement doll. In summary it said: “every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.”

When I first started to turn the wheel of life as a farmer. I was just a simpleton who was happiest minding my own business –  planting row after row of palms – one day I saw an immaculately dressed rich landowner in a creme bush jacket standing beside a shiny black Mercedes looking down at me from high above. He was on a hill – I took off my baseball cap and waved at him – he merely looked on impassively. I remembered his features, they were granite hard and he had an aloofness about him that was characteristic of all landowners – as if he was fashioned from stone – that very night, gangsters knocked on my small little hut. I was told, if I wanted to live, I should consider selling my tiny veggie patch to him and return back to Singapore. So I fought them all and eventually his lands became mine.

After that, that motherfucker cobbled together a motley crew of landowners to fight me. And I fought them all tooth and nail. I gave back as good as I sucked it all up.

Eventually all their lands became mine. And another came. I fought them as well. I have been fighting so long that I cannot even remember not fighting. 

One day when I was sitting down in kopitiam minding my own business munching on kaya bread and kopi O kauh – a group of businessmen sat down on my table. They poured me tea and called me taipan – that was when I realize there was no one else to fight in this valley.

Recently, I cast my eyes across another valley – as I need more land. That was when I saw him from a promontory – he looked like just a simpleton who was happiest minding his own business – planting row after row of palms in his veggie patch. When he saw me, he took off his baseball cap and smiled innocently. The man had just finished wiring his chicken coop. It was a beautiful smile and if I had to hazard a guess, this must be his first run at a season. They all have that wide eyed look of optimism when they’re new. I remembered muttering to myself – As I looked down from high above. I could tell this man had absolutely no idea that an invader was standing right before him or even the slightest inkling why I had come all the way here.

At that very moment, a storm of memories swept across the desolate plains of my consciousness…and I remembered who I am and whence I came from …that was when I looked down and said to myself, “Yes….I understand now….I understand completely”….the circle is now complete…I have come full circle.

“every thing that you love, you will eventually lose, but in the end, love will return in a different form.”

I finally understand…I understand completely..the horror…the horror.

If you want to blog, please learn to manage conflict. Otherwise bye bye lah. See you!

As a general rule I try not to step in whenever I see two factions in blogoland slugging it out – I much prefer if they sort out their problems by themselves without involving others.

As when too many people are involved in a melee – then experience informs me it runs the risk of snowballing into a sort of factional cum partisanship rumble that usually comes encrusted with so many personal and positional issues which may have absolutely nothing to do with the crux that sparked off the storm in the teacup in the first place – result: instead of both sides learning how to resolve conflict independently, maturely and intelligently, what we end up instead is a ‘call the policeman’ or ‘outsource it to a lawyer’ attitude along with embroiling themselves in pie in the sky haggling concerning fuzzy concepts such as “online civility” “bloggers ethics” “code of condutct,” along with conceptual black holes such as “cyber bulling.” – and that as we all know only too well is the preferred method of internet confict resolution that is favoured by the PAP which is no bloody good at all lah!

The reason why I much prefer to adopt this bochap attitude can very easily be mistaken for the idea that it has something to do with promoting free speech.

But assure you all, nothing can be further from the truth.

In truth, there is a much more practical and useful reason why I believe very strongly everyone who steps into blogoland should try to wean themselves away from the cry baby attitude of yelling for help whenever they find themselves embroiled in online controversy – which incidentally seems to be an affliction that is particularly common amongst the ranks of those bubble wrapped PAP politicians – who keep on insisting the Internet is a feral place populated by pot noodle gobbling zombies who harbour some malevolent agenda to tear society asunder, (that to me is really just code for: I don’t have either the imagination or intelligence to manage conflict lah in the Internet. I also dunno how to thrive, prosper and get buy in, in an environment of complexity and diversity. In other words, I am a dinosaur lah)

Instead I believe, the onus is on every blogger to learn the art of how to stand on his or her two feet independently, if possible without help and to manage conflict intelligently, confidently and most importantly in his or her own way.

That to me is the only reliable way to blog grief free. There is no other sustainable way.

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“This hardly requires any elaboration. In life it will always be a very foolish proposition to try to control what others may think and even say about you.

If you are silly enough to buy into that idea, then I can almost guarantee you that you will lead a very unfulfilled and unproductive life. Worst part is no one will one to fuck you. As you will be so stressed up all the time. You will probably look and behave like either an angry bird or a Ninja turtle.

Besides that is not how intelligent folk go about leading a purpose driven life – what they do is discard the minimum pay out route and just go straight for the most gainfully efficient way to get ahead in life.

That simply means instead of investing in the idea of trying to control what X, Y or Z segment of society thinks or regularly say about you – it makes far more sense to just control what’s happening between your ears – as when you think long and hard about it – that is within your control – and this you can do by remaining calm and composed when all others want to do is to push your hot buttons to make you jump up all the time.

When you have developed the skills sets to control your responses to what others may think and even say about you to a point where they can never ruffle your feathers – then you would have begun the process of learning how to be comfortable in your own skin and that is just another way of saying, you are now someone who is able to manage others and most importantly yourself in a very effective way.

That if you must know is the first strategic precondition of learning how to manage conflict intelligently. You must first control what is happening in your own brain. Do just that and I can almost guarantee you…99% of your internet woes will melt away like lemon drops.

Disregard this advise and you will just be like a spinning top diffusing all your energy to the wind…full of sound and fury…signifying absolutely nothing….”

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“Be thoughtful and considerate towards the young, especially girls. They are very fragile like flowers.

And it’s perfectly normal for them at that young and impressionable age to write, say and do things that is bound to raise eyebrows – this is the nature of young girls.

They cannot help themselves. They will always be impulsive and capricious and that is just a polite way of saying – they will experiment with all sorts of things, including states of mind along with different schools of thought.

As since they have not fully awakened into the full breadth of womanhood yet, it is quite normal for them to even behave in this petulant and childish manner.

But always bear in mind they are just growing up and the process for lack of a better word is simply part and parcel of the human condition.

So if you have nothing positive to say to them. It best not to say anything negative either.

Let it be, after all if you see a flower growing on the sidewalk – do you go out and stomp on it? Let the chastening passage of time shape them.

But if you single out young girls with a premeditated design to make their life miserable in the name of free speech and that other internet credo, ‘if you can’t stand the heat then get out of the kitchen’ – then I think you are no different from many of those thin skinned politicians who like to deploy fear to get your way.

And if you do this in a mob – thinking that you can hide behind the strength of numbers. I would seriously advice you to think again.

As under the very same guise of justification that you invoke to write whatever you write in the greater glory of free speech. Someone out there in the infinity of blogoland can also choose to make your life miserable as well for the same reason. Be mindful, free speech is like a double edged sword….it can cut both ways.

Oh I am so sorry….do you mean to say, no one has shared this chapter of the facts of life with you? Do you mean to say, you didn’t realise, there is always a possibility, it can all come around?

Perhaps I should elaborate in greater detail how this might come about.

Let us see. Where shall we begin. Oh yes! Someone could for example circulate your name in the many gaming forums that number in the thousands and label you as a character who needs to be instructed in the error of his ways. Trust me, it’s perfectly legal. You can’t stop me for calling you a fucked up person who likes to bully young girls who can barely protect themselves. Remember I have my freedom of speech wat!

You on your part may think this is a big joke. But one day when you graduate from university and turn your attention to the serious business of gainfully turning the great wheel of life – you may suddenly find many doors are closed to you. Worst of all, you may not know why or even who is behind it or for that matter how could this be pulled off – it will just be a niggling thought that someone in the shadows is hunting you, but you are never quite sure – as there is only a whiff, a lingering suggestion…..

Of course lah the person interviewing you will not tell you exactly why you didn’t land that job. Why should he? After all whether he chooses to volunteer information to you or not is really a matter of his personal prerogative. Remember freedom of speech? Remember what I said to you that it can all come back like a boomerang.

Coming to think of it, neither is that person who just road blocked your career obligated to share with you that he is a closet gamer who likes to command a space station in his spare time like how so many men like to still play with train sets – after all, he’s not committing any crime not even when he makes it difficult for you to land a job – remember he like you has the elemental right to free speech – neither does he need to even share with you a third stage guild navigator may have once mentioned to him in passing “teach this person the error of his ways.”

Coming to think of it, since we all have our freedom of speech top hats on – and we are all wearing our color coordinated, ‘if you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen’ mittens – I am not even obligated to tell whether this may or may not happen to you. Or for that matter whether it is even possible.

That is why I think when you are young, you should try to sow seeds of good will wherever you go. Above all don’t take the attitude that what you do today will never come back and haunt you latter on in life.

Because if you happen to be the sort who is foolish enough to believe that you are bullet proof or some sort of pocket tai kor who can just deal out unmitigated grief to young girls without the slightest care in the world and hide behind the veil of freedom of speech.

Then you may just incur the wrath of the serious men of this world. Who incidentally just happen to have the same freedom of speech as you. Who may all even subscribe to the ancient code that the young, stupid and old must always be protected.

Yes, I understand. It is not as simple as it once appeared now…life that is…who would have ever thought ordinary living…the variety that doesn’t even involve jumping out of airplanes or operating heavy machinery should suddenly be like walking on a razor’s edge where danger seems to lurk even in the most benign of places.

Yes, I understand. I understand completely…..

Only trust me….these men will square the accounts….I hope you can find some way to forgive me for my candour – as I mean well. After all, you hardly blame me for thinking and saying the things I do – I am after all just exercising my elemental right to free of speech…by the way….how does my freedom of speech Kung Fu kick feel against your ribs now?

Just remember there is plenty more where that came from.”

How to manage psychotic women who believe everyone wants to fuck them

As you live more of life. At some point, you will start to realise whether you succeed or fail will not hinge on whether you have successfully managed to upload the seven habits of highly effective people. Rather the key determinant will always remain your ability to manage the seven habits of highly ineffective people intelligently.

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(HOW TO NEUTRALIZE A WOMAN WHO BELIEVES EVERY MAN WANTS TO FUCK HER LIKE A MOSSAD SECRET AGENT – Soon to be incorporated in the second edition of my e-bestseller)

“Please understand I mean well. I’ll appreciated it, if you can hold on to that idea throughout this conversation – I mean well and if possible please don’t forget that.

The reason why I feel this is so vital even before we begin this conversation is so that you do not misunderstand me.

As by nature farmers are very direct people. And the last thing I want to do is cause offense. Are you ready? May I begin now?

I have absolutely no intentions to fuck you.

I know you think that that you’re hot and you probably managed to convince one side of brain that every man wants to dive into your panties.

But please believe me, I do not want to fuck you.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I hope you will make the effort to take this feed back constructively. As I am not trying to be rude or offensive, I just feel that if we are going to have a meaningful conversation online then you simply have to know from the very beginning, you are not my type and there is no possible way that I will ever want to fuck you even if you happen to be the last woman on this planet. This is a physical impossibility as sex is something that requires copious quantities of motivation and I really do not see the basis in you for my blood vessels to expand to create the right bodily opportunities where things can even solidify and go towards that general direction – not ever, doesn’t even matter if you happen to be decked out in Victoria Secrets either.

You are just not my type. So please drop the “everyman wants to fuck me here” attitude as all you’re doing is embarrassing yourself in front of thousands of forummers. Now I realize this is something that you don’t normally come across. But to be perfectly frank with you what I have just shared with you is in the mind of every man here – I am neutral. As I understand. However, they are all really quite sick and tired of your attitude and the only reason why they aren’t telling you this full frontal is because they are polite enough to spare you any embarassement.

But I do not have any hang up’s about clearing the air. I hope we are now perfectly clear.

I hope we can now have an intelligent conversation without further distractions. I am really so happy we now understand each other perfectly. Now where was I before you interupted all of us with your frivolous comments? Oh yes, like I said, we need to establish a way whereby we are able to make sense of this OWC business. The way I see it is like this…….”

(Please note: it is often necessary for a leader to set things right. Even if the task is unpleasant. Trust me, there will always be one lah – be it in school, business or in a social setting. And these women in my view can often cause a lot of misunderstanding along with destroy reputations of men who may not be able to sense their siaowness.

My experience informs me, it doesn’t pay to be coy about sex. Not at all. You will get a far better return on your energy – if you just approach the problem head on and go bang, bang and bang! (not the horizontal variety, but the type that you use to solve real threats lah).

The best part is the other side will come to see the error of their psychotic ways and hopefully stop her nonsense and just play ball.

As if this sort of problem is not nipped early in the bud with a wise hand, then it is likely to continue to be a source of irritation, distraction and danger to many in your study, business or social circle.

As a loose canon who is so obsessed with sex is bound to make everyone so uncomfortable, nervous and cagey that no one can let their hair down, relax and be comfortable in their own skin. That’s no bloody good at all.

I will incorporate this in a chapter in my second edition of the e-bestseller, “How to succeed in business like a Mossad secret agent.”

Who is the Messiah?

Last time, I checked, they all said it was that guy who walked on water….you mean its not him!

Then, I have absolutely no idea.

I was with my dog the whole day teaching his how to fetch.

Now the cyber team has a bone – do us proud.

Darkness 2013

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“Please just remember not to blame external factors OK. Keep it internal like how you suppress your fart and you will be fine.”

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(On the Northern Andulliasian Plains of the Planet D’ni the Arullian Galaxy 700 million parsecs from the Crustacean Asteroid Belt @ 973800 Primus Time – deep space transmission Intercepted by the Mineral Guilds Heavy lift Deep space cruiser KDD Nomura Maru 3)

“Please inform the Brotherhood that I Prof Chandran, the nemesis of Duckness seeks his company for dinner this evening…hahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

The boyfriend from Hell – Alvin Tan

One should always exercise considerable care and attention on choosing a prospective life partner.

If you choose a foolish and reckless person to share the great journey of life with – then he or she is likely to mess up your life and those who you care and love you – and you will have to spend many painful years picking up the broken pieces.

Even then, it’s unlikely when you superglue it all back together – it will be as good as what it used to be.

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“The most important decision that you will ever make in your life boils down to this one question: who will share the journey of life with you?

You see if you pick the wrong person then you’ll just buy into a whole barrel of grief. You only have one life, so it has to be the decision of all decisions. That’s really just another way of saying, you have to seek a balance between the heart and mind, love and the practical necessity of living.

Let me put it this way, if you pick a loser like me; then grief will be the color of your days. As men like me are exciting, but they are not reliable…not by half. If they make it – they can’t even tell you why! You know why don’t you? Because it was just probably pot luck or that they just wandered to a place called X marks the spot – dug a hole and hit pay dirt.

My point is I don’t even know whether I will be around in ten or fifteen years. Or whether I can still do what I do. For all you know – someone could pump me full of lead or I will end up a drunk and a bankrupt in somewhere down the long road of life.

I really don’t know. And that is the solemn truth – as men like me will always take incredible risk. If lady luck holds out, then we live to fight another day. If not, that’s it.

The type of man who you should ideally choose is the sort who is content to stay in one place. As they turn the wheel of life day in and day out; these may not be very exciting, interesting or even that good looking guys, but they’re also the type who would probably not cause you to lose sleep along with with getting high blood pressure – as since they can always be counted on, they will always be there for you Dotty and that’s what really matters in the journey of life.

Someone whose just there….someone who you can’t always count on….someone who you know will always come right through for you….no matter what the odds….and that’s what people who turn the wheel of life – day in and day out – do extremely well.

They’re always there. You never need to ever worry about him just taking off one day like a bird. Or that he’s planning to go somewhere to dig for gold in a place that you have not even heard about. Men who are accustomed to just staying in one place and turning the wheel of life, day in and day out, never feel the tug to suddenly take off – you don’t even need to wonder to yourself when he looks at a flock of birds heading south in the early morn, whether he’s wishing, he could just sprout a pair of wings and join them.

You don’t have to even deal with their mood swings and melancholy that comes from their inability to fit in – men who stay in one place and turn the wheel of life daily without uncomplaining. Don’t even see the point of running with the wolves. They just don’t – the worse you have to contend with is the idea that he’s secretly surfing porn from time to time or putting down an odd bet during the world cup season.

But the man who can hear the call of wild – should you be foolish to put all your chips with him – I have no doubt, they may stay for while (that’s because they all don’t know how strong that pull is) and I don’t doubt you may even find a sliver of happiness; but a day will come Dotty, when that man who you love with all your heart, will just stare out of the window and look enviously at those those birds that make a neat line to fly off in the September morn – like salmon struggling against the current to return to that place called home; whales beaching for no apparent reason or the capricious sea giving with one hand and taking with another – these things embody the spirit of the wanderer – you cannot rely on them for the long haul; as they will always do things that even they themselves don’t know why they do them.

If you invest in a wanderer – a day will come when they will just pick up and go; they don’t need any rhyme or reason; just as the sea can never help herself whenever she throws a tantrum from time to time; the moon affects her – so it’s the same with wanderers – they are the capricious type and you will always be at the mercy of their vagaries.

Wanderers are only good for the short haul; they make airports, bus terminals and places where sail boats berth interesting – they’re good for a cup of coffee; they’re even good when you stand beside them and watch the sun rise; but come a time; they will pick up and go.

But the guy who stays in one place and turns the wheel of life day in and day out; he is the one that any sensible woman should choose as a life partner; for one he doesn’t feel that pull or call of the wild; to him life is just an endless repetition; where everyday unfolds precisely as the last, the only thing that changes is the mundane stuff, like toothpaste thinning out or its time to get a haircut– it’s in the endless litany of repeating where you will always find the stayer to better investment than the wanderer in the long run; as where the former may seem to embody courage, excitement and everything that is worth living for – as he climbs mountains, rides his bike down a cliff and stares defiantly at the on coming storm in his tiny sail boat– let me tell you a secret; that’s not where real courage is to be found; as those antics (no matter how heart stopping they may all appear to be) all have a cut off point,

They all lack the horror of the litany of repetition – you can’t climb beyond the summit; ride further when the road runs out; that’s because wanderer can never bear out the long haul – that’s why the stayer will always be a better bet; he is a courageous man; who will see you through the long haul ; that’s why if you have to choose between a wanderer and the stayer, it’s a no brainer, go for the stayer; it’s a one second decision – as somewhere in the endless journey of life; filled with the litany of repeating where there is no prospect of even a place where it can all end the way you envision; you can always depend on the stayer to turn off the lights -you can grow old with such a man.

As for the wanderer; he’s just like one of those NTUC plastic bags that the wind catches and twirls as the thermals whips it high up – as it dances, pirrouttes and curls ever so charmingly; for a while, it’s poetry in motion as you stare out tranfixed from your office window – but never ever forget, it’s just garbage.”

PAP should HAVE learnt how to manage change from the CCP

Last year I ventured into bird nest harvesting in a big way. I built the largest bird house in the district, surpassing even my competitors.

Retrospectively, it was a very big risk that could have very well bankrupted me. As only two out of ten bird houses make it.

Fortunately my bird house is filling up quite nicely and this opens up a new set of problems for me. As I don’t intend to sell my bird nest to the local syndicate. The price they give me is too low and I feel the terms are can be improved.

This has forced me to explore the possibility of developing my own trade route to China. To accomplish this. I’ve had to touch base with many of my old friends who I once studied in University.

This is the politics of doing business in China – it is all about relationships. Recently when I met up with a very dear friend, we talked and talked and talked through the night.

The Brandy was excellent, the night breeze cool to the skin….somewhere in the conversation, my friend’s tone turned serious and he shared with me the following,

“You are like a forgotten mandarin from the furthest edge of the empire. You have come to the forbidden city to petition the emperor, but you need to piss….as it has been a very long wait…and you don’t even know where the lavatory is.”

I think my friend has summed it up very beautifully…the sentiment that is.

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“Gentlemen. Knowledge is of course important. But there is one thing that stands higher than even knowledge and that is understanding.

Allow me to speak freely. Never before in the history of Singapore has so many natives lost faith in the PAP. The situation on the ground is so bad that whenever Mini Lee says something, no one even believes him any longer.

What accounts for this prevailing mood of mistrust, askance and lack of faith in the custodians of power?

If I had to point to only one reason – it has to be because they have failed to manage change in a competent manner by balancing economic growth with the aspirations and hopes of many natives.

As a result it’s a right mess today – that’s why the spin doctors have to burn the midnight oil and come up with ever more inventive ways to engineer consent. That is why these days, the Strait Times has been reduced to a pity summary of our times.

If we go deeper into the causal factors and ask ourselves whether this lamentable situation could have been averted?

Then I think perhaps Mini Lee and his motley crew could have taken a leaf from the leadership of the CCP. After all if you talk about scale nothing can possibly compare with what China has managed to successfully pull off in the last three decades – moving from a command economy to a free market and to have pulled it off given it’s size, diversity and complexities must surely have required copious amounts of brain power.

That is why whenever I frequently hear or read what LKY has to say about China once learning from Singapore. I always feel that sentence is incomplete. As if he is wise, he would have gone on to mention that both he and he his son could have learnt much more from China.

What do I mean by this? Not too long ago General Yeo mentioned, Beijing is studying our political system, the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and how it is responding to the general election in May last year.  But let’s not get high yet. Read further what General Yeo had to say – he said, there is also scope for the PAP to look to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for lessons, such as how the latter prepares promising leaders to take on more responsibilities. When the reporter asked him why Singapore, a young nation of just over five million, is of interest to China, an ancient civilisation with 1.3 billion people, General Yeo replied: “For China, Singapore is  sometimes seen as a bonsai, but one with genetic similarities.”

Now there is a treasure trove of wisdom to be mined in this one compact retort, more than all the alphabets put together in what Michael Spence has to say – a bonsai is a small potted plant. Size is scale and that simply means, you need to put it all in scale – that simply means, for every lamp post we put up in Singapore, there are probably 100,000 lamppost that needs to be erected in China. For every geo-political situational threat that we have, there are probably 10,000 such threats that Chinese leaders have to regularly parlay with. So how can it be an apple to apple comparison? If anything it is like a ciku and durian comparative. How does one even reach a consensus on the assumptions – so as all of you can very well see for yourself, there is no basis to even begin a comparative study. Let alone propose that a country like China NEEDS to learn from Singapore. I bet if you speak to all the flies on the walls in Beijing, they are probably laughing their wings off – they r probably saying to themselves, another derellict academic looking for someone to pen the foreword to his new book about Asia. And this is how I see it, as if you reduce everything right down to only measuring personal and organization to GDP terms, then Michael Spence is 100% right – but we all know only too well how blindly chasing the rainbow of GDP has been the source of so much misery for so many Singaporeans – so this whole idea of comparing Singapore with China is really quite ludicrous – as when you compare and contrast the sheer difference in the scale, diversity and emerging challenges between China and Singapore  – I think what General Yeo had to say was very directional and instructive as to me he is trying to remind us of the facts of keeping it all in the right perspective, whenever we come across flattering comments, even if they happen to be of the Nobel pedigree, “don’t be so ya-ya papaya lah! If people look at you and take the trouble to zoom into your good points – it doesn’t mean they are out to emulate you 100%. It just means, they are very considerate and polite people who prefer not to mention the undesirable aspects of how you run your house. So don’t be an bloody fool and try to get political mileage out of it. Be humble lah!” This makes perfect sense to me.

And this especially true of the China leadership and probably a feature that is so well embedded in the Communist psyche.

You know when I was studying my master’s degree in Derby there was this time – I worked in Rolls Royce turbines – and there was a big Chinese contigent in my class, as it was a very quantitative discipline and so many of them excelled in this field – we got along really well. As they were all farming stock. So we had alot in common and spoke regularly about tractors, pumps, irrigation, life stock and pickling etc. I have always had a fetish for farming. Now during that period, China was really just beginning to transition – so many of these PRC students still had remnants of what I can only describe as socialist underpinings and thinking. And one aspect of this way of seeing the world means that they realize only too well, that they are using a decrepit ideology to transition into a free market economy – if you speak to Chinese bureaucrats at a senior level, they are always very mindful of this fact. They know that there are real limits to using communism as a reliable means of creating the good life for their citizens – they know this so well that you could even say they suffer from an acute inferiority complex whenever they speak to anyone who comes from a free economy. As the whole idea of communism and the free market are diametric opposites that can never be reconciled – it’s a fundamentally unnatural union. So when one suffers from that sort of mindset – one is constantly on the look out to shore up the system – my friend, who later on rose to a very high position in the Chinese Railway once described this very beautifully as a condition, “where it is like a man living in a very old Hu Tong and trying to install modern plumbing.” The metaphor is very powerful and although I am translating it into English, I think so much is lost – as when he said this in Putong Hwa, what he really meant to say was, Communism is really a way of life in China and it’s not really a changeable thing, not in our life time at least, so they are constantly searching to find ever more inventive ways to do the best they can with out upsetting the things that they have to live with – that same evening after our life changing conversation. I played a recital of butterfly lovers – and since the maestro was a man who didn’t really appreciate the sonic arrangement of the score and considered it, “structurally unsound.” I was slotted last after a very long intermission. Just as well, as I happen to have carrot fingers – most of the crowd had begun to leave when I began the solo concerto – but my Chinese friend and the rest of Chinese students stayed on – when I had finally finished, they were the only ones there as rest of the crowd had moved on – and I remembered turning to him after and saying to him rather dejectedly, “I feel like a man who has to live in a very old Hu Tong and trying to install modern plumbing.” That is to say, at that time, it was really quite impossible for the Western music toffeenose crowd to understand the musicality of this piece – as they don’t know the plot of the story between 梁山伯 and 祝英台. They don’t even know what is a erhu – so they cannot understand why anyone would play a violin with slids to an unusual instrumentation: 2-2-2-2 – 4-2-3-0 – timp, 3 perc. Or even why the score needs to run twenty pages and is divided into three sections –  or why the composer felt the need to incorporate higher notes to  conjure up images of misty mountains, waterfalls in a peaceful serene morning when the lovers first met and the low notes represent the valleys, then the next few bars where the flautist plays a trill, it represents butterflys flitting and bird singing. And since its an adaptation of folkmusic, there is also the part when the baddie turns up when the shrill appears followed by the brass. Neither do they realize when the tuba appears in the second section it represent the torment of the lovers and girl’s family rejection of the relationship. To me there is so much more musicality expression here than even Stravinsky and Debussy put together – all this is lost when there is no understanding of the plot. Or even any attempt to understand the subtlety of the nuances – that is really my point, knowledge without understanding is truly worthless. As here you have a bunch of accomplished musicians who don’t suffer from my affliction of carrot fingers and they cannot even use their prodigious wealth of knowledge to understand a thing for what it is – and this to me is really a metaphor of how superficially the West regularly sees China.

Only I know it to be very different that is all. But I digress gentlemen.

Many years later when we sat on the new Maglev train in Shanghai bulleting towards the city center – I asked my friend again whether things had changed in his old Hu Tong – it had become a sort of private joke between us and he looked around at the spanking new Alstom train from Germany and said, “No brother, it is still a very old Hu Tong, only the world seems to be going faster around us.” And I knew exactly what my old friend meant. I understood completely. I think you really have to be Chinese to understand the deeper meaning of this conversation Gentlemen.”

Excerpt of a conversation captured in the Sardonyx trenches along the 159^th Parallel with the officers corps of the Sardokhan – relayed by the Magneto class scientific deep space cruiser – KDD Rumoro 3 – brought to you by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild.   

Want to be rich? Then choose the most fucked up country in the map and go there and seek your fortune!

It only seems hard. But once you commit yourself to putting one foot in front of another. You will find it will get easier. And if you stay the course long enough. At some point in your long lonely journey on that windy road – you are bound to come across men such as yourself.

It doesn’t matter where or how far off the beaten road you choose to go – could well be the long dusty road to Kampala in May when the Harmatan blows from Sudan or even the infintity of the steepes somewhere in the aching desolation of the Ukraine – you will see this other man who is a mirror image of yourself and you will know deep in your hearts of hearts then and there – you are not alone, not crazy like what the others keep saying back home and above all you will know without a shadow of doubt – you did the right thing.

No words are necessary in brotherhood – there are so many strewn across the world now. Go! Set aside your quibbling and petty ways and go – you will never be alone.

Go now! Do not delay.

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“Singapore in my humble opinion ONLY appears to be safe and secure. But in truth you can be maimed and killed anywhere. Well being or for that matter the crumbly idea of feeling safe is after all at best just a state of mind and at worst it’s just a happy illusion.

Now if you don’t believe me – consider this, imagine if I put you in a bubble wrapped business environment where IF you are confronted with even the merest hint of violence and threat – and all you need to neutralize threat is to pick up the phone and call the police.

Then HOW can you possibly learn to manage danger? How is it possible for you to thrive and prosper in that sort of harsh business environment – coming to think of it WHY would you even NEED to acquire the skill sets to interdict those sort of threats?

Do you do see from this simple illustration – how the whole idea of feeling safe is not only relative. But often we even allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security, thereby exposing ourselves to danger.

As since we are lulled into a false sense of security, we can only let our guard down – but the worst thing about living in a bubble wrapped society is NOT that you have allowed yourself to buy lock, stock and barrel into the happy dream that you are safe – rather the real solvent is, as time goes by, all your natural instincts of survival, such as the capacity to adapt and thrive in a harsh and dangerous business environment can only fritter away. Till you become so risk adverse and intolerant of danger that your threshold to manage conflict is reduced to virtually zero. When that happens how the fuck can you succeed in business – all it takes to send you packing is a bunch of two bit gangsters to send you a bullet with your name engraved in it – and you’re a nervous wreck. Or for them to give you a hard time only for you to throw in the towel and sell your lands to them at a fire sale prices. When that end point is reached, you can work in no other business environment except a place like Singapore. That’s just a polite way of saying you have painted yourself into a corner – or worst still cut off an entire field of possibilities and reduced it all to a miniscule island.

That is well and fine if you happen to believe Singapore is the alpha and omega. Or that the sun shines from the arse of LKY. The beginning and end etc etc etc.

However if you have to regularly work in a business environment where everyday when you switch on the TV or read the papers only to be informed that so and so has been shot by a gun man etc etc etc – then what you would have to do is learn HOW to be effective in a highly volatile, uncertain and dangerous business environment – that is to say, you will have to develop a very high tolerance to risk and even danger – you will even be able to step outside your comfort into the discomfort zone with remarkable confidence and skill and manage whatever dangers come your way – but the best thing in my opinion is not that you learn to remain calm and composed in the face of danger – rather what is often discounted in the business case and frequently elided in the Harvard Business Review is that it’s remarkably easy to succeed in a dangerous business environment – first of all, you have virtually no competitors – as since the metrosexual chattering class who are usually addicted to air-conditioners and gated communities (do you notice they are all fat) consider that country you are turning the wheel of life in a basket case – that simply means you would probably need to ONLY put in one tenth of the effort to carve out competitive advantage in your business. That means you can get a very good return on your energy and your capacity to materialize a profit is incredibly efficient. To me having less competition is one big headache that more than compensates for whatever grief you may have to put up with when you work in a dangerous business environment.

I would for example consider the business plan to mine gold in Sierra Leone a far more viable business proposition than let’s say undertaking the same in civilized Alaska or New South Wales in Western Australia – as although there are armed tribes in the darkest reaches of Africa who are all seem to like pointing their AK-47’s at foreigners – and they have absolutely no qualms in killing and putting people in a pot with diced carrots just to fill their stomachs.

At least, I don’t have to regularly lose sleep on how to procure the financing to out flank juggernaut firms like Rio Tinto, appease pesky environmentalist, deal daily with anal fixated officers from department of environment, having to regularly make up excuses that I am not pumping affluents into the river or putting up with really stupid things like getting a summons for shooting grizzly bears during the off season just to fill my stomach when I am out in the field.

In Africa, all I need to do is get a couple of bad ass cheiftains to sit underneath a tree without killing each other and sharing with them my business plan which probably sounds like this something you probably read at the back of a chewing gum wrapper, “Hey instead you people trying to hack me into a thousand pieces, let’s make money man! What do you all say?” – even if all fails, what is to stop me from declaring my own sovereign state by setting up my own private army or declaring my backyard a sovereign state and my toilet a protectorate – my point is you need to focus on the cogent and disregard what I can only term as distractions – as when you boil it all down to crud –  business really comes right down to only one consideration – return on investment. Everything else is negotiable.

Understand this! What I am trying to say is your chances of discovering El Dorado in a country where people regularly try to kill, kidnap or put you in the ICU will ALWAYS be dramatically higher, as compared to let’s say, if you decide to do the same in a bubble wrapped society like Singapore -best part is you don’t need a lot of money to get started – as in those countries where foreign investors dare not tread – you have very few competitors and since everything is up in the air or in a state of anarchy, that by itself gives you so much room for improvisation that it can only confer a competitive advantage that you can NEVER ever get anywhere else – least of all a place like Singapore – where if you just step out of line a bit, you’re toast lah. Besides Temasek controls everything under the sun, so what scope of improvisation are you talking about – did you know that in Africa or in certain places where businessmen don’t even dare to go in South America, you can even set up your own currency and bank. I bet you didn’t know that – to me the entry cost for doing business in countries that is so fucked up that not even General Electric or Temasek wants to touch it with a barge pole is so compelling that you have to be either stupid or so incredibly scared of your own shadow just to dismiss the merit of the proposition on the trivial basis that you may get shot – just because you make a few enemies in business who may decide to put out a contract on you. 

So don’t buy into the propaganda that Singapore is a safe country. Or for that matter, you should only turn the wheel of life in Disneyland – after all how safe can you be, if you have to work like a Duracell rabbit 24/7 and the cost of living keeps chipping away at your pay check? How safe is it for that matter if you can’t even afford to get sick as the cost of healthcare is so prohibitively high? How safe can you really be, if you have to pay ten times for a van or car even before you start turning a profit on your enterprise? How secure can you be, if the cost of renting business premises is so bloody high that it even requires to be a millionaire even before you start materializing your first million? Or that you can just lose your job on a drop of a hat? Only to find yourself reduced to watching life just past by – I hope by now all of you are internally persuaded this idea that Singapore is a safe country is at best a chimera – the way I see it, your chances of dying of a heart attack, insomnia and high blood pressure presents far greater risk than getting shot in a traffic light in a country where the crime levels seem to be sky high. </

Trust your hopes, not your fears. Life is too short to do otherwise. The ancients were right, where there is adversity, there is always loads of opportunity.”

.”

“Kee Chiu,” please explain this to me like a baby….

Before we begin I would like to disclose that when I was a baby, I was dropped on my head. So I hope that someone who has more brains than me can help me to understand the governments latest resistance to defining a poverty line.

Please feel free to correct my logic. The premise of my argument goes like this.

Now if we don’t have a poverty line which is basically a quantitative method to define poverty.

Then can anyone please tell me how is it possible to even make progress on eradicating poverty?

Coming to think of it, by what methodology do we rely on to benchmark the performance of a ministry?

How is it even possible to get a handle on the intractable problem of the poverty trap?

How and where do we even begin to scale the magnitude of the problem along with track it to determine whether it’s growing smaller, the same or getting worse?

How is it even possible to communicate to those in the field that this or that case deserves the highest priority of intervention – if one does not even see the wisdom of putting down in concrete terms what is the minimum sum required to live, work and play in Singapore to live a life of self determination?

Can anyone please supply me and answer? I promise that if anyone can do this satisfactorily – I will give up blogging and undertake not to wear my leather underwear on Sunday.

Let me illustrate the hubris in by way of analogy. Let us assume one fine day – the committee that makes up the world’s health organisation located somewhere in the labyrinth of the United Nations decide to take an extended holiday from themselves by getting perpetually high on ganja and they decide to scrap the definition for hunger – then how do nutritionist even determine empirically what is the minimum caloric intake for a child or adult necessary to sustain life?

And if an organization that is supposed to alleviate world hunger cannot even define what is the minimum quantity of sustenance necessary to sustain life for either a child or adult – then how do aid agencies even go about the business of interdiciting famine along augmenting malnutrition?

In effect if there is no definition for hunger or poverty – then in short the problem just doesn’t exist. Think about it. The problem melts away happily like lemon drops. To put it another way, it’s just another day in paradise and life just goes right on.

No problemo.

—————————————————————

“Folk who regularly like to say ‘dunno’ are in my opinion, the world’s most dangerous people. Let me share with you why – in a kampung, if a girl likes you – she will ladle so much rice for you that everyone will just start to wonder – why is this girl trying to make this man’s stomach explode?

It doesn’t matter whether it is a Chinese, Indian or Malay girl – in the kampung if a woman loves a man, she will give him a mountain of rice.

When her parents ask her, “why are you trying to murder the farmer with rice?” This girl will just reply blankly “I dunno.”

Whereupon it’s not unusual for the parents to consult the village elder who would usually recommend that they take her to see the dukun, pawang or bomoh – if it is a Chinese girl, she would have to be examined by the village ghost busters who is usually the Sai kong (who incidentally doubles as the four digit consultant) and if it is an Indian girl, she would probably be sent to the Swami.

Usually a feast will be arranged where the kampung toothless wonder auntie pineapple eye brigade will be fully mobilized to examine in great detail whether a love spell has been put on Miss Dunno.

You see it is very simple – if a girl regularly gives a man so much rice that everyone pengshan and eventually becomes the talk of the village – it is never her fault. As kampung folk do not believe women have such a thing as free will. The idea does not exist. Why because they dunno lah.

But not to worry, I’ve got it right down to a science, Houdini marriage escape techniques. I intend to incorporate this in my next e-edition of how to succeed in business like a Mossad secret agent. (incidentally many of asked me, why it comes with just a plain T shirt – duhhhh it’s rather stupid right, if it came with a crest of Mossad or a big star of David, everyone would know that you’ve just uploaded spyware into your head. Besides we are all supposed to be undercover. So please don’t ask me stupid questions any longer. Besides it’s brushed 100% Virginia cotton, not polyester as some of you claim! – I know it’s made in China. But what isn’t fucking made in China these days! Next edition, I am just going to give out those cheap tacky plastic mugs!)

But enough of my gripe regarding internet book sales! Back to the point. Now listen up! If it is a Malay kenduri. The man should be attired in a sombre colored bush jacket with a ceremonial kris worn with the tang sticking out diagonally to the left side of his abdomen – the kris should only be handle by the right and not the unclean left hand. This signifies he’s attending the kenduri in his official capacity as a representative of his lands – in exceptional cases, the driver can carry this symbol of authority and title hood but it should only be carried across the right shoulder with a lions cloth.

The man should only sit on the pentas and when ceruts and hot tea is offered – he should offer only blood tokens in the form of a goat or cow.

Do not offer gold. Or silk with braided gold – this will be interpreted by the auntie brigade as a sure sign that the man is interested in the girl. If you do this, you find that an army of men will march to your plantation with kompangs (drums) bearing the girl a pallaquine and you will have to cut off your foreskin and marry her. Escape is impossible. Radical plastic surgery and burning off your finger prints with acid and assuming a new identity is highly recommended.

If it is a Chinese invitation for dinner – do not wear red. Do not sit on the chair facing East. If it is Fook chow function, there will be two lions at the gates, the one to the right symbolizes, the female. You must never greet this lion and instead only offer oranges and the ang pow to the lion on the left – this signifies that you have come in your official capacity as a clansman.

During dinner if it is a Hokkien function – you should never touch the fish. As this is a trap – it is known as the lifti g of the veil – if you turn over the fish lagi mati, instead of double happiness, you will get double mati – as that’s the cue for the parents of miss dunno to ask a loaded question – is it fresh? If you say yes, it means – you are interested in the girl. If you say ‘no,’ it can be interpreted as a sign that you want to enter into serious negotiations for the dowry. Either way you mati. Stick to veggies that’s my advice.

If it is a Hakka function – it is customary for the elders to ask you to play a hand of mahjong after the dinner – do not enter this other room – as it is the vermillion room and there the girl is supposed to serve you soup. If you drink, it means you want to marry her – if you do not, then it means you wish to drink only in the privacy of chambers and everyone will disappear behind a curtain while only Miss Dunno remains – again either way you mati lah!

Before you leave, ask permission to pray at the ancestral shrine – present three joss sticks to the elders. This symbolizes that you are here on official business and ask him to Cheong heong on your behalf – this signifies that I come in the name of my Tong as a clans man.

In an Indian function – please stay where you are firmly superglued to the table – do not run around coconut trees and palm trees as this can be interpreted that you are very interested in the girl – when alms are offered to the deities, the swami will give you a coconut with flowers – this is puja and you must smash if forcefully on the Lingham. If you leave it to oneside and the girl picks it up – you mati. As everyone will think you want to marry her.

Remember always the girl who says, “I dunno” is the world’s greatest cobra. Beware.”

Kampung Style Justice

In the Kampung when someone commits a transgression and the law does not seem to have any bite at all – it is a simple case of weaving a spell to fix the offender. Since there is no specific law against putting an evil spell on someone – this remains one of the most effective and reliable ways to right the scales of justice. Kampung style that is.

——————————————————————————————————————

“Yesterday a cow herder came to me and complained that someone has been stealing his cattle. Since this thief is quite stealthy. No one seems to know who he is – yesterday, I went from village to village covering a radius of 50 miles and told everyone that if the stolen cow is not returned before the next full moon to the owner.

In 30 days the thief’s cock is going to dry up and drop right off and he will be transformed into a girl.

Yesterday the cow that everyone has been looking for high and low mysteriously reappeared.

City folk always laugh at me when I tell them that supertition runs deep in the kampung, that’s only because they don’t half know the power of black magic. And that is only to be expected – as what you don’t really know, you are likely to consider as hocus pocus. But trust me when I tell you there is more that meets the eye…trust me.

Take the case of the devil for example. City folk like to believe that the devil is red has horns and prances around with a trident. The sort of bloke that has a penchant for peddling dodgy contracts where he exhanges success, fame and fortune for your soul.

But in the kampung. The devil isn’t nearly half the malevolent character that is so often depicted by Hollywood – on the contrary, he’s often regarded as a sad figure who should be in that other realm. But for some reason that no one dares to ask, he’s just stuck here – like one of those poor unfortunate aliens that pulled the short end of the straw and had to stay back while the rest blasted off for home.

Naturally a failing that is common to all kampung narratives, is that no one really bothers with the pesky details like how does one actually qualify to be a devil – you’re just one. That’s to say if enough people believe you’re the devil – then you become one.

All in all, the devil is just like Mr Fix it in a kampung. Since he is the intercessor to the spirit world – when their crops don’t bloom, they call on the devil. If a woman is barren, alms are offered to the devil. And even when the rains don’t come – an offering is made to the devil.

It’s an idea that’s hard to understand. As what it presupposes is the notion that its possible for one to believe in the idea of God. But since the devil just lives down the road, drives a four wheel drive and owns alot of land – maybe we should just all try to get along with him.

After all it could be centuries before the bus decideds to show up and take him to the otherside. And since Kampung folk all believe the devil never grows old – they all rather live and let live.

I think city folk especially will find this idea hard to swallow – the mere suggestion, the devil isn’t really a devil at all. But rather a friend, brother, father and above all keeper of the great wheel of life. Like I said, just someone who missed the boat and for some reason is stuck here…..”

Every woman who owns a car needs to learn to get into her car the right way

I once spent a full hour showing a call girl who lived in my condo this technique of getting into a car. She called me a weirdo. Recently she drove to Malaysia and a couple of low life’s tried to rob and hijack her car and she gave them a good kick in the balls and left tire marks over their them. Hopefully their DNA is now part of the road.

For more advance counter kidnapping and carjacking techniques where firearms are used.

For close protection (which I highly recommend)

Gintai has been sacked? So you all jump up and down!

Be calm. Understand this! People don’t usually get terminated without valid reasons. Even if they do, there are many avenues to seek redress along with resolution.

Besides SMRT is hardly a mom & pop $2 outfit – so if a decision was made to terminate a train driver. I am sure it was premised on a very good reason. In the event, the aggrieved party believes he has a case to challenge the rationale for dismissal – I am sure he can avail himself through legal means.

This is what sane and reasonable people would do when they feel they are unfairly dismissed.

They will pursue the course of maximum and NOT minimum pay out. What they don’t do is splay out their case in the public square pasar malam style.

After all what is the goal? What does he

Besides what kind of logic is it to suggest that just because someone has been working in a company for 18 years – he automatically has a right to job security. Since I last consulted my common sense – every job has a minimum performance criteria.

I wonder could this be the same reason why we don’t regularly put people who hear voices in the cockpit of a commercial jetliner? Or have Christian fundamentalist who regularly break out in tongues whenever they are stressed out as air traffic controllers?

So you all go figure out – how much sense does it make to decide on a matter when all you really have is a mish mash of information?

Perhaps Gintai should not be so coy about the specifics and recount to all of us why SMRT terminated his services despite having served for over 18 years. Instead he prefers to give us a historical account of the Indian railway sub culture along with other nonsense such as loyalty et al.

Gintai should be forthright and honest. After all if you want to hang a man or an organization. We should all have the common decency to listen to both sides of the story.

Unfortunately in this case – all I can see is a very confused man who doesn’t even know how to present his case in a logical and organized fashion.

I am sorry if it stings. But I am a farmer. And I have every right to call a spade a spade. Or shall I say, I don’t have time for stupid people who do stupid things.

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“A wise man NEVER decides on a matter solely on the basis of just listening to one side of the story.

If you want to succeed in business, then this is the discipline you need to buy into. If not then prepare yourself to be a charitable organization.

The gold standard is to first hear both sides and if possible interrogate and collaborate the evidence to draw a conclusion. Even then it is at best ONLY an approximation – at worst a stab in the dark. But do this you must – as this is the first protocal of the discipline.

Let me be factual. Fact 1. In this case only one side was recounted. Fact 2. It was done so through the blog medium. Hardly, something that you would even consider a serious parchment (not to me at least considering the nonsense I regularly write online) Fact 3. It is very far from being an objective account. You could even say it is downright personal Fact 4. Coupled to this, it was recounted in such an emotional manner where it even insinuated the termination was done so in bad faith without regard to natural justice. But since no reasons or specifics were supplied, we are none the wiser for it.

So can any of you dummies in this forum please stand up and tell me – on what basis do you expect any reasonable thinking person to go about assembling the raw material to even draw an informed decision from all this?

Perhaps you should all consider this. Who is the bigger fool? The fool who leads? Or the fool who follows the fool?

A better approach would be for the aggrieved party to seek legal redress and resolution on the grounds of unfair dismissal. That is what I would advice him strongly to do – and not to take the matter to the public square online and to stoke up emotions or to attempt to weaponize the Internet – this in my view is foolish as it is dangerous.

My point is simply this. If you want to be taken seriously, you should at least manage your grey matter like a serious man rather than a wishy washy woman who just reads a blog and starts spinning away like a runaway top. The show is over. You can all go back home now!”

Think!”

Durian & Tolstoy go very well together

“Long before I discovered my fortune. I turned the wheel of life as a humble farmer – I didn’t have any electricity or water. I lived all alone in an open tent. On clear starry nights I would sleep beneath the stars. When it rained, I made the best of a leaky tent.

All I had was a couple of hours of battery time which I looked forward too very much everyday – I used it mainly to listen to the BBC world service. Even then it had to be rationed very carefully. I learnt to live with very little. It was a very hard life. But I was happy.

As for food, since I lived faraway from civilization. I lived mainly on tin food. Eventually I learnt to live off the land with the help of the tribesmen who taught me the secret art of invisibility along with how to hunt – for some strange reason, they regarded me as A-Mak (The albino Monitor Lizard) – the mythical being that their shaman prophecied would come to these parts every generation and protect them.

Life was very hard in those early years. But I was happy. I remember clear days when the sun was warm and a cool breeze always blew. And I remembered having an innocence in the way I saw the world.

I especially have fond memories of eating durians and reading. Alot of durians. And of course Tolstoy.

Then one night they came for me – they poured petrol over my dogs set them alight. They told me the same would happen to me, if I did not pack up and leave.

The following morning when I woke up. I looked into the mirror. And I saw a very hard man staring back at me – I recognized him, he’s the man who I’ve tried to run away from all my life. Someone who I thought was long dead had suddenly reappeared before me from the terrible past.

The man in the mirror wore an evil grin. He was not afraid of those thugs. Not at all. Coming to think of it, he’s not afraid of anyone at all. He was smiling at me or maybe he was sneering – it’s hard to tell with him – then he told me to put myself together. As I had begun packing up my bags. He went on to tell in a grave tone as he looked upwards at the birds that morning.

“We are not going back! These people do not know what a shit storm they have stirred.” At was then, he turned to me. I could see fire in his eyes and it sent a shudder down my spine, when he said, “Their lands will soon be ours. Very soon. If they want a war. We will give them one that they will never forget for ten generations. You just sit and watch.”

This man fought all of them for many years. He was fearless. Not the sort that runs away from a fight – not even when the odds are stacked dead against him. Some men are just like that, they have balls of steel and everyone just follows them. As they all know you are either with or against him. He was ruthless. Diabolically intelligent. Manipulative. Decisive. And everything that I am not.

I remember sitting there at the edge of my camp bed looking at him one afternoon when our lot got better – he cut a fine figure. There was something about him that simply made people look up to him. Some said it was the way he carried himself always like a powerful landowner. He had a way with women. They all liked him even though he was always cruel to them.

As time went by I grew quiet as I didn’t feel that I even had the right to talk and very slowly I grew fainter and fainter, till only this stranger remained.

We fought together for many years. Or shall I say he did while I just watched on most of the time – if there is anything kind and gentle about him is – he never expects me to do anything – he knows I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing. But he’s different, he’s very good at what he does and even derives a perverse joy from it – so one year passed on to another swiftly. Dangerously.

Till one day I suddenly realized, it has been so long that I cannot even remember now – when was the last time there was peace or even why we have been fighting all these years.

Today all this seems very far away from me – but for some inexplicable reason, I can still remember fondly – durians going along very well with Tolstoy –  I know it sounds trivial and slightly wierd, but whenever I see images of myself from the distant past – it’s as if, I am peering into the life of another person who lives in another country that I have never visited before – who is he? I wonder.

Where has that boy gone?”

We should not be xenophobic….But….

I think Mini Lee and his motley crew should also make it easier for natives NOT to be xenophobic as well. After all they were the one’s who started this whole crack brained scheme to put the economy on steroids by bringing loads of people into a small tiny island without bothering with the planning.

Consider this. How reasonable is it for the custodians of power to absolve themselves from all responsibilities by shifting the onus SOLELY to those who have to regularly bear the brunt of this massive influx of foreigners along with the problems they may bring to our shores. </strong

You decide.

Surely the many of the problems between natives and the massive influx of foreigners were foreseeable such as over crowding, diminished quality job opportunities, price hikes, runaway inflation etc etc.

To now blame natives for being xenophobic is to hide behind that word – and that is not only irresponsible, but also simplifying a very real and serious problem.

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"Don't get me wrong. I am completely against xenophobia. If I was pressed for only one reason why, it is because I believe very deeply hatred is the door that opens many other doors that can only lead to the end of mankind.

But I also need to be mindful that there will always be certain realities in the human condition that will make it, either easier or harder for people to hate rather than to seek peace.

So a wise man will always try to make it easier for others to get along rather than to fight. This he can do by creating the right conditions for peace and brotherhood to prosper – this we do in our game – as we have to balance so many diverse values, aspirations and world views, to be precise 152 nations! We would not be able to accomplish this feat, if we do not know how to create a conducive virtual habitat where we bring out the best and not the worst out of those who make out our community.

That is reality!

Let me share with you why. As everyone has a limit. You have one. So do I. If you have never reached your limit, then it doesn't necessarily mean that you are a more enlightened or higher evolved being – it just means no one has pushed you to your limit and you should count yourself lucky. That's it! No mystery or Da Vinci code there. You are just lucky!

But to those who have gone beyond their limit or have witnessed others losing it – then they will know this to be a very serious matter that needs to be intelligently managed.

Let me share with you why it doesn't pay to take this matter lightly.

As when one's limit is breached anything can happen including buying into hatred along with other destructive thoughts – for example, if I go back to Singapore and find that there is a man in my bed with my wife. Then I will just go to kitchen grab a cleaver and hack away. I am not saying this will happen. I am just alluding you to the theoretical possibility of what may come to past under a given hypothetical set of conditions – to me that scenario will always remain a distinct possibility despite the fact there is such a thing as a penal code. I am just being perfectly frank about the matter to describe in prosaic terms how anyone, including me or you can reach that limit – when a man breaks away from his moorings and takes to hate completely.

You know recently I came across a car with Singaporean plates that knocked down a Malay boy in a kampung. Fortunately, the boy was just grazed and he suffered only minor abrasions. But the lady and her driver did something that I can only describe as lacking in wisdom – they got out of their car and started berating the boy's father. Soon a crowd of villagers started to form around the Mercedes and while all this was happening I looked on from afar, hoping that they will just stop and drive off, but no, they kept on going on and on as if they were in Singapore – this I imagine is quite a huge problem in Singapore, Singaporeans who believe that the whole wide world is like Singapore.

Soon the situation threatened to boil over. I will spare you all the details – let us just say, I know the signs. I had to step in abruptly and slap both the driver and lady and even proceed to drive their car away with both of these shell shocked passengers in the back seat. When I did this, the crowd immediately calmed down. Raised voices fell to a whispering hush. As many villagers must have thought, 'now they have really done it! The farmer is going to sort them out.'

This is what it takes to maintain the peace – the status quo ante. This is how power and politics is managed in the kampung. People are simple, so what is needed is something right out from Bollywood to restore the heavenly ying and yang again in the community – this is something that city folk will never understand – they think everyone is like them, but that is not the case – but I understand these things like the lines that run in the palm of my hands.

As that is how their forefathers think and see the world – so they can't help but think the same way.

Now coming back to the story. I was in the car. I apologised profusely to the lady and her driver for what I just did – I merely mentioned, "I had to do what I had to do." – the lady obviously did not understand and was most insistent that I write down my name and address as in her words, 'I would like to take this matter up with my solicitors.' Throughout the journey, she kept poking me with a Montblanc pen along with calling me a gangster.

The question is did I do the right thing – in my judgement, there was no other way. I did not see it as a matter of choice. Rather it was a matter of necessity as emotions were running high and all it took was a spark to set everything alight. I cannot run that risk – as the farmer is the keeper of the great wheel of life in his community.

What you have here is a very clear and present danger.

Unfortunately, people who live in cities will never understand this. Because in the city, if something goes awry all that needs to be done is pick up the phone and call the police.

So they will always do stupid things like sue me even when I saved them from certain death – that is the Tao of stupid people. They will inadvertently create conditions for the perfect storm to brew and when all hell breaks loose – they never ever feel or see the need to ever ask themselves – could I have done anything to avoid that terrible scene from happening?

That is why I think if leaders want to bring out the best in their community – they should always be mindful not to create conditions for ill will, mistrust and suspicion to take root.

Instead of just taking the path of least resistance and shifting the blame entirely to those who may have succumbed to ill will, mistrust and suspicion – that is easy street. That is also a very childlike way of seeing the world. As it's unrealistic and possibly even highly irresponsible.

As the serious men will always ask – why did you allow conditions to boil over in the first place? Where were you? Didn't you have the eyes, ears and wisdom to realise it would all come to this?

I think that's really my point – don’t create conditions that test the patience and run the risk of pushing reasonable people to their limit. And when all hell breaks loose just blame them automatically. Life is not sandbox politics.

As a wise leader will always be sensitive to the needs, aspirations, fears and anxieties of his community to ensure that limit of patience, sagacity and tolerance is not breached….and if that theoretical condition presents himself, the leader should step in and give a few tight slaps to balance the Ying and Yang of his community….that to me is what leadership is all about…it's about interdicting….foresight…and above all knowing what rubs your tribe the right and wrong way."

Rainy Saturday – archery, family who lives in the van and watching the birds high above

Feel sorry for the kid who needs to sleep in the van. Should Singapore be a regional center or global city? Who the fuck cares! When you still have cases like this cropping out like a demented Jack in the box from time to time!

Can’t but feel a bit guilty that I have so much land that I can even have a private 100 yard archery range. Or that I can spend the entire day just watching birds fly high above me – have even been playing recently with the idea of building a private golf course.

These are some stories that remind of a very painful past when I used to be a kid – I think it is important that we remember them from time to time and if possible even take the time to reflect on their deeper meaning, instead of quibbling over nonsense like the distinction between regional center and global city that these ivory towered millionaire ministers seem to always like to talk non stop about.

On a separate note – I have developed a new technique for drawing an arrow from the quiver, nocking and presenting – this may seem trivial to most people who may not know much about hunting. But trust me, it’s key.

I had many variations of loading arrows. But after four years of extensive field trials. I finally settled on this configuration. As I found the orthodox method of loading impractical, noisy and unsuitable for low light conditions in the tropical jungle setting.

DIALOGUE OF A MAN AND A TREE – Vincent Godfrey Burns

DIALOGUE OF A MAN AND A TREE

The Man: Why do you grow so tall, way up there in the sky?

The Tree: I love the heights that are clean and free, where the lonely eagles fly, where the crane and the hawk can nest with me, and my friends, the geese, go by.

The Man: What do you use for food, tree to make you grow and grow?

The Tree: I live on a diet of Nature’s best from my roots deep down below; I never go hungry, I rest and rest and wait for the rain and the snow.

The Man: How do you grow so strong, Tree, sturdy and straight and true?

The Tree: I live in the light of the sunshine and yarn for the sky’s deep blue; the clean, sweet air is always mine, and the cold winds help me too.

The Man: How do you live so long, Tree, so much longer than man?

The Tree: I’ve geared my days with the Creator’s ways since ever the world began. There is no death when life keeps faith with nature’s wonderful plan.

Vincent Godfrey Burns, Poet Laureate of Maryland, 1965

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“I don’t ever need to buy durians. All I have to do is stroll up in my bush jacket to any durian orchard and I am welcomed to eat as many as I like.

Every morning during the durian season, it’s not unusual for me to visit 3 to 4 orchards – usually I make it point to polish off, at least five or six durians with the owners. While we discuss the quality, grade and prospects of entering the fruit for the durian tasting competition. I happen to be one of judges – so they all suck up to me and give me loads of their choicest crops.

Since the orchard owners are eager to show off their prize fruit this time of the year, it’s not uncommon them to give me some which means I also have durian for lunch – and since there is always a couple around. I have durian for tea as well – I usually hit four or five before my afternoon nap.

For dinner durian – I polish off another five or ten. And to cap it all off during supper I have at least five more. Added to this, since my metabolic rate is unusually high – I munch on durians in between meals. It is not unusual for me to eat 40-50 durians a day.

Someone in my kampung once said, “I am the world’s greatest durian eater.” This person observed during the Durian season, it is not uncommon to see me with a durian super glued in one hand while I munch on them like I do Mentos.

I love durians.”

The Tao of the Hunter

The bow is much more than just a weapon. In the hands of the accomplished bow hunter – it is a tool that is able to unify his mind, body and spirit.

Unlike modern fire arms, there is very little margin for error in the art of archery. To hit the mark, one must be able to clear the mind entirely of all worldly distractions and concentrate only on the goal – by being always alert and mindful of executing each movement naturally in the way one prayer bead rolls over to another as it’s caressed by the thumb and index finger – each bead a perfect reflection of the last – a series of actions with no beginning or end.

To hit the mark squarely – the bow hunter must first learn to defeat himself by quieting his restless mind. Everything is stilled to a whispering hush – reducing the world to the sum of only him and the goal. Nothing else exist.

Not even the thousands of little worldly concerns that may try to prise their way into the bow hunter’s mind.

Did I lock the door on my way out? Is the mobile phone ringing? Am I standing the right way? Is the wind too strong and carrying my arrow to the left, or is it the right? Are my arrows well fletched?

All these cluttered ripples of thoughts are stilled to create a calm mirror mind that is able to feel and be at one with the means to achieve the goal – the tension of the draw, the lull in the breathe followed by the release and the hish of the arrow as it races towards the target only to hit it with an assuring thud.

All this is repeated again and again.

To be present before the goal, yet being able to divorce oneself from the act so completely that one might as well be somewhere else – to act without ever having to think – to take an arrow out of from the quiver smoothly, to nock it, draw the string, hold and release without the slightest craving of intent. To only fix the mind’s eye on the goal and to resist the temptation of allowing to the mind to run wild….and finally to stand and watch it all go by in the way a farmer looks on at how one season dies only for another to step in…it’s another beautiful day.

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“We are all hunters in one shape or form. The man who wakes every morning and puts on his tie and joins the rest of humanity to put in his daily grind is a hunter. The woman who is prospecting for an elligible soulmate to grow old with, is also hunteress. And if you really look around hunting is a very good metaphor to describe this collective yearning.

The way I see it principles of the huntsman can be applied to daily life to enrich virtually anyone. For instance one of the most common questions I regularly get asked is, “Darkness, I cannot find a wife. I am 35 and no one wants me.” Another is, “I go for job interviews all the time, but I never get past the clearing stage.” Or, “I work very hard, but I can’t seem to get ahead in life.”

And if I had to boil down these issues to just one phrase to best describe why these people don’t seem to get the desired results. It’s because they don’t ever see themselves as a hunter. Wonder no more why they always feel hunted and some of them even go extinct.

But once you make that perceptive shift in your mind that you are the hunter, then you will begin to see a world of possibilities opening up right before you – as you will gain an appreciation of strategy. Along with the need to cultivate the skillsets necessary to score a decisive kill. And most importantly, you will never want to be the hunted.

You know I once met a girl in East Coast park who wanted to jump of Bedok jetty just because she had three failed relationships in a row. I told her, she can’t die. As the water is only three feet deep. I bluff her lah. And told her that I’ve show her a jetty up in Changi village where she could just jump and disappear into oblivion – she believed me, so when we were cycling. I listened to her intently as she recounted each of her failed relationships.

When we finally reached the spot where she was supposed to jump and drown – I told her that it’s a pity that she has decided to say bye bye to the world because I could guarantee that if she tried a fourth time she would hit it off quite nicely.

While I mentioned this. I was explaining to her how to drown. I told her she had to tie a big stone to her leg. I even volunteered to tie it for her.

Anyway at one point she turned to me and said, why aren’t you stopping me. I went on to tell her that she had obviously made up her mind to die, so there was no point.

To cut a long story short. She decided, she didn’t want to die any longer. So I feigned disappointment. After that she kept pestering me and calling me up 50,000 times a day – asking me how I could be so cocksure that if she tried on her fourth attempt, it would all work out well for her.

I never told her the reason. I had to cancel my star hub number just because of this siaow Charbor (should have just minded my own business and let her jump lah) and even do a Houdini disappearing act from the East Coast bicycle scene.

Anyway fast forward to 5 years. We met again. This time she was fatter and was married. Happily married I might add – so we sat down for coffee and started talking and soon the subject of “how did you know that on the fourth try it would work out well” came right out – that’s when this girl began to recount to me how she had to find out the reasons for herself – that’s to say, she had to connect the dots and even go deep into her soul to answer that question.

She told me it was the first time in her life that she felt the need to do that – as if she didn’t, it was like having a shard of glass stuck in her head. And since I had gone poof! And disappeared. She had to do it all by herself. At the end, she discovered herself and came to see the world for what it is and not how it’s so often depicted.

What this girl did not realise is the moment – you or for that matter anyone begins to turn their whole entire life upside down and start to peer deeply into every aspect of their life to search for answers to some philosphical question like, why have I been put on this planet in this timeline? Is it to nourish human suffering etc et al.

Then what they have inadvertently done is to think like a hunter – as that is what a hunter does, he doesn’t just go out and hunt. He first conquers his doubts, fears and the things that would usually hold him back. As when you think about the whole idea of fashioning a hunter – it’s all about knowing things that most people don’t ever know or just feel that it’s a waste of time thinking about -and that was exactly what this girl did – it’s really like a story of someone who discovers a small hole only to dig at it till its so large that they just run right through it into another world….a world where she hunted for the person who she was always meant to be. Not the person that everyone wanted her to be or felt she must be.

When you think deeply about the Tao of the hunter it makes perfect sense – BEFORE YOU CAN FIND A THING, YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW IT HIDES ITSELF. Now I know what you’re thinking –  the question is this I plan all this from the very beginning?

Well that really depends on whether you’re talking to a hunter.”

Safehouse – when gaming knowhow steps right into the real world

I have alot of enemies. I know one day a gun man is going to appear right out from the blue and pump me full of lead. I am not afraid of death. Not at all. When that day comes, I will be ready.

My only concern is that everything that I have worked so hard for all these years must go to my wife and children – if I am assured of just this. Then nothing can fazzle me. Not even the prospect of death

Having said that, if it comes to that –  I am not going to make it easy for any of those cheap pirates to send me to the otherside. No, if they want to take me out, I am going to make sure this is going to be their most expensive contract. As I intend to take as many of them with me. The more the merrier.

I guess if I decided to live in the city. I wouldn’t require bomb proof doors. Or armor plated windows. 

But since I want to stay close to my beloved birds and trees deep in the plantation where my nearest neighbor is at least half an hours drive away – and since I am especially fond of long walks with the dogs in the afternoon. I just find it impossibly hard to give up this desolate lifestyle – it wasn’t always like this. In the beginning, I felt marooned and terribly lonely. But after so many years of solitude, I have come to regard this way of life as the only one I want to live.

But to stay in the plantation is a very dangerous proposition – it’s my one Achilles heel. From a security standpoint at least. 

That’s why I have engaged the expertise of the keymakers Guild – these are a bunch of mysterious gamers who specialize in designing everything that swings open in the virtual. They are so passionate about their craft – they ONLY design doors along with an assortment of controlled entry products exclusively for the gaming world. Everything from space age high tech space doors that go whoosh to doors that can even transform into autobots that fight right back. That’s how it is in the virtual worlds – since it’s a blank sheet, everyone is free to take an interest in their field of interest. Some like to design spaceships, others plasma guns and magnetic boots. As for the keymakers Guild, their speciality just happens to be doors.

Recently while constructing my safehouse in the real world, I contracted their services to design a set of security doors for each room – I left the criteria as wide as possible to give them all the greatest lattitude of creative freedom –  they agreed, on ONE condition – what they design must be fabricated into the real world without any alterations – I agreed.

Result: the keymakers guilds have designed many aspects of my home with their usual kooky flair – such as an indestructible door with no keyhole, handle or for that matter any features that leads to my private study. Its armor plated with a combination of honeycomb steel and reinforced concrete. The door frame alone took seven men and thirty days to put painstakingly together – it opens and closes by sensing my finger print through the slit where the door and frame runs. A laser beam reads the refracted image and compares it with a databank. Guaranteed to be unbreachable. The keymaker guilds, the finest purveyors of doors in the whole universe even tested the prototype design in the gaming world by unleashing a mob of armed zombies – none of them made it past the doorway.

On another door – the keymaker guilds have designed an ultra silent bolt that opens and closes whenever I do a jig. A camera tracks my gait and reduces it to an alogrithm that feeds information into a computer that tracks me wherever I walk in and outside the house (so I can open this door even when I am not before this door) – since my gait cannot be mimicked and it’s personal to me. No one can open this door except moir – I don’t even have to touch a thing – I just have to walk up right up to it and extend my hand and it opens automatically – this door even has three doors within one door and even senses the gait of all my dogs and allows them to walk in and out freely – should an intruder attempt to pry it open, it will communicate with all the doors and window frames in the house and automatically go into combat mode – there are three gradations of combat mode.

The first is to containment and psychological warfare – where the door is able to secure it’self to three levels of security when an attempt of forcible entry is made – at the same time, it will begin to make strange noises, as if the house is haunted. if that level is breached, it will step up to neutralize mode by slamming the door in the intruders face or pin him down. The third is combat mode – where the door will communicate with other doors and window frames in the house to put the intruder in hospital – every aspect of the security is designed with a dash of humor – but there is also a serious intent that is an indelible hallmark of all portals designed by the keymakers Guilds – they are all designed to misdirect the enemy to lead him to waste time chasing dead ends,  nothing is ever what it appears to be, not even a door. As it can come alive – that simply means when an intruder enters my safehouse, he will find himself in a virtual maze where the house comes alive and hopefully eats him up and spits out the bones.

This way when they come for me which they certainly would – I will be ready with my army of intelligent doors.

Many people think that gaming is just gaming – they have no idea how dedicate those who game are to their craft or how much pride they take in developing new products which can so very easily be transposed into the real world to find a market niche. My long term goal is to create a means to tap this latent resource and if possible even leverage it as a means to make money – I have already done this my using my wall of sound software to attract birds for my new birdhouse venture – not only for the Keymakers Guild, but other guilds as well like those chaps who design plasma guns where you can keep firing till your finger freezes without having to endure pesky magazine changes etc.

If any of you reading this have plenty of enemies who regularly want to put you in a body bag – you can always drop me a note. I will only be too happy to recommend my team of defence engineers in the gaming world to all of you for a fee – trust me, they are the best in the whole universe and you certainly wouldn’t be disappointed. Beside the Keymaker’s Guild are famous for their code of silence.

In the virtual had it not been for the keymakers guilds dedication. It’s unlikely I could have survived nearly 891 assasination attempts – this is their first project in the real world. Judging from the orders coming in – it seems, they are set to make waves in the real world as well. My hope is many of you will support such projects.

PLEASE NOTE THIS OFFER IS NOT VALID FOR SINGAPORE. AS SINGAPORE HAS THE MOST REPRESSIVE INTERNET LAWS IN THE WORLD. AND THE KEYMAKERS DO NOT WANT TO BE FINED $50,000 OR GO TO JAIL FOR 3 YEARS. AS MANY OF THEIR DOOR PROJECTS ARE VERY HUMOROUS AND REGULARLY POKE FUN AT PEOPLE. THEY DOWAN LA.

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“When I first ventured into farming. I went to a bank to seek a loan. The bank manager asked me why should any bank back someone who has never commercially farmed before. I told him rather proudly, three years ago I won the gold medal in the gaming farming sim Olympics. I even showed him a receipt of a tractor that I won in Slovenia. This guy laughed so hard, he nearly fell off his chair and in a moment when he must have completely forgotten where he was or who he was talking too – he even uttered the words, “what an idiot.”

Three years into real world commercial farming and fast forward to today this same bank manager sends me a hamper every year with a card that writes, “I hope we can do business one day.”

Three years into farming one day I just woke up and said to myself that I am going to build the biggest birdhouse within a radius of 500 miles on a hill where I lived – when a wealthy and very experienced birdhouse consortium elder asked me why was I so cocksure that I would get birds when the failure rate was 80%. I told him that I once fought a long and protracted war in the virtual with weapons fashioned from sound – I went on to tell this man that the same technology could be easily transposed in the real world to attract birds. He told everyone that I was a psycho.

Today I steal his all his birds with my wall of sound – and he too sends me an expensive hamper every year with a note that reads, “I hope we can prosper together.”

The moral of the story is simply this. Do not underestimate what you do not fully understand or maybe I should say – do not be so stupid to draw a conclusion on a matter simply because you have neither the interest or inclination to drill deeper to understand a thing.

This is serious if you do not want to lose out in the competitive race – as when you waste a strategic opportunity, you will be playing catch up for an awfully long time.

As when you just act without fully understand a thing for what it truly is – you might just end up closing a door called possibility and opportunity. And once that door shuts. You will know the meaning of loss. And since you have neither the key or handle to this door – you will just have to make do with standing out in the cold.

After all let us face facts. Let us even talk like men to men. You see only what I allow you to see – that’s really another of saying all your data doesn’t even add up to a hill of beans. It’s just meaningless gibberish.

So if you don’t have someone from the inside any more to show you what door to open – then my advise to you is put ten men on the job and ask them all to go start from scratch.

Go on! But where to you even begin? How do you start searching for something that is supposed to exist but you don’t even know how A is connected to B and so on and so forth. Well the short answer is,

Imagine a door that stands before you – it has no handle, keyhole or for that matter even any discernible features that you would usually associate with a door. You stand before this door and you’re trying to wrap your head around it – to get through to the other side. But you don’t know how too.

Now you understand how the bank manager and the bird nest tycoon feels when a door which was once wide open suddenly closes and they suddenly find themselves standing in a country called ‘lost.’

It doesn’t pay to be an open book all the time

To be successful in work, life and play. I do not believe it pays to be an open book all the time.

Though you may share with the whole wide world your life.

There should always be one secret chapter about you that you hide from the prying eyes of the world.

Understand this! This is vital as it is necessary. Crucial. Jugular. As it is not possible to win decisively without the element of surprise.

All warfare is based on deception.

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“People are not comfortable. As they know I have been gobbling up land. They don’t know how much or where – there are of course rumors and plenty of gossip. Some which I have created myself. Others just take to grapevine. But no really knows for sure.

They don’t know how big or small I am. They don’t even know whether it’s the truth or I am just bluffing. It’s this aspect of me that disturbs and unsettles my enemies. I can tell, they’re not sure and that affects their confidence. They’re careful. And that is exactly how I like it – to put them in a state of mind where they don’t really know whether if they should decide to make a bold move against me whether I would just fold up like a travelling circus or take the war right up to their door steps.

It is this fog of uncertainty that gives me the power of invisibility to grow from strength to strength every year.

Recently without warning I stopped supplying the oil mills my fruit bunches for no apparent reason. Since then. They’ve been trying to find out from the rest of the mills where I’ve been selling my fruits – they all say, ‘No, he’s not selling to us….maybe he’s going further?” Another adds, ‘But how far? Besides how is that even possible, it’s impossible to transport fruit bunches across muddy plantation roads during the rainy season! Besides that idiot has tried to do that thrice and he has failed!” Another adds, ‘Maybe he’s managed to do it! Otherwise where and who is he selling his produce too? Maybe he has a secret oil mill deep in the jungle?”

Their minds spin endlessly like windmills – meanwhile my lorries are seen all around. At times I even tell my drivers to park them faraway. This adds to the confusion. As it gives many the impression that I am spreading myself far and wide.

They don’t know what’s happening. But they know something is happening.

There is another possibility. What if I told you that I buried all those palm oil bunches? What if I said that not a single bunch even left the gates of my plantation – that I was even prepared to sacrifice short term profit to create an elaborate deception that would lull many of my enemies to believe that I have both the means to transport and sell my harvest elsewhere besides to those blood suckers.

No I don’t suppose they would ever entertain that remote possibility.

That’s good. As in a few more weeks my contract to supply fruit bunches is coming up for renewal. I reckon when I walk right up to negotiating table this time. All I have to do is cluck my tongue, if they give me a lousy price again. I bet if I do just that, not a single oil baron would ever believe for one moment, this man doesn’t have plenty of options to transport and sell his fruit bunches elsewhere.

After all who in their right frame of mind would go to such lengths to stage an elaborate deception that he’s bigger than what he actually is? What sane farmer would even take the trouble to grow fruit only to bury it! Only a psychopath would do that.

No….I don’t imagine anyone would ever believe there is or can be such a farmer who ever once walked this earth….it’s just too impossible to believe. Impossible.”

The curious case of Ngiam Tong Dow Clarification and the even more curious case of Mini Lee welcoming it

Consider this. Do you see both the CIA and FBI taking an interest in two barfly’s debating whether President Obama has entered into a secret pact with Martians to give citizenship to little green men to end the government shut down in Washington?

When was the last time you heard the French President Nicolas Sarkozy issuing a public communique clarifying that Mrs Jesus is not buried beneath the glass pyramid in the Louvre? Or that Dan Brown is not a reincarnation of Nostradamus. Or that the Mayan Calendar deviates from the Julian Calendar by one percentile point over a period of one century to render it unreliable for farmers to use it as an almanac in French Guneia to grow red shorgum.

Have any of you heard or read any where that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyah has recently convened the Knesset to pass an executive order to sanction the state execution arm, Kidon to find, capture and interrogate the clowns who came out with the joke how many Mossad agents does it take to change a light bulb?

Coming to think of it, do you see both the Mafia and Yakuza losing sleep over a documentary claiming that the Scillian Mafiaso and Japanese right wing militants share a common violent gene in their DNA make up? And that Hello Kitty is actually a Ninja assasin teacher who has mastered the seven deadly books of the way of Machevilli on how to kill with just a blink?

So can anyone please explain this to me like a baby –  why would Mini Lee even welcome a clarification from a pensioner who used to work in the civil service? I don’t understand…my brain hurts…someone please help me…tolong!

Aha…unless of course…it’s the (you fill up the blanks yourself).

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“When your skin is wafer thin. Then you will feel everything and that is likely to irritate you no end. That is why BEFORE I go into the jungle for an expedition – I always tell my men. Please make an effort be comfortable in your own skin, that way, you will be kind to yourself and thoughtful of others in this expedition. You will be a happier person and you get alot out of it.

I don’t believe many people I tell this too really know how crucial this is to the whole idea of leading a successful expedition.

Coming to think of it, I even suspect, they may all even believe, I am trying to be flippant whenever I say this to them.

But I am dead serious. As I know the jungle very well – as I have led over 31 expeditions – and field experience informs me time and again nothing is as dangerous as a thin skinned man in a serious endeavor such as trying to make his way through a jungle…..as he can ruin the party for everyone else and even jeopardize the entire expedition with his self centerness.”

“

Why it doesn’t pay at all to be bad to people

Last night while driving on a windy kampung road. I came across a car with Singapore plates that must have skidded and crashed into a ditch – when I stopped and asked whether I could offer any assistance. A very relieved chubby man ran towards me and exclaimed, “thank God! Finally, a good Samaritan!”

At that moment a passing car illuminated the features of the happiest chubby man in the whole wide world – that was when I recognized him.

Ten years ago this same man had fabricated a story to undermine and assassinate my character in church. He obviously had no idea who I was.

At that moment, I turned to this chubby man and told him, this is a very dangerous stretch of road. As it is full of thieves and cut throats – only last week a man was stabbed to death and his fiancee was gang raped – his features slowly changed from relief to concern – that was when I took off my sunglasses and asked the chubby man,

“Tell me… do I look familiar to you?”

As the chubby looked on – my features began to harden and very slowly horror began to fill him.

If this sort of coincidences keep happening – I may have to reconsider my militant belief that God does not exist.

If this not the unconditional love of my father – then I do not know what is love. After all what is the probability of this!

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“I happen to believe very strongly, one of the greatest lost to polite society is dueling – I happen to believe very strongly, if dueling is legalized, it will go very far in improving virtually every facet of life and as it will serve to remind us all that we all live in a world of consequences – above all the reinstatement of dueling as one way to resolve conflict will in my opinion go very far in improving manners.”