everyday

i went to bed at 3:00 am last night. i had finished packing for a quickly scheduled trip to the us for a meeting and the unexpected chance to see my family on christmas day. as i fell asleep i was thinking how small the world has become that in less than 2 days i would have gone to the office for a bit of work, flown klia - hong kong – la – boston and gotten home in time for breakfast the next day. i was leaving with both anticipation and worry for things pending in the office which my physical presence helps to move along.

as always when i wake up, i picked up my phone that is connected to both work and personal email. many times i have an email from friends or family to read before i even get out of bed. today there was an email which has altered all of my feelings about the trip, and about life in general. the email was to let me know that one of my colleagues in europe was in critical condition in hospital after having a stroke while eating dinner. he is not just a colleague, but a friend, one i have spent many nights sitting in a pub and drinking with.

my friend is a man who people like, he is capable, friendly, tough and takes responsibility for things to ensure work is completed or staff is protected. he is a happy man, who always has a smile for me, even after we have butted heads over something. we are both in positions where our careers have a good chance of colliding; where one of us could get a job the other wanted. this was never an issue, the friendship stood ahead of concerns like that.

having an email like this to wake up to is both a blessing and a curse. the ability to stay connected and be aware of situations around the globe is a wonderfully strong tool, but it also reminds one how fragile we are. any of us can suffer a blow like this at any time. flying half way around the world seems dangerous, but sitting and having a quiet dinner can also be hazardous.

if anything were to happen to me, i know the people who i care about know i love them. i hope this is the same for my friend and for those that love him as well. i tell my family i love them every single day, i live half way around the world, but i take the time, make the effort, to tell them so they never forget.

i am saying prayers for this wonderful man. i hope he makes a full recovery and is back in the office quickly because we need him. we need his ability, his grace and his strength. mostly we need his smiles and stories, because these are the things that everyone who knows him thought about first when they heard he had taken ill.

if you believe in prayer, please take a moment and say one for my friend. he is a man who deserves to be whole and happy. no matter what, take the time today to call someone you love and tell them how you feel about them. none of us know what today will bring, but we can know that those around us understand how we feel.

everyday is important, everyday is precious, everyday is a day to remember what matters.

long weekend in KL

i have been keeping track of the things I have done for the past few days and have been shocked just how interesting KL is as a cosmopolitan city. It is a mix of east and west that allows on to one to enjoy very diverse mix of activities. i will recount the list of things i have done over the past three days, i hope this will give you an idea of why i think KL is so interesting

saturday
run though hartamas area
mandarin lesson with my chinese tutor
quick breakfast at a french bakery
salsa class with an indian dance instructor
shopping in an american bookstore where i was helped by a sri lankan sales clerk
massage with an indonesian masseuse.
take away indian from a restaurant filled with chinese families and a table of loud (drunk) japanese men.

sunday
breakfast at la bodega (spanish) where i had espresso, muesli, chicken tandoori and sangria
reflexology by a guy from china
shopping in low yat, the mecca of cheap computer hardware, software and dvds
lunch at a hawker place in bukit bingtan
walking in china town
coffee in starbucks while waiting for the thunderstorm to pass
bangsar night market for the sights, sounds and smells of a pasar malam.
dinner in hartamas square for tom yum (thai), sushi (japanese) and chicken satay (malay)

monday
slow breakfast in the french bakery
completely lost of the roads north of KL
a tour of the hindu temple at batu caves (great pictures of the monkeys)
lunch in a vegetarian indian resturant
stop for gas and a conversation in broken english/malay with a malay attendant
visit to a buddist temple, with a long sit listening to the rain and chinese music
dinner a devi’s corner (indian) for roti canai and chicken tandoori
coffee and chee-car-go cheese cake at the coffee bean

this is pretty much a standard long weekend here in KL, maybe a bit busier than normal, but KL is a city where you never need to be bored. there is always something happening and somewhere to go. it is also a city where you can go from place to place, stay relaxed, always have the chance to sit and eat or drink and just enjoy seeing other people happy and smiling.

life in the US simply does not have this much diversity. meeting people from cultures all over asia, as well as europe and the US is standard here. i have said hello, thank you, excuse me, good bye or some other simple social phrase in at least 5 languages this weekend. the pace of life is both slow and easy; and exciting and interesting. KL allows you to set your own pace and lets you choose almost type of food or activity to keep yourself busy.

i love this city. it is strange at times, but it’s a place that is easy to get used to living.

dating as a mirror

i was asked by someone, “why do you want to date, what do you want?”, this really got me thinking about relationships and motivation. there are so many different people out there, you somehow meet someone and think, hey i could spend some time with them and maybe it would work between us. what it means to spend time, have fun, or work, that’s for later, but for now its why do we decide to invest any time or effort into getting to know someone.

i have a really close friend who has the greatest laugh in the world. it’s distinctive and forceful, but it makes me smile just thinking about it. i have called across many time zones and said, hey, can you laugh for me? no need to tell a joke or a funny story, just ask for a laugh and you get one.

my friend and i never dated. we got to know each other through work, during business trips. we were both on the road, there were long work days followed immediately by nights in pubs. the pub nights were filled with stories, laughs, drinks, more laughs. we got to know each other as colleagues, and started doing each other work-favors. we are now close friends because we learned about each other when there was no intent to “date”. gender didn’t matter in the relationship, we were co-workers, she didn’t know i was getting divorced, i just assumed she was in a relationship.

now, contrast this with the last “date” you went on. two people, most likely freshly bathed and dressed well, sharing stale questions and rote answers, guarded, probing, observing. okay, to be fair, i am making this sound worse than it is. but i think you know what i mean. it’s not a comfortable, no pressure environment with nothing on the line, where people are sharing stories that make themselves look bad. when you are out with your friends, you are just having a good time. when you are dating, you are hoping to have a good time in the future.

i called a friend for dinner last night on a whim. we had gone on a few dates, but have settled into a friendship. we were eating last night and i was thinking about how much more comfortable we are now. she was really relaxed, i was relaxed, there was no expectation beyond dinner and the conversation. i asked her why people date, and she said, “to have someone look at you and smile, it makes you feel good”. we both looked at each other and smiled.

dating is a mirror. you do get dressed up, you go somewhere nice, you use your best manners, you are generous and thoughtful, you listen to the other person, hopefully you have turned your handphone ringer off and are not looking at your sms every 10 minutes. if both people were like this beyond the first few dates, imagine how happy people would be.

which brings me to another thought, why do people cheat? what would motivates someone to put their relationship at risk by spending time with (dating) and getting close to someone else. so here’s the thing, if the above is true, they must miss having someone smile at them. they must miss having the other person take the time to focus on them. they want to hear new stories, to tell the old story that always got a laugh to a new person, because the old person knows the story and can finish the punch lines by this point.

everyone says they want to be friends first, they become friends, get close, tell everything about themselves, find out there is nothing interesting left, stop taking the time to build interesting times together, get bored, say their mate doesn’t understand them anymore. the issue isn’t that the mate doesn’t understand them, its that they do understand them, maybe a bit too well, but they find someone else and repeat the cycle.

we can break the cycle in two ways, lead more independent lives. this would mean people have a harder time getting bored with you because they see you less. or, work harder to be interesting. keep bathing and getting dressed up to take the person out and focus some attention on them. either way, come up with a interesting new story, they want to smile at you and it will make you happy too.

structured lying

living in a new country involves meeting a lot of new people. not having anyone you know you seem to be getting to know a lot of people all at the same time. as you get to know more and more people you notice that meetings become interviews of a sort and later meetings bring details that were hidden, downplayed or simply lied about. people when they are meeting someone new have the image of themselves they want to project to the other person.

i have come to see this as structured lying. “i like to cook, i read constantly and i love to travel. i enjoy sports and friends say i am jovial.” you later find out they eat take away every night, they only read the menu of new restaurants they are going to for take away and they hate to travel, especially if the trip has anything to do with sports.

the question i have is, who are the lies for?

are they telling you what they want you to believe but know is just plain false? this can not be it. if it is, how long do they think they can keep up the mirage? over time things come out. you talk with them, they tell stories, they share feelings, things are bound to come out. they do come out and then what, how do you explain the lies?

the alternative is that they don’t know the things they are saying are false. i actually find this a bit more upsetting and sad. they tell you things you find to be completely false, and they don’t know it about themselves. let me give you an example, i met someone who told me she spends time with her kids by taking them to brunch “every” sunday at a certain restaurant. i knew her for a few months and not one weekend did she seem to be with the kids. i have gone to that restaurant for brunch many, many weekends and have never seen them. was it a story? why would you say something like that if its not true? why would you give such detail, its too easy uncover.

getting to know someone is like pealing the onion. you need to get from one layer to the next. there are people who are very closed and others who are very open, making it more or less difficult to get to the next layer. some people almost refuse to talk, they are skilled at asking you questions so they never need to discuss themselves. i have started to believe they cant come up with a story that sounds good, so they just refuse to try. other people you cant stop from talking, but you wonder if they are interested in getting to know you, or just want someone to hear their life story and opinions and could care less who it is.

i am starting to think people don’t really know themselves. if they do, they are hoping to change and why not start with telling you something about themselves that they want to be true. fover time, that crumbles, because those things are still not true after saying them. they need to spend the time to make it true first, then they can say them and have some proof.

moving to a new country is a great way to start over and gives you the chance reinvent yourself. it’s like moving to a new school system when you are kid, all that baggage you had with the old school is gone and you can start over, just on a larger scale. dating is kind of the same thing, but on a smaller scale most of your life is the same, only one person in it is different. but in all these cases, in the end you are the same person who will make the same kind of moves and mistakes if you are not careful. history does have a way of repeating itself.

what if we just told the truth???? hmm lets see,

“i am 41, i live away from everyone i know because i lost my wife to a loser with a drinking problem. i spent too much of my time focused on work and not focusing on my family, now just about all i do is work. i love to cook, but i never do it because i am too lazy to do it for just me. i like people, but most of them bore the hell out of me and i spend most of my free time alone. its one am and i am writing an entry for a blog that no one reads, about a subject that most people don’t seem to understand if i try to explain it”

hmmmmmmmm…. maybe is should just say: i want to find friends and would be willing to share yoga or dance class with someone.

privacy

i was thinking more about my last post, okay not post because i haven’t published it yet, but i did write it, i finished the thought, but had more rambling around in my head, so here we go again. to make things clear, i recently had a conversation with a close friend, at the end i saw disappointment in their eyes. it’s uncomfortable for me, and i want to know what to do to fix it.

the thing is what can any of us do once we have disappointed someone. we can stop doing what has disappointed them, and promise not to do it again. but if what we did was not strictly wrong, just something that someone we care about doesn’t understand or respect, its harder to decide how to move forward without giving up something that we would rather keep.

as a teenager we learn that the days of telling our parents everything are over. as a teen, i told my parents much more than my friends told theirs. this was due to the bohemian family dynamic, where few things were considered indefensively wrong. when parents know you are engaging in illicit behavior and giving you the advice to “have fun, but be careful”, you tend to view the world with a sense of grey rather than black and white.

as a parent, you see your children begin to take their personal lives into a private mode. they are simply doing the same thing most parents have always done with their children, controlling the flow of information to match the need and the audience. children don’t need to know everything that happens in their parent’s lives. as children mature they start to feel the same rule can be applied in reverse. some parents are horrified by this, which i think is a lack of trust in their children; i am guessing the children feel the same way.

my muslim friends know i drink alcohol and eat pork; they may also know i kiss dogs and let them lick my face. my catholic friends know in the last few years i have seldom attended mass, and that i support choice. my atheist friends know i believe in god (just not sure it’s the one any of the major religions are locked into) and that i firmly believe in right and wrong or good and evil. none of them hold this against me, i guess if they did we would not be friends. they might hope i change, but they know its part of who i am.

all of my friends know i am both an open person who will talk about anything and will always try to give an honest answer, but that i am also a private person, one who believes a person can make their decisions if they are willing to take responsibility. privacy is a good thing, it allows us to lead our lives without having our neighbors figuratively peering into our lives with the moral stand of a entitled voyeur.

and yet, i have opened up and discussed things that could be private. not admitting it at best could have been a lie of omission. but it would not have been that, it would have been a simple explicit lie. it would have taken a brick from the pillar of our relationship; the pillar holding the ceiling up would have been weaker for it. the brick needs somewhere to go though, so it would have been placed on the side, laid end to end, and then stacked, until enough have been moved and you realize the pillar is nearly gone, but that it has been replaced with a wall. the difference is the wall doesn’t allow you see or hear around it, and the relationship withers.

so, what is the right course; privacy or honesty? i am hoping the answer is both, privacy and honesty, with respect thrown in, respect for both the feelings of those around us and for us from them. privacy is the ability to keep some things to ourselves, so that we do not disappoint others. but when we do share, those that love us have to help us by understanding that we do things, even if we ourselves do not understand why.

disappointment

when was the last time you disappointed someone? i think i recently disappointed someone i care for very deeply, and i am not sure how to make it better. the thing is, i don’t know if there is any way to make it better. when you are a person known as someone not disposed to act without considering, and reconsidering, the implications of every decision, it is not easy to get off the hook if your decisions end up causing someone disappointment.

i am not talking about disappointment to someone you barely know. i have disappointed people at work recently, normally because i made a decision they didn’t like. i have put what i thought was the company’s best interest above what the person was hoping for. there is no, well not much, guilt in this. it’s clear the company needs to be protected and to come before an individual. decisions have to be fair and precedents need to be set. i believe people understand this, if not i hope they respect it.

i am also not talking about doing something which is wrong, hurtful or harmful to someone. there was no direct pain caused. there were no promises broken, no lies told. nothing was done to hurt the person, intentionally anyway.

i am talking about making a decision, or acting in a way that i thought was best, not for someone one else, but for me. i made a decision, more than one decision, and now i am willing to live with the consequences. no, i am not willing; i simply know that i have to live with them. we are all responsible for our decisions. the biggest sin i can imagine is someone acting and then either not taking credit or responsibility for his actions. i didn’t care what bill clinton did with monica or anyone else for that matter. i cared that bill didn’t have the will to come forward and say, yes i did have a relationship with her and you know what its none of your business, its private so bugger off. (he went to school in england, he knows the phrase).

if you are wondering, no, i didn’t have an affair with an intern, and i haven’t lied about anything. but i saw something in the eyes of someone i care about, something i don’t know how to place. the only thing i can assign it to is disappointment. it was just after discussing things that i would not discuss with anyone else, things that are private to me, but i am not going to hide these things when i am asked truth in this relationship; it is too important to me.

john and mona taught me, “any question is allowed, if you are sure you can handle the truthful answer” with the corollary “only ask a question you are sure you want a truthful answer to”. i am not sure if i am slipping off topic. it wasn’t that kind of conversation, nothing intense or heated; it was a simple, easy, conversation, one that makes me value our friendship as much as i do. but at the end, there was the disappointment. truth is not overrated, but sometimes…

asian repressed road rage

i was trapped on the LDP last night for more than two hours. in this time i traveled less than 15 km. the back up started just before the sunway toll and didn’t let up until i got off on the sprint highway. during the drive i noticed something interesting about malaysian drivers. they suffer from a disease i have never seen before, and i wanted to be the see if others are aware of it.

the condition is asian repressed road rage (ARRR or AR3), it presents as the inability to show ones feelings of tension, stress or anger during a traffic jam. this of course comes with two patterns of behavior, the first is a stone cold stare forward with an apparent lack of awareness for anything going on around you. a classic example would be when the mat salleh next to you has his blinker on to merge in and you simply continue to creep forward as though there is no one else in the world. this passive aggressive response can be dealt with by others simply by waiving to your wife and smiling, she will then provide the corrective action required to remind you that you are (or should be) a person who has some degree of compassion and social skills.

the second response pattern is the need to bounce from lane to lane in a hyper-kinetic frenzy. here the stress is dealt with via movement, rather than the single minded need to move forward a need simply to move at all costs is displayed. sufferers of this version of the syndrome appear to be younger and less emotionally broken than those in the first pattern; as such it is suspected that this is the early stages of the condition which with age and repetition may convert to the more passive approach.

each of these responses are in sharp contrast to the western open road rage (WORR) displayed in the us and europe. WORR sufferers display tendency towards violence, open hostility, use of foul language, verbal and physical abuse to their cars, themselves and those around them. the western version is primarily differentiated by lack of social barriers towards loss of face or stigmatism towards display of openly hostile or aggressive behavior.

asian sufferers do appear to be unable to deal with and openly channel the stress, rather they suffer silently, or though apparent concentration on their hand phones. this, of course, maps to behavior patterns displayed during work, family or other social situations where stress is involved.

the longer i am here, the more subdued i become. watching others deal with their stress by internalizing it, allowing it to eat away at themselves, has been positive experience for me. i am seeing that neither response western or asian is positive. there was a moment when i looked over at the chinese girl next to me and smiled. i think, she thought i was nuts. “why is he smiling”, she must have asked. because i am not tearing myself up emotionally over a traffic jam. kl is full of traffic jams, what’s the use.

what is beauty?

have you ever tried to explain beauty? what we think is beautiful is so individualistic, each and every one of us can view a work of art, a building, a color or a person and be affected by it in ways that are different from someone else. this is one of the things that make the world an interesting place. our ability to appreciate things differently is a core element to who we are, what a boring world it would be if we all agreed on the idea of beauty. but there are also things, people or concepts that seem to be transcendent. beauty comes in many forms, and form is one of the main elements of what is beautiful.

as i write this, i am sitting next to an asian garden; the water fountain is simply beautiful. the center urn has water pouring gently into the basin; the four pedestals on the corners are wood with plaster forms cast as flowers which are back lit from the inside. the light gently illuminates the surrounding area. each pedestal has a planter on top holding a plant with is moving in the breeze. would anyone look at this and see it as anything but a beautiful setting? possibly.

beauty for me is a complex form which appears simple, or elegant in design. the elements which make up the whole are complementary, they do not appear to be at odds with one another, and they help the viewer to understand or see the object without causing one element to appear out of place or opposing to the nature of the thing.

i also like repetition of form. when a simple element is repeated, making the design easier to anticipant, i seem to be more comfortable with the object more quickly. i can view the object from one small area and not be shocked to see the next area, it appears comfortable and familiar to me. objects which do not have this composition are constantly being reevaluated as you see them from new sides or angles.

these personal preferences mean that i like simple clean architecture with the layers of frank lloyd-wright, but am less taken by gothic architecture. mandelbrot art is complex and elegant to me, where as salvador dali is hard to be comforted by, as though constructed to make interpretation difficult. both are complex but the latter has intentional complexity, the former is simple parts multiplied and repeated. louis armstrong or elle fitzgerald are warm and inviting where modern fusion can be almost uncomfortable for me to listen to. a bright red sky of a sunset, with a gentle breeze on the skin is much more enjoyable than the harsh wind-blown morning of the stormy day which follows.

this brings us to beauty in people. what makes someone beautiful? it is much, much more than physical beauty. when you meet someone, you see the public face, the formal outer most layer of that person. if the meeting is part of a scheduled event, most likely the presentment will be the most polished and scrubbed face they have. they will have taken special care to look good, will be on their best behavior and will be using the formal conversational arts that we learn to make people like us. this is not who the person is, it’s who they want people to think they are. if that is the case, can you decide based on this if the person is beautiful? is this surface, carefully constructed, presentation a fair representation of the person?

over time, as you spend time with people, the public face becomes stripped away. layer by layer the person is exposed. some people are more or less forth coming with this exposure. i have a person who i was very close to, who sometimes i think i never really knew. the face shown to the world, was infrequently the true face, the face without the make up used to mask any emotional wrinkles that come with age or stress through life.

for people, beauty to me is still an appreciation of simplicity, openness, ease of understanding. a beautiful person is someone who is truthful, with who they are; even to themselves. they are hopeful and confident. they know where they are going in life and are happy to have someone fun along for their journey. they may have a history of broken travel plans, but they are resilient to the pains of travel and know how to see things in the best possible light. they also realize that everyone else is also on a journey, some are rushed, some just want to sit in the airport lounge and rest, and some are standing trying to find a map and to decide where to move next. a beautiful person would take the time to help these others, would talk to some who looked like they needed a friend.

beautiful people are much more than skin deep, they are beautiful all the way down to their core. the first beautiful person i knew in my life was my grandmother, she was not a classic beauty, but she was a person who lived a proud and purposeful life. she cared for her children and grandchildren, she had friends who meant something to her, and she had a career that was more than a mundane job which she did because she had to. she had pride in herself and her life. nana was one of the most beautiful people i have ever known.

beauty is happiness, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, strength, confidence and openness. it is not the number of wrinkles on your face. the shape of your body parts might come into it both for the first meeting and for how you feel about yourself, but that is not who someone is. we will all be 90 someday; if we are lucky. by then, we will be wrinkled and saggy for sure. i hope to still be active, i hope you are too, but we will not be super models. the beautiful parts of us can still be there though if we care for them and make sure we work to keep them as fit as we have our physical bodies.

life is change

when i first graduated college and started working i had a boss that liked to say the often repeated phrase, “life is change”. i am sure i had heard it before, but having your first boss use it, right after dropping a bomb of an announcement was a nice entry point into the reality of an adult with a career.

i have heard myself say the same words to staff over the past few weeks, which is a bit scary, somewhat like hearing yourself say, “because i am the dad and i say so” or something else your father may have been famous for saying, when you hear your parent come out of some deep dark place inside you it is a self-conscience moment that can take you back to your own childhood, and expose you to memories of a different time.

i was a camp counselor for a summer day camp when i was 16. i had gotten the job because i swam on swim team, and my coach was the camp manager. this was the first job i had with any responsibility beyond making sure a fast food item was not burned, or someone didn’t park in a reserved spot. this was also the first time my actions were impacting the emotions of people who looked up to or relied on me.

in this setting i found that people, little people with unstable home lives, needed to have as little change as possible. change is bad when you see the world though a tunnel of emotional breakage, worse when you have the capacity of an 10 – 12 year old to deal with it. it wasn’t long before i learned that my job was to look for problems before they happened and downplay anything that would upset the flow of one day to the next. keeping to routines was an important part of this, change for no good reason was not a plus.

wind forward decades in time and a huge physical distance. now i have new kids, who see the world though a lense very different than my own. again, i am finding that my job is to look for things on the horizon that would upset their balance and to explain the things that do happen in a way to limit the emotional impact.

the second part of “life is change” is “change is good”. not all change is good. there is change that is forced upon us, that we resist kicking and screaming. there is also change we realize we can not resist but we can also not live with so we simply walk away. there is change that we think we want, but when we realize the meaning of it we begin to wonder if the change was really what we wanted in the first place.

i have a new phrase that i have been repeating to myself for the past few months. “happiness is acceptance”, no matter what is happening if i accept the realities of the situation, i find that i feel better. if i want a coffee, and the coffee shop is closed, what can i do? i have two paths to follow, get upset or accept. if i get upset i might tell myself i am enjoying the release of tension, but i am really just making it worse. probably not just for myself, but for everyone around me.

the other approach is to simply accept. once you accept the reality of the situation you can embrace it and make it your own. i find myself smiling when this happens, i simply say, okay so i can’t have the coffee and start looking for an alternative or more likely just go home and have water. the water is better for me anyway, it’s cheaper, there are no nasty chemicals to worry about, and there is no post caffeine crash waiting on the other side. i might as well enjoy it, and realize it’s good for me.

talking about water and coffee is of course a metaphor for what ever you think i really am looking to find and accepting that i can’t have it. who cares about that, we can change the nouns all you want, there is something i cant have, and i can simply accept that and decide how to move forward.

life is change, happiness is accepting that and all of its implications. resisting it is a true course to feeling like a troubled kid in a summer camp run by councilors who don’t know what they are doing, who cant help you with the real problems in your life, but who try to keep the wheels rolling day by day. just making it to the end of the summer isn’t enough, life it too long to not except that the summer will be over and you need good memories to look back on to help you get though the winter.

tao of steve

several years ago i saw part of a film, it was late at night, i couldn't sleep went down for a drink and flipped the tv on. i watched only 15 or 20 minutes of some random film that was on, but i was hooked. having gone to a liberal arts college, i have a sweet spot in my heart for classic philosophy applied to practical things like relationships. it was late, and i was tired, but this film had all the elements i look for in a movie, quirky characters, great dialogue and well filmed scenery. the use of philosophy was just an added benefit. i kept thinking about the movie, but had no idea what it was called.

here is one of the quotes from the film, that grabbed me that night:

dex: doing stuff is overrated. like hitler. he did a lot. but don't we all wish he woulda just stayed home and gotten stoned?
syd: oh, i see. so you're only options are to get stoned or commit genocide?

come on, this is the stuff you say to your close friends, its a real conversation that could really happen. (the movie is semi-biographical so thats not a surprise).

it wasn’t until a year or so later that i figured out what the movie was called, and ordered a copy from amazon. i watched it, and then watched it again. i was a happily married man at the time, dating was the furthest thing from my mind, so watching dex go through life and dispense his wisdom was mostly a journey of humor with a “thank god that’s not me” thrown in.

times have changed, i am not married, i do think about relationships and dating in a different way now. the “tao of steve” takes on an entirely new feel and impact as i watch it. this is one of the things i like about art; the viewer brings themselves to the work. in this case, i am not sure if i think this is a good thing. watching the tao of steve today is much more like watching an extreme case of myself if i were not careful.

in the movie dex (donal logue) is a pot smoking, overweight, unashamed underachiever who went from being the star on his college campus to a kindergarten teacher who spends most of this time drinking with friends and playing frisbee golf.

the following is a good example of the person who dex is:

priest: dex, i find it hard to believe that someone of your, uh...
dex: moral turpitude?
priest: yeah, would ever consider being a priest.
dex: ya know, actually, i was accepted to divinity school.
priest: really? so what happened?
dex: it's like st. augustine said, ya know: "lord, give me chastity and virtue, but not just yet."


through out the film dex is trying to help a friend understand the road to happiness with woman, the one true path to ensure a steady stream of sex. the tao of steve. this is built on the manly, and detached, cool shown by steve mcqueen, steve austin (six million dollar man) and steve mcgarrett (hawaii five-o) which is backed by a buddist based philosophy, that requires one to release all desire.

the philosophy has three main rules:

1. eliminate your desires.
2. do something excellent in her presence, thereby proving your sexual worthiness.
3. retreat, for as heidegger said, "we pursue that which retreats from us".
   

this is further boiled down to:

be desireless, be excellent, be gone.

i am not going to spoil the movie for you; you really should see this film. if you are attracted intelligence and strong women, its great fun. that is if you can overcome a bit of the revulsion you feel towards dex as he talks, or acts, early in the film. its balanced by some of the sympathy you might feel later. dex is not a bad guy; he is simply a guy who has found an easy way to get though life and to feel satisfied. the difficulty is when he realizes there is more out there; this happens just as his history catches up with him.

how does this play into my life? what if i have been thinking that eliminating desire is a good thing? by leading the semi-hermit life style you can find that desire does nothing but cause you to come outside your box. desire can cause pain, or shall we say the desire for things you can not have can cause pain. worse might be the desire for a thing you can have, but don’t want, but that is another post i think.

dex is an idiot, a loveabe one, which is how he gets away with this in the first place. that's not an excuse for him, but if you can find a philosophy that tells you to be desireless and retreat, when you are feeling the need to do just that, it makes it simple to rationalize the actions. i guess this is is true of any moral system built to keep us from making choices that can bring us pain or regret. dex is a strange prophet, but who knows what other charismatic leaders were really like.

art and life do interact, you bring yourself into a work and see it though your own feelings. this is a great film, but it is not the same film it was that night i could not sleep.

dinner with snoop

i was listening to music while working today. there was a snoop dogg song pounding out of the speakers and for some reason i thought hey, i would like to have this guy to a dinner party. but that made me consider who else i would invite to a dinner party if i wanted to have a really great night. who would you invite if you could have anyone in the world show up? i am kind of surprised by my answers. i would have thought the list would be less hollywood oriented, but some of these people are here because i expect them to possibly drink too much and be entertainment for the rest.

the list is definitely more liberal than i expected, but mary matlin and i should be able take a more conservative stance if needed to balance bill maher and james carville. there are a few europeans and at least two american expiates on the list so it’s not to say it’s fully an american list. i would have liked to include someone from asia, but i don’t know the personalities well enough to know who would be good to have dinner and debate with.

here is the list, what do you think?

calvin “snoop dogg” broadus, jr.
rapper, he is known for his “lazy drawl”

furgie
lead singer of the black eyed peas

nelly furtado
singer known for songs "promiscuous" and "maneater".

bill maher
host of politically incorrect

mary matlin
republican political consultant

james carville
democratic political consultant and husband of mary matlin

zinedine zidane
french football star, famous for headers and head butting

jon favreau
actor, writer, producer, of “swingers” fame

lisa nicole carson
actress, (renee of ally mcbeal)

denis leary
actor, comedian, (star of “the job”)

rhona mitra
actress, (tara wilson of “boston legal”)

paraminder nagra
actress, (from “bend it like beckham”)

thandie newton
actress, (from “truth about charlie”)

rob fitch
best male friend

ann verhoeven
best female friend


the next question is, what would i server this group for dinner? i am sure i would start with something easy like a cheese course, salad and meat cravings and breads. good wine, good conversations, and hopefully a lot of laughs. desert and port with coffee to finish the night. what more does one want from a dinner party?

one of you knows you have a history of getting drunk at parties; don’t expect me to try to stop you. i would like to see what happens as the night goes on if you were hammered, so you are on your own.

does anyone want to take bets that denis leary and zidane get into a tussle? i am taking the angry irish american kid from worcester mass, i think he will see the head butt coming a mile away and knock zidane out. that is unless favreau gets in the middle and settles things down.

oh yeah, its going to be a good night.

atlas shrugged

i was standing in my local bakery this morning when another expat came up to say hello. i was running late, so i declined to sit and have the cup of coffee i very much would have enjoyed. we stood there and talked for 20 minutes or so, the conversation went back and forth, but his basic thread was, “once you are here as long as i have been, you will understand the place. until then, you need to be careful.” this of course would be very true, if i found the country hard to understand. its not hard at all, its quite easy in fact, all you need to do is read “atlas shrugged”.

the comment that sparked this thought was when my expat friend said, “you need to know that business here is an extension of politics. it’s all about datuk so-and-so draining money off a project for their personal gain”. thankfully, my clients are back in the us, so i do not need to play these games, but i do see this happening. the larger question for me is, if after being here for such a short period of time i understand this is happening, how can people who live here not be up in arms over it? where is the outrage? i contend it’s there, its just that rather than speaking with their vote or voice, they are speaking with their feet.

"atlas shrugged" was written my ayn rand, and is both a description of her political philosophy and a critique of the systems of government she had experienced in russia and else where. it is a rejection of communism, and warning of the ways governments use people’s fears or desires to manipulate those within the society. this is a long and complex work that many people find themselves lost within. it is also thought provoking and interesting from any angles.

the general story is that rational, practical thought is the power of the world. it is what makes people prosper. the more intelligent and hard working someone is, the better they are able to compete in the world and the more they can expect to find happiness. the warning is that societies can begin to construct rules which take the ability to think or act in a purely rational way away from individuals for the “betterment” of society as a whole. this is a much, much deeper book which touches on many concepts core to politics, society, family and personal philosophy.

the interesting thing is that many american’s read works like this in high school. there are many books which challenge conservative standards that our educational system encourages, if not demands, talented children to read. reading is seen as the vehicle to an open mind, and to adulthood. before one can travel and meet people outside their social circle they can read about worlds different than their own.

i don’t see many people in malaysia reading. there are wonderful book stores, and people are there purchasing, but this is not a culture of reading. i wonder if that has to do with the education system, and the political system that drives it, which does not teach the young to read or think in a critical way. the newspapers here have nothing close to an open op-ed page, and when you talk to people here consensus is don’t speak ones mind or you will end up in jail; the isa is ever present.

a major part of the plot of atlas shrugged is the departure from society of those that drive the economy. the people we meet though out the book are systematically being taken from society, of their free will, and brought together in a place where they are free to exercise their intellect, in a free and honest way. as they are removed, the society in the book begins to crumble because no one is left with the skill or drive to keep the society moving forward. innovation and growth stagnates and the people left behind begin to feel the stress of life without the work of those of whom they can no longer take advantage.

i can not tell you how many times i have been told by someone i meet here that they have begun or plan to start the process of emigration away from malaysia to another country. australia, new zealand and britain seem to be the favorites, but other countries are also benefiting by providing a place to live freely and fairly. the open corruption and lack of social equality, never mind the risk of political detention for speaking ones mind, are always admitted to be the cause for the decision. a friend just told me, “i need to do it for my children, i need to give them a place to grow up that is free and fair.”

i hope people begin to read books like atlas shrugged and understand what it means to them and their society, before it is too late. once the good are lost, it will be very hard to get them back. our wonderful malaysia deserves to have the best and the brightest here working for its future. if they are not given the chance here, they will be given one somewhere else. this is too important to just sit back and say, “who is john galt?”.

social contract

i watched a few strange interactions over the past week that have lead me to ask, what is our responsibility to others who have passed through our lives, when they show up at our door step later. the over riding question is, when someone we cared about at one time shows up and asks for help, forgiveness or simply our attention, what are we obligated to do?

what if a person who was hurt deeply by a former love is asked to forgive the person and accept them back into their lives. you can imagine the stage setting; the regretful person made mistakes and after a long contemplation period now realizes the error of their ways. the fact that apologies have been a standard element of the relationship for years, with formerly unfulfilled promises of correction, is somewhat lost in the newest round of assurance. would any level of guarantee motivate one to turn their back on the clean break and potential cheerful future that new relationships could bring?

this person has hurt us in the past, and is fully capable of doing it again. we have loved the person, still love them probably. when is the time to close your heart to them and stop believing that our love will be enough to change them? when will moving on not feel like a betrayal of the obviously weak willed person, yourself and the loved ones who are in the middle.

what if a single person were confronted with need from with two former lovers on the same day? each comes hoping for a place to stay, temporarily of course, as a bridge while they are recovering from being ejected from their homes for real or suspected ill doing. in this case, neither of the culprits had done anything hurtful to the requested, not recently anyway. any evil doing was done to others, and although the effects had washed over the person they were now seeking shelter from, there was never any direct intent to hurt that person.

does one need to choose between these two sorry souls, who were supposedly wrongly accused of the crimes they were being punished for? the fact that proof was readily available can be discounted. the crimes were not directed at you, does it matter that crimes were committed? there is a person in need, a friend, someone you cared for in the past. when do you decide that the best thing for them is to suffer the punishment, humiliation and sorrow that will come from having to fully face the impact of their actions?

what if there was never any crime, real or imagined. you simply had a person who touched your life in a gentle and quick way. sometime in the future they drift back into your sphere of reality, either by chance or choice. this would be someone who was never really a part of your life in a meaningful way, but who could have been if timing or circumstances were different. one day they are in front of you, a chance meeting, an unexpected sms, a phone call with a voice that jars you from your comfortable reality to one where you remember an almost forgotten friend.

when this happens and they ask you for your help, your time or your attention what are you to do? the social contract would say you must return the attention you are given, be kind and generous with your time. but what if others have now entered your life, or if you are simply comfortable with your situation as it exists and you do not want to muddy the waters by adding more feet splashing in the puddles.

in all of these cases there is someone standing in front of you hoping for you to show interest, compassion or empathy for their situation. they may need you because there is no where else to turn, they may simply want you because they know you are someone who will not say no, they may not truly understand what they are asking for or why.

a common refrain is “everyone lies”. when do you need to over look that and continue to help those who ask you for it? does it ever matter, even if you know someone is lying to you, or possibly even to themselves, do you have the right to say no to someone who asks you for something?

my choice to answer all of these questions is to say, if the person has the ability, not the intent, the simple ability to hurt me or those i care about, especially if they have proven on more than one occasion that they are willing to do it, then the social contract is void and self preservation comes into play. no one has the right to hurt others and use our own good nature or feelings to manipulate us into either allowing it or to become an accomplice.

other people just reenter our lives at times that accepting them would be in one way or another uncomfortable to us. honest and good people will understand when we tell them why we can not help them. other times we simply need to understand that as adults we need to do things that are uncomfortable. that’s what life is, making tough choices.

metro-sexual malaysia

in the past week i have been asked by 3 separate women, “do you like to dance? wait what am i talking about”, “you really do like to wear pink don’t you?” and “you are a woman, aren’t you?”. these questions are not new. i work in a community where social skills, personal hygiene and fashion are not held in high regard. it’s a nearly all male community where scruffy personal appearance is accepted and embraced.

i had times in my life where i fit neatly and comfortably in this camp, more recently i have made an attempt to improve upon what i consider my previously lazy and slovenly ways. when i joined my company i was took over staff both locally (then US) and remote (europe). when you are a new manager, you know when the team is starting to accept you when they begin to include you on email threads that poke fun at another staff member (to them directly of course, otherwise it would be cruel and petty) or the company in general. for me this happened at just about the same time they began to call me a metro-sexual.

i had heard this term, but had never really considered it. it’s a few years later, i am convinced the term has some merit on and if i wasn’t able to be called this before, this past saturday put the last doubts to rest. i think this past weekend held a life event that has changed me.

last week, i was running at lunch time, i know its too hot in malaysia to run in the afternoon, but give me a break, i have a busy schedule and need to make the time. i stopped to stretch my calf and my back tensed up to the point that i could barely breathe. i finished the run but was uncomfortable for the next few days; i just couldn’t get my back to loosen up. i went to my favorite bakery, where someone suggested i try the new spa next door.

when i checked on the place, i found they had a special for RM 138 (or US$ 38), it included a body scrub, hour long massage and a facial. i have had women tell me how good a day of beauty can be, so i thought why not. i really was feeling tense and stressed and needed something to relax me. no one here knew the term “day of beauty” but i was sure ready for one.

i won’t describe the experience in detail; except for saying it was wonderful. it was relaxing, peaceful and more than worth the money. it was three hours of pure pleasure, with no guilt or stress. it was so wonderful i am not sure why it took me so long to try it, and i have no illusions about my level of desire to do it again. i am going to do it as soon as i can.

the experience has brought two questions to mind. the first is, now that i know what this is like, why are more men not doing this? women have simply not made it clear to us how much they enjoy it. not many men, american or malaysian, i know have ever done this, women might have said, you should go for a massage, but not many have told their significant others that they should get a facial. men are generally too “manly” to go to a spa (good marketing change by the way, spas used to be called beauty parlors right?). obviously, the men who won’t go are not of the metro-sexual type, but good for the rest of us, i don’t want them clogging up the schedule anyway.

the second question that comes to mind is, why do women put up with men if they can get treatment like this on a regular basis? other than needing someone around to kill a bug, why would a woman need a man? this is hours of direct attention, by someone who appears to be there only for you and is not trying to get anything more than what they told you they wanted. lying in a dark room having someone wash and gently rub your face, neck and head for 45 minutes is well, enjoyable. how happy would women be if their significant others would give them treatment like this? as far as that goes, i think this gave me insight into spending time with a woman, turn down the lights, make them comfortable, play light music, don’t speak unless absolutely necessary, do nothing that feels rushed or aggressive and don’t expect (or is that allow) any reciprocation.

i don’t see many men here in malaysia who are going to spas for this kind of attention. malaysian men appear to be finding attention, but not in an environment where there is little or no guilt involved. guys, don’t be confused, the spa is not the same as the “health clubs” at the hotels around bukit bingtang. imagine rather than keeping a second apartment and paying for a car, you can to go a spa and simply relax. if you enjoy it, rather than sneaking off you could go with your significant other. the spa i went to does have a couples room, the common male fantasy of watching your girlfriend with another beautiful woman? what if you could have that, and have someone else rubbing your back at the same time. i realize this is a heavy handed sales technique, but look what we are competing with, we need something to motivate them.

as i left the spa, i was told about the hot rocks treatment and other things i can go back for later. i need to ask around and find out what is really good and what i should try next. yes, i wear pink and other strange colors, i do like to dance, i watch romantic comedy and eat chocolates, i am not a woman. i am a man, one that is looking forward to his next visit to the spa.

moving away

a year ago i had no idea i would be living in asia. two years ago, i had created a list of things to do before i die, had worked long and hard on it to include all the things i wanted to accomplish. when i had considered walking on the great wall of china and swimming on the great barrier reef, i had simply discounted them. i remember thinking, we will never go that far, we have so many other things to do and places to see. europe, the caribbean, south america, the us it’s self had more than enough to keep us busy for many, many years to come.

a year ago i was buying a new house, moving from the family house, trying to imagine the list of things to do that was no longer we, but i. some of the things i could do with the kids, but others were simply a “we” thing. it just wasn’t the list i thought i would accomplish any more. what a new list would look like, i had no idea. i wasn’t capable of considering it.

one weekend i had a very bad time, all because i went to a soccer (sorry football) game. it’s strange how small things can turn into big ones. one little event, something you do without even thinking about it can have huge ripples in your life. i guess the waves were already pushing me around, i was floating next to the dock, trying to hold on but the currents were pulling me. this one huge wave that looked small as it approached just dragged me out to sea.

the surprising thing was that the sea was the south china sea. within two months of going to this football game i was on a plane to malaysia. a place i could find on a map, but no one i talked to knew anything about. i had many pictures in my head, some from travel books i bought before coming, some from movies set in other asian countries, and none of them were even close.

i had promised to move to a country i knew almost nothing about. i had taken on a job i was very excited to do, but that i had never done before. i was going to be half a world away from everything, and almost everyone i knew. i had never thought i would be in asia, and now i was trying to figure out how to dress, what to eat, what language to learn first and where i was going to live; maybe not in the order.

so here i am, its been six months since i moved, i have loved most things i have seen and done here. the culture shock is no where near as bad as i thought it would be. my kids were here for the summer and even they didn’t have issues. late supper in hartamas square with world cup football on the wide screen tv was very easy for a normal american family to adjust to. what is not to like about warm weather, nice people, good food and interesting culture.

the last thing is the list. the list has grown, after being here for a few months i realized i could do things in asia. i have the time, the freedom and the ability to do the things i never thought i would do. “i” am going to do these things; i can alter the list any way i want. i live in asia, i am near new friends, new places i like, i have a new life. i miss the old one, but the new one is not bad.

opening volley

this is the first post of the blog. i have been meaning to start this for a while and was finally moved to it by reading the blog of a very interesting KL local. her writing style and wit showed me that taking the time and effort to compose and share your thoughts can be the best use of your time.

KL is a wonderful place to live, i have been here for about 6 months now, i am still learning the town, the people, the language and the foods, but they are all wonderful and interesting. i have gotten to the point that KL is starting to feel like my second home. i miss the people i love in the US and else where, but i am also comfortable and happy here now.

i have a list of items i plan on sharing with you here about KL and the people of m'sai, many are fun and interesting, some are strange and some are just different. thanks for stopping by, and let me know what you think.