boy blue

i am ignoring the world and passing the time until mass. i have been trying to get in touch with how i feel all week. emotions have been flowing since the phone rang in the middle of the night to tell me my father had died. when i asked when the funeral was, my sister said they were waiting to know when i would be back. but i had decided two years ago that when the time came, i would not fly home. i should have warned my family, but when does that conversation come up. no one understands, and i have been asked to consider what i am doing; no one wants me to live with regrets.

my father had a heart attack and stroke two years ago. my mom has been nursing him towards recovery ever since. as i watched from far away, i could not remind her that they sent him home to die, not to recover. there was no recovery, he was bedridden, had lost most of his mobility and communication skills. earlier this year, persistant open wounds forced them amputate his legs. when i called home she would tell me how he had gotten up and moved around a bit, or that he was having a good day, but i have known the days were limited.

when i was in college, we would blow off campus during exam season and drive over to the ocean. classmates were in the library or studying in the dorms, but once i had studied i knew that what i needed was to get away from the enforced quiet time that others required. it was best for me to sit in the back seat of the car and drink a beer, listen to music and talk to my closest friends. i don't remember a single conversation, but i can still feel the closeness of the group driving through the night; far from the acceptable behavior of studying or sleeping.

at the end of my sophomore year we were driving to the beach in the middle of the night. i was thinking about the coming summer, i would go home for a few weeks and then off to parris island for my marine corp summer camp. i would not be spending the summer with my family, but i was already spending my school year away, so this seemed like the next step.

i had called home every week the first year of college; sunday at 7:30 on the dot. it was the time between sunday mass and the return to my studies. i would call home and let them know how i was doing, what was going on in my life. but early in my sophomore year i had made the call, and after talking for a few minutes a frustrated voice on the other end asked me, "why don't you call and tell us good news. it seems like there is always something wrong. can you not call until you have good news to tell us?" i got angry, and tried to debate the point, but they hung up. i stood in the phone box, staring at the receiver which i then slammed down, twice. the following week at 7:30 i wanted to call, but still angry i refused to edit my conversation. i wanted to share, but the sharing had stopped. i never called regularly again, and 27 years of drift has happened in between.

later that year, when i told my father i was joining the marine corp to fly helicopters, he asked me, "are you sure about this? you don't like anyone telling you what to do." when i think back on the tractor accident, and premature end of my military career, i realize in some ways he might have been right. i have learned to take and execute orders, but i have always needed to make my own choices.

on that drive to the beach we had ROCK 101 was playing. i was in a quiet mood and for the first time actually listened to harry chapin's "cats in the cradle". i knew the chorus, but the lyrics had always blurred by unnoticed. this time i listened to the story of a father and son's relationship over the years. it begins with the son asking for the fathers time, and ends with roles reversed. it was in this moment that i understood my childhood, but i also saw my future and realized how i was moving away.

when we got to the beach, i zipped into a sleeping bag on the sand. as i laid listening to the waves with my girlfriend i started to cry. she had no idea what had set me off, she might have thought it was exam stress, but i was sobbing over a broken childhood that i had no ability to fix. i might have gone into software because i like to build systems, or to fix those that are broken, but this one was out of my hands. my childhood may also drive my need to be in control, but in those moments i had no control. i didn't explain the emotions that night, but i have gone back to them over the years.

i cried two years ago when i thought my father was going to die, i haven't cried this week. i want to, but i can't seem to push the button. it feels wrong, i am not going to stand over the casket so why do i get to shed the tears from the safe emotional distance that i am keeping.

the words that have always haunted me are from the end of the song, when the father calls and asks to see the son who says he is too busy... i have never believed he was busy, work is not an issue, just a convenient excuse. the father ends the call and says:

as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
he'd grown up just like me
my boy was just like me

i am divorced, i live away from my kids, i do enjoy work. but i am not my father. my father would have gone to the funeral, even if he didn't want to. i am not perfect, and i never needed him to be. i am sad that he is gone, and that we never found enough time to spend together. but i loved my dad, and i know he loved me. we just never really understood each other, and that is how i want to be different, i want my kids to know the person i am inside.

this is not the end of the song, because i am the father now and my kids need me to call and make time to be there; so they can know me. i live half a world away, and have been home for e's birthday 5 years running; i wonder if he has noticed that. either way, i know i am no longer the son, i am now the father.

the song ends with:

and the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
little boy blue and the man on the moon
when you comin' home son?
i don't know when, but we'll get together then son
you know we'll have a good time then

goodbye dad, i love you.

i am sorry we didn't get together then.

top matters

it's interesting how a small idea can begin, be sidelined and then continue to resurface, bobbing up into view at the most random of times. i picked up a book a few weeks ago, and read it with a gusto of enjoyment. since then i have formulated an exercise of discovery and ruminated on how easy it is to live life if you believe the results of the exercise. the hard part of this is understanding that pleasure is fundamental to life, but what gives someone pleasure is not what you expect.

the book i read was "the compass of pleasure: how our brains make fatty foods, orgasm, exercise, marijuana, generosity, vodka, learning, and gambling feel so good". first of all, look at that title. do you really think i could have passed that book by and not bought and read it immediately? could you have passed it by? if you could, then learning must not be one of the things you gain pleasure from, or is it that pleasure itself does not interest you. the point here is many people do not have a strong handle on what gives them, or those around them, pleasure and why.

the major discovery for me from the text was, what gives us pleasure is both learned and genetically pre-disposed. this is fundamental to a person's addictions, at the root of experience is the ability for our brains to reward and drive us towards certain behaviors. what i did not grasp was that behaviors that light up my pleasure centers do nothing for someone else. but when you feel a craving, it is the same addiction centers of the mammal brain that evolution has built to motivate us to get up seek out pleasure, regardless of what the specific pleasure is that drives you.

as i write this, i have am eating a burmese beef kabob and sharing a fruit salad with bananas, yogurt, and honey. i also have a orange and lime soda and an espresso romana (iced-espresso with lemon and sugar added). i am listening to the alternative soundtrack for catch and release, wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt and sitting outside so i can feel the heat of the tropical weather. i am also typing away on my 17 inch macbook, which is too heavy to carry but i gave my air to my daughter and are waiting to replace it. i am waiting to raise the desire levels of making the purchase to the point that i get even more pleasure than i would get if i did it today.

every single one of the above items are based on decisions i made to bring myself pleasure. we all make these decisions all day, every day. the theory of desire at the end of the 19th century was that we made choices to avoid pain. we ate because we were hungry; and wanted to avoid the pangs of hunger. this aligns well with the late-victorian sense of morality that shied from the focus on pleasure across cultural realms. today's consumer driven capitalist society is focused on the economy, built on the acceptance of driving pleasurable "needs". i eat for pleasure, and i love doing it.

what intrigued me by the title of the book was how they equated gambling or generosity to fatty-foods. i don't gamble, i don't smoke... cigarettes, i rarely drop into temple and would never be driven to a multi-day connection with a friend; imagined or not. but, i ate a piece of lime cake last week, it was sweet and sour at the same time, each and every bite caused an explosion of pleasure for me. i am waiting to have another piece, i have thought about it all week and have only stopped myself to give it to myself as a reward for exercising this week. is this what a gambler feels when he puts money down on red and watches the roulette spin? i can't understand how that can be, i just can't understand it... and that is the point.

i was discussing this with someone i know and understand very well, she told me i am one of the top 3 people in the world who understand who she is and what gives her pleasure. in wanting to illustrate the relative pleasure of things i took a piece of paper, and on one side drew a vertical line. the top was labelled "complete pleasure" and the bottom was "almost no pleasure". i then listed the standard pleasures discussed in the book, "food, sex, alcohol, drugs, prayer, generosity, exercise, learning and gambling". i was going to force rank these, but decided there were gaps in the list.

these are the general items, and i had items i would add as my specific pleasures. i listed them out, "writing, travel, photography, reading, cooking, music". what i realized immediately was that this list would be different for each person, but that it would fall somewhere into the same force rank as the standard list. how interesting it would be to understand what gives people around you pleasure, but what about what gives yourself pleasure. make your own list, draw the line and then start ranking items against one another. you are allowed one tie on the entire list, otherwise you need to put the items above or below another item, making a decision of how much you honestly enjoy things.

i was talking to a newlywed this week. she admitted that her shopping was something her husband wanted her to do less of, and then said that she wanted him to stop smoking. i quickly explained the force-ranking exercise, and asked if shopping was at the top of her list. she smiled and shyly said, "almost at the top". not being allowed to dig into this more, i asked what was at the top for her husband. she smiled again and told me smoking was his favorite pleasure. she admitted she knew this before they lived together, and then agreed that asking someone to give up their most intense pleasure was not something you would do to someone you loved. this was always the root of the "pick your addictions" advice.

being a software engineer, i immediately jumped to the idea of using collective intelligence to match people based on their pleasures, and displeasures but that might be another blog to consider, not only that they like something, but how much they like it, and how it ranks against other items. until i build the system, you can do it yourself, rank your items, and have those around you do it too. i suggest the rule of thumb is that the items in the top third of someones ranking have to be accepted, or ignored. everyone doing this exercise needs to be honest and then you need to share the list, because if they don't match you will be a newlywed who is upset your husband does something you dislike and that he wants you to stop your pleasures.

for me, this means i need someone who loves to eat, enjoys reading and exploring language, doesn't mind my excessive use of wikipedia/imdb/dictionary.com to look up details and definitions. they must also love to waste hours in a cafe, accept an addiction to apple products and custom messenger bags, embrace an always on handphone and the effects of cyclical stress. an ability to watch shows on dvd, with heavy repetition on house, the closer, justified and dexter is a major plus, if not a deal breaker for someone who can't understand the comfort this repetition brings me.

i was explaining this last night, focused on the top third and how people may not understand how forceful the feelings of pleasure, or the drive to enjoy these things can be. i discussed the need to draw the line and allow things towards the top to be accepted, even if they are what some might not understand. my companion said angelically, " i get it..."

"it's important to be on top."

shamelessly moody

i spent last night watching two different dvd series. as i tossed and turned later, i realized there were similarities between the two shows. both follow non-typical american fathers. they are irish-americans from the east-coast, they are both single-ish and have children who are forced to see them for who they are; the virtues and flaws they have as men and fathers. neither of these guys are going to win a parenting award, they would not even make the nomination phase.

in "californication", hank moody, a new yorker living in venice beach, is a writer suffering from success. he has terminal writers block caused by the movie "crazy little thing called love" a script based on his book, the less feel good "god hates us all". he uses his gifts of wit and connection to move through life with a focus on staying within the moment. never taking the long view, he allows himself to indulge in nearly any random offer that presents itself. hank has two women in his life who matter deeply to him, his teenage daughter becca and his estranged not-a-wife karen. they are the only people he loves fully, but who are not quite enough of a conscience for him to suppress his libertarian naughtiness.

in "shameless", frank galagher lives in deeply blue collar south-side chicago, with his 6 children. rather, he lives among them, because he is rarely there to help them in any way. he is a raging drunk, not in the hip but sad moody manner of doing something inappropriate at a party, but in the painfully pathetic come home after days of absence smelling of vomit and bleeding from a broken nose with no memory of how he got that way. frank is not getting through life on his charm, more like a complete disregard for obligation matched to a practiced belief that the safety net of the liberal agenda is a dodge built specifically for him to never actually work.

when you first meet these guys you are shocked that anyone can live their lives like this. both are embarrassments to themselves, and more importantly to their loved ones. they careen through life, one alcohol infused crisis to the next, disappointing everyone with their unacceptable behavior. they are difficult to watch, but they are impossible to stop watching, because as the proverbial car-wreck happening right in front of you, you just can't stop the morbid fascination demanding to know what will happen next.

but these are the first impressions. as you continue to watch, you begin to see a depth to these men you missed while overcoming your immediate revulsion. you notice that as events unfold those closest to them continue to allow them to be close. there is a distance that people take out of self preservation, but they do not force them out of their lives. they might take space when the craziness gets too intense, but they never close the door fully. this may be seen as codependence by some, but watch closely and you may see it as true love and a respect for family bonds.

you also notice that both moody and frank are central in the lives of their children. as you watch them, you realize they love their children. they are too self-absorbed to be there as full-time care givers, or even to be sober at the appropriate times, but you can see that they realize they need to be better than they are. the angst they express in being less than the perfect father is painful to watch, but is also hopeful because it appears to be the single motivation capable of pulling them back from the brink of self-destruction.

the thing that makes these losers good men, is being self-aware that they are full of shit. neither of them makes excuses for their behavior, they know they habitually make bad choices, and seem to accept that given the same circumstances they would probably make them again. but rather than trying to cover that up, they admit to themselves and others that what they do is unacceptable. it's the elimination of hypocrisy, by admitting the truth to themselves and not hiding it that makes them role models in an anti-hero sort of way. they also say they are sorry to those they hurt, and when the ones you hurt most are your own saying sorry can be very hard.

the result of this is also that they do not make choices for others around them. the children of these men are smart, capable and ready to take on the world. moody and frank are also smart, but they allow their stupidity to get in the way. their children on the other hand are smart, smart enough to try to stay out of trouble. they have good reason for this, they have a "there but for the grace of god" image of what can happen to them if they are not careful. since they are in some ways parenting their parent, they do not have the luxury to allow themselves to go off the rails.

and this brings us back to the question of a parenting award. both of these guys are anything but the classic "father knows best" image of american life. no group of opinion givers would vote for them, because they are not acceptable role models. but that is based on first impressions. when you live with them you realized that having someone listen to you is better than being talked at, you know that having someone admit their faults better than hiding them, you recognize that you are capable of doing more because you needed to be able to. the moms in the PTA, or the case worker from DFCS, might not see it but parents who believe in their children, even if its because they see they are in no position to be judgmental, are hard to come by.

this is why the kids in these shows are so able. they do have good role models, just not ones that are socially acceptable. the best part of moody and frank's parenting is that they love their children and show them the best qualities an unreliable adult can; truth, honesty and compassion for others.

these men are not the narcissists others believe them to be, they are both fighting demons that only they know. but, when possible they keep the fight away from the children, even if that means they are absent. when they are with the kids you see great moments of parenting. parenting with self-realization, like:

Becca: Do you remember what you used to do for me when I couldn’t sleep?

Hank : Dose you with opiates?
Becca: No. Look at the ocean and count mermaids.
Hank : I did do that. I’m a better father than I thought.

these men might be embarrassments, but they are also better fathers than they thought.

awaiting acceptance

six months ago i had my boss’ boss in my office. we were discussing our ability to be agile and to work on things that mattered. i threw out an idea that was almost immediately shot down. the idea went against the main thrust of where we were going and could not be “monetized”. it was considered fringe and a distraction; but i was given the opening to write a proposal for later consideration. this was the beginning of the real work, which has consumed too much of my time for the past six months.

during my review this year i agreed with my boss that when i have too much time on my hands i tend to find things to keep myself interested. the downside to this is that those things can be outside of the main stream. doing the same thing everyone else is doing is comfortable for many, but when you go out looking for a challenge finding a new path to take is much more interesting. making it an uphill climb may not be the goal, but finding new trails on the flat ground is what leads people into swamps. malaria, leeches and condor-sized mosquitoes all take away from the enjoyment of the trip for me, so i have become conditioned to head for the hills.

i didn’t do this trip alone. the original catalyst came from two of my staff who came to me and said they were bored. when we decided to really push forward i asked for volunteers and ended up with those same two and one other willing to come along on the ride. the departure was marked by a commitment ceremony of sorts. i told them it was going to be hard, and that no one was going to be able to quit half way, they all agreed but i was sure they had no idea what they were signing up for. the trouble with age and history is that you know just how hard things can be, you know the trail will be rough and that accidents will happen. you know just how painful success can be.

americans have the donner party tragedy as part of our shared memory. pilgrims set out on a journey and mistakes happen along the trial. they are slowed by events which could have been controlled and are trapped in the mountains by winter snow drifts. as the days pass and the realization that survival is not a guarantee takes hold they resort to cannibalism to survive. human nature held true, survival wins out, even if sacrifices need to be made. people who do not push the boundaries, who do not take risks or attempt things which scare others, may never find the need to confront this, but those that do are stronger for it because they know how far they will go to survive or succeed.

we are not winning a war or bringing astronauts on a crippled spacecraft home. this effort will not result in medals or a ron howard movie about us, but what we did matters. soon after starting this, it transitioned from something that was okay if we worked on it in our own time, to something that needed to be done in 60 days. attention had been focused and a goal was set, even it the goal was unachievable. another team was assigned the mission, but we decided as a team to keep going on our own path. as we had discussed things can happen along the way.

to cut a long story short, things did and the pressure to succeed became ours. we had all the focus and needed to hit the dates and deliver. which is what we did, we hit every single date agreed to. the team pushed while i disconnected to take care of a project i started 11 years ago; one that needed to come first. they got us there, and together we stabilized with a hard push at the end. it was not easy, try to picture the scene at the end of “black hawk down” soldiers running through chaos and smoke, exhausted and bruised. that was how we finished, on our feet because that was all we had left. we crossed the line together, no one was left behind, no one broke and left his or her post, and no one was eaten. it was not easy, but its over and now we can regroup.

almost. this project is a new format for us. normally when we finish testing, it gets signed off, and it goes into production. but this time we have a new hurdle, the application needs to be approved by others. while that approval is pending we sit and wait. we have no control, and we cannot influence the decision, we simply need to wait for others to accept us or not. but this is one more lesson for the team:

even when you are hit your goals, you still need the acceptance of others.

smooth journey

all relationships have bumps along the way. people have issues over all kinds of things: sex, money, children, religion are the big four. sometimes, it seems relationships are vehicles for issues more than solutions. you end up disagreeing about the most inane points of rhetoric, without really knowing why you would care as much as the conversation makes it seem. but, what if none of the items above are an issue? what can you find to disagree about if there is nothing else?

i was driving home from work recently and watched the high-end luxury sedan in front me do what i saw as a very strange thing. as we approached a speed bump, it slowed to a crawl and turned it’s wheels to traverse the bump on an angle. the road up the hill is two lanes, and to an american in a rush to attend a conference call, the maneuver appeared to be nothing more than attempting the block the road so as not to be passed. i barely notice this bump as i pass it every day, it is just not enough to slow me down.

i have seen other malaysian drivers do this slow diagonal approach to speed bumps, and made a note to ask someone about it when i got a chance. as the other car moved to the left and i cleared the very small obstruction, i moved right and accelerated. i bumped over the next two speed bumps and pulled into my complex without another thought. leaving cautiously crawling vehicles in my wake a normal event.

a week or so later i was driving with someone. the mood in the car was strained for no good reason, and i was attempting to navigate the emotional obstacles while allowing the navigational obstacles to pass quickly beneath the car. in the uncomfortable silence i noticed the car ahead approach another speed bump in the slow diagonal move. i decided to ask the forgotten question about this; and found that bumps can be constructed out of almost nothing.

my companion told me that the maneuver was taught as a way to protect the vehicle from damage. i understood that large speed bumps can do damage if taken to aggresively, but decided to use the discussion as a metaphor for social differences. my basic premise was that americans are taught to access the danger of obstacles and surmount them as quickly and directly as possible. i provocatively questioned if asians were conditioned to see all obstacles as requiring a slow and indirect approach.

as the conversation unfolded, i again used a passing acceleration to leave the car in front of me far behind. new bumps approached and were taken quickly and directly, a not to subtle reinforcement of my point. we quickly climbed over jalan bukit pantai, the decent faster than the initial climb. as the car bumped over the next yellow striped lump my answer to the social differences came with a simple answer, “we are more interested in a smooth journey”.

the generically western, or is it my personal, focus of ignoring the latent danger of others need for a smooth journey was brought into immediate focus. the benefit of approaching obstacles with caution, and being willing to take them less than straight on was ringing in my ears as we raced forward. i appreciated the dual meaning of the answer, impressed with the use of metaphor.

i probably should have taken the warning and slowed the car. i could have admitted that a smooth journey had merit. i could have tried a new approach to see if it would bring less damage. instead i watched the next bump coming, i said, “sometimes getting to your destination quickly is more important”.

the car hasn’t stopped working, but do you hear that rattle? those bumps might have shaken something lose.

uncomfortably numb

i came back to asia this week after spending two weeks in the US. i was there to cover a peer who was on holidays with his family. he had spent six years planning a vacation, and two weeks before his leaving the company thought having coverage in the major time zone might help limit the disruption. this translated to another round of long-haul flights, followed by unexpected jet-lag on either side of the world.

the past few years have taught me to enjoy the travel that is an element of working in this location. it has also taught me to building increasing distance from those around me; i have swung through the pendulum of transition from craving time with friends to selfishly protecting my personal time so it could be spent on isolation. gone are the days of wondering who to spend time with, i have settled into a pattern of routine solitude, building extended periods where having nothing to do, and doing it alone, have given me a sense of safety. for the first time i sense the true meaning of cocooning, and the comfort it brings.

this may explain why i enjoy the long haul experience. thirty to forty hours of social and communication isolation which are viewed by the outside world as purposeful and necessary. having the explanation of nearly two days of literal disconnection to help explain why you are 1400+ emails behind in your reading and response is helpful to the always connected manager. being able to sit and read for the pure pleasure of idea synthesis while ignoring the turbulence outside, tightening the lap belt, snuggling under a blanket and relaxing in your angled travel pod with it's walls to protect you from the neighboring travelers, is worth the effort of dealing with security lanes.

the downside of traveling the world is the possibility of bringing unbalanced reading materials. my book selections over the past few weeks have been following a questionable trend. there has been a theme which was not immediately apparent, but which has boiled over into a series of questions i am now working through during the quiet moments of jet-lag awakened early morning. rather than going into depth i will summarize the central themes of the books i have read over the past few weeks:

(in chronological order)

• all actions we take are based on the evolutionary need to genetically succeed, even when that translates behaviors you would not discuss with grandma.
• modern complexity is positive and productive, even if it appears to be the exact opposite.
• cultural norms and fear are the root of most systematic failures; participants know better, but they don't stop them.
• being lucky is a key element to being successful; timing is everything.
• people can be motivated to act in ways they don't want to after subtle stimulation.
• being unhappy is a key element to being successful.
• americans expect happiness and are willing to feel nothing rather than feel unhappy
• societies fail because they want to; it makes them feel better about themselves.
• birth is death begun

going out and finding this progression of themes was not intentional. it just kind of happened, two of them were selected to be read on back to back flights because they did seem to be related, but they were purchased on different continents and just happened to be happily sitting next to each other during the packing exercise. most of these subjects have been read in semi-complete isolation, darkened airplanes buffeted by winds or crowded cafes infused with music. in either case, they were read in the comfort of solitude.

so here is the thought the books have brought: time is precious, mistakes happen, life matters.

are you going to tell me these are three thoughts? i see it as one, much like the books they are different but connected. as related as the anthropology, psychiatry, neuro-chemistry, organizational risk-management, sociology and literature that these books sprang from. "cake" has a song that reminds us that "sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year", the authors of these books have not listened to this song. or maybe they have, although the books first appear to be depressing, with the consistent discussion of mistakes made and later reevaluated, they have left me with a comfortable feeling of ease.

one thought i have had is that people all over the world are screwed up. many of them are way more screwed up than i am. they take drugs to feel better, ones which numb them to the ability to feel pleasure as well as pain. other people retreat into mystery and myth in order to make sense of their lives which are too complex for them to analyze in any other way. many people, when confronted with an issue allow fear, uncertainty and doubt to control their actions and later rationalize their mistakes away.

travel has taught me to accept many things about myself that i didn't know before. i pack at the last minute, need to remember to check that i have my passport before i drive to the airport,i need to leave room in my luggage for the things i will buy when i am there and to accept that sleep patterns before/during/after travel will be disrupted. it has also also taught me to do email while driving in a snow storm, to remember to send take off and landing messages and how to deal with sudden change that i have no control over. being unable to shift my car into gear during a work crisis or missing a flight that was already four hours later than i thought would be would have been major disruptions a few years ago. these are now chances to have a coffee and make the important call without the emotional risk of sliding off the road.

feeling in control, even when fully aware there is no way to truly control the situation, is the best anti-depressant i can think of. numbing the highs and lows is like flattening out the roller-coaster; what is the fun in that? but then again, driving on slippery roads while doing email, finding flights without turbulence sad if not boring and being happy to travel 12,000 miles just to cover days with concurrent crisis-es could be a different sign.

then again roller coaster was never my favorite ride, bummer-cars always were. they may not have the same thrill as the big rides, but their lines are usually shorter. although, the roller coaster can be done alone, the bummer-cars need someone else to be worth it. traveling the world, reading books, creating new ideas are all things which can done alone, but to experience my favorite ride in the park i need someone to stand in line with.

bumping into strangers is not nearly as much fun as bumping into someone you love.

asian openness

i have been having a running debate with a friend for the past few days; and with myself for much longer.  the debate centers on the  relative levels of cultural openness that the asian and western life allows... or is it expects.  let's set the stage here by having me stipulate, i try not believe one way or the other is correct.  but, hope we can admit that having grown up in one it is hard to understand the other.

this thought has been front and center for me for the past few weeks.  it was sparked by a chance meeting in a parking garage.  i walked up to an auto-pay machine that had a family standing around it waiting for the elevator.  the 6 year-old son stood in front of the machine pretending to push buttons.  you could see the desire to actually use the machine.  the painful suppression of those urges was clearly visible to a father of boys with much less restraint.  i smiled at him and handed him my card to put into the machine.  he burst into a smile and looked at his mother for permission.  i said to him, "go ahead, it's fine" 

when we were done paying my fee, i turned and handed him a ringget for his help.  his mother, a pretty chinese woman, reached into her bag to hand me something in return.  i thought i might be receiving a card and an offer for a future coffee.  that was destroyed when she said, "you should try my product, it is a juice that will help you lose weight". 

the first time i was publicly told i was fat was years ago in the US.  i was in boston, shopping for running shoes in a store owned by a famous marathoner.  i had just won a 10K race, and was quite happy with my fitness level.  the shoe guy looked at me and suggested i give up my nike air-max and try a new balance saying, "these are very popular with heavier runners".  

who the hell was he talking too?  wait, it was me.

the juice lady had just taken this to a whole new level.   sure, the shoe guy knew i was trying to be fit and the juice lady could have been confused by the bag of nachos i was taking home for dinner during conference calls.  but even by deliberately open-western standards, telling a complete stranger they are fat is considered rude in most of the world.

i have come to anticipate this over the past few years.  i have been asked by women i barely know if i want to "see if we work", if we do i can get them a green card to the US.  i was asked by a neighbor one morning at 8 AM while riding down the elevator clearly dressed for a run (shorts, t-shirt and a water bottle on my belt), if i was headed to the pub.  when asked why she thought that she replied, "well, you are white, i just assumed".  

i was asked on a first date what it was like to be a "sex-addict".  i put my fork down on my salad plate and stared into the woman's questioning gaze.  i hesitantly asked, "do i seem like a sex addict to you?"  images of wilt chamberlin and david duchovny floating in my head.  i watched her expression change to confusion.  she slowly replied, "well, all mat salleh are... aren't they?"

it would be one thing if this meant that all conversations can just be direct and open.  they can not, in fact, much here is kept hidden.  it's just that mat salleh are fat, drunk, sex addicts who have no feelings and can asked for money or employment permits with no previous connection. 

it is okay to gossip about people if they are seen together, but you can not ask a married person a question about their spouse.  it's okay for people to share salary and bonus information, but when someone resigns they consider the new employer's name P&C.  it appears to be standard to escalate an issue to a manager, and then become upset if the manager acts on the information.

i have sometimes wondered if it's considered acceptable to lie, as long as the person you are talking to knows your lying.  i wanted to ask someone, but i wasn't sure if they would tell me the truth.

i was talking to a friend the other day.  he was telling me that he is amazed by western parents.  we treat our children as friends, and accept that they have free will and desires of their own.  he told me his parents would not accept his getting an apartment and having his long-term girlfriend sleep over.  this is not a high school or college student.  it's a professional who travels internationally for work and has real responsibility in his life.  

if you can not be open with the people who are closest to you, why would you be open with anyone?  this is like making love with someone, striping away all barriers, sharing the most intimate parts of yourself to form a connection with them; then listening to them go into the bathroom, close the door you barely realize exists and clicking the lock to keep you out.  this small sound can be deafening, because it locks away any trust you thought had been opened.

if asked they might say, "it's just a small matter".  but it's not, not to someone that struggles to remove their own barriers.  hearing the click of the lock, watching the practiced blankness of guarded expression, or having someone tell you something that simply fails the test of "plausible deniability" is common place here.

my father taught his kids, "you can ask any question, but you need to be able to deal with the answer".  this is a lesson that is clearly not part of the culture.  but he also taught us  to respect distance while accepting people for who they are.  this is a lesson i would not survive here without...

maybe i need to bring my father here and let him loose.  that would be an interesting experiment.

/**********************************************

short footnote: 

i did ask the juice lady if she thought this was acceptable behavior, she handed me a second flyer with before and after pictures of her in a bikini.  she told me the product had helped her and her husband both loose weight.  i told her she might be able to soften the pitch if she started with the picture of her in a bikini, both before and after were very nice.

she stopped as she huddled her clan into the waiting elevator.  she smiled at me, pointed to her number and suggested we could discuss it over coffee.

***********************************************/

np-complete

i wrote an entry last week discussing perfection. nobody’s perfect (np) was not meant to take the track it did. the thoughts that were lingering were over taken by the events of the day, so the writing followed the terrain rather than the map. the thing is, the map is still out there needing to be read. "no longer young rob", this ones for you.

two of my best friends have told me in under a month that they are getting married. being invited to weddings of the people you most want to see happy in the world is a good thing… right? it’s a time for you to realize that there is love in the world, and that people can find happiness. having people you love find love themselves should be the opposite of a death in the family, it should be the goodness that proves the world is a happy place.

this should be even more true with the two people are those that you wondered if they would ever tie the knot. but somehow the impending happiness has not given me the warm and fuzzy feelings that i expected them to. rather their announcements have reminded me of complex algorithms with large data sets.

computational complexity theory is not an issue that most liberal arts majors turned software consultants trying to make a buck are concerned with. it takes exposure to someone interested in considering and measuring these things to even know what algorithm analysis is. my practical approach had always been, see a new solution and then test the algorithm with varying inputs that modeled the actual use. this does work well when the inputs and results are well understood, but begins to break down as datasets grow.

years ago i was standing over an engineer, watching him do algorithm analysis on a sorting problem. i asked what the issue was, there was someone else waiting for a code solution and scribbling on paper was not getting that person his fix. the engineer looked up at me and explained that the current solution would not scale to big datasets. the practical side of my personality, and the bullheaded side of my nature took over. i asked how many elements were in the current set… the answer was 6. i asked how many we could expect worst case, with a shy look the engineer told me 100. even this was a stretch, but i loved this guy and i smiled. “do you think we can just code this up and not worry about it?”

that’s what we did, and the waiting person got his fix, things moved forward. the thing is i have come back to this moment in my career over and over. i didn’t listen all the way through. i simply pushed for a solution, which at the time was the right thing, but i lost the opportunity to grasp the implications of driving large datasets though an inherently inefficient algorithm. the larger lose is not having learned the way to prove the efficiency of the algorithm in the first place.

being able to accept that i am going to production with a less than perfect algorithm is part of my personality and my career. just in time development, dealing with the problem at hand and working in a highly triage based method is part of who i am. return on investment and risk verse reward are central themes. i will not spend time tuning to save cpu if i am not short on cpu, hardware is cheap and scaling with hardware is easier than spending the time to analyze and find perfection.

the truth is, there is almost never a perfect solution. solutions need to be created based on the situation, on the conditions and on the problems you are trying to solve. i now realize the sets of data have grown. i cannot rely on the fact that there will be a very limited set of data that is easy to look at and analyze. the data analysis grows with the set of data, and the need for efficiency now outweighs the need for perfection.

the need for perfection is most likely not a requirement in the first place. jpeg as my preferred graphic file format and is a lossy algorithm. it is the standard that most people use for all their graphics needs, and its popularity is partially due to its balance of quality over expense. the less than perfect results are acceptable to lower the resource consumption. in many cases this is more than acceptable, it’s the only way to solve the problem.

i have best friends who have selected the most important algorithm of their lives, they have either limited the set of data, or found an efficient way to get to the quality that they need. the world is a large and complex place. in two weeks it is very possible i will have all three of us in one place, i am going to force a discussion of algorithm analysis to take place.

nobody’s perfect, but deciding on what is good enough is what we will help each other with.


it still didn't go the way i expected... i love writing.

analytical view

i had an email from a friend come in yesterday. one of the things it said was that they did not want to be analyzed. i was told by someone a few years ago that i was very judgmental for a person who promised not to judge. when creating the profile for this blog, answered who i am with “a liberal arts major, turned software engineer who doesn’t get to code anymore; now focused on debugging life”. that sentence does capture me, but it may need to be explained to be understood.

i attended a catholic “liberal arts” college and was given a dual major, at a school that does not have dual majors. it was almost accidental that i have this achievement. i simply enjoyed two subjects that i recognized were really one subject presented from two different world-views. reading the same works, and being told they had different meanings or messages was fascinating. the fact that the same work has a different meaning two doors down a corridor than it did in last semester's room was not lost on a searching mind that naturally questioned all information; especially when presented as truth not to be questioned.

my liberal arts period deepened my love of learning, and taught me to read all sides and understand that the same point can be believed different ways by different groups. i am sure this is not the message the benedictines intended when they began the college in rural new england; but the renaissance was not expected to occur when the university of paris was opened either.

i then found a job that allowed me to create models in my head and later see them run in the world. the fact that my models anticipated a user’s needs without them needing to tell me what they were was key to my ability to succeed at the job. the trick was to constantly ask what i would want as a user of the system, and then to convince others to let me build it that way. this required me to both think about the issue from the users view, and to communicate that view to people who thought they knew better.

time and again i was told to stick to the agreed scope. normally i would turn over a system that visibly matched scope but beneath the sheets was able to run in the way that i thought it should. soon after delivery, someone would come to me and ask how hard it would be to make the software work the way i had pushed for. people expected me to say it was a big effort, i would smile and say “don’t worry, i can make it do that”. while they were busily testing something i knew ran correctly, i was off playing on the next thing i wanted to do; the thing i should have had no time for because i was busy changing the first implementation.

being able to improve something means understanding it in the first place. there are three ways to learn about a system. reading documentation is the way we always ask for, the reality is most of the time there is very little documentation and it’s outdated or misleading. you can read the code, which is always right but sometimes hard to grasp if you don’t understand the style. lastly, you can debug.

debugging is not fixing software, its watching it run and analyzing the behavior and internal state. bugs are when a system acts in a way that is not anticipated or understood. the fact that the people cannot find the defect by reading the code is the heart of the debugging process. the lesson learned is that sometimes you need to have a complex system running so you can observe it. to quote ayn rand (also a developer of sorts) “when you see a contradiction, check your assumptions”.

so i no longer get to code. yes, i do some coding on the side. i wrote a pretty cool piece of software this summer that had only three minor issues in it. i delivered it quickly and took the pressure off a team that was overloaded with another project. it felt good to design and build, and then turn it over to someone else who learned from it. that is development, and it’s what you miss when you stop doing it.

now i get to design and build things that are not software. i get to decide on team structure, skils to push onto someone (hoping they see why i am pushing them), colors of walls, message of a message and the flow of a slide deck. i also get to decide which data is important to watch and how to communicate the values. as well as, what things to save and which to let go.

i get to do a lot of debugging, but not the type i trained myself to do. i get to read someone’s documentation and then to watch the running system. it’s interesting, it’s exciting and frustrating at times, but it’s nothing like the debugging of my prior career. for the first time in my life, i have decided that process does matter. this is a strange concept for the kid in geometry class that could get an answer but not do the steps. debugging is all about learning to understand the need to watch and test at each step.

my adult life has been one of learning to learn and later learning to analyze. i have a career built on analysis of things that no one asked me to analyze. being one step ahead, having randomly decided to research a technology the week before a client called to ask if i knew anything about it. being able to anticipant how a system was designed by watching it, being able to intuit the place to look for a bug when one was reported. these are the skills that allowed me to excel.

the issue becomes, these skills don’t work in the real world. or rather, they work to well at times.

the next skill to learn might be to not discuss the areas of the system i think we should be changing scope on. sometimes, leaving scope alone and not pointing out a better way is what the user really wants in the system.

loving life

i woke up with a question. what do you think about life?

the short answer is i love life. you only have one, and if you f-it-up somehow what the hell do you have left.

i have been told this week that i am depressed, that i look upset and that i am distant. the reality is that i am tired. i have been travelling so much that i feel like i am falling behind; not only in work but in life itself. that doesn’t mean i am upset, just that i want to take the time to catch up inside myself.

i found myself watching a youtube lesson on playing blues guitar. these were the classes i was taking last spring before i jumped with both feet into the crazy behavior i have been allowing this year. on the drive home i started to think about the box of books on learning mandarin that i lent to “wo loa shr” in hopes she could customize my learning of chinese. that stalled out too, and i have been feeling the tug of desire to get it back on track and get those skills. the fact that i was forced into using my spanish in LA, and found it hard until i met esteban my two-year old business lounge friend who i gave the crayons i was carrying around in my bag. estaban showed me that if i tried, i could dust off my spanish and get it functional again.

i have 62 gig worth of video that i downloaded after the conference which i largely missed. work came before learning, even when i scheduled the week with no distractions and in a time zone to make it easy to avoid getting sucked in. clearly saying yes to an opportunity came before the planned ability to learn things i had been interested in for months.

overall life is good; no life is clearly great. i have opportunities that people only fantasize about. i have people who love me sprinkled around the world. i know that if i knock on certain doors they will be opened and i will be welcomed in. i am physically far away from my family, and in many ways i am closer than i was when i was in the same house. i am sure there are people who know and accept me; that is a very good thing to have in your life.

people misunderstand my need for distance. i simply like to be alone. i like to do my own thing and go at my own pace. i have been sitting in a café, writing, thinking and generally doing nothing productive, nothing that anyone else would find interesting, for many hours now. it feels good to be alone and to do the things i want to do. i get like this when i need to recharge myself, when i feel drained and in need of filling myself back up.

life is good because i have this opportunity. the idea of being in a situation where i was not able to take this kind of room is like considering living on the top of a mountain for me. the view might be beautiful, the company might be stunning and full of energy, but i have been in the mountains before and i was unable to breathe.

i was built for the ocean; wide open spaces where you can sail in any direction. people are scared of the ocean for its size and strength, i love it because i have a strong compass and can navigate. i also don't fear the strength. i crave it. i love the challenge and the ability to ride the wind and waves. i need the ability to see a storm on the horizon and turn away from the strongest winds; even if i have to swim for shore now and again. that seems much saner than living perched in a fixed place you cannot catch a breath and where you cannot to get out of the way of a storm.

people who don’t love life seem to allow themselves to get into situations where their freedom to choose, the ability to steer their own direction, is taken away. some people appear to crave someone else to construct rules and tell them the truth about all things. but the type-As of us want exactly the opposite. we need to be in control of everything; our thoughts, our actions and the simple direction of our days.

add a strong libertarian spirit, and the inability to control a few core aspects of life and you find we tend to create distance to regain control. this does not mean we don’t love life, exactly the opposite; we love it so much that we want to experience it fully. we want to simplify it to the extreme; ensuring there is no need to explain, negotiate or compromise.

life if good, if you allow it to be.

packing system

i have a thing for bags. it has been called a fetish, it has been a point of contention, but deep down inside my love of bags is something that i really enjoy. i find and buy bags all over the world; they are all shapes and all sizes. every bag has a unique personality and purpose. being able to reach into my bag and have the thing i need come out of it is comforting to me. when stressed, i find myself reaching down and touching my bag, knowing its there so i can get through the day provides a physical relaxation. but bags come with challenges, and having multiple bags creates problems.

a few months ago i was travelling in europe. it was late at night and i was walking along with two guys who are friends. one of them is a guys-guy, when about the most important bag of his life he discusses a sack he lugged through jungles, carrying food he was not allowed to eat. the other guy may never have had a bag he truly loves, but he just smiled when i stopped and stared at a set of soft luggage that i said i would be mine. i "needed" a bag that was different from all the rest, something to be with me when i travel, one that is flexible and easy to spot in a crowd.

i was just in LA on a trip. i had my favorite bag with me, but it was just too big. the effort to carry it around with me was too much, i needed something lighter and easier to swing into a cab. the common feeling of needing to search began to bubble. the next day i found a shop and walked out with my newest bag; just the right size, just the right shape. the favorite bag is there and not forgotten, no less loved, but the new bag now takes over and in fact is sitting next to me now.

so what do i need these bags for? the following is what i carry with me day to day:

• books on whatever area of software i plan to play with next (webparts and ajax, linq and silverlight)
• books on random subjects that bore most people, but that i love (the canon, a whirligig tour of the beautiful basics of science and aspirin, the remarkable story of a wonder drug)
• my notebook for random thoughts
• a chess board
• a power adapter, that supports all plugs worldwide
• a full-sized power strip (surge protector)
• external hard-drive(s) for backups, actually today i have 4 with me
• an arm strap for “tennis-elbow”
• an inhaler for allergy induced asthma
• a big bottle of pepcid ac
• a power adapter for my laptop
• power adapters for two phones
• a small digital camera
• a small digital camera tripod
• a fold-up umbrella
• a split-cable for sharing my ipod
• two sets of head phones for my ipods
• sync cables for ipod, phone, and external harddrives
• pens and highlighters
• a flash light
• a leatherman
• a blue tooth hands free for my phone(s)
• extra batteries for 3 hand phones
• a box of safety
  (3, not 20... i brought them to the sales conference in india... but i spent the night with sprinklers hung over the dance floor and an open bar, alone in my room talking to us based hr people working out a compensation leveling process for my whole center... a conversation which provided much more safety than anything in the box would have)
• a toothbrush and floss
• a dew rag; to keep my head warm under aircon.
• a first-aid kit (you never know when the next boo-boo will happen)
• a toiletry kit (you never know when you need to sleep in the office)

that seems like almost enough to carry on a regular basis. other things are thrown in and taken out over time, but this is the basic packing set. if i am carrying my passport (in a small bag of its own of course), i can get on a plane and go for a week and only need to buy clothes to survive. (i have another bag at home that is packed and ready to go in about 5 minutes for a 3 day trip).

so here is the issue. no bag is perfect for all occasions. my standard bag does get to be crowded, heavy and difficult to maneuver. my other bags are easier, but they are missing the substance and the supporting comfort. what i have found i need is a way to organize and change without losing the essentials. i realize i need a packing system, i need someone who has OCD to step in and help me organize things to make my ADD life simple and easy.

no matter what anyone tells you, bags matter, they help you get through the day. they allow you to pick up and go quickly. they stop you from forgetting the cable you need to recharge your ipod when you are confronted with a long flight and a nearly empty battery.

one size fits all is a fallacy unless you are willing to compromise. when you try to live that way you will find yourself living with the least common denominator, that only works if you can invest the time and effort to simplify your complex fractions.

but, if you are capable of living with some complexity, building a system to make the complex appear simple and to invest the effort to carry the extra items, life in a bag can be simple and enjoyable.

over flowering

i was driving last night and a couple crossed in front of the car. they were a smart looking chinese couple, obviously out on a saturday night date. both were dressed well and he was holding her hand as they crossed the street. they were both smiling and happy, as i stopped to let them cross, she smiled up at him, and snuggled into him as though saying, thank you for protecting me and caring enough to hold my hand as we cross.

this made me think of another couple i had seen, valentine’s night i was sitting in a restaurant and many couples, obviously on valentine’s dates, were coming and going. there were many men, almost all chinese carrying flowers as they walked with their women. that is sweet, normally in the US the man will give the flowers to their date when they pick them up, and allow the date to carry them the rest of the night. the idea of a man carrying flowers i guess does not seem masculine enough, although carrying them for your date is obviously the gentlemanly thing to do.

as i sat there, one young chinese guy walked by with a huge bouquet of flowers. it was bright and colorful, a mix of roses and carnations. but the thing that stuck out was the vast size of the bouquet; he seemed to have trouble holding it. this was clearly a sign that his date was someone he felt the need to splurge on, and by the smile of the woman with him, she seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

both events made me question where this attention goes. i enjoy giving flowers, and holding hands, sending an sms to just say hello. i enjoy it and i miss it when i do not have the chance to do it. but there have been times when i know i should have done it and one thing or another has stopped me. i honestly wish i could go back and send those flowers right now, not as a way to ask for something, but to show that i did care, and that i still do.

i wonder if these two chinese guys will get these women to believe in them and will get married. will they start a life together and will they slowly stop to do these nice things. will there be a time in the future where the first guy simply walks across the street and does not hold her hand with such attention and caring? worse, will he be one of the guys who let the wife carry all the bags as he walks ahead with his hands empty?

for the second guy will the bouquets shrink slowly? will they get to a level where they simply look average and later shrink to a single flower until eventually they stop all together? the alternative is that they simply stop quickly and are dismissed as a part of the early dating, which was where this couple clearly was. the size of the flowers was simply out of proportion to the event, or maybe smacked of desperation. (just my jaded side showing through?)

as we date, are we not showing someone how we promise to continue to act towards them? if we do attract someone with purchases of presents, flowers, meals or trips, or just by paying attention to them and showing that we care, is there not some form of implied contract that as we continue on, the effort will continue? of course the truth is yes. but, people will disagree and say no. they do that because they know most people do not keep the energy levels up, they slow down over time. once someone is caught do you need to keep chasing?

i think that’s it exactly. once you have the race won, how many of us continue to push as hard as we can all the way to the finish. sad all by itself, but if you start with such high energy; you really should be able to sustain something as time passes. it is outright fraud if you go from being an “over-flowerer” to never bringing flowers and fraud is a reason someone gets fired isn’t it. if you promise to work hard, you need to continue to work hard. if you don’t, someone else is out there who will.

dating on your best behavior is of course part of the game. but if someone doesn’t like you for the real you, is that really the person you want to be with? imagine finding the person who really does like all sides of you. if someone says they do, look for parts they want/need to change. when there are none, then they really do like you for you.

but remember, if you later change, if you become someone other than the person they like, well… why would you expect them to keep liking you?

plant all the flowers you want. but, if you neglect them and allow weeds to grow and takeover, the flowers will die. you will not have the idyllic garden, you will have a troubled spot that no one would want to be in. when you plant flowers, it’s your job to take care of them. the more you plant the more work it will be. imagine planting all those beautiful flowers and later saying, let's pour gravel over it so we don’t need to work like this anymore. (do you remember saying you did it because you liked to do it?)

gravel is good for a parking lot, but is that the relationship you really want? and if it is, bring gravel to the first few dates, see where that gets you.

what i want

i am consistently asked what it is that i want. the simple answer is that i want to be happy and to have the people around me happy too. the complexity comes when in that collection, either with me or among the others around me, it’s clear that we want different things. people say that relationships require compromise, but what if that compromise requires changes which stand in the way of deeply held beliefs, expectations of others you care about or the life plan you are working against.

someone i care about just described to me the wheel of life, the idea is that life goes though cycle, changing from happiness, to pain, and back to happiness as life rolls around as a wheel. this cycle made me smile, and point out that i saw life more like the ying and yang concept of all good things containing a black spot of trouble and all bad things containing a light spot of hope. growing up thirty years ago in the US, this is what i thought asians were all about, zen buddhists who saw the world as a mixed bag of complexity which needed to be accepted and understood as such.

i now see that asians are just as much of a mixed bag as the rest of the world. there are devotedly religious people who feel they have been given all the answers and who feel badly if they are not strong enough to simply accept the words of their prophets. there are people who profess to be a follower of some doctrine, but have no desire to truly make it part of there lives and there are free thinking atheists who simply feel the world is a place of people, with little or no oversight and should be taken as such, intellect over faith is their stance. this is the same the world over; the proportions are just different as you move from place to place.

as i sit in a restaurant and see couples not talking to each other, bored with each other due to the time that has passed since those early days of hope and happiness that brought them together, or possibly holding a grudge from real or perceived slights which have thrown an emotional wall up between them. sometimes, i look over and smile at them, the woman is the normally the one who notices, almost always she will smile back. the shared smile is one of, “i know it is really sad, but what can you do.”

rather than what i want, i can clearly tell you what i do not want. i do not want to find myself in a relationship built on complacency. i do not want a person i love angry with me. i do not want to disappoint the person i am committed to, and have them feel that i was a mistake or that they could find happiness with someone else more than they can with me. i do not want to ever take someone i love for granted, i don’t want to ignore them in public or in private, and i don’t want to ever agree to disagree. all of these things are what people do when they do not care enough to fight for the person they are sitting next to.

i want to be that person’s complete partner in everything we do; equals who work together and compliment each other. i want to be their warrior when the time for battle comes or their consigliore when they plan to fight the battle directly but need the advice that helps them understand their own strengths so they can fight the most efficiently. i want to be the shoulder they cry on and the first person they run to when something wonderful happens in their life.

so here is the hard part, i thought i had this once. it has taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that if i did have this, it has slipped away and will never return. how and why this happened comes down to lack of understanding and communication. days and events piled up, sadly i didn’t see it happening and long after still believed it could be fixed. this is central to never giving up, that you keep trying even when the times have become difficult. how can you live happily ever after if you are not willing to work though the days of storminess and come out the other side into the warm sunlight of the gentle days that follow?

i have simplified the answer of what i want in the past to say, “i want to wake up every day holding the hand of the person i love. i want to hold that hand and say thank you for a wonderful life when one of us dies.” that is what i want, and to get there i need to find the person who will help me see this through. i need a person who feels the same way, and who is willing to let go of the baggage of life or prior expectations to see that i am the person they also want to be with. until i find this person, and we can feel that click of recognition that we work and want to always work, i will have to wait and hope. working at the relationship, for yourself and each other, really is the key. but more important is finding the person who you know within yourself, and you have the faith within them, that together you will never stop working.

people change over time, events in life happen and different people react differently. we are not committing to the person we know today, we are committing to the person who they will become years from now, and the person that new person will become years after that. my daughter said with an accusing tone, “you don’t have a type, you don’t care what someone looks like”. i explained that is true. of course that is not completely true, i am shallow enough to want someone who i see as beautiful, but that beauty comes in many ways.

i have made a list of features i am looking for in a person, a few are physical. these are the elements i feel are important to finding a person who is right for me:

• smart, has a passion for learning
  
• radiance, a smile and personality that warms me
  
• humor, able to laugh and enjoy silliness together
  
• interested in the world larger than her immediate surroundings
  
• trusting, enough to try new things
  
• communicates, speak and listens with grace
  
• openness, willing to share stories about herself and her life
  
• confident, dresses and acts based on her inner strengths
  
• feminine feminist, knows women are equals but likes doors opened for her
  
• strong enough to stand up for her rights
  
• soft enough to ask for help when needed
  
• athletic, enough to be active together for life
  
• family oriented
  
• truthful, even when its hard to be
  
• caring, focused on those around her
  
• beautiful, as much inside as out
  
• warm, desires emotional ties
  
• motivated, works to succeed
  

when i find this person and they see that i am a fit for the things they need. when we feel that “click”, when we realize that we are friends and want to become best friends. when we know that we can make each other happy, not just today but for our entire lives. when we know that we will not come to a point that one day one of us hopes the other were dead. when we are brave enough to admit how good we are and strong enough to reach out to each other, that is when we will know we have found what we want and will never want to let go.

i have heard that there are 1,000 people who are a complete match for us; every person has that many soul-mates out there. the same source said there are 10,000 people who may not be soul-mates, but they can make us happy if we work together. if this holds the odds are 3,000,000 to one that the person you saw today for the first time is your soul-mate. it also means that in a city the size of kl there is roughly one people who are your soul-mate, and 27 who are a good enough match to make you happy. i am not sure if the numbers took other considerations into account, if you needed to back off all the people who are already married, committed or would never consider you based on some preconception of age, race or religion, given that 50% of adults are married, and 30% are racist to one degree or another and may not fall into your race, i would estimate this leaves 35% of the available pool, or 4 people who are almost right for you and only a fraction of a person who is your soul mate. when i first heard the stats, it was projected as a positive thing, its hard when you have math skills and do analysis isn’t it.

either way, given these numbers you may need to consider married people and racists, both scary. the two thoughts that have been rolling around in my head are churchill saying, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” and my high school football couch saying, “winners never quit”. i have been ignoring the other quote from my other couch who told me “just fall down, maybe someone will trip over you”.

wait, maybe that one has merit too. maybe if i do fall down someone will trip over me, god knows staying on my feet and continuing to move has had limited success.