Obstacles to Happiness

I must had a smile on my face earlier today while at the laundromat for the person working there told me that I look very happy. I told him that I don't see any reason why I shouldn't. I thought of reasons in my mind but really there should be no reasons I need to think of. After all, happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of children, until they have been polluted by the stupidity so prevalent in society and culture. To acquire happiness, you don't have to do anything because happiness cannot be acquired. You have it already. How can you acquire what you already have?

Then why don't you experience it? Because you've to drop what you're carrying. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is hard only when you have your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings, etc. Do you know where these things come from? They exist from you identifying yourself with labels of every variety.

There was a lawyer who was presented with a plumber's bill. He said to the plumber, "Hey, you're charging me $200 an hour. I don't make that kind of money as a lawyer!" The plumber said, "I didn't make that kind of money when I was a lawyer either!" You could be a plumber or lawyer but that shouldn't affect the essential "I". If I change my profession tomorrow, it's just like changing my clothes. I am untouched! Are you your clothes? Are you your name? Are you your profession? Stop identifying with them. They come and they leave.

When you truly understand this, no criticism can affect you. No flattery or praise can affect you either. When someone says, "You're a good guy," what is he saying? He's not talking about "I." "I" am neither good nor bad. "I" am neither a success nor a failure. It's none of these labels. These labels depend on the criteria society establishes. These labels depend on your conditioning - your level of being brainwashed by your culture, society, and people you know. These labels depend on the mood of the person who happens to be talking to you right now. "I" am none of these labels.

Uninterrupted happiness requires no cause. True happiness is just there. You cannot make me happy and you are not my happiness, whoever or whatever you happen to be. Someone can ask the awakened person, "Why are you happy?" and the awakened person replies, "Why not?". That is the only answer possible.

Color of Childhood

I walked outside for an hour and noticed a children's playground. I wandered around the colorful slides, monkey bars, and swings. Why are things for children so colorful while the same things for adults are so colorless? Perhaps the answer lies in the difference between the mind of kids and those of adults. When we're young, everything is new and fresh. Once we grow older, we no longer care to see the world as a new thing every day. Our senses become dulled and what used to be alive and interesting to us becomes a colorful splash of eyesore.

Sociology: Difference between Art and Pornography

I recently visited the Prado, the world's largest art gallery, in Madrid, Spain. Among the thousands of paintings and sculptures there, a good portion of them with women appeared to show them in naked poses, sometimes quite revealingly with full breasts showing. Yet, they are admired as works of art and not taken down as pornography. Most of these revealing ones were depictions of Greek and Roman goddesses, most notably Aphrodite (Venus in Roman mythology). However, even the Christian ones had a fair portion of naked women. For instance, there was one where a saint was tempted by the lovely bodies of demons disguised as fair women.

In A Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis wrote about a man who ordered milk and eggs from a waiter in a restaurant. After tasting the milk he commented to the waiter that it was delicious. The waiter replied, “Milk is only the secretion of a cow, just like urine and feces.” After eating the eggs he commented on the tastiness of the eggs. Again the waiter responded that eggs are only a by-product of a chicken. After thinking about the waiter’s comment for a moment the man responded, “You lie. You don’t know the difference between what nature has meant for nourishment, and what it meant for garbage.”

The only difference between art and pornography is not in its actual form but in its intention. Pornography uses naked figures to stimulate the baser instincts of individuals while art uses naked figures to stimulate the admiration and aspiration. Sometimes the line may not be clear. For instance, in modern days, women look at modeling magazines of women almost as art, i.e. figures that they admire and wish to look like. However,to some men, the same pictures create an different feelings of lust. The maker may have the intention but the viewer is the one who ultimately decides whether a piece of work is pornography or art for themselves.

Some of the following are works from the Prado. Are they art or pornography?

Self-improvement: Temporary Inspiration Syndrome

A few months ago, I was swept up in the idea of making a high-altitude balloon with GPS sensors. Then, I realized I had to learn Arduino and some electronics. I stopped after a short while when I decided that my time is better spent on something else. In the past, I have also started and stopped on the flying airship, the social media website, and the calendar tracking website just to name a few.

These are what I will call "temporary inspiration." Creative people often encounter these temporary inspirations where action often does not or fails to continue after the initial idea is formed. Crossing the gap between your imagination and reality takes time and dedication. Yet, man creative types just find the step of taking action to be not nearly as interesting as the original idea itself. Besides, there's always more inspirational ideas which pop up in a creative's mind that takes his or her attention away from the often boring process of action. Unfortunately, temporary inspiration syndrome which creatives suffer results in nothing substantial created by creatives since they never finish what they start.

How can we ensure that temporary inspiration syndrome is not a persistent defect in a creative? The solution here is to not find the most inspiring idea since to a creative, the next new idea is always more inspiring, but rather to consciously create an external environment which will reinforce her efforts. There are several ways to do this but I'll just highlight three:

1. Build a team composed of at least one person who is a hardworking non-creative. A team, especially one backed up by people with more focus, enforces persistent work done on the same project through mutual accountability.

2. Find a client or potential client. Although it may sound counter-intuitive to find a client before even finishing a project, this is actually done quite frequently when the project requires funds you don't have which will require outside investors. By having an external agent which requires a certain level of competence, you're more likely to work on it.

3. Have immediate feedback. For instance, if you wish to write a book, don't isolate yourself in your room and just write page after page if you suffer from temporary inspiration syndrome. Instead, write a page or two and share it on a forum or blog. The people's comments will keep you accountable and inspired to continue knowing that this material is actually worth reading. The same process of breaking down into little steps that's immediately recognizable also applies to writing software or designing a product though these large projects also require having a team for timely conclusion.

If you have more suggestions or thoughts, I'll certainly be glad to hear it.

Self-improvement: Switching Mental Eyes

Everyone sees the world in different ways. This statement appears very obvious. Let's be more specific. Artists see the world in one way. Engineers a different way. Writers still another way. Entrepreneurs yet another way. I consider myself an amalgmation of those different perspectives. When I observe a scene, I typically see from one of these perspectives. The artist and writer's perspectives come easiest to me but that's probably because I often carry a camera and notepad with me so I have trained myself to see the world like that by default.

Still, I find the world to be quite more of an exciting place when I will my mind to take on another perspective, or the coined phrase "mental eye". The scene is the same but what you see is often completely different. I believe that the ability to adopt different mental eyes may be directly related to creativity.

Though this requires some mental flexibility, if you can do this, you can get so much more from the world. A simple example is just by looking at an old fire hydrant. The photographer side of me sees the paint peeling off in a display of neglect and an odd patchwork of patterns due to it. There is some beauty to that.

I switch to the engineer eye. I see that there is an opening for a fireman to attach a hose to. Instantly, a number of questions assault me as I realize my own ignorance. The engineering mental eye for me is especially good at revealing my own ignorance in how the world works.

I start wondering what the water pressure for these things typically are. Does it vary with the location of the fire hydrant? Say the fire hydrant was 20 feet higher, will it be in a less effective spot due to possible lower water pressure? So is the placement usually in the highest possible spot and closest location to a building? What about the size of the hose? Was it designed just to fit a certain hose radius? It looks like it but of course the hose end can have an adapter that fits the fire hydrant so that probably resolves it. What about its interior? How many valves and pipes are in there and what's the design? When a fireman wants water, he just loosens the cap doesn't he? What's to stop from the water pressure suddenly gushing out and hitting him in the face? That seems a rather stupid design if true. No, there must be a valve that is turned on when the fireman presses a switch on the hose end that will be attached to the opening. I'm imagining something like a gas pump.

I switch to the entrepreneur eye. I see a disused neglected piece of equipment. I'm wondering why it's neglected to such a state. Fire hydrants I believe are maintained by the city government. This here means that the city is lacking some funds to maintain the city's equipment. Perhaps the reason is due to this one's remote location. Yet, the infrastructure supporting this fire hydrant still exists. Is it possible for a private company to renovate these fire hydrants? Of course that's possible but if the city had funds for that it would have done so. How about the reverse? Do they still work Need to investigate lifetime of fire hydrants under state of neglect. If it's over the expected lifetime, a company can remove these since they might pose a public health hazard. What possible health hazards? I'm not sure but it deserves investigation. That's just one business case. Maybe there's others. Considering the out-of-way location of this one and possibly others, they will not be missed here. Is there enough fire hydrants in neglect though to justify a venture here?

That's just one example of a rather mundane object. As you observe in life, there are millions of others. In other words, this world is really cool if you just pay attention and observe.

Self-improvement: Communication Between Levels

Take a look at the following drawing depicting people walk around on different platforms of various heights. If you understand this diagram, you understand what I'm referring to here by people are on different levels of understanding of this world. A person on a certain level can always engage with those on his or her equal or lower level. For a person on a lower level to engage someone on a higher level, either someone on the higher level must jump down to the lower level or the person on the lower level must wisen up enough to permanently upgrade him or herself to the higher level.

Several examples may suffice to illustrate my point. Consider why a child is bored by "adult talk". Oftentimes, it's not that the child doesn't understand what the adults are talking about but rather that the child doesn't see its importance. I remember that when I was a kid I quickly zoned out whenever a grown-up conversation started between my parents on things such as buying school supplies, cleaning up the home, what clothes I need, etc. I mostly care about when I get to visit a good friend of mine, what books and games I can buy next, and if there's anything interesting to watch on TV. You can see how narrow and limited a typical child's perspective is.

Another example is when wise men of the world had to explain "how to live life" concepts to the average man. They almost never say whatever concept directly; instead, they depend on allegorical stories and parables to reach out to a wider audience. Clearly, most people aren't capable of understanding profound truths unless it's dumbed down to practicalities that they can understand.

The lesson here is that whenever you're communicating with someone, make sure that you can be on the same level as him or her. Note that it's much easier to go down than up, e.g. it's much easier for an adult to understand child talk than a child to understand what adults are talking about. So what does this mean? Three things:

1. Surround yourself with people that's on the same level as you if you wish to communicate easily.

2. Study and interact with those on higher levels than you to learn and "level up" eventually.

3. Interact with those on lower levels than you to bring their awareness to what's missing. This may not always work but at least it's worth some of your time. An enlightened individual should not hesitate to give understanding to the ignorant. The question is only how much time you have for such an unequivalent exchange.

Self-improvement: Combine Scattered Thoughts (结合分散的思维)

对我来说，写作就象某些酒鬼的喝酒的滋味。他们不喝酒会感到好压抑，类似如我不写我会感到很不妥。只有把我的心思写出去才可以心里放松些，知道虽然大部分可能不是聪慧过人的思想，可最起码这道思维不会因为没写下来传达给别人而睡了一觉就永远消失了。我平时写的是用英语不过我发现写中文是更有挑战性，并且我也不知不觉地克服了我之前的障碍，那就是担心人家看不起我。就用中文语言的列子吧，我之前老是觉得我就是因为说的不行，至少得写出些像样的著作来弥补，可以翻词典什么的来拉近这个距离。其实我发觉这么做使我十分讨厌用中文来表达自己，你想想每隔几句我得翻一下词典（或Google）确认一下那一段是不是都正确是十分劳累并且不最有效的方法。

我想到这次去罗马尼亚的经验，虽然在那边只待了一周多，我却学到了些不少单词跟当地历史和文化。这就是因为我没不敢问人家怎么讲这个那个，就是因为公开自己的无知才会有所长进。通过这次旅行我深刻地意识到能互相吸收人生经验和知识是十分有意义的，也许就是因为我跟对方有大量区别才会有大量收获。我这个人的习惯就是随时带着笔跟个本子，这样随时从周围观察或跟人家交流学到的都可以保证不会忘掉，唯一的不好就是当我同时也戴着单反相机时有几次有人会以为我是记者。可我现在想也未必是件坏事，下次要是这样的我可以假扮为记者的位置。其实记者是挺有自由的，像这次旅行待在我旅馆楼下的就是德国的一个记者，他是很有理由跟开会场合的科技人物提问（不过可惜的就是他并没这么做，恐怕他还不敢显示自己的无知）。

跟他聊了之后，我发现自己很想追要他的生活方式，去世界各个地方采取信息写文章。其实我是经常睡眠醒后就会有个想脱离一切的愿望，把一切扔下拿起旅行包就走。究竟去哪我也不是百分之百清楚，不过不用说肯定比留在此地的感觉好！可惜那只是一瞬间，白日梦做完了就得想到今天的某某任务。我从罗马尼亚回来的那一天就做了几个旅行的白日梦，是想脱离当场的责任。这就是我个人所常见的矛盾，一个人要是完全自由那同时很可能一事无成，可要是完全专注责任那同时就对这世界的好奇跟灵感（这可是比生命有价值的东西……）。我想做的给我目前非得做的有时一致可也经常分裂。

想结合这些是需要三项策划。首先对我必须做的但没什么兴趣的行动我得尽量在新环境完成，记得有几次开车去陌生德州小镇的咖啡店或公园做事使我的心情很快地好转。第二就是每周我得有个小项目能完成，即使是大项目不过能把它切成小项目来完能给我动力。第三就是跟人家分享我的想法，我几年前才体会到我其实是外向的，外向的人精力一般来自跟人家的社交。

我想这几项策划不仅对我一个人有帮助，因为我发现像所有的人，我周围熟悉的人一般跟我的世界观点有些类似，也许这也可以用在你的生活上。不妨你试试看一看有什么收获？

Self-improvement: Justifications on Mental State

They say people are good at justifying their actions, whether good or bad. I suppose that's true since I'm doing that now for why I slept 12 hours earlier without eating anything. No, it's not jet lag since I could have woken up 6 hours ago.

Brief disclaimer: To be noted is that justifying actions often makes more sense to the justifier than other people. For me, it was apparent enough that to give in to temporary madness is to have greater focus later.

I have noticed my hunger for creating knowledge and doing projects is directly linked with my physical hunger for food. However, just physical deprivation isn't enough. There is also often the important condition of no outside distractions. This is especially true for activities that I deem boring but necessary to do.

This other condition is universally applicable but hard to apply during daytime since inevitably I do not want to be cooped up inside when the sun's still shining. If I look at today, my thoughts earlier were as such: If I wake up now, I will most likely go to a coffee shop where I'll proceed to work and eat some food. Then a few hours later, I'll socialize, come home, and sleep.

This doesn't sound like a bad arrangement but I knew that I needed more time than a few hours. When I get home I indubiably will not do more work since I'll already be satiated for the day.

This can be resolved by preparing a mental state where I can do more work. This is analogous to the phenomenon of supersaturation where under certain circumstances a solution can contain more dissolved material than under normal circumstances.

Here, analogously I can do more work if I put myself in a state of greater pressure by depriving myself of food and outside distractions which is much more likely at night when everyone else is sleeping.

What I've been wondering for some time now is whether there's some healthier alternatives to reaching this supersaturated state. Self-deprivation of food is not a sustainable process in the long run and not interacting with others at certain times may not only be considered selfish and unreliable but also miss important opportunities.

Self-improvement: Efficient Management of Time

There is a difference between someone being effective and someone being efficient. The former is doing the things that get you closer to your goals. The latter is doing things regardless of their importance in the most economical manner.

For instance, a door-to-door salesperson is very efficient at selling door-to-door but he is utterly ineffective. He could just use email or direct mail.

Two things to keep in mind that might be fairly obvious but often overlooked are:

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.

2. Requiring much time does not make a task important.

The key is realizing that WHAT you do is far more important than HOW you do it. Efficiency is only secondary to effectiveness.

How do you become more effective? The key is having more time by doing less. OK. what does that mean? Many people define a to-do list. But how many people also define a not-to-do list? Probably not many do.

A daily to-do list should only have one or two items. Just ask yourself this simple question: "If I can only do one (or two) thing(s) today, what will it be?" How you identify these crucial items is as simple as asking yourself "If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?" Make sure that you accomplish the task listed in your to-do list no matter what by the end of the day. Be realistic with your daily milestones but don't make them too easy to achieve! If you have to sacrifice a social life or a late charge on loans for it so be it.

Just setting one or two tasks a day is already cutting your workload dramatically. But you have to do some them efficiently. This can be forced through using a timer on a stopwatch or this website:

http://e.ggtimer.com/5minutes

(or 1hour or whatever after the second slash)

This is a set limit on the amount of time you have in accomplishing the task. Remember that you're still expected to finish the task by the end of the day so be generous with yourself.

To generate a not-to-do list is almost as easy as generating a to-do list and there will actually be more items. Ah, don't you feel good being lazy? Haha. Simply ask yourself what are the top three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I've been doing something important. These are aka crutch activities, things that you do to avoid having to do things you really have to do but still have a little value so you don't feel completely bad. You might put things like watching the Discovery channel on TV, reading online news or blogs, and reading random books at a bookstore.

Another thing to note is managing interruptions. You might have the best plan in the world to execute your well-defined goal of the day but then you get that phone call from someone and you end up talking for over close to 2 hours. Then an urgent meeting that you just have to attend. Then some emails to send off. By the time you have lunch and get back, the day is about half over and you haven't even started on your daily goal.

What to do? Actually, it's tips that should go into a general not-to-list:

1. No phone calls while you're working unless it's urgent. Let people know this beforehand by setting a voicemail which tells people when not to bother you. Eventually people will get it.

2. Make business phone calls exactly that. Business phone calls. Do not go off on tangents or letting other people go on tangents by talking about the weather and such. Know beforehand what you're going to talk about.

3. No emails except 2-3 times daily at set times that you check. Recommended is 12PM, 4PM, or 8PM. Do not wake up and check your email immediately. If you do it in the morning, you can get trapped in this email hole which'll take up a good portion of your morning. Also do not check it at night. That will just give you insomnia.

4. No social networking sites, online chatting, watching TV, or any other time wasters except after you've finished your task for the day.

5. No meetings unless absolutely necessary. Meetings for the most part wastes a lot of time. Agree to no meeting where there's no clear agenda and end time. Otherwise, make excuses if you have to for why you bailed a meeting early or why you couldn't make it at all. Of course, always ask someone to email what was talked about at the meeting. Reading the email will take up a fraction of the time of going to the actual meeting. Repeat this enough times and people will get used to your permanent absence. Of course, you have to do actual work. Just make sure you do more work outside of meetings than in them. Let people know what you've done through more efficient means of communications--like talking to them when you actually have a problem or emailing status updates.

There you go. Just follow your to-do-list and not-to-do list (including the general ones listed above) and you should be on your way of using your time much more effectively. With these tips, you'll find that you have more time to do things that are not work. Remember that being overwhelmed is as bad as doing nothing. Having these lists daily will help make sure you fall into neither category.

Self-improvement: Balance of Thoughts on Time

I'm listening to some R&B while sipping on some green tea. My bedroom is tranquil and despite the time of the day has a feeling of permanent lethargy. It is an amazing ambience for reflection or slacking off but a terrible ambience for doing any real work. I use this thought to comfort myself on why I'm writing this instead of doing real work.

When I drive my mind naturally wanders, like yesterday when I daydreamed an epic story in my head for a good hour or so where a god had to do evil to ultimately achieve good but the heroes stayed ignorant of that until the end. There were some amazing graphic scenes and plenty of betrayals and unnecessary deaths. Let me digress no further. Before I jumped into this golden pit of illusions, I thought of an interesting psychological theory:

"Without a balance between thoughts on the past, present, and future, one can never be happy."

The amount of time one's mind dedicates to reflecting on the past, doing the present, and dreaming for the future should be in balance. For instance, if one excessively reflects on the past, one will be stuck in the mentality of past failures or past glories. This will likely cause the person to not like the present either due to regret of events that could not be changed or the seeming reality that the past is much better than the present. They may both be true but dwelling on it too much is harmful to one's mental stability.

Similarly, if one focuses on the present which is the "just do it" mentality, one can lose oneself in the daily reality of life. Where one came from and where one's going should not be ignored since otherwise one can wake up one morning and feel lost in the world. One has lost the meaning of one's life. Lastly, if one dreams too much on the future, one ends up doing nothing useful since the mind consistently dwells on fanciful daydreams.

So how do we find this balance between these thoughts? That depends on the individual since everyone is different. A systematic approach that may work is what I've been doing lately. Simply carry a notebook around with you and carry around a phone with an alarm. Set alarms for random times during the day. When the alarm sounds, write down three things: the time, what you're thinking, and how happy you are. At end of each day, you can take a look at your notebook and see a collage of snapshots of your thoughts during the day. You can repeat this for a week and observe the consistency of your thought inclinations.

Self-improvement: Cycle of Thoughts and Moods

While wondering why I was feeling mildly depressed earlier, I had a mild epiphany. Negative moods like depression is definitely not a bad thing. In fact, I realize now that sometimes I like to be unhappy. Without these negative moods, how can I come to revelations like this one?

Moods are not meant to be controlled but they should be influenced to form right proportions.

One should not expect to be happy all the time but neither should one expect to be depressed all of the time. An excess of negative or positive moods surely limits one's experience and perspective. The trick is to attain the right proportion of all these feelings so that life can be experienced in its entirety without being blinded by overwhelming joy or overwhelmed by hopeless despair.

Moods cannot be controlled directly but thoughts can. And a consistent string of thoughts form the mood. So if one can direct the thoughts into a coherent picture, the mood naturally forms. The idea is to control one's thoughts.

How do one control one's thoughts? Besides just forcefully controlling one's thoughts (which may be very hard), there are multiple options to indirectly affect it as well. For me, these two work well:

1. Do things that are conducive to certain thoughts.

2. Go into environments that influence thoughts in a certain way.

For instance, if I want to feel depressed and alone, I'd like to find myself in an abandoned construction site on a wet cold day doing absolutely nothing but thinking. If I want to feel happy and sociable, I'll hold a party or talk to random people. If I want to feel imaginative and creative, I'll write my novel. If I want to feel focused and alert, I'll write some code or work on building something.

Many people have the notion that they have to feel a certain way to do something. But it's really a cyclic approach. One can do something because one feels a certain way. On the other hand though, if one does not like how one feels at the moment, why not do something or go somewhere to change one's thoughts so as to change one's mood?