Hugs

I dream of a day when everyone hugs everyone. I always loved hugging because I view it as a way of reaching out and showing that you care. Have you ever hugged a stranger? Have you seen the smile on someone’s face when you hug them?

It’s a simple and random act of kindness that can touch people and make the world a better place. Everyone seems so busy trying to be the biggest, best, and the most famous for what? The world is always trying to prove to each other who is superior. The simple act of a hug knows no barriers and the only language it speaks is love. Hugging doesn’t discriminate. Stop and give a hug this holiday season and all year long. You will see what a difference a hug makes. I’m convinced my dream will come true one day!

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams … – Eleanor Roosevelt

Hug you all,

Seattle Love Cycle – Hormonally Yours

 In Seattle, fall and winter are breakup time. Almost everyone breaks up with his/her mate specially if they have been dating more than a couple of years. People go thru such cliché relationships not knowing why they got into it in the first place and they get out of it not knowing what just happened.

They tend to call these hormonally-charged emotions "Love". They break up saying such tacky Hollywood phrases like "I love you but I’m not in love with you". It makes me puke when I see how Seattleites abuse such strong and profound word like "Love".

Having read another article about stages of love, I tried to document my observations about the whole "Love" situation. This is "Love" the way I see it:

1- Falling in Love: In the beginning the world is great. The sun is shining. Couples love each other because they make each other Feel good. Accomplishments are considered huge even if the guy’s job is flipping burgers. Flaws are cute even if the girl has an attitude bitchier than Courtney Love.

2- Being in Love: The accepted rule is that Giving to each other, makes each person happy. So couples give little gifts to each other at this stage. They invent stupid cute names for each other like "Boomi" or "Parpar". They love each other for who they are not how they feel.

3- Expecting Love: They feel safe, protected, secure, content. They are not afraid to reveal their vulnerabilities to each other. So they Expect each other to understand or guess certain things without communication. They have come to expect certain actions, reaffirmations, and validations.

4- Hiding from Love: One withdraws from the other, forming a impenetrable wall of protection from the pain s/he feels. The pain and hurt one feels that one gave of one’s love so freely, and did not have it neither validated nor appreciated.

5- Falling Out of Love: One’s heart is heavy and empty. S/he feels betrayed, hurt, resentful. The sun has stopped shining. S/he has fallen out of love.

There is a proverb that says "men fall in love thru eyes, and women fall in love thru ears". Regardless of the gender and who falls in love how, keeping a relationship is the art of those little touches that not many people have. In my view, long-lasting relationships are the ones where couples hang in the cycle of "Being in Love" and "Expecting Love". If one gets close to the stage of Hiding Love from another, it’s all over.

Hey Ashley: you want a long-lasting love? Hang in there, don’t cut-and-run from "Boomi" …

Science and Faith

Science is a matter of repeatable evidence. Science is not the only form of knowledge. For instance, poetry is knowledge, human cravings are knowledge.

Reasoning faith says "Don’t accept everything and you have to question". One of the things you have to do in dealing with faith is to know that you don’t know all that much. If it’s god, you don’t know and if you know it’s not god. What we know about god is symbolic, it’s a matter of partial revelation, and partial knowledge. The time will come when the things we know will not worth anything … everything will disappear, the knowledge, the prophesy, the hope will all disappear and nothing will be left but love. About the only thing we can be really sure about god, is love. Faith on the other hand is the matter of trying to cope with mystery. (Garry Wills – 11/30/2006)

Dear Data

I vividly remember the fall of 1998 when I was walking back to my condominium from Indigo bookstore (Canadian version of Barnes and Nobles) on Yonge street (the longest street in the world) in Toronto. I was deep in my thoughts, thinking about my career. The main question on my mind was “Where the hell do I want to see myself in five years?”  

I was passionately enjoying my job in the IT department of an investment company back then. The problem was I was involved in everything including IP networking, Database, programming, OS, and everything else. But I knew for a fact that I could not go far by lacking concentration and focus. 

I finally made a decision thru a process of elimination. I knew I didn’t want to be and infrastructure person so that immediately ruled out IP networking and to some extent OS. I however did love data movement and transformation in applications. So I made a decision to be a data guy because I thought the necessity (and hence the demand) for data management has always been there and will never go away. 

To my own surprise I was right. “Surprise” because I’ve never predicted anything that came out right. Or better said, I’ve always learned by making mistakes. However in this case and as the internet is going thru its versions (1.0, 2.0, and now 3.0) it is becoming more and more about data. 

Web 1.0: I have some data let me show you.

Web 2.0: I have some data, you have some data, let’s share it with each other thru soap.

Web 3.0: I have gigantic amount of data. My application can navigate thru it and do the thinking for your application.

I know this is too much simplicity but there is some veracity in it.

Grace

Thinking beyond Christian theology, what does Grace mean as it relates to today’s life? Who is a graceful? Can decency and an accommodating behavior make you graceful? I doubt it.

As I observe people, I see different shades of grace. People tend to demonstrate dissimilar attributes that could be seen as graceful. Whatever it might be, grace is not, by any measure, defined by indecency and lack of compassion for human being in any shape or form.

In the Sun (Joseph Arthur)

 
I picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong
And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy
And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen
And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes
cause when you showed me myself I became someone else
But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need
I picture you fast asleep
A nightmare comes
You can’t keep awake

cause if I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
If I find
If I find my own way
How much will I find
You

I don’t know anymore
What it’s for
I’m not even sure
If there is anyone who is in the sun
Will you help me to understand
cause I been caught in between all I wish for and all I need
Maybe you’re not even sure what it’s for
Any more than me

Living thru invisible people

"It’s the invisible ones you want to live with! The ones we pass by everyday, not the ones in books and magazines. The ones who live in someone’s heart, not the ones in minds. The path to heaven goes straight thru hell." 

The truth of his handicap lay only in the mind both exalted and crippled by too many stories and the path he chose to become one. 

My tragic flaw is my romance with all that I saw from him. And I guess if people want to believe in some form of justice, I got mine for a short song! 

In memory of HK.

Program Managers

At work, some of my best friends are senior level Program Managers. They tend to be the most entertaining people: eccentric, fanatic, creative, violently verbal and deeply hilarious. The sort of people who sat in the back of the room in high school and shot spitballs at the future CEOs and scientists sitting up front. But their impact on technology and science has been perverse. Rather than make the game more interesting, they have sucked a good deal of the life from our daily work. They have become specialists in caution, politics, and literal reactionaries … they react to the results of their ambitions and fears. They fear anything they haven’t tested! 

Program Managers (PM) are unavoidable, given the complexity of modern communications. But I have a hazy hope that the most talented PMs now realize that internet community and multitasking generation have come to understand what market-tested language sounds like, and that there is a demand for leadership, as opposed to the backward mentality of carefully massaged medicine of secret and unproven or dubious effectiveness. To be sure, the old tricks: the negativity, the cautiousness and cronyism still work, but only in the absence of an alternative. 

I hate predictions. Most PMs, like most managers, get their information by looking in the rearview mirror. The winner will be the one who comes closest to this model: A PM who: 

– Refuses to be a "performer," at least in the current sense

– Speaks but doesn’t orate

– Never tries to hold look as is s/he holds a press conference on or in a meeting

– Doesn’t assume quiet people are stupid or uncaring

– Believes in at least one major idea, or program, that has less support in the team

– Can tell a joke at his or her own expense

– Can get angry, within reason; gets weepy, within reason … but only if those emotions are real and rare

– Isn’t averse to kicking his or her opponent in the shins but does it gently and cleverly

– Radiates good sense, common decency and calm

– Is not afraid to deliver bad news

– And above all, is not afraid to admit a mistake

Dante’s Humor – Job Change

Stagnation is worse than change! When my job changes doubt usually leads to new hope and denial to acceptance of a new direction. Then, my mind goes nuts asking two million questions:

 

–         Will I enjoy working with new people?

–         What happens to my credibility?

–         Do I provide any value?

–         Can I be competent again?

–         Do I know where I am going?

–         Will I make new friends?

–         Will I be able to meet my basic needs?

–         Who will try to prove himself/herself to me?

–         Who is trying to push me?

 

And this list goes on and on! Simultaneously, I find my job change entertaining so there is always some veiled humor in it for me. I sit back in meetings and watch those who try so hard to prove themselves. For these people, meetings are show grounds as they get their jobs doing political favors.

 

To my long experience, if there is any person in the crowd who claims “I don’t care what happens, I’m just here to help the product”, s/he is potentially the most ruthless politician and I should be really careful about him/her. If someone is so laid-back, s/he would never even care to make such statement. What I do with this kind of people is that I pretend I’m the dumbest fuck in the crowd and I make them feel I’m following them. I let them feel that way for long-enough time until they have that ah-huh moment when they’re certain I’m not dumb. What happens then, they bring their guards down and invite me to a coffee or lunch! It’s more like Dante’s humor, as he assigned his enemies to various rings in the Inferno. Seldom will you laugh aloud, but you will be smiling at them as you lead these mini bureaucrats feel they’re leading you. Funny shit indeed!

 

As I begin to make sense of my new job, and my place in it, my comfort and confidence levels increase.