Blog

92: Philosophy 1 - On a Sense of Self

Feb 17, 2023 · 4 min read

This was written on a return plane ride from a Hong Kong work trip to Singapore around 10 Feb 2023. A philosophical post as a I find myself, tired, occupied and worried over numerous journeys in the last week. Being out of one’s homeland, being out of one’s comfort zone, being forced to deliver and achieve (but by whom - is yet another philosophical question). This post was spurred once again by my good friend, my best friend.

91: Geopolitics 1 - Pax Technologica

Feb 17, 2023 · 4 min read

Peace has historically been dictated by the control of a power singular hegemon. Examples: pax Romania, pax Mongolia, pax… The stability of the hegemon confers benefits. The ideal state of a wider market, leading to improved trade, consumption, employment, enrichened culture in theory brings all under its influence to prosper. This continued prosperity promulgates further stability. However, with the free market within its hegemon comes competition. And with competition (no doubt having the hegemon benefit the most) comes inequality.

90: Life 4 - On...Retirement

Feb 17, 2023 · 3 min read

Retirement has been a topic recently. Cropping up in some conversations. Certainly not applicable for myself at this hustly career focused stage. Neither am I an immediate proponent of the Financially Independent, Retire Early movement. I suspect the inner survival instinct and drive will lead me to continue to work. Instead, the conversations are centred around myself and my peers whose parents are entering the zone of retirement. It also ties in to some recent 2023 planning (which could be a post in itself - though slightly curated for a truly public version.

89: Decision-making 4: Maximising and Satisficing

Feb 17, 2023 · 3 min read

With all my ramblings on decision-making and theorising, i suppose what can one actualy do in practice? I’ve spoken a little about the importance of timing and not being paralysed. Often times, waiting can be a dangerous decision. I try, where I’m able to, to frame certain decisions as either Maximising or Satisficing. Here are some examples. Maximising Maximising entails finding the best damn deal accessible at the time. Online shopping comes to mind.

88: Decision-making 3: Trade-Off Mentality

Feb 17, 2023 · 5 min read

This is a continuation of decision-making, but the thought process originated when I was working in the government. Hence, many of these examples might have flavours of macro-level themes of policy and governance - perhaps some of the tougher environments to make decisions. Linearity and Complexity When it comes to forming a view on whats right or wrong, which ultimately affect one’s actions, appreciating how things are interconnected is the first step.

87: Sustainability 5 - On Greenwashing in an Age of Service (and compliance)

Jan 4, 2023 · 5 min read

Happy new year! This post may look like finger pointing… but I’m not, I promise. Its intended commentary is on the system as a whole, and not any single firm or individual. With that disclaimer out of the way… I’m gonna talk about Compliance Why Compliance in a post-run prose about Greenwashing? I would argue that Greenwashing is defined by Compliance. The ability for a company to say they’re green is ultimately rooted in Certificates, Marks, pats on the back by an independent third party.

86: Decision-Making 2 - On Control and Balance

Dec 31, 2022 · 2 min read

Control As specks of mere stardust, i’ve come to readily embrace the idea that we cannot control many things, and recognising this is half the battle. Our decisions and actions, therefore must account for such uncertainities to the ‘best available knowledge’ on hand. Call it stoicism, part of buddhism, but I carry the concept of ‘Picking the right battles to fight’ to be critical in maintaining sanity and stability when there can be much chaos outside of our sphere of influence.

85: Decision Making 1 - On Truth, Fact and Binarity of Action

Dec 31, 2022 · 3 min read

(this was drafted likely in 2019… ive forgotten my core line of thinking on this one) On the Duality of Truths I listened to brene brown’s podcast with former president Obama. Content was good! Slight awkwardness here and there, and over-enthused tones from the host - but how can one not be when meeting the president of the US. I resonated deeply with it. Her descriptions of the concept she described has holding a duality of truths.

84: Hobbies 4 - Video Games

Dec 31, 2022 · 4 min read

Gaming has been a long standing past time of mine. But growing up, there was negative aura around it, due to its poor perception that it can be addictive and distracting from what perhaps mattered more at that stage. Not wholly untrue, as there can be an addictive counter productive nature to games that many parents like to pick up on (time is clearly better spent studying) As a result, I carry an engrained guilt around it, though its a small matter in the bigger picture.

83: On the time I had Covid

Dec 31, 2022 · 3 min read

Haiya…Covid This post documents the impact and personalises my experience.Could be worth the future medical tracking. Surely beneficial. The 2022 Covid Experience In the lead up to it, I was perpetually feeling under the weather for sometime - largely due to unhealthy work environment triggering a chronic state of childhood allergic reactions. And it twas a grave November 8th as I returned from work on a dreary Tuesday evening. My cold-Like symptoms rapidly deteriorated at work that afternoon.