Passionate Living

email_subscribe by derrickkwa

One of the inspirations that lead me to write and publish my own blog is reading the blogs of other people, especially professionals in the industries I’m following. Mainly because of a series of suggestions by Andrew Dubber [1], I started to tap into the vast resources that is the internet. Since then, I’ve completely revolutionized the way I consume and manage information from the internet and it’s increased my learning efficiency multiple fold.

One of the life-hacks of using the internet is understanding how to use RSS; which stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication [2]. RSS technology allows us to be updated on the content of a website we’re interested in without having to constantly visit that website and check for updates manually. The new content gets delivered – much like mail – to our preferred internet address, which could be a browser application or an RSS reader.

Since becoming a major fan of RSS, I’ve been able to modify my own daily newspaper, so to speak. Unlike a conventional newspaper however, I have complete control over the content that appears in my news feed and I can fill it with whatever information I want virtually unlimited. I can’t measure it accurately, but I’m sure this adoption has saved me a considerable amount of time and has allowed me to stay in touch with my community in a very efficient and swift manner.

Choosing your address

To receive updates from a website or blog automatically delivered to you, first you need an RSS reader; or let’s call this your “address”. From my experience, there are two main choices that you can make your address: either by using a browser application, or by using an online RSS reader. Let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of both.

1. Browser Application

An example of a browser application that can receive RSS is the Brief Add-On [3] for Mozilla Firefox. This was the first choice I made and it’s extremely simple and clutter free, so you get a clean interface that let’s you browse through the feed with ease. It does have one downside to it though: since it’s a browser app, it can’t be synced online and therefore you can only access your feed subscriptions from your own browser on your desktop computer – this proves to be a disadvantage when you are mobile and don’t carry a mobile device of your own (in other words: you can’t read it on the road!)

2. Online Reader

I think there are much more choices for online RSS readers than there are for browser apps, and the top choice for this is Google Reader [4]. If you have a Google account, then you already have Google Reader and you only need start using it. The advantage of an online reader is that you can stay updated and access it from any computer that has internet access; but I do feel that the interface isn’t as clean as the Brief Add-On and doesn’t feel as intuitive.

The importance of self-education

Self-education is becoming more and more important since we left the industrial age and entered the information/knowledge worker age [5]. We are expected to do the same hard work, but we are given less help by the government and the public. Therefore, keeping education as a constant in our lives is an essential part of successful living.

I am an avid promoter on the power of RSS (thanks once again to Dubber!), and I believe that people who consume their information over the internet have a lot to gain from using this life-hack. To be a constant student, we always need to keep our minds open, and there’s no better way to do that than to explore the myriad of content available for free on the internet. Given, there is a lot of crap out there but there are also a lot of not-so-hidden gems; all you have to do is just go out and find them.

By using the power of RSS, I can stay updated to sites like Berklee Music Online where I can read free articles on music production or to IttyBiz where I can read about sex and Las Vegas small business marketing in a highly colored language. The possibilities are limited only by the amount of time that we have, and that’s the major complaint most RSS readers have: there’s not enough time to read them all!

Happy Power-Using!

—

*Of course, you can get the articles on this blog delivered straight to you in the same fashion by subscribing to this RSS (or press the gorgeous red button to the left sidebar). Thanks!

[1] Andrew Dubber is an online music industry expert. He used to blog frequently, but he’s more active on Twitter now
[2] RSS on Wikipedia
[3] Brief Add-On for Mozilla Firefox
[4] Google Reader
[5] The term “knowledge worker age” is borrowed from Stephen Covey’s 8th Habit
[6] Photograph by derrickkwa. Because you get it wrapped and delivered

DTM Hockenheim 2008 by Meine Ausrustung

I used to like reading reviews of the latest cars in the newspaper, and learn about the capabilities and price of these newest cars. I particularly liked when they would review the latest Mercedes-Benz or BMW series, and my dream car is still the Audi A4. It was always interesting to read between the lines and figure out what the automobile companies were selling, in terms of ownership of a premium car and the social sophistication that’s associated with it.

In one particular issue, I read that you can kick down the pedal (push the pedal as far as you can, usually until it hits the floor of your car) on a BMW 6 Series and reach approximately 200 km/hour. Traveling from Bandung to Jakarta (a distance about 125 km) could be done in 60-90 minutes, much faster than the average time of 150-180 minutes. I was amazed at the review for several reasons: suggesting to the reader that it’s OK to break the speed limit one of them.

I haven’t read any car reviews for a long time, mainly because I haven’t read the newspaper for a long time (I’ve since switched to blogs and online magazines to receive important information regarding my industry and profession). But a few weeks ago, a cover story in the news on television made me remember about “kicking down the pedal”. It was (again) a cover about the political situation inside the country, and how the government was busy holding meetings to discuss finding a solution for the problem, while the people held demonstrations outside the building.

The other pedal

It’s safe to say that the political condition in Indonesia has never been satisfying (is there a country where politics are satisfying?), and politicians mostly only truly care about themselves and their shareholders than caring about the people and the country. The dilemma that our country faces is the fact that most of our problems are caused by politicians that abuse their power, yet we rely on the same politicians to come up with a solution to solve the problem. In terms of driving a car, this dilemma is the same as kicking down the gas pedal but also kicking down the brake pedal at the same time.

What happens is that we become like racing cars at the beginning of a race where the drivers rev up the engine but don’t release the brakes – it sounds fierce and overpowering, but the car still stays in one place. And when we remember that the function of a car is to transport us from one place to another – or in other words: to move – then kicking down the gas and brake pedals at the same time is saying that the car doesn’t work according to its function. I felt this dilemma as I watched the news report that day – the politicians are so busy holding meeting after meeting that they forget the problem occurred because of the wrong paradigm and intention of leadership: they don’t fulfill their function as state leaders.

It wouldn’t be such a big problem, if it weren’t for the fact that we mostly don’t realize we’re kicking down both pedals at once. Even though we push the gas (or work hard to push our resources and even use modern management techniques to execute them) we forget we still have the brakes on (or fail to take care of the external and internal conditions that obstruct our goals). The result is that we stay in one place, and then we start complaining as if we aren’t the ones responsible behind bringing this incident about.

Fighting friction

The challenge is (as it has always been): to fight our ego. Unless we learn to see it is our own wrong doings and bad habits that bring us our misery, then we will always be in the helpless position and become a victim of our own choices. We need to learn humility, and realize that our egos and selfish interests still get in the way of creating principle-based values.

I talk specifically about the problems Indonesia faces because of this habit of kicking down both pedals, but I believe the principles apply universally: to make progress, we need to eliminate the forces that are working against our goals. We also need to be careful, because these forces can come in the form of comfort therefore we can be persuaded to comply and surrender without a fight. Much like how a young man’s idealism can be bribed and corrupted by offering him a high paying job in a prestigious multinational company – a common story here in Indonesia.

I’m not sure the national leaders are willing to admit they are the reason behind the problems they promise to solve as part of their campaign. As long as this condition continues, then the welfare of the people (especially the underprivileged) will always be under the pressure and abusive control of uneducated and uncompassionate politicians. This is why the challenge is large, because the biggest change we need to make relies on the biggest influencers to learn humility.

—

[1] Photography by Meine Austusrung. Vroom vroom!

Although it was Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk [1] that turned me into a TED [2] enthusiast, up to this day my most favorite TED talk remains Sir Ken Robinson’s on how school kills creativity [3]. The talk introduced me to the work and thoughts of Sir Ken Robinson, and I was brimming with joy to find that he shares the same ideas as I do on the topic of education. Of course, this meant that I went on to find more of his content online and eventually purchased his seminal book, The Element [4].

Sir Ken Robinson [5] is a leading thinker on the subject of creativity and education. His life work has led him around the globe, giving talks worldwide on the current educational crisis and the solution we can take to solve it. He has worked with individuals and institutions alike, with businesses and governments all over the world, and he has been endowed with knighthood for his achievements in his field.

What’s most interesting, is that Sir Ken Robinson suffered polio when he was less than five years old. This experience would’ve left many other children and their parents fall into the valley of despair and declare that the boy’s future is ruined – but that didn’t happen in the case of the Robinsons. Sir Ken opted to focus on strengthening his mental assets, causing him to be accepted and acknowledged by advanced educational institutions, and he continued on to become an authority himself.

Finding your Element

The main body of The Element talks about the importance of finding what our passion in life is. It is important because not only does our self happiness rely on the alignment between what we do for a living and what our true talents are, the very sustainability and welfare of our communities and culture also rely on the individual and collective strengths of people who tap their elemental energies. In the book, Sir Ken Robinson conducts numerous interviews and research into the lives and lessons of many prominent figures in current and past societies, and found that many of these figures discovered their own element through self thought and made their own way to reach whatever it is that is most natural for them to pursue.

Which brings us to the topic of education: in the concluding chapters of the book, Sir Ken Robinson explains the damage conformity to conventional education has on our society, and promotes that we should transform education to acknowledge the individual strengths in every person and encourage it in order for these individuals to become high achievers in their lives who have an organic understanding of themselves and their environments and also be able to contribute well to the progress of their communities. This strikes a particular chord with me – more now than when I first read the book – because I too think and have seen that many of my friends and people in the community around me place too much power on conforming with social expectations and official high level educational institutions. Now, I’m a graduate of one of these institutions myself – and I was a successful participant of the industrial method of education – but I dropped the paradigm the moment I learned that success and happiness for me has no significant relation to the level of formal education I achieved or what multinational corporation I work for.

Especially in my country – Indonesia, which is still considered a developing country – the emphasis on being an employee and working for a well known established company is the main aspiration parents have for their children and the main motivation the children study hard for their exams (if they’re even interested that is; many children are disenfranchised by this method of living and learning). The problem that arises from this social mis-construct is that many children feel they are not good enough (since they under-perform in school testing) and therefore assume they do not have their place in society other than being “the common folk”. When instead, simply using a different paradigm and a different social construct, these same children could eventually grow up to be artists, dancers, painters, innovators, community leaders, social entrepreneurs, and reach their own independence through self reliance and autonomy.

The other climate crisis

This space is not enough to explain how much of an advocate I am of being authentic; and how much I view organic education as being an inherent and critically important part of that. The prominent people who have achieved success and fulfillment are often the people who find their education after and inspite of formal education in schools. They find their true calling after they dropped out or after they go through a post graduation identity crisis.

But must that be the only way we can discover our true identities and our true passions? Must we barter the first 16 to 25 years of our lives for the freedom of our identity? Is that the price we must pay to learn what it is that makes us happy – by going through a system that teaches us what makes us unhappy? The formal education system that still stands today is a product from the industrial era and was made for industrial purposes: to produce factory workers in an assembly line method of approach. Now we are entering the knowledge worker era [6] where self reliance, autonomy, and self learning are all critical to find our place in society and achieve physical and emotional success.

An analogy would be this: now that cellphones are here, how would you feel if you were still forced to use land-line telephones – the ones that have dials on them? Sure you can still use them, but their efficiency, reliability, and accessibility are made obsolete with cellular technology. This is how I view standardized formal education has become: an obsolete technology that had its use during the day, but now it’s time to move forward to the technology that is appropriate for us and especially for our children, who will face a future where the technology they use as everyday part of their lives are not even here yet. The system needs to be changed, the paradigm needs to be corrected, and the stakeholders need to be involved; we are in an educational crisis, and like the environment, if we don’t take action soon, we end up endangering the very survivability of humanity.

Do you agree that education needs to be transformed, as Sir Ken Robinson writes? Share your thoughts on the current education system, its benefits and flaws, and share what you think would be the solution for future education.

—

*I also spent the month of November re-reading and curating quotes from The Element. Have a look HERE if you’re interested.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: I am moving the blog to a sub-domain of my site. If you have subscribed by RSS, please change your feed subscription to the new site. Thank you.

[1] Book Review: Eat Pray Love, 2009
[2] TED Official website
[3] Sir Ken Robinson on TED
[4] The Element, by Sir Ken Robinson
[5] Sir Ken Robinson Official website
[6] The term knowledge worker is borrowed from Stephen Covey’s The 8th Habit