Passionate Living

Photograph by Magdalena

TECHNOLOGY is the tools we use to help us achieve our goals. The purpose is to help us be able to manage our priorities and become efficient in working towards our goals. Proper understanding and use of technology is a highly positive value in a person’s life.

OUR MINDS work the way we order them to; if we don’t keep our minds neat and structured, then our thoughts will be dirty and unkept. If we let our inspirational well run dry, our minds will be prone to negative information and perception shaped by the bombardment of propaganda in the form of negative news and advertisements. It’s the responsibility of a person to keep his mind clear from clutter and focused on priorities.

HUMILITY is a character that has to be learned first hand. You cannot develop humility without first experiencing adversity; and not everyone wants to experience it. Only the persons who manage to overcome their obstacles, learn the key to life is being patient and understanding there are purposes bigger than our individual parts.

Several weeks ago as I was with my parents eating out, my mother commented on a woman her age on the table behind us. She (the woman) was busy fidgeting with her Blackberry, which made my mother comment that that is the new activity of people today – they fidget with their Blackberrys. No one in my family own a Blackberry; we have never been “victims” of “technology fashion”. Therefore, seeing a person busy playing with their BB’s, while in the middle of a family dinner, made me think about the way we use technology to enhance our lives.

“What do I want from life? Well, I want to be happy.”

In the digital era of instant gratification and 3G internet speeds, patience is a rare commodity. Our minds and our collective culture is growing up with the mind frame that we can get mostly anything we want at any time we want – leaving the previously usual work and waiting out of the equation. For some purposes, this may be good, but in the long term of human growth, the work and waiting that we used to have to go through are vital in forming the character of a person.

Gretchen Rubin shares her experience on how she was able to find the inspiration to write her Happiness Project; she was sitting on a bus one day while looking outside the window and asked herself, “What do I want from life?”. Her answer was, “Well, I want to be happy” [1]; and it was that answer that made her write the Happiness Project book – a #1 New York Times Bestseller. Gretchen says if she was busy fidgeting with her Blackberry, she wouldn’t have found the inspiration to write the book that has influenced the lives of tens of thousands of people today.

Some people have trouble sitting down on a bus without anything to do. They have to fidget around with something, because maybe they can’t stand being alone with their thoughts. This is the sign of an unhealthy mind, because a healthy mind is constantly curious about itself and always exercises examinations upon its own characters, observations, beliefs, and mechanisms. It is the power and uniqueness of man to be able to view himself from third person to gain a perspective on his life purpose. This is how the great figures of our society found their calling, explored their minds deeper, and consequently changed the world we live in.

Technology we own is rarely technology we need

Humility is therefore a primary character before all characters, because without humility you can not have the patience to sit down on a bus without anything to do. Without humility, your mind will always think you are bored, and seek out brain dead information through mindless gaming and social networking to entertain yourself. Humility is key to keeping a mind that is brave enough to spend some time alone with itself.

At the end of the day, the technology we own is rarely technology we need. Most of the technology in our hands are results of us just satisfying our carnal desires to possess and perhaps even show off that we can afford to buy these things. How do we know that is true? Because even with so called “better” technology, we still experience the same social problems we face since the history of mankind.

Therefore a healthy mind realizes, it’s not about what the technology we have is; it’s about how we use the technology we have. It’s not about owning a Blackberry so you can stay on always; it’s about having that correct portable device that becomes an extension of yourself and truly helps you be efficient in reaching your life goals, instead of eating away at your mental health. It’s about the change we make, through the resources we are given; because the easy choice is always to live life for yourself and eat up all the resources you feel like eating up.

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[1] Gretchen relates this story in the first chapters of her book: Happiness Project

Telephone by ~bexe

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

Cecilia and I used to spend a lot of time talking on the phone, especially when it was me living out of town. We would talk about nothing in particular, enjoying the niceties of friends who are comfortable in each others accompaniment without purpose. We could spend hours interchanging between random topics, of course with several fundamental lessons imprinted along the way.

But sometimes I would feel bad about calling her, because sometimes I feel our conversation was a waste of time for her. Sometimes I felt it was only me who wanted to talk, even though Cecilia spent the most time talking and me mostly listening. Sometimes I stopped myself from calling her just because I wanted to.

But today, the tables are turned. This time it was her fiance who called her and made our meeting up became uncomfortable. This time it was his action that spread out negative energy between the three of us that still plagued me until the day was almost over.

Glimpse of a good morning

Negative energy is more contagious that positive energy – arbitrarily nine times stronger. When we are angry, especially in the morning, we tend to target our family members and vent out our anger on them, even though it has nothing to do with them particularly. When we do this, not only do we make ourselves more angry, we also jeopardize any glimpse of a good morning our family members might have been having.

We do this not only in our own houses, but everywhere we are. Everywhere we work, play, shop, drive, exercise, and hang out are potential places where we could be spreading negative energy when we are upset. The total cost to society, especially the people around us, is much greater than the small amount (if any) of relief that we think we get by making other people know we are angry.

In Cecilia’s case, her fiance was upset she had met up with me, and through his uncomfortable cell phone call [1], he managed to spread his negativity all the way from Bali, and canceled the momentum Cecilia and I were in. We ended the conversation right there, since both of us were already victims of the negative energy, and I drove her to her studio in silence.

But the worse part of it all isn’t the abrupt interruption – the worse part is how the negative energy affected me throughout the rest of the day. I like to say I am a person who works on being happy, so when somebody comes along and manages to ruin that happiness by their being selfish and childish, it really upsets me [2]. I did my best to regain composure, but the damage was done, and the negative energy inevitably plagued me all day.

No respect

One question we need to ask ourselves is: is it worth it? Is it worth expressing your childish selfishness, just to make yourself feel better? Is it worth it, pushing the point that you’re right and she’s wrong, and that she has to apologize like you’ve never made your share of mistakes?

There are no rewards for being an angry person. There’s no acknowledgment, no respect, no growth, no happiness, no love, no health benefits, and especially no integrity when you expect someone else to be responsible for your failing to manage your emotions. There’s no reason why we should allow ourselves to spread the negative energy and endanger the momentum people are building in their days – since that is already difficult to do by default.

Stop being childish and grow up. If you are angry, it means you have no integrity – because you are threatened by the things that reveal your weaknesses, therefore you resort to defensive stances. Be aware, and be actionable – know what is the real problem you are having and tackle the problem with the head of an adult; not the eagerness of a teenager.

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[1] It makes me wonder how some people can do that; pick up the phone to start an argument. The point of telecommunication is so that we don’t get caught in the moment and have time to think through what we are about to say before we say it! The point is being able to prevent exact occurrences like this one!
[2] It crushes me, when an adult behaves like a child, and they can’t see that for themselves. That is NOT true happiness; that is NOT true strength of character; that is STILL living in your own illusion of reality

*And I almost forgot, here is the NEW SONG that I should have uploaded a week ago:
When You Come Through For Me by Endy Daniyanto

I’m writing this at 3.30 A.M on a Friday morning after coming home from the studio about an hour ago. It’s been like this for two nights in a row now – it doesn’t happen every night but it does happen occasionally. When it does, I realize some things concerning having a semi-day job that I wasn’t aware of when I was mostly a freelance music teacher.

timepiece prime time clock closeup watch by zoutedrop

One of those things is how the value of time is not equal for all parts of the day. Most of us who have day jobs barter our time in exchange for income, and mostly that income is a flat sum that’s not related to the qualitative value of time; only the quantitative value of it. We are paid to work 8 hours a day (assuming a 9 to 5 responsibility) and over time when we have to work extra (but limited to a maximum of 3 hours over time, as some offices do here in Jakarta).

For me though, there is no overtime. True, I start in the studio most days around 1 or 2 P.M, and since it’s a highly client-based business, the time I finish could range from 6 P.M to 2 P.M like today. And when I work into the midnight shift, I keep thinking that my time should be worth more if I have to work at midnight then when I work in the afternoon.

Depending on what we do when, we create a different amount of value

Charlie Gilkey creates a Productivity Heatmap; the idea in the chart is that we map out our creative hours during the day in order to take full advantage of it. Because, let’s admit it, even geniuses aren’t geniuses most of the time; there are specific times of day when the genius has a higher probability of striking us. The Productivity Heatmap aims to help us identify our creative moments and learn which hours are more precious and which ones are more free to use for administrative matters.

I like to think about the difference of the qualitative value of time this way: suppose you and a friend from the office are leaving the office, yet your friend can leave at 3 P.M, while you can only leave at 5 P.M after finishing some extra paperwork. The difference doesn’t feel significant, right? But, if we change that and say your friend can leave at 8 P.M, while you can only leave at 10 P.M, would you still have the same response? I think that 2 hours difference in the afternoon is more forgivable than 2 hours difference into the night (in fact, the 2 hours difference in the afternoon might feel more about 45 minutes, while the 2 hours difference in the night feels about 3 and a half hours).

The value of time is different for us; depending on what we do when, we create a different amount of value. Yet, most day jobs only reward us on a lump-sum basis; like manufactured products coming out an assembly line that are considered to have low individual values to justify a uniform compensation system. 2 hours on a Friday evening may be considered time to relax for most office workers, but for a musician it could mean time to go out and perform on stage and build relationships with new fans to grow his business.

Grace has a lot to do with how we live our time-styles

This is a challenge for me as I try to determine what’s worth doing and what’s not worth doing with my time. Because even though I’m still working within the music industry – which is my passion – I sometimes still feel under-appreciated and under-compensated; that I can achieve more if I could concentrate more on my personal projects. Yet, these personal projects take time before they show results, and there is always another eager young person willing to fill up the spot should I want to give it up.

That’s why Grace has a lot to do with how we live our time-styles (as opposed to life-styles). How can we use our time with the most efficient output? How can we prepare in advance for moments where down time in the office could mean serious creative uptime in our personal projects – the projects that give more rewards in the long run?

As a creative person, it’s our prerogative to determine which is worth doing more – yet the huge rock that makes many an aspiring artist stumble and fall is the obligation to put food on the table. We can all understand that, and surely we can all sympathize with that; but we should still have the mentality and the dream that one day, we can support ourselves and our family from the income we receive as direct results from transactions of our own art that we create in our own time and place. Surely I hope this isn’t just the romanticism, idealism, or naivete of an artist, but a tangible, real condition we can all strive to reach.

Can you fellow artists confirm this?

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*Photograph by zoutedrop