Focussing on creative goals

Much of the time when we think about the end, we focus on what we want to be materially - rich, famous, successful, powerful. I have come to realize that these are not active, "creative" goals but rather the passive result of achieving creative goals.

Creative goals usually entail having acquired mastery of specific skills that often lead to the contribution of something unique and useful to society, with emphasis on "mastery", and "unique" and "useful". It is not enough to be merely good at something, one should be great. And society usually rewards "great". "Great" can come in many forms - the great concert pianist, politician, scientist, engineer, plumber even.

I think it is fundamentally important to shift focus from passive end-state goals and plow all my energies into identifying and achieving Creative goals - to be a great writer, to be a great speaker, to be a great scientist, to be a great musician, to be a great thinker. The end-states are peripheral, and the accomplishment of these Creative goals would then be a conduit to achieving those desired end-states.

It is thus also fundamentally important to focus on the process, of putting in the 10,000 hours needed to achieve mastery. Since I am very human and still need sleep, I will have to make careful choices about where I decide to funnel those 10,000 waking hours, rather than indulging my senses in a wide variety of activities as I have been doing.

Writing trivial theories

A scientific trap to avoid:

"Theorists often write trivial theories because their process of theory construction is hemmed in by methodological strictures that favor validation rather than usefulness" - Weick, 1989: 516

A surprising source: A management article titled "The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye" in the AMLE journal.

Black Belt Bayesian Quote

Awesome quote!

"If you’re interested in being on the right side of disputes, you will refute your opponents’ arguments. But if you’re interested in producing truth, you will fix your opponents’ arguments for them. To win, you must fight not only the creature you encounter; you must fight the most horrible thing that can be constructed from its corpse."
-- Black Belt Bayesian

The guilt at my ambition

After reading Michael Hyatt's blog entry on "Creating a Life Plan", I was just contemplating in the shower what exactly my grand plan in life was. What is the overarching vision that gives purpose to my being? What's the 5-, 10-, heck, 20-year plan?

"To be the first minister of Science in Singapore" was an option that welled up in my mind. I was uncomfortable with that thought. Too personal, I felt, too self-centred. Certainly not a grand vision.

"To cure cancer." That too rang somewhat hollow. A little too general, at least for now. I need something that is at once grand, personally interesting and specific.

I realized that I used to be a lot more outwardly ambitious, arrogant to some. Several painful lessons in social propriety and the need to behave with more consideration, more subtlety, grinded away that young edge. With it too, went some of the bold visions and grand passions. I became more short-/middle-term focussed, not thinking of the long-term very much.

I think I started to feel bad about being ambitious, guilty about being energetic and passionate, and knowing it, in a group of people who weren't so. Along the way, the guilt at my ambition wore it down, and it's been dormant for a while.

But perhaps I'm being harsh on myself. I never really thought of the long-term. It is education, experience and age that have brought these thoughts on me. The Hyatt post is also relevant in light of the recent death of the Wife's father. What do I want to be remembered for? What is my legacy?

I will take the introspective steps needed over the next few days to generate this vision. It is something I have deferred for too long. At least, a restarting of my blog-writing is a good beginning. ;-)

Praying at the pump for oil prices to go down

The man in the street expresses his/her helplessness at soaring oil prices, here.

I think this quote sums it all up:

Prayer is the answer to every problem in life. We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high,' Mr Twyman said on the forecourt of the petrol station in a neighbourhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.

Amazing.

Chemists have a sense of humor too

Stop. Think for a minute. What's the best journal article title you've read?

I think this is one of the better ones I've read thus far:

AsS Melt Under Pressure: One Substance, Three Liquids

Turns out Chemists have a sense of humor too. Particular arsenic chemists. Imagine telling your friends what work on: "Oh, I'm trying to synthesize arsole" (If you didn't get that, read it aloud) or "Yeah, that moronic acid's pretty strong stuff".

Many thanks to Acidflask for this amusing read :)

I LOVE TIME MACHINE

I'd like to share a personal story that I think holds a valuable lesson. Just yesterday evening, my computer started hanging - I had three browser windows open, 2 office applications, Adobe Acrobat etc, the stuff I usually have running in 6 windows under Spaces. I held down the power button to switch it off, then turned it on again, and it wouldn't boot. All I saw was a gray screen: no elegant apple icon, no friendly spinning wheel. I thought it was just misbehaving and so I turned off my computer, took out the battery, reset the Power Management Unit, put everything back together and restarted. I still got only the Gray Screen of Death (GSOD). I tried this multiple times and still only the GSOD came up.

It was highly depressing, since the computer is my lifeline, as I'm sure it is for you: I do everything on it, including (esp.) research. I brought it down to the Apple Genius Bar today and they offered me 2 scenarios: the logic board had gone crazy, or the harddisk was corrupted. The logic board would take 7-10 days to replace, and the harddisk 3 -5 days. I almost wept, since losing my computer is like chopping off my arm (and more).

I didn't feel so bad though, because I had backed up everything using Time Machine. Just prior to my computer failing, Time machine had run faithfully as always, backing up my entire file system. As such, if needed, I could restore the entire system from my external harddisk. So I was distressed at the prospect of losing my computer for a few days, but at least I wasn't distraught at having lost years of completely irreplaceable data.

To cut a long story short, turns out it was the harddisk that was problematic and not the logic board. They quoted me a 3-5 day turnaround time still to install the harddisk, but I wheedled them to find out if they had any harddisks on hand to install it right away. Turns out they actually did have ONE, so they installed it for me, I got my mac back this evening, and restored my entire filesystem in an hour from Time Machine. Time Machine really restores EVERYTHING: when I started my browser again, it even remembered the last few tabs I had open before the computer died on me.

Elapsed time of ordeal: 24 hrs. Emotional state: disturbed, but happy to have my computer back in its literal entirety, and loving Time Machine.

Lessons learnt:
1. BACKUP EVERYTHING FREQUENTLY. Take advantage of Time Machine if you haven't - buy an external harddisk, link it to your computer and have it run in the background, backing things up all the time. It's DEFINITELY a worthwhile investment. This is the second time in my mac ownership history a harddisk has failed on me (interestingly enough, both times were in Stanford - once in 2003 when I was a tourist and now). Time Machine is good enough for most purposes but if you're extra kiasu you can make cloned bootable images of your harddisk from programs downloaded online.

2. BUY APPLECARE. I hope you can still do this, if you haven't already. Extended warranties aren't necessary for most things, but I've found them to be terribly useful for notebooks.

3. If you happen to be unfortunate enough to have to send your computer in for servicing and find yourself without a computer for use, you can take advantage of the Apple Store's return policy to get a "loaner" computer - buy a brand new notebook, use it and return it for a full refund within 14 days. Hopefully, you have your Time Machine backup with you and you can restore your system to use on the loaner, then back it up and transfer it back to your repaired laptop when necessary.

4. If you've important documents, email them to yourself online so you have an additional online backup as well that's accessible everywhere. This was another reason why I didn't feel too horrible when my computer died: my important docs are all online, my calendar's online etc etc.

5. Backup everything frequently. 'nuff said.

I LOVE TIME MACHINE.