Silence?

And speaking of Rattawut, whose book I hope to find around somewhere. We have big problems of our own. How come we have not found a voice to explain ourselves to the world? (yes it would take someone who can write English literature, and who is not afraid of slaying sacred cows and of facing the music afterwards). I’m fascinated by interactions between Thais and farangs, but tire of them after a while – as they do ‘degenerate’ to basic interhuman relations with just a bit of exoticism thrown in. Same with us, but for some reason our self hatred leads us to either try to become farangs as fast as we can, or to wash the laundry in the family, when washing is deemed allowable at all. In the meantime we put on a good show where we are anything you want us to be, or not.

This might be a tad too cryptic. But I still don’t know why we don’t have a Rattawut, a Naguib Mahfouz, a Salman Rushdie.

But this time in Bangkok, I read some (passable) sci-fi. Saving Lévi-Strauss  for Tarawa or Palau.

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This is intentionally cryptic, as are the other posts that refer to my old old country – a particular place in Eastern Europe where I hail from. It won’t make much sense to anyone else other than me. But then, this blog is primarily for me and me only. One of the great things about having 2 passports and living in a 3rd country (make that, 2 passports from 2 different continents and living in a 3rd continent) is the freedom it affords you to criticize/or embrace almost anything, anyplace – because you’re both from and not from there. Guess you have to try it to understand. Not being beholden to a flag or a culture is immensely freeing.

Friday night

Just spent a night drinking red wine, listening to Air and Delerium, pretending to think about my future, and reading a bunch of blogs from the old old country. You’d think I’d have better things to do on a Friday night – but anyway, I was surprised to see how nothing changed. I hadn’t followed Eastern European news for perhaps a year, and now it was just like I’d never been gone: same sh*t, same discussions, same angry recriminations. What really amazes me is how people there get into ‘politics’ and talk unending talks; the country isn’t better off or worse off than any country in a similar stage of development, and its political class isn’t better or worse than the average representatives from anywhere. But the chattering classes, that is, 80% of the population sitting on the sidelines without getting involved in any way, is quick to find faults, and talk, and talk, and talk. I would be dead bored there – everyone knows the minutiae of the lives of the public figures and only talks about that.

While the facts aren’t brilliant, the constant chattering just amplifies and distorts them until they become unmanageable. It’s not just the blogs, this is how life is there, a constant talk – as H.P. Lovecraft used to be terrorized by any kind of music (see “The music of Erich Zann”), so I am over tired by the unending talks there. The tragedy is that some of these blogs are indeed extremely well written, with talent – and there clearly is a rather solid cultural background, curiosity, and intelligence that the writers possess to write in that fashion. Yet they are wasted in an ocean of bytes and useless banter. Why don’t these guys use their talents to create something else, more divorced from the immediate? If I was an ‘intellectual’ there, I would force myself to talk about everything but the now; I’d write about the classics, about science fiction, about nature, about painting, just about anything that is more perennial.

The double tragedy is that when I was in the country, I used to see all kinds of guys similar to these – in late night bars, getting sloshed and wailing over lack of chances, lost loves, and missed opportunities; well spoken they were too. But ultimately losers. Drinking and waxing poetic form the sidelines seems to be a national characteristic that no one is ever thinking of addressing.

Debunkings

One of the things I never bought into in the US (another one being the ownership society, about whose debunking I just tweeted), but was constantly bombarded with, was the optimism; the so-called can-do attitude. It was an instinctive rejection that I could not quite explain. While I agree that moderate optimism is a useful approach to living, the idea that anything is possible seemed somehow ludicrous to me, as someone who comes from a culture that has been repeatedly shoved back in the dirt as soon as it had a chance to lift itself. I was just skeptical.

After being immersed in a different society for a while and having the advantage of distance, as well as the perspective afforded by the interesting times we’re in, I do have an explanation of sorts for my attitude; this endlessly optimistic attitude makes sense for a generation that has encountered hardship, struggled with it, and overcame. E.g., those who lived through the Civil War, Great Depression, maybe World War II even (although that was a remote calamity with little bearing on those left back home). You have seen the problem, fought with it, and conquered; you know you are equipped to deal with it, based on your experience.

But for a generation or two whose biggest worry was where is the next stash of dope going to come from, or when is the next Nintendo going to be released, and which did nothing to contribute to this state of freedom from worry, this kind of optimism is foolish and misguided. How do you know things will always be ok, when you never had to deal with bad stuff? You are just projecting a past which you did not create onto a future which you hope will be yours, but which you aren’t actively propping up – you’re just riding on someone else’s wave.

I don’t really think the current crisis will solve this issue – it takes a generational adjustment for that to happen and I don’t think that 2 years of dumping houses will cause it. Let’s wait and see.

Incidentally, the US isn’t the only one who should worry about this. If I was a thinking Chinese, I would worry about it too – the biggest wave is the next one.

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Just had this girl, who says she is in love with me – schedule three meetings with me, none of which she was able to keep. Now: she is a professional, someone with a brain, no (apparent) baggage, and a life of her own. Yet, every time she scheduled something she canceled only hours later – first time she was too tired to meet, then her house was a mess, then something else happened. Just assume that you were in love with her; again, her biz card suggest a respectable, worthwhile potential date or more. Being in love with her, you would watch her every gesture and read into her every act, hoping for that sign that you matter more than others. And if she initiated an encounter, you would be overjoyed, only to crash and burn when she canceled. Three times in a row, you would be nearly devastated – the higher you are, the farther you fall.

Am I not better off being a skeptic? Chuckling quietly every time she sends another SMS? And wise – I always have the K’s, so no need for the (busy? mindless?) potential ideal date.

Umm

My EQ Intelligence

While I don’t disagree with the above, I wonder under what concept does ‘boredom’ fit? Inability to motivate an interest in others (and BTW, is this self-centeredness)? Anyway, I have much much Osho left to read and meditation to (begin to) practice it seems.

And how does it all relate to this?

Meanwhile, at Starbucks…

…on: January 1, time: 3 PM, location: Sukhumvit Soi 12, in the Times Building, I had the pleasure of attending my first tweetup ever, in the company of some truly inspring people: Thomas Crampton, Newley Purnell, postLinearity’s Greg Lent and Wise Khwai (whose description of the event is here). 4 American expatriates (and myself, a hyphenated-American); 3 hours spent talking about things ranging from standing babas in India to PAD in Thailand to Silicon Valley to Thai film to the Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta to (BKK authors) Chris Moore and John Burdett to Bill Clinton to (American expatriate author) Paul Bowles. Was one of these mind expanding afternoons, the only cloud on the horizon being the terrible fire at the Santika nightclub in the early hours of the New Year.

Speaking of which, I did see a lof of police and firefighter cars rushing up on Sukhumvit around 1 AM that night. Only later when reaching home did I find out what had happened – from a friend in the US who was checking on me.

Since I have friends of friends (Mook’s) who perished, and some who are still struggling for life (Somseng’s), the tragedy shook me profoundly and I don’t have many words to say in the face of this loss of life at what was supposed to be a time of joy.

‘All created things perish’

The Dhammapada (The Sayings of the Buddha) 

Somseng’s merit-making visit to nine temples today was deeply moving.

Unconventional wisdom

Dan Ariely has more interesting things to say. Once again, this is serious academic research performed by people from Harvard Business School and MIT. It’s the type of stuff that I always somehow knew or felt instinctively, but the social pressure was to dismiss it as inappropriate.

- people believe that learning more about others leads to greater liking, but in fact acquiring more information about others leads to less liking. In the process of learning, dissimilarities are discovered and this leads to disliking. Of course, I mentioned just a few posts ago how sitting with someone you harbor a crush for makes that crush just go away. This is why strangers in the night/on the bus/on the plane are always attractive. Forcing individuals to interact with strongly disliked others does increase liking (regression to the mean), yet in real life such situations are avoided and a potential for defusing disliking is lost;

- at first acquaintance, individuals read into others what they wish;

- decisions are difficult because outcomes are uncertain (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979; these psychologists got the Nobel prize in economics for their insight into decision making, so this is not voodoo NLP ’science’);

- the excitement of anticipating a first encounter can heighten positive expectations;

- similarity to the self (from shared traits and values to trivial things like shared birthdays) his highly diagnostic of liking;

- in absence of information, people assume similarity with others, hence propensity to liking; however, initial evidence of dissimilarity causes subsequent information to be further evidence of dissimilarity and thus cause disliking;

(maybe this is the man without qualities? I should read Robert Musil perhaps).

- this bears repeating: the increase in knowledge leads to decrease in liking. More so for women than for men;

- knowledge is different from exposure without learning: sitting in the same room with someone repeatedly will create a kind of kinship which will increase liking. But that is not acquiring information about that person;

- propinquity – how near people live to each other – predicts the emergence of friendships, but even more so the emergence of enmities;

- partners (romantic and otherwise) who play hard to get are desirable; individuals who demonstrate unconcealed romantic interest seem desperate and unappealing; romantic interest should be dyadic – targeted at one individual and eliciting the same response (it does somehow) – rather then being broadcast… and this broadcasting may be unfortunately unconscious;

- people have limited insight into their own behavior under drive-states (e.g. obsessions, alcohol). Hence self control should be proactive – don’t put yourself in that situation – rather than reactive, assuming you will handle the situation well. Decisions will be stigmatized as immoral behavior by people who would themselves make the same mistake in the same drive-state.

Heady, crucial insights. My takeaway: never put yourself in a situation where you are not at overwhelming advantage. The Chinese strategists knew this all along but somehow in the West the romantic view of the heroic struggle is more widely disseminated – with disastrous effects.

Will the real Mexican please stand up

Is it Carlos Slim? Is it Alejandro Fernandéz? Is it (Sinaloa drug lord) Alfredo Beltrán Leyva? And BTW this could be any nation. Carlos probably has more in common with Bill Gates than with Alejandro who in turn has more in common with [name pop star here, I haven't a clue], just as Dianita monita verde has more in common with me than with a quiteño pickpocket (my behavior in that gorgeous city, Quito, still needs some explaining).

What of nationalism, then…

I love Europe

But then, I really don’t. This is why. Middle Europa. Fun from the outside, but how many of us East-of the Middle-Europeans really want to remember what it really was like on the inside?

The world is your oyster

I was thinking, I’ve lived in several countries and (un)funny enough, the place(s) where I found peace and happiness aren’t in any of the countries I lived full time.

• home country (soundtrack: “She’s in parties” by Bauhaus)

• current country (soundtrack: “Man next door” by Massive Attack)

This has been discussed in a previous post. A lot is still to be said about immigrants from previous country into this country. Maybe @ some other time, right now cannot be arsed because there are…

• happy countries (soundtrack: “La mer du Japon” by AIR, “Papua New Guinea” by The Future Sound of London, “Livin’ la vida loca” and “She bangs” by Ricky Martin – YES! -, “Siamese fantasia”)

Bliss: Acapulco.

Lightness of being: Bangkok.

I have enjoyed every single place that I traveled to: Quito is a magic city in its own way, and Santo Domingo really gives meaning to the term “heavy with history”. But only in those two places above I have felt myself: in the former, because the sun and the sea and the mountains engulfing me and just taking me outside of myself; in the latter, not having lived and been burned out there may have something to do with it, but that is not the only thing. I really feel that there I could be myself, as I carried no badge other than that of being a (vaguely) Latin Caucasian with a US and European passport. No expectations, no heaviness, no need to prove myself, and no baggage especially. So I could experience that environment, which was strange to the point of being shocking, with new eyes and a free mind. No preconceptions, no expectations, no frame of reference. No junk in other words. How often do you get to start with a completely empty slate?

Bad metaphors aside, I do hope that someday I can express this feeling.

And here are my results…

…to the Moral Sense Test I linked to in my previous post: “The scenarios you judged in this test pit means against ends, which is a common philosophical contrast. Each of the characters must choose whether to use bad means to acheive good ends — for instance, whether to harm a single person in order to help many others. The statistic provided is an indication of the choices you made about means versus ends. The closer it is to 1, the more heavily you appeared to weight means (the rights of one); the closer it is to 7, the more heavily you appeared to weigh ends (the benefit of many). Your statistic is 5.3. So far, the average statistic for subjects on this test is 3.9″.

Yeah. I’m a cold-hearted SOB it appears.

Incidentally this is one of the topics of philosophy-lite Shantaram: doing good things for bad reasons.