It seemed these prawns knew exactly what was going to happen when I brought them out from the sink with my hands to skewer them with satay sticks. Most of them struggled initially, frantically, but released their clinging to life by the time the end of the satay stick protruded out from their head. All except two, one was a very pregnant and the other a really big prawn. Their struggle continued until their heads where baked till half red.

Perhaps I was personifying them, but then again maybe not. Perhaps the one pregnant was hoping till the very last moment of its life that a miracle would happen to save her and her unborn kids? Perhaps the really big one was till the very last moment of its life clinging on to its ambition to become the biggest prawn in the pool?

Nevertheless, I continued my silent offering of prayers to them; praying for them to see this life for what it is, an illusion; praying for them to give up their grasping on it and go in peace. My silent prayers continued up till the moment I consumed their flesh.

Another thought flashed in my mind while I was munching on my rice. If enlightenment as believed in Buddhism is to live totally in this moment, then our current way of life enabled through technology is becoming truly chronic. Here we are in person in a club standing on the dance floor but instead of fully immersing ourselves in the current moment as it is, our mind, eyes and fingers wanders off somewhere else. We worry about what we are going to do tomorrow, we get distracted by what someone else on the other side of the phone is doing, we opt instead to live in a fantasy/digital world of our own creation. Our fingers never leave our phone, our mind and our eyes focused on the screen in front of us. We ignore the person standing in front of us, who so too happen to be doing exactly the same thing as we are doing.

From another perspective, we are ironically in the midst of becoming Gods ourselves, becoming Omnipotent and becoming Omnipresent.

Considering the fact that we can now do teleconferencing and long distance phone calls, are we not already Omnipresent? Can we thus not already within an instant become present in any time zone of our choice on Earth? Can we not too, if we had already setup a computer monitor in Mars, or any other planet of our choice, become present on that planet too?

Considering these features and functionality available in recent spate of games in the online world as well as the social networks we are all involved, are we not in a sense given more and more ability to create and manipulate our own little a universe? Are we not Omnipotent in this limited universe of our own?

Realization suddenly dawned on me – the importance of mastery and perception of the waves as well as the illusion of it. What I now perceive through my 5 senses in fact exist and don’t exist at the same time. My sense of sight is perceives the world of light waves. My sense of hearing perceives the world of sound waves. My sense of touch, smell and taste is perceived through electrical waves that are run from the furthest reaches of my nerve endings. I perceive a light wave at a certain frequency and I assume it a lamp or chair. I perceive sound wave from a specific direction and I that a thing assume a thing exist in that direction. My mental illness must indeed have became chronic!

Alright, if this mental illness of mine is to persist then so be! While we are at it why not make a thorough job of it, why just limit our range of perception to just light wave, sound wave, electrical wave and (if one includes the other waves made available in technology) radio waves? Why not then extend it all waves both known and unknown to man? Isn’t that where the secrets of the Universe and God really lies? Isn’t that where even I-Ching is hinting at?

Suddenly, the sky broke and started pouring heavily. It was amazing how mother nature’s mood could turn sour in a short span of an hour. A squall assailed the house leaving the interior disheveled in its wake. I was roused momentarily from my reverie in cyber space.

Back to the movie again…

It was a strange movie, 4 characters, one’s relationship with the next down the line was one’s ever being in close proximity to the other. A police officer sits alone in his house every evening talking to his furniture and belongings left behind by his ex-lover, oblivious to the slight furnishing changes to the house by his secret admirer whom herself steals into his apartment every afternoon. Sometimes he does notice the difference but attributes these to the house’s change of mood over his departed ex-lover. It is really strange.

Another police offer goes running for the entire month leading up to his birthday after his breakup on April Fool’s Day, obsessed with stocking up canned pine apple that expires exactly on the 1st of May, neither later nor earlier. Always making calls from in the evening from the same telephone in front of the same snack shop, coincidentally the same one the first visits.

Suddenly I received a text message from some stranger whom ask if I could talk. Thus I did, via skype.  He was looking for the wrong person. Skype requested that I review their quality of service. It was ironic but I was half tempted to rate it down. How is it possible to rate the quality of the call as excellent when the fact that this call that never should have happened ever did happen?

Thinking back to the conversation that took place once at night, I wonder if I would be suffer as did both police officers in the movie from neurosis. Fearing from the hurt that ensures should a final parting come to pass but threading forward nevertheless.

While waiting for my transit flight to San Francisco, I took a tour of the Beijing airport’s transit lounge. It looked very bit like a transit lounge of international standard and then slightly more. It might not appear very impressive on first glance but if you just took the time dig some more below the surface of what is apparent and to give it more thoughts, the level of technological sophistication should soon impressive itself upon you.

Public phone with built in video telephony, all in good working condition. Imagine the logistics involved. While not engaged, these phones show advertising another source of revenue for the operator. Two purposes for the space of one, ingenious!

Automatic issuance of internet login via scanning of passport details. A simple and really effective method to provide internet access control within the airport. We are still stuck with manual issuance of such details in Changi Terminal One. The broadband available here is way much faster than what we have with wireless.sg. Opps…

I always love travelling, just physically passing through a place once and one could get a feel of how the general state of things are.

Hmmm… sometimes when seeing what is happening in the world outside of our Singapore boundaries, I cannot help but feel that if the world does not eventually open up to allow for free flow of people to live & work and I am still stuck with a Singaporean passport, it is likely I will be the one that gets screwed and left behind in the long run. Though we are trying our utmost, we are progressing too slowly. There is only so much economies of scale available for a population of 5 million people. Thankfully though due to the advancement of communication technologies, technological break through in other territories could still diffuse into Singapore the territory.  However if what the Boston Consulting Group postulates is true, then there will likely reach a certain stage in technological advancement where Singapore the country with its limited resources  hit a wall and get left behind while the other nations with larger potential economies of scale penetrate through with ease. That is definitely not one of those times when I find a Singaporean passport a useful one. Nice pragmatism, isn’t it?

Prior to WWI the concept of a country and the concept of citizenship to a country has always been somewhat defined via blood relationship. The modern notion of nation and citizenship is a rather new one which came about post WWI which is based upon territorial boundaries. It is getting increasingly challenged as communication technology advances.  Territorial boundaries in terms of social activities are slowly getting eroded, commerce is taking place across multiple time zones. Governments are finding it increasingly hard to enforce taxation on their people. Maybe it is time to rethink and redefine what it actually means to be a state and what it actually means to be a citizen of a state.  Thinking to myself, I wonder what the next stage of nation and citizenship evolution would be like, that of global citizenship. I wonder if I will see it in this life time mine. I am feeling really curious…

Oh yeah… it is quite pathetic the Chinese Government actually attempts to ban sites such as Facebook and Google document. While I do know how to by pass it as I just did via my blog system, I am just feeling to lazy now to attempt at a reroute via a proxy server in another part of the world.

It was not long before I realized that I was going around in circles in this part of the park, a labyrinth. Somehow, I was having problems finding my way to the Hort Park from here. I soon heard the foot steps approach. An old man dressed in white approached, he had a crown of white locks. It was strange to see someone dressed totally in white in such a deserted street of the park where there were no lights at all. Is he man or ghost I questioned myself. Regardless I waved him down and asked him the direction to the Hort park.

“Up those flight of stairs” he said “turn right and then head straight down”.

Thus I did. What awaited me at the end of the flight of steps was a path that had no lamp lights at all, it headed straight into the vegetation shrouded thickly with mist.

“Perhaps this is the path leading to the netherworld and he was indeed a ghost, perhaps this is to be the last hour of my life” I thought to myself as I threaded further along this lonely path. So be it then, I thought to myself as I recollected the life I had till now. Though there are a few fundamental questions I have yet found answers to, it can be considered a life well lived.

I have always gone on walks or more generally wanderings when bothered by contradictions that I have found no answers to. Sometimes, these wanderings get so extensive they extend beyond the realms of the island of Singapore. To some who ask, I would term it backpacking, however on a personal level, it should instead be called pilgrimages. The purpose is less sight seeing than it is a search for a sign.

The first of such pilgrimages brought me to a valley in the heart of the golden triangle wherein a deserted church and a Buddhist temple resides on opposite sides of the hill while a museum dedicated to the opium residing between these two in the valleys.

The most extensive of such pilgrimages brought me from South East Asia, past the Tibetan plateau, across the central plains all the way to London where my search finally ended in front of a pagoda dedicated to a 12th century Buddhist monk from Japan. Along the way, I encountered the Tibetan high priests, the nomadic Kazakh muslims, the Turkish Mystics called Sufis, New Age hippies, the psychics from the Spiritualists churches. It is in fact karmic that the person I was to reside with during the last leg of this pilgrimage was a Sufi with a vast collection on doctrines from various religions, ranging from Laoism, Taoism, Buddhism to Christianity and Spiritualism.

If there was any similarities between these wanderings, it is the lack of material comfortable. One could in fact call it an ascetic way of life. The energy slowly drained from the body, devoid it of excess energy which causes unnecessary distraction to the mind. The mind is thus free to consider, ponder and question.

The central question remains as always the same. Why am I here? This was exactly the same question I posed to my dad when I was still 16 years of age. “The meaning you will have to find for yourself”, was his response. 13 years later right now walking alone in the park in this thick shroud of mist, I am still in the process of finding the answer to the reason of my existence.

Though I did manage to figure out some parts of the answer this question, intuition tells me I am still far from it. Last week during the very last leg of my journey from Clementi to Changi Village over land on my cruise board, when my body was almost drained to its last ounce of energy, this thought which originated from  sub-conscious suddenly came to my awareness.

I came with nothing into the world of matter. Through exertion of will, that which is the truly me acquired control of the elements from the ether and thus created the physical body which I am right now at this very moment pushing to its  limits to arrive at my intended goal.

This cycle could be repeated to whatever magnitude I desire to acquire further elements from the ether if necessary. My sub-conscious tells me the answer I seek lies not in the path of acquiring elements but in the realms of the spirit, a path of will and inner fortitude strengthening.  However this path of growth which I now follow is not the goal itself but a means to an ends. This ends is the answer I seek and it remains a still mystery.

True education for me actually began much later in life when no longer distracted by the superficial curriculum of the public school systems. Ironically, this education which came from my Dad only started after I made it exceptionally clear beyond a doubt in the material world, I will be threading the path similar to him, as is similar to his dad, as is similar to his dad’s dad, of running my own operations. As my cousin Johnson once said, “bro, the blood of the Teh family runs true in you as well it seems…”

While the concept of money management has been pounded into my head since my adolescent days, the remaining set of rules were past on randomly during our lunch time conversations. When it happens, my dad would usually cite from his dad. Reflecting upon them, these rules seem to be a rather ancient and have been past down from one generation to the next. They must have been past down from beyond grand father’s generation it seems.

Over a recent issue which cropped up during my operations, I was quite agonized. The agony had nothing to do with emotions but from a supposedly unreasonable demand from a client. I was cracking my brains to think of a win win situation for both parties. I ended up deliberating over this matter with my parents tapping on their vast years of experience. Of course the tactic proposed by mum’s is as usual very ruthless, not something I will ever consider resorting to. I ended up formulating my own method to resolve this conflict amicably for both parties. However in the process of deliberation, I found out another legacy that runs within my blood.

“Son you, me and your grand father are the similar in this tendency” he said one day over lunch one day. “The need always to be fair to everyone and more often than not compromising materially for such the idealism.”

“The Cheks, the sub-ethnic race that old Mr Lee comes from do business by always attempting to gain an unfair in any negotiation is different from the style we Tehs do business”

“Your granddad always preach not to harm, but do not forget to defend your own interest. But the compromising nature of your granddad means more often than not, he losses some in the process. While he might not have been extremely rich in his social circles, he gained a very high standing among them and was very well respected.”

I asked him, if there was any way to break this legacy which is within our blood.

“Well, meditate… this too is karma” he replied pointing to the Buddhist altar situated in our living room.

“Yes” I replied with a chuckle.

Another man came within the view of my peripheral vision. It was the same strange man I saw just now, who was walking around Clementi central carrying two bags with him.

I saw this same man less than 10 minutes ago at a coffee shop on the other side of Clementi Central. I happened then to be feasting on my late night sushi which I bought at a huge discount and sipping my drink of barley, both of which were bought from the National Trade Union Center.

I noticed him looking my way when he first caught sight of me sitting at the coffee shop. It was a strange look he had on his face. He took a seat and sat down one table away just within my blind spot. I left after wolfing down the last of my sushi heading for the spot on the bench.

Now, here at the sitting area around the bench this same man started choosing a place to sit. He first opted for a bench 4 slots away in front of me. Good, I thought to myself, as a habit I never allowed things I am wary of to get into my blind spot for long. After fiddling around with his bench for a moment, he decided otherwise and opted instead for the bench right behind me. Once again, he got into my blind spot. Sneaking a peak around my back, I started having the strangest thoughts. That bench he opted for was facing in the direction away from me, why is it then he choose instead to be sitting in such an awkward position so as to be able to keep me in his line of sight? As you have rightly guess, this time with the same strange look on his face…

“Another member of the stalker club” I cursed under my breathe. I sat there enjoying the breeze some more before making my way home via a detour around Clementi central.

Lately, I observed this inexplicable phenomena. There must be something about or around me which I till now have problems pointing a finger to that somehow has this effect of drawing people, strangers included, to me. The effect seems not to be negated despite my absolute passivity. Also, it seems I have absolutely no control on who is drawn.

If this man was a true blue stalker case, then he would not have been the first.

On another occasion while crossing a road junction in China town area, I noticed another man this one in his late twenties, giving me the same look from the other side of the road junction just when the traffic man turned green. I chose to ignore him and walked across the road in the opposite direction as he did. Logically it should have been the last time, our paths should ever see again for that day at least. Strangely, it was not 5 minutes before I caught sight of him walking in the opposite direction towards me at level 5 of the building I entered after crossing the road. He had this strange expectant look on his face. Once again, I choose instead to ignore his presence and left level 5 for level 4. Unbelievably, the same person appeared once again right in front of me.

Out of all these encounters that happened, the worst instance was with this 60+ years old grand mama. That day, I was on my way home on a bus after having enjoyed an afternoon of solitude along east coast beach. The grand mama boarded the bus along Aljunied area, caught sight of me and immediately sat right in front of me to start a conversation. She was asking all sorts of questions and sprouting all sorts of nonsense.

Out of politeness, I patronized her with conversation and that was the start of all troubles that was to brew over the horizons. She was a fanatic, a cultist from some strange branch of Christianity who called themselves Messianic Christians. It was not two weeks before an uproar happened at home. My mum came home with an ultimatum never to talk with strangers again. My dad came home chuckling at the strange adventures his son inevitably gets into. My brother came home absolutely pissed off by the strange conversation he was subjected to at the stairway with some strange 60+ year old lady he had never in his life encountered before. My brother took 3 bibles (one of them the Messianic version) and threw them down the rubbish chute… Ouch!

Well how I got the 3 bibles are in themselves a very strange side adventure to this main adventure I just described. It so happened I was in SMU with Pasha attending some geek seminar, when she bombarded my phone stating there was something important she needed to pass me. The seminar ended at 7pm the bunch of us, techies were thinking of heading over to Chjimes for a drink. Unsurprisingly there she was waiting right at the door with her 3 bibles. Somehow I sense her intentions were something other than just holy. I shifted her attention to Pasha, who got somewhat annoyed really fast. Coming up with a better solution, I shifted her attention to another strange chap who somehow or inexplicable reasons got drawn into my company during the seminar. Aha… like meets like. I beat a hasty retreat to Chjimes immediately.

Enough with strange ones, now back to the normal crowd… The other day while having a drink with Terence a friend of Wayne, we happened to discuss on the topic of drinking and this strange symptom of rashes I have been experiencing recently on the mornings after my heavy drinking escapades. The conversation lead to the frequency of my drinking and this third party observation by him. The conversation went like this..

“so how often do you head out?” Terrence asked.

“There is usually a maximum interval of 2 to 3 days before my phone rings and I get some invites.” I replied

“You mean you don’t ever call?”

“Nope. Only if there is someone whom I am feeling really interested in having a conversation with.”

“wow… you are quite popular then.” He stated.

“Really? I never thought of myself that way. It is strange that it is even happening in the first place.” I commented.

Yeah it was strange indeed, I recalled back 3 to 4 years ago, my phone would ring of its own accord with social invites every 6 to 7 days intervals. This cycle has of late shortened by 50 to 70%.

When I posed this question to my mom one evening, her response went like this.

“Well, you appear to be one of the more carefree ones around who didn’t seem too busy with a family. So if people do ask you out, the success rate would be higher than average and they don’t have to worry about causing quarrels within families which usually happens when people get married. ”

This did provide a valid explanation for the normal crowd. It however could provide no explanation at all for the strange ones… In my opinion, to find out the source of this inexplicable drawing effect, it is important to go through a process of deductive experimentation and reasoning. This means to identify all possible factors that might contribute to this effect and one by one removing them from the equation and thereafter observe if such a deduction creates a drastically different outcome. In the event, whereby such a factor is identified (if it does even exist at all), I would have effectively harnessed the ability to control this strange effect I am causing in the social fabric around me and employ it to good use, perhaps just for personal entertainment…

Why is that out of all the 52 weeks available in a year, 4 clients commission their project and another 2 clients seek for technical support all within this second week of July. One friend is coming to visit Singapore another is already in Singapore.

I hypothesis that the world we live in is not static but ruled instead by a cosmic tidal. This should explain the Murphy law phenomena I observed, aka 80% of all significant events happen within 20% of the time span around us.

My effort engaged in the establishing of such boundaries is hogging up resources that could be better spent else where.

Our recent adoption of workflow modeling coupled with hand drawn illustrations has proven extremely successful in providing the required level of clarity between us and potential clients prior to the commissioning of any project to ensure against any complications during the software development cycle.

Turn around time for projects handled via such a process and methodology is even shorter compared to the turn around time for projects handled via the original methodology employed by the company at the start of the year. Development cycle has thus been shortened from a one month period to a two week period.

Recently while further digging into the methodology employed by Bosh, my brother’s company, I realized Bosh has been employing the use of UML extensively.

Just a moment ago while sitting in front of my computer and watching the first episode of Karei-naru Ichizoku (a drama about Japanese Conglomerates in the post WWII era) I had a sudden stroke of inspiration. For my next project, I will attempt to do an experiment. Around half of the UML document set has to do with the business modelling, while the other half of the UML document set has to do with technical modelling. I will attempt to tap on the analytical abilities on my counterparts overseas by just sending them the business modelling part of the UML document and ask instead they send me the technical document part of the UML document. I will be able to check and correct any problems in their programming architecture before they proceed to implement those documented changes in the systems to be worked on. Should this newly conceived methodology work as hoped, I will have thus relieved myself of one major bottleneck in our company’s operating process.

This would also imply that the company would be able to further expand its through put volume. This would also mean a clear cut separation of system architectural work from software development work. This should make possible the kind configuration I have in mind for the eventual full time employees in the company, a team that does not involve its resources with programming – commodity.

It felt great to be feeling stinging pain for once from the parts of my skin afflicted recently with this strange bout of rashes instead of the unbearable itch that occurs at night and during some parts of the day. I am still attempting to find out the cause for this rash which started more than 2 weeks ago on my way home from West Coast beach. There are two possible causes I could think of.

1. Skin allergy resulting from the recent hot and humid weather condition
2. Skin allergy resulting from a high level of accumulated toxin in the system due to past three months of excessive alcohol consumption and late night supper

Nevertheless, the cause should become more apparent as I reduce my social drinking.

While enjoying the pain, my mind happened in the direction of work, or rather the quality of work. It occurred to me there might be a contradiction somewhere in the equation.

Profitability in the short run has a negative correlation to the quality of work produced, while continued survival in the long run has a positive correlation to the quality of work produced.

Examined in terms of the IT field, a solution is proposed to fix a short term problem without much regard to its long term implications on future business growth. Evolution of the solution to cater to the needs of future business growth would thus be more expensive than otherwise.

Such a situation could actually be the effects of an inevitable cost transfer across time. The client has limited budget but attempts to accomplish a lot during the initial phase. The vendor attempts to fulfill the current requirements but bounded by the law of scarcity cannot build a solution that caters well to both current requirements and possible future expansion. The difference between the cost charged and the actual cost of the required system is thereby transfered down the pipeline. The client is charged for the structural modification required to the existing solution to cater to the new requirements the client has in mind.

There is a contrast between profitability and survival. Being profitable is a subset of surviving, but surviving does not equate by default to being profitable. A company that makes enough profit to break even and continue operation within an industry is a survivor, however such a company cannot be said to be a profitable company.

So a professional company might not be in fact a profitable company, while a profitable company might not be a professional company. A company that has been surviving for ample number of years might have been providing professional services during those years. A newly started company that focuses on profitability might not have been providing the most professional of service. However a company that consistently focuses on profitability instead of providing professional service, might have problems surviving in the long run due to the negative sentiments accrued to it.

The notion of cost savings they acquire during the consultant sessions inevitably leads to stimulation of their imagination. This is often followed by increase in proposed project scope which ultimately causes project costing to blow out of their budget range.

What needs follow thereafter is a process of reining their over stimulated imagination tying their infinite wants back to the resources they have available.

The morale of the story: Humans tend to have infinite wants however the law of scarcity inevitably rules.

If scaling up of operations results in a corresponding drop in the quality of work, then it will be unwise to scale up. The key thus to a successful scaling up of operations level is in creating an operating process within the company that fulfills three requirements:

1. Maintain, if not increase, quality of output

2. Increase volume of output

3. Maintain, if not increase, profit margin levels without corresponding increase in sales unit price of service.

The upper bound in terms of operating volume is  function of the barrier to entry against new competitors. This factor in the equation has a negative coefficient.

Efficiency and effectiveness of the operating process that will need to come into existence has a positive coefficient.

The chief executive’s ability in terms of leadership, salesmanship and analytical abilities has a positive coefficient.

Explained in layman terms, for factors with a positive coefficient, the greater is the value of the factor, the greater is the output of the function. Vice versa, the greater the value of the factor with a negative coefficient, the lesser is the output of the function.

Examined using this abstract framework brings to light one of the major weakness in this current situation. The chief executive has had no corporate experience.

Major effort needs to be put into the following if better results are to be visible.

1. More research into operating processes being used by the market leaders in this industry
2. More effort into building up the leadership qualities of the chief executive
3. More effort into building up the salesmanship qualities of the chief executive

If one subscribes to the Darwinian theory of evolution, further efforts towards building up the analytical abilities of the chief executive will be futile. Analytical abilities is a function of the Intellectual Quotient (IQ). IQ is an external manifestation of genes that has been predetermined from birth.

Salesmanship and leadership are thus important qualities that a leader will need to cultivate in order to attract the cooperation of talents to the company mission. Talents is defined as people with specific innate abilities or skill sets that the chief executive has not, or should not expend further resources cultivating within himself.

An extensive research into all public companies listed on the SGX and Dow Jones and Nasdaq might shed some light unto the market leaders in different industrial sectors providing more clues as to future directions.