Tag: T_paradox

Y ctbz plann4 NY↔SG trips #w1r1

Posted on by tiger40490

My 15 to 20 roundtrips constitute a rich reservoir of real experiences, involving many decision and lessons.

k_ctbz

By default, the same flight would inflict

  • either huge $cost in terms of biz class seat
  • or heavy stress on my “system”

My ctbz provided big savings on $cost and wellness. Looking back, I think my planning was (extremely) elaborate:

  • I learned from experience and optimized on transport cost, to the extreme. eg: I remember pulling 3-piece luggage on the street of White Plains..I had no choice but pull 2 pieces at a time.
  • Unable to sleep while sitting up, I learned from experience and optimized rest before and after the long leg of the connected flight.
  • I learned from experience and optimized/maximize the amount of family time, usually 9 days +/-. Also minimized forgone billing.
  • .. Many would point out that contractors are unlucky as we can’t afford to take these unpaid leaves, but looking back I have no regrets.
  • I learned from experience and optimized for tech learning, workout/stretch (dangerous?), blogging on the trip. I hand-picked reading materials for carry-on. See Q2.
  • I had to prepare for temperature change throughout
  • ^^^ Overall, I score myself 98 marks on ctbz/optimization and planning

Q3 (paradox): why did I /endure/ so much suffering [lost sleep, stress, headache..] , when I (supposedly) had a basic ffree and carefree ezlife?
A: I wanted to keep my U.S. job while keeping my GC alive. Without the GC, without the U.S. as alternative to SG, I would lose one major defense/cushion for family livelihood.
A: SG job market was/is tough and very limited. It has major impact on family well-being (beyond livelihood). In my previous SG jobs, I had work hazards in the form of traumatic experiences, deep scars, low self-esteem, job insecurity.

So the elaborate planning was part of the grand total cost of setting up my 2nd base i.e. the U.S. (SG being home base). This grand total cost covers IB4US and c++US periods. “Headache” is a common phrase to describe the elaborate planning but actually tongue-in-cheek.

Paradox –> My carefree ezlife was not so adequate, so comfortable after all. I still needed to sacrifice quite a bit for my family’s future.

Q2: what’s the total non-financial cost of each trip? Lost sleep, physical fatigue for sure.
A: I had lots of fun on each trip, starting from the night before. My elaborate planning was kinda active learning by experiment.
A: I had heightened/elevated motivation for tech learning on the trip.
A: I had some workout on the trip, too.
A: I needed to take precautions to avoid many common missteps, but the stress profile was kinda mixed positive/negative

Y(only white)native speakers sound sophisticated

Posted on by tiger40490

k_soul_search

eg: James Bond always sounds (sexy and) sophisticated, partly based on accent. Many male protagonists in American movies are like that.
eg: [[off the rail]]
eg: the featured interviews on MLP intranet. The native speakers sound more sophisticated.

Consider a male China-born immigration lawyer , or architect, SWE, (various) designer,,,, who came to the U.S. at age 25. He can be competent/effective/proficient in English professionally [in office, with clients, in meetings, over phone]. However, a less-educated local American would be more fluent orally.

Actually, 1) personal insight 2) vocab are the foundations beneath 3) articulation and 4) accent, when we meet a sophisticated speaker.

(1) includes knowledge, education, socioeconomic status,,

I think cool confidence is a key ingredient. With cool confidence, one can really slow down, which enhances articulation. Somehow, Singaporeans seldom have that sophistication, esp. in slow-n-steady articulation and accent. Some local professionals (such as secretaries or receptionists) learned a sophisticated accent, but they lack a sophisticated vocab.

To develop a sophisticated vocab, you first _need_ a rich oral vocab.

— Q: Why do the interview video clips sound 3x more sophisticated than audios, which sound 10x more sophisticated than transcripts?
I guess the dress, the hairstyle, the facial expression all add to the sophistication

— Q: There are millions of native English speakers in Nigeria, the Caribbean, Singapore/Malaysia, predominantly non-white. Why do they not sound sophisticated?

— Q: do you want to PP) sound sophisticated to (subtly) impress people or you want to YY) sound sophisticated to feel good about your own English skill?

Admittedly, (YY) depends on (PP) at some fundamental level, but I often feel I don’t have to impress everyone around me. There are many categories (won’t enumerate) of “people” whom I don’t need to impress. I want to sound slow, articulate, concise, with a good vocab.

However, even if you meet all of those requirements but lack a native accent, you will fail (YY), because most of the “people” judge you by skin color and regional accent.

with%%well-protected livelihood, y FOMO[def1] high-flyers

Posted on by tiger40490

k_X_FOMO_v_livelihood

See also

  1. ffree ^ envy+FOMO has a similar theme
  2. other blogposts under T_FOMO^livelihood
  3. 4 def@sucess provides a framework. In this framework, we feel the FOMO pressure/drive because we have yet to achieved (enough) success.
  4. ##wrong priorities@ deathbed|wellOff 

Case study: Jiang.Zhu is an unknown LeadEngineer figure that I last met in 1991. Both him and the Fenix CTO are largely unknown personalities, so my mental pictures of them are imagined/fabricated content fitted onto a half-skeleton. My team lead U.P is someone I know much better. He explained that out of 10 things about the firm, he was happy about 7, and the other 3 are important. He gave one example about “select me as a front runner”. I guess in these individuals, there is still a lot of untapped potential, a lot of drive, ambition. Compared to them, I probably look “lazy” (but how about zqbx?)

Jolt: Similarly to my “laziness”, my son may look lazy. In contrast, at age 13 I was more disciplined, more motivated, more ambitious than him.

Lazy or not, at my age whenever I look out towards the deathbed I feel the visible signs of success are ultimately unimportant.

Case study: Consider JackZ and Raymond’s situations. At my age and economic level, what endeavors are really strategic?
1) wellness lifestyle improvements like yoga, sustainable diet habits, BMI
2) dev-till-70 accu, plowback,,, including QQ and CIV
? academic parenting? No. I prioritize motivation, bonding, coaching, self-discipline
? prepare for relocation to U.S. including car ownership, burn rate control

I have a well-protected livelihood thanks to

  • SG Citizenship; wellness; family harmony
  • low burn rate; diversified income-generators
  • dev-till-70 career longevity, based on lifelong learning attitude
  • — beyond the G5:
  • globalization reducing basic cost of living
  • retirement destinations in MYS etc

Q: so why do I still envy those supposed “peers” who now earn more? Why do I need higher incomes?

— A: there are job positions where you can earn more without sacrificing lifestyle. You would need something (luck? skill?) to get into those positions….. Clearly I still want to earn more. Am not a Buddhist monk.
— A: financially disqualified — some exclusive “clubs” would reject me, my kids, or my family.
— A: basic livelihood (part of successE) is easy to achieve, but beyond that, FOMO, deprivation are deep-rooted fears in most people. They drive us to lifestyle creep towards fancy luxury, the new inventions of the last decade + bigger houses + top schools.

see the blogpost on khmer villagers and a reasonable minimum standard.
— A: (An indirect definition of) FOMO/FOLB/kiasu is in the Singapore DNA. I see FOLB in the unfolding story of SG as a nation.
Many government departments, mainstream media, mainstream schools … are often funded to promote adoption of new technology, new products/services.

I often say the biggest economic engine in the U.S. economy is technology improvement, evolutionary or revolutionary, far beyond digital technologies. Japan, Korea, Taiwan are often seen as competitive economies exactly due to their high-tech manufacturing sectors.

So a lot of national economies may grind to a halt if without new fancy offers esp. new technologies.

The steam engine was arguably the first in a series of new technologies to revolutionize world economy. Can you boycott this FOMO, in the spirit of Buddhism?

This also explains why we envy the start-up “legends” like Jiang.Zhu (whom I don’t even know)?

— Q: why envy the ex-peers who moved up like Siddesh, CSDoctor etc

A: brank, OC-effectiveness… are /potent/ symbols of power, success, admiration. Income is one element. If we only look at income then … not so potent, not so enviable.

— Q: why envy the lawyers (Zi Yang) or doctors (TTSH ENT specialist)

A: I told my son 人往高处走.. SuccessC/E. We parents want our kids to have (extrinsic?) motivation, with some FOMO.

A: life chances. More income means more life chances for my kids. But is this a 无底洞?

— burn^rot .. Somehow I feel a pressure to work harder (burn) and close the gap in terms of FOLB. If I ignore the gap, I feel like rotting. I feel those high-flyers are more “burning” — working harder on income/wealth. However, I doubt their zqbx.

Remember burn is basically successZ+C

grow`blog2fuxi @@ How2

Posted on by tiger40490

Q: with growing number of worthwhile blogposts. How do I remember their existence?

  • method — promote powerful descriptors
  • method — use abbr and Chinese in titles of those worthwhile blogposts, so as to squeeze in memorable keywords
  • .. Chinese is shorter, but need to provide sufficient English translation to aid search
  • .. convert some hyphenated-phrases to camelCase
  • method — suffix the title with # annotation1 #annotation2
  • method — memory pegs: conversation, question/phrase. Create blogposts.
  • method — mass print-out once a while for DRAM-refresh; keep old printouts.
  • method — prune pre-emptively
  • method — memory pegs: actively use t_fuxi tags, esp. t_fxt

— paradox:

  • (fire-n-forget) keeping a big dairy but without review — inefficient, wasteful, primitive. Tolerable for tech content in the recrec blog.
  • blogg with lots of review — mounting tcost

Strike a balance ! The tcost of refresh is growing with the volume of my blogs. If I don’t incur the refresh tcost, then a lot of the initial effort is quickly lost.. Fast decay.

othRisk^overspenT ^fuxiTitle ^ tcost@DramRefresh #200w

Posted on by tiger40490

In the “open” blog, I will maintain multiple tags related to overthink as the oth risk is highest and more visible in this blog than recrec or tanbinvest blogs

The overspend grows with the blog volume.

— These 3 tags all cover tcost of blogging esp. overthink, over-analysis.

  • overspenT — overall tcost Already overspent, including fine-tuning, critical reviews, dram refresh…
  • tcost@DramRefresh — specifically about dram refresh.
  • … Some of these blogposts have vague titles instead of unique, original content. Consider deletion. Apply t_fuxiTitle
  • othRisk — Risk…. NOT a recorded incident.
  • …. Some othRisk items also have t_fuxi and t_fuxiTitle

See the tag descriptions.

Blog posts in the “log” and “effi” categories are prone to overthink.

— Soul-search and historical reviews
Similarly, most of my t_tectonic/T_defense blogposts are big, sweeping commentaries, not addressing an immediate question/decision.

They tend to get vague titles + too much dram refresh.

Each blogpost often starts with a seed and builds up incrementally. So it can take a lot of laser focus, care and feeding.

In a way, this is similar to the challenge faced by a creative writer (BoRong?)

— eg: bedbug blogposts: I spent hours reviewing bedbug lessons in my blog, years after the traumatic experience. This deep review is crucial. Similarly, After the SARS outbreak and the Asian financial crisis, Singapore government had serios reviews.

FOMO ^ blessings to cherish: +/-ve peer comparison

Posted on by tiger40490

Comparison with the less fortunate makes us grateful (and yes, humble), but I reject endless peer comparison.

Q: How do you square this circle?
A: I don’t have a good short answer. I basically follow the feedback loop — increase those efforts having good result, and avoid actions that proved harmful

  • I actively reject FOMO
  • I actively remind myself to compare with the less fortunate

Given my bare-bones ffree, I feel blessed … when comparing to those (richer or poorer) without ffree. However, my ffree is bare-bones, so I remind myself to avoid benchmarking with the rich.

Compare across, not compare up — a “sound” sound byte?