What do you mean when you say that University education has limited value? Do you have any plans to work around that fact?

Okay, actually limited is an unfair a term to use. Technically it’s unlimited, but it’s relatively limited in my eyes- the same way, for instance, there are an unlimited number of points in 1m, and an unlimited number of points in 2m, but you know 2m has more points than 1m.

It’s expensive. I feel kind of guilty spending that amount of money (which doesn’t belong to me) for something that seems to be nothing but a default rite of passage.

I’d say acquiring knowledge and wisdom through university is the same as having fun at a club or getting enlightenment at a church- it’s possible, but a bit predictable, common, and a little bit “overpriced”.

But would you go through university regardless? Or are you exploring other options? Hell yeah at the overpriced bit. No kidding.

I don’t really want to because I don’t like the costs, I would go in a heartbeat if I got a full scholarship.

I feel a bit scammed, lol.

It’s the ultimate scam. Academia is even a better scam than banking. Banking we have started to unravel. Academia we take for granted. Healthcare probably comes close behind…

It’s probably an unintended scam, though. One that just developed on its own due to different social and cultural and economic forces and now becomes ingrained in our thinking.

There’s no central planner underlying it, just a vast collective of individuals looking out for their own interests. That’s the greatest conspiracy theory of all, isn’t it? There’s no villain. All of us are the villain collectively. The conspiracy is that there’s no conspiracy. We just always need someone to blame.

I wouldn’t call us the villain…

Dum dum dum!!!! Not us as individuals. Rather, the systems that emerge from our imperfections.

It’s just something that has grown and evolved to another dimension that our perception has not caught up to it yet, almost like a visual trick.

Yes. I like this thought experiment where you think of our institutions as separate life forms.

i’m troubled though, by the lack of a systematic alternative.

Imagine businesses are living things- it’s not hard to do. Then think about the fact that businesses fail about a hundred times more than human beings do- so through variation and selection, they evolve much quicker.

So if businesses were living entities- it’s not hard to imagine that they’re more highly evolved than us- businesses have learnt to exploit human weaknesses more effectively than humans have learnt to defend themselves against businesses.

So we are all the pets, servants and slaves of big business, which is theoretically the more evolved life form.

You could also apply the same principle of failure and evolution to the personal level. of course that’s intuitive in PRINCIPLE, but in practice there’s a lot of further hangups
egos and fears, for instance. And self delusion lol GUILTY as fuck.

That’s what philosophers try to deal with. Nietzsche and others. Man as a bridge between animal and ubermensch.

What are your plans, though? are you still going to take uni as a default? and figure shit out from there?

Anyway as for University, I’m thinking of approaching it the same way I do church and clubbing. Figure out the individual constituents that matter take every single element of a university education that is valuable and find a superior substitute at lower cost and put it together as part of a cohesive whole. And maybe document the process, write a book/blog and use it as leverage, a selling point.

I won’t get a government job that way but that’s not what I’m interested in, anyway.
I’m working with the assumption that there are people in the private sector who are mature and intelligent enough to recognize value when they see it. Even so I plan to work WITH others, not FOR them, and ultimately I plan to work for myself, so that’s a risk I can comfortably take.

So for example- if you talk about a community of intellects, I’ve built that from scratch with (n_n)/. So I don’t need that. So I’m looking to find the other substitutes. A curriculum, for instance. Mentor figures.

What do you mean? Do you mean you want to systematize the process? Like a kind of self-help system? You do realize that such a system will always evolve, right? Am I still getting through?

Oh, by systemize I simply mean to put together various components into a cohesive self-enriching whole.

I liked what you said about businesses, though is there any way around it? I mean, businesses will ALWAYS evolve faster than individuals, right? And I don’t think they necessarily exploit human ‘weakness’… I don’t think you’re wrong, but there’s something very binary about that. Even though its true on many levels. 

I just finished my signal course, now I’ve got 18 weeks of stay-out life before I ord- during that time I plan to initiate (already have, actually) a series of projects of various sorts that I will integrate into a greater whole.

I see. It’s kind of fascinating, what you’re doing. At the same time, there’s a certain boldness that intimidates and makes one doubt. but i believe it’s my own doubts speaking, rather than any realistic perception.

By weakness I mean things like impulses- the 7 sins, for instance- impulses to avoid fear, to conquer, to consume, to acquire, to covet. Fashion and the media have got it all figured out, how to tweak us like buttons. Video games, too. But I don’t think it’s hopeless, I think we can outwit them through constant vigilance, conversation, introspection, reflection.

Yes, that’s a possibility.

And I’ve been describing it as a zero-sum battle for the sake of narrative elegance- but really, life is not a I-win-you-lose fight. We can expand the pie, everyone can win.

I don’t think I have the strength, the vision or the willpower to do what you aim to do and that makes me subconsciously resent anyone who tries to claim to be able to do so.

Hahaha! I’m not sure if I do either, but I don’t really see any other way.

This i confess freely lol. But not anymore, I’m trying to weed out such blind spots. because they make me behave like a petulant child, lol.

I appreciate your honesty and candour. Someone’s gotta do it lah, right? Someone’s got to be naive enough to say, “I want to be the next Steve Jobs, Richard Branson.”

Yeah, I suppose. 

And you know, looking around, I don’t see that person. So statistically… I think it’s going to be me. At least, I have a probablistic advantage in the sense that I dare to believe it’s possible. the moment you think it’s not possible, you’re out of the game.

Funny huh, because for an atheist and rational logical person- I’m working entirely based on raw faith here. But the way I see it, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in a world of uncertainty. When all the options are equally absurd, I pick the one that promises the greatest glory.

There’s an element of faith in reason, that it matters at all, and an element of reason in faith, because you can’t move forward if you’re only going to work with what you have. Someone has to dare to try and fail. I look around and I see intelligent people refusing to budge, and ignorant idiots chionging ahead with no idea what they’re doing… And you know what’s especially frustrating- sometimes a small percentage of those ignorant idiots actually make it, through sheer luck and trial and error. The random goblock who asks a hundred hot girls to sleep with him will eventually nail one, while the intelligent, thoughtful, mature and likeable fella who never approaches anyone will make sweet love to his left hand all year.

One of the projects I plan to initiate is to help work with such doubtful people and provoke and compel them to take chances. But to do that first I have to be successful. so it’s no longer just about me- I have to be successful for the sake of every other sad doubtful motherfucker who deserves to be successful more than the cocksure bastards who rule our world.

Hahahaha you’re like a Bodhisattva. Appreciate the thought. VISA IS DOING THIS SO I NO LONGER HAVE TO MASTERBATES! Hahaha. No sarcasm.

Hahahaha! Nah, I’m just another ignorant cockup motherfuck like the rest of us. Just that I figure the loop we stick ourselves in ain’t doing us any good.

Yeah.

You know, after all that philosophizing, i found wisdom in an economist interpreting biology. Natural selection. Everything in the world that is of value- computers, world views, whatever- exists because of variation and selection. Airplanes, political systems, romantic relationships. Things that are really good- go through a lot more variation and selection. Things that are pretty fucked up- usually stagnate. So really, that’s the most fundamental wisdom there is, it’s at the root of life, and the universe- vary and select
problem is- we don’t often acknowledge failures and even if we do, we’re scared to try something different. We’d rather have a low failure rate than a high failure rate with an overwhelming success that makes all the difference.

There’s something about failure, on a very personal level, that frightens me. It’s not a kind of intellectual ‘oh this would make me look bad durrr’ kind of fear. It’s almost… primal.

Yeah, our caveman minds are conditioned to be terrified of it. Because failure 10,000 years ago was unforgivable. If you approached the wrong girl then, you would be clubbed to death by her menfolk. Failure was not survivable then.

So we just… punch through our fears?

Need to recondition ourselves, that’s all. It’s far simpler than we dare to believe. It’s a matter of literal conditioning. Like really really LITERAL conditioning. So literal that us intellectual types refuse to believe it. It’s not a matter of reading about it. It’s about standing up with your head high and screaming that you don’t give a fuck and that you’re going to do it even if you fail. And for the longest time I didn’t take that step because it seemed… juvenile.

In what areas of your life have you taken that step? I understand the principle.

My romantic relationship with my girlfriend, my first band, (n_n)/, my blog…
Actually, everything that I’ve accomplished that I’m proud of. Saying, “This doesn’t really seem rational or makes much sense but fuck it I don’t care I’m going to make it happen.”

It makes sense to me.

And you know, I’m a smoker, and I realize… you don’t become a smoker from smoking one or two cigarettes, or even a pack at one go. You become a smoker from smoking 3-5 cigarettes a day for weeks on end. So you know that fired up feeling you get from your motivational empowering material? You can’t just read them one-off. You have to have a regular daily dosage. Every fucking day. Start and end the day with them. Ii don’t yet do this, but I do it far more frequently than before.)

Something like getting in the right headspace?

Watch the same fucking video until you’ve internalized the entire thing and it speaks to you when you’re stoning doing nothing. Watch this once and you’ll be like “Fuck yeah!” and tomorrow you’ll be back to yourself. But watch it every single day (I don’t lah) and eventually it’ll stick with you, and it’ll influence your decision-making when you need it to most.

It seems SO CHEESY, I know. But really it’s just about that sort of immersion.
That’s how you learn anything- languages, music, smoking, whatever. And I realize- ultimately the difference between success and failure is SO MINUTE! It’s just that last guy that sticks around one last more time, one more minute, etc

What would actually make you happy on a day to day basis? Or, if i frame it another way… what, in your mind, is holding you back from being unstoppably happy?

Actually I am pretty unstoppably happy, lol.

Any tips? I’m getting better, but any advice would be appreciated.

Immersion. Spam like fuck. It’s as simple as that. If you’re intelligent and have self-doubt, you already have what it takes to sieve out the bullshit.

Spam motivational stuff? I’m worried of losing my bearings on reality, in a bizarre way. Like i might headfuck myself.

Yep, that’s what stops us all. In a way that’s what stops me from quitting smoking too.
What if I cease to be myself when I do?

There are times when i’ve delved into belief systems for some holy grail and I’ve had my head so deep in my own ass it wasn’t even funny.

But we are ourselves 24/7, whatever we do. There is no holy grail. Allow your doubts the room to show up, and surround yourself with awesome people you respect and admire. People who’ll keep you in check when you go overboard.

[… we talk some personal stuff, then get to talking about (n_n)/, a group I created on Facebook]

I don’t claim credit for it. I mean, a bit lah. But the idea isn’t mine. People have done it before- the bloomsbury group, the mastermind group, whatever. Nassim Taleb pointed it out. So did Plato. But this group did not exist until i willed it to be so. So I figure that’s what my role’s gonna be. I’m going to be a creator.

Why the symbol for that emote?

Oh, I couldn’t come up with a non-pretentious name. So I figured a symbol can’t be misinterpreted. You can call it “nn” for short, I guess. Sometimes people from the group meet each other on the streets or in school or something and they identify each other by physically embodying the gesture, it’s cute.

[… we talk about our friends…]

Do you know the feeling when you do something and you know you NEED to fail but you don’t want to, but you know on some level that you need to, and you will grow? It’s like you need to get hurt by people, by failure.

I felt that a lot as a musician. Wanted to play big shows, wasn’t ready, went for the auditions anyway, kena embarrassed/fucked big time. But on hindsight, we learnt a lot, and the embarrassment is negligible.

Yeah.. I feel that a lot these days. The solution is just to do it, right?

Yep, fuck care only! Anybody give you shit for it, say hey, i’m trying, i’m learning, give me time. Nobody is born awesome.

Shit. People i’ve always thought were dumb are right! (Semi-kidding.)

Well the real dumb people don’t learn from their failures. They go out and they fail, and they do the same shit.

I used to disdain, ‘just do it’  kind of statements.

It’s actually “Just do it, then record your findings, and then try something different.” If just do it, fail, and do the same thing again- that’s what sucks.

[…]

Which university are you going to?

Haven’t applied. Maybe apply for stuff like NTU english to appease parents. But seriously considering not going at all. I got BBS BBA, S for h2 maths and A for GP. Got turned down by FASS (and am no longer interested in it anyway).

What do you intend to do after you ORD then? I hate to sound like a parent, but I’m genuinely interested to know what you have in mind.

Think i’d want to study something slightly divergent- design, or systems management. I have a general idea of what I want, and I’m going to run a series of projects and allow them to succeed or fail accordingly.

Some ideas I have are:

• To work out and work towards becoming a personal trainer
• Give bass and guitar lessons, become a pub musician for money, record youtube covers, then an album, then develop an online artist persona and sell online
• Start a t-shirt business and organize gigs
• Develop my blog in a focused sense and work towards being the most prominent blogger in singapore next to xiaxue (I believe I can do it)
• Write The Singaporean Novel that does not yet exist
• Develop blueprints for community development a la (n_n)/
• Write and sell ebooks, the first of which will be an elaboration of my 7 sins idea
• A series of semi-academic essays– I’m particularly interested in game mechanics being applied to education and other social systems, and in analysing Singapore’s sociopolitical history in parallel with Plato, Machiavelli and other ancient thought
• Document the entire process so far and distill wisdom and insight from it, and maybe sell it somehow
• When all that is accomplished, once i have a substantial online following, i’ll initiate the legion of heroes project, which will be something like a community-based bottom-up video-game success-coaching thing
• A series of interviews with prominent singaporeans with no clear intention as of yet, a la (n_n)/
• I expect to generate ideas about bottom-up citizen-driven nation-building that’s independent of government
• I plan to develop myself, my immediate peers, my community, my nation- build a sustainable local music scene, and then the broader arts scene
• become a prominent and famous Singaporean and then aim for global influence, shaping internet culture through my blog, twitter, tumblr, etc

Fuck, dude. That’s inspiring shit, if you could in some way change social order for the better. I’d love to help, if one day it evolves to a point where there’s someway I can contribute.

In a sense by asking me about it, you already have. Along the way I will have to build teams and communities and self-sustaining entities.  (n_n)/ is prototype 0.1. I plan to initiate a series of such communities and spread it like a virus.

You sound like a modern day Jesus, lol. As in, your aspirations.

We live in the most exciting times ever. Thinking and dreaming small does not serve the world. I dare to say that I want to be bigger than Branson and Jobs. Realistically speaking I probably will not be. But hey, I said it, I will continue to say it, and I plan to live as if it is to be, and I believe that choice will lead me in a direction that would be preferable to “Ahh shucks, I don’t know.” Inverse paranoia! because cynicism is so yesterday.

Cynicism is so yesterday. I like that line, I might actually use it on myself.

Do it! Even if I never accomplish anything, hell, I’m going to infect other people and make them do it for themselves.

Is it wrong for me that I don’t have such big dreams?

Nah it’s fine. Small things can be all it takes to give you lasting peace and happiness. I sometimes wish I could think small. A happy marriage, lovely kids, a comfortable home, beer and cigarettes with friends from time to time, ah, that is bliss.

But… something gnaws at me from the inside. A few hundred years ago I might call it divine providence. A voice telling me that I’m destined for greater things, that I have a duty to fulfill beyond myself. Because I have been given the opportunity to see things in a way that not many other people see, a unique middle ground that not many people cover.

Of course I won’t actually use that sort of language in public discourse, nor do I SERIOUSLY believe it. But hey, if it’s something I can tell myself to compel me to do something greater than I am doing today, then I’ll do it, why not. Life is too short.

I don’t mean I want those homely, domestic things, though they are nice, and I don’t see why anyone would put them aside – it’s just, I don’t see my dreams following the same trajectory as yours.

You must find your own path. There’s no one road, we must not be the same. If we all wanted the same thing, the world would be worse off for it.