Ideological Alignment

This is an interview of Malcom Gladwell given by the liberal arts director at High Point University in North Carolina. He's funny, witty, humble, and incredibly insightful.

When I first encountered the book a couple of years ago, The Tipping Point, I had scoffed at the idea of reading a book that tells you how to be successful. Recently, I was given to read The Outliers and I was extremely impressed with how observant and insightful Malcom Gladwell is on social interactions and their meanings. I then obtained that copy of The Tipping Point that I had refused earlier and rather enjoyed reading it as well.

I don't believe in learning how to become "successful" by reading, whether financially or socially, but what I do believe in is reading avoid dogmatism, and this books do exactly that.

There are several key reasons why I enjoy Malcom Gladwell's analysis on social bearings:

1. He's an environmentalist like me. Not environmentalist like I'm hugging the trees, but the belief that we are shaped by our environments. It's the age-old nature vs nurture debate where although it's never one or the other, I do agree with him that a large part of our "personality" are shaped by their social environment.
2. He doesn't preach or push his insights on you. Rather, he presents you with an alternative world view that you can either take or leave. He takes what the general public view is the "norm" and gives you a completely different perspective, and therefore a new concept, of how the world works.
3. He is a great writer. His writing is clear, logical, and well-presented. A+ on rhetoric. 

You are not supposed to walk away from his book with a new hard-fast rules of how to conduct your life, but rather with possibilities of new ideologies that make the world a better place.

Some highlights on this interview:

• "I was privileged to be underprivileged" Outsiders are able to see things differently because they are not acclimated and desensitized to a culture and what people think is the way things should be the outsiders don't see it the same way.
• "If you take care of the little things then it will instill the mindset that makes the big things easier" Steve Jobs is successful because he is a perfectionist with a purpose (not a perfectionist because he's got a disorder). He insists on perfecting the little things around him to fit his overall purpose--he understands that meaning doesn't just come from words or things, but also from all types of seemingly insignificatn actions and inactions around us.
• "Do not, by the way, listen to your ipod when you work...this is insane! I'm sorry, you can't do work, it just can't be done [...] Here is the two findings: number one is that everyone thinks they're great at multi-tasking; finding number two is, no one is." (I feel validated because I cannot work with music) He also mentioned that if you are doing brain-work and working efficiently, you can't work 8 hours a day.
• Wealth is not what it's cracked up to be...a cycle of discovery on your way to being wealthy, money is a conduit, and that's why people work hard all their lives who end up just giving it all away. This is the most profound part of the interview and worth watching.
• "[Leaders] have less in common than what I thought they would. Leadership comes in an astonishing number of forms" The only thing they have in common is energy. Energy can come from passion, from purpose, from drive, or from innate (some people just don't need to sleep as much) but the only thing that help them become leaders is that they never stop.
• "Your personality is a function of what is going around you" <-- environmentalist
• "The idea..that Social Power, which is to say, to be distinguished from economic power, which is the power that comes from money...or political power from institutions, or even institutional power, the power comes from your title. There is a different if not equally more important thing, a power called Social power, an informal way which influence is mediated in the world. Social power is not held equally by all of us; it's held by a small number of us with gifts. Some people have a capacity of social interaction that's way out here...they are enormously important in the functioning of this institution...the people with social power get really good stuff done...a high functioning organization depends on these people...people go to work, school because of the environment and it's these people who create functional environments. Understand where social power lies. Well-functioning societies reward those that do that." I'm not quoting his exact words because the section was so long and so in-depth, but this is one of the ideas that he tries to make us see that we don't usually understand, the idea that social interactions can have just as much, if not more, power, than money, institutions, title.

ABC

Two years ago, not too long after I moved to Boston, through some connection, Adam asked me if I was interested in going to an Ivy League game involving Harvard vs. Cornell. The tickets were going to be bought through a group of Taiwanese-Americans who are organizing the event to cheer on a Taiwanese-American player named Jeremy Lin, who has the potential to be drafted into the NBA. It was a fun event, and one of the girls made a large sign for JLin and as posers, we took pics with it. I have a whole facebook album of the event and some close-up pics of JLin on court, as well as me being interviewed by Taiwanese media on the JLin phenomenon. Even at that point, the Taiwanese media was on top of it, ready to claim him to be the pride and joy of our "country."

It actually occurred to me at that point, I can't remember whether it was a conversation of some sort or I read this somewhere, that a lot of the people that I went to the game with, and Jeremy Lin himself, would correct you when you call them Taiwanese. "Actually, my parents are Taiwanese. I was born in America." They never directly say that they are NOT Taiwanese, nor do they say that they are Taiwanese-American; rather, they point out simply that it is their parents who are Taiwanese. If you were to ask them what their background is, they'd say "well my parents are born in Taiwan, but I'm born in the U.S." --there is simply no label for them.

First, it's important to point out that they are not wrong. I mean, it's a fact that they are born in the U.S., therefore Americans--there's no dispute about it. The question is what it even means to be Taiwanese-American. When someone says a person is African-American, it doesn't mean that the person is from Africa, it simply indicates a race in a politically correct yet in a somewhat distorted way--if you're black and your parents are from Jamaica, are you African-American? But then you never hear people refer someone as "Jamaican-American", though you do hear things like Irish-American, and yet not "Italian-American" (politically anyway). I don't understand this hyphenate American thing enough to have an understanding of when does one get a alternate attachment because it's not just purely "continent-American", "country-American", or in the Chinese case, simply "race-American"---or is it? Does being Chinese-American imply that you're from China or does it imply that your parents are of the "Chinese" race? Is Chinese even a race? Wikipedia tells me that there is no real clear definition from a social construction of different Asian races (Indians are Asians too and Korean is not a race.) So is JLin Taiwanese-American or Chinese-American? Even ESPN couldn't figure it out. At the Vday game last night against the Raptors, the commentator said, "he is the first Taiwanese....er Chinese American...."

Taiwan is neither a race nor a UN recognized country, so Jlin, not having been born in Taiwan, never having visited Taiwan until last year, and not speaking Mandarin well, how can he identify with being "Taiwanese-American"? The easy way out is for him to say he's "Chinese-American" to identify his race as being simply not white or black because, you know, if you claim to be just plainly American, you get white people saying, well of Asian descent, and Chinese people saying, oh you're not proud of your ancestor. On the other hand, if you are anywhere beyond second generation American and white, then you have an easier time not to have to associate yourself with a culture and identity you simply don't identify with. Basically, the point is, if your skin looks anything Asian, to say you're simply "American" is ludicrous in everyone else's eyes.

Interestingly, if you look at all the Canadian-born Asians or whatever other race or country their parents are from, you have no identity problems. All my Canadian-born Chinese friends have no problems saying they're simply Chinese. If anyone I know are asked "what's your background?" It'd be quite simple--- "Chinese" "Korean" "Taiwanese" "Guyanese" "Ukrainian." So put simply, this identity issue is purely an American ideological and assimilation issue, details of which I simply don't have enough interest at the moment to get into.

The second, and probably most important thing I want to point out is the lack of understanding Taiwanese people, and even other Chinese people, seem to have about the American assimilation process. They feel like JLin is Taiwanese or Chinese and they boast about it. Sure you have people everywhere talking about JLin as a phenomenon no matter where you turn your head, but these Taiwanese and Chinese people take it a step further and say that he represents them(!) Let me tell you right here and right now, I've seen his interviews and he does not feel that he's representing anyone, especially not those living on this little island called Taiwan. Every time he gets asked questions like "how does it feel to represent such a large group of people" he skirts around the issue and says things like, well it's my parents who are Taiwanese and I'm just playing ball. The funniest thing is when the Taiwanese politicians want to recruit him to play for the Taiwanese national league--good luck with that. Will Lin's attitude change when he has more interactions with Asian/Chinese/Taiwanese culture and fans? Who knows, but to go around claiming that he's Taiwanese and the "Light of Taiwan" is almost embarrassing. Like one commentator said, you don't see Africans claiming Kobe is the "Light of Africa".

Personally, as someone who is Taiwan-born with a lot of Taiwanese influence as I grew up, my initial reaction to JLin's readiness to shake off his background was a bit of a disappointment. But then as I thought about it, I realized that if he was born and raised in the U.S., and he has never been to Taiwan, and his parents never enforced traditional Asian values on him, why should anyone expect him to be otherwise? Someone said to me that it's his parents' "fault" for the way he is...Why is it a fault to allow your children to live in an environment that's like everyone else's? This idea of having a responsibility to get to know your roots is antiquated and unfair. The more you understand about ANY culture will make you a better person. It is a humanistic responsibility to learn about other cultures, but it is not anyone's responsibility to zone in on a single culture because someone else tells you based on your parents' background and your skin colour that you should get to know something.

Most importantly, JLin's attitude is not disgust towards his background or that he's not proud. He makes very valid points about his background without looking down on anything. Had he went around saying he's Taiwanese, I guarantee you we'd get haters who say JLin is as Taiwanese as Kobe Bryant because he can barely even speak Mandarin and has never been to Taiwan. You can't win. On the other side of the same coin, people who go around saying "I'm proud to be Asian" "Asian Pride" blah blah blah, but know nothing about his or her culture is a lot more appalling to me. Do you even know what you're proud of?

Regardless of where you are born, where your parents are born,where you grew up, where they grew up, the most important thing is about your identity shouldn't be something as superficial as your skin colour and things you can't change, but about being honest with yourself and being a good human being. Be proud of the fact that you have done good things in your life, and not just tout that you're proud of something you can't even control or don't even understand.

Idealistic? Probably. But we gotta start somewhere.

Grammy 2012

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On the Fence:

AC: "Healthy Living"

Matt:  don't u know it's airline policy to have at least 1 crying baby on every flight. they pay the mothers
lynnie : air transat must be losing a ton of money they have like 8 crying babies on every flight
Matt: aha, it's all part of their customer experience, it's a worthy expenditure for them just like how they pay for the flights to not line up with their connecting flights, like, ever
lynnie : who doesnt LOVE extremely long layovers
Matt: exactly. customer service
lynnie: just enough time to fall asleep on the bench, not enough to leave the airport
Matt: or like they're doing u a favor by making u land in terminal 1 at O'Hara and have to get to terminal 3 in 10 min good exercise for you, part of Air Canada's "healthy living" plan

Letting Go

The Buddha said we experience the peace of nirvana by letting things be as they are. Indeed, applying the Beatles' exhortation to "Let It Be" to our lives can bring a lot of serenity and equanimity. [...]

Of course, if it were that easy, we'd all be enlightened by now. 放開--Letting go, letting be, or embodying the Buddhist term "nonattachment" greatly reduces and even alleviates suffering. In fact, it is the goal of Buddhism. Buddha taught that the cause of suffering is craving and attachment. Therefore, letting go of our tight-fisted grasping is in our own self-interest, as it helps erode our wellspring of dissatisfaction and anxiety.

...attachment is like holding on tightly to something that is always slipping through my fingers--it just gives me rope burn. But letting go--nonattachment--relieves the constant, painful irritation. A good example of this is not being able to fall asleep at night because you keep turning something over and over in your mind. It's one of those times when letting go is obviously a necessary virtue, and having some kind of relaxation tool can be extraordinarily helpful.

Scientific research has shown that people who are optimistic and have an ability to accept or let go of negative memories, experiences, and events tend to be healthier and live longer than people who are pessimistic and worry about or try to change things that are out of their control. Indeed, acceptance is actually transformative, and awareness is curative. Sometimes mistaken for passivity or complacency, acceptance has a powerful magic that is actually quite dynamic and creative. Have you ever noticed, for example, how accepting your mate rather than trying to change him or her ends up improving your relationship?

The easiest way to work on letting go and letting be is to notice your tendency to want things to be different from what they are and to practice giving up that strong preference. The Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen sang, "The Way is not difficult for those who have few preferences."

Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/2000/12/Letting-Go-Letting-Be.aspx#ixzz1m2TuZSPJ