Are you a pro-crastinator?

I read an article about procrastinating, and it rings a bell in myself. Or should I say, the hypothesis seems to be right.

Here’s a summary of the main conclusions from all the studies discussed:

1. To avoid procrastinating on a task, focus on its details and use self-imposed deadlines.
2. To stick to a task, while actually carrying it out, now it is beneficial to keep the ultimate, abstract goal in mind.
3. When evaluating progress on a hard task, when the chance of failure is high, stay focused on the details of the task.
4. Once tasks are easier or the end is in sight, a more abstract, goal focus is once again the psychological approach to choose.

So this article helps identify the unseen processes that occurs in our heads. How some people seem very motivated, perhaps is also shown that there is some essence of truth in the article.

And while I tend to agree with the article with procrastination, I also think that this is only one of many contributing reasons for procrastination or not.

Chipping off the same block

They say the children will imitate their adult role models. Most commonly, the sons their father, and daughters, their mum. It is perceived that sons see their father as a template of how to be an adult. Of course, the course of human nature is invariably flexible, a son who hates his father for being harsh, might become extremely gentle, or might just turn out just as harsh in the end.

I am a chip of the older block as well. I find that my behaviour is very much like both my father’s and my grandfather’s. The stubborn streak to not want to own up to my own problems come from my grandfather. The way I present facts and information, the strictly no-nonsense approach, comes from my dad. The presentation of a humble learner comes from my grandfather. The intellectulization of situations and problems to explain the pain away comes from my dad.

I have inherited interesting skills and behaviours from my own father and grandfather. I wonder how much more of their influence is on me.

we cannot control…

There is the idea of external control and internal control.

I would love to think about what I want to do, and do what I think, but it is never so simple, isn’t it?

Imagine someone putting a gun to your head and telling you to relax.

Think about the day that you want to sleep, but you can’t think yourself to sleep.

What about the time you told yourself not to be nervous?

We cannot control many things about our lives.

Injury

You would think that doing parkour would result in much injuries, or even fatalities. Fortunately, people who learn parkour learn the art of moving progressively, which means that you attempt something within your means, and move on gradually up the slope of difficulty.

It is like carrying 50kg bench press weights, and then gradually moving up to the heaviest that you can carry. That way, you actually condition your body to take the strain before you actually do the difficult one.

What I love about parkour is, it is fun. Second, parkour is one the sports that forces you to focus on the process of the training. Wait, maybe other sports do that as well. Maybe I am being biased, yet at the same time, I think that because it is FUN, there is a bigger incentive for me to work through the stages progressively, being very focused on the process, so that I will enjoy the ’stunts’.

I must say that I am a novice at this sport. Yet, I enjoy the little things about it, learning the roll, precision jumping, monkey vaulting. Sure I would like to do stunts, sure I like to do the fancier-looking moves. I think it is important to be responsible also.

By the way, I got injured while training. I pulled my left shoulder while doing chin-ups. Almost nothing to do with any parkour moves. Go figure.

Ship of friends

Talking to a friend regarding friendships is about. An interesting notion floated up.

Friendship are perhaps relationships that could be put ‘on hold’,. For example, like a very close friend goes abroad for 2 years, and when he comes back it sort of resumes back to ‘normal’ where things sort of just left off, with more details and events in between.

Perhaps this is because in a social relationship like friendship, the intimacy level is not very high, and therefore things are kept at a level 3 of relationships (i.e. sharing of opinions and ideas).

However, in a marriage, where relationship should develop towards a level 5 (i.e. sharing of beliefs + emotions + many more), there is really no ‘on-hold’ situation, because of the deep intimacy involved. Thus, marriage relationships are either towards a better marriage or towards a legal divorce situation.

Interestingly, a counsellor gave a talk and said that marriage and divorce are never singular events, they are but continuum of a process that is milestoned by instituitionalization of laws of the land.

Being

There is always this striving to be me about me. Sounds almost paradoxical, yet I perhaps am loss, and do not know the difference being me and doing me.

That aside, I bought my first CD in a long while from HMV. It was only $7.95. I purchased this CD so that I could hear the works and the pristine voice of Corrine Bailey Rae.

I also bought a book that cost me quite a tidy sum of $41.00 from Borders bookstore. A book that I have sort of been looking to purchased.

It was a good day.

gut feeling

ugh.. eh…egad!

Benjamin Button

I like this movie. Everything sounded nice and civil on the surface, yet the turmoil of emotions is in the under current.

I don’t know if Cate or Brad had strong performances, but the cinematography was breathtaking. Sentimentalism hangs heavy in the air.

Update:

I watched the show a second time. Yes, I thought it was good time spent. What I liked about the show:

1. The soundtrack of the show was appropriately mixed into the movie.
2. The issue of perfectionism vs. reality was brought to the surface even though ‘perfect golden boy’ Brad Pitt and ‘the other perfect woman’ Cate Blanchett were acting opposites each other.
3. Portrayal of loss and grief made the movie a lot more real than most.
4. The introduction to the story of Benjamin Button and the epilogue of the show.

The show was about 2 hours 46 minutes. It felt like Tom Hank’s Forrest Gump, only that there seemed a lot more realism in it, despite the fact that the protaganist aged backwards.

It was really interesting and odd to see that the body aged backwards while the mind aged according to time.

If you have read the short story, and loved the short story and wonder if the movie is anything like the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is nothing like what he wrote. So you will be disappointed.

What else can I say? Probably worth getting the DVD for myself.

working it out

It is a good work out. Using the urban landscape to find things to do, obstacles to conquer. While a bunch of my friends are doing boxing, I am doing something that fits me.
The ‘monkey’ in me is coming out with this activity. I hope I can scratch my back tomorrow morning.

bass

I am back to playing bass. This was the first instrument I actually took pains to learn to master when I was 17 years old. It started out with a torino red Yamaha Attitude bass, then to various different basses, till I lost interest in playing, and was more interested in collecting basses.

Such was the sad state of affairs. I remember when I started playing bass in school, no one wanted to play bass. I reasoned that if I really took bass playing seriously, I would be playing in bands, no problemo. Simple reason: No one else plays bass!

Of course, the bands in my school were excited that someone was willing to take the lower frequencies. Of course, I had no idea what I was going into. Then I started learning songs from Nirvana, Metallica, Candlebox, Pearl Jam and many others. Yeah, some of these bands should date my age. Heh.

Gig after gig, I had no idea what I was doing. But everyone thought it was fine, besides, most of them don’t pay attention to the bassist in the band anyway. In any case, I decided to shave my head when the band thing was getting bigger in school. Friends started calling me Chinese Flea, which was a compliment, and that was when I got into Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Then I heard Blood Sugar Sex Magick, and wanted to buy all their albums. I was hooked. The bassist was funky and funny. His playing showed his musical sense and sense of humour. I loved this guy called, Flea.

I started idolizing him. I couldn’t play his bass lines, but I wanted to get a MusicMan Stingray. When I saved up enough finally (which did not mean that my playing was any better, in fact it still pretty much sucked), Flea got endorsed by Modulus. He currently is still using that Modulus FleaBass, it was cool that he finally got his signature, but it was not cool that where I lived did not have Modulus guitars then.

On top of that, the Fleabass was way beyond the Stingray budget. Sigh.

Now, I recently found out that Flea plans to release his own brand of Fleabass for the benefit of children and youths who cannot afford their own bass. Flea says that he got out of drugs and the streets because of music, and he wanted to make sure that that opportunity was out there for the youths. He said that he has a bit of money and is willing to do this.

I am excited. I think I will want to get this bass. It comes in different colours. I think I will go for the blue or the orange one. Check it out here.

Thanks Flea!