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ideology
  • May 21, 2019
  • 2 Comments

Universal ideology?

Some thoughts that have been brewing in my head for a while. I want to write them down, partly to help myself articulate my thoughts, but also to see if netizens have anything interesting to say. — Politics and the way the world is organised (i.e. into nation states) are inherently nationalistic. However, the biggest […]

election
  • November 11, 2016

Post US Election Reflections of a non-American Citizen

The result of the US elections has shaken me to my core. I am surprised by my own reaction and the heartache I am feeling about the election of a country that is not even my own. I have been trying very hard to figure out the source of my disquiet and disappointment. I have […]

footprint
  • November 29, 2015

Why We Can’t Solve Big Problems

A question that I have been mulling over: why are the biggest innovations in the past decade so pathetically meaningless? Is Facebook or Snapchat the best we can do? Peter Thiel says it best:  “We wanted flying cars—instead we got 140 characters.” We are living in the best of times for innovation, at least theoretically: no […]

love
  • March 30, 2015

Let’s Talk About Love

“You complete me.” Jerry Maguire uttered those words and swept legions of female off their feet. Why is it that human beings seek their other halves? What is it that maintains and fortifies the bond between two people? What is this mystic power that dictates our longing to be ‘completed’? Why do we love? Why […]

basics
  • July 9, 2014

Back to Basics

At a certain point in the startup journey, a founder might pause and ask him/herself this question: “What a minute. Am I doing the right thing?” It is so easy to jump right into the process of building an MVP without properly validating the need for the solution. In the heat of the moment when […]

Disconnection
  • February 15, 2014

Disconnect

Creators of things are people like anybody else. They have flaws, often major flaws, like anybody else. They are nevertheless often able to create art that is moving, meaningful, emotionally involving, satisfying, and beloved. This is a very strange alchemy that doesn’t really make much coherent sense. Humans create art that is better than they, […]

equal
  • February 8, 2014

Does a More Equal Marriage Mean Less Sex?

A very interesting piece on the power dynamics of modern relationships. Isn’t it intriguing that the things that contribute to a progressive (i.e. more equal and balanced, or the so-called ‘peer marriage’) relationship are often inconsistent with what drives our libido and makes our knees weak with desire for our partners? On an emotional level, “kindred […]

The DWYL-inspired apartment of designer Jessica Walsh.
  • January 30, 2014

Do What You Love?

  Interesting piece in Slate.com: In the Name of Love DWYL is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment. […] DWYL is, in fact, the most perfect ideological tool of capitalism. If we acknowledged all of our work as work, we could set appropriate limits for […]

photo-day
  • January 10, 2014

Christmas Reading

I spent a huge chunk of my xmas break on Chris Arnade’s tumblr page. He is a wall street banker turned photographer. He photographs addicts and prostitutes in Hunts Point, New York. It left me feeling simultaneously sad, indignant, baffled and mostly incredibly grateful for my own fortunate life. One thing that stuck with me after […]

xmas
  • December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas?

Most of us 99-percenters couldn’t even let our dogs leave a dump on the sidewalk without feeling ashamed before our neighbors. It’s called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t […]

malaysia
  • August 31, 2011

Motherland

You are messy. You have bad habits and bad manners. You bite the hands that feed you and make questionable decisions. You act like a buffoon sometimes and sulk if nobody is laughing. You are impulsive, immature and insensitive. Despite all your flaws, kinks and imperfections, I just can’t seem to get you out of […]

labyrinth
  • August 10, 2011

Ruffling

Have you ever faced an invisible wall? That’s how I feel now. Confinement. Constraints. Restrictions. Invisible because they are all in my head. Trapped in a hypothetical space shoddily built upon some flimsy but stubborn and evasive tissues and transported by erratic neurons. All the toughest decisions in life, all my ponderings and agony. You […]