Your Alien Brother from Another Mother

Category: value

  • Making Sense of the Pareto Principle

    The Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule, where 20% owns 80% of the wealth. The idea in itself was supposedly applicable in other areas like efficiency, where 80% of the output comes from 20% of the workers.

    While this is applicable to certain scenarios, using it as a catch all can be detrimental. My though about this is, in this world we were meant to serve each other and the higher up we are in the chain, then we have a bigger role to play. To be called “vital” should not be self serving rather it should serve the interest of the people. The world really isn’t in an ideal place right now, arguably people shift things towards their advantage. In this world, certain things are needed in order to move things properly and accordingly, this hurts because often times the interest of one view does not justify the interest of other another’s view. This is similar to what I wrote about earlier in the “Trolley Problem“. The “vital few” often times need to take care of the own tribe first which can be contradicting to the bigger picture. Power and control also play a part, because often we can be persuaded by different things depending on the situation that we are in.

    What happens if we are on the other side of the Pareto principle. Do we just stay still and wait until the 20% dictates what should be done? Maybe yes, if we believe in them even if it complicates all the things in our lives. Maybe no, if we want to move on our own way. In life there are certain boundaries, and we don’t necessarily have the means to cross those boundaries, I mean chance happens to all of us after-all. I think what matters is what we do with what we have, it doesn’t mean we don’t try to broaden our horizons, rather it just means that we hold on to the 20% so that we could better serve the 80%.

  • Reconciling Destiny

    The thought of destiny can be very beautiful, the thought that we somehow we are meant to be where we are. Is it a random chance? Is it so that we can enjoy life as is? If that is the case, how much control do we really have? What if we were born in the slums or a child from a poor family much more an orphan? Is it still destiny?

    Suffering is usually caused by our own mistakes and/or the actions of other people imposed on us, I mean no one wants to suffer right? In life, we don’t need much, if we have clean water, food and shelter then we are good. It is might not be much of a life, but we are living and we could work our way up towards something better so long as we have a choice and say on it. The problem is when we don’t have a say or we are limited by situations, it maybe economic, skills, circumstance or access. The problem lies in the part where people impose or force us to move a certain direction I think suffering is part of discontentment of people. Either we think things are unfair, unjust or we think lowly of other people.

    I struggled and wrestled with the idea of the unfairness of things, I couldn’t think clearly on how I would react if I was in the direst of situations. I mean would you blame an orphan about their current situation, and about not doing enough so he/she could get out of his/her situation? Rather we shift the narrative towards ourselves, our own control on things, how can I help, how can we create an environment that help foster a culture of uplifting. Often times we find ourselves powerless and lacking in options even when the intentions are there. Do we just move along and accept that we cannot do anything about things? Of course not instead we take charge of what we can do on our own and progress in our own ways, like joining a group, volunteering, making donations, etc..

    So what do you tell an orphan about destiny, I think the right answer is to be prepared. Foster that orphan and tell that orphan that it was destiny that lead you to me. Because something has tugged my heart strings to move in order for me to bring you home. I won’t have all the answers and I can’t save all orphans, but I can at least do one small thing in the hopes that others would follow.

  • Believing in Magic and the Supernatural

    If you saw something magical/out of this world and failed to capture it either with video or camera. How do you share it with others? What if it is just a situation like a small drop of rain out of no where, when there is no drizzle or no other source of water in sight. What if God suddenly wants juice while speaking Italian. Outrageous as it may seem certain things cannot be put into words without sounding cuckoo. While thinking about it, I figured you either need to talk with someone wanting to humor you, has a certain level of knowledge or interest in the matter, or have a certain degree of relationship or trust.

    It is almost impossible to believe given how things are now. Logic will counter magic any time. There are a lot of ways to do that, like straw-manning. Maybe humoring someone and sticking out until you know someone well enough is the only way to believe. Yet that is still not true, since what they say might not fall the same way for that person or certain situations could cause them to sway towards the opposing view. It is easy to discredit someone about magic, just say its natural and be done with right? Once we know everything about something then there is nothing to it anymore, no mystery and nothing to talk about. It becomes stale and not interesting anymore. Life can be like that sometimes, once you see all the things that life has to offer then there is nothing to it anymore right. Magic can only happen when we willingly go through the process with little to no expectation. It creates space for the spirit of the unknown to move. Instead of us all moving in different directions. Believing in magic is like being a child that is still at home, trusting in everything that their parent says. Until we step out and see the real things behind those stories. What do we then if we get hold of the truth? Do we then use that magic to reveal or do we keep it at the back of our minds that way the magic isn’t loss?

    Magic is something that was hard for me to believe in. Until we see incredible supernatural things, we settle on the shallow parts of magic without getting to the truth behind it. Yes, innocence plays a part but tricky part is remaining to be innocent while knowing the truth behind it all.

  • The Paradox of Efficiency At Work

    As things get more automated and tools lean towards AI, I was wondering earlier there is something we lose in the process. There is no something for nothing in this world and as we move forward in advancements, what was the price that was taken.

    I then looked back at how ineffective work turned out for me in the past. These created a lot opportunities for improvement but most of all it created something that we could strive for. Going through processes gave chance to get to know working on the other side. Getting a chance to chat about the work, the trouble of how to get things to move. Asking for small work favors in order to get done in a timely manner. Having heated discussions about how bad current process is and what we could do afterwards. I did grow a lot through the years though, I matured to a point where I came to accept certain things while trying to grasp everything that is still under my control. The thing with effectiveness, is that systems become easier and people come to accept status quo. We find little to nothing to improve thus we become relaxed deferring improvement to the hungrier generation. Often times we neglect the fact that the guidance would be coming from us anyway and most of the time the younger generation still looks up to the ones before.

    Work becomes stale, lacking the connection from chance encounters and small talk from asking small favors. We do not get to know the people we are working with and trust fails as soon as we encounter problems. Intention gets misinterpreted and we become more defensive, which causes more disruption than work.

    While the results sound so dire, being effective is also part of who we are. Striving and finding ways to make things easier and effective can help us cause less friction in work and creates better opportunities for people inside and outside the company.

  • A Deciding Factor

    When looking back in the past, we can always see the frame from a wider view. How things were set in motion because of an action and what we could have done better, what things we can do to improve the current situation. This allows us to make the right decisions and help us to stay grounded since we could not fully grasp the all the possible trajectory of each person. We can only estimate things if a person has unlimited options, thus if we want to come up with a concise decision then we must limit its uses. Think in terms of Subaru if he gets limited in one path, on the next revival he chooses a different path, choice is what makes us different from animals, we can always pivot towards another path that is not hindered nor limited. Everything comes at a cost and we must never discount the source of anything because it eventually boils down to one thing anyway. So when deciding on things, we must take into consideration all the factors that are involved, people affected by our decisions, effects of our decisions across time and how it affects the environment that we are currently in. Unfortunately, we have limited scope and view of our world. We can only control what is immediately in front of us and the things within our grasp in our short lifespan, I think we should consider things that helped us get this far and which things we should retain in order to move along the right direction.

  • Reflections and Renewal

    A new world requires a recount of the old one. If we have not experienced the old then we wouldn’t know what we want with the new. A child is disciplined when we don’t confirm to what is “correct” behavior, however who was it that defined the correct behavior. Why would we act in a certain way when we don’t have rules in place for our actions. In our world today, often times it is society that dictates what is acceptable and what is not. Comparing it to the old days, we have become more liberated and less concerned with judgement. “I have done nothing wrong”, “What I do does not affect anybody” or “everyone else is doing it” are common ways of thinking nowadays. Completely disregarding past norms, since they had little no benefit anyway. Bending and breaking rules, testing the limits of our new found freedom in order to be “yourself”. Innately, nothing wrong with that right? Having individuality makes us unique and experience is the best teacher after all.

    Our standards suddenly become miles apart from what we previously had. Was is it really all for free, I mean did we not lose anything in the transition towards this “new world”? Like shifting from black and white to colored, new seems to be much better than the old. Often times it is, since I am not typing on a typewriter rather on a laptop computer. This is true for technology, but is it also true for other things? What did we lose in order to get to where we are. Is it really negligible. In all honestly, I don’t know or maybe I fail to see what I am missing. Maybe all the advancements and the know how somehow overshadow what is sacrificed, or is it that we just fail to notice it because it is too mundane and nuanced.

  • Nature Vs Nurture

    This is quite an interesting topic to think about right now. In the world of plants, there isn’t usually a need to nurture. What is the natural thing for them to have other creatures like insects pollinate for them and birds or small rodents to spread their seeds. Though in contrast when nurtured, the human would till the soil, sow the seeds, water and help maintain the land they grow in from weeds and other things that would hinder their growth.

    The same logic applies for growing a person, we plant the right seeds in their mind and heart, then we nurture them so that they would grow into the person we want them to be. On the flip side of things, we allow nature to take place and just have them learn things for themselves and nothing more, often this way creates a wild growth that could lead to an unintended direction.

    This is quite similar to tending to a house or a dungeon or even a pet. Without proper admin or knowledge, these would be neglected and not be up to standard of the owner. Then again often times the owners themselves do not know what it is they want, so we try to present them possibilities and ways to reach the desired goal. Now, we all know that depending on the person viewing the requirements, they all get to imagine a unique outcome to what the owner wants. Having all sorts of ideas can have positive or detrimental effects to the product because we either complicate things or we diverge from the original plan. Thus, sometimes it is good to come back to the owner to check if we are close to what it is that they want.

    Eliminating complex things and trying to make sense what the original goal is, helps us figure out if we really need nurture or nature to move things forward.

  • Perception of Value

    On my previous post, I presented the “Trolley Problem”. Some people would have bigger “Market Values” than others, however if given a choice of saving either a multi-million dollar net-worth person or you own child there is a certain bias toward “your own”. Funny how numbers loses its value when presented against an emotional choice.

    This is further emphasized with certain things like TCG (trading card games), considering the fact that cards in itself only has the value of the “art”, “rarity” and usefulness in the card game context. It could be considered card with fancy art. Don’t get me wrong, I have played and I still have certain cards like Magic the Gathering, so the fun factor in is not lost on me. Just trying to stir up your thoughts on the topic at hand.

    While I was trying to think of more ideas, it also occurred to me how things loses its worth depending on the situation and time. Given that if a person is in a war situation and food supply is scarce, food would probably have more value. In this situation preservation of life is more important than perceived value. As I was thinking about this it occurred to me that I had a discussion with my mom about fasting and how long a human body can live without food.

    Just food for thought I guess, hoping that somehow it fuels the imagination and reaches deep inside.