danger smells like clean socks

(Today I'm working on an important presentation, so obviously I'm writing long rambling posts)

One more passing thought:

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. - Buddha

Tying in with the Barbara Hall quote in my last entry, another major shift in my thinking over the past two years is not focusing so much on the future.

I've seen two ways that focusing on the future leads to bad decision making in my life: (1) I have made bad decisions, thinking that the forward-thinking decision making would justify the compromise in my present-thinking state. It didn't happen. (2) It gets me thinking that I can control the future. I can't. Humans are pathetic by nature - I can't control the future, and any type of thinking that leads there seems is futile. That's not to say act like a jackass and stop planning for the future - I believe that if you act in goodness, it will have positive future ramifications, although you won't know what they are.

When you make plans, understand they can and will be broken. None of us know which path we need to take for discovery and self-realization - there will be false starts and lots of circling around. But a focus on the present is what's important - take action today instead of constantly "planning" to do something about it.

The present is all that matters. Soak it in and enjoy it.

I've been going through some self-examination on where I stand in terms of morality lately.

A few weeks ago, I started looking for another home church in SD, but I've given up (once again). I can say that Korean churches are the most awful thing ever - they all seem encompassed by drama of some sort, which really detracts from what you're really there for.

In high school, I was the closest thing to being a religious fanatic, and I look back now at embarassment towards that time. My thinking was so judgemental and high-and-mighty (when I hadn't proved anything at all). Part of that rubbed off in college, when I started disliking the church when I saw the hypocrisy of people claiming to be good Christians, and being anything but in real life. I saw too many people trying to give off the external image of being a good Christian, while hiding a part of their life that I didn't feel was consistent with the teachings.

My church had a huge split my sophomore year of college, and I pretty much stopped going after that. Since then, I haven't seen much to re-encourage my faith in churches - my parents church had some drama, and the offshoot of the church I used to go to has gone through some massive drama lately, too.

I tried out two churches in the SD area, and tried to find a connection to the churches, but I couldn't. The messages weren't consistent with my thinking towards life anymore. I've grown far less interested in the salvation of my soul (far too esoteric).

It's really no surprise that by the my old standards, I've grown far more obsessed with worldly things. Focusing on success, career, and finding happiness in the material things of this world would have been frowned down upon by past Roy.

A short tangent: one important distinction I've distinguished over the past year has been the concept of "nice" and "good." I used to be obsessed with being a "nice" guy, but now I realize how misguided that was. Conceptually, I had confused with being "nice" with being "good", which I believe is a moral imperative for all humans. To me, goodness is about improving the lives of the people around you and not taking advantage of people, whether it's people you know or complete strangers. Goodness can manifest itself in "nice" actions, which is why I confused being "nice" with being "good."

But now, like religion, people wrap themselves with that "nice" moniker when they're just projecting an image of being nice. Trying to be nice is being interested in others' perceptions of you, while being good is done with the interest of self-satisfaction without caring what others think of it.

Trying to be a nice guy ended up with me being a passive-aggressive spineless person at the mercy of others feelings. It's almost worse in terms of personal growth, as you're layering in an additional layer to your personality that hides your true character. And for what end? I want to be good, and if people think I'm nice because of it, that's cool. But goodness is an internal imperative that tries to breed an unselfish attitude towards the world.

Back on topic. The pursuit of materialism and the worldly things is not without a downside: overfocusing on that aspect of life makes you overly selfish and shuts you off from making the world a better place.

To me, I'm tempering my worldly pursuits with an increased emphasis on trying to be good - this is the balance that I'll need to maintain in my life to stay grounded.

Random acts of kindness, acts of private generosity, discovering truth, and attempting to understand the plights (big & small) of those around you and acting to help are imperatives that drive my life.

. . .

So what about morality? What's stupid of me in the past was that I used to think that the personal actions of those around you defined their morality. I used to look down upon people who drank, smoked, did recreational drugs, gambled, chased women, and such.

I think the biggest shift in my thinking lately is that I no longer apply a moral filter to the actions of people around me. People choose the decisions they make, and it's none of my business to judge them based on those actions. As long as you're truthful and honest about who you are, and what you do doesn't hurt others, go wild! (Spoken like a true Libertarian, I suppose)

I can say that my compass of personal actions is quite a bit different than what I expected. We'll continue to see how much I change.

. . .

The one thing I will still be disapproving of are people who don't try to reach their potential, or try to improve themselves. We live in the greatest country in the world, at the pinnacle of humanity, with the resources and tools to make an impact in so many different ways.

Conan's quote from his final show is awesome:

"All I ask of you is one thing, and I’m asking this particularly of young people: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism- it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen."

Figure out what you want to do. Work hard at it. Be a good person. Make the world a better place. That's it.

My favorite quote comes from Barbara Hall, and has been something I want to abide more towards (it's so simple!):

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act.

"He who experiences the unity of life sees his own self in all beings, and all beings in his own self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye." - Buddha

Poking fun of things with the benefit of hindsight is fun. Here are some choice examples: 

October 17th, 2008: A Liberal Supermajority

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s.

Of course, nobody realized the Democrats would be incredibly inept.

September 29th, 1999: Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

There's no way this backfires.

And one from the technical side of things:

(Undated): XFN: Introduction and Examples

XFN provides the basis for a world-wide distributed network of personal connections. Proprietary data-owning services like Friendster could be superceded by XFN crawling and searching sites —a sort of "Friendorati," as it were. The advantage of a Friendorati-style network is that it allows every individual to fully express themselves through personal weblogs and web sites, instead of to the limited degree permitted by a proprietary service's user interface.

It's a good thing Facebook isn't proprietary... err...

Saw this in Marketo, our marketing automation system.

If only women thought of me like Marketo does - they should call Roy Kim cause he's ****HOT****.