It has been awhile

It was in April 2020 when I last blogged and a long year and a half have passed since then. A whole lot of things have happened and a whole lot of things I have learnt.

I must say that just like my blog here, my life has been in a series of starts and stops, and again just like my blog here, it is going to continue to start and stop. 

Of course, until it all stop and Life starts. 

So here am I again...starting again. 

The reason I am back is because I would like to think and write again. Life has been tough for the last one and a half years making it tough to think and to write. But now I'm back and it's good to be back and I hope this session of a start will last a longer time.

While I restart this, I also thought about the purpose and the direction of my writing. When I started this blog in 2006--oh my, that is like aeons ago--I wanted a space to reflect and express myself, and I think I will fall back to the same purpose. 

And hopefully through my thinking and my figuring out this world, I am am able to provide some hope.

Pearlie

Book Review: How To Take Smart Notes

How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking - for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers

by Sönke Ahrens

I have spoken a lot about Sönke Ahrens's How to Take Smart Notes. It is a rare book that have changed the way I read and think.

Its title may sound mundane but mundane it is not. 

Ahrens wrote the book when he found it "too painful to watch others taking notes in the same unproductive ways" he used to take notes himself.

For me, it all started when I was required to sign up for an international HR conference with so many number of sessions that I kinda freaked out.

But I suddenly started thinking - could I listen to these talks and still get the most of out of it? How then can I take better notes? And make the notes work for me?

It was then that I came across Ahrens's book. And again I must say, it has changed a lot of how I now read and think.

How do you take notes?

For me, when I read books, I highlight them in my Kindle and add notes when I have questions and thoughts about it. However, I almost never get back to the highlights or the notes. 

I once remembered one particular item that I needed to refer to. But I couldn't find it. Kindle do not collate all the notes into one place to enable search. I need to know which book first, which I don't. I never found it.

And when I take notes during live talks and especially during sermons preached in church, I would take down notes usually word for word, in phrases. But again, I don't use the notes or refer to them at all.

So why do I take notes to begin with?

It is suppose to help me pay better attention and remember what I read or listen to. But in the end, I don't remember much.

This is where Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten comes into play. 

Zettelkasten is a German word that means slip-box or card index. Ahrens calls is the "gold standard " in taking notes and keeping them organised in an output-orientated way.

What is most important in this note taking method is that you elaborate what you read or listened in your own words by writing in the cards. 

One idea one card. 

Elaborating is important. You do not copy and paste. Elaborating it in your own words will show you whether you understand what you have read or listened to.

You can either use physical A6 sized cards, the Zettelkasten PC software, or like me, the Trello app.

Written notes are placed into two boxes:

1. Fleeting Notes - ideas that you thought of yourself 

2. Literature Notes - your elaboration, references included. 

After a day a two, you are to look into these two boxes and convert, link, combine, or rewrite them to be placed in the Permanent Notes box.

Notes are numbered and indexed.

This is done to help you build a latticework of thinking and ideas of your brain. 

Our mental latticework is the breadth and depth of all our elaborated thinking. It helps us link our past knowledge with new learning. With it, we will continually learn as we space the retrieval of our ideas at different times. We will vary our ideas as we look at it in different contexts. And we will benefit from it as we remember necessary things by chance.

All because we have done more elaborated thinking than before.

And as Luhmann has said, "One cannot think without writing."

I used to say that my phone is my extended brain. Now I say that both my phone and my Slip Box are my extended brains. The phone as the processor and the Slip Box holds my thoughts.

It is as simple as that. It boils down to whether you would put effort into making it work for you.

pearlie

Stop the race to finish a book

I finished reading Sönke Ahrens How to Take Smart Notes today. And like what one person commented on the book in Goodreads said, "This book is GOLD."!

I will try to do justice in giving it a good review soon, but what I can share now are these two important lessons that I have learnt. 

One, I will stop the race of finishing books. I have started challenges to read a certain number of books every year and even reading beyond that.

And when I read, I did it with two purposes: (1) to learn and gain insight and (2) to finish them to add to the list of books read as an accomplishment.

But after reading Ahrens book, I need to stop doing that. Of course I will still learn and gain insight from reading, but I will stop the race of finishing books. 

And that brings me to the second most important thing: when I read, I will think, elaborate by taking notes and then to connect the notes. And it doing so, I will have a stronger grasp in my learning, thinking and ideas.

This will no doubt take a lot of time but don't even refer to the books I have read in past years, on the 11 books I have read these two months, not counting Ahrens's one, I don't remember much, if anything at all.

So even though it takes a lot of time, it is what needs to be done if I want to read. 

If I don't do that, I had better not read anything at all to begin with because in the end, it wouldn't make a difference whether I read or not, if I don't remember or gain anything from it.

And with that, of all these books I have read this year, I will need to reread A More Beautiful Question. Next to Ahrens's, this is also very good.

But Ahrens did say that it is dangerous to reread books but I have to do it, though I think I will wait it out awhile before I do. 

My project now is to read Daniel Coyle's The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. 

I need it badly for work.

pearlie

Book Review: A More Beautiful Question

A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas

by Warren Berger

This is a very good book. If you like to learn how to think well, this would be a good place to start. 

It all begins with E.E. Cummings, "Always the beautiful answer/Who asks a more beautiful question."

Warren Berger started by asking why aren't we asking any more questions. Younger kids ask a whole of them but by the time they started school, they begin to stop asking and when they are at middle or high school, they may stop altogether.

I agree with him that schools are programmed to provide answers and to demand answers, not questions. 

And as we get ourselves into the working world, questions are usually not welcomed. 

I remember my first few days working in a company when I asked a question since I was new to the environment. The looks I got stopped me from asking anymore and go find the answers myself. 

So Berger's book is a much needed one. We need to ask questions again.

I like that he gives us three question starters in how to train ourselves in innovative questioning. It is to ask: why, what if, and how?

The book also explored questioning in business and questioning in life. 

As I read the book, I have begun to ask questions myself and I found two of the most important ones here: "What is my sentence?" and "How might I live up to my sentence?"

Here's an excerpt which I find so profound:

This is a favorite question of the author Daniel Pink, though he acknowledges in his book Drive that it can be traced back to the journalist and pioneering congresswoman Clare Booth Luce. While visiting John F. Kennedy early in his presidency, Luce expressed concern that Kennedy might be in danger of trying to do too much, thereby losing focus. She told him “a great man is a sentence”—meaning that a leader with a clear and strong purpose could be summed up in a single line (e.g., “Abraham Lincoln preserved the union and freed the slaves”). Pink believes this concept can be useful to anyone, not just presidents. Your sentence might be, “He raised four kids who became happy, healthy adults,” or “She invented a device that made people’s lives easier.” If your sentence is a goal not yet achieved, then you also must ask: How might I live up to my own sentence?

Don't you see that it is such an important skill to learn and nurture?

I have made this a required reading for my team at work and we are going to train ourselves in asking.

With that, I aim to read it again in 6 months time to see how we have progressed and to pick up where we lack.

Oh, let me log it into my calendar now. 

pearlie

The Art of Thinking Clearly

I was having a meeting with some colleagues yesterday and we talked about how we found thinking skills to be rare among workers these days.

And today as I was looking for a book to read, I found this in my stash. 

The Art of Thinking Clearly

by Rolf Dobelli

Perfect. Just what I needed. 

As I dive in, I find that the author describes 99 cognitive biases that we are all prone to. He says that this is not a how-to book, in that he does not go into details on how to deal with the biases. But he does a very good job in describing and warning us. 

I have only read until the 42nd bias with 57 more to go. 

My next step is to find someone interested enough to discuss this with, so that I will remember and be always mindful of cognitive errors. 

Anyone interested?

pearlie

Do you mind map?

I use mind maps a lot to help me think.

In my IOS days, I have purchased a lot of apps but settled with MindNode5 which in my opinion is the best. I can't remember what all the other apps were. I had iThoughts and Total Recall and one more I think.

But I could not find MindNode in Android and so I need to hunt for a good alternative and settled with SimpleMind Pro. I got the PC version as well.

Why mind map works for me?

I suppose my brain does not work in a linear way. Stuff in my mind are all over the place and I sometimes have a lot of stuff hidden and forgotten. So I use mind maps to associate, connect and trigger my thoughts to help me think and put everything on paper, and in this case, an app.

I use to stick to paper but since I started using the PC version, it is meeting my needs. I do have the freedom to move things around and disconnect and reconnect as I see it in a bigger picture, which I can't do on paper.

Just that on paper, it looks much more visual and vivid, which I really like.

But sigh, we cannot have the cake and eat it too.

pearlie

Keep blogging Pearlie. Don’t give up

I have not caught up with my blog for one whole week, from last Monday till today Monday. 

And I almost gave it up. 

I thought I’d take a week off and not write anything but knowing myself, it would then spell the end of my blog. 

I will never come back. 

So I without another thought, I just started writing and writing and writing. I just kept writing. 

And now I am all caught up. 

It’s a good thing I keep short notes for each of the days, so that I have an idea what to write about and what’s so special about the day that I want to remember. 

So the thing is to just write even if you don’t feel like writing. 

One decision I am going to make however, is to keep away from Facebook for awhile, if not for ever. 

I find Facebook isn’t good for me, in many counts and in many ways. 

I do get updates about people I don’t meet anymore and even updates on news and deals, but it comes far and between. I think I will lay it off for a month and see if my life will improve as a result. 

I don’t use that much time on Facebook but it’s still quite substantial by my standards. I’d find better things to fill that time with. 

And I’d like to reiterate why I blog—it’s so I can mull and think things through, about life’s lessons for the day and stuff that God would want me to take note. It’s so I can remember important stuff that happens to me. It’s also so that I can see when I am really dry and need watering. 

Keep blogging Pearlie. Don’t give up. 

pearlie

Learn why things are what they are

I have been using the Anki flashcard app for language, and it is very well suited for that, but when I read this article, Anki Tips: What I Learned Making 10,000 Flashcards, I created another deck entitled Learn Anything.  

The tips that the writer provided are very good ones, including the advice to put everything in one deck, regardless of topic. He quoted the theory of Hebbian learning - "neurons that fire together wire together" and that "mixing everything is superior". He says that when everything is carefully partitioned, we limit the opportunity serendipity, and that applying ideas across disciplines is precisely where the insights are likely to be most fertile.

He also advised to add whatever, anything that interest you, whether you think useful or not.  It can be anything you find interesting, any random thoughts, anything.

I have created my Learn Anything deck a week ago but it was empty until today. I was watching a criminal drama and the central topic was the Statute of Limitations, which one may find unfair to put a maximum limit of time to initiate legal proceedings. The drama did irritate me a bit because the limitation to the murder case was just missed by mere minutes and the murderer walks free even though there was clear evidence that was comfirmed minutes after the limitation period. 

I stopped the drama and did some reading in Wikipedia and thought hey, this could be my first Learn Anything entry.

And unknowing I did what the writer of the article implied as one of the most important tip: "Cards that answer the question “Why?” are more valuable than factual cards." It's easy to memorize the what but it is better to understand the why. And that was precisely what I put into that card entry, because I was more curious as to why should there be statute of limitations. If you are curious, check out its purpose here.

There you go, my first Learn Anything card when the writer already has 10,000 or more by now. But we all have to start somewhere. And now is good. 

I need to also build the habit of noticing things to add into my deck. There are so many things to learn and remember and connect.

pearlie

Shall I stop blogging?

I know I have thought about this many, many times over and blogged about it many times as well but I was seriously contemplating to stop blogging today.   

This is because I recently felt that writing a blogpost every day has become a very difficult thing to do. I find that I am struggling to find things to talk and blog about.  But why am I feeling that way?   

This one thing I know: I am spending less and less time thinking these days and I am not as introspective as before, and it is not a good thing.   

Therefore, it is good that I came across this article: Why You Should Blogging (Again)  

The writer of the article holds the opinion that: 

1. blogging facilitate powerful introspection 

2. blogging crystallizes thoughts and thought processes 

3. blogging improves your ability to express yourself 

4. people will enjoy your creation  

I fully agree with the first three points and with that I am more encouraged to persist to continue to blog daily. I also know that I will regret it if I stop, because I know it will be even more difficult for me to start blogging again. I have stopped before and it took me 5 years to get back to daily blogging! If I stop again this time, I can almost guarantee I will never get back to blogging.  

I am not too sure about the fourth point though, since I tend to ramble a lot these days.  

So there - I will still stick to it...for now.  

pearlie

Do you talk to yourself?

I do that sometimes, and apparently it is good for you: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

So just ignore those weird looks and just start talking to yourself, out loud. 

However, for me, I usually stop short at talking to myself when I am at work because my staff had turned to me before with an inquiring look, thinking I'm asking her something, and I would sheepishly tell her I'm only talking to myself. 

pearlie

Language and thinking - what's the connection?

As I drove to work this morning, I decided to return to my old habit of driving in silence to think and talk to myself. I have been listening to the radio too much lately anyway. 

And so I did just that - think and talk to myself as I commute. 

Midway through, I thought I should do it in Mandarin, since I need to get used to speaking in Mandarin anyway but I immediately got stuck. 

I couldn't do it. I couldn't think at all. I do not have enough knowledge or a fluency of the language to facilitate my thinking. This brought me to conclude that language and thinking is very, very closely connected. 

John W. Santrock in his book on psychology said that, "The relationship between language and thinking is an important question in psychology. Most agree that language (that is, words), plays an important role in memory and thinking...language determines the way we think."

Is that so?

Would you be able to think more effectively and deeply if you improve your command of your language? Is it true that if any one word does not exist for you, you will have no knowledge or understanding of that thing? And even if you have a picture of it, would you be able to articulate it well enough to explain it? 

I think it is debatable. 

So do what do you think is the role of language in thinking? Do we think using language, or do we only use language to express already made up thoughts?

Ah, I now have something new for me to find out and learn. 

pearlie 

Design Thinking for Innovation

I have been introducing Coursera.org to a lot of people and in checking the site on mobile before I sent the link to a friend, I saw this course on "Design Thinking for Innovation".

I have been seeing and hearing this thing Design Thinking for too many times now, at work and even in church, where the playschool do have some professionals in to run a cool Design Thinking for Kids event. Moreover, I will be meeting someone at work to check it out.

So I signed up to find out a little more about it.

I have just started on Week One but I must say it is a very good start and I look forward to learning more about it in the weeks to come.

pearlie

I'm worried

I have not felt worry for quite awhile but for some reasons, I am feeling it right now. 

I found these sayings helpful. I may not however hold some of the people here in high regard. But for the sake of what they said about worry, I found it helpful nonetheless. 

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem. 

~ Joyce Meyer

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. 

~ Leo Buscaglia

In a storm of struggles, I have tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But stress can be an addiction, and worry can be our lunge for control, and we forget the answer to this moment is always yes because of Christ. 

~ Ann Voskamp

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it. 

~ Michel de Montaigne

I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about. 

~ Henry Ford

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

~ Philippians 4:6-7 ESV

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life...But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:25a, 33-34 ESV

pearlie 

Need to start thinking and learning again

 

With my recent subscription to Apple Music, I have been listening to it every time I commute to and from work and it is partly good and partly bad. Good in the sense, I am listening more to music but bad in that I am not thinking much anymore compared to when I used to drive in silence. 

So I decided to drive in quietness this morning and it was nice to go back to thinking again. 

I thought about what I have learnt over the past years and my recent fascination in language. 

I thought how I spoke about my fascination in language during my recent training facilitation sessions and the linguistics online course, Miracles of Human Language, which I have started taking in Coursera but never completing it. 

I thought it would be good if I went back to it and finish the lectures and assignments, that I should reduce my time in watching too much TV and do something more useful. 

I stopped the course because it got tough. Linguistics is not an easy topic and I wasn't able to answer some of the quiz questions and that frustrated me. 

But I shouldn't give up so easily. And so I went back to it today. I am thankful they are still running the course and all I had to do was to reapply to a newer stream. 

I hope I will be firm with myself and complete it this time. Crossing my fingers. 

pearlie

Should I stop blogging?

 

I have seriously thought about stopping my blogging several times now. And I thought about doing it over the past few days. 

It's about security issues, about having nothing important to say, about the times when I struggle to find the time and the mood to write. 

But I'm still on it. 

I have stopped blogging in 2009, only doing it sporadically.  It took me 5 years to get back into a daily blogging in 2014. 

The reason I'm still sticking to it is because I know I will never get back to it if I quit. And I still think it is a good thing to blog, albeit about stuff that does not really matter to anyone but me. 

It helps me think, it forces me to reflect my days and I will have a log of what mattered to me everyday over the years. 

But I know I will still think about stopping as I go on. Maybe I should stop thinking so much. But that will even be a tougher thing to do. 

pearlie 

Oh! To read. To think. To write.

I was reading M. Bakri Musa's Malaysia's Wasted Decade 2004-2014 when he quoted this from Ananta Pramoedya, a renowned Indonesian writer, which I thought was brilliant. Pramoedya wrote it in his book Rumah Kaca or The Glasshouse. 

"Orang boleh pandai setinggi langit, tapi selama ia tidak menulis, ia akan hilang di dalam masyarakat dan dari sejarah." (Your intellect may soar to the sky but if you do not write, you will be lost from society and to history.)

I am a person who would be happy just reading and thinking and learning. But I did think what use is that going to be? Some of the stuff I read and think is for work, and so that is good. But for most of the things I read and think, I do not really have an outlet to where it can be useful. 

I used to teach but I don't get that opportunity very often. And I have yet to find my next teaching gig. 

So when I read that quotation, I felt that it meant a lot to me. At least I am writing, albeit in a small little blog that not many people read. But that is still something.

When I write, I get to expand my thoughts when I write. I get to think further what I read and give the information some life as I apply it to thought and apply it to life. I get to hope that those who read it will find reason and judgement and knowledge. I get to hope that they will continue and spread the same line of thinking and branch out to even more learning and knowing and life experience, and ultimate meaning in life. 

I do dream of being a writer and writing a book. But that seem so faraway. Some day, maybe. 

pearlie

Writing and Thinking

Good writing is clear thinking made visible.

~ Bill Wheeler

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. 

~ Benjamin Franklin

Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?

~ Joan Didion 

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better. 

~ Herman Hesse 

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book. 

~ Shereen El Feki

Wiring is the most fun you can have my yourself. 

~ Terry Pratchet 

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. 

~ Isaac Asimov 

pearlie

The Giver, by Lois Lowry - I'm finally reading again

The Giver

by Lois Lowry

I was bemoaning to myself in the last few months for not reading a single book this year. But when I read an article written by Neil Gaiman on Why Our Future Depends on Libraries, Reading and Daydreaming, I finally thought it was high time I actually got a book to read.

I needed something good, but something simple and yet profound. I actually googled for "need a novel to start reading again" and found a few interesting lists. I finally decided to read Lois Lowry's The Giver. 

I was totally wowed.

I wasn't expecting much but the book has a very interesting start to it that got me going and by the time I was halfway through, I was so captivated by the plot that I was looking forward to how it would unfold. In the beginning you'd feel it almost innocuous but soon you'll see how Lowry skillfully weaved it in its brilliance of a story. 

I must add that it was a very good thing that I did not read too much into the description of the book or checked it out in Wikipedia as I sometimes do. It would have spoilt it completely if I had. 

And I realized that the story was so interesting that a movie will do it no justice. (I know there is one.) This story can only be told in a book form. Read it and you will find out why. 

It is a short book and I finished it in a little more than three hours. I was so absorbed in it I didn't want to put it down. I wouldn't say however that I am so pleased with the ending though I'm not surprised at all. It was then when I discovered it is a quartet series, and the story will continue in the subsequent books. 

This is great! There are three more books and I am reading again! And what I also got out of it was what Gaiman said and what I had hoped: it gave me stuff to think about like how I now need to think about dualism, what it is, what it means and how it could affects what I think. 

pearlie 

I've reached the 10th year mark today

I started blogging on 1 Mar 2006 and so it is 10 years today. Number of posts 2525. Number of page views 288,062. I've enjoyed writing it though it is hard sometimes to find what to write about when the day is just the norm: wake up, go to work, work, go home, go to bed. But I found that as long as I start thinking and reflecting about the day, however normal it was, I will find something worthy of a post. And when I don't, a picture will convey the mood for the day. I thank my Father in heaven for his providence and his grace all these years. 

pearlie

It's all because of love

I am reading NT Wright and in two of his books, he used this saying by Ludwig Wittgenstein, "It is love that believes the resurrection" - a deep and profound statement I am still unpacking.

And I'm still figuring out what Wright means by "Love is the deepest mode of knowing because it is love that, while completely engaging with reality other than itself, affirms and celebrates that other-than-self reality."

But I love it when he said that, "All knowing is a gift from God, historical and scientific knowing no less than that of faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love."

I am here beginning to see love very, very differently. As a thinking person, I'm always for logic and truth. Love I have placed it under emotions and feeling, though in a much deeper and substantial worth.

I remember when I read the conclusion of the Harry Potter series, I felt disappointed that the reason for it all was love. Really? I remember remarking to myself. I couldn't see it or understand it. I dared not speak up about it because love is what my faith is all about, in that for God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son. I had realized then that I need to know love from its very basic.

I have read DA Carson's The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God two if not three times but it is only until now reading NT Wright that I am finding myself beginning at the lowest rung in knowing it.

I see now that love should be the very basic in all that we do. From work perspective, I am in charge of employee engagement at work. An employee is only engaged at work if he love his job and as a result commits himself to contribute. Forget KPIs. If he loves what he does, he will perform.

Why is there peace in the family? Why is there joy? Because there is love. Why are you so committed to them? It's because you love them.

Just think about it, in everything that you do, it is all because of love.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13

I have so much to learn about love.

pearlie
Source: 'Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church' by N. T. Wright