I recently came by a group blogging project called “How I Want To Be Seen” started by a friend of a friend (so I guess he’s my friend too), a Mr Abu Aremu. My friend’s name is Shafie, although he’s not become as (in)famous as me online yet, he’s been helping me with my Ultimate Secrets of Success business.

Anyway, the project requires bloggers, especially those into personal development stuff or anything at all to do with Life and its betterment, to explain how they want to be seen by people, how they want to be known, what they want to be remembered for. I think that’s the gist of it. After I write my share, I’ll then “tag” someone, a fellow blogger, a friend, to do the same and pass it on. If they fail to pass it on, the blog-police will come and arrest them for negligence of duties (just a lame joke - ignore me). I think I already have someone in mind - so watch out whoever is reading this!

Do I Even Want To Be Seen?

Hmm… Let me think.

I don’t think I want to be seen if by being ’seen’ means only to be perceived, labelled, ‘tagged’ or described by people to be someone who’s done this or achieved that, said this or uttered that, was responsible for influencing the course of entire populations’ lives, done some good and done some harm, etc.

Some people believe that we are what we do - like in Batman Begins, one of my favourite lines is, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me” - to an extent I find that true.

I also believe that we are who or what we think we are, as a person, as a character, as a soul. There has to be both sides to the equation.

If we define a person only by her deeds, we know nothing of her inner life, her inner world, her thoughts, philosophies, world views, the intangible things that drive her in life.

If we define someone by what he thinks he is as a person, then practically nobody will know what he is like, what his ‘true character’ is (according to his views), unless he expresses himself either through his words or his deeds.

Therefore both are needed.

How I Don’t Want To Be Seen.

I don’t quite care how I don’t want to be seen. People have their own perceptions. For example, to me, the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, upon whom and whose family be peace, is indisputably the greatest, noblest, most successful human being to have ever lived on Earth (and beyond), and my view is shared by billions of other people - even those who don’t follow him - but there are some who either don’t concern themselves with a person who lived about 1,400 years ago or those who hate him outright as a violent warmonger, etc. That is their view. It is the job of objective scholars of history to shed truthful light on him.

How I Really Want To Be Seen (Finally!).

Okay, let’s say what I’m doing and what I achieve from what I’m doing just can’t help but attract people’s attention to the point that they see me as being responsible for this or that. So let them see what they want to see. I won’t concern myself with what people want to see of me. If what I’m doing is good and they see me in a bad light, then it’s their loss. If what I’m doing is bad and they see me in a bad light, then it’s their gain, because they’d then have to avoid me at all costs. But if what I’m doing is bad and they see me in a good light, I’ll have to be very worried.

I shall concern myself - not with what others see of me - but with what I want to see in other people and what I want to see in the world.

I shall see to it that my ideas, my beliefs, my thoughts, my actions, my enterprises and my brainchildren have the most significant and maximum impact upon humanity and its destiny, for the better.

I seek to be as wealthy as possible - not just in financial terms, but in the dimensions of knowledge, creativity, relationships, love, wisdom, courage, all the good intangible values, as well. But if being financially wealthy does not serve me and my self-defined life mission, then I shall just make do with a modest but stable life.

Anyway, I am the one who seeks to eradicate the monetary economy and replace it with a technologically advanced, holistic, ecological and egalitarian knowledge and resource based economy that makes poverty, deprivation and suffering irrational and impossible.

I want to see a world in which every child, woman and man are freed in the truest sense of the word ‘free’ from every unnecessary or undesirable chain, prison or shackle imaginable. No person shall ever have to work on something they hate just to put food on the table, but are free to pursue whatever gives them the healthiest, fullest pleasure and passion.

In the same way that we now breathe freely of the abundant air around us, so shall we see that every basic need of human life - healthy food and water, clean air, decent shelter, protection from preventable (and what seems to now be unpreventable) diseases, holistic education, etc - are available in abundance without monetary or other barter forms of obligations.

The worth of a person, although human beings are intrinsically beyond valuation, shall no longer be defined by material wealth, monetary value, possessions or other physical-based factors, but by one’s intangible, intellectual or aesthetic achievements, one’s use of the freely and abundantly available resources to fashion something better, one’s discoveries of new conceptual or real vistas, one’s selfless service rendered to a fellow human or to life or to a good ideal, etc.

Of course, a transcendental revolution of such epoch-defining magnitude cannot possibly be the work of one person. In fact, I claim no exclusive credit for my ideas. There are other more brilliant minds who have seriously looked into these possibilities. I shall strive to be a significant contributor to the realisation of this grand vision.

That is all.

I now tag my friend, Ganesan, to perpetuate this “How I Want To Be Seen” project in his own unique way.

How I Want To Be Seen, Abu Aremu, Ultimate Secrets of Success, personal development, Batman Begins, Ganesan

I realise I have been guilty of the NATO disease (how can you be guilty of a disease?). The ratio of my ideation, planning and discussion to actual implementation of said ideas, plans and discussions is disproportionate, leaning heavily to the theoretical rather than the practical side.

No worries. Like any good utilitarian, I shall remedy this with more plans that heavily favour actions rather than more complicated theorising. Of course, testing, tracking and evaluating are crucial elements of this experiment as well.

There are a couple of areas in my life that I seek to better -

1. My Livelihood.

My internet businesses are my livelihood. Presently, I am working on a ‘make money online via internet marketing‘ type of project called MoneyMakingTactics.com. Feel free to take a sneak peek at the work in development. I have been learning, testing, launching, failing, relearning and generally ‘doing’ internet marketing since 2002 and I’ve surprised myself by not launching an internet marketing site of my own to impart my 5 years’ worth of knowledge, information and wisdom to others - until now.

In the internet marketing world, the word ‘guru’ has been bandied about quite frequently. If by ‘guru’ you mean someone who knows something and can teach it, then by all means I am a guru. In fact, that is what the word ‘guru’ originally means, right, in Malay and (if I’m not mistaken) Tamil? But the internet marketing arena has warped the word ‘guru’ to mean someone who is very successful with a huge list of newsletter subscribers to which they promote their products for massive profits every time.

Literally, you can make thousands of dollars overnight on the internet. Such things are true and not pipe dreams. I’ve had a taste of it myself - a couple of hundred US dollars overnight from selling a 5-page report on how to get traffic from Wikipedia.

My currently running (and nearly 100% automated) project, which you might already know, is Ultimate Secrets of Success. I started it in early 2005. It’s in the success and personal development field. In 2003, perhaps some of my friends will know, I launched my first personal development online business project, Effective Questions dot com. I wrote my first goal setting ebook, earned my first US$1,000 from sales of it, but got distracted by other internet marketing opportunities, school projects and worries about my looming national service.

Now it’s been over a year since I’ve completed my 26 months (24 actually, I ’stole’ 2 months’ worth of leave near the end) of service to the country, and sometime early this year I breathed new life into UltimateSecretsofSuccess.com - the domain name is unconventional (too long, uncatchy, etc), it breaks countless laws in the marketing textbook, yet it makes some money and I have my own cult following of about 300+ subscribers - not to mention I’ve gotten the attention of several fellow (some of them bestselling) personal development authors and experts.

I’m a bit go with the flow and having a clear plan and agenda. I make up new plans or evolve old ones as I go along and see how things develop.

An offshoot, spin-off or ’sister project’ of UltimateSecretsofSuccess.com would be my up and coming FreeYourGenius.com. Think the US$20 Million a year DoubleYourDating.com business model but applied to the accelerated learning, memory improvement and general mental and intellectual literacy enhancement market. An African American teenager named Jermaine Griggs started his niche play-piano-by-ear training online business a couple of years ago and it’s now a multi-million dollar business. The “playing gospel music on the piano” market is not even a modest one (there are less than 50 searches for such things every day according to Wordtracker) - it’s tiny but somehow he’s successfully turned it into a multi-million dollar business.

At this point, it has become clear to me that I might have chosen this path - either consciously or subconsciously - for deliberate reasons. I’m not a perfect and infallible person, but I’ve always felt at ease and most ‘in tune’ when the projects I am doing are about enhancing other people’s lives in whatever ways feasible - be it through my personal development content or my internet marketing software or services.

This is what I believe in - businesses that not only generate profits but improve lives. I believe the 2 should come together, hand in hand. One should never overtake the other. The next philosophy or concept I wish to integrate into my plans is that of helping people help themselves - the “give a man a fish VS teaching him how to fish” idea (which I actually first came across as a mural in my primary school; initially I thought it didn’t make sense, why would a school talk about a man fishing? but now it is clear to me). This is in line with my revolutionary life mission and leads to my next point…

2. My Mission.

Some months ago, I think it was my birth month, August, I started volunteering every Monday to listen to the grievances of local residents (their financial problems, fines, family disputes, etc) and help direct them to the relevant bodies that can help them by writing up correspondence to said bodies for them. It isn’t exactly groundbreaking but it’s my small part to play to help humanity. The past few weeks I had been occupied with other work commitments so I’d been missing my Monday sessions. I do intend to resume in the very near future when circumstances permit.

The sessions had been eye-opening and a great learning experience. I can safely say 100% of all the cases I attended to, the problems had been caused by money - the lack of it, or the lack of knowledge of properly managing it, or just the lack of opportunities (due to various reasons) to earn a good sum of it.

The more cases I attend to, the more first-hand knowledge or ‘grokking’ I can get. I don’t intend to keep a ‘distance’ in such a way that my experience becomes mechanical (i.e. entering their grievances into the system) nor do I want to immerse myself too much into their problems until I am psychologically affected.

I’ve started to see these problems systematically - where it had gone wrong, what exactly was the cause, what was missing or lacking, what shouldn’t have been there, etc. It all boils down to know-how, mettle, maybe a little luck (but luck can be self-manufactured), nothing that relevant and specific education can’t help. Not only are we enemies to what we don’t know, we are also slaves suffering under the tyranny of our ignorance. Most of the time our problems in life are caused by a lack of information or knowledge in certain areas or contexts. That is the key.

Some people swear by the System - it is everything. Civilisation is either made or broken by it. I say it is true only if people or the human element is included as a crucial (if not the most critical) factor in the System. Milton Friedman’s theories unleashed a genocide when implemented in Argentina. Should the economist be blamed or the dictator Pinochet? Some religious fundamentalists accused Darwin of creating the theory (evolution) that was the intellectual ancestor to Nazism and Fascism (’Survival of the Fittest’). The problems of the 19th and 20th centuries which are now creeping into the early 21st are caused by this ‘objective’, ‘rigorous’ and ’scientific’ (if you will) disregard for all subjective, emotional or human elements and tragically, when theory becomes practice, the ‘objective, rigorous and scientific’ disregard for the human element is also reflected and hence, human beings are seen as no more than ‘objects’ that can be moved about, manipulated or entirely removed to ‘perfect the System’. Ironically, however, greed is also a human trait. So where should the lines that separate objective and human-subjective be drawn? And once the lines are drawn, should they be set in stone, or constantly evolving?

There are several practical paths that my mission can take - how I can translate this vision of eradicating money and establishing a resource-based economy built upon the foundation of justice as opposed to profit and the paradigm of abundance as opposed to scarcity. The current monetary system is to be seen as backward and impeding to humanity’s progress; as idolatry was in pre-Islamic Arabia.

Money is a temporary quick fix that somehow, because of mismanagement of civilisation and resources (such that the few dominates the resources of the many), became a permanent, long-term thing to stay, and if this system of representing real value with fake symbols continues, civilisation will either continue upon a path that will lead to doom or be eternally trapped in a nightmarish loop of booms, busts, short-lived prosperity periods and great depressions.

A new world built on this transcendental economic model must be prepared for the mindset changes, paradigm replacements and even philosophical re-evaluations that it demands. For ages, money perpetrated this illusion upon humanity and we were all addicted to it.

One of the paths that can effectively lead to this revolution is to invest in minds, to invest in the development of human potential as an end in itself, not as a means to use said human potential to generate greater profits. Ironically, this mission of destroying money requires the flowing of money - at first - at least, until we have come to the point where human potential and technology is developed such that we have optimal mastery of resources such that they flow abundantly without end through perpetual renewal.

The micro-finance and micro-credit movement has been instrumental in the third world. Free universal education at all levels is also a fast track towards the realisation of this vision. By free education, I mean all levels, from the basics of literacy all the way to the highest levels of practical or philosophical knowledge - from A,B,C’s and 1,2,3’s, through arithmetic and geometry, all the way to the principles of Friedman’s economics, the finer points of the universal declaration of human rights or the management precepts of Jim Collins. And this education must be relevantly focused upon each individual’s passions, interests and needs; its purpose is to liberate and draw out the best, not to manufacture obedient citizens of the state who do not question authority (especially when it is fit to be questioned).

Since when has knowledge diminished the more we give it away that we have to ration knowledge by charging exorbitant fees and placing premiums upon it, shackling students to bonds (bondage?)?

Education or human potential development is one of the few things that need not consume resources (except for time, energy and some soft resources like memory instruments such as paper or even computers) such that we desperately need to charge money for it or else “education will run out and all our thinking will be depleted”. Think about it. If that were so, our parents would have charged us money for teaching us how to talk, walk and take care of ourselves.

utilitarian, make money online, internet marketing, guru, Jermaine Griggs, resource-based economy

Besides being a John Galt, I am also a misfit. Why? Because people with ADD, ADHD, OCD and other anti-social ‘weirdo’ qualities are more and more ‘coming out of the closet’ (not in the sexual orientation context) and making a killing, especially online, and enjoying life in entirely new dimensions and levels that are otherwise not accessible to the typical person who holds a full-time day job and works like a Hebrew slave to make someone else rich. Dig this - Why Misfits Thrive Online Or The Advantage Of Not Being Like Everybody Else. ‘They’ just don’t understand ‘us’…

John Galt

I am John Galt. A John Galt is someone who has a grand vision - which sometimes borders on and is mistaken for delusion - for the world but is disappointed with the hypocrisy and tyranny of the status quo and its perpetual addiction to comfort zones.

But I am of a more optimistic John Galt type. The irony is, while I have the book by Ayn Rand, I have yet to complete reading it, but I surely will. All the information I have about John Galt is gleaned from what portions of the book I have read so far and what I had searched for on the internet.

So that might make me a John Galt wannabe, a hypocrite in the John Galt cult. I don’t understand completely what Objectivism is all about, so I won’t say that I am an Objectivist.

I am just attracted to the romantic and poetic (and perhaps the ‘Galtic’) nature of this fictional being. But on some levels, I find some resonance with him.

Here is why perhaps I deserve to be a character or the inspiration for a character in a monumental, zeitgeist-defining work of fiction (perhaps my very own) -

1. I seek to destroy money and replace it with a better system of exchanging value that makes poverty and suffering rationally impossible.

2. I have seen through the farce, the staged propaganda, the drama, the patterns behind the patterns of virtually all human affairs (politics, hierarchies of power, societal units, social rituals, survival mechanisms, etc) and am sick of the same-old, same-old, seeking and thirsting for fresher combinations of old patterns.

3. I am Quixotic - you have seen my ambitions - all that I had set out to do and am now doing (like building my internet empire) - but here is a snapshot of my current reality - (this is going to be lengthy)

I am semi-employed, working 3 days a week and earning S$500 per month; living with my Mom, my younger brothers, my youngest sister and my semi-paralysed grandma (taken care of by our maid); my Mom works as a part-time maid, my second brother works in a petrol station, my third brother is struggling in a tertiary school, my youngest sister is reaching 12 years old. My Dad was gunned down in the line of duty about 4 years ago and I am the eldest child in the family. My Mom is a cynical but strong woman, my brothers are emotionally detached from me and my sister, although I cherish her, is still too young to understand the complexities I am facing. My grandma has been semi-paralysed since 1997 and has lost her ability to speak since this year.

I am single but passively looking (because my internet business empire is my primary concern right now) and have had no serious (non-Platonic friendship) relationship (with the opposite gender, of course) ever since I was born (I’d be an outcast like Jesus Christ was in the midst of an angry Jewish mob if I had been living in an over-liberal culture like that in the U.S. of A). I have had my share of one-sided infatuations, of course, and most (if not all) the persons I had been infatuated with before are either married by now or going to be married to older, gainfully employed men. All the best for them. But I do have hopes that I meet a woman more successful than me who can not only sponsor but also support me in my great life mission to eradicate money and free humankind from all forms of poverty (the same way Lady Khadijah supported the young Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and his family; she is only 3 years his senior). And when I get to that part of my life, I shall demand no more than a modest affair, a simple wedding, perhaps graced with some orphans who I’ll invite as a charitable gesture to ‘bless’ (in a sense) my marriage. The budget will be less than $10,000 (assuming I have not completed my life mission of eradicating money yet) including dowry and other unnecessary cultural fabrications of Malay society (which, if possible, I want to do away with - the Malays have a twisted proverb in which we say, “Let our children die, but not our tradition / culture” - I’d rather burn tradition / culture to the ground and save my children, thank you very much).

My office is also my bedroom - but I sleep on no bed. Every single night, my ritual is to take my pillows, blanket and my huge mattress which is 1.5 times my size from my brothers’ bedroom and carry them to my balcony which is also my office and bedroom. I guess I should be grateful because I still have a roof over my head, a comfortable mattress, pillows and a blanket. I also have a powerful fan that keeps me cool at night. No fancy air-con for me. Sometimes if I am too tired to carry my mattress from my brothers’ bedroom to my balcony, I’d just sleep on a red floral-pattern straw mat. I sleep in the balcony not because I am exiled here but because my grandma resides in what used to be my personal bedroom. I figure if I’d continue to stay in the same house, I’d still sleep in the balcony because my sister is growing up and pretty soon she’ll have to sleep in her own room too (assuming my grandma moves to one of my relatives’ homes but I doubt so - none of my Mom’s siblings are willing to do what she is now doing - all they do is come over from time to time and sponsor the hospital trips, etc). Although I try to keep my balcony clean and tidy and dust-free, I do wake up in the morning with sinus disturbances due to dust sensitivity (but this is thankfully decreasing).

My control panel and dashboard to the world is my trusty Dell laptop. I have a lousy wireless internet connection at home - I am doing my best to influence the world and shape the course of the future via the internet and I am connected to it through a very thin and fragile network connection. I have to share this weak connection with my brothers and sister and sometimes, when it gets too slow for my patience, I walk all the way to my Mom’s bedroom and reset the modem, walk to my brothers’ room and reset the router (go figure the configuration), sometimes to their (expressed) irritation at the temporary suspension of connection.

Another detail - my balcony cum bedroom cum office is also my personal prayer room, where I do my prayers 3 times a day (not 5 times because I am Shi’ah). My balcony also houses my personal library. I don’t know how many Malay guys (or ‘Mat’s as we like to call ourselves - but not me) you know, dear reader, but I think I’m the guy who has the most books and reads the most frequently amongst us - I don’t know, perhaps this stereotype is changing (hopefully. If it is, thank God).

I don’t drive, and I don’t intend to. By God, when my financial situation gets better, I shall hire a personal chauffeur. This is maybe an ego thing to compensate for the fact that in 2005, when I was assigned to be an army driver (actually, a Transport Supervisor, one level above a mere driver) while I was still ’serving the Nation’, I failed the military-imposed practical driving tests a record 8 times. Eight times. Obviously, this experience has had an impact on my self-esteem back then, but it was a blessing in disguise as I was re-assigned to be a combat medic specialist trained for chemical warfare instead (for which I am thankful in some ways). That’s life, you know. Maybe when I am in (one of) my car(s), all dressed up like an important delegate with my well-dressed chauffeur driving me around, I shall drop by and say Hi to my former driving instructors and my former fellow driving course mates and offer them a ride. Success is the sweetest form of revenge. Didn’t someone say that the Geek will inherit the Earth?

In about 2 years’ time, the Integrated Resorts (i.e. vice and gambling facilities) will be opened in Singapore, and I foresee a fresh new wave of the cynical money-worshipping culture. The socio-economic zeitgeist will increase in complexity; there might be more or less unemployment (or perhaps more employment but also more people finding themselves in the ‘wrong vocation’), more dysfunctional families (maybe the Malays will still be the hardest hit - but I think this Malay-centric dysfunctional gauging is a self-created disease that must be wiped out at all costs - there are so many things about my Malay community that I am so angry about and am burning for change), an increased influx of foreigners, hence, increasing our population saturation / density, thus, leading to even more social tensions. I am just painting the realistic scenarios here. The recent moves by our government in supporting the green energy movement will - as is all things - be both a boon and a bane - a boon because it helps a little for the Earth and a bane because the alternative sources of energy that we are going to have might also mean higher energy utility bills (and in Singapore, I fail to remember anything that is ever reduced - taxes, fees, bills, etc).

And into this environment, into this zeitgeist (must be my new favourite word), into this circumstance, situation, soil of potential, shall I declare to the world my grand vision for a radical revolution - no, transcendence - in the way we humans live.

John Galt, Ayn Rand, Objectivism, Quixotic