Drunk.

Lately I have been in a state of drunkenness. How I wish it were from alcohol, but it just isn't. I am drunk with my multiple work (whose multiple incomes I have not tasted yet). I am drunk with love (which is I don't know, I love the idea of being in love but I don't really see myself being in a relationship this time..) . I am drunk with excitement (of the thought of being able to live independently from my parents and from our house). I am drunk.

I continuously complain about my life, but at the same time, I am completely in love with it. That's drunkenness.

In my work as a Web Developer, many people ask me about how I see myself in a couple of years in the IT sector. I do expect those kinds of questions, but I feel weird about answering them at the same time. I am a goal-setter, an output-oriented, systems-creator kind of person - that's why I have to say, I do have goals in this line of work. But at the same time, I am Hedonistic (the way Foucault would explain it), and I live for and with what is pleasureable - that is why I have to say I am in this work and in other 'works' because I am pleasured by the way they make me feel. But not everyone could get what I am trying to explain. It's rather complicated to answer in just one sentence.

But just the same, the world opens up. It gets bigger and smaller for me everyday. My state of drunkenness is brought about by the liminality I live in. We are all liminal beings - we cannot box ourself in one category because the world is big enough to continue exploring. But the more we explore, the more we realize how small it could get. I am constantly reminded - we live in just one world. And this one world is big enough and small enough for each one to find purpose.

On Keeping What You've Got

I don't want to pick on my close friends. Ive harassed them long enough when since we were too young to drink booze and smoke cigarettes -- now that we've grown, I've tried my best to stop teasing them mercilessly about anything. hehe

It's hard.

This Christmas season, a friend bought a brand new cell phone, although his old cell phone works perfectly. His old phone? Not the coolest on the market, not bluetooth compatible, not an MP3 player, but 100% functional.

I wanted to give him a hard time, but I said nothing. I even had to agree with him on the quality of the new phone's camera. It's top notch.

But, it did get me thinking about how often we (as in most people) buy things to replace other things that are in fine working order.

I, for instance, want a new notebook. Mine is slow and old. I won't buy one ... not until this one has died of old age, but that doesn't mean that, in the past, I haven't done just what my friend did last weekend.

We buy things we don't need. We buy duplicates of things we don't need and then toss the first thing we didn't need into the trash.

So, I'm promising myself (especially during the holiday season -- as all my friends and family ask me "What do you want for Christmas?") -- that I'm going to think long and hard about what I truly need. And try even harder to be happy with what I've got.

8:00 - 5:00 as a developer

It became clear to me this week why IT jobs are outsourced from first world countries to cheap labor markets such as India and the Philippines. Writing source codes is tedious and strenuous mental work. You face the computer for 9 straight hours, and get an overdose of radiation. Your back and butt hurt from perpetually sitting and slouching. By the end of the day, all of your brain cells get depleted. You look like you've just waken up in the morning, cranky and bleary-eyed from all the free caffeinated coffee you drank. You finally get rest after that. You face radiation again, this time in front of the TV, unusually mentally awake, like you've just taken drugs. You want to sleep early but you eventually slumber at around 12-1am. Then you wake up again by 5:30am to do this all over again.

I don't want to give up yet. Beneath all of the negatives, I'm trying to discover elements that can make this job a vocation rather than just plain work. Quoting Mr. Kent Nerburn, "Find out what it is that burns in your heart and do it. Choose a vocation, not a job, and you will be at peace."

For instance, when I create a program that actually works, there is a sense of achievement and satisfaction. This week, 2 very difficult case studies in my MS .NET training placed me at breaking point. The first case involved incorporating 3-control-break routines (say what?) in sorting, merging, updating and printing out business documents. When I failed to meet the deadline for this case, I got so depressed. But still, I insisted to myself to finish this case even if I already passed the deadline. I said to myself, the worse case scenario is accumulating so much unfinished cases, that in the end, I don't finish a case at all.

Being an IT graduate, I should be the first to know of this kind of stress due to the mental calisthenics and the emotional roller coaster. Hence, I said to myself that I will never give up. Pwede ni, kaya ko ni. A day later after the deadline, I eventually finished the program to my utmost relief.

Going back, IT jobs are outsourced, in my opinion, because as a nation progresses, citizens have more disposable income to enjoy life. They have the money to hire laborers to do jobs that they do not want to do. As an example, doing household chores, a very boring and exhausting task, are delegated to domestic helpers. Customer phone servicing, a job that you might hate, are outsourced to call centers here in Bacolod. This job can make you feel guilty at first because intruding random strangers and going through humiliation and verbal abuses are new territories. But as you go on, you become numb to insults and eventually get used to being rudely hanged up at the other end of the line.

At the end of the day, I find it difficult to pinpoint where you contribute to the greater part of society with these kinds of jobs. Maybe being a breadwinner in the family, your salary, contributes to society, not your job per se.

Unfortunately, being in a third world country limits my choices. These are the only jobs available in the market. I can only persevere and work hard to go up the corporate ladder so that I can acquire that longed-for sinecure spot. For now, my motto is work hard, party later.

is working at home good or bad?

Web Worker Daily brought up an interesting question near and dear to my work from home heart in a recent article: is the isolation experienced working from home helpful or harmful? It's a bit of a paradox.

Working from home can be isolating but highly productive, that's for sure. Sometimes this isolation is a good thing, i.e., when you're working under a deadline or you have a project that requires intense concentration for long periods of time. However, that isolation is a two-edged sword, which is why you see coffee shops full of laptop-wielding workers.

I suspect the coffee-drinking-laptop-toting crowd , especially here in bacolod, e.g. cafe bobs, bo's coffee club, kuppa, etc etc are more interested in their self-images as Hip and Cool, and less interested in doing any work - they just sip their horribly expensive spanish-titled beverages and are seen by others, with similar conceit.

promoted.

finally got promoted! yooohooo! after like for 3 months waiting for my performance review at work, the head honcho, which happens to be the owner of the company which im working for, finally gave in.

and no, i dont work-from-home for a call center.

top 3 creativity killers.. i guess..

you know something is wrong when the creative process that usually gives you life and energy becomes painfully slow and draining. over the past couple of months, mr. blank canvas has roughed me more than once… and in the process I’ve discovered three very subtle things that tend to sneak up and choke off my creative flow. Watch your back… they might be coming after you as well.

killer #1 – multitasking & distractions
nothing seems to sap my creativity levels more than trying to do too many things at once. If you’re a member of the Getting Things Done fanclub, you’re probably already well aware of this. According to David Allen (the author of GTD), our minds are like computer RAM. The more active “stuff” we have going on at any one time, the less efficient our brains seem to work.

mr. allen's analogy totally makes sense to me, as ive often found that in order to really focus my creative energy on something, i need to get rid of the other distractions lobbying for my attention. ive found that turning off my email, ym, friendster and celfone is the easiest and most effective way to get rid of the majority of these distractions. if youre really overloaded with work and you’re having a hard time getting your brain to slow down enough to focus on one thing at a time, implementing a full-on GTD system really is a great way to go.

killer #2 – work environment
this morning i have to meet someone who's coming here sa room, so i had to clean up all the clutter that was sitting on (and around) my desk. now that all the loose papers, bills, cigarette butts, and other junks are put away, i honestly feel super refreshed. its amazing how much of a difference your physical surroundings can make on your emotional state. the weird thing is that i never really seemed to notice how much the clutter and mess was weighing me down until it was removed.

your work environment goes beyond just how tidy you are though, it also includes the colour of your walls, how comfortable your chair is, as well as the music playing in the background. anything that is distracting your senses will play a part in how focused you can get. if you lucky enough to have the power to change some of these variables ( i realize that not all of us work from home) you’ll probably be surprised on what you can pull off with a limited time.

killer #3 – fear of failure
every so often ill get contacted by a client that i feel is “out of my league” asking if im available to work on a project. if it’s not something that i feel is over my head (technically), ill usually go for it. its during these types of projects that i often find myself wasting hours of time second-guessing everything i do and putting way too much pressure on myself early on in the creative process. it wasn’t until after i listened to a podcast by franklin mcmahon (ep #38) that i clued into the reason that i was putting this pressure on myself. i had a fear of failure.

i have a feeling that most of us deal with this from time to time, so i thought id share how i get around it. first, i start thinking about the goals of my client rather than my personal goals. my clients goals might be to increase visitor traffic and make their site more search engine friendly, whereas my personal goals might be to impress the client enough to land some repeat work from them. im finding that when i focus on my clients goals, there’s a good chance my personal ones will work out as well.

another thing ill do is think to myself, “what would ___ (insert favorite designer’s name here) do in this situation? how would they handle the design of this nav? would they use 2 or 3 columns for this layout? when i start asking those questions, ideas immediately start coming to mind and ideas start flowing. almost seems like a brain hack, but it works.

im sure ive only touched the surface of the potential creativity killers out there, what kills your creativity?