Why Keen?

August 17, 2009August 17, 2009

TED Talks : Finding our Genius

For more than two years now, I’ve been in a creative line, and I must say, the stress level has never gone down. I always feel this fear that my “creative juice” would run dry, so to speak.

So, while idling surfing for some TV to watch (I don’t watch anything on the real TV nowadays), I found this interesting video by Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity, and it struck a chord.

She mentioned about the origins of the word Genius, very interesting. Genius is like a spirit guide, or a deity, and it is believed that there every human being has a Genius attached to him/her. Here’s what I found about the word Genius on Wikipedia :-

—
Genius in Roman mythology is the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place or thing
…
Every nameable mythological figure was a genius of some sort; but further, the rational powers and abilitiies of each and every human being were attributed to his soul, which was a genius. (Source : Wikipedia)
—

So Elizabeth Gilbert proposes that all artists try to put their burdens as well as their ego on this disembodied entity, their genius, and let it take claim or credit for the magnificence or failure of their work. Aha…

By the way, I’ve tried. Though it was a little silly, I actually spoke out loud and said, “It’s now up to you”, especially since I was under a very tight editing schedule for my last wedding shoot, and you know what? It was one of my better works. So maybe it works, huh?

Here are some of my shots from a wedding my genius helped at:-

June 25, 2008July 20, 2009

Laws of Attraction : It matters to this one.

Christopher had been asking me to watch the program
for a while now. It was produced
by threesixzero productions for Mediacorp.

He wanted me to take a look at their filming and editing
style. He felt their work attained a high level of
entertainment value, yet strong aesthetic appeal.

I hardly watch local television. So finding the time to sit in front
of the TV is rare. I’ve missed several episodes and as luck would
have it I could only watch one episode and it was the last episode
of the season. I dragged Hwei Min to catch it with me though it
was already midnight on a weekday.

That episode was about two Singaporeans living in Cambodia,
running a school and home for orphans. What really struck a chord
with the both of us was the Singaporean entrepreneur who have
set up the school, introduced only as Robert.

He is probably in his late fifties? His goal? To set up as many of
such homes as he can all around the world.

He shared a story “It matters to this one”. I’ve tried to look for
the original author of the story, but couldn’t find any information.

As I walked along the seashore
This young boy greeted me.
He was tossing stranded starfish
Back to the deep blue sea.

I said “Tell me why you bother,
Why you waste your time this way.
There’s a million stranded starfish
Does it matter, anyway?”

And he said, “It matters to this one.
It deserves a chance to grow.
It matters to this one.
I can’t save them all I know.
But it matters to this one,
I’ll return it to the sea.
It matters to this one,
And it matters to me.”

Why did it strike a chord? As part of our retreat, Hwei Min and I
practise visualizing our future. We go through an exercise of
imagining our future self talking to us now. The idea is to make our
dreams bigger than our fears.

30 years later, if we will be successful, who will we have to be?
What will we say to ourselves now?

We have set our goal to set up schools and homes just like the
one on the show. (OK, to be more accurate, we only thought of
setting up one.) We want to figure out how to set up a community
of children who are not given the opportunity to learn, give them
a loving environment, help them to grow, and most of all, make all
of them successful. Then to make the community grow bigger by
inspiring them to give back.

Watching Robert was like watching our future selves speaking to us.
This is how to do it. This is “Why”. And the “Why” is because it
matters to this one, and it matters to me.

June 3, 2008June 3, 2008

StreetDirectory.com alternatives

I had taken StreetDirectory.com for granted, so when it was
down, I have a tough time searching for addresses I need.

Google Maps was great, but no details like block numbers.

Googling “streetdirectory alternative singapore” came up
with a few results from blogs here in Singapore. No point
showing you the whole list of alternatives, they are mainly
derived from Google Maps which still does not have blocks!

Well, after searching and looking, I’ve finally found the
service I need from www.StreetDB.com.

In fact, I should say it is even more user friendly, streetdirectory.com
was too cramped. And they have been playing more and
more tactics since Singaporeans have become so reliant on
their service, so having another player is a welcome relief!

March 20, 2007

A lazy Saturday at the museum

Been to the National Museum lately?

You should go. The building had been restored and updated with a modern look and feel, while maintaining the old colonial charm.

Too bad the rest of the museum are camera-unfriendly. The tickets to enter the display areas cost $10 per adult. We didn’t even go in. The “no-cameras” signs are a real turn off.

But no loss to us. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously just walking around. Along a huge hallway, I thought I captured a cherubim, a small angel. A cheerful and energetic little boy running around. His dad was very friendly! Can see where the little boy got his cheerfulness from. When I asked for permission to take a picture of this cute boy, he posed for the photos. I have left my email address with him. I hope that he can give me his permission to share the other pictures I have of his cute son here. And I would like to hold to my promise of emailing him the pictures. Please email me! I want to share the photos with you!

Click to take a look at the rest of the pictures I have taken.

Saturday at the Museum