Sunday, March 23, 2014

Intermission: Crossroads

I take a break from my role as the Best Pundit in the World to reflect on my 34 years on earth.

I celebrated my birthday in a low-key manner by going to Pattaya, Thailand. I spent most of the day talking to people, trying to have a better understanding of their lives, of the human condition.

If you had told me 10 years ago that most of my enjoyment and my work would revolve around people, I would have laughed in your face and shat on your cheap sofa.

Being 34 also means I can't pull 72-hour work weekends anymore. I need my rest. With age, though, comes an understanding how things work and that has helped in rescheduling deadlines and pushing them just a bit further.

I am working as I always do - pile on various different projects one after the other, spreading myself as thin as possible. I do this because I can never know which projects would materialise and which ones would not.

In fact, I quit well-paying jobs so I could focus on a cornucopia of projects ranging from corporate consulting to creative endeavours.

Perhaps it is time to pick one and focus. I don't know. It has to pay a substantial amount of money and keep me interested and excited.

My 'empty' nature means I would absorb the skills and knowledge needed for a particular job and then release them as soon as the job is finished, again making me a blank slate.

When I execute many jobs across multiple disciplines, I am beginning to feel fatigue. I need to switch from one mode to another for different types of projects. Sometimes, for different people.

I feel like Morph of the X-Men, or Mysterio from Spider-Man's rogue gallery or Clayface, an enemy of Batman.

It is very tiring. Not because I am pretending to be something I'm not, but because I need to equip and re-quip certain modules in my brain.

And despite extensive searching, I have not met a single person interested in copying my 'empty' skills. Not many people understand me when I speak freely, much less when I try to illustrate how you can see things from multiple angles at the same time.

Often, when I speak to humans or apes, I go through filters. Because no one can understand me fully. The ones who do come close would be Thai go go girls. And even with them, I don't talk about work.

I am the Greatest Mind of the 21st Century, and it is quite lonely up here.

Some big decisions in the coming weeks. Some deadlines that I have to meet, so if you'll excuse me...