Of Perception and Pure Skill

Because I lack proper images

Hello everybody. It is a dull Friday (again) after a hectic week of non-stop outings and spending. So, what is better to spice up your Friday than reading of one my rants?

*crickets sounds*

Meh.

So anyway, I had this nice conversation with a friend of mine about perception and skills. It goes something like this.

Friend: Eh, don't you think that perception is more powerful than skill?
Me: Explain
Friend: Like, I noticed that I am able to hone my skills better after I got this scholarship...and I got this scholarship mainly because of perception
Me: Really meh? *deep thought*

Disclaimer: Event may not be 100% accurate but you get the gist of it

After a deep thought and philosophical ranting with the two people inside my head, I came to a conclusion

PERCEPTION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PURE SKILL

Now, before you start debating with me with concrete arguments, let me explain my thought process here. I define perception as how you exhibit yourself to the world around you and pure skill as your personal ability. Putting the definitions in, I'm saying that how you exhibit yourself to the world around you is more important than your personal ability

Why is that?

Because although you and everyone else has their own unique personal ability and skill like good memory, ability to ace test, athletics ability etc, ultimately, only the holder of the said ability truly know that they possess that ability. Moving forward, this means that although you know that you have that ability, others won't.

For example, you know that you have a talent for playing chess. Now, if you meet someone new, will they know that you're good in playing chess just by talking to you for five minutes? Unless that person is a mentalist, I highly doubt it. Even if you say "I'm a chess player" or "I am good at chess", that person can really 'know' that you are 'that good' at chess.

Unless, you really plant in the idea that you are good in chess

Now, here is where perception came in. To make that person know that you are good in chess, you would need to show him or her. No, you'd not need to pull out a chess board or anything but maybe you can just say "I played chess in tournaments before"

Boom. Perception changed.

Just by adding the word 'tournament', the other person will get the idea of you holding a chess tournament medal/trophy and quickly conclude that you are good in chess. Although in reality you may ended up last in many tournaments, but that doesn't matter. You showed them an image of a tournament, but not really your skill. They, themselves concluded that you are good in chess. Now, you are perceived as good in chess. Objective achieved.

How can we relate it to real life? I mean, what significant of knowing that perception is more important than skill?

See, to survive in life, you'll need to look good. Looking good here is not looking good physically but it is the image others perceived you to be. Although you may not have the skill, but by looking good, you will be able to hone that said skill. A simple example would be my own scholarship interview.

I admit, I lack the skills required to be a Bank Negara scholar. Although my academic and cocurriculum track records are well above average, I lack the 'zing' to be a BNM scholar. But then, during the interview, I perceive myself as 'The Guy That Should Be A Scholar' and I plant that image into my interviewers mind. In doing so, I got the scholarship and because of the opportunity that came afterwards, I became 'The Guy That Should Be A Scholar' (Woah, it is like super bragging and crap. But bear with me and take in the message) Opportunities to obtain 'pure skill' is opened up by using 'perception'

But then, maybe it is an isolated case....or it is?

Ever been to a MLM function before? Are those people in front wearing their suits and ties and looking all nice and fancy that skilled and rich? Chances are, they are not....probably. But they successfully planted that image into the audience mind and because of that, they WILL be that skilled and rich guy/girl.

"Perception is the key."

After note: Now, you may have noticed some gaping holes in my arguments above. I noticed that too and it was intentional. You know, to make something to be debated upon. So yeah, what do you think about perception?

Effort Rationalization

"If you want to achieve something, work hard. If you can't, work harder"

-Railzan Kurhna

Hello people! Here am I writing a new blog post early in the morning. The first time ever since I graduated from Taylor's. So, in this lovely morning I shall write about something called 'effort rationalization'

What is effort rationalization? It is an act of thinking about your efforts to put into an action, prompting you to decide to put in more effort or to put in less. To put it simply, you think and control whether to work harder or to work less. This effort rationalization is a heck of a skill to master because you can make yourself more efficient by controlling the amount of effort you put into an action. Hence, no effort is wasted.

Another way to see effort rationalization is by relating it to stabilization policy in Macroeconomics. Sure, the economy and yourself has a 'self-correcting' mechanism to correct itself/yourself in times of boom and slack but it will be too slow. To put it in a personal context, by the time you realized that you are putting too much effort in winning the heart of a girl you like, you had already spent so much money and time for her that it is not worth it anymore. Hence, effort rationalization should kick in.

BUT WAIT 

Effort rationalization is just like stabilization policy. Meaning while you won't go down as bad as it should, you also won't go up as high as it should. You are chained to not be at the bottom spot AND the top spot. You are trapped in the middle. You become average. Just like the economy, you are stuck in the middle income trap. Your life is good. It won't go down and to go up, it takes 'too much effort'. Complacency kicked in and you can say hello to the average life.

Look around you, no, look at yourself. Can you see the effect of effort rationalization in you? You can't? Think again, have you said this?

"Ala, B pon B la. Cukup ok la tu"

"Nombor 7 pon ok la. At least aku tak bottom 10"

"Perlu ke aku study lagi? Aku rasa cukup untuk pass ni"

You my friend is a victim of effort rationalization. True, it helps at times but this is abuse.

FOR ONCE, STOP RATIONALIZING!

SCREW LOGIC 

YOU!

GET OUT FROM YOUR #$%^& COMFORT ZONE

AND WORK HARDER DAMMIT!

Hope or Fear

I iz back! After five days of fun (read:torture) in the middle of the jungle without internet and phone connection, I'm back into my concrete jungle with 20mbps unifi.

So, what's up? Well there is nothing much to talk about the camp....heh, I lied. Actually there is ALOT of things that can be discussed regarding the BTN camp. A LOT. But worry not my readers. I won't pull off a controversial political post with Revolusi and Bersih and PR and BN and Perkara 153 bla bla bla. I won't risk the ISA or something barging into my home and capturing me. *shivers*

Today, I will be talking about Hope and Fear. Before that, here is a disclaimer

The following post did not represent any parties, groups or factions and it is wholly based on the author's own point of view. It is just an opinion meaning it is may or may not be true. Healthy debate is encourage but baseless slight is not welcome.

What does hope and fear has to do with BTN camp? It's related to the fundamental element used by BTN to 'brainwash' and indoctrinate their participant to serve the country. In their module, they have various topics covered like Equality, Malaysia's law and the Constitution but to deliver those topics they resorted into one very fundamental element: fear

How do they instill fear? Simple. They compare with another 'worse' country like Palestine, Syria dan Turki. They elucidate very clearly the worst case scenario that could happen if you don't serve the country and be thankful to the government. The module operates from the top down, meaning they deconstruct the fall of a nation from the top.

A good example is one of the question stated in the module : Which is more important for a country? Education, Social, Politics or Economics?

Personally, I think the answer is education. Reason being is that education forms the basis of progress and it is also the glue to sustain a nation. Without a proper education, one could not change his fate. Without education, a nation would just stay stagnant and without any progress.

But what is the answer given by the module? Politics. Reason: Without politics, a nation would go into chaos. It is quiet logical for a nation to crumble when the government fails. If they is no one to control and supervise the people, people can just do anything we want...and people are not as rational as we thought. Examples given was Palestine, Syria and Egypt.

Notice the difference? With education, you are looking forward and finding a way to become better. That is hope. With politics, you are looking down and trying to find a way so you won't fall down. That is fear. As stated earlier, the BTN module operates on the basis of instilling fear into the hearts of the young. They showed the bottom of the barrel in the worst possible way and expect you to keep on climbing if you don't know to fall down.

Is it bad?

Heck no. Inspiration via fear has been done a lot of time and it is not a bad way to inspire a nation. Thinking back, we as humans progress in the name of fear during prehistoric ages. To survive, we need to keep on moving forward. Kill, eat and thrive in the wilderness. For a moment if you give up, you die. Don't want to die, keep on living. Simple.

But see, fear essentially forces us to dwell in the scars of past mistakes. As long as we didn't fall into the void, we are okay...even if we are merely inches away from falling down. Hey, that is better than falling down, right? As long as the worst case scenario doesn't happen, it is good enough. The notion of 'Kita patut bersyukur kerana ia boleh menjadi lebih teruk' is a possible notion but relying on this alone will force the whole nation to be complacent and to NEVER PROGRESS FORWARD


If we use hope as a method of inspiration, what will happen instead? We will look up and forward. We can see our end point as a nation clearly. There is a saying that if you want to inspire our workers to build a ship, show them the beautiful vastness of the ocean. When we can see our end point, we can strategised and plan our next step towards progress. Effectively when we progress forward, we escape the void of worst case scenarios.

Now isn't that a better way to inspire a group of hopeful young individuals?

Selfishness. Bad?

To be honest with you guys, I was really thinking of writing about SPARTFEST and the joys of arts and music as I strut the corridors of my campus ogling all the artsy spartsy stuff and let my ears be serenaded by music of all kinds.

But then, I changed my mind. So, here is a picture to sum the SPARTFEST experience

And on to today's topic: Selfishness

Warning

The following post may or may not be emo depends on the tone of the voice inside your head that reads out everything you read into your internal microphone and the current song in your playlist.

Now, you may be wondering, why did Nazran chose such an emo topic to blog about? The answer is simple: Because I wanted to. See, I am being selfish right now. In reaction to that, you may produce a frown on your cute/handsome face with the thought of 'what a jerk, I need real answers dammit' flashing upon your mind. Now, you may deny that you don't have that thought in mind but that is just wishful thinking. It is natural for you to have that kind of thought and it is okay.

Selfishness has long been a 'bad, uncivilized' trait to have. Being selfishness sends a signal to everyone else that you either lack the social awareness to function in a typical social environment of the modern age or you are just big gaping A-hole. Selfishness breaks to order of our social dynamics by fulfilling the needs of a certain individual. 

Our planet's ecosystem works on the basis of helping each other out. Even in the case of a fly was eaten by a frog, that fly is actually helping the frog to survive by being its food. That noble little insects forgone its wife, kids and friends just to be broken down into nutrition of molecular size for the frog to use. That is an absence of selfishness. Imagine a scenario (might be a bit ridiculous but bear with me nonetheless), where the fly refuse to be the food of the frog. That selfish fly refuse to hang out at the typical spot for it to be hunted and to opt for chilling out at home, drinking fly beer, playing with the kids and fornicating with its wife. Other flies seeing that selfish fly enjoying its time would also opt to be selfish too. What would happen to the frog, then? Dies. What happen to snakes that eat frogs? Dies, or opt for other sustenance. 

The point is, when you're being selfish others lose out. You cut the line because you want your food faster, other who waited for so long will have to wait longer. You pick up the last Pau Kacang in your school canteen, other will never get it. You, not giving out your homework for your friend to copy, they don't finish their homework and get suspended. You, by being selfish are disrupting nature and everyone knows that disrupting nature is not cool, bro.

Intermission~~ Source: wherethepunis.com

But wait!

Most of those examples, although selfish by nature, those ARE the right thing to do. I am going to screw your mind by saying selfishness is natural too. 

Wait, What the Fishcake?

See, although we live in the ever-connected, ever-related world, we are still, no matter what happen, living OUR OWN LIVES. Whatever we do everyday is to stay alive and be in the game of life until our end came to us. Until then, we can't avoid to be so selfless. Because not matter what you do, there will be winners and losers. There are the strong and the weak. And for you to keep on going in life, you must be selfish!

Butt weight!

As stated earlier, you can't be so overly selfish too. That will...well, disrupt nature. And disrupting nature is not cool... So yeah, balance in everything is important.

The point is....?

The reason why I am writing this post is because I am in a huge dilemma of becoming super selfish and super selfless. And to organize myself better (and to a certain extent, console myself) I write and babble in this blog. Henceforth, this post about selfishness.

You see, I am a generally nice guy and quite selfless too. I don't mind sacrificing my time and energy to something that is worth my investment (highlight that part. See, I don't do favors like a dog) The conflict came when between quite unimaginable happened.

I

Fell

In

Love

Boom

There you have it. The thing is I am flying off to the land of opportunity this August. Even so, that doesn't change the fact that I had fell in love. Two constant: 1) I'll be flying off in August. 2) I fell in love. One thing that struck my mind: This is going to be complicated

Two ways to tackle this.

1)Be selfish and confess

2)Be selfless and held it all in

Again, the only thing that struck my mind is this is going to be complicated.

To be selfish or selfless? Which path should I take to preserve the balance of the universe? (heh)

Loneliness

I am here, laying down on the floor

Enclosed by these four walls of pure agony

As the sounds of my breathing echoed through the box

Silence that is loud

Loudness that is silent

Here in this room

Here is this world I created

I am alone

-Railzan Kurhna

Now, you may be wondering why the sudden change of writing style and mood. Simply put, Kanzaki is not here which is good because this blog needs a bit more serious tone as what it was originally: a simple philosophical, metaphorical and deep blog. So today we will be talking about loneliness; something that is not alien to most of us.

It sucks to be alone. To be that one person who doesn't have a pair. To be that one person left out from the social circle. To be that one person staying home during a campus-wide party. To be stranded in the middle of nowhere without anyone as accompany. To be lonely SUCKS. Humans being innately social creatures to begin with need company to survive. The absence of company is a state of loneliness and this violates our own human nature. Humans can not be lonely. It is just...wrong.

But loneliness is not just an absence of company, it is also an absence of connection. One can know alot of people and often surrounded of them but still feels lonely. It is because there is no connection from the people he knows; no connection deep enough to fill the loneliness in his/her heart. And just like the absence of company, the absence of connection SUCKS as well.

Why am I complaining about being lonely SUCKS?

Am I...lonely?

My dear readers, maybe I am but isn't that weird? I have a family. I have friends that spans five to six social levels. I have pets to snuggle during rainy days. There is no absence of company or absence of connection in my life, yet I do feel alone at times.

Why?

Humans are indeed innately social creatures but the action of dwelling and surrendering oneself's to society causes one to eventually lose his or her own voice.

Wait, what? Lose his or her own voice?

Yes my dear readers, losing our own voice is possible especially when you are always socializing with others. Their views, the collective views of society will assimilate itself into you until the line that separates the two of them blurred and ultimately what society is, you are. You will be able to think for yourself, ask yourself questions or be yourself because you lost your voice due to the fact you are always listening to the voice of others.

Loneliness solves this problem. By being all by yourself and removing all connection, you stand with your own two feet. The only voice you hear is the voice of your own. By being isolated, you are able to think for yourself, not to satisfy the views of society. By being alone, you are you in your purest form

So, yes. I do feel alone. Because before all of this great friends and acquaintances came into my life, I was alone. I experienced the purest form of me enabling me to think, formulate, reflect, and feel without the pressures of society. Because I was alone at first, I was able to break some that same loneliness. Irony, I know. And at times, I just wish to escape to that same void called loneliness so I can hear myself again and be me in the purest form of me.

Loneliness isn't that bad.

It is just a mere choice.

My Three Weeks of Fun

I

AM

BACK

PEOPLE

No, it doesn't read as 'I am back people', btw. Put a damn comma.

Andddddd I am back from the dead. After the epic aftermath of GE 13, followed by the super stress finals week, I am finally on my break. Though it was sad that I'll be leaving Taylor's ADP forever and ever (And the thank you post has gathered dust in my dashboard) So I'll take this opportunity to thank everyone who had made my time in Taylor's ADP fun and memorable. :)

...

...

...

So, now what? With holidays lengthy and feels like it will never end. (I'm so going to regret this later), I was left with boredom. But see, this is not like all the holidays I had been through before. This holiday is...well different. This three-month holiday will be my last holiday before I finally spread my wings and carry my overweight body to the New World aka United States of America aka The Country That Is So Free That You Can Bang A Cow And It Is Legal. With that in mind, I swore to myself to utilize my time well. The conscientiousness me (Read: Railzan) kicked into action and put up a general to-do-list for the holidays

Nazran's To-Do-List before Flying to US

by Railzan and Kanzaki

1. Spend time with family and friends and friends of friends

2. Visit school often and help out

3. Enlighten thyself

4. Prepare all da documents

5. Meet some new people

6. Explore Malaysia

7. Create a League of Legends account

8. Find a girlfriend 

So, with that in mind, let's tackle the top of the list: Spending time with family and friends (And friends of friends) This takes the top of the list because I feel sad when I think of leaving behind such awesome family and friends behind to pursue my dreams. So I scroll through my friend's list and made plans with everyone and hopefully, I can cover them all.

Seriously, if you wanna lepak with me. Roger2 me fast. I really wanna spend time with you gaissss!

Ehem...

So three weeks has passed since I made that list. What is my progress?

I'm proud to say that I (think I) made quite a progress. 

First of all there's the SWAG E-Sports group consist of Axel, Hanis, Eli, Azwan. I feel kinda guilty for not spending time with the during college. (Sorry, I was busy...as always) All the DotA games that  rejected will came back haunting me if I don't start spending time with them now. So, I did. We played DotA until the wee hours of the morning and then go for a quick bite at Siti Zubaidah (GG waistline) Even today, we went out to Lowyat to buy....well, gaming stuffs. Just like true buddies, we exchange racial jokes without any shit taken. Now that my friends, are the true 1Malaysia. Get it right, PM

Then, there is the SSP concert aka Flourishes. Perfect time to go and spend time with band member. So, rang up my musical pal, Arief and my pet sis, Afiqah and invite them. (I did invite Mike, but he no reply) The concert was so-so and me and Afiqah had a long talk during the traffic jam. Arief has his stocks of 'hot stories' readied to be shared. What? It is a great past time :3

SSP WO

I don't always camwhore, but when I do, I look horrible 

After that, the weekend came and along with it is the SUPERAWESOMEOMGITISCOMINGTOSMSSFINALLYAFTER40YEARS HKSBP. For ye foreigners out there (Oi, school-ist) HKSBP stands for Hari Kecemerlangan SBP and it is an event where every, I repeat, EVERY single SBP in the face of Malaysia will gather in one place (or three in SMSS' case) to fight it out in debate and basketball along with a grandious award ceremony for the kiasu and fabulous. And yes, it was held in my own alma mater, Sekolah Menengah Sains Selangor. Curious with the preparations, I dropped by at school once and it was a sight to behold. Teachers and students rushing everywhere to prepare and organize. For the first time ever, I saw the whole school getting hyped up for a single event. (Well, there's rugby but whatever)

I went to see the debate twice with my First Subang neighbour, Imran. It is funny when he disguise himself under the pseudonym 'Ching Meng' and effectively fooling everyone that he is a Chinese from Damansara (He is a Malay from ASIS btw)

And there's the Majlis Anugerah Cemerlang where I also dropped by to see how things are...Okay, I lied, Mike dragged me to it to meet his girlfriend, Ain. And what do you know, the very moment I stepped into the teachers attacked me with a request

"Can we help us? We need a PA for the emcee"

And me, being a Yes man I accepted their request (I lied, I just want to menyibuk) Hence, I was given the task as Fedtri Yahya (sp?) PA for the day. For those of ya anti government people, Fedtri Yahya is a host in MHI TV3. So again, I was dragged into a SBP event. What is best course of action now?

INFILTRATE 

ENTERTAIN

ENJOY

And poof! I'm in my school's batik as a disguise

Behold of my lack of calcium

I did talk to some of the current SBP student under the pseudonym of Asran Maskor (lame). But I had fun. Oh, I hang out with my band juniors too. Great to finally able to talk to them

And on Sunday there's the concert with PJPO. For me, it was...well, more of a performance than a full concert because I only have one song. Oh, the hardships of a saxophonist in a philharmonic orchestra. But the good side is, I became closer to my orchestra mates.

I'm not fat! I look big because I'm taking up air into my belly, I swear!

With the imba trumpeter, Nyzem

So nais. Full orchestra

Taylor's University Symphonic Orchestra

And finally, there is this busking thing I did for SPARTFEST. 30minutes of jamming songs like "When I Was Your Man" and "Careless Whisper" in a crowd that is....well, rich and loaded. Raised RM35 in 30 minutes. Woohoo~

Then Sherlyn gave me a 50% off Chatime as a reward. WORTH

Me and my middle split hair glory

Cash. So naiss

And that concludes my activity for three weeks! Well, not all of the activity I did, but whatever.

Oh, any ideas for what should I do next? I need ideas!

PS: To my loyal readers, you might ask 'Why the sudden change in writing style?". Blame Kanzaki for it. Seriously. Blame her -Nazran

The Need For Conflict

Hello Earthlings. Yeah, I know. It has been a while? Why? Because screw ADP Death Week (read: Shitload of assignments) and now, I'm in the middle of my very last Final in Taylor's ADP. Still haven't studied much and one more project to do. Haiz...

But on the side note, it is time for the GENERAL ELECTION~~~YIPPIE *shoots confetti*

Why am I so excited? Because -to quote an uncle in Facebook-,

"True, GE13 is the Mother Of All Elections, in the sense that for the first time in Malaysian history, a change of government is seen possible, if not probable. But at the end of the day, it should not simply boil down to a Battle Of The Ulamaks, Songkok Tinggi vs Kopiah Putih, Hudud vs Dangdut, Winnable vs Wannabe, Manifesto vs Akujanji, Haves vs Have-nots, Ini Kali Lah vs Lain Kali Lah or whatever. Nor should it have extremely racial or religious tones. Or gutter politics like peddling pornographic pictures and videos, whether genuine or edited."

-Zaim Al-Amin-

And just to make things clear, I'm a non-partisan in the battle of two factions. I love both of them and hate both of them equally. (See? It is great. Come to the non-partisan side!) But that doesn't matter I should be apathetic and not give a care/damn at all. I do care, mostly because politics is so closely related to economics and it is oddly interesting to see the interaction between the two. As I scroll through my Facebook and Twitter laden with various political posts such as-

"Ya Allah, Mereka ingin menguasai XXX. Hilanglah XXX daripada dunia ini. BANGKIT!"
"Mereka kejam and penipu. Ubah dan pangkah XXX"
"Negara ini akan menjadi XXX jika XXX menguasai!"
"Bangla masuk! Dafuq?"

And seriously, the quality of arguments presented by both parties are...well...BAD. The arguments reeked ignorance and sheer stupidity and 'macai-ness'. (Though I won't deny there is some golden argument presented in the internet as such the ever-famous Rafizi's open letter) And don't let me started on the photoshopped pictures -.-

But see, one thing I realized through the course of GE:13 is that the amount of patriotism towards one's country. I have this stereotype in my head saying, "Heh, Malaysians are a bunch of non-patriotic people". I WAS WRONG. And this election around, for the first time ever we get to see the Gen Y people finally being able to vote. This Gen Y people, hip and technologically connected became an important political tool in this election and in my opinion will turn around this coming election. With their fresh ideas, I believe the Gen Y people can make Malaysia into a better country.

HOWEVER

This is where the problem starts. Sure, Gen Y is being able to vote for the first time in history but that doesn't mean the older generation will be obsolete. Older generation aka the Baby Boomers and Gen X are...well, more conservative compared to the more liberal Gen Y. Some of them were born before Merdeka and a fair number of them still remembered the tragedy of 13th May 1969. Some of them still have racial sentiments and some of them still thinks Malaysia is as good as it is, compared to the yesteryears.

Because of that, it creates conflict between the 'new' and the 'old'. The new wanted change, to restructure Malaysia, to take apart, to clean the interior and build it back again. The old wanted to preserve stability, to oil up the parts and to put up a new coat of paint for Malaysia. Sure, there are some of the 'old' who thinks like a 'new' and vice versa but generally, this is where they belong at the spectrum of ideology.

So, is this bad?

Hardly, this is what we should be experiencing to achieve progress. You see, conflicting ideologies is not necessarily a bad thing. (It will if some A-hole decided to go violent) In a calm and intellectual debate, the two conflicting ideology can find a middle a ground and balance each other out. Sure, I don't want to live in a Malaysia that is super strict and conservative that I can't even 'melatah' (eg: Babs gila!) I need my dose of 'melatah'. And I don't want to live in a Malaysia where it is super liberal and free without any authority. Yeah, I'm over exaggerating here but you get my point.

So calm down people. Conflict is normal. Who knows, we can live in a better Malaysia after this?