Rehab

And it's here. I am in rehab. Okay...not really...I managed to sneak in my iPhone. But otherwise rehab in it's nicest form.

We left in the morning to have some nice breakfast...changed the plans midway to maybe make it an 'overseas' trip and get lunch in Indonesia (just a boat trip away) and when we got here we decided to stay a night in one of the resorts...

Man, how I miss these short trips...they yank you out of reality and maybe because of the sudden nature have even stronger effect than long planned holiday. This time it's even amplified by the fact that I left my notebook at home (completely unsuspecting). Over the years I got used to working pretty much anywhere...on planes, airports, coaches, starbucks and even public transport. Anyway, I've been planning on running away for some time now. Usually when we go somewhere we set up the main tent around bar area with wifi and easy access to drinks. Not this time...as all I have is iPhone...and luckily free 3G Internet from SG (only on the beach). BTW the photo is real - it's the view from the hotel restaurant.

Anyway...computer is not the only addiction I got the break from lately. Thanks to the economic meltdown I got at least a short breather from the break neck speed of events of the past few years and finally got time to sit down and think. Think what out of the 1000 things I did which was the one that actually made some sense. Should I look at it as Thomas Edison...I had no failures I just found 1000 ways of how not to do things. If I look at it from any sane point of view the statistics are much more bleak. But...the new day is coming...and hopefully yesterday won't be forgotten. At least by me I hope. One thing I learned when helping out in changi prison and later working with the guys after release is that no matter how long the rehab, no matter how much time you have to contemplate everything wrong and every possible better way, your old ways only become more and more traecherous. You already know what and how can get wrong and that makes you believe that, as Eddison, you are getting better when, in fact, you're falling into the same trap...but because of your experience you'll be able to get deeper and deeper. I met number of different people inside...mostly drug addicts (careful - the word has a different meaning in SG than in many other countries) but also gamblers, fraudsters and fighters (even a hit man). While the drug addicts are pretty much doomed (all of them desparately plan to leave for another country but as they can get passport only after 2 years most most most most most of them can't last clean longer than a year...that was a 'most' for every hope). The fighters have it hard but they stand a bit better chance. Whom I found especially interesting were gamblers. Entrepreneurship and gambling have surprisingly a lot in common...way more than someone on a regular salary would imagine. You could almost say that gambling is enterpreneurship stripped of the hassle of idea, product, employees and pretty much everything besides the money. You start with no or very little idea where you'll end up. Sunshine doesn't last all morning...clobber doesn't last all day. What's the difference? When you run a business all this neusances become your chips. They can turn against you or they can turn to be your winning asset. Your only asset. I've probably lost more in wrong investments than any of my gambling friends...just like I've (l)earned way more than most of them. Not because the stakes are higher...because every failure or win is not just about winning or loosing...because it's not about what happens after I've won or lost....it's the journey (battle) that counts. As Andrey Bolkonsky in war and peace said....wars are not won by strategies or numbers....they're won by soldiers that want to win the war. And in every single case it comes down to that...I should say it again...but no matter how many times you've heard it you cannot possibly feel the pain of those words until you've lived through it. It's like listening to a marathon runner saying it was realy hard on 24th kilometer but than I decided to go on. If you've ever been there you know that he's saying that his feet were hurting like crazy, his knees checked out, his heart throbbing, his breath was nowhere to be found and the last pieces of sanity was saying you've proved your point...of course you can do it..,but who really cares??? Foolish...stupid even...ask any enlighten egoless swami....yet all this vanity...is it really vain? I don't know...I feel like I don't know much anymore.

I do hope that this coming upturn I will have more faith in me and in what I am doing than any opportunity hunter will have in me parting with my money. After all it has, without exception, paid for all the other 'cannot lose' ideas. The other ideas were not much more stupid than whatever I am doing...in fact the strategy was way better...in most cases the numbers were incomparably better...yet it somehow reached a point were it stopped being worth fighting for. But...why? Recently I was asked if I blieve in feng shui. After all, I did spend quite an amount of money on feng shui consultants. It never had any effect...when the consultant said you have a wealth door and I was sitting in wealth section we were in fact loosing money. When they said we should move out immediately we were in fact making money. When I pointed that out to one of the feng shui master he seemed completely unsurprised...he said I am trying to do things first and hope to believe in them later (ie when the facts can substantiate it) - unfortunatelly faith works the other way round. It picks up where reason leaves of...but if it's not there before reason took over it want be there after neither.

It's easy to believe when you see the proof sitting in front of you...but by than it's not believing any more...it's simply accepting the facts.