I was supposed to be a violinist

I was supposed to be a violinist. That’s right, no shit. I started playing violin at the age of 7 and played up until I was 19 or so. I can speak in great lengths about parental oppression, the traditional pressure to follow in the footsteps of one’s parents but I now realize something profound about their determination to make me a musician: thank you.

Every line of code I wrote as a teenager was a weapon against the stupid violin. Every dollar made from IT projects was a case of ammo. If it wasn’t for the violin I am now convinced I would have been submerged in mediocrity, cranked up few babies and enjoying a dead-end job. May be the occasional Costco flat screen TV (Not a Sony brand) and used Honda would shine as a beacon of success amongst a list of pathetic milestones of lifetime achievement. In other words tick tack. You get the rest! Oh wait, may be spirituality would have absorbed my genetically embedded desire for self-efficacy. All that is easy in the world would be on my list of worship.

Instead the violin was the enemy and my job as a general was to produce the best possible defiance that will not only keep the attacks at bay but rather incinerate the enemy by superior evidence of better life not in exchange of random dispensation of wealth (such as winning the lottery) but as a deliberate effort for superior application of one’s ability. Sticking it to the musicians was not a worthy goal. Showing superior economic status in exchange for fraction of the effort, now that is something else ladies and gentlemen. I recall the time when I came home with a grocery store bag full of cash which amounted to more than my father’s monthly salary – all in exchange of few days of networking consulting for a local looser newspaper desperate enough to seek technological competitive advantage over its rivals.

However this post is not about my career as violinist. It is about my intolerance towards mediocrity. I just spent an hour discussing career choices and other classic time killers with a friend of mine and I am angry at the level of acceptance most people have towards their professional sacrifices and the opportunity cost at which said sacrifices come. Let alone the depth of choices people make about their careers. I recall a Japanese wisdom: choose to do what you love and you shell never work a day in your life. Well said!

Living at home has a negative NPV

Well my suspicion has been validated by number of Jewish friends: Living at home has a negative NPV. Sorry FOBs, your Costco conquests are falling short: you got beat to the bunch in cheapness by a non-Asian race. This is a disgrace for all the cash mattresses and penny jars scattered around the Sunset neighborhoods. All the “free stuff” pick-ups from sidewalks and night raids of the city dump.

For every year of living at home with parents after the age of 21 you forgo five thousand dollars in annual future earnings. So for example if you live at home until you are 30 you have given up 9*5= $45,000 of potential annual salary. That means the moment you finally make that huge leap of faith to move out, likely when you were forced into marriage with a non-English speaker, you are facing life where your annual salary will never exceed 40-50k per year.

Now let’s do the math. Your primary argument is that you live at home so that you don’t have to pay rent but really the true reason is that you have been told you are a looser so many times by your parents that group harmony requires you to believe them and then the story is simple: how could a looser afford an apartment? But let’s get back to the green shall we? You figured $1,500 per month for 9 years is not a bad savings right? That’s a whole $18,000 per year isn’t it – more than 20 cheap flat screen Costco no-brand name flat screen TVs right? Well the problem is that in exchange of those TVs you are prohibited from making decent living until the rest of your days. Now what’s more important? You saving $18k per year for 9 years or forgoing $5k per year for the reset of your life?

The Jewish people know the answer: I will show you the finger today and make $120 per year for the next 40 years and you can take your group harmony you know where? Good work guys. I admire your IQ!

What Urban Dictionary would NOT publish

In the contemporary subculture of trailer park ghetto admirers FOB has crystallized as simplistic slang for what is already described in the other posts. However reducing FOB to primitive instrument of insult is like cracking nuts with a microscope. There is so much more than just the derogatory form of this beautiful word. First a curious mind must describe the behavioral properties of what FOB is and does, then one must ask the deeper questions of cause and affect? Did FOB became the masterpiece of sadistic Asian parenting practices or is there an even deeper, genetically rooted cause for the complete dysfunction of FOBs as normal beings. Yet the answers could lurk on the soil of primitive instincts of jealousy which would answer the fundamental question of why FOB’s parents are so determined to eff-up their kids in such a profound way as to never fear competition from their own?

Clearly seeking a single answer in itself would reduce this discussion to a capacity of how the FOB would approach the challenge hence one must reason at a cognitive level of at least that unattainable to the FOB’s mind.

Another school of though would argue that FOB is the victim of systematic massacre of self esteem; confidence and ability to practice cognitive reasoning for the purpose of some unknown goal. The outcome of such strategy had produced the self-image of weakness and total inability to achieve self-efficacy: the top phase of one’s personal development based on Maslow’s pyramid.

No one is to say what that dark goal could be but one should extrapolate its enormous significance based upon the extend to which FOBs are being subjected to abused (both physically and mentally) by their siblings. I personally favor the victim theory due to my personal exposure to FOB and the tragedy witnessed first hand that creates a sad proximity to the lowest forms of human decay known to mankind: genocide; hate and racism. I am very explicit in NOT comparing FOB’s parents to the animal kingdom because of Nietzsche’s definition which states that the animals are NOT capable of evil, only humans are (Essays on Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals): the realization of one’s ability to inflict pain upon another, sadly, is a human property. What a sad undeserved credit to those torturers of the future FOB.

Nevertheless we witness rare cases of rebellion against the genocide of one’s sacred values committed daily by FOB’s parents. Instead of seeking compelling ways to encourage FOB to raise against the repressor we as highly evolved jurisprudence society must alleviate FOB by judicial leniency and compassion. A quick review of French law reveals an interesting interpretation of western punitive penalty code: crime of passion is widely tolerated as exception from the otherwise strict corrective penalties imposed for traditional felonies. Whether we agree with French lawmakers or not, there is something to be said about our own exceptions such as revenge justified leniency and the traditional all-American principle of fairness: eye for an eye. If we stand behind our tradition then eye for an eye it is: create a lenient track record of case law which frees the FOB from the shackles of double repression: one from their parents and another by our judiciary which penalizes one’s quest for emotional and physical freedom.

Good work to you Sir!

I was recently blown away by things that normally initiate the reaction of respect within my very proprietary framework of interpersonal values: the product of extraordinary expertise that comes as a result of effort; superior IQ but above all – commitment to excellence. A college budy of mine had managed to learn Japanese and Korean. Make no mistake, this is not some BS scam which is easy to achieve. The guys is capable of conversing at moderately sophisticated level using both languages. Again I must emphasize that we are not talking about few memorized pickup lines traditionally available as the sole instrument to those Asian-fetished perverted older gentlemen. No surrey Bob, this guy knows his stuff and it did not come easy. It came in exchange of time and mental energy.

Moving on, he approaches a hot Japanese coed studying in our 24 hours library and in about 6 minutes he gets a number. That in itself is immaterial without a careful analysis of the quality of said female. So again we are talking classy, conservative and soon to be well educated traditional Japanese-American target. Make no mistake; this is not some easy Daly City trash: no tats, no piercings, no highlights. The female is so blown away that one can clearly see that rare expression which communicates total obedience and desire to be controlled, told what to do as if the compliance it itself is a source of satisfaction. Talk about the ultimate Shmoo (well defined in Lucky Number Slevin) except this time the Shmoo is a consenting adult female completely free of any chemicals (yes I must make it clear that the usual instruments of the player-type do not apply here. This is the real thing gentlemen).

After admiring my friend I had to put by MBA hat and revisit the effort to product ratio. The objective of such analysis is quite pragmatic. It attempts to answer a fundamental question in business: could the same gain be achieved at a lesser cost?

Sadly the answer is yes. I am not being sarcastic at all. I wished the answer is yes because that will settle forever a question of credibility and meritorious rewards. That means the losers are losers and winners are winners. More precisely a winner can always be a loser but not vice versa.

However the same product can be achieved in exchange of much lesser opportunity cost. What makes this a depressing discussion is that the lesser cost I speak of is also available to the losers which makes the distinction between the two groups of humans fuzzy rather than a concrete divide – one which I would like to have seen in a perfect world.

A resume in juvi, few ghetto tattoos and some facial hair will likely produce the same reaction in said Asian female. The latter appeals to the female’s curiosity and rebellion needs: one which could not be addressed by intellectual superiority and traditional values. Now I ask you all enlightened man out there, why is that? Why a looser has access to the same weapons that highly intellectual, effort driven committed gentlemen has? What is wrong with the world in this picture?

If it’s all the same then we should all go out and do drugs – it is a million times easier compared to NOT doing any!

What is it about human decay that draws females? Take the best fitness for baby production argument. Well constructed scientifically based rational view based upon genetically programmed safeguards against self-termination of the species. As the sperm carrier appears more “manly” the female is chemically compelled to mate. The product then is more likely to survive compared to the product towards which a geek will contribute. It may work for pre-historic times but gee, it has been ten thousand years since then. This programming is not only obsolete, it now has a reverse benefits. The product of the “manly” types is far inferior compared to the baby of those flagged as less-manly according to the pre-historic criteria. The game had changed. It is no longer matter of physiological survival but rather a degree of social integration and intellectual competition. If once a muscle was needed in order to smash a tiger’s head with a rock, today much different qualities guarantee success.

There is good news in all this: the pre-historic female programming will proliferate the growth of ghetto types which makes it easier for those with superior intellect to compete in the world. Imagine if everyone was smart? That would be a disaster. However thanks to females seeking looser-types, producing looser offspring and proliferating the value of mankind’s decay, a small group of intellectual oligarchy can strive safely surrounded by DJs, mall security guards, guests of the penal system, high school drop outs and many more.

Thank you ah mighty for designing the female kind in such mysterious ways. Without this careful crafting the planet would have been a much more difficult place to excel than it is today!