Constructive Deconstruction

Extract from "Churchill on Leadership": On Avoiding Risk

Avoiding risks in business is the route to failure. Avoiding risks in politics, however, is the route to a long career in office. A failed risk in politics is far more dangerous than a failed risk in business. In business, shareholders and customers quickly forgive you if you recover from a disaster - think of Coca-Cola after the "New Coke" debacle, or Ford after the Edsel. But in politics, partisans will keep alive and distort and magnify any failure or mistake in your career. Often small mistakes are punished more severely than disasters.

Churchill observed, "In all great business very large errors are excused or even unperceived, but in definite and local matters small mistakes are punished out of all proportion."

This is one reason politicians are risk-averse, and why modern government administration seeks to minimise risk and avoid failure through a mindless bureacratic process that delivers mostly mediocrity.

Warning.

I don’t know you. But it seems you know quite a bit about me, and my family. And it seems you’re making serious threats to my family.

Now, i’ll be honest with you. I don’t who you are. I don’t know how exactly much you know. But if you get here, and you’re reading this. Then yes, this is for you.

I am warning you to stay away from my entire family. Settle. If you want, we meet, we settle it one time…If you harm anyone, i’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’ll drop all my plans - school & work - and I will find you. And I will find everyone who’s working for you. And I will find your family. And I will taste their blood.

From what I know, you sound like an educated person. But if you cannot understand me, i’ll make it simple for you.

You don’t disturb my family, I don’t disturb yours. If you do, i’ll kill your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your wife, your girlfriends, your children.
…I can find you.

On Closure

I read this in a friend’s blog…Althought I don’t share the memory, she triggered the right emotions…thought i’d share it with you guys…(i edited the formatting a little to increase readability…just a little)

the other day, my bro & i went there to look at it for the last time. i took the camera, thinking i’d have plenty of pictures to take but i surprised myself. i couldn’t seem to find the perfect angle for the perfect shot. actually, there was no shot to begin with. the place had become so different from five, six years (or was it seven?) who could remember how long it’d been?

i made my way up the spiral stairs, to the room that used to house this cool bed set that came with a table, shelves & a flight of stairs (that had secret drawer compartments) leading to the bed. the room has this zig-zag glass partition where we (my siblings & cousins) would lay out layers after layers of blankets, pile up the pillows and then seal off the entrance with a mattress. then we’d talk, laugh & have supper in it till one by one, we’d start dozing off. sometimes waking up to find someone’s hand or leg sprawled across yours hahah.

weekends were mostly spent there - saturdays were always play-days, where we’d have the luxury of swimming, playing table tennis, shooting some hoops (not me though cos i’ve had a phobia of basketballs since i don’t know when) before adjourning for piping hot home-cooked lunch. i used to play detective with my pretend kit, filled with powder (for fingerprints), threads, a notebook & a pen. i’d scout the garage for clues, then go around the bushes, confident that i’d find something substantial. i remember distinctly how our sundays were always dreadful cos it meant homework. i remember playing tekkan, street fighter, crash bandicoot & the likes in our trusty ps 2. all that, and more. but they’re gone now, along with the house. you know, i did my first split there because i was running out from the kitchen, oblivious to the slipperly floor that had just been mopped. and woila! a perfect split. i had trouble getting up really. i stood there, at that moment, wishing so hard that i could take a video of it all. or at least a picture of the happy & sad times. i found it hard to fit in, to you know, find that sense of familiarity beneath all the washed & cracked walls, and the vacant rooms.

i guess, that’s what closure is all about.

I guess closure comes in many forms…what was to be a pictorial was captured best with words…

To the crazy ones(the full text)…

Went on to look for the full text(found it at wikipedia)…Enjoy.

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,

disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing that you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent.     They imagine.     They heal.

They explore.   They create.        They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?

Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?

Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can

change the world, are the ones who do.

To the crazy ones…

While having lunch and blog surfing, I discovered this quote off Nugatory Burble She read it off an apple ad or something…

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.