What I learned from debate
Debate is something that took over my life. I obsessed over it. I threw away weekends for it. When people invited me out, I'd say, "I can't. I've got debate." I even joined a facebook group of the same name (as the quote).
But it's something I have surprisingly few regrets about. It's such an enriching experience to learn, not just how to stand up and speak, but to do it in a focused and structured way.
1. It taught me where Iraq was.
I confess. I was horrible at geography and history before this. I could tell you that I had heard of North Korea but I wouldn't have been able to accurately point it out on a map.
Because of debating, I can safely say that I can at least point out a few countries.
2. It taught me to never stray from your objective.
You should never ever explain more than important. Because they'll stop listening to you anyway after they hear what they want. And all you'll end up doing is wasting everyone's time including your own.
And the importance of having a clear objective becomes that much clearer. Now, I utterly hate people who do things or say things that don't help them achieve their objective. Ok well, maybe I don't hate them. But it's so frustrating to hear them blabber on and on about irrelevant things, or to see them do so many things that are pointless.
Of course, to only do things relevant to your objective, you have to have an objective in the first place. Over 4 years, debate drummed it into me that you must always have an objective.
3. It honed my skills in explaining complex ideas in an economy of words.
You only have 7 minutes to explain how you want to save the world before bedtime.
Let's say it takes 5 seconds to say a sentence. That's only 84 sentences you can say to describe the political situation in some country on the other side of the world and explain why aid is the worst thing you can do to the farmers in the area as well as put forward your own solution for the problem at hand and of course defend it from the arguments of your opponent.
Did I mention you have to find the flaws in what your opponent says and attack those too? 7 minutes is waaaayyyyy too short.
4. It made me meet so many kinds of people.
There are a number of awesome people in this world. It seems that a huge proportion of them are in debate. Not only that, you get to meet so many varieties. I don't just mean in terms of race or culture. I also mean in terms of people who are just different. Their styles, their personalities, their very outlook on life.
And where else could you find such a diverse group who would be more than willing to talk and talk and talk and...
5. It allowed me to get away from the calculator.
I'm in engineering. The hard sciences don't give much room to discuss world issues in class. In law or economics or sociology, you discuss world issues all the time. So I stepped out of my classroom and tried to be a little more well-rounded. I didn't want to just be a guy who knew how numbers worked. I wanted to know what those numbers meant.
Engineering is supposed to use science to solve real world problems. How do I do that unless I know what those "real world problems" are?
So...
If you've got the time, join debate. It's so worth it.
If you haven't got it, make time.
Whitespace
My little brother was born into a world where the internet already existed. A world where all the information in the world is available at your fingertips. I can find out in 15 minutes what it took a few days to find out a few decades ago. So with all this information that we have, we cram in more and more and more. You can open yahoo.com and see how they cram in so much into just one page.
Of course, having a whirlwind of data isn't always the best either. There's always a thing called whitespace.
Whitespace
When you have too much information at a time, your brain won't be able to process all of it at once. It needs space between information. For example, that pause people make after saying something important. Or the way a webpage looks so so soooo much better when everything useless is taken out and you have the minimum to see.
One reason why people like the facebook layout is because it doesn't cram too much on the same page (or at least that's true if people don't have a bunch of apps). By spacing the columns of information and limiting the information that gets there in the first place, you can better appreciate and concentrate on what you DO have on the page.
Put large blocks of space in between the blocks of text and things look much better.
Learning whitespace
So I think that we might need learning whitespace too for the same reason. Learn 3 things in half an hour and you'll walk away with all 3. Learn 48 things in a half an hour seminar and you'll still only walk away with 3. You might have written all 48 down but in the end you'll only grasp the overall concept of all 48 and not the individual concepts of each.
So we need learning whitespace. And that's when I realized what storytelling really does.
I've always been a believer that the best way to get information across is to tell a story. Our mind has evolved over thousands of years of oral storytelling to accept stories as the best medium to send information across generations.
A story (a well told story) compresses information into the format that's best to learn in. Data like dates and names are spaced properly, with the story parts in between to catch your attention again. So you get a bit of info, then while you're processing it, the author catches your attention with a little story before going on to the next bit.
Books should only have a few major points
I always complained that those hundred ringgit books would only have 3 or 4 main points in a book. Sometimes only 1 point in the whole book! Now I realize maybe it's better that way.
Of course this only goes for books that aren't story books in the first place. Because any book that wants to get a point across should always use stories to do it.
So...
Whenever everything looks too cluttered, just add a little whitespace.
Emotional Time
I sat down the other day and tried to go through my life and my memories to see what brought me here today. It's an interesting exercise. You should try it sometime. But it also made me realize the truth of something that I had heard before.
We measure time emotionally
We measure time emotionally.
Months can pass by without anything major happening. Life goes on as usual. When we look back on it, it'll seem like that part of life just passed by in a flash. But when those months are filled with emotional ups and downs, then looking back will give you such precious memories of that time. It will seem like so much happened.
Going through a lot of new and emotional experiences in a short time can make that time seem longer. It's why we can feel like we've known someone our whole lives when we've only met them a few hours ago.
We crave it
It's also what we crave for. Personally I go for adrenaline-inducing, heart-pounding things. Yeah, i'm an adrenaline junkie. Others go for sappy love stories, korean dramas, haunted houses, video games, etc. We crave the emotional ups and downs because it makes us feel alive.
Or maybe it's just me?
Capitalism
I was watching Prof David Harvey on hardtalk today. He was talking about how capitalism is not ideal for the masses. It was very interesting. He spoke a little about how wealth should not be hoarded by the rich but should be redistributed to the masses. But one point that he really emphasized is that 3% compound growth is impossible to sustain.
When America grew economically in the early 1900s, they grew in production. People invested in factories and companies that made things. After a while, the market couldn't grow that fast anymore and couldn't sustain that 3% compound growth. So they put money into assets like property (that didn't produce anything or contribute anything to development!). When that couldn't grow as fast as they wanted, they then put money into things like hedge funds and derivatives. Things that don't even exist in the real world.
Instead of putting money into production, they then put money into "growth". They made money from money. It's simply nonsense.
But it got me to thinking and I had an epiphany. Where we are economically with capitalism is the same place we were legally in the wind west. Without laws. It's every man for himself, with the strong free to trod on you.
It's preposterous. It's ridiculous. And it's happening right now.
We wouldn't stand for a country where everyone had to fight for himself and people with guns could do what they liked with you. And if you didn't have a gun? Well, too bad. You're weak and you deserve to die.
Why then do we stand for it when it happens in our economy? The rich are free to manipulate the market however they like to make themselves richer. And if you're poor (weak)? Then too bad. You're weak and poor and you deserve to die and rot away in poverty.
We've evolved our government to counteract this. From barbarians to monarchy to democracy. Why? So that the few who are strong wouldn't oppress the weak. So that people couldn't kill and rape and steal with impunity. So that the weak are protected even when they cannot protect themselves. ESPECIALLY when they cannot protect themselves.
Why then don't we evolve our financial systems in the same way? From bartering to trade to free market capitalism to something better?
The professor said something else interesting. He said that he'd been reading a lot of Marx. And that Marx has a lot of insights into understanding economics. That perhaps something along those lines might be better.
And that's what Europe tried. They called it a welfare democracy and what it meant was that capitalism would run normally and taxes would be charged. Those taxes would also then be used to help the poor, sick, old and others who needed help. It was simply enough, redistribution of wealth. But even in this form it failed as we can see happening in Greece and Europe today.
We've seen the failure of capitalism in the free market form in America with their mortgage crisis.
So we know its an inherent problem with capitalism itself if two of its very different forms can both fail and will "stagger along from one crisis to another", as Prof Harvey says.
Maybe we need a financial system that allows:
1. For people to own things.(not communism)
2. No monopoly (because its evil)
3. No hoarding of wealth (keeping billions in the bank without investing in something productive)
4. Redistribution of wealth.(because the weak should be protected when the cannot protect themselves)
5. A currency backed by gold (or at least something solid and real). Because fiat money is pure nonsense.
6. No interest. Because interest only makes sense with fiat money and if you want to allow the rich to get richer.
And so we have a growing interest in Islamic banks as a replacement for the capitalist financial system. Which doesn't sound right. An Islamic bank is NOT a financial system. It's just a banking system. Only part of a whole financial system.
Oh well, it's a little bit better than nothing. But not by much.
Disclaimer: I'm not a professor of economics like Prof Harvey there. So if I made a mistake, feel free to point it out.
A good leader has to be a great follower
What makes a good leader? If you follow a person you can always find flaws and they can always fail you.
Dr. Arif once said, "You have succeeded not when things run if you are there, but if things run even when you are not. You succeed if you can create a system."
Similarly, a good leader knows he cannot watch his followers and be with them all the time and so he gives them something greater than himself, a system. A system with rules that they should follow even if he is not there.
A great leader knows that a system merely imposes rules but does not give motivation and will. He gives them a vision instead. A vision of something great that they too can be part of.
An excellent leader follows that same system himself. And he follows it so well that all his followers are now his believers. And they will follow that vision to his death, and even after it.
The truly excellent leader realizes that he too must follow this grand vision that he gives to his people. After all, if he cannot follow that vision, why should they?
And so an excellent leader must be an even better follower and he must follow a vision greater than his own self.