A long time ago, (December 31, 2007 to be exact) I promised I would grow more assiduous in my reading.

I made good on that promise for I managed to read a total of 55 books in 52 weeks.

So what have I learned reading all of those books? Well I managed to develop several unique argots, one of which is a special grab-bag collection of jargon and expressions that is peculiar and only applies to certain crisis and will be totally forgotten by the time people see me again.

At least this time around, some of the words I picked up while reading has already crept into my daily usage.

Without further ado, here my 2008 reading list.
The Last Juror
Anansi Boys
Million Dollar Baby
By the River Piedra I sat and wept
Diablo: Legacy of Blood
The Pilgrimage
Whatever you think, think the opposite
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Five people you meet in heaven
Neverwhere
Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow
Stardust
The Historian
The Fifth Mountain
American Gods
A Mysterious Affair At Styles
Fragile Things
Home With God
Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
Northern Lights
Confessions of a Pilgrim
Think and Grow Rich
Subtle Knife
Like the Flowing River
One More Day
Troy: Shield of Thunder
It’s not how good you are, It’s how good you want to be
Troy: Fall of Kings
Blue Ocean Strategy
Stumbling on Happiness
Witch of Portobello
Life Lifters
Cosmos
The Undercover Economist
If you want to be Rich and Happy, Don’t go to School
Singularity is Near
The Shock Doctrine
God Is Not Great
Playing for Pizza
The Innocent Man
Inside Steve’s Brain
The Broker
The Speed Reading Book
Instant Memory Improvement
Focus
Buzan Bites
Batman and Philosophy
Hero with the Thousand Faces
Mythology
More Loyal Customers
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure
YES! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion
Outliers
Strategic Intuition

Every year we set goals. And every year almost everyone I know fails to reach their goals. Now why is that?

It’s seems to be that a goal is not strong enough of a word for us to commit. And what’s more is that we create all sorts of steps, plans, charts and actions on how we are going to achieve our goals. And yet we fail almost every single time. So what do we learn from all this? Are we not to set goals? or are we not to have definite plans? What must we all do to achieve what we truly desire?

Firstly we need to give up our goals to attain our goals. Sounds crazy right? Hear me out. Every time we set specific goals we are practically dooming ourselves to follow a course of action that may or may not work. But instead if we pick a general enough goal, we can use strategic intuition to come up with a plan that actually works.

Let your dharma follow your karma. Strategic intuition is basically seeing what works and adapting it to formulate a new plan to achieve the desired goal.

There is an old saying that is often misused and misunderstood in this country and that is “to think outside of the box.” I don’t know how to think inside the box let alone outside of it. I am guessing they are trying to say that our minds are like boxes and they want us to look outside ourselves for ideas and solutions. But where do we look? I reckon we ought to be looking at other people’s boxes, books, notes, etc. and take out all the good stuff and adapt it to our own needs.

Usually when we fail at something, we tend to blame either ourselves or other people or even the things we had or haven’t had a control over. I cite my own experience with my aboriginal tongue as an example. My failure to master it in school was because I wasn’t motivated to put in the hours. It is estimated that it takes about 10,000 hours for anyone who is smart enough to master a cognitively complex skill. And in order to put in the hours, I had to be interested in my mother tongue. And the problem was I never got the thrill of learning because almost every Tamil book that I read unwillingly or willingly seem to justify my opinions of Indians and that is we as a society lack variety in the human experience, it’s the same old; same old. It’s easy to see why I never gain mastery in my mother tongue. I simply didn’t put in the required hours because I wasn’t interested.

Similarly, when I first got exposure to 3D modeling, I admit I wasn’t good at it. But I had something most of my friends didn’t. I was really interested in this new medium. I started to read everything related to 3D modeling, buy magazines and books with my lunch money, download training videos and even learned other additional programs. In short, I put in the hours because I was genuinely interested.

Another peculiar thing also happened. I no longer depended on one program to accomplish my projects. Since read and watch hundreds of books and videos I started to create a workflow I was most comfortable with. I was basically taking what was working and modified it to suit my needs. I never invented anything, I was merely rearranging the stuff I learned in a way that was logical for me to accomplish the task.

Secondly, remember I told you that a goal is not a strong enough word. Here’s why when you say the word goal, most people think of it as a means of scoring, as in any game of soccer, chances are you will miss more than you score. And as an effect, our brain tends to think that if we pursue a goal chances are we may or not succeed. It becomes worse it you are a depressive person or the fact that your motivation lies in other people’s approval. So that’s where a promise comes in.

Human beings are socially obligated creatures. Whenever someone makes a promise we expect them to keep it no matter the cost. So the best way for us to achieve anything we ought to promise ourselves that we are going to achieve it. But be general about. E.g If you want to improve your English just promise yourself that you will read a book a week. What happens next is that you will find yourself buying and reading books that interests you rather than being forced fed with Shakespeare and other boring text that you had the misfortune of reading in school.

So be interested in the general promise you are making to yourself, see what works, work hard at it and put in the hours. I guess there’s a truth in the saying that if you have a strong enough why, the how will come about.

It’s Christmas and though I remain firmly agnostic, I grew up with this holiday because it’s in our freaking calender and continue to celebrate a version of it.

As with all holidays, this one carries sadness too. We look behind us, and ahead of us, too much. And measuring where we are, this year. Possibly we should try to focus on today.

So far, the best part of the day is looking at my accounts and wondering why I haven’t found the time to go see a barber.

Hope your day goes well. I hope you carry what is good with you, and leave the things behind that are not. I hope you find kindness out there, wherever you are. I hope others find kindness in you.

Now, if you want to a proper Christmas greetings go here, here and here. And oh don’t forget to check out the conversation I had with GOD.

Early this year, I wrote on two sticky pieces of paper a total of 18 items that I wanted to purchase.

1) Sandman Vol. 9 – Bought
2) Sandman Vol. 11 – Bought
3) PS3 – Got this as a birthday gift
4) Mass Effect – Best game I played in 2008
5) 360 Memory Card – Bought
6) GTA 4 – Bought the 360 and PS3 version.
7) Contact Lens – Bought
Glasses – Now I look totally look like a professor
9) Magnetic Board – My dad bought it for me
10 MGS 4 – Never found the time to fully appreciate this game
11) SD card – Bought for my Pentax camera
12) Game cube – My good friend CYS finally sold it to me
13) Shirt – Nope
14) Jeans – Bought two pairs
15) shoes – Nope
16) 360 Hard disk – Shared the cost with Bro
17) iMindmap – Yes I do mind maps
18) iPod Touch – Probably the single most useful purchase of the year

16 out of 18. Not Bad.

Try searching for Ganz in google.

That’s the power of SEO folks.

I’ve got mostly cloudy skies and books here, day in, day out. Right, hate me if you wish, but it’s all relative. Too much of a good thing is, well, too much. Human beings need skies and books for sanity. It’s that simple.

But today is raining, and I sit inside with my books and stare at the gray horizon and pretend it’s a hot summer’s day. Daydreams are usually better than the real thing. And I’ve spent enough time pursuing my dreams to know that when my heart is broken, the romance becomes reality.

Right. I’m trying to get caught up on things, so first of all, just a few hasty thoughts.

I have been thinking about how difficult it can be to make the creative drive behave itself enough so that we can function in everyday life.

Still, it’s a thought about balancing the things we must do against the things we want to do, things that give our lives meaning.

On days that seems less productive, it helps me to know that later, when I step back a bit, I’ll see these experiences in context, as part of the mosaic and then, they’ll fit.

That said, I’m…still working on it.

And oh here’s Amanda Palmer