tenets
principles of what i think and do.
me
i thought i start off by introducing myself and the opportunity that has enabled me to think the way i think and do what i do.
i'm kingston, i create products on tech aka dystopia, write about life aka utopia, and everything in between. i don't have any possessions to identify myself with unlike other people and i hope this part of me remains the same even through weakness or strength, penury or abundance and everything in between.
the opportunity is my illness, central neurocytoma, a benign brain tumour. i want to use the past tense, 'was' but the tumour still lives in my brain. i wrote about it briefly here. most of my life since i was born has been riddled with health issues which are uncontrollable on my end. diagnosed with childhood asthma after running one of the fastest in class. childhood epilepsy when i thought i was recovering from asthma. once someone is diagnosed with epilepsy, he/she is not allowed to drive according to singapore law because no one can actually be considered medically cured from epilepsy. and now, this illness i've deemed as an opportunity. a chance to think and do things more deeply and perhaps differently.
i've learnt to differentiate what i could and couldn't control or drive — literally and metaphorically — as i age. i'll expand a little on my thought process now so you, the reader, could get a better understanding of the following passages.
think
i had a scare from the public health surgeons because they painted a grim picture. i thought i was going to die. i had only one regret: it was not loving someone or something wholeheartedly. besides that, i was fully prepared to die. eventually, i went with a private surgeon. now, i've reached almost full recovery during the hours when i'm not tired. however, recovery after a brain surgery and radiosurgery is not easy for some people and i fall under that category. i started thinking about my life more deeply and started to see my life, as i regain my intelligence and health, through a different lens. i started wanting to contribute to society within my measly means.
the first thought, like many first thoughts, was unintelligible and messy. after a few — more like many — tweaks and iterations, i finally decided to embark on a creator's journey. creating the world i want instead of the world that was given to me. it may sound egoistical and grand but all i wanted to do was change the things, that i've been told were socially expedient yet acceptable, within my milieu. i wanted more personal agency in my life. in layman's terms, i sought to be an entrepreneur of sorts. i think that being a successful entrepreneur would provide me with access to rooms, ideas, and people i would never have the opportunity to visit.
but not just any entrepreneur, i want to earn money while preserving my values. holding onto truths instead of participating in convenient deals. the idea is much simpler than what other people perceive. it is a cliche idea. to create something or things that preserve the past, live in the present, and build a future whilst sticking to the truth regardless of any social context across times. essentially, creating something that is timeless and apt for only truth. i guess most people would define my aspirations as a socialpreneur but i don't want to be pigeon-holed as such. mainly because i, myself, don't know why i'm doing this.
do
so far, to preserve the past, i've created this "blog"-like space where i can simply write. perhaps i'll monetise it through substack once i've built an audience. to live in the present, i've created cli-mate.help, a place where people can find interactive games and storytelling articles regarding everything that is innovative about our planet; and a part of cli-mate.help, newclear.website is for public education regarding nuclear energy. i believe singapore could be a lot more independent with our energy resources, the barriers i currently see with my minute knowledge are more on research and public consensus. the website plans to address the latter issue. and lastly, anti-network is to build a future with as many ethical and high personal agency people as possible.
i don't have a strategy in place for my websites to increase traffic or gain $ka-ching$ aka profit besides diving deeper into its current principles within each website. this means i get to be weirder and more me. along the way, i desire to find the truth.
truth
to date, i find that the truth is everyone needs money to survive and reality complicates it. i'm unsure yet if we are self-sabotaging or for efficiency's sake but making money is frowned upon. economies are simply transactions over transactions. transactions are simply an exchange of goods and/or services with money. reality is like a raw onion. tasting it aka making money is rather not well liked. it's also a rather complex resource game with actors, layered with economies, transactions, money, and many other different layers of resources. to name a few of the most difficult layers of the game is health, poverty, access, persuasion, and emotions. these layers can be further categorised into stages, processes, both etc. i'll write more about it here and there.
the truth is each layer is simple and usually the actors and their considerations complicate it, for good or for bad i wouldn't be able to understand everything. this is what makes life dynamic and fun. the uncertainty and certainty of people's choices and decisions. the artistic and awful application throughout people's actions. these are what i savour and enjoy and you should too. life is terribly complex and dreadfully simple. making money is just part of the game we call life and having more resources is always better than less.
in all
perhaps i'll regret if i die now because i've finally found something i love to do which is creating and telling stories. i can't believe i'm getting paid to do this. this is fun for me. that said, i'm not going to not monetise my content and give it all up for free. i believe i'll create something that is of value to people and i deserve to be paid my fair share. for now, i'll just continue creating until my health fails me again.
thank you for reading.