Just when I tipped my toe in the pool of self-pity, I was reminded again that my problems were nothing compared to those faced by so many people in the world.

I was ready to go home from the office today at 6.30pm and I thought I’d check the news one more time before I headed home – a picture caught my attention, showing a guy with a placard in front of him. The story is about Kristian Anderson – a Sydneysider who is fighting bowel cancer. He created a video to wish his wife, Rachel, a happy birthday and to thank her for her support and love. I took the risk of watching the clip at the office – it was already empty then. Kristian even enlisted the help of New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key (as Rachel is from New Zealand) as well as Hugh Jackman!  The video clip made me misty eyed – it’s a perfect example of what love can do. I used to be a much more melancholic guy – the years have unfortunately dulled down the green pastures that were once alive with ideas and romance and exposed the jaggedness of my emotions. Clips like this remind me to get back in touch with my emotions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to support Kristian, his blog is here – and this is the story that he shares with a breakfast radio show to highligh his experience. I thought I’d share this with you all. It has certainly taught me to appreciate Yani a lot more.

To Kristian and Rachel, you don’t know me and I don’t know if you ever read this – but you are in my prayers, matey – keep fighting and keep the faith. You have blessed me through your display of love and I pray that His will and miracle be revealed in your life! God bless.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NLT)

I wanted to refresh the songs in my iPhone and rather than starting afresh, I simply added five albums into iTunes. Two of those happened to be Celtic music – in late 1990′s and early 2000′s, I used to listen to a lot of Celtic music and I thought I should return to an old dear musical friend. There’s even a drawer at home dedicated solely to Celtic music – filled with Green Linnet CDs, The Chieftains, Old Blind Dogs, and many more. An old Laurence Nugent CD “Two for Two” caught my attention – it was released in 1998 and I used to listen to it a lot. Laurence Nugent is a tinwhistle and flute player from Ireland who now resides in the United States. So I picked it up from the drawer along with The Future of Gaeldom CD.

On my way from the bus station to the campus, one of Nugent’s song came in my random playlist and it immediately brought a smile on my face. The jiggy complex tune brought a spring to my step – the windy moody morning almost complemented the song, I could almost picture myself somewhere in Ireland if I tried. There was no synthesiser in the music, no funky beats but it lifted my mood nevertheless. Folksy music seems so ‘organic’ and so down-to-earth – free from additives and artificial colouring. It’s a music from the soul to the soul. Celtic music laments with you when you are down, if you choose to have an understanding, melancholic companion – just have a listen to the deep soulful violin and tinwhistle or some uilleann pipe songs. Nugent’s Dans An Dro is a magnificent example – one of my favourites in the album. However if you want to cheer up, Scottish or Irish reels and jigs will undoubtedly get you up and going again.

Music is definitely for the soul – it’s just too bad that music has now been unrecognisably altered by so many flavourings and extra processing. I won’t take the high-and-mighty road, as I do listen to a lot of pop music as well. However, when you return to the folksy tunes and honest-to-goodness songs, you realise what you have been missing all along.

It’s like coming home.

Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent. – Victor Hugo

Milford Sound, New Zealand

The last time I was in New Zealand was in the year 2000 – before that, it was in 1997. Before I fell in love with Norway, New Zealand was my first love – after Australia and Singapore, it was the third overseas country that I visited outside Indonesia. The nature and the seemingly softer nature of the people won me over and they still do. I guess if Australians were the ‘Americans’, then Kiwis would be the ‘Canadians’ – constantly comparing themselves to the big brother who is brasher and louder – bickering and yet looking up to him.

I found out this morning that a paper that I co-wrote with my thesis supervisors (Reaching a Wide Audience in a Media Fragmented Market: A Lesson from the United Kingdom) had been accepted for the conference in Christchurch at the end of November. I was feeling a bit insecure before as I didn’t know whether the paper would be accepted or not, after receiving the criticisms during my proposal stage. At least equipped with what I know now, I can only improve the paper and make it more solid for the conference!

So yeah, back to New Zealand! This comes at a perfect time as well, just when I started thinking about holidays and wanting to get away from things for a while. I know it’s still a couple of months away but it provides me with a milestone to reach. The conference will be from 29 November – 1 December and the University has a policy that only allows us to take the same number of days off as the period of working or conference days, so three days of conference will allow me to take three days off as well. That will be enough for me to go and revisit Milford Sound – I hope I can bring Yani along and show her one of my favourite spots in New Zealand. At least we will only need to pay for one ticket and the accommodation after the conference. If I can’t be in Norway to see the fjords again for now, at least I can show her the fiords in New Zealand!

Woohoo.

When I decided to move to Adelaide in 2003, I decided to take a year off corporate life and studied Applied Economics so I know about the concept of diminishing returns and marginal cost. In my current research at the School of Marketing, one of the elements of my research is the impact of seeing a single advertisement when you are in the right frame of mind to make a purchase – one exposure is typically all that is needed for the consumer to decide. The impact of the next exposures have diminishing returns.

So who would have thought that sinning also follows a similar pattern?

The Marginal Cost of Sinning

In the article, Prof. Christensen mentions about his strong faith and his refusal to play basketball on Sundays when he was studying in Oxford University. Even when the championship game was on Sunday, he refused to play and gave in to the “just this once” principle.

Although the marginal cost of doing something wrong seems so deceitfully low, the moment that you give in, you are dragged further below, as you rationalise your action and start the pattern of “I’ll stop after this one!” as you go further and further downwards. I remember when I was a young boy of taking some money out of the till from my parents’ shop to buy books (I was quite a bookworm when I was a wee lad!). The first time I gave in to that sin, my heart raced, I was terrified in case I was discovered and I thought of the punishment that I could have got. The subsequent ones felt easier – I had let myself fall into temptation with the diminishing marginal cost to my conscience and honour. The moment I committed that first one, I had let myself on the slippery slope. It’s a similar story to whatever sin that we have committed – the first one feels the hardest, the most expensive cost to bear – and subsequent ones feel easier as we rationalise our actions until our conscience is numbed and we start losing our love of God.

I wish I had followed Prof. Christensen’s example – of sticking to the Biblical principles and not allowing myself to be lured down. I can still make that commitment everyday, of climbing up again and rebuilding my conscience in every aspect of my life, with God’s help. So the next time you (and I) are tempted to do something (‘just this once!’), remember, the first one carries the biggest marginal cost to your conscience and cause you to fall the greatest!

In his article Prof. Christensen writes, “In many ways that was a small decision—involving one of several thousand Sundays in my life. In theory, surely I could have crossed over the line just that one time and then not done it again. But looking back on it, resisting the temptation whose logic was “In this extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK” has proven to be one of the most important decisions of my life. Why? My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed. The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.”

How true!!!

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” Revelations 2:5 (NKJV)

If I can squeeze the hours I spend working today, unfortunately the ‘juice’ that will come out will only be very little compared to the effort and time that I dedicate to the work. I did some work at home, sourcing the list of UK television programmes for one of the projects that I’m doing. Unfortunately, thanks to my increasingly erratic broadband connection, I would only be connected for ten minutes and then off again for five. I had to keep vigilant and noticed when the connection was up and quickly re-established link to the UK and get my data.

So I thought rather than wasting time at home, relying on my unreliable broadband (grrrr, TPG!!! ), I should head to work and do my work there. The internet has not been behaving well for the past couple of days, even after I ‘recycled’ the system (i.e. turning off the modem and my computer and then starting them in sequence). I’m not a happy chappie at the moment! Unfortunately the UK site has not been that reliable either – one minute I’m connected, and then the connection drops out. When I reconnect, the system complains that my user ID is already logged on using a different terminal. Argh! I had to wait until ‘I’ was automatically logged off due to inactivity before I can log on again. Because of the challenges today, I’ve only accomplished a portion of the tasks that I wanted to do today.

After labouring for hours trying to get a connection to the UK site, I’ve given up now. I’m getting more and more frustrated and it’s not really productive so I think I’ll head home instead. I hope I can do some more work tonight at home as I have a list of other things to accomplish and do tomorrow. Let’s just hope that Tuesday’s a bit kinder!