Q and A for me

I love reading interviews. Whether it is an interview of Kevin Ma, founder of the magazine known as Hypebeast, or an interview of Derek Sivers, entrepreneur who reportedly said No to selling his business for millions of dollars, I get to find out a bit more about these people.

So, one day, I thought, how about I interview myself? Then others can find out more about me. [chuckles].

But… what would I ever ask myself?

Thankfully, I found some questions that were addressed to the public, on the social-network web-site known as LinkedIn, and guess what, I answered them!

And now, I collect my answers to those questions, in this blog-post! Ta-dah! I have an interview… of myself! (Although others asked those questions).

[clears throat]. Let’s start the interview!

How are you challenging yourself in 2020? - Elisha

My challenge for myself so far, in 2020, is to balance my time on social media - or, more broadly speaking, my time on an electronic computing device - with my time off the Internet. It would be interesting to see how I can do this in the light of a trend towards webinar(s) and work-from-home, set against a background of virus-news, virus-concerns, virus-fretting, virus-worrying and virus-scares.

What has been one project or assignment in which you broke the rules and had fun in the creative process? - Joseph

I once took an undergraduate-course on Composing Music in the Classical Style (for example, in the style of Mozart). For an assignment in that course, I wrote a musical work that appears to be thoroughly twentieth-century, instead of looking eighteenth-century. My course-instructor did not accept my work, but I still had fun. (I’ve realised the importance of surrounding myself with people who value creativity and innovation - which is not everyone, and I certainly don’t really appreciate flattery and/or smooth talk, either).

Tell me what is your oops-boo-hoo moment this week, and what you learnt from it. - Phing

An “oops-boo-hoo” of mine, as you call it? I run a blog where I post photos from my trips to art-galleries in Sg. Art-hunting, if you will. But I got a little lost; something didn’t feel right (about such blogging) anymore. I asked the person known, on LinkedIn.com , as Alin Sneha Abraham, for her perspective on the matter; I said I wasn’t sure if my blogging was adding value to the world. Alin said something to the effect that it is more important that I enjoy myself; that way, at least one person benefits. So my oops-boo-hoo was to overlook my own enjoyment of the activity in question. I concluded that I liked visiting galleries, but posting photos on social media? Not so much.