TEDxNUS

16th October 2010

It was an enlightening seminar - one that lived up to the expectations of TED.

I was given a tag to fill out my name and what I would like others to talk to me about and I scribbled, "Technology".

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Others I have met have more light hearted suggestions, the best among which is "You!". Yes, talk about you! Isn't this the best way of engaging someone else in a conversation?

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The famous Dale Carnegie's book on "How to Win Friends and Influence People", has put this as one of the main principles

- "Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves."

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For the list of speakers, click here.

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The 3 things that most impressed me and that I have learned from the seminar are:

• That a goal you want to achieve 'someday' is not one worthy of you to take up.
• That singapore's human settlement is at least 700 years old, preceding the arrival of Raffles.
• That nobody knows the future in the stock market.

The seminar doesn't explain:

• Why Americans are said to be diverse in culture yet unable to focus on human relations at work.
• Why male spiders are much smaller than it's female partners.
• What Singapore culture is.
• If Singapore's wildlife is reducing or flourishing on the balance.

There was a speaker (Gino) who spoke about living in the present moment, but funny enough when he explicitly asked everyone else to focus on him (symbolically) as our 'present moment', I lapsed into an overly conscious state and couldn't be in the moment. hehe. Easier to do this naturally. Once too conscious about the present moment, it slips away from me. The present moment is in the moment before thinking. Thinking adds, "I, me, my..." in it and the blissful clarity vanishes.

Overall, it was a great experience to be in TEDx. I wish there was more time to mingle around during the seminar. The lobby hall was a little too small for moving around, but that just slowed things down a bit, but not a show-stopper.