Time for reflecting

I've been chatting with a new Facebook friend lately. As you know I don't normally talk to strangers. But he seemed to be kind and polite, so I kept chatting. And the more I talked with him, the more surprised I was. He was super good at reasoning and debating. He paid good attention to every word and reason, and he seemed to have a broad social knowledge.

The guy was working in Australia. Which made me feel interesting, as I was curious about what Vietnamese expat life was like and how they felt about Vietnam and Vietnamese people back in this country, and about all what was happening here. And he was free to talk. He shared with me some articles on professors and researchers on the same topic that I recently mentioned, with the same as my view. And he went meticulously on how he disagreed on these articles, what wrong methods of reasoning the authors used, and what fallacy they were.

That guy didn't mention a word about my writing. But he made me startle. He told me some people had good knowledge and went deep to search on what they were interested in. But when they found out the truth, they didn't want to admit that they were wrong but instead using some fractions of the truth to prove that they were still correct, just because of their egos. He concluded that it was extremely dangerous for young people, who didn't know about the truth and kept following these guys.

I told him I was thinking if I made that mistake anytime, then he replied: "maybe yes, but your readers are mostly young people who always say wow and share what you write instead of thinking and judging". That's when I thought: "Shit, should I keep writing when there are people like him reading what I post". I knew I had a lot of mistakes in writing, and I was not strong in debating and reasoning. That was not what we were taught here in Vietnam. As I kept researching and studying myself, there were a lot of things I needed to learn along the way. But if someone kept criticizing every word I wrote, I was not sure I wanted to hear it, or to keep writing.

But now I'm clear. I know I'm not what he talked about. I like to dig deeper to the subjects I'm into, and I have my own stance. When I find what's different from what I believe, and if I think that new thing is right, I won't hesitate to admit the truth. What may happen is I find something different, and I don't think it's correct because I'm a headstrong person, so I won't accept it. But other people may think that that thing is right and they judge me wrong. But what the hell, how can you be sure about what is the truth and what is not. And I'm not the type of person who cheats myself and my reader, who is too stubborn to correct my mistake and just keep doing what is wrong because of my ego.

So that's it. I know I'm weak at some points, and there are many things to improve, especially about arguments and fallacy. And there are many people better than me at these areas, and other areas, who will point out my weakness. That's what happens to the road of moving upward of any individual. But it's not the reason to give up. As long as I believe my writing still helps, even if just to a small number of readers, I will keep on doing that. I will do my best to make sure what I write is correct, and verify my information. But after releasing, I leave it up to my readers to judge.

Upward.  

Langkawi and my sense of photography

Hey diary

How are you?

I've been doing good, and I'm finishing the book to meet the publishing deadline. Many things to go, but I keep going.

I've been to Langkawi lately. It's a lovely and relaxing place, my friend and I rented a car to roam around the island. Car renting cost is the same as motorbike renting, and petro cost is dirty cheap. The trip was nice. But when you've been traveling around and you've seen more beautiful places, there are fewer things that make you wow. Langkawi is nice, but if having another chance I would choose Philippines or Bali instead. These places are awesome. It's hard to beat Philippines islands, No. 1 in Asia in my opinion. And Bali, oh nothing's like Bali. 

What is interesting in the Langkawi trip and I want to make a note here is my photography sense suddenly gets better. Now I can know better which is a good photo and which is not. 

Look at this photo

Not bad right. But what I did wrong is I put the skyline at the middle of the picture, it's like to cut the picture in two halves. One of the basic rules in photography, especially in travel photo, is the rule of 1/3 or 2/3, which means don't put the object of the photo right in the middle of the picture, but on 1/3 or 2/3 of it. The Polar Route blogger has a better explanation here. 

And this:

I thought it was a nice picture as I knelt down to choose a good angle (which was also mentioned in Polar Route post) and shot it right. But I forgot to keep the line straight. We always need to find a line to base on, in my above photo, the line is the road. 

And this

It's a nice scene, and a nice picture too, although my hair looks crazy. But my friend would have made it better if he'd moved the object (which is me) closer to the shore so my head wouldn't cut the skyline, and moving the camera a bit to the shore so I were at the 1/3 of the pic. If he sat down to make the sea 2/3 of the picture and the sky 1/3, that would be perfect. Sorry bro, you're not as pro as you thought.

I feel a bit sad that I haven't known about such thing until now. And I missed many great chances for great photos on my way, as I travel quite a lot. Other traveler buddies around me always show the beautiful pictures that make me so jealous. 

But never mind, more travel to go. And I'm in the game. Watch out babe.