This is what every chess parent and player need to know about coaching.

Click here to read

The post to control all other posts.

Have you ever wondered why they want the Secretary position so badly? Let me give you a heads up here.

The Secretary is appointed by the President. And the Secretary normally follows the instruction of the President. That is just how it works and if the President knows about chess, then normally it can work fairly well. But that is not the case in MCF. In MCF the President is only there to find the sponsors. He doesn't know about chess. And so the post of Secretary becomes very powerful. Here's how.

1. If you have an issue that you want discussed, you have to write in to the Secretary since you cannot access the President directly and he won't know what you are talking about anyway. So the Secretary can ignore your request and so important issues may not find it's place on the Agenda. (This applies equally to Council members who want an issue included for discussion).

2. As you can see for yourself, the general Council is too unwieldy and many are new. So many do not know all the tricks of the game. And since the Secretary controls the Agenda and many issues will not be discussed because of this, then the Secretary effectively runs MCF on the day to day basis. And he will make decisions that is not covered by Council. This becomes worse since the Secretary also controls the information. For example the last SEA games. How would anyone know about the Myammar chess if the Secretary does not inform the Council? Then a private deal was made and we suddenly have new National level players that nobody has ever heard of, has never won in any tournament or made any selection. And they will get a letter certifying they are National players from the Secretary of MCF.

3. So this gets worse. The Secretary also issues the letters to the colleges when your child applies to University. The certs are not enough. You actually need a letter from MCF. And this will affect your scholarship chances. For instance, Li Tian can now claim to have played at the highest level with the highest scholarship without ever having qualified in any selection.

Is that enough reasons for you to think about?

Now think what would happen if someone who bans players without grounds is to control that post. But there is even more. Look here. This is how KLCA gets their team players. Do you remember how Jimmy and "friends" attacked FGM when Zhuo Ren and Sumant attended the 2010 FGM training for SEA games? Do you know about the online attacks on both of them? Do you remember how the same people attacked the training from a GM organised by FGM for our National Juniors? That is how they recruit. Is that the correct way rather then developing the players themselves?

Do you now see the similarity of that to this? Here. All orchestrated by the same people. I fought back via my blog because that is all I had at the time. Those officials have a lot more to fight back with. So will they defend chess and defend themselves?

But those are big boys you are fighting with. They have even brought in google to elevate Peter Long into the top chess blog in Malaysia. Look here. Now do the search yourself.

Or is this all just a Jedi mind trick for the weak minded? Question. Is it the job of MCF to bring up strong chess players or is it their job to break our players into playing for KLCA and for a few to unfairly enrich themselves from us because the parents and players have no voice?

The future of Malaysian chess now lies in your hands. I just write a blog now. There is no reason to carry on unless those people can be disciplined. And at best that is just a defensive tool.

But there are officials out there. Players out there. Parents out there. State Associations out there. Other bloggers out there. You have power too. Use it to change this situation. Do what you can from where you are.

We need to return Malaysian chess back to the Maharaja.

Then we will progress. So what do I mean from the title?

First lets look at this post. Here.

Actually many parents think this is a true story. Why do I say that? From the reactions. The vast majority will avoid my eyes when I bring up very obvious injustices. They seem to be saying I don't want to acknowledge this. And hopefully they won't do this to my child. A few parents will eye me with hostility. They seem to be thinking, my child is the beneficiary of the back doors so don't bring this up. A few more would get angry and rant and rave at the injustices. And after that they will go quietly into the night.

Even fewer still will get into MCF to try to change things but come up with knee jerk solutions which ultimately fail and then leave.

So this article is dedicated to the only parent I have spoken to in my many years in chess that actually engaged me with many insightful questions before forming an opinion. She wanted to know how come our chess officials are so short sighted. She wanted to understand the problem. And so for her this is my considered opinion.

Lets go back to the very beginning. It is said that chess was invented by the Maharajas to teach their generals about the art of war. And of course war is only one instrument of State. There are many other considerations that the Maharaja has to consider to develop a Country.

And today the art of war is also the staple of management studies. But the CEO has to bring in many other factors too in his considerations to develop his company within a highly competitive environment. For example, partnering others in order to defeat superior opponents.

Look at this article here.

This is what chess should teach. Was that not the original intention of the Maharajas?

But chess in Malaysia is ruled by the so called technicalists who have very limited ideas about development. So they keep cocking up. And in their desperation to show success they become what I called the failed trainer in the story right at the top. In Malaysia our problem is amplified because none of our trainers in MCF are current. And so we find much more distortions. Like making sure we have a President who has no interest in chess etc etc etc.

Consider this. If they are able to show genuine development will they want all these side shows? Will they need to try to intimidate the parents if they actually have solutions? Will they need the back doors?

We can only begin to find solutions and create proper policies when we understand the problem. But sadly we are still very far from this. We are still at the stage of denial. Only when we can own the problem from understanding can we get out of this rut.

Incidentally the parent who asked me those insightful questions is a foreigner. I was quite amazed at her quick grasp of the situation from the questions she asked.

So this article is dedicated to her. I hope I have given her the big picture from this post. It is easier to fill in the parts once we see the big picture.

In short the technicalists have used their limited understanding of chess to create war among the stakeholders in Malaysia. That is all they know. And without the other stakeholders our chess cannot progress. So we need to return chess back to it's original intention or we will keep stalling and be left behind.

Note: There are no mere technicalists at the head of any successful enterprice. Their views are just too limited. At the very top is the strategist, the "Maharaja", the CEO; The real chess players.

The game of bridge vs chess.

I love both games but I play bridge and my son plays chess. Both are strategy mind games but both comes from different paradigms. And both paradigms has real life application in differing scenarios. We just need to differentiate them. Let me try to explain further and I hope we can think a little about it this weekend.

The game of bridge is about partnership and chess is about me against all opponents that sits opposite me. So the perspective of a bridge player will be not to mislead their partners. If there is a problem the bridge player will say, "partner, there is a problem with our system and if we don't get it fixed, we will not win against the other partnerships".

And so bridge players will view MCF, the State Affiliates, parents, players, organisers and coaches/trainers as partners that need to work together so that we can win against the other team; and the other team is the chess players from other Federations, in healthy competition.

I think that is the better perspective for where we are right now. Many of us are now trying to talk to our partners and say, partner, there is a problem with our system. Can we get it fixed so we can become a winning team?

But the question remains unanswered. How we can bridge this divide will determine whether Malaysia can emerge as a chess powerhouse or NOT. We have the talent and the resources but we need to learn to work together to unleash our potential. Not fight each other to a standstill.

And so I think the very first step is that we must communicate better. Lets think about it this weekend.

Note: The chess players perspective of "I am white and he is black" or vice versa will not solve the current issues. This is not a black and white problem. We need to constantly remember that we are Team Malaysia.

Another reason why Malaysia does not have a GM.

Ref: Here.

You keep hearing this comment from Jimmy, Peter, Irwan and Alen. All small timers who shares the common trait of being unable to learn and who says that you cannot have an opinion in chess unless you are a chess player. This is a trap that have retarded theirs and our growth. Lets see why?

I first heard this after I had already developed Mark as the U12 Champion of Perak. They said I must start to play the game myself at a higher level before I can guide Mark further. This didn't make sense to me on many levels. This is what I thought. My focus is in developing Mark. Now why would I want to spend time learning chess myself when there are already better technical trainers? First of all it's a waste of time. Why don't I use the other skills and knowledge that I already have and then just find a good technical trainer? Much faster route yes?

This means that I have to rely on my skill at differentiating the bull shitters from the genuine articles. So after checking out the available trainers in Malaysia, I decided to use online resources. A major difference I found with the foreign trainers was that they encouraged different ways to solving problems. And as Mark developed I changed trainers to develop different aspects of his game. With that method, he became No.2 in the National Juniors and No. 2 in the U18 national age group. All around 2 years after we started playing outside of Perak.

Now why do I say that this attitude that only chess players can have opinions on chess is probably the main reason why we don't have a GM?

Consider this conversation I had with a friend when I first got into Contracting. The discussion was on whether we were contractors or in the business of contracting? What is the difference? A contractor is basically a technician. eg. plumber, painter, electrician etc. They know the technical aspects of one trade. And they usually claim to be the experts in it. And so as people in the business of contracting we learnt to ask many plumbers the same question till we got to the truth of the matter. And so on. What we are looking at from the business aspect is to build a structure. And that involves many different skills including finance etc.

Note: What we don't do is to try and learn everything ourselves like these stupid people have suggested. If we did that we would never ever have got anything done. But what can I say, there are stupid technicalists who thinks they know everything.

And what is MCF involved in? Yes, that is right. They are in the "business" of developing strong players. And for that they also need many skills.

Look at what has happened to Jimmy and Peter today? Because of their inability to accept or learn new skills, they are today somewhere between U12 and U16 in world standard and I may even be complimenting them here.

So it is important to understand that MCF is in the "business" of development and so new skills are necessary to raise the standards in Malaysia. The problem we now have is of the technical people hiding the flaws of the technical people that have stopped our progress.

Use this analogy. In football, what skills are needed to develop a strong team? Can we have just players? Furthermore we do not even have good examples for players here. If that is the case isn't it better that we learn from technical people outside who have succeeded overseas?

Putting Jimmy up as an example for our kids to emulate is to glorify failure. He does not even have the grace to acknowledge that FGM has raised a National Junior and coached a Junior into the senior team. All he has achieved as a trainer is via the back doors. And judging from his performance at the Olympiad he can't even play anymore. And you saw how Peter performed at World Youth as a trainer. He tries to blame his player even before he went. We really don't need people like this.

Find out from those who have succeeded and those that are still trying to improve. We learn from them and we learn how to succeed too. Where are we now compared to the days when we taught China? And who lead us to this terrible place that we are in now? And they have succeeded in keeping us backwards because they cannot learn, cannot accept real results from others in a different discipline who have raised strong players. Which strong players do you know of that have been coached by non playing Coaches?

Jimmy, Peter and a few others seem stuck in a time warp where they can only hear "technical" voices. It is just too narrow and so they have lost touch with the realities of International competition. It has even reached the stage where he thinks playing at the Veterans is sufficient practice to compete in SEA games. It has reached the stage that he can only aim for the back door and seem totally impervious to how he did at the Olympiad. This is the result of the limited "purely" technical dreamers who have lost touch with competitive reality.

All Jimmy and Peter continues to say like a mantra is that they have 30 years over my "2" years in chess. Isn't it very stupid to highlight that? Surely the follow on question must now be why can't you produce strong players that goes in via the front door then? And for Peter, why don't you back the player first and then take him to new heights? You said Roshan will come in around 50 he came in 70 plus. It's a reflection on you Peter not Roshan. Why can't you see that? You took our National Champion who you didn't even recognise and then you let him down very very badly. Deal with it.

Another very obvious reality that these mantra specialists have missed is of course I do work in consultation with good technicalists when I need to. Just not those 2 who cannot grasp anything beyond their nose. But they want to control our chess.

So bring in new expertise into MCF and get rid of the deadwood. And the GM will come. Do think on this if you don't want us to be slipping further and further behind. In another few years, Jimmy will probably not be able to compete with the U8's of the world but he may still be trying to slip into the Malaysian squad yet again via the back door.

Learn the rules first, then follow them.

It's all a question of where we place our energy. 

Lets look at a few examples. What actually took place at the meeting of MCF on Dec 2nd? I'm told nothing much. No accounts or minutes presented and Haslinda got a ticking off for writing to Jimmy without the authority of the main committee. It's simple, all authority comes from the main committee. It's in the Constitution.

So where has all the energy gone to? Preparing a set of accounts that will try to explain away all the discrepancies. And since that probably won't work, now energy has to be spent on trying to stop those that may question it. And to do that even the minutes of previous meetings cannot be released just in case they need to go back to rewrite the story. So where is the energy for development? Why not just learn the rules and then follow them? Isn't that better?

Lets look at selection. It's in the Constitution. So why not let kup chai fight for his place? Why allow Malaysia to be embarrassed by him and his protege's bad performance at the Olympiad when we have much better players? Surely they must know that they can't bullshit all the chess players in Malaysia who is watching the games. Why would MCF cause so much reaction against that false selection when it could have been open and transparent? Why did MCF break their own rules? Now this issue will be brought to the AGM. Diverted energy again. So when and where will time and energy be found to look at development?

Committee members. The States are not happy with no representation in MCF. And MCF is full of deadwood now. Committee members who have contributed nothing and have said nothing at the meetings even when they do attend. Committee members who don't even know that they have all the authority with them and don't even know the Constitution. Learn the rules and then follow them. Deal with it and then we have all the resources and energy to develop. Get rid of the deadwood. If they are business people ask them to leave to do business. An NGO is not for them. MCF is not there for them to make money. MCF is supposed to develop chess and not their pockets. Give the States their place on the main committee.

Take the simple matter of banning without grounds. The correct way is for MCF to write to the organiser for an explanation as to why a National player is banned. It's quite simple; that organiser/trainer needs to be encouraged to raise his standards till he can produce his own strong players instead of trying to recruit them after they have succeeded and then claiming their success, instead of trying to ban strong players developed by others. It's in the Constitution. Your personal opinions are your own. So learn the rules and then follow them.

Those 2 acts of back door selection and unconstitutional bannings have taken away all the energy from our chess players; from chess into learning how to kiss the butts of Jimmy and to a lesser extent Peter. Why bother to improve your chess when at the end of the day it is butt kissing that will carry you into the senior squad? Energy placed on the wrong skills yes?

Breaking the rules takes up too much energy. Then you are forever trying to cover your ass. Do it correctly and we have all we need to succeed. We have the talent and we have the resources. But we need to spend energy developing it instead of protecting kup chai's, lousy trainers and trying creative accounting that all already know won't fly.

So lets hope that the new committee of MCF elected at the AGM will have learnt the rules and will apply them.

Or all our energy will be spent running on the same spot or even running backwards, while the world of chess moves on. Further and further ahead.

Some basic tools for Psychological Evaluation.

It's a psychological truism that fear transmits. 

It takes an inordinate amount of training to be able to withstand a toxic environment. And fear usually finds its expression in anger, anxiety etc.

So a good tool to categorise and measure fear is in situational analysis. That is to observe the situation that elicits the fear responses. The key element being appropriate or inappropriate responses. So an extreme response to a ostensibly non threatening situation is a strong indicator of an underlying issue.

This analysis is of particular importance in the understanding of sports psychology. For this will give a strong indication of the mental performance of the athlete under pressure. For instance, if the athlete breaks down under much less pressure than the environment that he is expected to perform will generate, then this athlete will be unsuitable for that level of competition.

-------------------------------------------

Now since we are about Chess, read this again. Here. We all know that tremendous pressures are generated and exerted in competitive chess. The pressures are difficult even for a psychologically balanced adult to handle let alone a child. Now I hope you are beginning to see also the dangers of chess when taught purely by technical trainers with no understanding of sports psychology.

Lets see what happens. Now pressure is necessary for growth. Overcoming pressure takes you to the next level. Cast your mind back now to a tournament. It is inevitable that the player needs to both win and lose during their progress. And with the loses comes anguish and the search for answers. This is a moment of extreme vulnerability. This is the time when their minds become open and their normal defenses down.

As I said in the article above this is an opportunity to teach. But the converse is also true. When the mind is open this also becomes the opportunity to inject poison. And this is what I mean by the double edge sword of chess. Especially for highly motivated competitors.

Let me give you an example. When Mark first became U12 Champion in MSSPK in his first major tournament and only having started playing tournament chess the year before, he then played at the Perak Close. That was a 2 day event. On the first day Mark was the front runner but he crashed on the second day but still came out as U12 Champ again. The then President, Dr Yee, came up to him and told him that he was mentally weak and then overlooked his prize as U12 Champ.

That evaluation of Dr Yee was pure poison and totally inaccurate. You do not suddenly develop the skill to withstand heavy pressure overnight. It has to be slowly trained. In that Tournament Mark beat at least 2 former Perak Champions and so that was quite an achievement for a young boy new in Tournament. So on balance his accomplishment far outweighed his failure. A negative evaluation once accepted, since it came from an "respected" Official or a "titled" player can lodge itself in the mind and begin a mental tape playing.

Now in Chess, this experience will be repeated over and over again. So at and after every tournament opportunities will arise to either inject the positive lessons as mentioned in link above or to inject poison. And over the years this becomes your mindset.

------------------------------------------

And that is the very real and present danger. You know what I am talking about. And I hope this will become even clearer when I apply all this to the Jimmy's ("Olympiad") Team. After my evaluation I will also try to predict what will happen there according to my psychological profiling. What type of decisions will be made or not made. The type of environment the team will find itself in given the exterior and interior conditions.

At the end of this, I hope you can all see the damage certain individuals have wrought on our Malaysian players over the years. The sending of them untrained and unprepared, the messages they instil in your mind when they reject you after you have won your place in a fair competition, when they try to ban you when you improve, when they attack you till you breakdown and write a poisonous email yourself. What they are doing to the mental health of our players?

And then finally we send them to "compete". Try to read this carefully. It can happen to you as a player or to your child. Take a note of the individuals involved in these negative practises and try to avoid them if possible.

Note: In my 8 years in chess, I find strong circumstantial evidence that this is a deliberate policy by certain individuals to control and break our players to serve their own ends. So be watchful.

Summary and the next step forward to the better solution.

Somebody said on facebook that he reads my blog but does not want to comment. I replied, that is OK, it is enough to just read. I know that it is dangerous to ask legitimate questions openly in Malaysian chess. We seem to be totally ruled by gangsters who can even do a bogus selection and then laugh in your face. "What are you going to do about it? We are all powerful in our little kingdom". Chess seems to exist outside Malaysian law.

I know this starting out from a State Association. If you bring up issues like match fixing in the committee, they will fix you and not the problem. If you then write and lodge a complaint with MCF, you can be writing for years; asked to attend meeting after meeting all over the Country and then 2 years later they make fun of you by saying your problem is easy to solve but still do nothing.

If you then try to do something with your own effort and with your own sponsors, they attack you in all sorts of manner. They even start new blogs to post lies and more lies.

If you now try to train and win selection, they will also attack you and then change the rules. If you improve your chess they will try to ban you.

So the only way out it seems is to quietly wait till the IM's retire or to cut your own deal. And then you face this situation. Ref: Here. But still a few think they they can butter up the "lords" and get their own deals or just to be seen with the "in" crowd. And so they support that gangster type mentality. It still seems to them that this is the only viable solution. If you can't beat them then join them and slowly wait for your turn as you gradually morph into another budding gangster. After all chess makes you "smart".

Or so it seems.

The vast majority is reduced to whispering in corners and feeling totally helpless. Some braver souls are taking the fight to the AGM and some are talking about MACC. I say good for them. As far as I am concerned challenging for the top post is healthy. Chess is about competition after all. If the current committee is not performing then why can't a team who think they can do better compete in a legal AGM? After all I really don't think things can get any worse. Worst case scenario is that we see new names going for senior tournaments without selection. I think there is hope for something better but I cannot vouch for it.

So if you think Greg and maybe even Jimmy etc. belong in prison then by all means lodge your report to MACC. Let them get the evidence. That is not your job as I have said to you.

Just don't keep talking about it and do nothing. Have the will and courage to back your own convictions.

However I am personally not totally comfortable with all the above proposed solutions although it was me who originally suggested the contest. Better than doing nothing I suppose. But I kept looking for a better solution. One where we can all take part.

I dropped by a recent tournament to get a feel of what is happening on the ground and a few came up to say that they are seeing the issues now. Actually all of us know what is going on even if we only examine a fraction more deeply. The evidence is all around. It is very blatant. They feel no need to hide their acts. They have totally no respect for you or your contributions at all.

So I would like to propose my own solution tomorrow to try and change things. Let the big guns fight out their game of thrones if they so desire. My solution is for those of us who are not looking for official positions and just want to play chess in a healthy environment. For those of us who feel that the right to represent the Country should be about chess and not manipulation and fraud.

MCF belongs to all of us.

Ref: Here.

Now we are coming to the crux of the matter. Jimmy reveals that he believes he is entitled to the backdoor. That he is more deserving than anyone else. Even if they have fought for their place; he only needs to make a side deal with the official/s.

Peter reveals his thinking that the Association officials should have absolute power. From this thinking it follows that he has no need to build strong players. He just needs to keep the back doors open as well as have the ability to "ban" players that could be stronger than those he can produce.

And that is the sickness and the rot. Actually MCF belongs to all of us. The officials are elected by us to represent OUR interests not theirs. They have no legitimacy without our consent. This is the mother of all cons.

MCF is an NGO. The officials are elected representatives. All the assets of MCF belong to us. The money that Fide gave belongs to us. The sponsorship by companies and individuals belong to us. It was asked for using our mandate.

Any misuse of money and authority is criminal breach of trust. We gave them our trust.

MCF does not exclusively belong to Jimmy and his mother, Peter or Greg. So all the stakeholders have a say. If we think they are not doing their job, we can speak out. They work for us. They are paid with our money or money raised using our names.

If they want more authority and power to then they should start their own private business and make their own stake in the real world of business. They cannot use our names by hiding in NGO's. If they ask for sponsorship using MCF letterhead or with MCF authority then they are using the powers that we vested in them.

MCF does not belong to the officials. It belongs to all of us. That is why we have elections to choose the leaders we want. That is why we have an AGM. It is clear and simple.

That is why they need threats, belligerence, lies, misdirection etc. So that you cannot see this very clear and simple truth.


ps: Btw I never said I am the better coach etc, my results are mine. I am just saying that you are lousy. Not the same thing. Ref: Here. And now we await the Olympiads for more evidence of your folly.

Tournament strategy.

Your playing tools need to aid your tournament strategy. So you can either play for rating or you can play to win a tournament. Different strategy. Different tools.

Your end goal matters too. To train to be a GM eventually or to be National Champ. Again different strategy and different tools. And so different type of training.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Lets establish this fact first. To be Champ or to have a shot at being Champ you must win a tournament and not just a game. You won't get there if you beat a GM and then lose to a rank beginner. Or draw with too many lower rated players. Think about it. Use as many examples as you need in your mind from past experience.

This was a debate we had too during the FGM SEA games training. Are we agreed here? Can I move on?

So to win a tournament you need broadly 2 things. One mental strength. You cannot lose focus, lose your courage and lose a game you shouldn't lose. And two, you need the tools to win when you need to win ie against weaker players and win/draw weapons against higher rated players. Ref: Here.

Are we still agreed? This will not be easy for some to understand. Especially for those that come from trainers who can only teach certain openings. They will tell you that their weapon can win all battles as well as win the war. So take your time to understand this.

I will talk more tomorrow.

ps: Do send this and the post below to your friends you think is going to NC 2012. Or just those you think is interested. As Arbiter Najib says, sharing is caring.

Most of the work is done before you even get to the table.

Over the next few days I will share with you the basic method that has brought an unknown player from Perak to National Age group U18 number 2 and National Junior number 2 in 2010 in about 11/2 years and National Junior number 5 last year. The same method that helped another Junior break into the senior squad in a proper selection for SEA games.

This will be my contribution to my readers and the fighters that will be at our National Close 2012 which has been announced as the criteria for the Olympiads although details are not out yet. I wish all of you the very best. Fight hard but fight clean as the officer and gentlemen/women that you are or will be in the future.

Let me start by telling you that openings have no meaning. Why? It has no meaning unless you know who you are. It has no meaning unless you know who your opponent is. And it has no meaning unless you factor in the time control you are playing in.

The basic premise is this. Everyone is gifted differently. So if you are a natural attacker, having defensive weaponry is a misfit. There are also those born with photographic memory, the born calculators, the conceptual  thinkers, the natural defensive players. Are you starting to see what I mean? So the game of chess also helps you to discover who you are.

Isn't that fantastic? Many don't have an idea of the answer to this question even late in life. But chess can start answering this question for you very early in life.

If you do it right.

So this is the problem for many players in Malaysia who goes to trainers who can only teach their favourite opening. If you are lucky you will be taught the correct opening for your personality type and gifting. If not you will be lumbered with a tool that does not fit you. And you will stall eventually.

The first step in FGM is to profile you. What would be the right tool for you. This understanding will also later form the basis of competitor analysis. Can you accept what I have said so far? If you can, then come back tomorrow and I will explain further.

All my best.

Confidence, Humility and learning.

How would we know if someone is truly humble or a wolf in sheeps clothing? Is this a helpful discussion? Would it help you in life, in chess?

Lets think about it this way. Can you be humble if you have no confidence? If you have not achieved anything of substance; if you are suffering from an inferior complex? My answer is no. You can only pretend.

So if you cannot be humble unless you have lived your life's calling with courage then how can we achieve that state of humilty? Can it be that the way is through confidence? That you must be confident first then only can you be humble. That all other ways must be a pretense since you cannot be humble if you are not confident.

Can we also say that you can only be confident if you have conquered your fears? I have also argued that the ego is the mechanism to defend our fears. Here.

So if I am right, then the more fears we have, the bigger will be our ego's and perhaps the less we are able to learn. Think on it. Our ego prevents learning. Can I be right?

See the comments here again. Here. An anonymous person blindly repeats Jimmy's mantra that I practice censorship.

Now haven't I consistently referred you to the blogs to show you their writings? I do not even cut and paste select lines out of context. I send you to the sites itself. Is that censorship?

So they cannot even see the obvious; they cannot face facts or the truth. And I hope I have also showed that they cannot learn.

So is it fair for me to say that the reason we are stuck is because we are listening to and following fear ridden people full of nothing but ego? That they have not learned even from 30 years of repeating the same mistakes.

And so a person that is not confident cannot also be humble. If you project my arguments then the conclusion will be that only the supreme being can be totally humble. Does that make sense? All else is just our life's journey of learning. Or not.

Many will put on the "clothes" of humility but in reality they are wolves in sheep clothing. Learn to see this and it may save you one day.

So there are 2 ways to hide your fears. One is the strut and the belligerence. The other way is the pretense of humility. Both are in reality the same illusion.

True humility cannot be cheaply bought. It can only come through struggle. And without humility you cannot learn.

All my best.