In 1999, I saw this ad on CNN (a “self-congratulatory one”, may I add — as it was about itself). That ad featured a resident of the Middle East, closing with one tagline I won’t ever forget — the human without information is nothing.

Please allow me now to create an “add-on bit”: The human without principles is nothing.

A few of mine here…

• There are eight things I will never do — ever: get drunk, smoke, do drugs, do racy content, gamble, do offences of turpitude, be unfaithful, or rub my people (as in: my family) the wrong way. And of course I’ll always stay legal.
• I’ll never join or found a political or religious organisation.
• I’ll never serve in any government, domestic or international (international means UN). (There’s an exception: honour roles in international organisations of a non-political nature.)

And here are the whys and why-this-makes-sense-s…

• The first eight are just bad, baaad behaviour. Drugs kill. Getting drunk is bad. These “eight noes” came with me: it came from my mum, dad, and wife. It is the kind of stuff I grew up with (OK, the wife came two years ago).
• “Communist China” didn’t teach me the bits about politics and religion. In fact, I picked up Flanders and Willis’s 1998 masterpiece — Web Pages That Suck (the book) — and it was there I got my cue: don’t do politics or religion… it kills many a conversation…
• Some of my beliefs are so different from those in my home country / countries (Chinese by birth, Swiss by passport) that it makes “mutual political compatibility” pretty awkward; also, whilst I don’t mind doing media, I’d rather do it as a private individual.

I have no regrets I hold these principles.