Mei, our pet dog, signaled her eagerness for a relief. I took her out to the front yard. Under her paws came the creaking of the first fallen leaves. Nocturnal singing by crickets filled the air in the early autumn night. Freight train whistled its way in the distance. The two-day old full moon silently relayed the light from the late morning Sun above East Asia.
Forty-four years ago to the hour, a crying infant boy slipped into this seemingly flawless wonderland unbeknown for the disquieting jumble and tumble of the day.
Life has been beautiful. Just look back and around.
The artists standing firm in the yard are painting themselves with self-made colorful crayons. Without peeking from outside, how do the artists know when and where to mint and deposit the load of pigments in their own gallery after the first inkling of the seasonal chill? How did the weavers stitch up their own green sweaters earlier in the spring? How did the florists arrange their name brand bouquet and enchant the buzzing insects with overnight brewed nectar from under their sleeves? How did the baker shops harness the solar power long before our energy crisis? Why did the vegetarians donate their own flesh as bread for the herbivores who then sacrifice for the carnivores who freely offer their corpses to the microbes? Who waved the magic wand in the beginning and breathed life into existence? Who decrees that life in such rich diversity must surrender the grip to longevity in its present shapes and forms?
A forty-four year old becomes a child of curiosity for a night. Knock. Knock.
The crickets are still singing their post-courtship love songs.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Hope is the Surest Antidote of Fear
Fear is gripping the world. That is the dominating news today.
Who would not fear, you argue, when a big chunk of one's hard-earned savings in investment and retirement accounts have evaporated in a matter of days?
We worry because we can foresee a day in the not so distant future when we may lose our shelter and no food may be brought to our dinner table and not enough money is available to send kids to colleges. This is a typical and, I must admit, fairly reasonable worry of our time.
Let's talk about shelter first. True, if you, like me, have not paid off the mortgage, it is possible for us to default our loan and lose our shelter. We will have to rent a cheaper place or live on the street if homeless shelters are overcrowded and we have nowhere else to turn. Possibly, we may have to go to the mountains and build our own temporary shelter there (and breathe fresher air too).
But do not worry too much. Since almost everyone (except homeless people not living in homeless shelters) are already living in a real place, it is a logical corollary that the world has a place for everyone, if the street-living homeless will take up some of the underutilized or empty spaces. We can safely conclude that everyone has a place to live. During deep economic crisis, if banks and landlords insist that more than half of the world population must vacate from current homes and apartments, then I will assure you that the new homeless people will revolt and take over the world unless the governments step in to help the people. I know you still worry if only a third or quarter of the world population do not have a place to live and you and I are among them. Do not worry. We may form our own nation called the Republic of the Homeless. We may pick up where both capitalism and communism have miserably failed and build a utopia that truly love one another in hope and faith.
Next, food. I am the least worried on food. You see, the red hot Sun (not Sarah Palin) is still dutifully giving off light of comparable luminosity. The green plants (not the Full Frontal fashion models) are still dutifully performing photosynthesis. The whole ecosystem (bacteria, plants, animals including people) has been ultimately fed by solar powered photosynthesis. There is no near term crisis yet, not for another few billion years when the Sun burns up its hydrogen fuel. The food is here, there, and everywhere. I know we modern mortals have been accustomed to buying food from super food marts. But that is not the way of life for our ancestors and our animal friends and germ foes. We can grow our own green plants and animal stocks. Now you worry about cultivatable land. Worry not, for the land is yours, mine, and ours to plough and plant, according to the lyric of a most memorable Christian hymn that I heard when I came to USA. You still worry about the land, as if we will relive the cowboys' era of the great expansion to the West. I say, worry not, since we do not need a big acre of land to grow enough food for one family. Besides, we can always go back to the days of slavery and submit ourselves to the big landlords before the next peasants' revolution.
Lastly, college tuition. Why worry about it when we have to dwell in mountain caves or shelters and eat what we grow ourselves? We will push back the modern education by 500 years. My friends (as John McCain likes to address his audience), don't you want to live a life that is as archaic and romantic as the nomads in an environmentally friendly way? I miss my childhood days when I collected dog dung to fertilize the land.
I rest my case of argument. I hope we will regain our hope, the best antidote to any fear. We are afraid of the potential revision to our modern way of life. Screw the modernity. Let's go back to the future that has true hope, faith and love.
Barack Obama seemed to know what we would need by launching his presidential bid on the bandwagon of hope. Why has he stopped talking about hope now? We all need hope, all the more desperately.
Who would not fear, you argue, when a big chunk of one's hard-earned savings in investment and retirement accounts have evaporated in a matter of days?
We worry because we can foresee a day in the not so distant future when we may lose our shelter and no food may be brought to our dinner table and not enough money is available to send kids to colleges. This is a typical and, I must admit, fairly reasonable worry of our time.
Let's talk about shelter first. True, if you, like me, have not paid off the mortgage, it is possible for us to default our loan and lose our shelter. We will have to rent a cheaper place or live on the street if homeless shelters are overcrowded and we have nowhere else to turn. Possibly, we may have to go to the mountains and build our own temporary shelter there (and breathe fresher air too).
But do not worry too much. Since almost everyone (except homeless people not living in homeless shelters) are already living in a real place, it is a logical corollary that the world has a place for everyone, if the street-living homeless will take up some of the underutilized or empty spaces. We can safely conclude that everyone has a place to live. During deep economic crisis, if banks and landlords insist that more than half of the world population must vacate from current homes and apartments, then I will assure you that the new homeless people will revolt and take over the world unless the governments step in to help the people. I know you still worry if only a third or quarter of the world population do not have a place to live and you and I are among them. Do not worry. We may form our own nation called the Republic of the Homeless. We may pick up where both capitalism and communism have miserably failed and build a utopia that truly love one another in hope and faith.
Next, food. I am the least worried on food. You see, the red hot Sun (not Sarah Palin) is still dutifully giving off light of comparable luminosity. The green plants (not the Full Frontal fashion models) are still dutifully performing photosynthesis. The whole ecosystem (bacteria, plants, animals including people) has been ultimately fed by solar powered photosynthesis. There is no near term crisis yet, not for another few billion years when the Sun burns up its hydrogen fuel. The food is here, there, and everywhere. I know we modern mortals have been accustomed to buying food from super food marts. But that is not the way of life for our ancestors and our animal friends and germ foes. We can grow our own green plants and animal stocks. Now you worry about cultivatable land. Worry not, for the land is yours, mine, and ours to plough and plant, according to the lyric of a most memorable Christian hymn that I heard when I came to USA. You still worry about the land, as if we will relive the cowboys' era of the great expansion to the West. I say, worry not, since we do not need a big acre of land to grow enough food for one family. Besides, we can always go back to the days of slavery and submit ourselves to the big landlords before the next peasants' revolution.
Lastly, college tuition. Why worry about it when we have to dwell in mountain caves or shelters and eat what we grow ourselves? We will push back the modern education by 500 years. My friends (as John McCain likes to address his audience), don't you want to live a life that is as archaic and romantic as the nomads in an environmentally friendly way? I miss my childhood days when I collected dog dung to fertilize the land.
I rest my case of argument. I hope we will regain our hope, the best antidote to any fear. We are afraid of the potential revision to our modern way of life. Screw the modernity. Let's go back to the future that has true hope, faith and love.
Barack Obama seemed to know what we would need by launching his presidential bid on the bandwagon of hope. Why has he stopped talking about hope now? We all need hope, all the more desperately.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Stop the Bloodletting, Fear no Fear
Wall Street and world markets did not get too cozy with the 700 billion bailout plan. The world has entered into a panic attack, as if the sky is falling any minute.
The fearful, or shrewd, decide to unload their stocks and stash away the cash until future recovery from the panic attack. Assuming no more short selling is permitted in this downright bearish market, few stockholders stand to gain anything, except earlier short sellers who are trying to buy back the borrowed shares and those who have plenty of cash on hand to buy values stocks in their new lows.
Even though I am not running for President of any country or club, but as a good world citizen, I must advise the panicking fellow citizens not to lose heart. Do not join the frenzy of dumping your shares. That will only exacerbate the irrational exuberance on the market and drive down the price more steeply.
I want to go one step further to call on the governments to immediately stop the bloodletting on the market by shutting down all trades until further notice, when people will have regained their mental sure footing.
The sub-prime mortgage debacle due to unshackled Wall Street greed has set off this unfortunate episode of economic downturn. The mere intensifying fear of common stockholders will only add fuel to fire, insult to injury, making the bad worse.
First is the Wall Street greed, now comes the Main Street fear. Greed and fear are twins that will do us in. Someone has said it well, the only fear that we need to fear is the fear itself. So fear no fear.
I am reading Daniel Coleman's classic book on "Emotional Intelligence". It is evident that panic selling is an emotionally unintelligent, knee-jerk reaction in this gloomy market. We must put a cork to the bubbling foam of fear. The government must stop the bloodletting.
The fearful, or shrewd, decide to unload their stocks and stash away the cash until future recovery from the panic attack. Assuming no more short selling is permitted in this downright bearish market, few stockholders stand to gain anything, except earlier short sellers who are trying to buy back the borrowed shares and those who have plenty of cash on hand to buy values stocks in their new lows.
Even though I am not running for President of any country or club, but as a good world citizen, I must advise the panicking fellow citizens not to lose heart. Do not join the frenzy of dumping your shares. That will only exacerbate the irrational exuberance on the market and drive down the price more steeply.
I want to go one step further to call on the governments to immediately stop the bloodletting on the market by shutting down all trades until further notice, when people will have regained their mental sure footing.
The sub-prime mortgage debacle due to unshackled Wall Street greed has set off this unfortunate episode of economic downturn. The mere intensifying fear of common stockholders will only add fuel to fire, insult to injury, making the bad worse.
First is the Wall Street greed, now comes the Main Street fear. Greed and fear are twins that will do us in. Someone has said it well, the only fear that we need to fear is the fear itself. So fear no fear.
I am reading Daniel Coleman's classic book on "Emotional Intelligence". It is evident that panic selling is an emotionally unintelligent, knee-jerk reaction in this gloomy market. We must put a cork to the bubbling foam of fear. The government must stop the bloodletting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)