Years of Poems and Spirits

After posting the long message (to YSL), I kind of lost any interest of writing anything. But I still need to write something. After a while, when I come to this blog, all I can think of is to read my own posts. That is not good.

Listened to the last couple of episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher recently and thought he’s not as fun as he used to be. For this reason alone, I really miss the Bush years. The outrage-turned-sarcasm … that was really creative. But, as cynical as Maher is, he still gives Hope and Decency a chance when he sees one. I was hoping him would declare war on both.

Read Game Change in record time. What struck me the most is how much individual matters in history. The age old of hero-worship is not without merit. In fact, it matters just as much even in an institutional setting. Obama started his campaign as the least likely to win but overcame the Clinton machine and then the GOP machine. Martha Coakley started hers as a shoo-in but lost miserably. What history would look like now had Obama didn’t win or Coakley did?

Have I been giving institutions too much credit/weight in political development? How should I attenuate my own perception of the relationship between Individual and Institution?

Work has not gone well but I am kind of taking refuge in seeing my predictions coming to pass. Picking up this “Semantic Web” stuff. It is really interesting. It is the closest thing in Computer Science to epistemology. Hopefully, by practicing it, I will come to understand some larger topics.

Also reading Millward’s Xinjiang History. Haven’t had so much excitement for a long while. I don’t know whether I will be disappointed again in the end. Have I seen all the patterns in history? So far, it has been promising: it is like seeing different troupes playing on the same stage one after another. Each play is short enough as not to calcify into some kind of “civilization”. How refreshing!

Had some bumpy ride at home. Not sure what is to come. Song finds this quote that is very true, “God has chosen relatives for us. But thanks God we can choose our own friends”.

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