Years of Poems and Spirits

Waiting for my flight to HK in Vancouver.

Arrived in late afternoon on a small propeller. Passengers had to walk a long way to get to the Custom. I took a wrong turn and found myself alone in a long hall way. The northern sun lingered low, casting a long shadow of everything. The walls are dressed with washed-out pictures of panoramic views of landmarks in Canada.

I felt like being transported back to a day 20 years ago when I first landed in the States. Forgot where it was, but it was an airport, also in a long walk way. I bet there were plenty of people around me yet I didn’t see anyone. It was the building, the white wall and faded beauty–the overall strange environ–that had all my attention. I felt alone too, perhaps because I came to the States almost naked. The hope and anxiety was intoxicating. I was only aware of myself.

Now that I have fewer dreams, a lot less hair but much more trepidation of the people around me, it takes an empty hallway to bring myself back to my own consciousness.

It has been fun. If I had to live the past twenty years again, I doubt I’d live any more differently, except I’d have lived more intensely. I always hated a banal life and it only deepens as I age. The adrenaline rush twenty year ago is still intoxicating today.

The last year has been intense. I started with MF with high hopes. Although it is apparent now that things will not work out, I never felt so close to action before.  Think back a few more years, other than a few month in business school and the torturous last lag of Jackson School, it was intense too.

But I have yet to create something. The ability to create is a gift: some have it, some don’t.  It is not just the ability to envision things, but also to be able to execute.

At this age, I think I have a deeper vision of the world than most. Yet, I tried but failed to materialize the vision, at least, into some kind of academic achievement.

In one of Sara C’s class, one of the girls wrote a paper on woman’s education in SE Asia or something. I knew it was a “machine” paper, a work without a soul. Yet it was a creation. She was able to see something in the web of data, and saw a market for her argument. I bet writing came naturally after.

Similar enlightenment didn’t come to me until much later, after much more agony. I did see “something” but wasn’t convinced (and now am convinced not) that there was a market for it. In the end, much of my labor came to nothing.

Now I am on the cusp of trying again in another field. Would it work this time?

Read an article on the New Yorker about the pending anointment of the first female bishop in Anglican Church. The resentment of women among some Brits is just unbelievable. I would thought of it as some kind of shock journalism had it NOT been printed on the New Yorker.

One man said something like, “Can you imagine the anger in me, if I had to kneel before a bishop, knowing there is a female body behind the robe?” It is just plain astonishing.

I wouldn’t have cared as much had it came out of the mouth of a priest in Alabama. But the English has the oldest Democracy, one that is closest to the Platonic form. It has given the world some of the greatest liberal thinkers like Darwin, Burke, Hume, J.S. Mills and so on. Yet till this day, such devilish sentiment is strong enough to counter natural progression. It really shake to the core my belief in man’s ability (and the desire) to transcend himself.

The Greek debt crisis – had an interesting exchange with Debra G. I didn’t think EU will drop Greek after all. She stated the standard economist line: too much unchecked government spending. We should learned the lesson and rein in deficit.

I think she, like many economists, missed the political aspect of it all. To dig deeper, hers is the same “Economic Man” argument. But how to dispense wealth, in the end, is as socio-political as it is about economics.

The Greeks chose a collective life style. They are paying for its irrational consequence. Yet such a life style was hardly “wrong” to them. The economist may start a game of death watch. But even after a spectacular crash, people still live. As long as they are not wiped out and took the polity with them, it is hard to envision they suddenly change their life style just because of this one event.

And the political calculation may be enough to keep the Greeks in the euro zone. After all, euro is more than a widely pegged Deutsch mark: it is a statement of a political desire of cohabitation. The fact it was born in the first place was a shock to me. It is still very difficult to comprehend the collective resolve behind the decision till this very day.

I asked Debra whether it is possible that the desire to keep a favorable exchange rate may be a good enough excuse to keep Greece inside euro zone. She hasn’t replied yet.

Lady Gaga: mesmerized by her “Bad Romance”. I seldom paid attention to pop artist, but am totally taken by her. I have watched the video four times now. Every time I felt a surge of energy and excitement.

Her performance has a psychotic element that is hard to describe. I heard she used to do hard drugs, maybe that is why the imaginary is very hallucinative. Yet the video is a fairly cohesive story: the expressions of desire, suffering, revenge and dark humor are well harmonized.

At the end of the day, creativity is the most seductive element of human communication. We clamor for that more than for anything else.

Someone should tell that to the Chinese … haha

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”.