Enduring legacy

Michael Crichton’s last work is currently on the market, although he has been long gone. So is “This is it” by Michael Jackson. I believe Patrick Swayze’s Christmas DVD is also available at the Red Box near you.

E-Book, CD, DVD  belong to the digital domain, which lasts way beyond the grave. When I was trained on’ the Seven Habits of Effective People’ at MCI, one of the key tenets was Legacy (Live, Learn, Love and leave a Legacy). I didn’t pay much attention to it, because we were burning the midnight oil, living life on the fast lane, the Googlians of the  90’s).

We were working hard and playing so hard that we missed seeing the Internet train coming (Bill Gates was among this group).

So, What is life? posed George Harrison. A concert for Bangladesh? A love lost to a dear friend, Eric Clapton (two of them took turn marrying the same woman).

I have to give credits to George who foresaw India rising.

It’s the British thing. America at the time didn’t even grant temporary visa to John, let alone work visas to Indian IT workers (until Y2K when we needed anyone and everyone to fix the zeros).

A lot of bra got burned at the sacrificial temple to get us where we are today. Women finally got a say in just about everything. We congratulate a newly appointed Vietnamese-American female Federal judge in Los Angeles circuit court.

Her trajectory is set, since the possibility of change in that “sector” is quite nil as compared to manufacturing or IT.

Back to legacy. Boomers started to retire, and having more time  They want a say in shaping public opinion. Hopefully they can vote with their meager retirement income as well (recent bubble cut that in half).

But demography dictates everything. Boomers haven’t exhausted their potential for social change just yet.

(The extreme fringe are still riding the Harley in Daytona Beach not too far from where I live).

President Carter is currently building houses for the poor in the Mekong. Bill Clinton’s foundation in the Bronx is still donating and developing young minds. And the Gates are vaccinating developing-world babies so they too can have a shot at fame.

If anything , the boomers will have left us with a legacy of involvement, indirect credits go to their previous generation, the Greatest, who had landed on D-day to show us what bravery and sacrifice was all about. Global change and local change after all, go hand in hand. It’s not a difference in kind as some may think, but in degree. Skype has shown us that “the death of distance” is real, and further down the road less traveled, one will find that last distance to cross resides in one’s heart: we are better than we thought of ourselves. All we need is a nudge, not a judge , to start us on the right direction and to rise to the occasion.

What is life? George has moved millions through his music. And the call to action has always been simple: “here comes the sun”, which pushes away doubt, darkness and division .

Even dead men can sing, sell and speak to us still. All we have left to do is to share and show to the encircling vultures that “I am not dead yet” like Dustin Hoffman in Ishtar. Got blog to write, people to hug and flowers to smell.

Not dead yet.