Feel Felt Found

Those who have been in sales can relate to this:

I know how you FEEL.

I FELT the same way, but I FOUND (after trying that product /service the second time etc…) that….

Handle the objection, with empathy, but stray not from the formula.

Milken was on CNBC just now (until my DirecTV signals got cut off due to a storm. It’s time for DirecTV to FFF).

He mentioned the economy reminded him of the 73-77  time frame, and right now, we would have been at mid-point, i.e. 75.

Well, when I arrived in August 1975, I immediately went to work, as a volunteer interpreter for the Bureau of Child Welfare, based out of Indian Town Gap, PA.

The case workers, the kids, with me in the middle (so both sides could be on the same adoption page).  A lot of kids got placed in nice homes, and perhaps are better off than I today.

All the powers to them.

So, today is similar to back then? Wow!

Back then I had “the things they carried”, so I did not have the luxury of empathy. I did not and could not have known how you FELT i.e.  carrying the burden of economic recession,of emotion overspent and over-invested in a failed war, and a divided post-OPEC country (who had just dealt the China card)  with high unemployment rate. No wonder there were rumors circulated that the US government gave refugees a boat load of money to resettle into the four corners of the Earth. Far from the truth. Lucky they did not have the internet back then.

Shameless to say, I started out at the bottom: the toilet, and worked my way up. I worked the night shift, and during the day, I took Media courses (while doing laundry to subsidize my rent).  I could hardly type or drive (they did not offer classes like that in Vietnamese high school ). And I missed my mom. In short, Crocodile Dundee arrived in New York and dreamed of being “Midnight Cowboy”, with 10 times the (culture) shock value: non-white, no English and no job. NINJ. We were perfect candidates for a housing bubble.

Back to FFF. While American scholars did a lot of studies about Vietnamese culture and climate (just as they are doing now, with “the Looming Towers”, “Ghost Wars”) I personally have never ceased in the quest to become a near-native . That way, I can say, I know how you feel, and mean it.

America got its plate full (of burden-sharing). It’s easy to understand why recent PEW research shows majority of opinion seems to favor isolationism. Over-extended. Fatigue. Burned out from prolonged and protracted wars.

It crushed the Soviet in the 80’s, and that was only one front, not two.

How did President Johnson managed it back then, both at home (the Great Society) and abroad (Vietnam)?

One of his initiatives was to spin-off the Federal Housing Administration (Fannie Mae) to finance the war chest, indirectly precipitated the Collateral Debt Obligation mess, which is still being mopped up (Need a financial janitor?).

The mood of the country back then was perhaps like it is today: subdue, and can’t seem to get into the holiday spirit.

Something was unsettling, and no one seemed to be able to articulate it (Post-traumatic Disorder Syndrome?)  That was, until Rambo came to life, and shot up the computers and bean counters, appeasing both the Deer Hunters and those who were “Born on the Fourth of July”, albeit celluloid catharsis.

The Vietnam Memorial was hastily erected: simple, elegant yet eerie (Try to visit it at dark).

As if someone was trying to bury something shameful, without closure, to get on with “the Greed Decade”, the Bonfire of Vanity.

This explains why I never felt comfortable walking into the Luxor in Las Vegas. Who would want to “bury” his money in a Pharaoh tomb! (Both structures were in black granite, and in the East, we attribute it as belonging to the spirit world).

After 35 years, I can now say : I know how you FEEL, I FELT the same way (= crisis of confidence and loss of bearing).

But I FOUND that for the younger ones (my nieces and nephews), America has a lot to offer (their Trick-or-Treat bags weren’t half full as mine) starting from the yellow school bus to their current family van. Out of the ashes rises the Phoenix.  America is what you make of it: not open border, but open source. It’s no surprise that those who have the “audacity of hope” found more than a platform. In Rambo’s words “where you call hell, I call home”.  Some are more at home than others (being second, third generations and all), even in the White House. Feel, felt, found. Keep them coming. You’ll never know. It’s a numbers game. In Carpenters’ words, ” We’ve only just begun”.