War and whereabout

“like a long lost friend”, “been a long and lonely winter”….

We suppress unwanted memories, until they resurface.

Then we dismiss them as unimportant or not-applicable, we “park” them as cold cases, to look at them with new lenses; without the original and emotional attachment.

Our culture urges us to re-invent ourselves, to get with the times.

No one seems to remember past their last look at account balance.

I wrote in earlier blog about a good friend, whereabout unknown. He was a drummer in my 6th-grade band. Complete loss of touch.

Yet in my memory, he is there, smiling and keeping his every beat.

He is real to me. A human being and a friend.

Not to be measured in any economic terms i.e. of utility to me. Just a part of my social circle whom I spent time with.

Friendship is the stuff that makes life life.

Yet we don’t yet know how to measure its worth, its values; or to work Happiness Index into GDP.

Business learns in full-circle: first they measure productivity, then they force-rank to rid off the “unwanted” at the bottom of the totem pole.

When they scale to Trillion-dollar level, they re-learn to value the individual contribution etc…

Sounds to me like scarcity vs abundance thinking.

When you are down in the gutter, you kick a man for your five-dollar fix.

When you relax on a cruise, you two have plenty of time to chat about mundane things.

We live in interesting times: stuff made in China, imported from Vietnam and Spencers for hire from former Soviet Union.

What ever else speedier, the robots and its ever-growing brain will do. Laptops are so cheap, even a 1st-grader has one.

Between machine and (extra) man power, we will certainly be well-cared for.

Just shut up and leave the ICU tubes alone.

Let the bureaucrats do their jobs, whether it’s efficient or not, whether it’s right or not, and whether it’s uncalled for or not.

Citizens of the world! Rise not, just take it all in.

From Santiago to San Diego, you are urged to stay indoor and if you need to go about , don’t protest a price-hike or question the rise in inequality or the rise in temperature.

Modernity is at its breaking point; so eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow, we are going to die.

So the narrative continues in our continually make-believe world. Sounds fictional, but it coincides with today’s reality. You can’t die alone, but surrounded by impersonal in-shorring nurses and machinery.

Drones by night and Donuts by day.

People, workers and consumers used to be under-valued.

Now when Scale and what made Scaling possible are in, people are re-“evaluated” to statistically comprise much needed mass-scale e.g. eye-balls for a start.

You and I are only mattered to our moms. Life is what it is: survival of the fittest on a massive scale. Forget individual liberty and justice for you (it says “for all” once, but now it’s hot and crowded, fast. Something has to give).

Hence, we might protest and politicians may compromise. But in the end, the vendor who burned himself on the street of Tunisia, the girls who got abducted by Boko Haram, and the Boat People who got raped, robbed and died in South China Seas remain forever forgotten. Flowery language is just that: eulogy! he who stretches his legs on a yacht, thinking his of his next trillion-dollar move in luxury and at the expense of many ( who couldn’t afford a metro fare) will not take the mass or the man into consideration.

Santiago is burning, not San Diego, not Space. Lock, stock and barrel is pointing at you. Which is which? Pay up or else.

Like a man waking up from a long slumber, I too see my sentence, which happens to be yours: we are at a juncture of opportunities and perils.

Like a deer facing oncoming headlights, we might freeze up, fight or flight. One foot forward first. Not the mind just our reflexes. The mind is loaded with memories, good and bad, painful and fearful. Most are suppressed. Most if not 90% remain at the bottom of the iceberg.

When you randomly access your memories, stuff tend to resurface, many of them unwanted or unsolvable, like opening up a Pandora box.

That’s what happened when I start wondering the whereabout of my friend. He was a good friend, displaced by war, but in my book, remembered as someone whom I would like see again someday. War and whereabout, unknown.

Still a part of me, just like people in organization: some are unwanted, others desirable. But when they come for you, we need all-hands, on deck.