Thang Nguyen 555

Signed, secured and laminated. My vaccine card.

My pandemic passport.

Years ago, it was the draft-deferral card.

Times change. New world order, still with enlooming Trump’s shadow and a lesser Liz.

Soon, we’ll see the interpreters, the contractors and the educators fleeing Afghanistan.

History has a funny way to repeat itself.

When researching for her book, “The Rape of Nanking”, Iris Chang fell into a deep depression. Perhaps about the human condition i.e. human inhuman to one another….the deaths and destruction, the heartlessness and pointlessness of it all.

She ended up killing herself, never lived off her royalty.

Past atrocities will be repeated if we don’t remind one another the evil side of humanity. It may re-incarnate, sugar-coated and plastic-dressed…yet still the same script.

We need to soul search and soul-dress.

We need to get rid of its outer layers, to re-discover for ourselves and our times ( the naked truth has been there all along, screaming to come out).

Tending to the soul.

To our inner health as a spiritual self-defense (against un-truth and indecency). A vaccine card for our spiritual immunity against attacks and invasion (mostly sugar-high with bell-shaped curve).

Much has been said about the sleep revolution, the feminist revolution, the Industrial revolution.

It would be so strange to hear your grown-up child decide to be a priest (you’d rather see him a gay ballerina).

To look inner vs outer, to tend to your own garden instead of global events, sounds selfish and in vain.

But may I remind you, it’s the soul that makes us wholistic….languages like soulmate, soul music, soul food …and Black church as keeper of Black Soul.

When I first arrived in the later half of the 70’s, there was a music program on TV called Soul Train, a Black answer to Midnight Special….where black folks were dancing and enjoying themselves.

Tight clothes, wide smiles and great soul music.

From Sly to Aretha Franklin…. oh my. “Killing me softly…”

See, there is such a thing, called …Soul.

And it’s invisible, colorless, nevertheless, real.

Soul search, you will find.

Google search,…you may not.

Machine and Artificial Intelligence have gotten there yet.. That’s what makes soul so special.

I wouldn’t dwell too deeply into the Dark side of humanity….I want to tap on the better side.

Of me, of you, of us. There are plenty of things to do, music to hear in the light of Day, “Blinded by the Light”…for instance.

Although the darker the night, the brighter those stars,…we still have plenty to exploit and to explore given those daylight, the times of our lives.

Breathe the air and the virus…goodness and evil….all there in one mix bag.

Up to us to embrace our brighter side and make it viral.