Matters of the heart

You know it because it rings true.

We live in a mechanical society i.e. data, speed and accuracy.

What rings true at the “heart” level needs confirmation. Hard data for hard decision.

Yet ALL of us, and I am pretty sure (no hard data to back up this hunch though) there had to be love at everyone’s conception. Then if that’s true, why what was once was so true, now deluded and decried by society as imprecise, emotional, weak, unproven and pussy.

People in the helping business was touted during Covid as heroes. Then of late, at least in CA, they had to strike to get their rightful raise.

We love Happy Ending. It pumps the juice. Happiness. Endorphin. Like they finally had a Speaker of the House ( “I felt it in my heart….best days are still ahead”).

21st-century men, deflated and often defeated when they let their emotions got the better of them. Get over it (whatever it is that gets you down).

Don’t even acknowledge it. If not recognized, it were as though it didn’t exist. Those matters of the heart.

The love for one’s motherland, one’s mother and one’s family. If it’s in the women’s department, we take it for granted. But male? go to war. Go out and drink. Go out and fight.

Then one day, the heart gave. Then we know what’s important. Like Jeremy Renner – injured in a snow plow accident – recently said he now lives a lean life, no fat whatsoever. He meant families, or what’s been regarded as important like matters of the heart.

Do we need the years to show us that? An accident? A setback?

When it comes to matters of the heart, let’s err on the side of too much rather than too little.

Give the heart its proper place – the center. After all, it gotta be love that got us all out here on Earth.

I grew up with a set of parents already in their 40’s. To me, parents mean old. And given the culture I was born into, I hardly ever associated my arrival with their bedroom encounter. It’s all hush hush.

Just be filial, give one’s highest respects to King, Teacher and parents in that order. When colliding with free wheeling Western culture e.g. spousal swapping, gay coupling and test tube babies, I was like a deer facing oncoming headlights.

My “Confucius” upbringing confused me. My reflexes (culturally) were at odds with prevailing mores. Where do I come from? Adopted maybe? Where and who were my playmates?

Finally, facebook gave me some recommendations (based on precise data they bought from other servers), for virtual friends. To widen my network and increase my Metcalfe’s influence.

Wave patterns. All digital and exponential. The more the merrier. Volume. Quantity. An imaginary audience, present and future (if by accident, they found me on Google via key word search).

Then what once was a matter of the heart, suddenly feels forced. Arbitrary. Pragmatic. And synthetic.

He who dies with the most Likes wins.

Our new society of vain narcissistic popularity. Unfit for a lonely child I used to be.

I might choke. Might throw up. Might cry out loud. For a click doesn’t solve all my social problems.

Only a heart-to-heart can feel each other’s beats. The same rhythm, like rain drops on the tin roof. A dance. A celebration.

That’s what made me me. You you. It gotta to start and end with love. Matters of the heart.

All else are sideshow, like a fortune cookie when they show you a bill after a Chinese meal.

For fun. To soften the blow. In it, we always find something agreeable and heartfelt e.g. “You will soon find your soulmate”. Things of that nature. Hard to prove and to predict. Not without more data and algorithm, to narrow down the uncertainty and risks.

“Our best days are yet ahead”.

Even with an unknown future , I know for sure I was conceived on one of those best days in the past.