Thang Nguyen 555

Moment is more “eternal”. One cherishes those moments in time, in memory. Minutes are important, but quite artificial. Minutes were associated with clocking , with our mechanical society: keeping the train on schedule (as we can all attest to travel delay, with all the computers in the world, we are still stuck in airports with our luggage somewhere else).

The moment I arrived, I began to be aware of my surrounding. Began to trust: nurses, Mom, sister and cousin. I began to love them with all that was in me. I knew not hatred (that came much later). I learned to “demand” feeding (biological clock). Those moments of learning, of making friends and of course, enemies. Show me those without enemies, I will show you those without friends.

Slowly, I, we, draw a circle of trust. Of friendly faces and not too friendly ones. City kid I was. I couldn’t operate like Crocodile Dundee from a backwater town i.e. saying “Howdie” to every single passerby in NYC.

Then we all learn to avert eye contacts and rolodex contacts (unless you’re in Sales).

Moments. Of decision, agonizing decisions. Of leaving, clinging and yes, begging.

Of loss and regrets. Moments of triumph and valor. Moments of giving yourself away, unconditionally. Moments of stepping away from hiding to draw fire (and get a better satellite signal) like Seal team Michael Murphy. Like Todd Beamer “Let’s roll” (to rush the terrorists of UA-93).

Once, my brother and I faced an intruder who knocked on our door, apparently drunk. He asked for a girl’s name, perhaps living next door, then when the answer was No, he drew his handgun. We were lucky to survive the incident. Of course the police came, moving from left to right to “all clear” the stairs. Those were near-miss moments. Or when the heli-blades looking for random necks to chop off on our way out of the country.

Moments. Of holding our babies after the nurses had hosed them down. We came with chords still attached. Bonding. Becoming. And one day, burnt into the four winds, to become One with matters.

At least that’s my choice: to have my then-ashes blown into the four corners of the Earth (actually, the Earth curves, hence I will be in a continuous unending flow, attaching to whatever comes my way, of interest, like Arts, Music and Movies.)

Minutes are boring e.g. waiting for a turn signal, in line for “fast” food, and as I mentioned above, for your stand-by ticket to be issued so you can go home (after trying to pack in anticipation of the trip). Minutes are long, moments last a lifetime. We forget about the long wait when moment arrives.

Moments we know were our last conversation with friends, with father, mother and yes, teacher. In Vietnam where I grew up, teachers don’t converse with students. We had few memorable moments with them (on a camping trip). But most time, it’s lecturing and admonishing. Moments of getting a diploma, a prize and a milestone crossed. Moments that last a lifetime: dare to love, to express love, to give love (and get rejection in return).

Moments of stupidity, of hoping against hope, of clinging to mirage, another turn of the dial etc…Minutes might go by before we realize it’s our moment to call it quit. The hardest decision. Choose the lesser for the sakes of others. Sacrifice. An act of deliberate altruism. Of giving. No longer ours. It’s then theirs. Letting go. Opening up and being vulnerable.

We remember moments, and forget minutes. Our memory is there to store moments, memorable ones. More precious than gold. It’s ours. An embrace, a moment clinging too long, so long, Goodbye.

Moments last. A preview of Eternity. Everlasting. Beyond time and space in nano forms looking back at cherishable moments on Earth. Of roles we play: sons/daughters, cousins and siblings. Of being boy and girl friends, of learning to trust and to let go.

Moments of heart throbbing and heart-breaking. Obsession and passion. First love and honeymoon. Then all those moments, positive and negative, added up to make a tapestry called Life. I still remember those moments of fear, near-miss, joy and sadness. Fun and disappointment, favor done to me and vice versa. Then I realize, I will have to go into it (the End) alone, the opposite of my arrival surrounded by nurse, mom, sister and cousin. It would be symmetrical to go out surrounded by the female species. I wish. Like a French flick “the Man who loves women”.

Meanwhile, at any moment, I learn to let go. To be at the ready for a “Let’s Roll”, metaphorically, whether on UA-93, or a tennis court, or God forbid, on a high-speed freeway. Moments are more conscious and costly than minutes, which mercilessly tick on, even when we no longer are aware of our surrounding. Birth embedded burial. We cry at birth as evidence of a one-way long lonely journey, with NO CHOICE except to travel in Time dimension, minute by minute. With minutes, we just exist. With moments, we actually live.

It’s Sunday. It is forecasted to be 106 here in town.

I understand and have endured cold weather. But this, this record heat, is certifiably unprecedented.

What if I – we – don’t live on to see the Heat Waves subside? Brief life we have lived.

Never enough time to finish that song, that book or a full love cycle (boy meets girl, looses girl and has her back – the Hollywood formula…”why do birds, certainly appear…every time, you are near….”)

I heard about Dr Death, about trends in Europe where people seriously contemplate suicide.

Here in the US, the pharmaceutical industry clings to the hope that dementia patients could slow down disease progression for almost half a year. At what cost?

I want to ponder life as I have experienced iI, having observed adults got angry, fought, played and at times, not fair. People and their infinite capacity for rationalization, flipping and spinning, calling Black White and vice versa. It all depends…it is all relative, given the contour and scale of things and time etc…

At this rate, no one will be put in jail. No court, no case, no justice.

It’s expensive to litigate. The middle-men/women shall always be with you, just as the poor and downtrodden.

People are hungry. Hence Lie, cheat and steal their way into better positioning. To whitewash the past. To reinvent themselves and rewrite their history.

What mass graves (in Hue, 1968, and Native American children up North). I personally visited the museum of skulls where the Khmer Rouge massacre took place (village of Ba Truc).

Don’t tell me there weren’t any atrocities. What triggered a self-righteous rage in me, was the story that people were made to get in line, to stoically receive their decapitating (those who ran, shot).

This “Killing Field” type of script was never popular. Not against the backdrop of predictable results Boy-Meets-Girl, Boy-looses-girl formula generated. Thank to a NYT journalist and a Cambodian actor that we, the audience, finally got to view (from a safe distance between the screen and our seats) mis-en-scene 20th-century mass killing.

That propensity to take lives, to act upon the urges, under whatever name, resides within each of us. No court, no jury, no judge. Just pull the trigger, swing the machete, press the gas pedal into the metal…

In Thelma and Louise, they did just that, only to hit and free fall in mid air, to freedom.

Girls just wanna have fun…till the Sun comes up from Santa Monica Boulevard.

Meditation on our short life. It’s already short enough. Too short to finish that beer, that book and that flick. Yet some people want to take the suicide option. While others, just take someone else’s lives, unasked and uninvited.

We finally see the wheel of justice takes its turn, shooters of El Paso’s Walmart, of Pittsburgh’s Synagogue, of Colorado’s Club…

Mind I remind you of our most recent history of violence. Or further past, of atrocities.

All the wasted lives, unfinished lives, and otherwise, genius lives cut short.

I mourn for lost potential. For yours and mine. For memory loss among the millions of dementia.

Billions more (myself included) who are suffering extreme Heat due to Climate Change.

Again, human are endowed with the capacity to think, to rationalize and of course, to deny the truth.

The last point saddened me. We might as well close our eyes and ears, for observation leads to analysis, to evaluation and comparison (to precedent cases)…then judgment. I know deep down, whoever made us and endowed us with those faculties (then seemingly let go of us to observe from a distance) sure equipped us with enough to ID problems and solve them collaboratively, might they be big catastrophes I have just mentioned, or if we slack off, HE/SHE/IT might as well intervene before it’s too late.

The capacity for self-destruction is there, bubbling below everyday surface, waiting for the right trigger. Then all those meditations, this one included, would serve as down time, waiting for some sort of Happening. The Omega end point. If you don’t think history progresses linearly, at least bear with me and contemplate the reality of our own end-point. When we no longer feel the extreme heat, cold or lukewarm weather. It’s good to remember windy days, when we were out , flying kites.

Why do birds, suddenly appear? Every time, you’re near.

It’s the same person, going through “change, change, change” through chronological phases: birth, life, death and burial. A lifetime of accumulation: knowledge, hatred, love, giving and filtering (de-friending to lighten the load and to ease inevitable and eventual goodbye).

A product of parental passing-down, we curate friendship, marriage (s), and parenting on. We cannot give what we don’t have or receive.

Yet giving has never been popular. The 80’s did us a lot of harm e.g. Grey Poupon, Beamers and suspenders. “Greed is good”.

He who dies with the most toys wins.

Material girl, Girls just wanna have fun, I’ve got two tickets to Paradise. Me, me, me.

Me with the Most. The more, the better. Supersizing. From serving size to the waist line. Voila, the rise of Super gym, super saving, super everything. From small pick-up we moved on to today’s Super Truck with Amazon’s owner Super Yacht. Arnold Body Builder fit right in with the spirit of the Age. Robot Cop, Terminator etc… We don’t like small size, or one size fits all. Must be Super Big (Overstock, warehousing, clubbing in garage, living in loft).

Then damn trend reverses. Blue Tooth, i-pod, pager and now Apple Watch.

The mobility of nomads. The romance of gypsies. Young man, go West. Cavemen, get out there and be someone. Anyone. Just don’t get stuck there and inject yourself with harmful substance. Timothy Leary is dead. Herman Marcuse is dead. Mao is dead. Ho Chi Minh is dead. Martin Luther King is dead.

The point is while alive, move around, look around, notice things, from treasure to trash, museum to coliseum. Life is waiting. Multiple variables and versions of life to choose from. We’re stardust.

Heading toward stardom. Beautiful You. Beautiful Me. Nobody is the same as the next person. Celebrate that. Know that, the world is called the world, was because of you and me (and the dog named Boo).

Why would we want to restrict and reduce ourselves into one version, travel in one-way street and never entertain the possibility that if allowed, our inner self will come out, accepted or not. Who is doing the acceptance and who is doing the rejecting? The Supreme Court? the Ayatollah in Iran? or the young North Korean who wrote “beautiful letters”….

Albert Schweitzer once lamented that the saddest thing in life is wasted “brain power’. If you don’t use it for something, someone else will mine it to their benefits, be it Social Media or the State (autocratic).

I have my top three of everything. In the Evil department, I list the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge and most recently, the Taliban. It has been a tough call (to create Evil ranking). Of course, there are millions of others who try to make the list, be it last night shooting in N Dakota ( 2 a day in the US this year – 2023) or Charles Manson. Must be warped parenting. Too much ammo, too few attempts at self-excellence.

Back to the Beautiful, away from the Bad. Top 3 would be a beautiful Sunset, wildflowers and of course, children who love you unconditionally. My Julie had been away for 2 months seeing her grandparents. She jumped onto our bed, snuggled in the middle and just wanted to be included in the land of adults. Who is doing the accepting or rejecting. It’s us, who deny ourselves the best of life.

Self-sabotage should rank next on Albert’s list, or perhaps, it contributes to the low penetration of brain use. The saddest thing in life is when You are not YOU. Should have re-titled my blog as YOU,YOU, YOU, I wish. Well, let’s get started. What’s has been neglected? Top 3? Tackle them.

Earth cyclical and man-made Climate Change contribute to unbreathable air. For folks with asthma like myself, oh oh. The pill, please.

This year (2023) is slated to be the hottest since temperature change first got recorded in 1979.

That year, I was with an ABC News crew as an intern, covering the Three-Miles-Island incident. We went as we were when the news broke i.e. one set of clothes. The reporter got himself a special coat underlining. Voila! One day Navy-blue, the next, beige inside turned outside.

1979. The beginning of hot temperatures being recorded. We begin to see folks not only turn their coat lining inside out, they dropped formal wear altogether (see any expansion of Brooks Brothers lately? Not since Covid lockdown and the semi-permanent nature of work-from-home).

To me, Canada has always been a freezing country. Until now. This summer. Between Canadian forest fires and the Saharan dust storm, N America sees a perfect storm. If it’s 99 degrees, we feel the relief. Just to say, everything, weather included, is relative (depends on your base line).

The FDA stamped its approval on a new Alzheimer’s drug…”giving people 5 months of slow down in disease progression and ‘meaningful’ interaction with families”. We stand at the fork on the road. New milestone in finding and treating this awful disease and new dilemma we find ourselves in: no turning back since the cat is out of the bag. Decades of accumulating knowledge (temperature rising, for instance), names of grandchildren, of inventors, of justice and injustice, all down the tube. Poof! Forgetfulness. No memory equals no existence.

Who are you? Who am I? Why are we here at all! What good does it do, to live like a vegetable after a lifetime of consuming resources (Earth’s, even scorch Earth): food, clothing, shelter, education and recreation. All for nothing. Just a strange face staring back each morning. Do we matter at all!

It would be interesting what our final thoughts are. Many have their Last Will and Testament. The majority just refuse to face reality (of birth and burial).

In True Crime, Clint Eastwood depicted an unjust Execution, only to – by will, luck and drama- have it stopped, not at the last minute, but minutes already into the process of killing an innocent man. The injections had already flown into the falsely accused veins…One – vial of poison – down, two to go. Then Bang! the phone rang.

Of course this happens only in movies, all wrapped up on a happy note, with “Joseph, Mary and Baby ” together doing Christmas shopping. No memory of hard times, hard life and hardened hearts.

How are we to respond to injustice, unless it hit home. Until it’s us who are wrongly accused, processed through a system of booked, incarcerated and limited visitations and exhausted appeals.

May you live through this Dust Storm and come out with clarity. And find a life that is much brighter, a purpose much more crystalized and a love unconditional. With or without dust. We will have to make sure dust only stay out there, not get in our eyes, and cloud our sight and judgement.

I am gonna have to take that asthma pill today. Just to breathe and think in 100-degree temperature. May God save the Canadian forest and while at it, save the Queen, Oops, the King.

Can’t select the graphic to catch your eyes.

Invisible man (Ralph Ellison). Invisible hand (Adam Smith). But this? like those hollowing of the aftermath?

Time heals? Nelson Mandela (I saw Color of Freedom last night) was quoted as saying “Time heals wounds, but not invisible wounds”).

How about our man in Louisiana solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit. Heal his wound.

I had mine. Will show you mine if you showed me yours.

We carry polka-dots tissues inside. Invisibly. If there aren’t any pain, there ain’t life.

People shootin. People dyin. People profitin. From Baltimore to South Carolina. Extreme idealism on the one hand, and extreme greed on the other. It greases the wheel. Big wheel. Keeps on churning.

France gets its Rodney King’s hour. Burn baby burn.

For a while, we assumed “just build and they will come”. Not any more. Gas is expensive, even with fracking.

Thank God for youtube, Facebook and Google. We can now stay home, and “amuse ourselves to death” ( and save the environment from pollution).

Not without the costs. Speaking of big Tech. Since when Apple made a jump from 1 Trillion (the last time I looked) to 3 T company.

I wordpress my days away. To inform (in case you did not even know about Apple is now a 3-T company), entertain (can we all get along) and educate (we need reform, starting with the man/woman in the mirror).

Long ago, I believed that someday, one day, we will reach ” the Empathic Civilization”. Been a while since. No empathy. No sympathy. Just shootin, burnin, and dyin. To rub it in, billionaires – instead of building bridges, splitting it so his super-yatch can pass through – as in Bezos’, or submerging it permanently under water – as in recent submersible) amused themselves to death.

We all grow old, one day at a time. And not a lot of us were born in Happiest Countries.

In fact, the weight of the world tilts more toward Africa/Asia, with India emerges as world’s most crowded. There will be oil, blood, sweat and tears. No way around it. (the solution? Afro-abortion?)

Bill Gates inadvertently gave rise to the rebirth of White Supremacy in Europe. A Harvard drop-out donated money to vaccines, which in turn, reduces infant mortality rates in India and elsewhere. Then the lower fertility rates of the White population contributed to the mismatch in demographics.

Voila! easy solution: curtail immigration and refugees, genocide and homicide, incarceration and termination. It gives me goose bumps, because those easy solutions reminded me of where I was from: spray pesticide to defoliate (Agent Orange) and deny the enemies their sanctuary.

Before we know it, the wind blows the other way and burns us to the ground. It’s called backfiring. And subsequent aftermath. PTSD. Then invisible wound. Then glossy cosmetic surgery. “See me, touch me, feel me, HEAL me….” Nelson Mandela says, “Time will heal some wounds, but not the invisible wound”. Right on.

Can we all get along! Steve Jobs, another college drop-out, did us a disfavor. He philosophized that we should live and think different. Out of the box, the computer, the handset etc… only to put all our eyes and ears into one. Then Zuckerberg, in the tradition of dropping-out, gave us Social Media.

Damn if you don’t. Damn if you do. Invisible wound (unhealable by time or technology). What wound. Can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Have you seen yourself in person, face-to-face? Or just its reflection which has withered away one day at a time. Mirror mirror, who is the fairest of all!

per Colby, the lessons of Vietnam were partially learned: ” we must not try to determine the leadership of small and far away states whose cultures are different from ours, but that we should be true to our own values of democracy and human rights….” Lost Victory, pg 369 published 14 years after the last cable out of then-Saigon by his replacement, Polgar, whose last words ( before yanking out the electronic gears) were ” Let us hope we will not have another Vietnam experience and that we have learned our lesson. Saigon signing off.” (pg 354)

Then decades later, we witnessed this Gate, that Gate in Kabul (North Gate, Abbey Gate, “Secret Gate” via a tunnel, very much like the VC’s Cu Chi). Tell me we have learned our lessons. Not when mothers still tossed babies over barbed wires like “basket balls”. Not when loyal multi-lingual interpreters were left behind. The tide reversed to erase most if not all our well-intended efforts.

All is vanity, says King Solomon. The beauty of the lillies surpasses all of his wisdom (at least the King learned his lessons).

To rule (or by today’s words, to lead) is a difficult task. One needs to get out of the way and let History asserts itself. Very much like Arts and Humanity. The larger our egos loom, the shy-er beauty seems. Let’s take one example. Zelinsky. He was, to me, just a humble leader who previously had been bullied by DJT (threatened to withhold US aids a few years back).

Now, it’s Putin who feels the rug about to be pulled out under him, while Zelinsky smells like roses. Of course, not without associated costs e.g. being away from his family, from his comedian wardrobe (wearing only fatigue for this new part).

Lesson, lesson, lesson. Nixon in his parting words, ascribed to the “enemies” who once allowed, will not let you win….yet he went on to pen a book about Leadership. This is like Bill Cosby trying to sell his Fatherhood copies. I’d rather read David Gergen’s Eyewitness to Power, Nixon’s speech writer assistant. It’s not the lesson of Vietnam, or the lesson of Afghanistan, or of WWII.

It’s the daily choices we make while projecting our selves, asserting our imaginary powers, and making plans accordingly (Defense Logistic Agency). Power often alludes us. I have a library full of “the Rise and Fall of so and so”, Christendom and martyrdom, Kingdom and Superdome.

All things must pass. Of the three (faith, hope and love), guess which is the greatest (per St Paul).

It turns out, none of us has the last word. Even Morrie with his Tuesdays. As soon as we saw a flash of wisdom, the next thing we know, we’re dead.

Lesson never learned, only taught. When we kill the ego (goose), we also kill the golden egg. With power comes responsibilities and ….HUMILITY. Arrogance only leads to hubris, time and time again. This applies first to me, you, and you, and you.

At least South Vietnam’s final President , Big Minh, was straightforward “I have been waiting for you since early this morning” (to hand over the key to the Palace). He knew his place and time, in the scheme of things.

All things must pass.

In Colby’s case:
“…taking to heart what we learned in Vietnam about the primacy of ‘people power’ at home and abroad”.

a former Saigonese, signing off.

I’d better put it down before I forget. 12 days on the road. Almost 4,000 miles. Some stretches were with “Fines double” signs. Other bridges that go nowhere. Eisenhower was so impressed with the German autobahn. Upon his return, he set out to remodel the US highway system (mostly to accommodate the logistics of transporting tanks and artilleries). Besides the road. I noticed:

• people are struggling to meet ends meet (a Walmart cashier – few of them left now that we’re at near full automation – boasted she got one more hour on her shift)
• a Vietnamese homeless person slept on a restaurant bench (designed for wait-list guests to be seated) in broad day light
• hotel front desk obviously was not paying much attention to the debt ceiling crisis. Instead, just a basket ball game
• Floridian and folks everywhere else on my itinerary are overweight
• Memorial weekend turned to Memorial Week, in post-Covid time
• Can’t see the White House, and the Vietnam Memorial by just driving through D.C. (oh well, I meant to).
• Few hitchhikers if any (I saw only one) were on the road. People are desperate, but fear is stronger than exhaustion
• Smaller hotel chains e.g. Hilton, Hampton Inn and Howard Johnson rule.

Two different versions of America: one in stock video (the kind of State Department shows overseas) and the other, real folks I met. Red States tend to keep to themselves. Blue States turn “rainbow”. It’s the landscape that dictates everything. Vast land, few opportunities. Manufactured crisis amplified via Social Media.

It’s reality. It’s painful. It’s my country too. Black folks, White folks and Brown folks. My fellow citizens. Came with big dreams. Few attained them (that’s my bench!). Buddhist temples saw an opportunity to expand (tax exemption), inadvertently, beating the Evangelicals at their own game.

I stopped at Chow King near Fort Payne. I wonder when and if the US goes to war with China, what would be the fate of folks working there. Will they once again be interned at camps?

We can solve the border crisis by negative ad campaigns, targeting South Americans who are desperate to come (by showing them Uvalde, smog in NYC, homeless occupying bus stops, overweight folks in trucks that need a ladder to climb into etc…).

Once we had high hopes, that America welcomes the huddle mass, and Hollywood shows Bel Air and Rodeo Drive, that Obama could be President for two consecutive terms.

Good luck to all, myself included. We need to make it happen. In the word of Admiral William H McRaven “Start with making your bed”. I can only add one little thing: “then look at yourself in the mirror, preferably without clothes”.

See, my travel takes me in full circle. I can see the problem now. It’s US.

My daughter, on the occasion of May 6 (King Charles), asked if I wanted to be King. No thank you. Just want to be myself, I replied. To be King in today’s world – post Cold War, post Covid world?

Long time ago, folks lived within walking distance. Feudalism and Lordism.

Land and letters. Today, it’s Chat GPT and a battle for survival between atom and bit.

First Wall Street, then Hollywood, and currently Silicon Valley. What’s next? A complete return to Land and Letters, Feudalism and Lordism? Live global and give local?

I have seen the same script got a new coat of red paint (editing and spinning). People want power and stay in it. People say they are for the mass yet close the curtain and indulge.

Human nature. See if you can do better, when all of us got to be King (have and hold power).

I came across “comfort women” piece last week. You may think it was about the Japanese during WWII. Think again. It’s a systematic and organized strategy by the South Korean government to play Bob Hope to the nth degree (now I have my answer as to why some Korean appear to have white skin – they were perhaps half-breed or descendants with DNA’s from you know who).

Netflix invested in the S Korean film industry (offshoring). Hollywood certainly follows suit. Digitized version of remake. Atom labor, overseas. Digital touch ups (Chat GPT) at home. We have it all figured out. Maximum share holder’s values. Minimum expenses. Win-win. Except for the guys/gals out in the cold, waiting for our future “Kings” to dispense his justice and mercy in his Kingdom, full of neither. It’s the light, see it? there. On YouTube, TEDx, your bank account, FICO scores, Facebook Likes (or the absence of them). Analytics and asylum, both run by Artificial Intelligence, 24/7, with digital bread crumb and finger prints well- aggregated and analyzed.

Want to be King still? No thanks. Just want to be me. Just want to get to know the whole of me. The still un-used portion of the brain. Days yet to live and yes, friends yet to visit. I have been “friending” digital friends, who be-friended others of similar profile (algorithm recommended)….no wonder, we kept getting recommendations to further “friend” into the rabbit hole, never meet someone different. If I were King Charles, I would disguise like Buddha to visit Sudan, Somalia and Southern border of the US. I would find out why a Florida man just shot a man, then a boy in a convenient store before killing himself.

Looks as if the more “friends” we click on, the fewer meaning we have in our lonely lives.

If I were to be King, I would never find out who my real friends are. Just a Meta world, not real world. In the former, you keep living on, even after you’re long dead.

Please skip the self-coronation ceremony and save ourselves from further embarrassment.