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Tolstoy once said a man’s life were like a fraction. The larger the denominator (delusion) the smaller the sum of his total (self)….or something like that. The point is: concentrate on expanding one’s numerator, not denominator. I went back to old movies and watched them with new eyes: old B/W ones (Paths of Glory, High…
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What happened before will happen again (comes back in a full circle). Maybe not. Something that has never happened before might occur someday e.g. singularity. The speed of change, our ability to cope with it (speaking in shorter sentences, if not binary: Yes or No). I grew up waiting for frequent trips to visit our…
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I wasn’t stupid. Something was going on. Something happened. Didn’t know what it was. “What’s going on!” “Something is happening here,….what it is ain’t exactly clear”. In the dark. Kept there. Even to the last minute. People were climbing, pushing and shoving. Babies crying. Adults in tears (separation, fear of the unknown, fear of danger,…
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It happened. Oil and water. Mixing. At the tail-end of the war, Vietnam War. Fifty years on. Still, like yesterday. In-class Tet celebration. Co-ed senior high. My last year in Vietnam. Senior panic. Every moment matters. Knowing we would never see each other and be the same. A sense of premonition. An instant reminiscence. As…
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It fell. Gravity. Weight. Collapse. Same with lies and hypocrisy. Hand-me-down and revised version as the Like new norm of “untruth”. One day, all on their own (weight), they collapse. Like a Ponzi scheme. Like Enron (among its mission statements: “respect” and “integrity”). Like 2008’s derivative packaging (S&P at 666 bottoms). Like Theranos (Steve Jobs…
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Not yet dead (by a thousand cuts). Not yet been jailed (despite multiple lawsuits). And not back down (despite death threats and business shut-down threats). A while ago, I was thinking about female journalists eg. Barbara Walters, etc… who blazed the trail. The ERA struggle back in the ’70s. How women wanted to have it…
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At the end of Steven King’s Shawshank Redemption, we find our character laying on his back saying “I’ll be damn!”. His partner in crime had pulled it off. Not a small feat. Papillon’s worthy. One handful of limestone at a time. Sprinkled around in the yard during break times. Unbroken. Maintain one’s sanity and sense…
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Before 1968, all I knew of Tet was new clothes and new outlook. It’s been around like clockwork, with foods, festival and fun. Per legends, 1600 BC, wikipedia has this “…Tết, whoever could introduce the most delicious dish for the altar would become the next ruler of the country. While other princes tried to find…
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Efficiency, chain of command and hustle. Speed of execution. Climb the ladder. Through smoke. To the top. Only to find out , it’s the wrong building. Or worse, like in 9/11 situation, the building (obviously with hole punched through by an AA flight) collapsed on you and first responders. We hate to admit we were…
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Ishiguro always put his fingers on some pulse. First he was known for “The Remains of the Day”. Then went on with “Never Let Me Go”, followed by “Klara and the Sun”. He knows how we feel. Claustrophobic. Hemmed in. By the forces beyond our control e.g. industrialization and digitization. Now with a play adaptation,…
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Thang Nguyen 555 