Tag: Black Swan

Twitter and Tolstoy

My new-year resolution is to get through Tolstoy‘s monumental “War and Peace.”

The characters and ethos were deliberate and elaborating (everyone wants a piece of the inheritance while the man was dying etc….).

Visitors were announced at the gate (no intercom), received at party etc….

Tolstoy’s imperialistic people have time on their hands. We don’t. We tweet, text and retweet.

But man’s nature remains the same: greed, exhibitionist, illusion of grandeur.

Trapped in their place and time, would we be doing any better?

How much is man a product of nurture vs nature?

With chip speed doubles every 18 months and Google Kansas City SuperFast Broadband, where do we go from here (or do we wish to go on to infinity?).

The I-pod cannot get smaller (Shuffle).

A tweet cannot be shorter.

If someone could think of something to debunk Facebook and YouTube, they probably would.

Faster, more efficient and more savings. All fine. But that doesn’t explain Newtown, 9/11 and gang rape in India. (as of this edit, it has just happened again, this time, to a Swiss couple).

Stuff that Taleb coined “black swan” in human nature.

It’s a vicious cycle. We think like this because we are taught to reason, to ask question (Socrates). But then we are inside the system, like cog in the wheel, unable to have the bird-eye’s view, to see the weakest link.

With new Congress sworn in this week,  I sincerely wish the freshman class have fresh eyes, and hopefully, committed hearts.

May they live out their terms and their years with honor and worthy of our votes. Just hope that while they tweet, they would remember Tolstoy. We still live reflexively as cavemen, with Black Swan and blind spot. Our blindness is built- in, and should not be viewed as a weakness. Just is. (no one has ever seen their eyes with their own eyes). But then, we need someone to point that out. We need a team. A partner. Someone who is both prophetic, yet pastoral. Condemn and console. Yes, we are imperfect products of our times. Just as Tolstoy’s people, of theirs.

Growing pain

Tragedy and triumph seem to go hand in hand.

Past pain could be paralysing yet addictive.

Those who couldn’t get over it end up going back to it.

Not for the broken experience but for the context where pain first occurred. When shattered, we threw the baby out with the bath water. In coming back, with time and distance in between, we can salvage the damage tragedy had destroyed.

Since “baby” and “bath water” were together, we always end up with both.

Stimuli and response again. Painful again. Bitter pills to swallow.

I remember my first trip back to Fateful Beach (see other blog).

Later, a few more times, I could swim, play in the sand and regain that childlike feelings.

Pain of the past never remains in the past or at the place it first occurred. It stays and grows with us. Becomes part of us. We are all walking depositories of both pain and pleasure (ask our parents how we did come about). When our brain forgets part of past pain, it’s good amnesia.

So fear not the swim up river. There might still be ambush. There might be not.

Chances for accident and mishaps to happen twice to someone at the same place is almost nil.

But in that far corner of our head recedes that creeping fear of past tragedy. Call it Post traumatic Stress Disorder.

So we close its door, and throw away the key.

But it’s there, growing. gaining weight on its own. A stranger within, waiting  to be met, to be friended with. To be at peace with .

It’s natural and healthy for Black Swan and White one to co-exist.

As long as the duality makes us strong and not weakens us.

It’s part of life. Pain (past and future) that is.