Tag: DNA

Cancer and Career

At Van’s Cafe Ho Chi Minh City, if you stayed til the end of their second set of music, you would no longer hear Truc Vy doing her closing songs. She performed her set last week for the last time. Despite her late-stage throat cancer, she gave her best with composure and courage. I did not know that at the time. Just noticed how much of that vocal grace could come out from so little of a body. Now I understood.

Cancer-causing death also took  my friend, an accomplished pianist, two years ago.

And last week, it started to put down the name of its next victim.

There is a new singer in that slot now at Van’s Unforgettable.

The show must go on, like life itself.

But how many would pause to remember  someone, frail and fragile, now under traditional treatment in the country side.

They say when someone sings, he/she opens up his/her soul to you.

Like at the Voice final last night. 4 finalists. Only one winner. But we saw four raw souls on display.

To the watching eyes of million.

Truc Vy perhaps won’t go down as a late great Rock singer in the Hall of Fame.

But her dignity and demonstration of the human spirit actually propels her to the top, however short a time.

In her end, her beginning.

Diva she is not.

But Death is not her enemy either. She seems to embrace it like a part of life, in this case, quite fleeting.

It lends new meaning  to each day, each note, and each number she performs.

Now I know where that inner strength was from. From her months of wrestling with the invisible enemy within her.

Like my friend before her who smiled more than I did when we  met for the last time.

And who gave me more advice and care than I could him.

Why does it take that much for someone to wake up, to be more humanized and appreciative of life!

For me, I notice someone’s absence more than their presence. Call it delay reaction.

But in looking back to my now deceased parents, whose DNA definitely stay on in me,  I learn one thing: their time with me when their lives and mine intersected, was a gift. I opened that gift and used it. It’s a one-time thing. Unrepeatable and fully appreciated only by looking back. “Your children live through you”, like a line in the last stanza of Paul Anka‘s Papa.

Life is such a trip that no one seems to get out alive. But while at it, we make the best of that gift, including the gift of music. In Truc Vy’s case, it’s her performance on stage, with voice riding over the loud instruments and clatter of toasting, to reign supreme in a class of its own. No, Truc Vy wasn’t a participant nor winner of the Voice last night. She was perhaps at home, in the countryside, viewing it  on live TV. But at Van’s Cafe, she will always be missed, especially when it’s time for the last set.

A set is not a set without Truc Vy. Please come back to me….in Casablanca or at the Cafe.

 

Number is up!

Mr Tarr, head of the Vietnam draft lottery, has died at age of 88 in Walnut Creek, CA.

A Nixon appointee, he headed Selective Service in 1970. He heard a lot of “Hell No, We Won’t Go”.

And now, his number is up.

I wonder how those who survive him, still lingering in the Canadian woods, think.

(Read “the things they carry”, the chapter about Tim O’ Brien got near the shore, and turned around to face the draft).

It’s been 50 years since that fateful 1963 year. It marked the assassination of practically everybody, from Kennedy to Diem, from Thich Quang Duc self-immolation to the exile of Madam Nhu.

Back then, my big brother got drafted too, out of pharmacy school. His baby died after having lived for a few days in the battle zone of Qui Nhon. So my mom and I flew up to be with them. Not a Bob Hope and Susie Q type of landing at the front. But at night, the two sides were at it (bullets flying everywhere).

My first taste of a real hot war.

Meanwhile, a little girl, our own flesh and blood, was buried somewhere out there, unvisited and untraceable.

Her number was up.

Saw Gatsby this week.

The writer’s comment “of all of New York, the multitude who crashed Gatsby’s great party, not a single soul showed up for his funeral”.

Thought you would like me to quote that as it relates to “Number is up” type of blog.

This morning, over coffee, a friend joked that he would like to have his ashes scattered. I said I would do it, if he stated it in his will (who wants to fight with his families as to his future whereabouts).

I know one thing: my niece is out there somewhere in Qui Nhon. Among many whose numbers were also up.

Selective service or not. I still held that draft deferred card. It says ” Draft deferred. Reason, sole male in a family whose  other son(s) was already active in duty”. Like it or not, my pharmacist brother number was up during that time.

Mine wasn’t. And we were interlinked, by DNA and draft numbering system. I attended my niece’s funeral. I hope to be there when it’s her father’s turn to join her. My brother deserves more than what Gatsby gets at the end of life.

Make your end, a standing-room only type of funeral. I will request to have “Whiter Shade of Gray” play at mine.

RIP Mr Tarr.

Start from the start

Science has just made a great leap.

Congratulations. They have discovered the equivalent of DNA of the universe. Named it Higgs, after the scientist.

This lifts the burden off our shoulders: we are not faceless random masses.

If there are DNA’s, there are designs and destination (you might not like it if it’s not to your preferences).

But at least, not random. There is trajectory of time, of predictability and hopefully, rationality.

Things make sense.

Causes and consequences albeit with doubt in between (why Evil seems to have its field day, for instance).

Then, unintended consequences: divorce fall-out, disruption of technology ….

Kids suffer.

Vicious cycle . In Vietnam, the saying goes “cha an man, con khat nuoc” (the Dad sowed, but the children reap).

Before this discovery, we all intuitively sensed that there were order in the universe. Just couldn’t prove it.

But we hum along when hearing “Rhythm of the rain.”

Even the heat waves.

Then the cycle of war (Disputes in the China Sea… rumbles in the MidEast)

There are seasons in the sun. Time to fight, time to make peace.

Underneath it all, lies the DNA, and the Higgs.

Fundamental of fundamentals.

Healing and destruction.

And someday, completion, at least, for us, one by one.

At some point, each of us must stop and ponder: what is life.

Multiple flavors. Wrapped up in one package from the start: our moment of birth. No expectation, no preconception, no reflection. All future. Good start  right from the start.

Inter-group problems

At work or in life, people are bunched together “us vs them”.

No way around this. Shared values and “group DNA“.

I am glad to see titles like Chief Cultural Officer. It’s about time we see how group think, group problems and group competition affect the bottom line.

As we move away from the Command-Control management style, which demands total conformity and compliance; we inevitably get closer to the chaos spectrum, where groups or cliques thrive.

Great leaders know how to balance these constituencies or stakeholders.

Get the buy-ins, ask for their opinions and contributions.  Make them think success is the result of their efforts, and even better, their joint efforts.

Nothing works better than healthy competition. Brings out optimal performance.

Parents like to play one child against  the other. Teachers learn that each child has a different learning style.

They should model after Personal Trainer, because each person progresses at various pace.

Back to groups at work. First, create a common vision and language.

Then obtain agreement on what are the metrics for success.

And of course, go out and win together.

When you have inter-group conflict, you know the engine is working.

Got to have friction.

Got to move ahead.

And soon enough, comes time for reward and ….yes, envy.

We are human still.

Movements

In the latest  issue of the New Yorker we find a cartoon, showing two women with huge brand-name shopping bags, blurting out “I am going to start my own Occupy movement on 57th St”.

Scott Peck, on Organization, observes that organisations go through phases: honeymoon , chaos then, compromise before reaching full functioning.

Movements however are little bit different (spontaneous and horizontal spread) e.g. Ms movement.

Wonder Woman, shopping for Wonder Bread and raising wonderful children, although a few grew up to be “flower-children”.

If you want to understand the human potential movement, you need to see that “naked gestalt circle” in TIME. We were into breathing, feeling and (organic) gardening.

The thing about movements is that they morph and move on.

In their wake, Ms movement for instance, we have a whole generation of children grow up without close supervision from either parent (pre-Mr Mom era).

I was both fortunate and unfortunate to grow up with two sets of parents: one biological, and the other, already-grown-up siblings (who to this day can’t grow out of their surrogate role). With two women of the house being out of the house, I learned to grow up quick on my own.

While sorting through various upheavals, from the British Invasion (Beatles) to “the Invasion of the Body Snatchers“, I was mindful of movements, but always missed out on them by a few years (sexual revolution, de-apartheid movement, organic movement and computer revolution).

There is nothing inherently evil or good about movements. It’s an exploitable situation when people are seeking and open to change e.g. Jim Jones and San Diego suicide pact. One can easily be swept away in clashes and chants, in mobs and marches.

The very leaderless nature of a movement gives it both authenticity and vulnerability. By the time it fizzles out, we have no central figure to blame (or send city-sanitation bills to).

In Egypt, they had arrested a Google executive, but a few days later, he was surprised that the Arab Spring had taken hold during his detention.

Right now, the movement to go online (shop until you drop) has surely advanced way pass its honeymoon phase (dot.com) and chaotic phase (dot.com burst).

Web 2.0 is here to stay (Groupon was so confident that it had refused Google’s best offer) and to push to the Cloud (Facebook has just picked Sweden to anchor its large server farm). A digital joke: can your parent tell a server from a waiter? Or as in our New Yorker’s cartoon, Occupy Wall Street vs Occupy Fifty-Seventh St?

When it comes to movements, you need to zoom out and take a balcony view. While having less fun, detachment helps you see the DNA strand that runs through all : dis-contentment. History is made up of movements, large and small. In my short time, it just happens to be full of both. Now, where should we Occupy next?

Time to take stock

So this is Christmas, what have you done? Year-end review and future projection.

Cloud strategy? Hiring and firing decision? Productivity squeeze and cost cutting? (female shoppers said they planned to spend 1% less as compared to last year).

Time to take stock, at individual and institutional level.

New calendar.

Hollywood is going to Detroit (greener pasture).

And the Ark finally found its home in Kentucky (Noah or Colonel Sanders, your choice).

Fund raisers are targeting public buildings and venues (Verizon stadium etc….).

There will emerge new industries (cloud system integrator , google glasses, google cars, google scanners ….).

Thanks to Social Media, I watch more of YouTube .

Meanwhile, not a day goes by without us seeing something coming out of China (reverse engineering Russian weaponry, Shanghai Math and Science champions, huge increase in its Africa’s raw materials and South-South global strategy.)

When John Lennon left us “standing here”, he couldn’t have seen the “long winding road” ahead. 30 years was a long time. Enough to turn BRIC countries to where they are today. “Imagine” the world 30 years from now.

We are so used to annual review, not decades in review:

(war is still raging on because men are still with that strand of evil –  albeit the Genome project could account for most of human DNA) “So this is Christmas, What have you done?”

Because of Lennon’s commemoration, 1980 feels like just last year.

In taking out an icon, the fame hitchhiker inadvertently immortalized his victim.

In her NYT piece , Yoko wrote “ours – our family – was one of giggling, teenager-like”. She mentioned laughter but I read it through a veil of tears.

J.L. would have been 70. Yet he still is “on the cover of the Rolling Stone“, just as a line in a song. You just never know. To musicians and artists (Lennon and Van Gogh) taking stock goes beyond the grave. In fact, it’s the long tail of a winding road.

 

seeing daughter

My father often went off to see his daughter, my half-sister. My brother tried to see his son from a previous marriage every few years or so (coast to coast).

Now I found myself in the same situation: seeing my little girl whom I took back from the hospital 19 years ago. I am sure she is just as excited as I am.

We won’t miss a beat. Those DNA resemblance.

But the social setting is going to be different. It’s going to be a third place, neither home nor work place.

So I chose Ben and Jerry. At least, that’s where I used to take her. Small vanilla, in the cup.

I won’t feel awkward. I will feel like I am in touch with my old self.

We anchor ourselves in people and places, even as time moved on. In hard times, we got demoted to the lowest level of Maslow hierarchy of need: survival.

I know I live on through my daughters. They love life, and laugh with friends. Both of them show my outlook on life i.e. no matter what happens, don’t let the world rob you of your smile.

Face tomorrow with optimism and not self-sabotage.

Appreciate the past for what it is, but not letting legacy dictate the terms.

Never get yourself into a box (eventually, one might have to, but still with the option of having one’s ash scattered into the seven seas).

I don’t know what I will say to her today. Most of my lessons, she already learned. I cannot help her prevent heart-break or headache. Time and Tylenol will do.

I can only be there, surviving on my term and timetable. And I know, like her, I need a father who will mark the passage of time, by his unique reaction to stimuli. Some fathers reacted worse than others. Most try their best to live up to this parental role.

I am proud to say I have tried my best. I hope I have earned my stripes.

The rest, I leave to chance. After all, I was on my own at her age, facing extreme uncertainties and ill-fated future . I made it OK. And I know, I know, hers won’t be the same. It certainly is going to be better.

So, my meeting will punctuate not with a goodbye or good luck, but with congratulations for her sure and certain victories. I see them even before she comes to realize it. That’s what father is for (to mark historical context).

I bet my life that she will do me proud.

P.S. As of this edit, I see the younger one over Fourth of July. Same DNA. Same tempo.

She likes corn and peaches. We went to Water Park. Got sun burned but a warming heart.

Time will destroy yet heal at the same time. My mistakes, your lessons. I took her to visit my old house, old school and old neighborhood. I was at that age, at that tumultuous time. Presidents were assassinated, upheaval everywhere.

I was growing up real fast. Got a good dose of cold reality in my face and the future seemed less certain with each day.

How can you explain the Vietnam War to a ten-year-old? The past can only be understood from the future. At the present time, even with Presidential archives and declassified materials (on top of leaked Pentagon Papers), scholars still debate and dialogue.

Oh well. All eyes and ears are on the Egyptian scene and streets. The urge to splurge has moved somewhere else.

As long as ammunition is spent, and human lives wasted. Such is the affair of our world, our post Cold-War world.