Tag: Moore

Time as equalizer

Presidential terms last four years.  Our life expectancy, used to be much less, now stands in the mid-70’s depends on the air quality near you. It’s an allotment. Non-negotiable. Except for a few variables e.g.unique gene pool, diet, exercise, stress level and accidents.

Some people even wish they were dead.  If you drag on day in and day out pushing the shopping cart, full of  discarded possession, then heck,  yes, you should.

I don’t expect our leaders to solve every problem . They got 9/11 memorial to attend to, reelection or election speech to give, and negative ads to launch.

But then, the homeless men and the presidential candidates both have on hand only a few decades left to influence the course of history and to deflect deadly and detrimental trajectories e.g. healthier school lunches, smarter curricula, wasted talent  (where would Bill Gates be today had someone not allowed him to practice programming skills at night in a computer lab).

Time is evil.

Rich men and poor men.

Strong men and weak men.

Faithful men and flirty men.

All got only that long to live, to learn and yes, to regret.

It’s part of the package: to err is human.

Those who risked nothing, gained nothing.

Money can be borrowed (especially today, when banks are pushing for it, but not without conditions) but time cannot.

The 80/20 rule shows us there are times when we feel and actually are more productive.

Athletes know about and leverage their peak time performance.

And Moore’s Law makes planned obsolescence   a de facto (more apps with better speed of processing  keep coming down the pipe).

Just don’t wish to live on forever, as the joke goes ” a man wished he could live on forever. So God turned him into a tree”.

Plan your funeral ahead, preferably with standing room only. Work backward from there and cross out that check list, one by one (gotta see Paris for example).

You will laugh and cry, and beat yourself for not seeing the elephant in the room, or the Emperor without clothes.

It’s the spirit of the times. We have all been willfully blind when inside the bubble (Tulip? Railroad? Internet? Housing?).

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

Might as well. Because to him ,with hammer in hand, everything looks like nails.

When you get hammered down, don’t stay down. Gabby did not. She got back onto the platform, and not just any platform, but the DNC platform. Her time has yet to be over. So has ours. Stand up and stand your ground.

Reading Re-Enchantment

Cover of "Care of the Soul"
Cover of Care of the Soul

Thomas Moore (double O’s) was quoting Thomas More (single O) in his book, the Re-Enchantmet of Everyday Life.

He came out with a bang in Care of the Soul. Essayist, therapist, monk and philosopher who hit the marks. Those marks point us back to Nature, Magic and Intuition. Qualities of life .

He treaded carefully, staying in “common grace” space, so as not to offend, or be typecasted  as a Luddite (anti-technology). But given a choice between a new printer (obviously necessary for his work) and a new piece of rug for home office, he would choose the latter.

Enchantment.

Mr Moore traveled to Ireland, seeking historical sites and scenery. He constantly argued for “touch points” with the Eternal and Sacredness: rock and ruin, trees and green movement in our parks and cities. It’s true that office workers never stopped in the lobby on their way to work (holding a donut in hand).

Building lobbies are for job seekers waiting for an interview. These days, that’s most of us, and soon, one of the Presidential candidates. His chapter on our  Martian nature was right on (I was talking about violence within each of us the day before the Aurora shooting). Hollywood certainly did not let violence go unexploited.

I am reminded via Mr Moore’s work that it doesn’t take much money to extract joy from Nature or from objects of sacredness (even graffiti is a cry for validation). At some point, we all want to have our profile on Facebook and Linkedin. Before Social Media, where were we all?

I refer to Respect in my earlier blog about Connect and Respect.  We must first respect those with whom we do business . And we must first get to know them (Connect) and respect them whether we eventually do business or not.

This takes sales rejection to a whole new level. We respect people’s IP (by signing a NDA) and we  don’t make reps work their tails off then turn around and use their proposals as unpaid due diligence.

Yes. Thomas Moore belongs in some Trappist order. But he happens to speak our language, live in our city and help cure our friends who got issues. He often speaks of life and magic as unfolding. In other words, it’s active and alive. We just need to give it proper attention and expectation.

Just magic in everyday life: a rock , a tree and poetry ; all will still be there long after we are gone. Now , that’s something.  That’s reassuring. That’s eternal, from our short temporal frame of reference. I am not going to re-read Re-Enchantment. But it does make me re-think about everyday’s touch points whether it be readership, relationship or romance.

All Cast

My neighbor got off his cast today. I congratulated him, and told him, me too,

had a broken arm after my first month of Kung Fu. “It’s itchy and hairy”.  I got a chuckle out of him (who would otherwise looked so mean).

A few minutes later, I walked past a man with only one arm. His left short-sleeve shirt flips in the wind. He must have just gone back from his morning walk.

I was warned! Keep it to yourself! There is misery and menace, determination and destruction in this world. Just as you thought you have seen it all.

Buon oi, Chao Mi. (Bonjour Tristesse).

The existential loneliness is just a base line. On top of that, we got heart-break, and war that left scars and perpetual prejudice (zero-sum game).

While Moore’s Law reflects on the doubling speed of chip processing capacity, we have human with broken limps and broken dreams, carry on with half-life capacity.

“Buon oi, yeu duong la the” (that’s what love is)

Yes, as human, we are witnessing convergence of bio-tech, information-tech and neuro-science (empathic civilization). But can we still feel? Our analog make-ups don’t evolve as  fast.  We obviously cling to stars from the past.

All cast.

Red Carpet at the Oscars still features Bo Derek (used to appear in 10) and Glenn Close (Big Chill).

Give me one more take.

All cast, all crew. Dream on.

All smoke and mirror. All Cloud. The jumpers (out of the Twin Towers).

Toward oblivion. Out of the ash, the phoenix shall rise.

Broken arm, but not broken dream.

All hairy and itchy, but healed and strengthened.

Stand up and fight on. One-arm man walks on by. Stirring up empathy in me.

Moore’s Law for Tech Giants

If Rip Van Winkle woke up today, he would be surprised to see Facebook. If he had waken up a decade ago, he would have read about Google.And the decade before that, Microsoft.

Except this time, Mark Zuckerberg is much younger than the other founders, dominated the media landscape quicker . And he donated part of his earnings to charity, much earlier (Bill and Melinda Gates took off to India a few Window versions later).

In short, everything (concept to contribution) seems to follow Moore’s Law which was first applied to the speed of chips.

When Microsoft opened its Silicon Valley branch, and Facebook its first summer frat house on the West coast, we know where Mecca for techies is.

One can only hope the rise of Facebook inspire others, despite its floundering IPO.

Tech year, like dog year, ends quickly. It just seems like yesterday, when Bill Gates

tried to size up Netscape, or Murdoch MySpace and WSJ mix.

Today, half of the staff  are clearing their desks, leaving behind half of My Space For-Lease. Moore’s Law is ominous when applied outside of chip manufacturing.