Tag: Obama

Learning by failing

NYT Opinion Page wants to debate about being informed vs being educated.

With the dcline of Newsweek, readers have moved on to Google News (ironically, today celebrates National Print Day) and other mobile content.

Short bursts: Obama won the debate. The Giants got chemistry.

We will someday think that a tweet, 140 characters, is too long.

Just like the 2-minute  microwave oven wait (used to shorten boiling time down to 2 minutes from 5).

That’s how quick our brain evolves

Yet there is no substitute for trying and failing.

Those lessons stuck around longer, since they are more personal.

Time we could have spent with our kids.

Money we could have invested in an art course that could help turn passion into profit etc… Yet, we only have regrets to show for.

In business, we missed a few steps: being too late to market, or too early.

Committing too few resources to a gigantic task (thinking we were exceptions to the rule such as Valley of Death, burnt rates etc…).

Failing begets failing.

We all hide our weakness and failure.

The culture of celeb and cinema extolls IMAGE (of heroism and hedonism).

We are supposed to be cool, hip and always on point.

In life, it’s only one take. Action and cut. And that’s a wrap.

Those who rehearsed more will get  it righ the first time.

Either way, no pain no gain.

We rehearse i.e. fumbling through, learning a new angle , a new way to interpret the script.

Life has its own script for us: put in the hours, get something back. Spend wisely and save for rainy days.

That script is universal.

Yet we keep having to relearn it. Mostly, by failing to adhere to it.

But then, whose life is it that doesn’t stray from the track? McGovern of S Dakota?

Bush of Austin, TX? or Arnold in Hollywood.  Everyone seems to have a book out. All learned by doing, by failing. The WSJ titled McGovern “Bested by Nixon“.

Will your life and mine be remembered by one defining failure? Then why do we need a whole book? Save a tree.  Just tweet, something like: I THOUGHT I WAS AN EXCEPTION TO THE RULE. I WAS NOT. HARD EARNED LESSONS.

Now go celebrate National Print Day. Read about others’ struggles and striving. How they handled their own failures.

Maybe we can learn by their failing besides our own.

Rare Earth beats

If you want to set the tone for the whole day, pop in Rare Earth collection which opens with a 22-minute long Get Ready followed by I Just Want to Celebrate. The name has nothing to do with current dispute between China and Japan for those planned-scarcity elements.

Get ready to celebrate.

Dream, dream, dream.

Back in the early 70’s, amidst America’s recession, oil crisis, Watergate and Vietnam, at least we got the beat (while pushing those huge Detroit automobiles inch by inch in gas line) and all sorts of movement for change (women rights, civil rights and rare species rights).

Those dudes got hair. And a slight mistrust of government conduct in world affairs (Iranian hostage crisis 1.0).

Fast forward to today’s early voting at the poll. (BTW, they are re-releasing Back to the Future series on Blu-Ray). It is said that France’s protest and Britain’s austerity foreshadow America’s future. Or worse off, Japan’s lost decade. Frantically, policy makers such as Chairman of the Fed are crunching numbers (consumer spending dropped below 70 per cent, hum, not good. What can we do to stimulate Christmas spending? Confidence index at 50, hum! We need to get it to 90) Well, we need those rare earth elements to make electronic components).

In case people forget, America has always moved forward despite setbacks. Just because it is based on checks-and-balances doesn’t mean paralysis of analysis. There is an Opinion piece in the NYT  about our corroded water system. Out of sight, out of mind.

The water department is going to shut down our neighborhood water today. It is advised that we boil our water after it is back on.

There it is. I get ready to celebrate, another day of living (with or without water in America) in Third World America (Huffington).

If I remember correctly, the Obama administration said they were opened to wiki-ideas on how to reduce unemployment (job creation).

And people have opined left and right about clean tech, smart appliances, infrastructure upgrade etc…

Nothing seems to be working. Meanwhile, large companies such as GE, IBM and COke continue to shift their workload overseas where tax incentives are irresistible. According to some accounts, GE paid zero tax for its operation in the US a few years back. I am sure it paid a lot for tax lawyers to figure that out.

So the dudes keep pushing the automobiles, except this time, it’s 40 yrs since our favorite band debut its Rare Earth collection. Get ready, I just want to celebrate. Back to the Future. Selective past is always best

when the future is uncertain. Then I understood the luring smell of a Thanksgiving turkey. It’s like mom’s cooking when you come home after being away in college. It’s the only constant in a not too favorably changing world. You know what CD I am going to play to celebrate another day of living in Amerika. Dream, dream, dream. A portrait of America Before and After Recession could be used for weight loss advertisement. People and cars both get slimmed down. Surprisingly, Rare Earth stood the test of time especially the drum solo part. It serves as a benchmark. That’s the America I first learned to admire, similar to the way Fareed described his version of America when still in India. Maybe it can still be for millions, if we can figure out the beat.

 

Spent

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/477965/Lotto-winner-Callie-Rogers-reveals-hell-her-pound19m-fortune-brought.html

You can’t handle the truth!

Or blew 3 million dollars of lottery winning on booze, boobs and bags of white powder.

What a boyfriend the 16-year-old lottery winner hangs out with.

Meanwhile, another couple from Tokyo win the Tango contest, leaving the Argentinians in the dust (another couple from Colombia win Second place).

Now, that’s winning by hard work and collaboration.

I can’t help noticing the Japanese influence and presence in South America, just as I have recently about Chinese in Africa.

The East has produced a few “Columbus” of their own.

Can’t blame them for wanting to see it up close after years of Hollywood education. Meanwhile,

America still perpetuates the image of Iowa Jim (Incidentally, Clint Eastwood who directs the movie, also stars in his own Gran Torino which shows sensitivity to the plight of Asian immigrants)

even as Japan has moved on (signified by the start of a newly elected government). As of this edit, Japan has scored some shots at the Trans-Pacific Pact in the absence of President Obama, who had to stay home to resolve US Government shut-down.

We have yet to figure out the post-globalized world model.

Our lyric, liturgy and law that govern commerce and communication seem to freeze-frame at the post-WW world.

The star of Bollywood had already arrived at Newark Airport for a film premier, while  Hollywood still churns out Halloween franchise (same weekend that a Hawaii-born President delivered an Eulogy amidst an Irish white congregation.)

I admire the Tango winners ( hard work and collaboration) as much as I empathize with the 16-year-old lottery winner (luck) who has to move back in with her parents. She is learning her lesson at age 19.

To win means perseverance from within and facing challenges from without. Some passengers on United 93 made that heroic and fateful counter measure to retake the  hi-jacked aircraft. Now, that’s a challenge. In my book, they are winners.  Nature never fails to teach us the obvious: even dinosaurs couldn’t survive bio-meteorological pressures.

Size doesn’t make a difference in the scheme of things (my neighborhood bully, bigger than I then, is now dead). And certainly a whopping $3 million for a 16- year old on her spending spree won’t either. She can’t handle the truth!