Tag: Osama bin Laden

Male figure

We all need a hero. Someone to look up to.

Even subconsciously.

Most of the time, it’s our Dad.

When mature enough to know there are shades of grey and our Dad had been far from perfect, we grew confused.

The same happened when our leaders betrayed us.

From coach to banker, from monk to priest, they failed us one by one.

I remember a ranking that had lawyers, politicians and used-car salesmen at the top (of low trust) and physicians, teachers and firemen on the other end (of high trust).

My Dad (and in his younger version, me) was far from perfect.

He carried on simultaneously two families, fathered and nurtured two young kids (me and my half-sister).

But until I have a free weekend, seeing the Pho (noodle soup) place next to a Catholic Church (Bac Ha)  that memories flushed back. I understood now that he had struggled with his own moral dilemma. And however short,  those times he did spare for me, were quite special (Sunday breakfast, fried donuts and book browsing). Those outings to me were like Proust‘s A la Reserche du Temp Perdu. Time waits for no man.

I saw the list of “Icons we lost in 2011”.

I know the male figures of our time are far from being perfect: if they are not ill (Steve Jobs) then they acted on those self-destructive impulses

(Madoff), or both (Sandusky – and to a certain extent, Paterno).

My Dad breathed his last with us at his death-bed.

I saw him struggle. Indeed I had seen him struggle all his life.

Heroes don’t exist in a vacuum.

In fact, we need heroes in spite of their problems.

Those naive enough to think that this world exists for us need their heads reexamined.

There will always be a Hitler, or a Bin Laden.

But there will also be Churchill, Gandhi  and Nelson Mandela.

TIME’s person of this year was the Protester.

A few years back, it was YOU (me).

What happened there? The YOU in digital forms stopped being heroes, leaving only a small portion of dissenters (who called themselves 99 percenters) out there in the impersonal public square.

When people feel strongly enough to die for a cause, it’s time our leaders pay attention.

Maybe we have failed one another.

Maybe we are all immature, like ancient popes who insisted that the sun orbit around the Earth.

Male or female,  we all fell short of our own expectations.

My Dad certainly did.

I certainly am, and just recently admitted that to myself.

I have learned to think for myself, outside of the box and bubble. For the first time in  my  life, I understood my nearest male figure.

I am on my way to accepting him for who he truly was, and with redemption, who I have become.

I hope the next generation will also come to that same realization:

that we all fall short. And that we are mature  enough to forgive ourselves and others, including our leaders, or those male figures  in the news lately.

Stay hungry, stay curious

The first advice was from Jobs, a college drop-out, in his commencement speech.

The second, recently, was the gist of a NYT op-ed by Brooks.

Those are mantels of would-be entrepreneurs.

Where else can you find people who are willing to sleep (if at all) in sleeping bags and code for days on end, with no prospect of a pay check?

Interns for life.

Meanwhile, exchange students protested inhuman “trafficking” at Hershey‘s outsourcing arm.

No more sweet spot there at sweet factory (after the students realized that taken in all the expenses, they ended up working for free). Interns for life.

At least they learn a thing or two about voicing their opinion within the confine of  the law.

We finally enter an age where muscles and machines (physical layer) are counted less than mind (application layer). A recent WSJ most-read by a VC guru was all about “software eating everyone’s lunch”.

Just try to fight drones, or robot cops.

BTW, it’s been a lost decade, with 9/11 as one bookend ( the two planes knocking down the Twin towers), and  the other, two helicopters (albeit one was left behind) getting back at Bin laden. It is to show how much harm done by one man’s hyper-imagination, and how much good our collective brain are capable of (a recent Tampa youth just wanted to copy Columbine, instead of applying to Columbia).

Stay hungry, stay curious. Drop out if you lack the passion for staying in (a Venture capitalist argued just that when he offered a contest for new ideas from would-be entrepreneurs, college degree  not required).

But stay curious. There are a lot of unknown unknowns out there. Learn to connect the dots, and recognize the patterns. Spot the trends.

And don’t forget to stay curious even when you were no longer hungry.

Because someone will eat your lunch before you know it. Borders, HP (computer division) and Nokia, have all learned this hard lesson. No rest for the weary. Not in this century.

Not when machines like Watson can start “swamping”, guessing your next move.

And quit when you are ahead, like Steve Jobs. Learn calligraphy. Learn something about something. Stay curious.

My Japanese tutors

Ishiguro, Fukuyama, Kawasaki and Murakami. I read Ishiguro in bed, watched Fukuyama on Charlie Rose, watch Kawasaki interview on his latest book Enchantment and dream on with characters in Murukami’s novels.

Multi-media tutors. They might look Asian, but speak and write perfect English. Best of both worlds. Like Singapore or Hongkong.

Ishiguro penned beautiful prose and plot, that even Amazon’s founder must admit, the Remains of the Day was one of his favorites. In Never Let Me Go, the author portrays a love triangle out of the most unlikely of circumstances (among the donors of organs, our sci-fi characters). The mood and textures were so alluring. These supposedly “sub-humans” ‘ were made available as spare parts. “We let you experiment with arts to prove you had souls at all”

(and if they could demonstrate that they were in love, they might get a deferral – like college graduates who got their student loan deferred).

On to Fukuyama. who banked on the End of History (or marking) on the creation of Democratic Institutions e.g. those of the United States of America.

(a wiki check showed his family was in State College, PA “We Are”).

He answered Charlie Rose succinctly, and never missed a beat (about Arab Spring etc..).

Quite a professor, deserving his Standford upgrade.

Then on to the Enchanter. The smile in the eyes says it all.

He kept mentioning Charles Branson, of Virgin group, who stooped down and shined his shoes to win him over (to Virgin frequent flyer). To Guy, one needs to live as if there would always be a tomorrow (in contrast to what Fukuyama commented about America ” who has partied as if there were no tomorrow for the past thirty years”).

Reciprocity rules the universe. So is Karma. We saw that first-hand last Sunday with Bin Laden.

Murukami’s world is dreamy, with male characters who struggle with his own sexual and social identity (Murukami himself is a long-distance runner and writer. I wonder if his next novel would be about the Boston Marathon tragedy, as he once worked on the Tokyo’s rail cultish subject).

Murukami blends romance, cultism and eschatology in one fell swoop in 1Q84, his blended best.

By mentioning these accomplished authors, I am hoping the Asian gene pool rub off on the  second third generation of Vietnamese American. And I hope to live to watch one of my own on Charlie Rose, commanding public attention and admiration. It doesn’t matter where you came from and how humble (or horrible) the circumstances surrounding your beginning (in America). The only thing that matters is where you end up, in this case, undeniable success of my Japanese tutors.

Growing old in post 9/11 era

Younger generations are growing up digital. I grow old in post 9/11. We were bumping along, thinking the dot.com burst was the story of the Century. Then, the unthinkable happened. Brave were the men on United Flight 93. Our lives have never been the same since (collective survivor’s guilt).  An act of outright violence needed to be dealt with. It was one thing for the French to vent about McDonalisation or Disneylandisation in Paris. But it’s quite another to plot and plan an attack on American soil to bring about caliphate.

Now they know. Now we know. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

The journey is still a reward. But on that journey, we bumped into all sorts of people (brave and abhorrable) . Quite an inconvenient truth. Bin Laden wasn’t the only one who got grey hair (or beard). This son of a construction tycoon would rather live in concrete than cave, not unlike other 21st-century men who now frequent spa and salon. A journalist teacher said it aptly, if only we had someone to blame for Vietnam as we had for Afghanistan.

On Sunday night, we forgot the financial bubble, the rising gas price and the drought in credits and jobs.

We got some closure, at least for the families of victims and heroes on United 93 (although dead, but they took matters into their own hands, hence, the term “victims” were deemed inappropriate).

George Harrison sang about “What is life” while his more influential band mate, died of senseless violence, “Imagine there’s no religion”. He must have seen the devastation done in the name of this God and that God, so his vision (often times through a pair of sunglasses) was without heaven (and certainly no virgins in neverland).

For me, with no sunglasses, I see life through that gaping hole of NYC ‘s two missing front teeth (courtesy of Tom Wolfe).

I see life from both sides now, from dot.com boom to housing burst.

I am growing old digitally in post 9/11 era.

Justice we can use

Some people go through life without experiencing love.

But today, we all experience justice. Put the economy, the environment , and the bad debt aside.

It’s the kind of justice we can use. Black and white kind of justice. Not just the American way. It’s universal. It brought closure to the 3000 families and a plundering decade.

Like you, I can still see the inferno in my mind as if it just happened yesterday.  It actually killed Peter Jennings who was anchoring ABC News at the time.

Mr Jennings also co-authored The Century (America 1900-2000). He must have examined in-depth the multitude of stories: the good, bad and ugly. But 9/11 dealt him a knock-out blow. (He took up smoking again, which eventually ended his life).

Since Bin Laden denied thousands of innocent people their rightful and productive lives , his was finally revoked. I wish Mr Jennings were still here to deliver that ABC news brief.

Justice is surpassed only by love, according to St Paul. This weekend, we got a glimpse of both : from the wedding in England to the takedown in Pakistan. I know it’s been painful: the agony, anxiety and anger. Finally we can use some justice. Not a moment too late. To be human among a sea of humanities at this moment is a privilege. I will always remember the night I read this news. My “where were you when they shot JFK moment”. Not every day is the same. Not in this Century. I am sure the next co-author of 21st Century will have to include this night’s (5/1/2011) as very noteworhty.