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joy of giving

  • A close up view of a traffic light illuminatin...
    A close up view of a traffic light illuminating red for stop using light-emitting diodes (LED) in North Carolina, United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I saw Clinton’s book on Giving at Goodwill store.

The irony did not escape me: its donor must have thought he/she should act upon the idea right away.

Christmas might be the season of giving, but not when we are at a stop light, ambushed by the man with the “Help me out” sign. Our reflexive rush to get somewhere takes over.

The idea of giving is that it’s part of us, and part of life. Intrinsic and natural, not forced or enforced.

People who give are also people who receive. It closes the loop.

We often receive advice and give advice.

We even give unsolicited opinion.

Without giving, universities and charity won’t function as they have.

Grant for research and grant for immunization.

It’s a tradition in America for the super rich to give back to society.

Now, there is a wealth imbalance, which should trigger more giving to close that gap.

But it has not happened. Go figure.

So give and rediscover the joy of giving.

Get off the chair and start pull out the check book.

Try first at the stop light with the man with the sign.

P.S. After posting this for a few days, I found the man with the sign. Except that birthday boy (65th) holds the sign that says “I have a job, a home and a car. http://shine.yahoo.com/work-money/man-celebrates-65th-birthday-giving-away-free-money-174400395.html  “Want some money for coffee”

For 65 minutes, he gave out $375 to drivers at stop sign, and  found joy in giving.

Crash, chaos and control

Ship sinking and plane crashing. Lives in chaos and lessons in control.

We keep trying.

To make sense of our lives. To derive meaning from it.

Try always to be the Captain of our own destiny.

Sweat not the small stuffs.

Focus on the big picture: the 3 E’s i.e. economy, environment and education.

Ask not.

Character in chaos.

Just as you thought you were in control, things crashed and burned.

Alarm goes off.

Chaos again.

Like a magician juggling multiple balls.

Add one more ball into the routine. Then one more.

Orderly. In control.

Then, the audience grows bored.

They want chaos, even a crash.

Hard to please.

I-phone 4, then more.

When is it going to stop?

Blue tooth and Google Glasses.

Ring the bell, the dog salivates.

With or without the meat.

Insatiate demand.

It’s not over until it’s over.

Trading up at the store and downsizing at work.

Go figure!

Wealth imbalance. When was it not?

When you are on the wrong side of the track, stay there.

Things are what they are.

Ask not what your country can do for you.

Stay in control, but stay on your side of town.

Can we all get along?

Rain and rhythm

Chewing gum jingle, and it seems to work:  “looking for a brand new start”.

Each day, we woke up to a start. Just like that first day out of our mother’s womb. Not knowing what to expect.

Not knowing who to trust.

Not knowing the future.

Will it rain today? Or same ole sticky heat?

Rain and tears or just tears?

Pain as part of life. No pain no gain, no growth.

People who insulate themselves from challenges and changes will never grow.

They chew the gum over and over.

Same predictable rhythm. Power-saving mode. Auto-pilot.

But no excitement. No surprises. No set back and no break through.

Organization tends to work itself from chaos into predictability, the path of least resistance. The maintenance mode. High maintenance since the beast needs to be fed.

Hence huge bureaucracy.

Yet today’s market asks for agility, flexibility and formless boundaries. Be water.

Shaped according its container.

10,000 hours of  repetition to become a master.

Fear that dedication and determination.

Don’t stop at black belt, or even red belt.

Overcome your own self. That inner resistance, that self-sabotaging tendency:

I don’t deserve happiness, I don’t deserve that espresso, that sweet cake.

Somehow, it’s always someone else’s but not ours.

Yet our Maker has a different script for us.

You can’t drop out of the margins that He has set, no matter how hard you tried. Rebelliousness or religiousness.

It’s indifference that is hard to cure.

So be bad  to the bones. Be good to the bones. Our world needs leaders who are decisive and determined.

Not wishy-washy type. Not opinionated type. Not losers’ type.

I respect people who tried and failed. I despise people who failed to try.

Rain got its rhythm, even when mixed with tears. Tears heal all wounds, from trying really hard. Not indecision and inactivity.

Empty space

Void. Vacuum. Unfilled and unoccupied space.

Plenty of them, within and without.

So we fear its vastness.

We try to fill it up with stuff.

In the process, making ourselves mini-gods.

Co-creators of space-filling. Bed, bath and beyond.

Then give them away to Goodwill to make room for more empty space.

Everyone got problems with fitting everything into a suitcase before each trip.

If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me.

That “part of me” is abstract and intangible.

But real nonetheless.

So we have commitment. We honor faithfulness and loyalty. not betrayal.

We extol unseen virtues, unspoken agreement between two people.

That thing called love, duty and honor.

Old school.

But we search for it all our life.

Business world says “screw it”.

Real world says “search for it”.

Which is which?

Lonely at the top.

The dying and fading King.

Kingdom in disarray.

Gates wide open for invaders and looters.

Who is going to stand by you in the hour of need?

Empty space. God-shaped vacuum.

Time flows one way into infinity.

Space is just out there, with Earth older than previously thought.

Space is also inside each of us. All empty.

Until it is filled with joy and laughters. Of children’s nagging and giggling.

It’s not about occupying space.

It’s about validating existing one, granted in each of us. Inalienable if you will.

The right to exist, to breathe, to figure it all out for one’s self.

Business says “screw it, let’s do it” (Branson)

Church says “save it in the name of our Lord“.

Life says “you are to hold on to it, since it is going around only once”.

That empty space, regardless being occupied with Gucci or Goodwill,  is all we’ve got.

Love, hate and fear. All share that same empty and inner space, called Self.

Deadly respectful!

On the way to the gym, I saw a casket being carried out of an alley (with funeral band playing “Soi Da cung can co nhau” – pebble and stone still need each other). Then to my amazement, the pall-bearers swung the casket around 180 degrees, dipped it three times without spilling the whiskey glasses on top then, another 180 degrees to resume forward march.

The dead even bowed and bid farewell to his/her beloved alley. I felt a lump in my throat.

Di thua ve gui (you say Good Morning and Goodnight as you come and go).

This takes it to a whole different level (in China, people not only burned incense to honor the dead, they burnt fake dollars and I-pads).

Farewell from both the living and the dead.

Who says the dead show no respect.

At least I, the living, have learned something new.

Go work out, trim down that fat, but at the same time, adjust that attitude.

You will have to bow sooner or later. Better be respectful, than being dead and still respectful.  First learn respect, then learn the 3 R’s (Tien hoc le, hau hoc van). We all leaned that early in life, and now I saw it in death.

Brain Fiber

My cholesterol test result was just in. The coast is clear!

Two eggs please.

I have eaten oatmeal for five years.

Fiber here, fiber there. Can’t go near real food, like Soul Food (fried chicken and french fries).

Here at UVT, culinary students serve their practiced meals: ordering, preparing, serving and collecting the cash.

Long way from the days when we were kids, playing “restaurant” using made-in-china toys.

I stumbled upon a kid picture.

And I wonder how many passages it takes to go from boy2man.

Sounds like a rap group.

A boy in a hot seat.

All future, no past.

Now all past, not much future (if I feel pessimistic it was because I have just lost a sample of my blood this morning).

I recall a lonely childhood.

But seeing other students with eagerness to learn and anticipation to study abroad, my heart warms up to them, in full empathy.

Will they be lost in a larger but impersonal society?

Will they be wise enough to sift through options while retaining core values.

Will they keep that sense of humor and optimism ?

Will they come up with and cook Soul Foods?

I have barely tried the lunch here at work twice.

Now that my cholesterol level is in check, I think I might order my 3rd meal here. After all, the Vietnamese has a saying “an cay nao, rao cay nay”.

Charity begins at home.

I might as well play customer to our first-year Culinary students who in their own rights have graduated from Play House and Kitchen games, to be in the pro game. That innocent looking kid in the pic above has been tossed and turned by war, disasters (personal and circumstantial). I wish someone had told me then to take my time.

Two eggs please. While at it, please toss in some Brain Fiber to help me think, breathe and love.

Then came the rain

It rained on the book fair here in Saigon.

Word and water don’t mix.

But I must admit seeing young readers eager to browse anything and everything, even kissing the note books we handed out, warms my heart.

I can relate to why the Happiness Index listed top countries such as Costa Rica and Vietnam.

Money might not equate to happiness despite its buying power.

Except for things money can’t buy: loyalty, happiness, class, intellectual ability and natural talent in the arts. Yes, money can buy arts, but only commercial art.

We are nearing the Sunday evening gathering at my friend’s studio.

Not concert for Harrison, but for Long, our dear musician friend who had recently passed away.

Celebrating a life.  A pursuit of perfection. Of Art.

In my last conversation with him, I promised to live in full (as I always have).

A promise is a promise.

Long’s musician friends who still love him dearly, will have to perform early since they still have to make a living later that evening.

Books, music, and arts. We are here to make our marks in the world, to brand, to make it lasting and influential. To know and be known that we once existed.

Many held a low view of themselves. Others overshot their positions.

I know my friend well. He lived within his means, his range and his circle.

He left behind many people who are still endearing him.

And he had been one of the few with a smile that is hard to forget.

Thinking of Long, I associate a 7th grader with short-sleeves, playing bass guitar.

Time passing, but not dividing, lost but not forgotten.

I hope when I am gone, I can make a few dents like my friend.

Dents in people’s hearts, because they would be uncomfortable thinking of me. How the hell did he carry all those chips on his shoulders!.

I love Long because of who he was.

The rain has stopped. It served its unintended purpose: street washing. Now can my people go to the book fair!

Illusions

Sinatra was famous for his signature song: My Way.

We carry the illusion of control, of doing it our way.

Is it really so?

Do have a choice about our appearance?

Our height, our hair?

Personalities and purse strings.

If only could we nailed down the bad guy, then things would be OK. Will it?

People who have been hurt will turn around to victimize others.

Hence, play into the victimizing cycle.

How to break the chain? How to wake up from the illusion of “I am better than you”.

The other night, I woke up to the sound of music (not Beatles).

Turned out it was someone’s funeral. I deducted right away that if I could still hear the music, then I would still be alive.

The logic freed me while half-sleep, half-awake.

We are one-breath away from eternity.

Will the trumpet sound for me, for you, for us?

While we entertain the illusion of grandeur, even when death is in no special hurry.

Dream on. And forget not to say “I love you baby”. It works every time.

It plays right into illusion’s hand. That love lasts beyond death. That it sustains us in spite of the lack of money. Dream on.

Man who reads

Joan Didion‘s latest book about the death of her child has landed in the top ten of TIME magazine.

Her earlier book, “the Year of Magical Thinking” recalls the death of her husband.

By penning these experiences, she invited us, readers into her private chamber of grief  (saving his shoes, wishing he would come back).

Man reads in order not to be alone.

Reading is listening.

One night, I was alone with Steve Job’s biography whose cover had his blank stare. It felt eerie!

Then on rainy nights, books keep me company.

I could put down one book, just to pick another (then I will be in Peru, with conversations in the Cateral or travel back in time, to Chicago in late 19th century or French country side with Bovary).

It’s all there in black and white.

From Westminster to Wikipedia, we are the most blessed generation, not only for the abundance of  searchable literature, but also for living longer to enjoy them.

Life long learning.

The worst tragedy in life is a wasted mind.

I have no idea how a mighty country like the US  could feel impotent and watch its people (8% at least) sitting idle.

At the very least, get them a library card and have them log in the 10,000 hours (threshold to acquire a new skill set).

Local libraries order mostly low-brow  hard-backs , which perpetuate the cycle (Daniel Steel).

Three cheers to MIT for its radical free online University.

As “rad” as anything has ever happened since the 60’s.

Now just make sure rural broadband and fiber built out be completed.

We don’t want Earth’s billions live longer while remain isolated and ignorant.

In fact, world peace depends on shared assumptions and common ground.

When people agree to disagree, it’s a good thing. At least, they read and understand other’s views and values.

If they read at all.

Man who reads is man who makes peace.  I hope this year is “our year of magical thinking,” i.e. keep the books and lights on, wishing our man would come back and pick up reading where had left it.