Tag: Superman

Memoir yet to be written

The 70’s was coined the ME decade (Tom Wolfe).

I am OK, you’re OK. By now, we should see the ME products on the shelves: from Shirley MacLaine to her brother Warren Beatty, from Rock Hudson to Ron Reagan.

Last of the hardback memoirs. Last of generation ME.

We now join the world, for WE ARE THE WORLD, to the tune of 1 billion faces on Facebook.

An oil refinery went wrong somewhere up North, all of Southern California suffered (last week, gas price hit $5.00 per gallon).

I am an ardent fan of the future. The presence of the future is shown in each child’s eyes. Potential and possibilities.

No politics.

Their experience are mediated through a parental “firewall”. But the rest of reality out there to a child , who is holding an I-pad, is full of promises.

Why, why, why?

Adults can come up with 10 “why nots”, before we can come up with one “why” we should pursue a course of action (change).

Life has dragged us down.

So much that it would be more appropriate for us to wear “handicapped” T-shirts (instead of Superman).

I admire people who show up at the gym. At least, there are a handful of people who know their priorities.

Then, we should be paying attention to legacy.

It’s likely that we will be remembered for one thing, the way Presidents could not live down that one war they presided over.

Will yours be the innovator? The enabler? The leader? The thinker? The Creator? The Peace Maker?

We got that spark of divinity. Just that it got buried deep or blurred along the way.

No one has encouraged us to strive for more, strike for gold, or reach out to the stars.

They want to catch us speeding (they mean the machine, the hidden cameras etc…).

In other words, we live in a society predisposed to punishment instead of rewards.

Yet we pay lip service to employee of the month parking spot (next to handicapped’s).

I have noticed a detrimental trend during the Recession: those who don’t have jobs have gotten used to their second-class citizenry.

And those who hold a job, have also been deflated and resigned to becoming machine-like, which ironically, makes them vulnerable and replaceable by automation.

So, the ME decade in the 70’s gradually dies out (as shown in Memoirs and Biography shelves). In its place, we got the rise of the machine, a mindset (resignation to fate) and even the “end of men” as recently emerged in gender discussions. In twenty years, we expect to see more memoirs by accomplished women executives (HP, IBM, xerox, Facebook, yahoo, Pepsi…) and those who broke the glass ceiling, whether occupational or social (Oprah, Melinda Gates, Merkel, Rice, Hillary). Memoirs yet to be written. Could be yours and mine. With extended life expectancy, you do have time to sort and sift through those raw materials for your memoir. Just make sure to use the word WE  often. So We can share it, re-tweet it, and Like it.

P.S. As of this edit, Lean-In by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, has just been released and moved to top spot on USA Today book list, just to prove my point.

Start acting

After the trilogy: Start seeing, start hearing and start thinking, I am on the roll.

Behaviorists have debated whether action precedes attitude, or vice versa.

Nike commands: JUST DO IT.

Start acting.

Some guy somewhere mustered his courage to ask for a girl’s hand.

That girl after much deliberation, accepted.

Boom! Action. We are conceived out of love in action.

From conception to cremation, you and I are products of someone else’s action.

In between, it’s on us to act.

Quick assessment of the situation, weighing the options, pros and cons, Bang! Done it.

In case you are curious, I wasn’t born with silver spoon. Indeed, quite the contrary.

But I was schooled in French , then Vietnamese elite high school, then Penn State and Wheaton (private college).

In between school years, I raised my money to travel the world and do relief work.

Action.

A Newsweek article about Boat People dying at seas? Let’s go!

Action.

On the roof of an overcrowding prison-turned-refugee camp, there was space for worship?

Boom.

Let’s carry the amplifiers (heavy) and supplies to hold open church, open door.

People need to pass their time while awaiting resettlement to a third-country? Boom, let’s keep them busy with Present tense (English), and mostly Future tense (hope).

Action justifies everything: our existence, and out earning. While in action, we might face objection and obstacle. Bruce Lee said, “screw the obstacles, I create my own opportunities”.

Start acting. It’s scary at first. Like the first walk on our own, or the ride on the bike,  or that first stroke in the stream.

I don’t ask you to try extreme sports. Just to act on what you know needed action.

Please don’t wait for Superman.

Or like the invalid who lays around the healing pool, and missed out a total of 38 chances of getting healed.

Action also means positive: start carrying that tune in your head, energy burned is energy earned.

What’s your war chant?

Could you arouse people’s emotion and instill their confidence?

Start acting, and you may in the process, become what you are meant to be all along.

That guy who asked that girl for her hand, is not an unsolvable riddle. They are our parents in whose images we are shaped.