Chasing Butterflies

Over the years, I have written many and thought about even more, but they have always been anything but finished. Two things they all had in common: they were all beginnings, and they were many. They were endless beginnings. In recent years, I have been reading and writing more than usual. That was the one sport I was consistently at, and I was good. Then I started having all these dreams almost every day an hour before dawn. Vivid but mostly incoherent dreams, all undeniably relevant to me somehow. I’d then wake and forget them later. I should start leaving a notepad on my bedside table to write them down when I wake up. Sometimes I’d have these incredible stories. It felt like chasing butterflies. But it was more like catching dreams. I could use some dreamcatchers nearby as my writing muse. Alas, I am averse towards gambling of any sorts, it isn’t in my nature. And that may be why I do not yet dare take the step in writing regularly and making something more out of it. Because if you are looking for security, look elsewhere. Writing is a career for gamblers. It isn’t about getting published or receiving a fat pay check or signing autographs. It’s all about being in a room, quiet, singular, immersed, and writing. Very little about being a writer is being afraid of never selling another book, than doubting you’d write another book. I wish someone had told me to start writing sooner. Do not hesitate. Do not wait for permission. So two things they had in common and they were all endless beginnings. I suppose then it’s very simple now that there should be two rules: I must write, and I must finish what I write.

A Bookmark in the Park

 

Yesterday afternoon, while I was happily minding my own business in an intelligently-hidden park at this weather-forsaken piece of land, some random excuse of an old stranger decided to crash my tea party. And not just some random stranger at that, but possibly the most absorbing and magnetic personality I have come across thus far in this city.

The park was not short of oak benches but the old stranger decided, perhaps stirred by a sense of deep-rooted cultural communal etiquette, to share my bench. Out of politeness – and habit – I glanced over and dispensed a smile and said “Hi!”

We started exchanging meaningless remarks; about the weather, who we are, what we do and so forth. Throughout this initial banter, I noted two very important things that will determine the rest of the course of this encounter: this Romanian came to the park empty handed, while I held a book in my hand; and he spoke with a stentorian subtleness in an accent that made anything uttered by this old man felt like cotton buds in my ears. Ok, maybe not.

But that’s when it dawned on me that this Ionel – his name was called – was eager to return in kind and dispense on me a glut of oral prescription. It was verbal diarrhoea unleashed, with class. And so I decided to tuck the bookmark in between the pages and put aside my book. As he revealed with nostalgic pride that he was one of the hundreds of architects who built the People’s Palace in Bucharest, I can’t help but discerned a hint of shame seeping through his porous disposition and made a mental note. “The Palace of the People is seven times the Palace of Versailles,” Ionel started.

I nodded on the outset but my mind was trying to recall if I’ve read anywhere before on the size or enormity of Versailles. My memory had none.

Ionel nudged me and continued, “And you know the Pentagon? USA? The Palace is the second largest government building in the world after Pentagon,” he declared in meek pride.

I soon learned from him that this “Palace” – which was more like a civic centre – was commissioned during a dark period in the communist past of Romania’s history between the 1970’s and 1980’s, by its former communist president. During his rule, the construction of this Palace scarred Romania deeply in terms of her people and the landscape. Forced labours were used during its construction and deaths at the construction site were a common daily occurrence. And large sections of Bucharest city was cleared – numerous churches demolished and thousands of people displaced literally overnight – to pave way for its construction. Eventually, there was a revolution and the president and his wife was executed; his communist party finally overthrown.

After listening to his story, I finally understood the hint of shame he briefly displayed earlier. My neck began to ache as my head was turned to the left – listening to him – for a very long time. I switched across to the bench opposite and said, “So it’s kind of like a modern day building of the pyramids.”

“Yes, yes. Like the pyramids,” Ionel agreed. “But the pyramids are a pride for Egyptians and a wonder to the world,” he pointed out.

“But not the Palace?” I tried to conclude.

He briefly scratched his eyebrow as if the gesture would soften the gravity of his admission.  “No, not really.” I kept still and silent and allowed him to continue.

“Not to my generation. More so the younger people today. You see, they are proud of the Palace and see it as a symbol of Romania democracy today,” he said in an empathetic tone.

“But to your generation, it is a symbol and a reminder of your country’s gruesome communist past,” I stated, not asked.

 “Yes, yes. Most of them won’t remember the day when the Palace was completed, it used more electricity in three hours than all the two million people in the city used in one day.”

“Wow! No way,” I was in disbelief. “That must have taxed the people a lot, especially during those days.”

“It was ridiculous! Sometimes when the president would fly over the city in his heli, streets below where he flew had to be closed and emptied of people,” he waved his hand in disgust.

And the recollections went on. He would continue to describe the terrible state of affairs in those days and how he’d secretly take pictures of what he saw; where people queued for hours in the cold of winter for meat to be cooked at communal halls, queuing up for cheese, eggs and sugar, where people scrounged for sugar coupons rationed at 1 kilogram a month, or a church literally being moved to accommodate new communist flats, or even men lining up for gas cylinders that never showed up. I got really intrigued on what he meant by “secretly” taking pictures but decided not to interrupt his trip down memory lane then.

He suddenly smiled and his eyes seemed to look right through me when he mentioned about the gas cylinders. “What were they used for? These gas cylinders,” I asked quickly.

“Used for laughing!” and as if to reinforce his statement, he guffawed.

I just smiled and chuckled lightly and waited for him to continue. “Those days, the president’s wife, she enforced LPG on buses, claiming to save fuel,” he scoffed. “They put those long cylinder tanks on top of the buses. Make it look like spaceship but they were always empty. And men had to sometimes push the buses around.”

I laughed out loudly this time to his last remark. It was unbelievable. And as the conversation went on a little further, I began to piece together that Ionel seemed to have some sort of a military background or ties. I decided to risk the question and to my amazement but not surprise, he did. And here is where it got really interesting.

Apparently, his uncle was married to the daughter of a very prominent public figure; a TV and radio producer back in those days, who was showing hints of antipathy towards the regime in his work and was slowly gathering some popular opinion from the public. He would sometimes not comply with the government in what was allowed to be aired through his station.

“My uncle who was part of the securitate, was involved in a foreign counter-intelligence operation,” Ionel elaborated.

“Securitate?” I asked about this unfamiliar term.

“The secret police,” Ionel explained sternly.

I nodded and he continued, “One day, he and his team found an information leak that led back to his wife’s father. They found out this man was actually a defector. A traitor and a fugitive from a neighbouring country.”

“So was he revealed?” I inquired.

“No, no. Too sensitive. At that time, the politics and economy was very stressed. The party would not risk it. So the securitate was instructed to handle it differently. First, they confirmed his identity from Bulgaria. When they got the governmental communique through, this man was gas.”

“So the Bulgarian communique obviously came through? Did it do the job then?”

“Totally, yes. He was condemned as a defector of the state and was accused of treason in the strongest terms.”

“Did that finished him?” I asked.

“It weakened his public status very much. There were few people who accepted his stories of the party now. Yes, he was revealed as a liar. And even worse, yes, he was caught at it.”

“Caught at it, yes,” I said thoughtfully and mimicked his affirmative response unconsciously. “So merely to be sneaky is to be sly and that may be commendable, while to be caught is to be stupid and that is never commendable.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Then he was no longer a problem?”

“The securitate could never be too sure of that one. At that time, they thought he may recover. He still had his station and his supporters. History shows us examples of men who have come back after disasters even such as this one.”

I suddenly lit up to his simple but often taken for granted dose of wisdom there. “So they didn’t try to execute him?”

Ionel shook his head. “That would be bad policy. They did not want to create a martyr or to make themselves appear to be dictator.” At that, Ionel made a mocking laugh and I joined in.

I smiled approvingly. “But you would think that since the president is already a dictator, he would just proceed to execute him anyway on grounds that leaders in the past before him would have taken forceful action anyway and were admired as a result and considered to be of strong and decisive character.”

“True, yes. But we lived in troubled times back then. Execution was not needed. The party wanted to achieve their purpose in a way that will still make them seem tolerant and reasonable.”

I briefly shuffled my feet uneasily at the thought of those words. At this point, I couldn’t be sure if Ionel was actually proud of what they tried to do or resented what they had achieved. Maybe it was both; the unconscious doublespeak employed by Ionel wasn’t exactly lost on me – as I realised later when I did my own finding – from the strong Soviet ties the communist regime had at that time.

Ionel raved on oblivious to my thoughts. “If we executed the man, the people would see it like revenge. And maybe they would think it was dishonourable. But the securitate was ordered to always create a show for the people that the president has a kind – even fatherly kind – of reputation to the people. No favouritism.”

“So what action was taken then? What are you trying to say?” I asked with credulity.

“What I’m saying is that this man offended the sensibilities of Bulgaria and as the president, he was shocked at his crimes against the state. So what better can he do but to hand this traitor back to the Bulgarians and let them deal with him? Like this, the president would be commended on his proper management of foreign relations and keeping the state of peace in that region.”

“I see. So did the Bulgarians execute him?”

“They would, yes. Treason was capital punishment then I think, so yes. Or at best he will be in prison for life.”

“This president was quite smart. He got the credit for tolerance and mercy and Bulgaria got to do the dirty work for him,” I quipped with eagerness.

“That would be the case, yes, if he was handed over to them. But you still don’t see, no?” he jibed at me.

“What do you mean? He wasn’t?” I furrowed and creased my brow intently with confusion.

“If he was handed over to them, they will still create a martyr of the man.”

“Now you confused me. So what actually happened then?”

“I heard the securitate gave him a choice. They told him that the president’s concern for the welfare of his men and his people pushed him to hand the traitor over to Bulgaria for trial but his humanity was afraid that his – the traitor’s – government may be too severe.”

I suddenly understood the psychological underhand that was being played here and cut in, “Like pleading to his compassionate side, his gratitude?”

“Gratitude, yes,” Ionel nodded. “So the president offered him a different way out; exile to a different place where he claimed to have come from – not Bulgaria – to live there forever in confinement, low-profile and peace. And he ordered securitate forces to keep him under house arrest.”

“And he really took exile?”

“Yes. If he didn’t, he would be committing suicide by going back to Bulgaria. And my uncle told me this man wasn’t the suicide type. He would choose exile as the only logical way out, although maybe not so heroic. Because he will become like refugee, and a refugee could not lead any movement against the party. His followers will become lost and disenfranchised.”

“Why would that happen?”

“Because people would follow a martyr like fanatics. But people won’t follow a coward. Very difficult,” he explained with a grin.

“All those people knew what they were doing. It’s a very, very good story,” I said. And now that finally his story was over, I still couldn’t shake off the splinter of thought in my head regarding his earlier comment of how he “secretly” took pictures in the street at that time.

“Ionel, I have something to ask. You said earlier that you secretly took photos of what was happening at that time. How were you allowed to do it? Wouldn’t a communist state ban such an open act of freedom and expression?” I asked.

He laughed, and briefly scratched his eyebrow again. “Easy, boy. I was doing part-time photography for sports news. So I had permit to carry my camera.”

“Wow! No wonder. You were committing your very own crimes against the state under their very noses,” I exclaimed. “But that was just the means – a very good one – of how you achieved it. But how did you bring yourself to do it? Wasn’t it risky and dangerous?”

“Just understand the policemen’s psychology. Their mind, very strange,” he joked. “If you were scared, they will know. And they will be aggressive. I was not afraid, did not show it. And they were not aggressive with me. Confidence. Don’t hide if you don’t want to get caught.”

I laughed vehemently with agreement and said, “A lie that isn’t ashamed of itself could only possibly hope to succeed.” He shook my hand at that.

I mentally thanked George Orwell as I wrapped up my conversation and walked away from another very interesting encounter. Definitely a better story by far than the book I was reading.

 

A Game of Drones

 

 

 

Barrack Obama has always been distinctly known for his gift with words and oratory prowess. Some may still question his Nobel Peace Prize investiture to this day, but all would agree that he managed to entrap his audience in inspirational uplift with his acceptance speech all those years ago. I am not a believer but after reading that transcript I have to admit, it was a rousing speech, “To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.” I am however a skeptic. It means I am willing to change my mind when new evidence presents itself. And this time, it would seem his words have trapped him.

 

If I was to paraphrase his same quote using the key words and put its context against the recent world headlines, it would seem ironic that the situation now in Syria “recognizes the imperfect man to be historically cynical on his say for the limited reasons in the necessity of force about to be called.”

 

War rhetoric is dangerous. Even more so when a statement is proclaimed for the world to hear. Obama did himself no favor where soft power maneuvering is concerned when he spoke out last year about drawing a so-called invisible moral “red line” that cannot be crossed if the United States ever started to see chemical weapons being utilized by the Assad regime. If Obama could have then known the ramifications of such a statement more than a year later today, he would probably agree that making this White House statement in March last year would be like Barrack-ading himself with no outs, pardon the puny pun. Effectively, what this means is that the escalation of the recent chemical weapons use in Syria will cause him to lose face if he fails to react decisively to the alleged sarin gas murder of more than 1,000 civilians by the Assad regime.

 

The risk of losing face is not really a good reason for attacking another country, no? Yes, wars have been waged for less. But Obama is in an impasse. His reputation and the credibility of America’s foreign policy are on the line. That is why he is buying time by putting forth the decision for the authorization of US military intervention in Syria to the US Congress for voting and counting on Russia and China exercising their veto as permanent members of the UN Security Council to put a lid on his blunder. In that capacity, he would appear to be living up to his words, while leaving the outcome of actions to the hands of others without actually wavering in his commitment.

 

To put matters into perspective, the US and other governments in Europe and the Middle East are not credulous with what has transpired in the Syrian sandscape today. They share the same responsibility that has transformed Syria into a killing field by overtly seeking the violent overthrow of Assad. Almost anyone can argue that without their involvement, Assad’s regime would likely have remained repressive. But no one can dispute the site of mass death and destruction that Syria has now become with more than 100,000 people dead and many of the world’s oldest cultural and archaeological treasures gone forever.

 

In order to understand the bearing and weight of the Syrian crisis today, we need to consider how the civil war effectively took off. The first phase started off as an internal protest which erupted from the Arab Spring events in 2011 in the usual grievances under a brutal authoritarian regime. The protests became a military rebellion when parts of the Syrian army seceded from the regime to establish the rebel Free Syrian Army we know today. Turkey then became the first country to support the rebellion by providing refuge to the rebel forces along its border. The violence intensified in the second phase when the US, while leading other countries along, pledged financial and logistical aid to the rebels.

 

A month later, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to presage Obama’s earlier red line rhetoric by declaring “We think Assad must go.” Needless to say, this type of open-ended statement in the absence of visible means to achieve the goal at that time has done much to fuel military escalation in Syria. And now it has pushed the US government to defend its credibility against a red line in the sand that should never have been drawn.

 

Without taking anything away from the condemnations of the US on the regime’s recent use of chemical weapons in quelling the rebellion, current Secretary of State John Kerry is right to call the use of sarin gas a “moral obscenity”. But is killing civilians with chemical weapons morally more obscene than shooting, bombing or starving them to death? Was it more immoral to kill roughly 100,000 people in Hiroshima with an atom bomb than killing more people in Tokyo in one single night of incendiary bombing? Was it more immoral to gas Jews than to shoot them down into open pits? The true moral distinction here surely lies in the killing, and not the methods used.

 

The moral outrage expressed in the rhetoric of Obama, Clinton and Kerry, no matter how justified, is not a sufficient reason for going to war. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, more than 40 million Chinese perished when Mao Zedong oversaw the democide and systematic human rights abuse of his country but no one in their right mind would even dared whispered that a military intervention in China would be a good idea.

 

So the issue of legalities is hardly a reason to go to war, no? Because although using chemical weapons are deemed flagrant actions in violation of international norms and the laws of war, as stated in the Chemical Weapons Convention, Syria never actually signed it. But it is guilty by being party to the Geneva Protocol. As such, there are reasonable grounds to treat Assad as a war criminal in which he should be indicted at the International Criminal Court, which is incidentally a treaty that the US has never ratified. But when the US overtly declared its support for the Syrian insurgency and fronted the attempt to depose Assad, it effectively bypassed and undermined the United Nations’ peace initiative, then being led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, of calling for an armistice followed by a negotiated political transition. This preemptive action only served to further harden Assad’s resistance as well as the resolve of his two allies in the UN Security Council: Russia and China.

 

The semblance of justice, especially when it is distorted, are weak grounds as impetus for intervention as well, no? Because let us be honest, no one is going to shoot missiles into Russia or China for the sake of saving face, or upholding human rights and international standards of warfare. It is no state-secret that “humanitarian intervention” usually takes place in the case of a “weak” country where no big power is involved. A US intervention cannot guarantee an end to the civil war. But a US missile will guarantee its direct participation.

 

So where do we really draw the line? Despite the questionable motivations behind some of these major Western powers, how can any responsible governments ignore when innocent civilians are being slaughtered? How many deaths constitute genocide? Perhaps it is not even a question of numbers but a matter of intent.

 

We know that morality, legality and justice has very little to do with America’s motivations. It is the proxy war with Iran that is more likely to be the endgame here. Seeking to depose Assad will deprive Iran of an important ally in the region, one that borders Israel, whose military and political benefactor is none other than the US. The absence of any rational motivation here is stark. But if there is any kind of rationale at all, however weak it may be, it seems to concern Iran and Israel more than Syria. There are many authoritarian regimes in that region which the US does not try to overthrow. In fact, some of them are even America’s close allies. So then, why does the US continue to support a deadly insurrection that is escalating dangerously?

 

Because the truth is that the US and its close allies still believe they should be the ones to determine who governs in that region. Assad must go not because he is authoritarian but because he is allied with Iran which makes him a regional threat in the eyes of the US, Israel, Turkey, several Gulf countries and other major Western powers.

 

And this time, with the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the US is once again bypassing the UN by declaring its intention to use its military force to deter, disrupt, prevent, and degrade the potential for, future uses of chemical weapons or other weapons of mass destruction by invoking the United Nations Security Council Resolution on the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons which constitutes a threat to international peace and security. I’m sorry, but is the Resolution’s title called the United States Security Council Resolution?

 

There is no doubt where all this will lead to should the US direct a unilateral attack against Syria. It will more likely inflame the region further than resolve the crisis there. Instead, America should galvanize the UN and its Security Council to condemn the Assad regime and refer such criminal violations to the International Criminal Court. Concurrently, the Obama administration should move away from its inherited neoconservative approach and find a common ground with Russia and China to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is time the US should abandon its fantasy that it can or should determine who rules in the Middle East. If Obama fails, while acting multilaterally, Russia and China will find themselves pressured into international isolation. After all, Obama did once said that “adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates – and weakens – those who don’t.”

 

Obama should then consider abandoning his cynical strategy in using Syria as a proxy against Iran. Isn’t it already obvious that America’s support for the rebellion has not addressed Syria’s crisis to this very day nor resolve its issues with Iran?

 

For Obama would do well to remember the very clear link between the red line he regrettably drew for Syria and the one he has drawn, perhaps even equally unwise, for Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Or else the world shall bear witness to another declaration for military intervention, and possibly another war, in the near future.

 

Do the people in that region be watchful in the days ahead and search the skies for hints of glistening silver that will herald the impending whine and buzz of attack drones? Or does America take the silver lining from the recent new president in Iran and search for a modus vivendi for a change of course on their respective foreign policy? Because simply saving Obama’s honor hardly seems to worth the greater risk.

 

 

America's Cliff Hanger

 

 

 

As the end of 2012 approaches, politicians, economists, and the greater American public in general wait with abated breath at the oncoming fiscal cliff that is about to sweep across the United States. This surely qualifies as an economic phenomenon that is bound to affect the greater part of the world. Or is it? Perhaps America’s Cliff Hanger knows a thing or two. I’ll get to that.

Could it be even possible that this so-called fiscal cliff is nothing more than a figment of one person’s genetically risk averse mind? But also a mind that is creative, with a nationalistic inner motivation? Whatever his drive and determination was, the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke effectively captured the attention of lawmakers and the broader public when he used the term “fiscal cliff” earlier this year to describe the country’s impending economic progression into recession at the end of this year. It was a very bipartisan move from Bernanke at that time and sounded like a really good idea too.

Why not use a very real and sizable public threat to rally bickering politicians into compromising and collaboration? Except that the threat didn’t work. The purpose of threatening American politicians and lawmakers of a fiscal cliff was to force a cooperative outcome in an increasingly uncooperative undertaking. But this backfired in the absence of a credible enforcer and an insufficient amount of mutual assurances. In the end, the parties involved felt that they had more to gain from the uncooperative behaviour. The perception that came from sheer public pressure caused politicians on both sides of the US Congress political divide to view any compromise as a sign of weakness.

So what is this “fiscal cliff” that has stirred up an entire nation so much? It is basically the very combination of tax increases and spending cuts that is scheduled to begin at the end of this year after the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts. It is not surprising that the term “fiscal cliff” was abused by the media to whip up a financial hysteria among the populace. The media, after all, thrive on dramatic headlines. Its dramatization of the impending financial and economic outlook in the US is akin to the Y2K sensation more than a decade ago.

To coin such an outlook to that of a “cliff” is to say that if you stepped off an edge, you would fall very fast without any control at all to your relative speed, and fall very hard, and then not get up for a very, very long time. This is Bernanke’s dramatic version.

But we all know that in reality, the scheduled financial changes resemble more of a fluid problem – a kind of fiscal “slope” if you will. Income withholding takes a long time to adjust so the full effect of tax increases will not be felt immediately. The government also has discretion regarding the implementation of spending cuts, which will be in phases and within the government’s control. This is the non-dramatic version.

America and the world could really use a little less drama from the media. The usage of words here to describe the country’s financial situation matters greatly because it sends people into panic – people in places of high power, reach and influence. That is why there are even talks of people who want to make big cuts in Social Security and Medicare – the country’s two main entitlement programs. This creates a mentality of self-preservation and survival within the government; if we are about to head off a cliff, extreme measures need to be taken. Cutting pensions, unemployment benefits and health care certainly qualifies as completely inappropriate and unnecessary.

In a less extreme scenario, the very people who refuse to consider raising taxes – Republicans in the US Congress’ House of Representatives – will then suddenly find themselves with a very weak hand indeed, if faced with a fiscal slope instead. Be that as it may, the House Republicans will persistently refuse to vote for any increases in tax rates during the current lame-duck congressional session.

So, it’s very unlikely that congressional Democrats and Republicans will come to an agreement in extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class, while allowing them to expire for the rich. They will keep on bickering with each other legislatively until the last week of the year, then step onto the brink of the supposed “cliff” and see who blinks at the last moment.

But it won’t be either the Democrats or the Republicans who blink. On the contrary, and transcending the line-up of the Congress – enters America’s very own Cliff Hanger star – Obama, who will step off the “cliff” and take the fall, but not in the way our minds traditionally associate a fall with. The President has the power to make an executive decision and veto any extension of the Bush-era tax cuts that will expire by the end of this year.

How does the single act of an individual will uphold the fiscal legislative democracy of this country? When the tax rates have been restored to its previous level, Obama could present his own tax-cut plans that will provide a greater benefit to lower-income Americans, as was promised during his presidential re-election campaign.

How will Obama’s new tax-cut package be different from the one before? It is a simple process of linear mathematical efficiency – of identifying the constant and the variable to form a replicating model. Benjamin Franklin once shared that “in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. And we know that nothing is more volatile than the economy. So tax cuts will be linked to the state of the economy. As employment recovers, tax cuts will wind down. Conversely, a larger tax cut could be proposed should the economy outlook in 2013 is anticipated to be weaker. Either way, this approach gives America’s long-term fiscal prospects a more viable solution.

What will then happen to the congressional gridlock in Washington? A smart leader is a person who gets you to do what he wants, by making you think it was your own choice. So, the House Republicans will now be presented with a choice – do they vote against Obama’s tax cuts week after week that would actually help millions of Americans while letting the economy decline? Or do they vote for a deal that cut taxes relative to where they would be otherwise? The latter choice gives the House Republicans leverage over the tax cut rates, while consigning them to Obama’s tax-cut package. With this, the House Republicans not only endorse a deal that supports the economy, but also restores revenue to the level preceding that of the disastrous Bushonomics experiment. And restoring revenues to the country was the centrepiece of Romney’s Republican presidential campaign. This is a win-win scenario for the US Congress as a whole.

If and when the US vetoes the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts and enact the Obama tax cuts, I’d be curious to see how Obama’s plan to tax the upper 2% income earners can help fix the economy. Because that figure will bring in $80 billion a year – the government currently spends approximately $10 billion a day, where $4 billion is borrowed. In short, taxing the super-rich will run the government for 8 days!

So how does this add up? While tax cuts are increased for the super-rich and decreased for the middle class, spending cuts will even the scale a little on the other end of the fiscal spectrum. But Obama has also been known to put in place spending cuts on the table that are greater than what would normally please his electoral base.

In the end, as America heads steadily down the fiscal slope in early 2013, the big question remains whether they can strengthen revenue in an appropriate manner that is consistent with its renewed economic growth. Because this very fiscal slope will give Obama the edge to turn the historical partisan political gridlock in Washington around and even possibly bend history in the process, culminating in a potential economic decline, rather than an economic recession.

On a somber note, my thoughts go out to the tragedy of the Connecticut school shooting for the 28 lives lost, including 20 children.

Waitless-ness

 

 

 

 

I woke up this morning fresh from the memory of the conversation I had with an old friend from overseas last night. We caught up on each other’s life events, talked about our plans and briefly skirted on the idea of our own future possibilities.

When I woke this morning, I had this sense of illusory weight and drag on my being and psyche. My mind could only zero in on this singular thought that became to form – how much of our life is spent lost in waiting?

Too much.

We wait for our friends. We can’t wait to be out of the traffic jam. We wait in lines. We can’t wait for our dreams to come true. We wait for the perfect person to come along. We can’t wait to have a better life. We wait for the day we achieve our goals and make them a reality.

And we keep waiting on. Thinking that the good life we’ve always wanted is coming, and soon enough we’ll be there.

But what if we stopped waiting for things to happen? What if we stopped trying to make our dreams come true? What if we stopped wishing and hoping and expecting? And what if, that good life you’ve always wanted is already here? And the only thing you got to do is stop looking ahead and just realize, just notice what you already have.

Just look at where you are right now physically in this very moment, and in your life. Instead of searching for good things to happen or striving so hard to make something good come true, just take a pause. Is it already good? Is it great? If yes, then you are already in that very “future". So why bother looking towards that future then? Unless you don’t think what you have is already great. Then maybe you’re not noticing the right things in the right details.

When you are stuck in traffic, most of us will catch ourselves thinking “I can’t wait to get there!” But think again. Aren’t you already there? Where is there? There is where in the middle of a jam-packed highway, you see clouds and trees and you can appreciate its natural beauty with your own tired eyes. There is when you feel your legs are tired from the long driving hours, but you realize it’s an opportunity to feel your legs. And there is what you do with your eyes and legs after the jam is over; awesome stuff where many of us take for granted – where we often think it sucks.

We all don’t realize this but we participate in the miracle of life, daily. We often succumb to the belief that all these things are routine, dull, predictable and mundane. If your legs are tired, pull over, rest at a stop and stretch. Stare up blankly into the sky and soak in its beauty. Realize the very eyes and legs that were tired and aching, are also the very eyes and legs that gave you this possibility to do what you just did. Then recognize that they actually don’t suck at all, they are awesome.

We like to set goals in our life. And that’s just how the most of us are brought up. We imagine what these little dreams of our future will be like and focus on them every day. We keep working on them and eventually yes, we do get closer and closer to that great future. But when you’re finally there, then what? You set your next goal? And then the next? And the next?

It just never ends. The very so-called forward-looking attitude you’ve fostered to drive you over the years doesn’t end when you get to that goal. It only ends when you have no longer any life left, and then there’s no future to look forward to.

The only way it can end is for you to stop looking towards that goal now, and look at where you are instead. We often confuse our dreams and goals with what is real. The goal may sound great: make a million dollars, buy a fancy house, complete a big project, work out and get a nice body, etc. But the truth is that all these are fantasies. And when it finally comes true, it won’t happen as how you’ve always imagined it. It will somewhat still feel like a normal life – the same life you had before achieving these goals. Life won’t be better, and never will be until you change your mindset from desiring a better life, to realizing that life is already incredible.

What would you do if you don’t have anything you want? Some of us continue to wait for the perfect person to come along. That person may or may not show up. But the tragedy isn’t in not finding that dream lover. It is that you’re waiting for happiness. Just remember that they aren’t better than what you already have, which is a ridiculously unlikely event called life.

So live your life and not be caught up in the expectations of living instead.

When you achieve this, you realize a certain kind of living form. Perhaps something like a feeling of waitless-ness. It is like the feeling of blood rushing to your head, because your heart doesn’t have anything to pump against. And it’s awesome.

 

Project Peeks: Noah (Where's My Ark?)

 

 

What is the first thing in your mind when the words Bible and movie appear together in the same sentence? I hope you didn’t think it was Armageddon. Although I wouldn’t put it past Michael Bay to transform anything or anyone, even their religion and girlfriends.

But when was the last time you remember being treated to a biblical movie? Maybe most of you will vaguely recall the widely-popular and highly-controversial movie The Passion of the Christ back in 2004 by Mel “Mad Max” Gibson. Mad Max? You will see my point as you read down. And if you haven’t seen this movie, then you haven’t missed much. Except probably not watch one of the most graphical, violent and edifying piece of artistic interpretation of arguably one of the most well-known chapters in the Bible – the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

Given the nature of The Passion, the elements of this movie were much confined to its drama genre, but thankfully it was anything but boring. This is expected of course, given the chronicle-filled nature of the Bible. It is no wonder that most biblical movies (with the very few notable exception of some like The Passion, Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments), have never been globally successful in a done-to-death genre.

Most successful films’ formula in recent times spells only one word – epic. It is an easy formula because the epic genre is mainly a derivative of fantasy, and money. Lots and lots of money. But how do you apply that into a biblical chronicle? And make lots and lots of money?

You pray, you go to church and you do charities in the name of God. Ok, I was kidding.

That is why when Noah, Darren Aronofsky’s next film was announced this year, I thought that the Black Swan director was making a traditional version of the familiar tale. The only thing that is going to be traditional about Noah is Aronofsky’s penchant for controversial movies that are often associated with violent, bleak and depressing subject matter. He even loses the word “Ark” from the traditional title.

So no, Noah is not going to be a retelling of the biblical figure as much as the most of us would like to think it is going to be. A close adaptation of the chronicle of Noah’s Ark; now wouldn’t that have been boring and predictable, with no money? Just like how The Passion was biblically inaccurate but artistically resonant, graphically encapsulating, and faithful to the New Testament, Noah will accomplish the same for the Old Testament.

Before I go on, I wish to point out that Aronofsky is a genius for making this movie. The pieces all fall into place. Aside from his childhood fascination with Noah’s story from the Bible, here is what I’ve spotted: what Mel Gibson did for The Passion, Noah will do the same for Mad Max (the character, not the film; although both are the same). Confused yet?

And that is how Noah will turn out. This is Aronofsky’s Noah. He is going to be a Mad Max-style warrior placed in a pseudo-apocalyptic world where he has to face and survive six-armed giants. Intrigued already?

He isn’t the patriarchal prophet you remember from the Bible. This is a warrior out of the depths of ancient time; a world where pity has no place. A place marked by violence and barbarism. A fighter and also a healer who is subjected to imminent visions of the end of the world consumed by an endless wave of deluge. Absorbed yet?

For a movie this religiously epic, you need an equally epic cast with a balanced mix. So let me roll down the red carpet and present Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jennifer Connelly and Ema Watson. And no, I’m sorry to disappoint but even Hopkins is way too old to be playing Noah. That honour rolls nicely to Russell Crowe of Luxley (please excuse his last on-screen disaster of Robin Hood). And yes, for the first time in more than a decade, Crowe and Connelly will be reunited on-screen to work that magic thing they got going so well for them in A Beautiful Mind. Impressed yet?

You can have a peek at the look and feel of this upcoming religious epic movie at the end of this article by checking out the video showcasing the graphic novel written by Aronofsky. It is published in French and drawn by Marvel and DC comics veteran artist Henrichon; created to help promote the film to Paramount Pictures. Unless you read French, just appreciate the gravity of the graphics and its dark undertone here – the score also tells you a bit about the mood and bleakness of this movie.

Noah is scheduled for release on the 28^th of March, 2014.

Click below for the graphic novel showcase:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efDtBqEg5-o

 

A Windowed Cry

 

 

Most people wonder what it really means to grow up. But what most people fail to realize, when asking this, is that the real question should be what does growing up really means? There is a very distinct and fundamental difference here in asking this question, using the very same words but phrased in a totally different order.

What does it really means to grow up? Your typical answers for this would be varied: experiences, failures, responsibilities, achievements, self-redefinition and so on. All are easy answers to an otherwise literal question.

What does growing up really means then? Now, the answer to this would be something! And something totally unexpected too. Because it depends on what you believe in.

And what I truly believe in? Is that we never really grow up. It is something I’ve seen it with my own eyes. In friends, with the people you work with, people you tolerate, families and even strangers.

What I really see is that we all just learn how to act better as we age. And that is what growing up really means, I think – we become better at acting out our feelings to the people we care about, and the people we tolerate. Yes, we all yearn to have at least that someone in life whom we can share everything and anything with, and we do it, almost completely. But here is the truth: we never really reveal ourselves fully even to our loved ones.

And that’s ok. It’s not selfish. It’s not strange. It’s not even hypocritical. It’s just the way we are; it’s in our nature to sometimes keep even the smallest of mystery to ourselves. We are not hiding. We are….searching.

That is why a child’s words are the purest in form and definition. That is why many of us often find the simplest and truest of wisdom in a child’s utterances. It is not that they are innocent words; they are just unscripted words – unbiased by the mental filters we grown-ups have been accustomed to put on over the years.

It is why the strongest bond with our children is made during their early years, not later. It is in those years where they reveal the most to us. They laugh the hardest and cry the loudest. And these two physical emotions are the best measure to a person’s true self.

A laugh may tell us who someone is when they are around others, but a cry is what really reveals them. That is why we do our crying in private.

Everyone wears a mask and every so often, each of us stand in front of a mirror and look at ourselves. We stare at us. Some look past themselves. Others look into themselves. And then there are those who look at their own superficial bodies and faces for beauty to them are skin-deep. But true beauty goes deeper. Only tears reveal a person’s true self. That is why our eyes are the only window into our souls. That is why we never cry in front of mirrors.

Each of us believe that we share our innermost-self to the people closest to us, when we cry privately in their presence, but little do most of us see it – we still pretend at a subconsciously emotional level because we still try to keep something for ourselves during this most intimate moment.

We try to open up when we shed a tear

Hoping others will see our age without fear

But what the mirrors fail to try

Is to reveal this act that is called a windowed cry

 

 

Fight of the Bumblebee

 

 

Every week, the BBC publishes a 60 second idea of a global thinker from the world of philosophy, science or arts. These thinkers are given a minute to put forward a radical, inspiring or controversial idea – no matter how improbable – that they believe will change the world. I’m definitely no global thinker. But I was very drawn by the concept of this think-tank initiative from the BBC.

If I had a chance to write to the BBC, here’s what I’ll propose. They are not new ideas but a collection of concepts, studies and researches that I went through in search of some insight. Driven by pure curiosity, interest and a deep-seeded personal concern for this world and its future, I’ve put together some of the more notable ideas to form a plausible solution based on my opinions.

I always believe that the best kind of approach in providing resolution to global issues is not to create new ideas, but to blend together a practical solution based on components of existing ideas.

Let me start off by asking you this: have you ever wondered how much do you really contribute to the society? To the world? Because the solution I’m proposing will enable us to measure our “real” contributions to the world. This will redefine our society and how we dispense reward in accordance to our now quantifiable contributions. But for this to happen, it requires our thinking to be uplifted. This, in itself, is the real challenge for the world.

So to define what this “real” contribution is, we need to ask ourselves how much of what we do is really benefitting humanity? In our current day, the answer is based on how we humans perceive ourselves in the eyes of the society and the world.

If the world thinks that being a philanthropist is noble, the society accepts that it is altruistic. If the world perceives that being a celebrity is prominent, the society accepts that it is a high income profession. And the world will allot the publicly perceived reward in accordance to its real (false) value. In these two extreme scenarios, it is clear which effort benefits humanity more. But because of our deep-rooted perception on the intrinsic values of jobs, the philanthropist role becomes unsustainable and unappealing. What we have today is a historical culture of materialistic society built upon centuries of socioeconomic indoctrination, whose own civilization planning outlook is only limited to the next ten to twenty years.

How do we then redefine our contributions to the world that will usher in a change? For it to be even remotely world-changing and sensible, we have to be guided by two very important tenets. The change has to be environmentally sustainable and culturally regenerative. In saying that, the endeavor needs to be directed towards the considerations of ecology and its derivative economics. We have to shift our human culture away from traditional socioeconomics beliefs to a more tenable ecology economics thinking (eco-economics).

What is eco-economics? It is in essence the consideration of economics within our ecology instead of technology. Its disciplines address the relationships of coevolution between human economies and natural ecosystems. And it is defined by justice, time and space. The four key enablers that are critical here is the ecologic efficiency, carrying capacity, legitimacy mechanisms, coexistence and counteradaptation, which I will not go into detail.

Then what is this “contribution” in the context of eco-economics? Think of human output in terms of energy transfer here. By burning our bodies in a microbomb calorimeter, you will find that a human being contains about six or seven kilocalories per gram of weight. To sustain it at that level, we have to consume a lot of calories throughout our lifetime. The contribution we are talking about here is more of how many calories we create by our efforts, or send forth to our future generations.

How does the concept of passing on our calories work? As a species, we humans do it very indirectly, obviously. And because this transfer is so intangible, it involves a lot of speculative judgment. To ensure any of this makes probable sense, we need to assign values to a number of non-physical things we inherently do in our culture. If not, then by pure definition, electricians, mechanics, reactor builders and other infrastructural workers would always rate as the most productive members of society. Then you will have your artists, singers, writers, and the likes seen as contributing nothing at all.

Will the reward then be proportionately awarded with respect to the contribution? It has to, but not in the way of how we understand it today. Our current socioeconomic conditions consist of powerful people from the current power structure arbitrarily assigning numerical values to non-numerical things and pretending they haven’t just made those numbers up, which they have. And if they did, then similarly here by pure definition, actuaries, stock brokers, bankers and other financial service providers would always rate among the most highly paid professions in the world. And you will have your farmers, law enforcements, geobotanists, teachers and the likes seen as not being paid well enough.

So how productive do you think you really are just by existing on this planet? Think in terms of efficiency. The basic equation to calculate human efficiency is simple: the calories you produce, divided by the calories you consume, and multiply that by one hundred to get it in percentage. But there is one fundamental problem here: humans are not in the case of a classic efficiency model.

What is a classic efficiency model? It is basically about passing along calories to one’s predator within a food chain. Ten percent of energy passed on from one consumer level (trophic level) to the next is the classic average in every food chain. This is because the amount of energy transferred between trophic levels decreases as energy is lost from the system due to movement, excretion, reproduction etc. And this is also why organisms at a higher trophic level need to eat more organisms from the lower level to gain sufficient energy. This in essence makes most predators inefficient creatures, including humans.

And why it can’t be applied to humans? Let’s look at lions for instance, which are at the top of their food chain. They typically have ranges of hundreds of square miles and do not have any natural predators, not because they are tough and strong, but because nature has deemed it not worth the effort. Therefore the model can’t really be applied to humans because similarly, we do not have any natural predators. In our case, it’s not a matter of predators feeding on us. As I’ve previously mentioned, it is a matter of how much we transfer energy to our future generations.

How do we then relate this efficiency back into eco-economics? By assigning a certain calorie-equivalent numerical value to all kinds of human jobs, we can determine the efficiency of a certain profession. This will encourage people to make their living based on a calculation of their real contribution to human ecology. Then it is only a matter of manipulating one’s efforts to reduce how many calories they use to increase their ecological efficiency.

A classic case representing this relationship is the argument of energy consumption between the developing Southern nations versus the industrialized Northern nations. The ecologic basis for that argument was that no matter how much the industrial nations produced, they could never be as efficient as the South because the South simply consumes lesser energy. Do recall that all predators’ efficiency is low. That is why lions need to consume more animals. That is why the more advanced Northern nations consume more energy. In hindsight, people should really be rewarded in proportion to their overall contribution to the system, not just separately based on their consumption or production which can be distorting.

But aren’t we already doing that? One may argue that this is no different from the current economics that already exists – where people are rewarded based on merit. As I’ve mentioned before, we are considering eco-economics, not socioeconomics.

Have you ever wondered whether the job you are doing is a real job or not? What is a real job? The meritocracy system that currently exists in our modern day economics are loosely built upon the creation of phantom work. This simply means many of the jobs in our society today are assigned unreal values.

For example, the entire multinational corporate executive working class does nothing a computer couldn’t already do given our advancements in present day technology. Thus, we should stop considering economics within the confines of our technology. What we need to do is to approach this within the framework of our ecology. Because there are also whole categories of parasitical jobs that add nothing to the system in terms of ecological accounting i.e. advertising, marketing, sales, hedge fund trading etc. These jobs are merely an apparatus for making money from the manipulation of money. It is not only wasteful, but corrupting.

How do you then determine if a job is relevant in an eco-economic culture? Because all these phantom and parasitical jobs are speculative judgments, a specific caloric value needs to be assigned to such a variety of activities. To do that, we only need to look back into ecology and calculate what they contribute back to the system in terms of well-being measured as a physical thing i.e. what does the activity equals to in terms of food, water, shelter, medical aid, education and so forth.

This will radically change our current world’s outlook because what we are practicing today is by rewarding someone based on what they contribute back to the current system in terms of financial exclusivity measured as an approximate monetary value in the forms of assets, resources, wealth, policies, growth, capital and so on.

When we structure our new society based on the core tenets of an eco-economically driven culture, we will have uplifted our way of life and become a civilization whose frame of reference in whatever we do are morally justified, has a longer time-planning horizon, and is proficiently minimalistic in space occupancy. We become the world’s moral agents.

So is this all so farfetched then, as to become irrational and improbable? How we carry ourselves, advance our civilization, and uplift our way of thinking into the next age of mankind will determine how much longer our existence remains unchecked.

Arthur C. Clarke, my favourite muse and arguably one of the most prolific sci-fi storytellers once penned:

“In my wildest dreams, I would never have imagined that, less than two decades after this book (Earthlight) was written, I would receive a beautiful three-dimensional map of the Mare Imbrium, showing the track of the Lunar Rover skirting a crater labeled ‘Earthlight’ – and bearing the inscription ‘To Arthur Clarke with best personal regards from the crew of Apollo 15 and many thanks for your visions in space.’ – – (Signed) Dave Scott, Al Worden and Jim Irwin.”

If Arthur can dream, so should we.