Elegy for Wild Bill

During the weekend, a beloved veteran suddenly died of a heart attack. He was only in his mid-fifties and had worked with the company for many decades. Wild Bill seemed larger than life, someone who had worked in multiple capacities in the company, working in different locations all over the land. He was always engaged in some serious work but he also played a musical instrument and was involved in all sorts of recreation committees. He was well loved and well-regarded, an American character as expressed in those television advertisements. He seemed to me like a cowboy from the old Wild West, who loved the outdoors and wasn’t afraid to engage in a scrape or two. Like those classic characters, he was fair but would not suffer fools gladly.

Almost all were shocked when the office heard the news because Wild Bill seemed to be so vibrant and indestructible. But in the way the world works, where often the good die young, or the young and innocent are struck down, one cannot help but accept the inevitability of life’s tragic surprises. One feels that it was a life unfulfilled at least for me although I had just known him for a year. But it appears that he had led a full life moving from one part of the country to another, making new friends and seeking new experiences. Most people would wish that they had his life and personality; playing his musical instrument in company events, leading major projects and being in center of most department meetings and seminars. He will be sorely missed.

Wild Bill is a character fully formed and could fit in books like Walter Issacson’s ‘American Sketches.’ It’s a good book with short vignettes on famous Americans like Benjamin Franklin, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and Woody Allen. Walter Issacson is a former editor in Time magazine and his book is actually filled with short articles that appeared in Time when he was editor. He follows the old Time maxim to write about a character in order to portray a certain period. For example, one writes about Harry Truman to portray the years leading to the Cold War. This was the strategy applied by Henry Luce to make Time interesting. So one would have articles about people to talk about an age like the Cold War or an event like the Cuban Missile crisis and so on. Hence, Time’s Man of the Year celebrates not only the personage’s personal contribution but in relation to his participation to the great events of the period. 

Wild Bill represented an early age of cowboy heroes who worked on company projects following the ‘seat of the pants’ methodology. He is one of those people with the rare technical skills to code a computer application as well as the communication skills and charm to deliver the application and train people to use it. He is a survivor too as the company moved towards a more efficient project management methodology, outsourcing technical work to companies in India or China. He had ridden the wave following the company transformation into the new age, all the while keeping his edge and playing his musical instrument with his cowboy hat on. He soon was working effectively with those smart technical workers from India as they descended in droves from their high tech enclaves in Bangalore. He knew about the technical stuff in detail so he could hold his own with the young geniuses from the East.

There is a contradiction in American life where someone like Thomas Jefferson could rightly be celebrated as an intellectual and founding father, but who had slaves and a black mistress and sired bastards. Perhaps that’s the epitome of the American example; where one would be a brilliant intellectual but who also lived excessively that he died bankrupt; preferring his large estate and drinking Bordeaux wine than freeing his slaves. On the other hand, people like John Adams who had no slaves, thinking slavery an abomination, and who first shouted independence in Congress before others, who died without being a bankrupt and with his son as President, is thought about as a secondary personage in history. Wild Bill is a much simpler man but with the large appetites of his people. But he also has his character that he would be remembered by those that remain perhaps an amalgam of Jefferson and Adams but with more Andrew Jackson in him, too.

Changing My Mind

Zadie Smith’s essays in her recent book ‘Changing my Mind’ are insightful and erudite. Her good pieces review the art of writing under the prism of current literary theory. Some of the stuff I don’t understand for example her review of current books ‘Nether land’ by Thomas O’Neal  and ‘Remainder’  by Tim McCarthy.  Some of her work belongs in the high sophisticated salons of society. But most of her work is spot on and down to earth. Her piece on the art of writing is maybe the most useful that I have ever read. Her other essays have opened a whole new world and show that she is well-read and perhaps a good writer although I have not read any of her books.

I discovered new writers like Zora Neale Hurston and new insights on writers like E.M.Forster, Vladimir Nabokov and Franz Kafka. As a colored writer, her essay on Zora Neale is exceptional especially on the subject of her identity and roots as a writer. I was so intrigued about Hurston that I borrowed a video about her life. I have neglected to read about Afro-American writers and the discovery of Zora and Langston Hughes is an eye opener; especially the so-called Harlem Renaissance.  Zadie Smith is the offspring of these early writers as well as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. But Zadie belongs to a higher level with her understanding of current literary theories. She brings a whole new insight that is powerful perhaps because of her roots as a black writer.

But this is stereotyping as she roughly writes in one of her essays. There is no such thing as a Jewish writer or a black writer and so on following the ideas of Roland Barthes – another subject I discovered in her work. According to Barthes, from his essay ‘Death of the Author’, critics should not assess a book with the author’s history or biography in mind. The author should not matter and in fact should herald the birth of the reader. The reader should interpret the novel based on her own understanding and whatever insights she may bring with her individual background or culture. According to Barthes, the author is just a mere scribe, writing down the common words expressed by his generation. It is the reader that matters and one should avoid any distraction that an author’s back ground may bring.

‘Changing my Mind’ offers this bewildering array of subjects that is intellectually rewarding but remain grounded despite its high minded subject. It avoids the snobbish tone that one associates with high society pretension especially when discussing about art and writing and so on. One looks forward to reading her novels to see how her essay on the craft of writing has played out. It’s a refreshing work after going over the dark pessimism of Chris Hedges in his book ‘Empire of Illusion’. Of course, Hedges’ book is a brilliant work that opens one’s eyes to current events and its deeper meaning. One could not help but lose confidence in the future. Luckily Zadie Smith and like minded writers are around to perk things up and further distract readers on the illusion of every day life.

Empire of Illusion

Recent books depict the malaise affecting America life today. Books like Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges and Reset by Kurt Anderson. Both are good books that offer very insightful and often painful observations of American life. Basically the plot is the same. The country has been overspending and living an excessive lifestyle, deluded by an illusion of achieving the so-called American dream. This trend is reinforced by pseudo-event or illusions that further destroy future progress. It is the striving for more. According to Anderson, the solution is to ‘reset’ American society by going back to its values. The book actually ends in an optimistic note. Anderson offers solutions like increasing immigration and fostering more innovation. The book is an interesting essay that gives a good picture of what went wrong.

Empire of Illusion is a darker work and more detailed. The book jacket indicates that the book or the author won the Pulitzer Prize. The ideas are following the critical view point of people like Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader and Naomi Klein. It’s a painful work with graphic details on pornography, professional wrestling and the focus of education on fostering illusion. Some sections are very pessimistic and seem to forecast a future of tyranny and totalitarianism to keep the people in chains and in their illusions. The title of the book speaks for itself. The American empire is living and driven by an illusion that will collapse soon. It is seen everywhere particularly in it’s infrastructure: crumbling brides, subways, roads, schools and so on. Countries like China is more progressive where they build new subways every year or Europe where one could travel from France to England in the euro tunnel.

Education system perpetuates this condition where people prefer to go to jobs in finance with huge salaries, motivated by greed. The military-industrial complex is forcing the country into stupid and expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; maintaining about 736 military bases world wide and further pushing the country to deficits. I haven’t fished the book yet so I don’t know if it ends with some solutions. But it seems to follow the theses of Paul Kennedy who created the concept of imperial overreach. For example, the military budget is in the $ 700 billion range and bigger than all other countries combined. The closest competitor is possibly China at about $ 70 billion. This situation coupled with a ruthless capitalistic system seems to portray similar condition which resulted in the decline of the Roman Empire. Perhaps like Rome, the American century will end with ruthless emperors heading the country.

The solution seems to lie in changing ones consciousness. Eckhart Tolle provides the best solution to remove this mental illness of striving for more; to satisfy the conceptual self (of the individual and perhaps the nation). As he quotes Albert Einstein, one cannot solve the current problem with the same consciousness that caused the problem in the first place. The answer is the standard Buddhist philosophy (although he preaches about all religions) – to quite or still the mind or to live in the now and destroy the conceptual self. One would do well to follow his advice living in a country that fosters consumerism and endless consumption.

Does living in this type of society corrupt its new inhabitants such as recent immigrants? Yes I think so. One is immediately swept up in the desire to buy new and large homes, to buy cars such as SUV, or boats and go on expensive vacations. There is so much being offered in the market place, now even in the Internet or in television shopping; technology making it easier to spend and buy things. One is enveloped in the American dream or is it the American illusion? Soon one becomes hopelessly in debt but still consumed with a desire to consume more. Desire is driven by one’s conceptual self and the cause of suffering. Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual lessons are a timely antidote to today’s ills. Unfortunately no one seems to be listening. His solutions go to the core of one’s spirit and maybe the way to ‘reset’ ones life.

Life Examined

Last night I spent time in Face book looking at photos of my old friends as well as old relatives. Face book allows us to keep in touch and examine the life of other people as the years go by. My brother posted old black and white pictures of our uncles, aunties, grand fathers, grand mothers, cousins, friends, mom and dad. Old photos with the lush gardens of my youth filled with luxuriant foliage but are now long gone, bright young faces looking eagerly at the camera but now old, gray and cynical. The young bucks all seemed fresh and ready to conquer the world. Almost all are now dead and buried. Among those that still survived, their old faces betray regret or perhaps a fondness of those old days of youth.  It seemed that my mother is the only one who has not lost her innocence. Or perhaps its old age dulling the mind into a former freshness.

My friends or former acquaintances in collage or high school are older and fatter. I guess I would look the same when they see my current photos. The mind still keeps the image of one’s youth that outward appearances would deny. College days are so far away that one wonders what happened along the way. I made a mind map and a sort of Gantt chart of my ‘progress’ and activities in Singapore when I moved there roughly 8 years ago. I had forgotten or rather did not keep a diagram of my life since that transfer. It’s as if my life only begun 8 years ago in Singapore when I was 38 years of age. Of course a lot had happened prior to my move like getting married, raising kids, building a house, vacations at the beach, drinking with buddies after work and so on.

But life seems to have moved at a blur perhaps because I was always busy or my mind was always occupied. I had to travel 4 hours every day to and from work for almost 10 years. Leaving home in the wee hours of the morning, bring the wife and kids to their destinations, go to work, face the daily challenges (including a union strike at the factory) have some drinks before going home, arriving late in the evening at 11 pm after making the long journey back, eating dinner, going to sleep and repeating the same cycle for 10-12 years will blur anyone’s recollection. But also memories of good weekends; of reading good books, biking and swimming, watching movies and watching the kids grow up. There where times of reflection too with journal writing and studies at school for a post graduate degree and fun reunions.

My life really started when I was 31 years old working in a new company from the ashes of the old, crushed by debt and worker’s revolts. I had a chance to travel many times all over Asia where my physical journeys matched my mental journeys; ranging wide due to my book reading and movie watching. Frequent travels to China, Japan and Thailand opened my eyes to the world that I had only experienced in my mind. Meeting new people, facing new challenges and discovering new things increased my self reflections in journals. It was a way to keep sane in the rapidly changing environment as the company was boot strapped into the modern age; tied along the vessel of a world class multinational company. It was a new world with new ways of working using computers and software.

Singapore was a paradise although a challenge at first moving the whole family over, adjusting to the new life. Work was challenging and difficult but no more 4 hours of daily traveling, or worrying about water or electricity or thefts at home or in the bus. Public transportation was excellent so no need to maintain a car. It was a relative life of ease and I spent the next 8 years trying to regain a lost decade. In quick order due to more free time: golf, mind mapping, tai-chi, French, photography, tennis, museums, public libraries, investing, blogging, project management and Toastmasters. Also more travel to new places like Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, France, India and Algeria. Met new people, learned new things and did a lot more. There was also a lot of exercises, swimming and biking and discovering the former British colony.

Still there were more stress, challenges, failures, growing old, company politics, learning new ways to cope with alternative tricks like meditation and Tai-chi and new ways of thinking like visual think. A lot of anxiety, fear and self-doubt as the company restructured and laid off people. Then at the age of 46 moving to the new world of America and an exciting new president proclaiming change. More free time and a slower pace of life, great libraries and extraordinary places to visit like California, Washington, DC, and the American South, new things to do and with a realization that finally one feels like coming home. I was lost and now I am found and perhaps with the amazing grace that God can bestow that one’s dream of being a writer can finally be accomplished. At this stage, one does not need to accumulate superficial skills and experiences but limit triviality and focus on the important tasks.

Learning to Swim

The hysteria towards the Louisiana oil spill is reaching a feverish pitch. Television images depict gut wrenching devastation; birds covered with oil, marsh lands, coast lines and oceans thick with splotches of slick black oil. Fishermen groan about the impact on their livelihood. Newscasters lose their objectivity and start blaming the White House. It seems that the general public is baying for blood. Even the president is affected and starts looking for someone to blame. Some news channels even point to the president himself. I think these people would like the president to don a wet suit, dive into the ocean and cap the spewing oil himself before they change their rhetoric.

I guess it’s a question of perception than actual taking control. For example, after the devastating Oklahoma bombing, Clinton staged a press conference and gave commanding orders to the government agency (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF) to take charge of the investigation. He combined soaring and angry rhetoric with the image of being in command. I think Obama needs to learn from this episode. The media fall out would be limited if he had staged a similar press conference and publicly assigned a government agency (ex. Coast Guard or EPA) to take charge of the operation with the help of the beleaguered oil company - BP. This would give the impression of leadership, decisiveness and resoluteness.

The focus would have shifted away from the president and to the assigned agencies tasked by the White House to handle the crises. But the incident was left to develop by itself perhaps due to misunderstanding the damage to the environment and loss of people’s livelihood in the area plus the ability of the oil company to fix the problem. So now, after more than 50 days of elusive success, everyone is looking for someone to blame and the only one left is the president. If there’s anyone who should be responsible, it’s the Louisiana governor. He is the man on the ground directly answerable to his constituents affected by the oil spill. The governor should have stepped up and directly took charge.

It is sad that a blaming culture has entrenched itself into the national consciousness. One is aghast at the things the allegedly conservative televisions say about the president. There is no rigorous analysis of events but a gut reaction to maintain conservative ‘truths’ no longer relevant in modern times. This negative atmosphere is results in a negative reaction from the president himself. I think he needs to take a page from Reagan and paint a more optimistic and hopeful future. After all, current statistics like job growth, home sales and the general economy seem to be moving up. But the good news is being dampened by the oil spill crisis, European bailouts, the Tea party and a seemingly ugly backlash against incumbents.

The trash talk is about a repeal of the health care bill, exploiting a seeming rage against incumbent politicians who are for big government. I don’t think this negativity can be sustained all the way to the November elections. The economy is improving, a number of people are getting employed and unemployment benefits are going down. I am reading a recent book called ‘Reset’ by Kurt Anderson. The writer claims that the country needs to ‘reset’ its national life and begin a new direction adapted to current realities. For instance, telling people to buy smaller homes due to the recent financial crisis, to save more and avoid living a large ‘lifestyle’ of excess. It’s a good book to understand the current malaise. But one feels a big change is coming; starting with 9/11 and the last election. Despite the focus on rising Asian countries like China and India; there are big ideas being fought here (big government or not, alternative energy, health care reform, financial reform, immigration reform, etc.) with new innovations (Google, iPad, Face book, etc.) and so on that will change the game for many years to come.

Ilustrado

I borrowed Miguel Syjuco’s prize winning book ‘Ilustrado’ from the library last Friday. I was surprised that the book was available. I expected to purchase the book from Amazon once it got published. I checked earlier this year and the message from Amazon was that it would be published in a couple of months. So I was surprised that I found the book at the library. I immediately borrowed the book and lent it to my kids so they could read it first. I read the first few pages and I like the way it was written. I felt that it was something that I would have written if I had not procrastinated. Realistically, I do not have the skills of the writer yet. One usually follows the old maxim to read a lot, experience a lot and write a lot which results in the ‘romantic’ illusion criticized by Ayn Rand in her book ‘Art of Writing.’.

I looked at the writer’s biography and compared my skills and experience to glean some tips. Like most writers today, he attended a creative writing class and is now working as a copy writer. This training is what I lack and my writing consists more of putting thoughts into paper. The creative exercises are not there as I focused more on self-expression. One could only get glimpses of the creative mind as one reads about other writer’s life such as Ayn Rand’s book. One would think that to be a good writer one must live an interesting life ala Hemingway. So one gets to imagine how creative writing works. It’s interesting to find the difference from each writer on the way a product is created. But it’s more like an intellectual understanding and not a skill learned from actual practice. One would expect that this skill can be nurtured from a creative writing class.

I guess one pursued the ‘classic’ writer’s path. After all there was no such thing as a creative writing course for people like Hemingway, Garcia Marquez and so on. Creative writing class seems to work for today’s writers. For instance, I breezed through a book by Julie Powell during the weekend called ‘Cleaving.’ It’s a good book, perhaps in need of editing, but I think she did a good job with her plots and use of words. She also attended a creative writing course as well as some classes on the theater. I am mostly self-taught; reading a multitude of books, watching lots of movies and living a life of modest travel and experience. Writing to me is a meager output in diaries and blogging; with no creative exercises or guidance from classroom instructors. This is what others would call a ‘dilettante’.

‘Ilustrado’ seems like an interesting book based on the reviews. It won the MAN Asian prize. The other author short listed from the Philippines is Alfred Yuson; who I find to be a very creative stylist based in his past works. He is more a poet than a writer in my opinion. ‘Ilustrado’ usually means the enlightened one or educated one. I think the writer is spot on using this title to depict the present social ills if that is what I think it’s about. I hope this book will start a trend that will increase and expose the work of Philippine writers. Aside from the writers from the naturally English speaking countries like England and North America, Indian writers have begun to be really famous like Salman Rushdie in recent years. Writers from former colonies like the Philippines still have to gain recognition and acceptance.

John Adams

The HBO series on John Adams is good educational entertainment. The series was adapted from David McCullough’s book which won a Pulitzer Prize. I had read an earlier work by McCullough about the building of the Panama Canal. The HBO film does justice and show all the details of the early revolutionary struggle. It’s a re-construction with all political nuances of the revolution. John Adams I think is the forgotten man and his monument should be in Mt. Rushmore instead of Theodore Roosevelt or even Thomas Jefferson. I think it would celebrate the ability of the common man to strive for greatness unlike Jefferson who was a rich man who had slaves and had a mistress, for example.

I think John Adams displays the courage, tenacity, honesty and stubbornness of the typical citizen. He lacks the intellectual capacity perhaps of Jefferson but he had the clear sightedness and practicality and genius of the common man. There is no elitism in his character unlike in Jefferson and the other wealthy land owners. The film also shows beautifully the other founding fathers: the calm leadership of Washington, the scheming genius of Alexander Hamilton and, of course, the brilliant Jefferson who seems to be a radical enamored to the French revolution and its radical ideals. Perhaps this was tempered when he realized Napoleon’s ambition that he purchased Louisiana to prevent a French beach head into the American continent.

John Adams seems the person with the level head during the early years of the republic although inflicted with malice and vanity at times. It was not the intellectual genius that distinguished him but more of the practical, clear sightedness and oratory that is a form of genius as well. This quality more than anything else I believe was needed during the early years. To a lesser extent, Apolinario Mabini is like Adams in the Philippine revolution with his clear sightedness and integrity. Both men did not get the recognition they deserved. The spotlight shone towards other men who were more glamorous and attractive. The most interesting thing is that Adams did not succumb to action when it was the easiest thing to do at the time. For instance, going to war with Britain or France or raising a standing army.

Alexander Hamilton is an interesting figure. I thought that he was more a financier establishing the financial foundation of the young republic with the Treasury and the forerunner of the Federal Reserve as well as writing the Federalist Papers - an argument for federalism. But his figure in the film depicts him as the intellectual ancestor of today’s right wing imperialist – one who was proposing for a standing army and the continued conquest of all lands west of the Mississippi River. Of course, this all came to pass as the course of history moved on but the basic imperialist urgings had existed in Hamilton and eventually resulted in today’s military industrial complex - geared toward the spread of American hegemony. Nevertheless, he is an interesting figure who played a critical role in the early republic.

I read somewhere that America is lucky in that it had a group of excellent men in the founding fathers; laying down the foundations for a great nation. Men who were not all rich aristocrats as the leadership of old nations like England or France usually were.  I believe that’s an accurate observation after watching the HBO series.  I guess people like the popular historian David McCullough who had the insight to focus on this character as well as Tom Hanks who was the executive producer deserve recognition, too. A recent Time article portrayed Hanks as an educator who promoted films that educate the public. For instance, his role as actor or producer in great films like Forest Gump or Saving Sgt. Ryan, producing patriotic war films like Band of Brothers and The Pacific and historical films like John Adams. I guess it’s this cycle of virtue that reinforces the impression of greatness.

Concept of Self

Last night I watched an Eckhart Tolle seminar. I borrowed the DVD from the library. It was a seminar held in the Findhorn retreat, a place somewhere in Scotland. He talked about the ‘conceptual self’ and how the thoughts in the mind churn around this ‘conceptual self.’  Sometimes one’s ‘conceptual self’ engages with another’s ‘conceptual self.’ An interesting idea and I think that my failures to connect to other people in the past are due to my inability to understand their ‘conceptual self.’ I guess I have my own ‘conceptual self’ that I cultivate that also clashes with the ‘conceptual self’ of others. Tolle claims that this results in modern day conflicts.

I tried to align these spiritual views with the movie I was watching; the excellent HBO series on John Adams. It would be difficult I think for the independence struggle and eventual revolution to occur if people follow the ‘conceptual self’ philosophy. There were other concepts being fought such as republicanism, federalism, state rights and so on. I guess it’s only now when one has achieved a modern evolution of the state can one attempt a more advanced transcendence of the self. I think ‘conceptual self’ is needed in competitive environments where one needs to struggle to survive. Otherwise, the ‘conceptual self’ of stronger opponents will prevail. Tolle’s philosophy can only survive in an ideal world where basic rights are guaranteed.

But applying the philosophy to each individual may have some merit. For instance, someone with an insatiable curiosity and a large capacity for new things maybe masking a ‘conceptual self’ that looks for external enlightenment. In fact, internal stillness is the answer where one looks inward into himself to find enlightenment. Tolle says that meditation is but one method which maybe discarded later on when stillness is achieved. It is this attraction towards external ‘forms’ that waylay the individual. It maybe the beautiful forms in museums, or movies, a turn of a phrase in great novels and so on that drive people to claim experiences when one is actually fulfilling the urges of a ‘conceptual self’. Tolle want people to understand that the ‘conceptual self’ is not you. Adding experience, skills and adventures will not help achieve inner awareness.

One’s dream of winning the Wimbledon tennis tournament or being rich and famous as an award winning actor or other such imaginings is an event in the future that prevents people from experiencing the ‘now’. For instance, reading too many books, watching DVDs and numerous travels will not make one a writer. It is really stopping and achieving internal stillness that one learns. Perhaps this will help them achieve or even discard their dreams. These dreams which is really a chasing of ‘forms,’ to achieve the striving of one’s ‘conceptual self’. So instead of focusing on the task that needs to be done now; one is forever chasing ‘forms’ whether it’s new books, travels, DVDs or what have you. Perhaps Tolle is the answer towards curing procrastination.
  

This is not to mean that one should avoid gaining or improving one’s skills. But one should not get lost in the striving to get external skills that he or she is lost in the true goal. Perhaps being a writer also means achieving internal stillness; to learn more about oneself rather than seeking external ‘forms.’  Perhaps this does not only concern writers but every other profession that require solitude and creativity or maybe all professions as well. Internal knowledge removes the ‘conceptual self’ that often leads to mental confusion. This increases focus by gaining stillness and ‘a silent mind.’ According to Tolle, one naturally becomes oneself without effort and naturally just ‘be’. I think it’s a good path for a writer as well but without neglecting the exercise and gaining of essential skills. It’s the path of the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen rather than Hemingway.