at the end of your rope
When I was a boy, there was a radio DJ in Detroit who was famous for his smooth R & B. He played R&B on a station called WJLB. Not like today’s R&B, but the nourishes-the-soul kind of R&B. If you know what I’m talking about, then you know what I’m talking about. Anyway he would play at night, and his voice was smooth and rich and mellow and if you stayed awake long enough to listen to him, you usually got an earful and soul full of warmth, love, and hope because this guy was on air when Detroit was dying. It was the 1980s and Detroit’s car manufacturing industry was leaving the city by the SUV-full. High labor costs and the competitive advantages of international players caused rapid unemployment throughout the city and state, and as a result, drugs and crime and all the other ugly signs of frustrated poverty became rampant throughout the city.
I recall the gray skies, colourless flat land and the dying city. And I recall that DJ on WJLB. He played hope. He whispered prayers and encouragement and shed light in the ever-growing darkness of the city. I remember what he used to say at the end of his show, “when you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” Those words came back to me as I took a taxi to the nearest Buddhist temple here in Beijing recently. My father has been in and out of the hospital and no one seems to know what to do about his condition, although everything I hear says it is nothing but serious. I’ve never thought about life without my father until these past few days. Lately, I’ve had to force myself to think about life without him and his advice and jokes and temper and devotion. That’s been hard for me to do; he’s always been there. So, with all the doctor’s telling us that he will likely need a life-threatening operation to address his life-threatening condition. I feel as if I’m “at the end of my rope.” So what do I do? What can I do? After trying to rationalize with every tidbit of science I know, I feel that the best I can do for my father and my own sanity is to visit a temple. I know, this is weird for me, but every day I wait for the phone call that tells me Dad will have the operation that he likely won’t survive. Every day I am waiting for the dreaded news and the news could come at any time, at any minute. It’s enough to drive the most rational among us to visit a temple, honestly. So, I go. It’s almost degrading, really, because temples in Beijing are not respected at all. The authorities and this generation of people have made sure that anything culturally valuable is either passe or a laughing joke. But as I kneel down in front of this giant old statue, I see the stone floor is worn, and as I offer my cold drink to the lifeless deity, I bow my head not at all out of respect for the clay statue in front of me, but for the ideas that its originator left for humanity. After all, Buddha, like many others, gave the world some really cool ideas that have helped many people to solve problems and better understand the world–which is not so unlike my father. I could just as well be kowtowing my Father. But as I kneel down, I cry a little because I have nothing else to do but sit melancholy in front of a lump of baked clay. I cry because I realize that I am absolutely powerless over my father’s suffering and demise and that hurts so badly that I come to a Buddhist temple to keep myself from going crazy with anxiety. I don’t feel much better after I rise from my brief bow and sentiment to the Buddhist statue, but I know that–in my heart–all I can do is this. All I have left to do is hope and resort to something that has given reason to humanity. I’m at the end of my rope, and the best I can do is to tie a knot and hang on. |
fake-ation
it’s holiday vacation time, and the “civilized” among us are stuffing ourselves into beaches, bars, and second homes around the globe. we slave away for months for a few weeks of collected bliss on the beach, with close friends or lovers, or getting “back to nature”. but with the best intentions, vacations are becoming a way for us to be stuck with millions of others trying to get away from each other.
first, the planning. tickets, transfers, rooms, rates, and other prerequisites all insist we take as much fun out of our bliss as possible. we can go to an agent, but bad agents abound and bad travel makes infamous holiday memories that last a lifetime. next, the travel. everyone agrees that planes and trains are just a joy during holiday season, right? of course we do. just remember to upgrade to first class to get away from the farting children and screaming babies visiting grandma for the first time.
when you finally arrive at your anticipated destination, their are thousands of people doing the same. the rat race you’ve desperately longed to escape from has been outsourced to wherever you go. you’ll never think about how oil has made this unnatural and otherwise unsustainable human population possible, but you’ll fool yourself into thinking it would have been simpler, cheaper, and/or more enjoyable if you had driven a car to get here.
the bills for all of this will come next month, and when they do you’ll pour another drink to emotionally medicate yourself sufficiently until you can get away from it all next holiday vacation.
the day after the fourth of july today
Former US President FD Roosevelt once said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Smart guy, since his strategy was intended to resuscitate the U.S. people’s confidence in themselves, the economy, and the nation in general. As old and effective as that comment is, it is still as relevant and still more often forgotten than not.
I have family and some friends in the U.S. who seem to me to be afraid of something that isn’t just fear itself. On the surface, they have wonderful lives with wonderful families and wonderful homes with wonderful lawns. They go to a wonderful church and have wonderful ideas about what to do for lunch on Saturday. Their clothes and cars and Facebook comments are all really wonderful. Their wonderful pets have wonderful names and everyday is another wonderful chance for them to be just as wonderful as the wonderful guy or girl next-door. Everything wonderful.
But only scratch the surface and you’ll find that the wonderfulness isn’t as wonderful as it seems; all that wonderful is only make-up on the face of fear. Fear of what, I don’t know exactly, but when I have family and old or new friends shut down on me for my opinions and ideas, it makes me wonder if I’ve just offended them or if I’ve genuinely rattled their wonderful cages and why. Is it only fear that scares us, or is it truth and knowing that what was once wonderful is not so wonderful anymore?
Anyone can fear a reality that does not make them feel wonderful about themselves. “Truth hurts,” as FDR probably also said sometime in his life but is not famous for, and that’s because a “bitter medicine” can show us how unwonderful our lives and selves can be, and that’s not so wonderful because if we’ve spent our entire wonderful lives trying to make things more wonderful, it’s not easy to think about how we might have just wasted a lot of really wonderful time.
But, like FDR said, that’s where the fear is unnecessary because all that’s really needed or required is for us to make a few life-altering changes, not fear the change. If indeed we’ve spent our lives trying to make things wonderful, then instead of fearing any change of that wonderful, check and adjust our definition of a wonderful life. Is wonderful still wonderful?!
Americans need only look to their brief history to see how our nation founded with slavery has changed its definition of wonderful. We are capable of great personal and social change–when we are not afraid to ask ourselves if wonderful is still wonderful.
Don’t fear change, because change will only be as scary as you allow it to be. Face and learn about the wonderful, the not so wonderful and yes even the really unwonderful things in life, then embrace the change you need to keep your definition of wonderful wonderful. You alone empower your fears, so the choice is yours alone.
fourth of july today
this fourth, i feel strange. ambivalent. i don’t feel the same cool excitement and anticipation for the bbq and beer and best of friends as i have felt in previous years. i suppose my feeling stems from the changes in our country that have been both within and beyond my control. obvious examples: when the people spoke and denied congress the authority to give the 700 billion bailout to the banks, Paulson arranged for the language to be attached to a different bill and allowed that loan to be made–against the will of the people. when people protested both the invasion of iraq–a country that had little to nothing to do with the september 11 attacks–and the invasion in afghanistan, nothing was done to stop the military movement. today as families of the september 11 attacks demand an investigation into the collapse of building 7 in new york, nothing happens. indeed, the official story of the twin towers themselves is not physically possible, but that continues to mean nothing.
finance companies and investment banks have taken extraordinary legal risks with other peoples’ money and yet have accepted little to no responsibility for the devastation they’ve caused to not just the u.s. economy but the global economy overall. instead of mass-protests from those whose wealth is being transferred, these organizations are now declaring much of the same profits they enjoyed before the financial crisis they started. with the transfer of public debt into private profit, the general decline in education and public services, the loss of innovation jobs and the housing bubble, it’s not ludicrous to suspect that the u.s. has fallen on hard times it won’t recover from quickly or easily.
and then my personal view is that americans no longer have the education and character to regain what has been lost, stolen, exploited, or corrupted. it’s not just an american world for us anymore. our problems are now on a very big and very global scale, and the current u.s. economy absolutely requires oil. we’re in a really bad place, and as we’ve become accustomed to spending and using far more than we produce or earn, we have essentially become accustomed to working against ourselves and our chances to be able to recover from our own bad habits and downward spiral.
this fourth of july, for me it’s not about celebrating anything because i don’t really feel like we have anything to celebrate. celebrating now would be somewhat delusional–an insistence on the synthetic promises of yesterday’s ideas of success and wealth and prosperity. celebrating now would not be wise, sensible or even sane.
instead, this year’s fourth of july seems like new year’s eve, after the balloons have dropped and i’ve kissed my lover and the band plays “auld lang syne.” there’s that kind of feeling; we’re drunk and we’re dancing, but something’s gone forever.
chinese german man
– atomkraft? nein, danke –
germany puts all to shame and that’s a good thing
bad air day
I love this town, but not what the environment does to my hair.
Click pic for the Beijing_air Twitter site.(中国人看不见了)