Three Things To Do in 2009 - Part A

Here is my list of three things to do before June 30, 2009:
1. Read the Bible
2. Learn French
3. Do a couple of ARE exams

This is probably my last blog for the year. It has been an interesting one. See you next year.. I have lots of wishes and hopes to do, I hope you do to. Like St. Paul said, keep running!

barely good people

I just saw 21 Grams, a 2003 movie by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga. I was really 5 years late in watching this good movie. Yep, i think between 2000-2005 I almost lost contact with most of the world out there as I was making love with architecture. Sorry for making that kind of analogy. But I came to realize sometimes when you fall in love intensely, you live in the world but your mind is not in it. 21 Grams was about the grotesque reality that we live in. It attempted to convince us that that the grotesque and the beauty of this life were more intertwined than we thought they were. It dig deep under our skin - inspecting the weight of our soul. At the end of this journey, the medium barrier dissolved and we saw ourselves in the mirror. That we are all barely good people under our skin capable of uncontrolled good (donating heart) and evil (killing innocents) in a switch of an instant. That's the overall impression I have. I am sure if you are familiar with that movie, you have must known about the non-linear montage style editing. It, however, looks very Bressonian for me at the core, with a simple proposition to show effect before cause. Crash (2004) became a little tame after watching this.

Talking about tame movie, I also watched Priceless with the cute Audrey Tautou from Amelie in it. She is probably one of the super skinny actors that I found attractive. I could say Priceless is a totally different genre from 21 Grams but arguably exploring the same issue of: what is the content of human soul?. Didn't feel like that at first because Priceless looks just like another re-take of Hollywood chic-flick made in France. But beyond all the beauty, charm, and glamour of Tautou character's, it revealed the grotesque side of a soul; in this case, of a high class hooker/seducer of middle age men. Maybe kind of like Miss Dupre in Spitzer's scandal back in March. Yes, we are all barely good people.

Reboot - clip

TF is always good in expressing for us, our collective thoughts and also like he said in one of his books "connecting the dots". But reading his articles and insights I often times found these projective possibilites and original ideas from him that are so interesting. One of these nuggets of thoughts is the part that I highlighted above from his Dec 24th, 2008 op-ed: Time to Reboot America.

two

I know somebody will make this kind of movie someday in an elegant way: story of a person torn between two lovers. Might be good, will see.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/50068/movie-trailers-two-lovers

Yesterday, I was surprised to receive a packet from Kazan. I anxiously opened it and found inside a book: The Master and Margarita, the Russian modern classic, by Mikhail Bulgakov. I love it. Never heard about him before, but quite excited to see probably the literary counterparts of the Russo-constructivists. I don't usually expect Christmas gifts. But the one that I always remember was also a book gift from my sister in 2002. It was Borges: Collected Fictions. Aha. Holiday is here. I hope I can enjoy it and also be productive with my other work. Merry Christmas. Peace and blessings to you.

Rich

This is a clip from Rob Bell's NOOMA Number 13 : Rich.

I think this simple message about contentment, being content with what you have, is the key to solve many unhappiness in our consumer-materialistic society.

Genesis 2:24

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." - The Book of Genesis, Chapter 2 Verse 24.

A few days ago Mike Huckabee was in Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart promoting his new book. The Daily Show is one of the very few TV shows (that I watch online) that I watch. After a sets of funny and cordial chattings, Stewarts, a well known but reasonable liberal leaning comedian, cornered Huckabee, a well known but reasonable conservative, on the hot issue of gay marriage. I assumed you are at least like me and lightly familiar with the debate about this issue in American media.

So Stewarts peppered him with a sets of standard questions: why not? it's a fundamental human rights? why not lawful, segregration was an accepted law before? gay couple is just as resposnsible and even more responsible in some cases in child bearing, etc, etc, etc. Huckabee replied, also, with a sets of standard responses; marriage is between man and woman, anatomically determined for procreation; we can't just rewrite the social fabric; a person against gay marriage doesn't mean a homephobe, etc, etc. etc.

The part that I am interested in this blog is when Huckabee mentioned that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman that has been established for five thousands years. We know that Huckabee before became a two-term governor was also a pastor. Stewarts, who had a Jewish background and also well aware about Huckabee's background immedietly brought the B word (the Bible). He countered Huckabee quickly that since the Old Testament the definiton of marriage has been constantly in flux. In fact many of the main characters in the Bible (Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, etc.) live a polygamous life.

That's true. Many of the characters in the Bible live a polygamous life as the culture in the region at the time and even until today. But what I want to say is those characters also live a natural and not-so-perfect life. The Bible is not an account about a group of angelic people but about God's relationship with them. One of the reasons the Bible becomes so relevant to Christians and to myself is because it recorded the life and stuggles of all these "failed" and full of flaws characters. Those people behaved just like us today when pushed into difficult situations and temptations. They always chose the easy way out even when it's against .. anything: the law, their culture, their family tradition, and God.

Yesterday, inspired by Ps. Yo's Sunday sermon, I re-started my commitment to read the Bible front to back in 2009. As always, I began from the Book of Genesis. Hopefully in 2009 I can go further than that. But that's when I came upon the beautiful verse above, Genesis 2:24, that started this blog.

So, I believe gay couples should get equal rights with heterosexual couples in society. I also believe that marriage is a sacred and eternal institution from God between a man and a woman. A man is created to love his wife. A woman is created to be with her husband. Yes, all singular. If the rest of the people even Abraham, David, or Moses choose to live differently, that's their business with God. Just because Abraham did it doesn't mean I can do it too. What God wants is always a man and a woman to love each other. There is a spiritual blessing in it. The New Testaments reaffirm this truth and God's intention about marriage in several passages especially in the Gospels and the apostles letters.

Epilogue:

If I can use Conan O'Brien's (another TV show I watch) session "In the Year 2000" to predict the future, I would say, in 2012 Huckabee will beat Palin and become the Repulican presidential candidate to challenge Obama. He will win.

lucky dude

I am waiting right now to take Jeff to the airport for his trip back to Jakarta. Last time early this year I also sent him and his soon-to-be fiancee to the airport. Of course I didn't know anything back then (and probably so did she) that that dude was going to propose this time. Surely he did. So when they come back from this trip, they will be husband and wife. I can't imagine what he is thinking right now, excited, i am sure, happy, of course, fear, maybe. But this is the thing about him though, that he seems to be pretty relaxed. Good for him. I don't know about me. I don't know what I was thinking too, once upon a time, when I said I was ready to marry. Looking back from now, I don't think I was ready at all. You know, it's always a bizzare to imagine the "what ifs" in your life. The caveat is not just to think about what if you did but also what if you missed it. That latter one starts to creep in my thoughts.

All right, the lucky dude is here. Got to go.

bleeding

why I don't like horror movie

Firing is horrible. It's always creates uneasiness. Some more colleagues got fired last week. I have been rejected several times for jobs, schools, and girls but not yet ejected from any (ehm, maybe the last one). So this is my learning experience, a process of maturity I guess. I don't worry so much about the aftermath, because you can always do something else, but the shock of the moment. That's why I don't like horror movies, I don't like to be (stupidly) scared when I am least prepared.

This may not be a surprising attitude for everybody else but I am loosing my innocence towards corporate America. For me it looks like a soulless business machine. A machine that, when it's out of oil or fuel, will just spit out it's own parts and eventually slowly crankyly self-destruct itself without remorse. The upside of all this is, it makes us more humble toward other workers and increases solidarity as fellow human beings. That's probably what the CEOs of the big three car makers felt yesterday when they had to ride in their own hybrid cars, instead of private jets, for hundreds of miles to DC to ask for help. Hang in there everybody, we are probably not in the bottom yet.

Another Bright Sadness

Last week I said goodbye to Kate, before I left for vacation, in front of the parking lot outside the office. It was a simple but very vivid event in my memory. You know you have had a good friend by the inner-gravity you felt in a farewell moment like this. It was another indescribable feeling I had when departing from a good friend. So I have to examine it this time.

We have experienced countless goodbyes in our life. Some are memorable and some are just stored in the short-term memory. I am sure you know what I mean. I always remember the memorable farewells in my life with the color mood associated with the events: with Kezia in gray metallic telephone booth the first time we had to leave each other, with my mom and bibi in the yellow living room, with my sister Ling in the red airport, with Amy in my last night wandering around in Shanghai; and the one that started it all (and responsible for making me a melancholic wanderer until today) was my farewell with Angeline at the airport when she was leaving for Melbourne.

I would say that a memorable farewell is state of feeling. It is a type of emotional feeling that you experience for a duration of time, just like joy, sadness, eating, sex, anger, etc. There is usually a slow anticipation of someone (or yourself) departing from the loved ones. This could range from a few days to a few months. Then there is a duration after the goodbye, when you feel a sense of loss conjured up with optimism. It is an optimism from knowing that you have created a meaningful relationship and that person will carry with him or her a piece of yourself (the memory) to the new place.

It is the constant switching between this sense of loss and optimism that creates a memorable farewell feeling or a feeling I would call a “bright sadness” (Charlie Hall’s song). This “bright sadness” will plateau for a while and then slowly recede down. That’s when friendship will end. I don’t like to hear the tongue-and-cheek ‘friendship forever’ thing. For me friendship is like a dashed line, with irregular length of lines and gaps. It is not always continuous and I am okay with that.