12 more days until the "unprecedented" Presidential election on November 4, 2008! Undecided voters, we must unite in solidarity! Come November 4th, we must cast off the label of fence-sitter and take a stand!
Yeah, OK, whatever. My husband thinks it's unpatriotic of me to have not voted in the last 2 elections. But being a principled Fence-Sitter, I am taking a stand: I just dont believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. I am just astounded by the fact that with all of the intelligent and competent leaders our great country has, we have produced in these last 3 elections...(drum roll, please): W. Bush vs Gore, W. Bush vs. Kerry, McCain vs. Obama. The first time I heard W. Bush speak, two things crossed my mind, "This guy can't give an intelligent speech to save his life. The only way he has gotten this far is the powerful connections in his family and even THAT cant get win him the Presidency." Boy, I was SOOO wrong. Gore is credited for getting this generation to go green this decade, but who recalls what he achieved as VP under Clinton? Kerry's story was so full of holes. Obama is so green that despite his intelligence and ideals, he wont be able to override an established political atmosphere of partisan conflict. Nothing against him, but the country isnt ready for someone like Obama. McCain...where do I start? Full of smart-ass quips, what beyond a rep of a Maverick does this guy offer to us?
During a recent discussion with my husband, who is a proud card-carrying member of the Republican party, we discussed this issue at length. Why would anyone want to be President? Well, it couldn't possibly be the pay. Our president earns an average annual salary of $400,000, while the average CEO earns $2.2 million a year (let the record state that Oracle's CEO made $192M last year and Starbucks' CEO made 98M). Next, let's look at fame. Exposure goes both ways for politicians---good or bad, as tabloid vultures have demonstrated for Hollywood's famed celebrities. Just as easily a good story spun, a bad one can drown a person in scandal and shame. It becomes a matter of spinning the media just so, even as everyone recognizes that we all make mistakes. Lastly, "making a difference in the history of the U.S." can be a worthy pursuit--but difficult, oh so difficult to achieve. Already, the next President coming on board has a daunting To Do List, from stabilizing the economy, waging 2 wars, solving the healthcare crisis, and on and on. OK...so I still cant figure out why ANYONE in their right minds would want to be President, but with respect to all the candidates who have run--I will say this: It is somewhat admirable, given the sh*t you have to go through to become a leader of this country. People have very limiting views of who you are and the expectations of what have to achieve are near Cloud 5 level (in other words, next to impossible). Add to that, a President really cannot exercise powers without the stamp of approval from Congress. And let's face it--a President typically spends the 1st 2 years of his term transitioning over from the last administration and the remaining 2 years preparing for re-election. You're really in a hole so deep when you start that it is amazing that one achieves anything at all!
The problem, my folks, is that this country thinks that partisan politics works in a global economy and within a modern superpower. Left and right, Conservatives and Liberals, blue and red, donkeys and elephants, what do these classifications do besides divide a country? It would seem to me that we are a country that forces divisions and classifications, even as we pat ourselves on the back to congratulate our contributions to democracy. Just take a look at our American political system: It is based on two fundamental, yet conflicting beliefs: Freedom and Equality. If you are free to do whatever you want, you ARE going to step on someone’s toes. And if the law says you CAN’T step on someone’s toes, then doesn’t that infringe on your right to “freedom of”? Similarly, when you look at Democrats vs. Republicans, we somehow forgot that each of us being entitled to our own moral beliefs somehow means we cant play together. Whether or not we believe pro-life or pro-choice doesn’t mean we don’t all value life and choice. We are certainly not saying that pro-choice Democrats cannot be Catholic! I cannot help but shake my head when discussions of Big Government vs. Big Business come into play. Folks, it isn’t an either-or, as this needing both. Free trade is essential to the foundations of the American Dream…but we need to regulate to prevent greed and moral break-down. At the end of the day, are we so stupid that uniting as a country only makes sense in the aftermath of a disaster on the scale of 9/11? We are a young country--and with youth, comes a naive idealism that is all-consuming--that is until, something REALY BAD happens to us. What unites us, not divides us, makes us stronger.
Ok, at the end of the day, it is the duty of every citizen in our country, including the fence-sitter, to take a stand and cast their vote. So this fence-sitter will be voting come this election. Even though I will be out of town on business, I will go to early voting this weekend to cast my ballot. I just printed out my voter registration guide and am reading through the propositions (Only in CA do the rights of chickens make it to #2 on the propositions list). Yes, this fence-sitter is going to take a stand and vote for SOMEONE… even if it means doing a coin-toss.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
The "Passionless Lemming" Blog
I am probably going to get committed to the looney-bin after this piece, but couldn't resist spouting on my favorite subject: Lemminghood. This was written last year, somewhere mid-flight over Canada homeward-bound.
7/27/2006 (Thursday)
I am inspired to write because I was tickled by an amusing article on a man who did 10 days of Vissapana meditation in Texas (any man who can make a joke about Dubya is OK in my book), and because I was thinking about musing some thoughts on the subject of “passion”, and because I realized I hadn’t written in a long time (doing so always makes me feel good), and because quite frankly, I am just bored out of my mind on this 5-hr flight and have yet to find the land of nod in Economy Class.
Ok, so PASSION. My new job (same company, new job) in business development (read: mergers & acquisitions of companies that can’t make it on their own but strive to justify their existence & secure their future with a high price tag) has exposed me to the outside world again—meeting people who come from totally different perspectives on life (Dubya-lovers, chain smokers, and French-Canadians who talk too fast, for example). It has exposed to me the rawness of human nature that reveals itself in M&A discussions between the acquirer and the target. What is the price of a company? What is a history of x years and x number of people’s livelihoods worth? What would a corporate culture sell for these days on ebay? I’ve never liked the politics, the song & dance of negotiations involving large sums of money, but being in this business certainly exposes you to the stories of survival and success and desperate justification of one’s existence. Every story starts out the same way. “It wasn’t always this way” (with a gleam in the eye and a beaming smile)—the large manufacturing plant, the impressive machines, the dedicated management team…it started with a lone man with a cause, a machine, and a drive to do more than just survive, to be the best and come out on top, even if it meant sacrificing on the personal side—the family and the easy lifestyle and re-investing your savings back into the business, doggonit. It’s heartening, it’s heroic, it’s emotional, it’s pride and guts and sweat and tears. The way you hear people talk makes you wonder with amazement how far passion has taken so many companies to the top. I have come to believe that success in life rides on that key ingredient: passion (it helps to have brains as well).
It makes me wonder how it is one can succeed in life if he is either blind or devoid of passion? Forget being the leader of a company driving the business with single-minded passion. Let’s talk about the lemmings, the minions, who make the 9-to-5 every day in a cubicle that starts with coffee and ends with rushing out the door before anyone catches you leaving 10 minutes early. What is their passion? What motivates them to get up every morning and repeat the same routine day in and day out?
Life is passing by in the blink of an eye. If we live the life of a passion-less lemming, we have not really lived at all. The caffeine from the coffee has awakened only the senses required to carry out lemming-functions, the consciousness from within has not awakened the passion to make life meaningful. And what is meaningful? It is what each individual finds awakens and inspires him—without coffee (by the way, boycott Starbucks). Dammit—is this too much to ask? Actually, I should rephrase. How can we go through life without seeking our passion, without being conscious of what it is that makes us tick and drives us? How can we resign ourselves to a lemming life if we took an aerial view and realized that we were ants, brainless ants who willingly went through the motions without emotions of life and focused on all the wrong things?
Now it gets tough. Let's turn the spotlight on me. What is MY passion? Do I know? Am I living proof of my passion? A few years ago, alone on the sandy beaches of Oahu on the most important day of my life, I quickly jotted down a list of the top 5 things that were most important to me. Ever-critical of myself, I realized that I spent 110% of my physical time, mental energies, and emotions on the 1st item: work. Which logically led to no time on the others. And love didn’t even make the top 5. Fast-forward 3 years—happily married (whatever that means to whoever) but conflicted about personal growth and the toll of a demanding career. So what am I spending my time on these days? What is my passion? Is it a thing? A person? A what? I get seized with fear (the type where the teacher suddenly calls on you and you have no idea what the question is and all eyes are on you for the answer) because I don’t know what my passion is. And I am a hypocrite because if I don’t know what my passion is, how could I be living proof of it, and therefore, doesn’t that make me a lemming?
Lemmings of America, I confess: I am a lemming like one of you! A lemming who doesn’t want to be a lemming but doesn’t know how to be non-lemming, speak non-lemming and think non-lemming. I am the lemming that wears the T-shirt emblazoned with, “I am NOT a lemming” out of sheer desperation and then covers my eyes with sunglasses so that no one can see the wild deer-in-headlights look that is in my eyes. Suddenly, I feel like that bum on the streets of [enter any major metropolitan city] wearing the cardboard sign that says, “The End is Near!”
No, we must begin the cure, the awakening. So…What is my passion? It goes back to that frightful question and I am alone in the dark with that one. [pause while I scratch my nose and do anything to distract myself from facing this question…]
AHEM. WHAT is my passion? My first instinct is to say family, quite honestly. My family has been redefined since I’ve gotten married…just my husband and I. I feel selfish for making this such a small circle, for feeling that it should be that way for maybe the rest of our lives, sans children (excepting Alexis, Ryan & Hobbes of course). Or maybe rather than selfishness, it is a fear of becoming a lemming mama, further reinforcing my lemmingness and distracting me from the rude awakening that is my passion and inspirations. Life is not about getting a good job, marrying a good husband, having perfect children, having a good materialistic life (house, car, flat-screen TV, and IPOD) and obsessing over our weight. Is it? God forbid! Maybe I think too much. I mean, I get the feeling that my “passion” and intense focus on our tight-knit family is suffocating my husband and drowning him in constructive criticisms and honey-do’s, while at the same time giving me the sense of displacement and disappointment that I am never going to understand it all or be understood. Is the road to hell really paved with good intentions? (Or lemming roadkill whose last dying words were, “I tried my best”?)
WHAT is my passion? I have said in the past it is DVGS/the schools. I have said in the past it is my work. But my heart is not in either today.
I know that I cannot wait for it to dawn on me, for it to hit me like lightening, or worse--for tragedy to strike in order for me to realize that I am wasting my life on passionless pursuits. My passion is hidden behind my fears, those dark, moldy, spidery-like things that blind me and make me afraid to venture further. If only I could get past my fears, like a cloud over my lemming eyes. If only I could take off my rose-colored lemming glasses, which has gotten me so accustomed to seeing things one way that I am afraid of what I might see when I take them off.
What is my passion is a question that can be answered after the question of who am I. I think I’ll tackle that one tomorrow.
In the meantime, I will invest in a new lemming T-shirt, with the words, “Status quo is the killer of all awakened ones and the lullabies of all lemmings. God Save Your Soul!” and on the back it would say, “Down with Starbucks!”
7/27/2006 (Thursday)
I am inspired to write because I was tickled by an amusing article on a man who did 10 days of Vissapana meditation in Texas (any man who can make a joke about Dubya is OK in my book), and because I was thinking about musing some thoughts on the subject of “passion”, and because I realized I hadn’t written in a long time (doing so always makes me feel good), and because quite frankly, I am just bored out of my mind on this 5-hr flight and have yet to find the land of nod in Economy Class.
Ok, so PASSION. My new job (same company, new job) in business development (read: mergers & acquisitions of companies that can’t make it on their own but strive to justify their existence & secure their future with a high price tag) has exposed me to the outside world again—meeting people who come from totally different perspectives on life (Dubya-lovers, chain smokers, and French-Canadians who talk too fast, for example). It has exposed to me the rawness of human nature that reveals itself in M&A discussions between the acquirer and the target. What is the price of a company? What is a history of x years and x number of people’s livelihoods worth? What would a corporate culture sell for these days on ebay? I’ve never liked the politics, the song & dance of negotiations involving large sums of money, but being in this business certainly exposes you to the stories of survival and success and desperate justification of one’s existence. Every story starts out the same way. “It wasn’t always this way” (with a gleam in the eye and a beaming smile)—the large manufacturing plant, the impressive machines, the dedicated management team…it started with a lone man with a cause, a machine, and a drive to do more than just survive, to be the best and come out on top, even if it meant sacrificing on the personal side—the family and the easy lifestyle and re-investing your savings back into the business, doggonit. It’s heartening, it’s heroic, it’s emotional, it’s pride and guts and sweat and tears. The way you hear people talk makes you wonder with amazement how far passion has taken so many companies to the top. I have come to believe that success in life rides on that key ingredient: passion (it helps to have brains as well).
It makes me wonder how it is one can succeed in life if he is either blind or devoid of passion? Forget being the leader of a company driving the business with single-minded passion. Let’s talk about the lemmings, the minions, who make the 9-to-5 every day in a cubicle that starts with coffee and ends with rushing out the door before anyone catches you leaving 10 minutes early. What is their passion? What motivates them to get up every morning and repeat the same routine day in and day out?
Life is passing by in the blink of an eye. If we live the life of a passion-less lemming, we have not really lived at all. The caffeine from the coffee has awakened only the senses required to carry out lemming-functions, the consciousness from within has not awakened the passion to make life meaningful. And what is meaningful? It is what each individual finds awakens and inspires him—without coffee (by the way, boycott Starbucks). Dammit—is this too much to ask? Actually, I should rephrase. How can we go through life without seeking our passion, without being conscious of what it is that makes us tick and drives us? How can we resign ourselves to a lemming life if we took an aerial view and realized that we were ants, brainless ants who willingly went through the motions without emotions of life and focused on all the wrong things?
Now it gets tough. Let's turn the spotlight on me. What is MY passion? Do I know? Am I living proof of my passion? A few years ago, alone on the sandy beaches of Oahu on the most important day of my life, I quickly jotted down a list of the top 5 things that were most important to me. Ever-critical of myself, I realized that I spent 110% of my physical time, mental energies, and emotions on the 1st item: work. Which logically led to no time on the others. And love didn’t even make the top 5. Fast-forward 3 years—happily married (whatever that means to whoever) but conflicted about personal growth and the toll of a demanding career. So what am I spending my time on these days? What is my passion? Is it a thing? A person? A what? I get seized with fear (the type where the teacher suddenly calls on you and you have no idea what the question is and all eyes are on you for the answer) because I don’t know what my passion is. And I am a hypocrite because if I don’t know what my passion is, how could I be living proof of it, and therefore, doesn’t that make me a lemming?
Lemmings of America, I confess: I am a lemming like one of you! A lemming who doesn’t want to be a lemming but doesn’t know how to be non-lemming, speak non-lemming and think non-lemming. I am the lemming that wears the T-shirt emblazoned with, “I am NOT a lemming” out of sheer desperation and then covers my eyes with sunglasses so that no one can see the wild deer-in-headlights look that is in my eyes. Suddenly, I feel like that bum on the streets of [enter any major metropolitan city] wearing the cardboard sign that says, “The End is Near!”
No, we must begin the cure, the awakening. So…What is my passion? It goes back to that frightful question and I am alone in the dark with that one. [pause while I scratch my nose and do anything to distract myself from facing this question…]
AHEM. WHAT is my passion? My first instinct is to say family, quite honestly. My family has been redefined since I’ve gotten married…just my husband and I. I feel selfish for making this such a small circle, for feeling that it should be that way for maybe the rest of our lives, sans children (excepting Alexis, Ryan & Hobbes of course). Or maybe rather than selfishness, it is a fear of becoming a lemming mama, further reinforcing my lemmingness and distracting me from the rude awakening that is my passion and inspirations. Life is not about getting a good job, marrying a good husband, having perfect children, having a good materialistic life (house, car, flat-screen TV, and IPOD) and obsessing over our weight. Is it? God forbid! Maybe I think too much. I mean, I get the feeling that my “passion” and intense focus on our tight-knit family is suffocating my husband and drowning him in constructive criticisms and honey-do’s, while at the same time giving me the sense of displacement and disappointment that I am never going to understand it all or be understood. Is the road to hell really paved with good intentions? (Or lemming roadkill whose last dying words were, “I tried my best”?)
WHAT is my passion? I have said in the past it is DVGS/the schools. I have said in the past it is my work. But my heart is not in either today.
I know that I cannot wait for it to dawn on me, for it to hit me like lightening, or worse--for tragedy to strike in order for me to realize that I am wasting my life on passionless pursuits. My passion is hidden behind my fears, those dark, moldy, spidery-like things that blind me and make me afraid to venture further. If only I could get past my fears, like a cloud over my lemming eyes. If only I could take off my rose-colored lemming glasses, which has gotten me so accustomed to seeing things one way that I am afraid of what I might see when I take them off.
What is my passion is a question that can be answered after the question of who am I. I think I’ll tackle that one tomorrow.
In the meantime, I will invest in a new lemming T-shirt, with the words, “Status quo is the killer of all awakened ones and the lullabies of all lemmings. God Save Your Soul!” and on the back it would say, “Down with Starbucks!”
The "I Love the 90's" Blog
To populate my blog, I am backfilling with some journal entries I tapped out in Microsoft Word over the last few years.
4/20/2006 10:30 PM
What is about going back down pop culture memory lane that makes our eyes light up, nod our heads, and laugh? I just saw an episode of “I Love the 90’s” and they showed clips of “Sex & the City”, Monica Lewinski, the Backstreet Boys, Swing (Brian Setzer Orchestra & Big Dad Voodoo Daddy), Teletubbies, Martha Stewart, Soccer Moms, Mark McGwire, Jerry Springer (“trailer trash circus”), and Natalie Umbruglia (what was she so torn about anyway?). I didn't even think that the 90's constituted as historical enough to be on a show called "I Love the 90's." It’s amazing how easily these things are forgotten, but how easily they come to mind. In this world of chaos and confusion, the familiarity of something gone by is almost warm and fuzzy.
Hearing all the great songs played on the show (emphasis on “great”) made me realize that we all get stuck in a decade of music and stop “moving on” with the times…and that I’ve definitely gotten stuck in the decade of the 90’s! I can’t think of the last time I tuned into a Top 40s radio station, because I didn’t recognize any of the songs and frankly, didn’t enjoy what I was hearing…and to think, I used to make fun of Brian for being such a 80s flashback with his diehard passion for the Petshop Boys and his totally 80s haircut.
What is it about change that scares us into hanging on for dear life to the glory days of the past (even if means we completely rehaul that glory of the past)? Selective memory at work.
4/20/2006 10:30 PM
What is about going back down pop culture memory lane that makes our eyes light up, nod our heads, and laugh? I just saw an episode of “I Love the 90’s” and they showed clips of “Sex & the City”, Monica Lewinski, the Backstreet Boys, Swing (Brian Setzer Orchestra & Big Dad Voodoo Daddy), Teletubbies, Martha Stewart, Soccer Moms, Mark McGwire, Jerry Springer (“trailer trash circus”), and Natalie Umbruglia (what was she so torn about anyway?). I didn't even think that the 90's constituted as historical enough to be on a show called "I Love the 90's." It’s amazing how easily these things are forgotten, but how easily they come to mind. In this world of chaos and confusion, the familiarity of something gone by is almost warm and fuzzy.
Hearing all the great songs played on the show (emphasis on “great”) made me realize that we all get stuck in a decade of music and stop “moving on” with the times…and that I’ve definitely gotten stuck in the decade of the 90’s! I can’t think of the last time I tuned into a Top 40s radio station, because I didn’t recognize any of the songs and frankly, didn’t enjoy what I was hearing…and to think, I used to make fun of Brian for being such a 80s flashback with his diehard passion for the Petshop Boys and his totally 80s haircut.
What is it about change that scares us into hanging on for dear life to the glory days of the past (even if means we completely rehaul that glory of the past)? Selective memory at work.
The "PILOT" Blog - Mea Culpa
After years of hemming and hawing, I have ARRIVED in Blogland. For a girl who started out in the hey day of Silicon Valley, I am extrodinarily "behind on the times." In those days, I could carry on multiple IM chats, download scores of MP3's from Napster, could not part with my Palm Pilot (that's what they called the PDA in those days), and let the record show--I "BLOGGED" on the internet before the word even came into existence. Fast forward 10 years...I struggle to figure out my Blackberry PDA, I just recently made the switch from MySpace to Facebook (still cannot figure that thing out), my Ipod has an embarassing stock of less than 100 songs, and while I was telling a story about my years in private Buddhist school (yes, it does have the same effect as Catholic school) , a 6th grader asked with a completely straight face, "Um...what exactly is a Walkman?"
In the real world, I work in the private sector and spend most of my days solving fires in the IT and supply chain world for an OEM consumer goods manufacturer. But I have always wanted to be a writer, among other things: education administrator, business consultant, event planner (darn Gemini trait that puts me in danger of being diagnosed as schizo). I have a huge dusty box of childhood journals and typewritten stories in the garage to prove it. At some point, I stopped writing and when I had my mid-life crisis most recently, I realized that this was what was missing from my life--an ability to move and inspire others through my writing. Ok...truth be told, that was what the PR guys told me to say. Really, I am just in it for relieving stress, giggles, and grins.
When I had to think of a title for this blog, it reminded me of the question which was once posed to me, "If you wrote an autobiography, what would you call it?" Over the years, snazzy words have come to mind--the same ones that came to mind as I extensively researched (read: Googled "Cool words") for the title of this blog: Paradigm Shift, Oxymoron, Serendipity. I settled on "Mea Culpa" because:
1) it rolls off the tongue just so
2) it makes people think, "What does THAT mean?"
3) the meaning has some significance as it aligns to my personal philosophy and perspective on life. Mea Culpa means "my own fault" and the original form of it calls to mind confession at Catholic church. I generally believe that the problems we face in modern day society, including my own, is a culture that encourages a lack of accountability and little time for self-reflection on one's own actions and our impact on those around us. Mea Culpa is the daily self-reflection in all its blog-style glory of what we recognize as the fruits of our labor and the conscious choices we make that have a corresponding karmic effect. Mea Culpa is a reminder to all that we can hold truths to be self-evident and one of those important truths is that only we are accountable for our own actions. (Geez, I can already hear my husband's words echoing in the distance, "See, I KNEW you were Republican!" ...Stay tuned for my upcoming blog on being a fence-sitter & bipartisan politics...)
So welcome to my first attempt at delving back into the depths of my sub-conscious, striving to apply some meaning to this so-called life.
In the real world, I work in the private sector and spend most of my days solving fires in the IT and supply chain world for an OEM consumer goods manufacturer. But I have always wanted to be a writer, among other things: education administrator, business consultant, event planner (darn Gemini trait that puts me in danger of being diagnosed as schizo). I have a huge dusty box of childhood journals and typewritten stories in the garage to prove it. At some point, I stopped writing and when I had my mid-life crisis most recently, I realized that this was what was missing from my life--an ability to move and inspire others through my writing. Ok...truth be told, that was what the PR guys told me to say. Really, I am just in it for relieving stress, giggles, and grins.
When I had to think of a title for this blog, it reminded me of the question which was once posed to me, "If you wrote an autobiography, what would you call it?" Over the years, snazzy words have come to mind--the same ones that came to mind as I extensively researched (read: Googled "Cool words") for the title of this blog: Paradigm Shift, Oxymoron, Serendipity. I settled on "Mea Culpa" because:
1) it rolls off the tongue just so
2) it makes people think, "What does THAT mean?"
3) the meaning has some significance as it aligns to my personal philosophy and perspective on life. Mea Culpa means "my own fault" and the original form of it calls to mind confession at Catholic church. I generally believe that the problems we face in modern day society, including my own, is a culture that encourages a lack of accountability and little time for self-reflection on one's own actions and our impact on those around us. Mea Culpa is the daily self-reflection in all its blog-style glory of what we recognize as the fruits of our labor and the conscious choices we make that have a corresponding karmic effect. Mea Culpa is a reminder to all that we can hold truths to be self-evident and one of those important truths is that only we are accountable for our own actions. (Geez, I can already hear my husband's words echoing in the distance, "See, I KNEW you were Republican!" ...Stay tuned for my upcoming blog on being a fence-sitter & bipartisan politics...)
So welcome to my first attempt at delving back into the depths of my sub-conscious, striving to apply some meaning to this so-called life.
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