The Third 12-Year Cycle.

 Happy Birthday Jon.

ThanksFIFA

What a year it has been son. Compared to our annual discourses on the status of the world and the human condition over the years. 

2026 is the year of the fire horse- your Chinese horoscope was the metal horse. which makes you 36 this year while Zoran Mamdani make 35. I'm sure you're aware of Zoran, who is of your ilk, won the hearts of New Yorkers, was elected mayor of the cultural center of the free world last year, he took office January this year. It was an exhilarating change of political personalities for mayor in long beleaguered New York City when Mamdani and his crew swept over the city with creative, innovative even outlandish notions of promoting, governing and sustaining a city of 8.5 million people, the largest in the US. New York has twice the population of LA, the second largest city in the US. 

NYC is significant in this year's birthday post because, apart from the fact that your siblings are living and working there, the 2026 FIFA World Cup was co-hosted by Canada, US and Mexico amidst an ongoing war in Iran. The finals between Argentina and Spain was played in NY's New Jersey's Met Life Stadium accommodating over 80,000 spectators on July 21 where finally, in a controversy stained world cup, football won instead of politics and racism, when Spain beat an all-white, racist Argentinian team who put on an utterly disappointing performance as defending champions. Argentina had 0 shots at goal, Spain had 11 and scored one at extra time to lift the World Cup.

In addition Argentina showed their ugly side during and right after the match resorting to assaulting Spanish players who were celebrating their victory. This behaviour was evident to billions of global spectators via telecast during and after the finals. Somehow I could picture you there son. Being the football fanatic that you are and the lover of life and all things nice, you'd have probably made the world your playground and your workshop, with no one really knowing where you were physically on any given day. Pretty much like how you're existing now. An international man of mystery, a hero with a thousand faces. Like I said; Pretty much like how you exist now.

Continuing our conversation from last July/August. If you recall I said three things; 1. that the people of the world is currently at it's most peaceful, comfortable and technologically innovative. 2. But things could get worse or 3. it could get really bad. 

Guess what Jon?

It has gotten really bad and it could get worse. 

It was only in 2024, right smack on your day, the 26th of July that the Paris 2024 Olympics was held to great fanfare and style, and things were just 'coming up roses' but fast forward 2 years, 2026 is a disaster waiting to get worse. 

War broke out on 28 Feb, when the US and Israel decided to bomb Iran. It was a botched war hastily  planned after the US successfully invaded a defenceless Venezuela for its oil and kidnapped President Maduro & his wife in the process. Drunk from the arrogance of this swift victory, they thought invading Iran and demanding regime change would be as quick and easy, but it wasn't and now the US is in a quagmire on day 163 of the war and counting. The world is tethering on a precipice between world war 3 and the control of the Strait of Hormuz. As I see it the US/Israel have lost the self-inflicted war on Iran and is trying to make a clumsy exit by shooting whatever's left of their diminished missiles stockpile. Imagine an old drunk, badly beaten-up blond cowboy, being kicked out of a saloon while shooting his guns to empty. The entire saloon watches and laughs. I feel sorry for Donald Trump but I am also grateful to him for the fact that he showed me and those who care to see, many truths about geo-politics, the culture and the true nature of the leaders of the nations implicated in this conflict.

 

First China; thanks to Trump and his tariffs and sanctions, China found new resolve to overcome those limitations through sheer will and hard work, called Accelerationism. Fast tracking progress with hard work at scale made the Chinese stronger morally, intellectually and technologically bringing China close to, if not on par with the US and even surpassing the yanks is EV and battery tech. 

Admittedly it is rather inspiring to be witness to such achievements in real time as a Chinese. Especially when China's AI and chip technologies leap frogged the US in record time and at a fraction of the cost. 

Second the Iranians. a civilizational race like the Ethiopians, Chinese and Hindus. embraced a single continuous language, Parsi and Zoroastrianism, their religion as Persians. Today they are devoted Shia Islam believers as a direct lineage to the Prophet via his son-in-law Imam Ali right down to the ayatollahs who head the theocracy today. These people have demonstrated the sheer power of unshakable faith in their religion applying humane practice of protecting the weak and downtrodden. Iran has been almost a solitary voice and supporter of the Palestinians' struggle as well as other marginalised nations in the middle east namely; Lebanon- Hezbollah : Iran's closest and most capable partner of Shia faith and militia since 1980s. Yemen -Houthis (Ansar Allah), Iraq - Shia militias, and Palestinian Hamas in Gaza (Sunni) despite sectarian differences. This is too much information I know but such has my admiration grown for a people outside of my race and region. 

Not enough is said about the magnanimity and sanity of the Iranian/Persian people. They are a clear example of how civilisational adults or 'grown-ups' responsibly behave in a world gone mad. The Iranians have not made any foreign invasion since 1856. However they have been building their defences against outside invasion for decades retaliating only when attacked and when they are forced to defend themselves using missiles and drones, they first issue warnings to their targets to beware and to evacuate civilians from their target zones, which are mostly military installations and not human habitats. In contrast, American & Israeli missiles attacks have killed hundreds of children, teachers and staff in schools and hospitals in Iran. This here is really what did it for me. Their deep humanity and love for life. The world can now see who the godless and the god fearing are. 

On the personal and family front, it has been a year of reckoning from the start. On January 14, your Pek Kong, my big brother Johnny passed away peacefully at home, he was 79. Although he had been frail and unwell, the news came as a shock to all of us as he was our indestructible big brother, uncle, father and clown at times. I especially took it hard as he has been my older brother for as long as I can remember through thick and thin. I wrote him a farewell essay exactly a week after his funeral > The Secret of Life...

It was also at Johnny's wake and funeral that I got to see and experience the 'gifts' my brother bestow us. 

I finally got to see and talk to your brother and my ex-wife, after seven years. It was akin to a man wandering the desert and finally seeing an oasis after seven years of mirages. 

How was it. You ask? It felt like Odysseus reuniting with Telemachus and Penelope briefly only to realise that he'd lost them entirely. The subsequent supper meeting with Zane at Ali Maju late one night sort of confirmed it and suggested it could be a last one. 

Precisely at that point it dawned on me that 'the road home' is still long and yet uncertain (cue Odysseus). Perhaps the most obvious fact is that forgiveness has yet to be considered the final act of self preservation to quell the anger that only serves to hurt the ones holding on to it. I can understand forgiveness as a path toward freedom. I cannot demand that anyone else walk it.

Odysseus spent 10 years fighting the Trojan war and another 10 finding his way home. Homer had a cruel sense of humour when he plunged Odysseus into all manner of trials and tribulations for 10 more years before he allowed him to be re-united with his wife & son. Perhaps this is the reason why the Odyssey is arguably one of the popular and most told stories in the ancient and modern world. Everyone is on a personal quest, or a journey to go home. Wherever 'home' is. 

In other words, I see it as a search for meaning. The pursuit of happiness is trumped by the pursuit of meaning. What is happiness if life is meaningless? I also wrote a piece on this here > Odyssey

Yes Jon, of course it's easier to say all these things when I am not the victim but the perpetrator of the misdeed in the first place. I am not trying to gloss things over or make light of what was done, but from the very onset, I have been trying to make sense of this life to 'truly live' or to allow life to live through me so that I can get to understand what and how this life works, in making decisions, making mistakes and making amends. I had briefly regained physical contact, only to realise I might have lost the possibility of a family relationship. Perhaps I'm talking about a relationship surviving separation.

Many have been hurt by my actions but take consolation in the fact that people who suffer most are those who commit wrongful deeds and are condemned to live in shame and remorse for the rest of their days. That is for sure... until we each find meaning and purpose for this life. 

Memories beyond the open window- PineForestAI

However, strange as it may seem, I have subconsciously worked or willed myself into this stage of my life. A life of solitude. A pilgrimage as a passage in one's life to uncover who I really am. The more I stay the course and walk the middle path, the more I find some justification and reckoning for my existence in a world of impermanence. No matter how courageous or hideous our deeds, they were only dependant on conditions arising and then passing away. What we do or don't do exists in the gaps in between.

Good or bad, cruel or kind, family is what we return to in this big, beautiful and ephemeral world. Finding the way home may mean to an earthly family or a cosmic one. 

Home is where we're all heading, while on the way, let's find a way enjoy the journey while it lasts, together or otherwise. I find liberation and comfort dwelling in the fact that; death can end a life but not a relationship. 

Just like the one I have with you. 

At the end, it all fades away (to white or black) quite like the Tornatore classic; Cinema Paradiso, shot to Morricone's original soundtrack. Point is; Life is all too short. Really short. And even; no matter how bad or wonderful the situation we're facing right now, it will pass.

So on your birthday and this post on your departure day, farewell son. 

See you again soon.

Mid-Year Stock Take - Letter to Jon at 35

Mushroom cloud over Nagasaki 9 Aug.1945

 

Dear Jon,

Here we are, just breaching the second half of the 25th year of the 21st century. Also breaching the 35th year of your birth to your departure on August 9th. 

Admittedly, I have discovered more things about today as time progresses. It's perhaps of our fixation on birthdays that we overlook departure days. It has taken me nineteen years to realise more facts about August 9;

Apart from being Singapore's national day, and that it's exactly two weeks or 15 days after your birthday, 

it was also the devastation of Nagasaki when the US dropped a second nuclear bomb to unofficially and brutally end the war.

 It’s been a year since I last shared endings and beginnings with you. It was the beginning of the 2024 Paris Olympics ending around your departure date leaving the world relatively safe and peaceful. 

Fast forward one year, this post is a sort of report card of where the human race is at. 

1. The human race has never been so comfortable, peaceful and empowered in their daily lives. 

2. Things could get worse. 

3. Things could get really bad. 

We live in a material world. We do all that matters in search of better lives chasing dreams in a society that has provided the best in healthcare, food, living conveniences, economic and technological advances are unprecedented yet we’re on the verge of self- destruction. 

There is a serious trust deficit growing amongst us since the end of the cold war. From relationships to families, communities and nations. Most people in the civilised world are living ultra comfortable lives yet not happier but more anxious desiring more of everything material that we think will make us happier. Be it entertainment, food, sex, possessions or anything that provides distractions from ourselves. 

The endless scrolling of screens be it the mobile devices as an extension of our hands or the large screens as extensions of our living rooms, searching for news and useless information so we can feel-better. That’s not what happiness looks like.

As if not serious enough, we are heralding the dawn of Ai, arguably mankind's greatest technological achievement, coming into the mix. Although the possibilities are positively game changing, the dangers of misuse by bad actors using Ai to plot world domination, loom ominous. 

Not withstanding Ai, the madness is already upon us. Israel is carrying out a systemic genocide on the Palestinians since October 2023. As if mad with bloodlust they have started wars with Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen with the aid of their lackey the US and no end in sight.. 

It is a slow and painful genocide in Palestine. The Israelis are deliberately starving women & children and mindless wars are being waged in the Middle East that could escalate into another nuclear third world war. 

One would think that after Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy & the Japanese defeat in the Second World War would have taught us the futility of war but apparently not. It has been exactly 80 years since the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked by the US ending the war but more wars are being waged around the world today instigated or led by the US. 

Isn’t it ironic, that the liberators of the free world from the horrors of the Second World War has been the sole peddler of wars ever since? It seems that the most powerful nation on earth is hell bent on destroying it. America has been entrusted to lead and police the world and they have done so with impunity. The age old adage still rings true; 'Who is going to police the police?'

These realities come to light when Donald Trump won a second term in the White House. A convicted felon managed to win a landslide victory beating the democrats whose last term was disastrous even irresponsible. Democrats or Republicans, America's politics have, from the onset, been divisive- "Either you're on my side or you're against me." This is nothing new as Americans have subscribed even invented this form of 'game theory' for decades against it's own people as well as the rest of the world. The world's largest human lab has in turn, turned the world into it's own human lab- bringing it's own ideology of governance or justice to all, inflicting chaos and destruction everywhere they choose. The only diplomacy they know is through force or coercion. Donald Trump is no different from his predecessors. 

"When all you have is a hammer, every challenge you face becomes a nail to be hammered out."

The only difference is that Trump is not a career politician but a 'businessman' and hopefully he can begin to see that business can only be done with mutual transfer of value benefitting both sides leading to a multi-lateral world, not one of domination by a facist regime. In fact, America is known to be a plutocracy (ruled by the rich 1%) or even kleptocracy (ruled by thieves) and the only reason they can be that is that they wield the biggest hammer. 

However, with the inevitable rise of China after a century of humiliation, there is a new world leader in the making. Compared to four thousand years of civilisation, it took only a century of humiliation to put order to the chaos largely brought upon themselves, tranquilised by the comforts of the spoils of internal warfare and imperial rule handed down through the dynasties. Starting with the end of the Qing Dynasty, China bade farewell to it's last emperor Puyi and the Chinese Communist Party won complete victory in the Chinese Civil War and the People's Republic of China was founded in August 1950. 

So in a sort of a roundabout way, I have briefly but more importantly recounted the journey and establishment of a world power worthy and capable of standing up to the US in the delicate balance of power as to who holds the bigger hammer, be it in military strength or Ai advancement to rule the world. 

I often wonder what we wouldn't talk about son.

Happy 35th Birthday Jon.

I love you. Departures.

 Flight.

There are those whose wings

Learn to catch the winds

Before the rest of us.

Their world opens, vast

They soar, so fast.

(Too fast?)

And are gone, free forever.

We say "See you there"

(with a hint of despair)

For alone, we know not how.

We yearn to take flight

But we know, to earn the right

Would be to leap without fear.

Now is not our time.

For that glory so sublime

A thousand miles 

and years remain.

Let us think of the skies

And with hope in our eyes

Slowly, surely, learn to fly.

    Fifteen years have flown by, since your departure from this world. Still not a day goes by   that you are not with us. What joy you bring in your presence and in your absence.                   

             For it is in knowing and having you in our lives that make this life a lot more worthwhile and more worth living. So; Here's to living and dying and dying and living. 

            After all; Departures are Arrivals as Endings are Beginnings. See you there. Son.

 

 

 

The 7th Day

The 6th day dragged into the 7th day as I watched papa go down fighting at the emergency room of KLGH. My papa was a fighter all his life. Strangely for me, as last night turned to today, I saw a virtue of my father that had always been there if not for the cloud of his selfishness that prevented me from fully appreciating it. The virtue of never giving up.
Nope Gan Peng Chew was no quitter for as long as I can remember. My first encounter of his tenacity was at 7, when he literally jammed the brakes of his Simca right in the middle of a country road, in the dead of the night, to wrestle an armadillo. He won. We had armadillo stew the next day. My father taught me more about life than I will ever realize or even care to admit, but he did.
I am really proud of this man, proud he had me for a son and I will miss him very much. I love you Papa.