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. My MCO

I love you. Covid-19 Lockdown 

If not for the lockdown, I may not have started writing again. So it's only apt that I write about my MCO.

Picture by PineForest

First I must apologise to my reader/s for not having written for so long. I hope you didn't miss my writing too much.

It's just that I have been busy doing something even more important - Nothing. Or perhaps more accurately, trying to do nothing. Staying true to what I preach, I have in all earnesty been doing or trying to do nothing. 

My aim.

The talk I had going for everyone from the start was to do NOTHING during the lock down. 

My result?

In all honesty I think I managed about an hour of that in an average day. Hence a quote comes to mind;  "give meditation an hour and get 23 back."
The hour was invested in two sessions of meditation each day. These are my top thirteen results;

My learnings.

1. I don't need company. I'm comfortable enjoying my own company. 

Living alone truly allows me to get to know and understand myself a lot better. Something I have neglected doing all my life; getting to know myself truly, deeply, intimately. 

2. I think talk is totally unnecessary. Talk and chatter is just noise from the mind. 

Sitting in silence include silencing the mind. 

*Pico Iyer comes to mind here. In one podcast, he mentioned a practice for him & his Japanese wife living together for 26 years in Kyoto that; Everything is left unsaid. "The less I say to you, the more I respect you". 

Words are weapons, smokescreens. Words get in the way, taint, delude. Unnecessary. 

3. I prefer to be alone than with people unless they are people I choose to spend time with. And even if I do, it's only for a while. Then it's back to being alone again. 

4. I think work is mainly done in the mind wherever we are. Once we get our inside right, things will be alright. 

By tapping into pure intelligence unsullied by memory I explore endless possibilities. Deep reflections and focus on values and adding value, prevent unnecessary worry and work.

5. When it comes to nature, intervention is never a good idea. We merely plan and manage then step back and allow nature to work its blossom through you. Nature executes according to the cosmos.

*Sadhguru comes in here- if it's mangoes you want you must nurture the soil. 

As well as *Paulo Coelho- "How can we so arrogant? The planet is, was and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark the planet will simply erase us from it's surface."

6. If you want to get things done ask your friends. If they can't do it they will ask their friends.

Build relationships, be human, be inclusive. Everybody wants to help they just need someone who they can trust to help them help. And they get tremendous value in return.

7. I have green hands. I have become an amateur botanist. My balcony plants and herbs are thriving. Topped off by the very spectacular raising of the midnight flower aka harum sundal malam aka tuber rose aka Rajnigandha that bloomed throughout the weeks, releasing fragrant stardust on my balcony seductively wafting into my rooms.

8. I keep pretty good house. I cook decent pasta and make great sandwiches. My breakfast bowls and my midnite snacks are legendary. I dread cleaning up of any kind but I endured like a Nanjing call girl during the Japanese occupation.

9. I get to see that I am mad. And that the whole world is mad. Fortunately for the mco we are forced to stop doing whatever our minds have convinced us to do on a daily basis and realise hopefully that if we don't know ourselves deeply and truly, why are we doing what we are doing and to what end? 

If we are not spending our time doing things that truly matter to us then what are we doing?

 
"How long are we going to delay to be wise?" *AC Grayling's Good Book keeps me on even keel here.

10. I dance and do uppa yoga very diligently on my magic Pakistani carpet in my living room. No one is watching.

11. I found my voice in writing. I came to finally make sense of myself enough to define it in words. I wrote shitloads in my blog, my note pads on both my iPhones and Keep Notes on my Oppo. All sorts, thoughts, ramblings, rantings, poems and love notes of yearning. Some would make ppl blush, laugh and cry. 

12. I sit crying on my balcony every night. Tears of love and loss. Mostly tears of joy. I will never know what I will experience or have experienced each night on my balcony. It's simply because I have no memory of previous experiences but feelings of bliss. That's the beauty of being fully present in the moment. Time doesn't exist. The moment NOW is all there is. *Eckhart Tolle's books cut me up and laid me bare here.

On my balcony, I once again for countless nights embark on whatsoever my experiences and bliss I will encounter when I travel on my balcony. And what wondrous sights my night journeys take me. I know it's crazy but words cannot describe. Period. I also have to qualify that little or no weed was used during the mco.

13. I discovered a fine writer in Gurcharan Das* that it's not difficult to be good. Because I learnt from the Mahabharata that Dharma is subtle. The mind, ever sneaky and devious, wants answers, labels and solid conclusions. 

Dharma is a moving river. "Do a task not for the fruits but for the act of doing it to your best". #nishkama #karma

It's easy just pay attention to everything you're doing. Enjoy. #joy 

*The Difficulty of Being Good. This is a book I want with me on a desert island.

Honourable mentions (that didn't make it to the top 13)

A. I took a course in Ancient Philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their successors from Penn State University on Coursera. I learnt that human intelligence & enlightenment today hasn't progressed much from then 500-937BCE. In fact we've gone backwards. Can you imagine going back beyond 500BCE? Primitive isn't it? 

B. I read Greek mythology from delightful books Heroes & Mythos written by Stephen Fry. a fine example of writing to make sense of the complex in simple ways such that a 6 year, a 16 year old and a PhD student would enjoy. Now I am aware of how religions and belief systems evolve from the Greco-Roman era. 

Stephen Fry has got to be naturally the smartest person of our age.  At his behest I was compelled to read De Profundis by another literary giant...

C. Oscar Wilde. The man I oft quoted in my life was himself a man most misunderstood in his lifetime (1854-1900). 

A highly intelligent & enlightened writer, he was sentenced to 2 years of solitary confinement in Reading Goal for buggery. While in incarceration he wrote that painful but beautiful De Profundis. 

D. Rudyard Kipling blew me away with his depth of knowledge & imagination on display in Jungle Book. The most profound lines he wrote that moved me was when Mowgli was forced to leave the wolf pack. He says; "These two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring. The water comes out of my eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?" 

E. George Orwell, David Henry Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson taught me how to write. All of whom spent time in deep solitude. I think it's highly recommended because it helps us realise that we are mad. Every one of us. 

It's just at varying degrees. Mad nonetheless. And broken.

E. My online presence has been nurtured, honed and tempered further, the seeds for my blog, twitter (except Instagram) accounts have been sowed more than a decade ago. I chose twitter to pacify an angry world, Instagram to enhance it and my blog to document them. Now I shall enhance my life through my profiles, painting my story with words and the occasional photo. Of people, places and things that I experience in my life. We're just budding.

F. Just like the farm. It's my most favourite place in all the world right now. My ground team has performed admirably during the mco in keeping it thriving abundantly. I shall stop here. Because when I start I shall never end. The only downside is that I don't yet have my music set-up there.

G.The music that I have listened to in solitude almost every night transports me. Most recently to thoughts and questions as to the origins and history of music. I developed a yearning to find out what, why and how music can connect all of us. Then I found a quote by Victor Hugo: "Music is the sound of emotions", and I decided to follow that quote and enrolled in a course on Music History from Yale. I am halfway through.

H. I found true friends and old friends and new friends and cemented more relationships than ever before. I found that family is not about blood but in brothers from a different mother who grew up together who are always there for us. 

I. And finally, I have found my freedom. From myself. 

Healing but still wonderfully mad.

I'd like to end by saying that I have been very blessed by the MCO. The end of it is a timely topping-off to my exile, pilgrimage, journey of self-imposed solitude, and incarceration (a must needed one). 

I have emerged conscious after almost two years of living alone. Just as the nation is emerging once again from 83 days of staying at home order. 

It's the new normal, my new normal. I hope everyone embraces this new normal and not look for what's no longer there. 

Let's Move on. Let's #Live. #Love. #Life. #Conscious. 

Come join me? 

Who knows what the morrow will bring? 

Stay happy. Stay tuned. Literally.