Old Photograph

There is a song that I've been getting into recently written by Eric Bogle called "No Man's Land (Green Fields of France)." The story behind it is that a passerby at a World War I graveyard takes some time to rest next to the grave of a young soldier named Willie McBride. The passerby then wonders about Willie and how he died in combat and how he is remembered.

One of the more personal poignant stanzas of the song is the second verse. It is as follows:

"And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?"

I've always been touched by this part for some reason. It makes me wonder what sort of impact I have on people and how will I be remembered. Will there be people who actually remember who I am? Or am I some passing stranger that can easily be forgotten?

That thought is quite troubling at times, when you realize that you can be a non-entity to someone just as quickly as you can become something to someone. All sort of interpersonal relationships are nothing but air and thoughts. There's no tangibility or anything physically connecting you to anyone else. One day, something may change and it'll all be gone and nothing will have changed except in your mind, where the connection lived the entire time.

It's this that admittedly makes me tread the line as carefully as best I can in what I say or do, despite my best efforts to sabotage myself. But you can only do so much. Beyond that, it's up to the other people involved to dictate whether the bonds will hold and whether you'll be a memory or a photograph.

Mediocrity as Superiority

For most of your childhood life, you realize that sticking your head above the crowd puts a target on you. Life sucks if you show some modicum of brilliance or talent outside of athletics or playing shitty ass screamo music/Dave Matthews covers.

It doesn't improve much when you get out, despite those adults that try to sell you that malarkey to make you feel better 'cause some meathead in an Incubus t-shirt decided to clock you against a locker. What those adults sell you is not true. If you aren't the typical whatever fucking categories are out there, you might as well brace yourself for the whirlwind with a handle of whiskey and a bottle of pills, 'cause you're going to need it.

Being an average person has such a great appeal for me. With the exception of having athletic talent or the ability to churn out crappy records that 15 year old guys who stay out till 11 PM hanging out in front of the 7-11 wearing tight jeans will buy, the large majority of people don't have pertinent talents. And having that talent that seven people will care about in your immediate area -- is that worth the scars of a rough life as a rogue wandering from place to place never fitting in? It's a question that I've wrestled with often, and the answer is often times no.

There is nothing I would give more than to live normally like everyone else. I hate having to scuffle through some of the crap I have to do to try to somehow acquire skills that should've already been there or that I should've learned 10 years prior. Sure, I have some "gift" or whatever, but who the hell is really going to care other than people who have gifts that other people don't care about either? And if that's the case, then why should I have to deal with other baggage that comes with it?

Selective Memory

It's weird how memory works. For example, I can forget that I have to do my accounting homework or I already purchased a macroeconomics textbook -- both things I should be remembering. But the things I should forget don't seem to leave my memory.

Which is really damn irritating. It's hard to function in society as a competent human being when you can't stop thinking about inane ass garbage going through every other thought. When you realize that you spent the entirety of your accounting lecture thinking about random stupid things instead of taking notes on what makes a liability, it's probably high time that you start forgetting those random things (or to drop the accounting class).

I mean, I've tried to forget. I've tried to forget and numb myself (something that this guy can vouch for). But it's only a temporary reprieve before the mental naysayers and demons start creeping back in and whisper in your mind. And that just leads to another temporary reprieve.

It'd be great to actually just snap your fingers and just erase a few things from your memory. Of course, that could be easily abused. But it'd be nice, just this once.

And You Just Remember...

"And you just remember that your old man walked Ben Wade to that station when nobody else would." -- Dan Evans, 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Failure in the end might happen, but if you gave it your all, then there's nothing you should worry about.

Please Stop Now

There are some people who just refuse to give up. Kansas City Royals fans, for one. They somehow persist in believing in the impossible will happen.

And then we have Gavin Menzies. A while back, he wrote 1421: The Year China Discovered America. While it was a nice idea, it is nevertheless a tenuous idea at worst with many holes and historical questions that could be raised. There was even a television special where he showcased his ideas and had those very ideas challenged at the end of the program.

Now we have Mr. Menzies talking how in 1434 the Chinese rolled up to Venice and "sparked the Renaissance" in Europe. The first book was nice and made people think for a bit and it also allowed us to play fantasy for a bit. But now? Now it's pushing it. Ridiculously hard. To have someone call your work "historical fiction" isn't exactly an endearing term in the field of history.

But this is the challenge of history. You don't have to have a "license" to practice it for the most part and you can't have your license revoked for being a loudmouthed dumbass. Anyone who can convince a publisher to put out their nonsense can get their half-baked ideas out there into the public where sometimes less than rigorous standards are applied. With the internet, the possibility for people to either make outlandish claims or manipulate history for their own personal agendas is much easier.

Chips in the Pot

The film Rounders is about more than just cards. There's a lot to be learned from that movie other than interesting slang terms about bottom dealing jackasses. One of the morals I took out of the film is that you shouldn't bind yourself to something just because someone else says you should do it.

One of the lines in the film uttered by the main character is "You can't lose what you put in the middle...but you can't win much either." It's an interesting concept when put in the framework of life in general. Emotional investment in life is like the ridiculous raise you make when you're drawing for the straight and the flush on the river: you stand to win or lose big.

It's one of the questions I have about life: Is it worth it to make that big bet only to see that your draw didn't pan out or to sit around and let the blinds whittle you down to the felt?

Losing bites, no doubt. But winning is equally as enjoying. And it really comes down to whether or not you want to accept the fact that you'll lose. A lot of the time I ask myself that question, knowing that losing is painful. And you know what? The answer is yes a good number of the time.

Yes, the losing is going to bite hard. Yes, I might disappear for a day or so to "get things straightened out." But it's the allure of finally hitting that outside draw on the river that makes it all worth it. (Note: this is not how I play cards.) If I lose big, at least I'm comforted by a life lesson and the fact that I'm sitting pretty on a large repository of chips.

Sometimes I do wonder if I should just remain uninvolved. It's a real temptation. I'd rather as much just not feel a damn thing in my life. At times in my life, I fantasize about just being a complete robot and avoid the trouble of emotions. It would save me the experience of negative feelings. But I'd never get to feel the joy of finally pulling it off and winning. And if you're going to just sit at the table and not take a risk, you'd be better off putting your money in a savings account in your local bank. Life isn't about watching other people live lives; it's about going out there and doing it for yourself.

While the trials and tribulations of life are sometimes more than a person can handle, it's part of being alive and human. Sure, you'd be able to sit at the table for a long time just getting blinded into oblivion, but is it really all that fun?

Can't Find My Way Home

I wonder what would happen if I just gave up some of my vices? Is there anything to return to at all? Or have they just become such a part of me that taking them away will basically leave me with nothing? Really scary thought.

Truth, Bias, and the American Way

As some of you folks out there may well know, justice is never blind to anything. But sometimes, perhaps it should be wearing the blindfold just a little more often.

There is a brouhaha in the Justice Department regarding hiring practices. Much of it started earlier this month when various suits were filed by rejected applicants who suspect that they were not hired due to their past work with Democrats or fields such as environmental or social justice.

This is an issue which clearly does not fall under the umbrella of "borderline radical." The Justice Department was attempting to enforce a partisan hiring practice instead of a meritocratic one and made certain lifestyles preferential (i.e. conservative Christian). The government has no right to do this.

What irks me even more is the potential for the government to get away with these shenanigans. Does this mean I have to shift my leanings to conform with the current regime in place? Or even the fellow reviewing my resumes? Do I have to worry about whether or not some sort of deep seated unfounded belief about certain agencies may affect my hiring? These things should not play a part in government or any sort of hiring practices.

I Bother Because...?

So for those of you expecting a witty commentary on news...check back in a few. I might feel compelled to discuss something of global note.

(You might want to direct your elementary schooler away from this. Just saying.)

I'm writing this as the mixture of espresso and Bailey's is eating away at my stomach lining, a sort of physical manifestation of my mental state.

Or perhaps not. A sense of pain as a result of a decay would indicate some sort of heed being paid. But in reality, instead of being an agony, it's just a sense of general apathy. It still bothers me, but I'm not going to remedy it. I could go get something to eat to provide some sort of barrier between that devil liquid, but on the other hand I could just adopt a "wait-and-accept" attitude.

There a lot of things that are less than amusing about where I'm taking myself. I'm staring at a career path which is necessary yet less than glamorous, I can barely maintain a semi-meaningful conversation with most of the human populous, and I spend a large portion of my public social interactions in a state resembling a partial panic attack. Hell, sometimes I'm too fucking lazy to maintain my vices. Now how wrong is that? You ever hear an alcoholic just say, "Eh...fuck it. I don't feel like making the effort to score a bottle of cheap scotch. I'll just ride it out with some fruit juice."?

I suppose the apathy has some sort of benefit, such as getting rid of those aforementioned vices that are so damned hard to maintain (cigarette smokers make that shit look real easy -- trust me, maintaining a vice is hard fucking work). But when I'm trying to make sure I don't sound like an ass when chatting up a pretty girl or finding a way to not slam back a scotch before a social encounter it's not helpful.

I don't know if it's that I'm just lazy or if I'm just tired of it all. It's probably a combination of both. I've gotten tired of "improving" and seeing it not work, and so I just give up with the (perhaps) misguided notion that anything that I try to do to better myself is solely to make myself sleep easier and without the help of a double shot of rum on the rocks.

It's an ongoing battle to keep myself motivated a lot of the time to keep trying. "It's a learning experience," a lot of people say to me. Heck, I tell myself that. But dammit, I'm tired of fucking learning. When's the lesson over? And why is my lesson taking so damn long? Great, I just moved forward a couple of feet in a mile long journey while the rest of the travelers can spit a watermelon seed across the finish line. Why should I even bother?

But then, after I calm myself and bring down the overdrive, I realize that I'd rather be a couple of feet on my way than only one foot. Or maybe I just don't care enough to try to finish the mile long journey.

"Nah, you'll do fine in battle with this plastic butter knife and a couple of blow darts."

In an effort to possibly pander to the lumbering dictatorial and economic juggernaut known as the PRC, the US has decided to freeze the sale of weapons to the ROC.

Now I do understand that the US has a presence in the Taiwan Strait. But there is no real obligation for the US to be there. Looking at how things are going in certain parts of the world, the US isn't always going to be there. So if the US is really committed to defending the ROC, it should continue sales.

Unfortunately, the US has to utilize China to take care of problems that the US on its own cannot (or perhaps will not) solve. This was the same motivation that drove recognition during the later stages of the Vietnam War under Nixon.

It is unclear how long the US can dilly-dally on this issue. Even though cross-strait relations are improving, it is a matter of time when the saber-rattling gets more serious.