And as I listen to "Knock a little harder" by Yoko Kanno, my mind’s transported back to my college days at Midland, MI. It’s been 3 years since I’ve last set foot here and all seems to be the same — from sleeping with my airbed to the same beige / natural colored motif of the apartments and houses; from the same fastfood chains, retail stores and brands that spot the entire continental US helping forge and create for it the monolithic culture that’s classic "Americana" to the same sound of the V8s and muscle cars that have set my guts in envious roar.

Yes, I’m back in America.

Just as my three memorable trips, through most of the states in the east coast with my
buddy Cooper and Marc in an 8 day, USD 500 per person, sleep-by-the-rest-area roadtrip
on the summer of 2003 from Michigan to Florida to New York then back
again to Michigan; from Michigan down to Arizona on
February of 2004, passing through most of the Midwest, touching New
Mexico and Texas in migration for a supposedly settled life; and lastly
my recent one, my 3 day drive from Arizona to the state of Washington, delayed by a major I-10 accident by a pick up truck losing control due to the wind, only to explode after causing a 4-hour traffic deadlock witnessed by angry drivers, I feel like my 2000 mile trek was but a beginning as I embark on a longer ride with Destiny.

Yes, I can once again feel that visceral hum beyond the automobiles I’ve driven in those long journeys — that of the fear and apprehension of the future. It’s like somehow half-expecting icy roads where I’ll be in danger of losing control to mountainous climbs when I can literally feel my engine gasping for oxygen as it slowly dies or going through the vast expanse of desert at night with but a few lights glimmering in the abyss or suddenly finding myself in a near-zero visibility hail / fog / snow / rain all of a sudden, its just one crazy ride.

However, amidst all the insanities on the road, there’s nothing like reaching your goal at the end. To the legendary explorers Lewis and Clark it was the sweet smell of the Pacific; for me, this would be like my sweet sigh of relief after finding exit 154B at Southcenter Blvd in Seattle, WA — that of rearing a family successfully to leave a legacy.

I won’t be arriving to that destination anytime soon (Kaiser’s still in the tummy, but I’ve got all the curious plans laid out in my mind for him), but I’m hoping when I’m damn 60 and have had made an influence in the progress of mankind, I’d be able to smile and hand my son the reins to his generation’s future and watch my wife beam with pride.

Now, that’s some legacy.

The Sunday showing only had two movies lined up — Hotel Hibiscus and Inoichi.
Hotel Hibiscus was a very light-hearted comedy fiction about a family’s life in
suburban

Okinawa

, settled close to an American
military installment. The main character, Meiko, was an annoying little girl
with a tactless mouth, high spirits and childish charm. The entire movie
basically took snapshots of her family’s mundane life in a different light,
painting into it a light colored palette onto their otherwise everyday
drudgery.

The other movie, Inoichi, was a rather dark film bordering around tragedy and
hope and tackling the existential question, "what’s my reason for
living?" The main character’s Miri, a writer and single mother, and her
ex-boyfriend, Hiroishi, a film director that was diagnosed with cancer.

The first film was quite good, but the 2nd film, Inoichi, was striking – Ariel
Llanto, a good friend of mine, passed away because of cancer. Inoichi basically
centered on the lives of two people struggling to justify their existence, the
main tension in the tale wasn’t about death but life.

In one scene Miri’s mother visited her and, when Miri broke
the news of her pregnancy and how she’ll deal with being a single mother,
Miri’s mother rejoiced. She was yelling "Banzai, banzai! (hooray,
hooray!)," for Miri finally found a reason to live; after all, she added, mothers
always live.

On another scene, when Miri’s sister was able to snag the signature of the
father for some documents, she angrily gave the documents to Miri, asking her
"why do you want to bring more unhappy people into the world?"

What dark glasses the writer must’ve worn to see the world.

However, as the story progressed, Miri’s child was finally born and both
characters’ lives significantly changed. Hiroishi found his meaning as a father
and hopelessly attempted to look for a cure for his cancer; Miri, on the other
hand, became lighter and happier and took care of Hiroishi with vigor.

In the end, their efforts weren’t at all futile – Hiroishi was
able to meet Miri’s newborn son, even claiming to be the first “stranger” to
have met the baby even before its own mother – and Miri found her answers at
the expense of her tragic journey. At the end of the flick, when Hiroishi
passed away, Miri told herself that, “…A woman never dies when she has a child."

Also of note in the film was Miri’s mother’s quote that, “A
husband and a wife living under one roof are still strangers until a child is
born to them. It is that child that shall bond their lives into one."

I may have lapsed on some things, notably the name and the quotes (yes, these
are but approximations on what the characters said; I can’t memorize everything
verbatim), but that’s pretty much the essence of what they were talking about. Overall,
both movies were quite moving and definitely worth my 2 hours.

I’m currently in a text-discussion with Ardelle on the sociological evolution of faith, religion and what the next big step could be. I contend that all the great Axial Age philosophies / religions (Zoroaster, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Jeremiah and the Greek rationalists like Socrates and Plato) were born out of the need of society to change its belief system to accommodate a burgeoning society.

These societies that created philosophies / religions were first developed in areas where there were surplus food (usually agricultural areas) that allowed the population to pursue other interests, some economical like trade, services and production, whilst others completely cultural like the arts. It was during this era when their pre-modern belief system came from an obsolete system of thought that chaos eventually ensued. After all, nations hostile in trade won’t be friendly in arms for long, causing tremendous tension in society, oftentimes breaking out in open fighting.

It was during this chaos that the Axial thinkers came forth to offer their solutions, which was often egalitarian (in an attempt to equalize unencumbered capitalism amongst the people) and highly spiritual.

Fast forward to the future and there’s a different system brewing. Communism had been proven ineffective (War communism actually, since the soviets failed to invest in more productive technologies, preferring military technology when their economy is but a fraction of the economic bloc controlled by the USA, a dangerous move that caused it to eventually implode due to economical malaise) and the ancient system of Capitalism still remains. The Axial sages’ dream to change the world to equalize and imbue it with justice never came around. As one Prince or Duke once commented about Confucius to one of the Master’s students: "I admire your master, though he knows the world cannot change he still tries to do so."

But therein lies the problem — how can a society, egalitarian to its core, be one that is geared for absolute progression? I don’t need to look into a communist system to see how a heaving bureaucracy work, I just need to look at a Capitalist system’s bureaucracy — the people working in it DOESN’T WANT TO CHANGE BECAUSE THEY’RE SO DAMN USED TO IT AND THEY’RE THRIVING WITHIN THE SYSTEM. It’s not really surprising that in an egalitarian society, the friction with which new, progressive items / systems bring go for naught as the Guards of the Old System wouldn’t want to change.

On top of which, all economic systems are subject to some sort of economic war or another; as such, political and, eventually, military war then isn’t too far off. By far, the most effective mode of survival is to gear a system up for progress (thus, be free economically) but at the expense of inequality; or a system can gear itself up for egalitarianism somehow at the expense of faster progress. Then there’s geographical, technological, cultural, political, etc. wildcards to take into account on survival.

Okay, I’m sleepy now and I know I’ve got a lot of holes in my arguments but I’ll edit this again…soon. haha.

*** Thus it becomes a question of whether a society should

It is not of another’s decision that Lady Fortune shouldn’t be with us but it is of the higher deity’s conspiracies and our own acts that she shall find us eligible.

I’ve been playing with video games since I was a kid (I’m part of the Family Computer generation). When I was younger, I used to play games that demanded optimum skills in finger dexterity and optical analysis. Now that I’m older, I’ve mellowed out so I don’t invest time trying to master Fighting game (Tekken) combos, First Person Shooter (like Quake) accuracy and Real-time strategy game Starcraft / Warcraft multi-tasking abilities. Instead, I’ve strategically chosen to go for games with more strategy and have a ‘PAUSE’ command so I can catch up with the pacing.

That’s why I’ve been enamored with Capitalism II and the Creative Assembly’s “Total War” franchise. Capitalism II (CII) is a business simulator that challenges players with goals (like dominating a certain industry, i.e. computers, or achieving a financial objective) in an economic environment. The current Total War franchise I’m playing is Rome: Total War (RTW), a game about the rise of Rome and her other competitors for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa and Asia Minor. RTW is filled with colorful factions from the Carthagians, Parthians, Macedonians, etc. that you can control to build an Empire.

Though both games may sound worlds apart, they actually are similar in terms of the skills you’ll develop along the way. Here’s what I’ve learned that I can apply in real life:

1.    Focus – You can never spread yourself out lest you develop problems. In CII, it may mean more debt and (gasp!) a negative operating profit as you over-expand. In RTW, it could mean that your armies get divided and isolated, making them easy pickings for a rival!
2.    Experience – As the leader, you have to have experience in handling contingencies, and the best way to do so is to voraciously learn whatever you can, even when you fail. This may necessitate the need to swallow your pride and lose territories just to experience a harsh lesson. It’s also important to obtain “2nd hand” experience through people, books, forums or other nexus of knowledge.
3.    Organize – As your empire starts to form, organizational skills are a must to make the whole machinery work wonders. In RTW, this mean concentrating certain cities to produce better soldiers whilst other cities are geared for economic performance; in CII, you’ll have to develop a system (or formula) to thrive and grow amidst competition.
4.    Manage – Don’t rely on god (or the computer) to do the moves for you! Check what needs to be checked all the time so you can adapt your plans then execute to achieve your goals. Experience and network come to play here. You cannot manage what you don’t know.
5.    Profit – You can’t survive in business or in warfare when you can’t even make a decent dime. Manage yourself well and think how to make more value in what you’ve got. This means you’ll have to invest on the right things, like in RTW it may be a port, market or farm. In CII it means you’ll have to focus on your competitive advantages so you can capture markets without resorting to the detestable practice of price warfare.
6.    Time your moves right – Pre-empting your opponent to have vantage point is what this skill amounts to. Experience, organizational and management ability is a must here so you can somehow predict what MAY occur. A misplaced army in RTW may cause you a lost territory since it takes turns to reach a point; a late product launching in CII may cause you problems in penetrating a market.
7.    Network – As Lao Tzu said, “The people are the eyes and the ears of the wise.”1 In RTW, you’ll have to build up your spy and diplomatic (alliances) network to know what’s going on. You act only on what you know, so having an extensive nervous system will make you react better.
8.    Invest in people – Lets face it, the only way for organizations to grow is through people. The less competent people you have, the less productive and less efficient your system is. Much like in the real world, the competition for talent is cut-throat – you can’t have enough good people! Remember, the initial “investments” involved may be visceral, but eventually all will pay for itself. And the cogs of your empire will run more smoothly. Your organization is as weak as its weakest link!
9.    Be patient – Even in the game, my Rome wasn’t built in a day (yes, even how much I tried playing for more than 16 hours). Empires ebb and flow so just go with the tides and act accordingly. Remember the trilemma of management – fast, good or cheap; choose two, you can’t have three. Choose fast and good and it’s not cheap; choose fast and cheap, it’s not good.
10.    Survive, thrive then conquer – For you to strike at your opponent, you must have a stable base from which you can coordinate your attacks. In RTW, it means a stable province relatively safe from enemy incursions; in CII it means a stable market with which you dominate in. From thereon, you expand to greater heights, but slowly.

As the great Uesugi Kenshin once said, “I never knew about winning from beginning to end, but only about not being behind in a situation.”2 I’ve learned that I can never predict the future, only control a certain environment to survive and thrive in. Even in RTW have different outcome every time – The Macedonians may just get wiped out or the Gauls might decide I’m a far easier prey.

I think there’s a certain pattern to everything, even in the dialectic of history, and it’s up to us to use that pattern as a vantage point from which we’ll progress. Timing, ones skills and abilities, and sheer luck plays a big role. As Polybius said, “In war we must always leave room for strokes of fortune, and accidents that cannot be foreseen.” And, indeed, these petty little happenstances do add up to make the magic of living.

Now, shall we start our own Real-World Empire?

1 I’ll be honest; I can’t remember who said this. I’m thinking it may be Confucius’ saying in the Analects. Or Lao Tzu at Tao Te Ching. Or some other philosopher. Help is gladly appreciated.
2 http://users.tkk.fi/~renko/hag2.html

I came across that saying early one morning when playing The Creative Assembly’s Rome: Total War®, and immediately, the connection to the saying was simply too striking on the supposed “misinformation” (or ignorance) propagated by the US Government upon the world.

In war, truth is the first casualty. - Aeschylus 1

In time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies. - Winston Churchill 2

And a bodyguard isn’t enough. Try the entire government machinery.

In Iraq, after the nationalization of most oil companies, the West, which was regarded as hostile by Saddam Hussein, decided to hand out contracts to France, Russia, China and elsewhere. Now that Saddam was kicked out by the GIs, a new “Constitution” was written (Oohh, guess who?) that accommodated “foreign capital” much more easily. And guess which foreign capital’s going to get their dirty hands on? Oil Companies.

With the world’s second largest proven reserve (at 112.5 billion bbl6 at 2005 estimate), Iraq is only pumping out 2.2 million bbl/day at 2005 estimate5.

Compared to Russia, which only has 74.4 billion bbl (2005 est) but producing 9.4 million bbl/day (2005 est.) 4.

Saudi Arabia, the great big Gorilla in the oil world, produces 9.475 million bbl/day (2005 est.) but has a proven reserve of 262.7 billion bbl (2006 est.)3! Talk about Iraq under-producing!

So, with a whetted appetite for a relatively untapped resource in such a huge region, the promise for profits can’t be stressed enough. As Vincent Ferraro mentioned,” …And American control over Iraq gives it the ability to use oil contracts to influence the conduct of other states: The Iraqi oil contract awarded to Mitsubishi the day after the Japanese agreed to send troops to Iraq is a dramatic example of how such power can be used.”7

With so much at stake – oil price and political stability – there’s simply too compelling a reason to go after Iraq. Oh, and it’s to vindicate Daddy Bush’s image too (he was considered a political wimp)

1 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rome:_Total_War
2 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill
3 https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sa.html
4 https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rs.html
5 https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
6 One barrel of US petroleum = 158.987 295 6 liter
7 http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/courant.htm

–> An old poem, dated On Feb 22 5:17 AM 2005. First attempt at Erotic poetry. Don’t know if I succeeded.
Just being nostalgic and remembered my old site.

Severed limb of mortal stay,
do please peer into immemorial past
of uncouth youth, ominous rebellions,
and placid acceptance from harsh truths
Just like the tale of a thorny rose who lived.
A day at a time, a moment for me to cry
to see just how meaningless this all is.
And what for? And why so? To live?
To live indeed!
To crawl from the soggy soil
and out to a glorious shining
To my tenacious insurgency to my prickers
Then down to the acceptance of my doom.
What was it for?

— An old poem I made. Wow, never throught I can be THAT negative!

Though this story is likely apocryphal, Einstein did claim never to memorize anything which could be looked up in less than two minutes.1

So…why the fuck is rote learning so prevalant in a googling society?

1http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=12510