I'm stuck.
The thing is, last night I woke up at about three, three thirty, with the title of today's post stuck in my head, flashing neon: An Embarrassment of Riches.
I didn't know what it meant, or what it referred to; I still don't, and yet here I am, writing this blog, and there you are, reading it. (I'm assuming you're reading it, of course, which might not technically be true. You may be skimming this post, rather than really reading it, which is fine by me, kemo sabe; many a blog, many a site has been nothing more than background music for me, too, as the real stuff of life plays itself out before me. Let this site be the wallpaper of your day.)
Sometimes promises made in the dead of night should not be kept. Even promises to oneself. In my groggy, half-there, half-nowhere state of mind, I decided that I would, come hell or high water, write a blog with this title today. (And no, I don't know what 'come hell or high water' actually, truly means, either. I mean, the problem with this particular image is that the really strong, truly frightening component has been placed first -- 'hell'. And so what are we left with to round off the phrase? 'High water.' Oooooh. I'm scared. Either hell is going to get me or, no, it can't be - high water! How terrifying! Maybe I'll get wet and even have to change my shirt! Then again, I chose it, didn't I, so my bad. Which is another phrase, 'my bad', which somehow became popular while I was living in Japan and attempting, in vain, to master the infinite subtleties of Japan's ancient and equivalent phrase -- sumimasen. I think it's already gone out of fashion, 'my bad'. But I'm still using it and hoping to be so unhip that I'm hip. Let me know if it's working.)
So, I apologize, is what I'm trying to say. Here you were, taking time out of your day to find something interesting, enlightening, or at least not-boring, and all I can tell you for the time being is that I was required, by my conscience, to write a post with the above title, even though it doesn't really matter if I change my mind and decide to write about another, even more interesting topic, like Working with Shika or Dating Jacoba Style or Five Things You Should Really, Really Know About My Sister-In-Law -- all future posts, by the way. You've been warned, ladies, and only time will tell if I'm joking. (Cue spooky Dr.Evil laugh...)
There's nothing particularly embarassing in this post so far, despite the title. (Unless you count my writing itself; I'm praying you won't, and don't.)
In fact, all I can relate to you is the flash-flame of memory that lit some kindling in my brain this morning as I was being driven to work in the company van, and something felt familiar, oddly familiar, something about the van, and the people squished together inside of it, captors in a Corolla, and then it hit me, the, I don't know, vanness of it all, and I remembered being in high school, travelling to track and cross-country meets in the backs of vans, and university, too, travelling to various cities around Ontario each and every weekend, a bunch of twenty-something runners crammed in a too-tight van, with one particular wiseass by the name of Lucas Kent, a good guy, sitting in the back of the van and tying the rest of his teammate's shoelaces together, the type of stunt you see in a bad teen movie, and yet there it was, in real life, the group of us trying to stand up at one time only to be jiggered this way and that way by our illicitly linked laces, our cheeks turning red as Lucas laughed his ass off, and we being embarrassed in spite of ourselves, while Lucas laughed his deep and rich laugh.
So there it is: an embarrassement of riches.
Over and out.
Mission accomplished after all.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
THE RIVERSIDE SAINT AND THE OVERCHARGING MONK, or JUST HOW MUCH DID YOU SAY A DONATION WAS ?!?)
Two (relatively) religious incidents, separate but parallel:
1) Leaving Hurley's Cantina the other night, where I was sharing a late-night drink with an old university colleague of mine and Al Rockoff, the photojournalist that Malkovich portrayed in The Killing Fields (and who still spends six months of the year in Phnom Penh), I was slipped a religious pamphlet by a young American traveller. ("Just a little something as you travel through Cambodia," he said, smiling. They're always smiling.)
What if you had only five minutes to live? it asked. Inside was the usual yada yada yada, information about saving my soul and accepting Christ and avoiding Satan. All the stuff I've yet to do. (Just haven't gotten around to it.)
I stuck it in my wallet, hopped on a moto and went home.
2) While typing a post on my blog at Galaxy Web a monk wandered over, looking for money. This in and of itself is nothing new; monks often patrol and glide their way through the businesses around town each and every morning, asking for money, because here, in Cambodia, it's considered a common courtesy to slip one of the purple-robed ones a few thousand riel every now and then. (Gives good karma, and all.)
This time, though, was different. And annoying. The smiling monk (they're always smiling) carried a ledger book, pencilled into which was a fee. For me, one thousand riel. (About twenty five cents.) It was a little odd, a little formal, especially from somebody supposedly on the Middle Path, but whatever. When in Rome. I pencilled my name and gave him the riel and went back to my blog.
My acquiesence was matched by another foreigner's fury. (Well, perhaps 'fury' is a bit too strong; let's just say he was royally, possibly galactically, pissed, and leave it at that.)
Why? Well, the donation 'fee' that came after mine, which the monk smilingly insisted that he pay, amounted to five US dollars. The foreigner -- maybe Italian, maybe Belgian, decidedly not Canadian, because we're meek, which means I guess we'll inherit the earth, although when is anyone's guess, and probably not until the NHL strike is over, anways -- reacted sharply. He didn't swear, no, but his bulging eyes and red cheeks made swearing redunant. He said a few sharp words, insisted that the owner of the Internet shop pay the monk simply to get him the hell out, and lectured the monk, who spoke no English, about how ridiculous this whole escapade was.
So.
Here we have two (admittedly) minor incidents spaced twelve, thirteen hours apart, each of them involving individuals trying to force their religious views on others. (One involving pamphlets, one involving money.)
These don't bother me so much as they make me sad. Make me, I don't know, disillusioned.
I don't know if there's a god. If there is, I suspect that we haven't grasped his/her/its true shape and form and, most importantly, intent. This is a cosmic issue that is so vast and deep that to have it reduced to pamphlets handed out at riverside bistros, or donation-fees
pre-determined in a Buddhist ledger is, well, profane.
There's nothing inherently wrong with what the Christian or the monk were doing; one was spreading the word, one was accepting donations (albeit expensive ones). They were both doing what they felt was right. (Unless the monk was not a real monk, only dressed as one to scam money, which is not entirely unpossible.)
Still.
With all the fundamental questions that horrific events like the tsunami necessitate regarding the nature of a Higher Being (like for example if there is a God, and he/she/it has given man free will, and we are responsible for our actions, right, got that, then why the hell did he/she/it inflict, or at the very least not prevent, something like a tsunami, which is something that is most definitely not man-made, unless you argue that man has not yet devised a detection-system, thereby we're all at fault, which is straining the point a bit too far), it just seems, I don't know, mundane to have such noble and worthwhile questions cheapened. To have warnings that I'm going to hell in five minutes unless I repent, or that I must pay what a monk says I must pay because he, well, says so, and all of this given a plain and simple form on rather-cheap paper, ends up robbing me of whatever spirituality the saint and the monk are trying to convey.
If there is a God, I think he/she/it is above all of this kind of stuff.
1) Leaving Hurley's Cantina the other night, where I was sharing a late-night drink with an old university colleague of mine and Al Rockoff, the photojournalist that Malkovich portrayed in The Killing Fields (and who still spends six months of the year in Phnom Penh), I was slipped a religious pamphlet by a young American traveller. ("Just a little something as you travel through Cambodia," he said, smiling. They're always smiling.)
What if you had only five minutes to live? it asked. Inside was the usual yada yada yada, information about saving my soul and accepting Christ and avoiding Satan. All the stuff I've yet to do. (Just haven't gotten around to it.)
I stuck it in my wallet, hopped on a moto and went home.
2) While typing a post on my blog at Galaxy Web a monk wandered over, looking for money. This in and of itself is nothing new; monks often patrol and glide their way through the businesses around town each and every morning, asking for money, because here, in Cambodia, it's considered a common courtesy to slip one of the purple-robed ones a few thousand riel every now and then. (Gives good karma, and all.)
This time, though, was different. And annoying. The smiling monk (they're always smiling) carried a ledger book, pencilled into which was a fee. For me, one thousand riel. (About twenty five cents.) It was a little odd, a little formal, especially from somebody supposedly on the Middle Path, but whatever. When in Rome. I pencilled my name and gave him the riel and went back to my blog.
My acquiesence was matched by another foreigner's fury. (Well, perhaps 'fury' is a bit too strong; let's just say he was royally, possibly galactically, pissed, and leave it at that.)
Why? Well, the donation 'fee' that came after mine, which the monk smilingly insisted that he pay, amounted to five US dollars. The foreigner -- maybe Italian, maybe Belgian, decidedly not Canadian, because we're meek, which means I guess we'll inherit the earth, although when is anyone's guess, and probably not until the NHL strike is over, anways -- reacted sharply. He didn't swear, no, but his bulging eyes and red cheeks made swearing redunant. He said a few sharp words, insisted that the owner of the Internet shop pay the monk simply to get him the hell out, and lectured the monk, who spoke no English, about how ridiculous this whole escapade was.
So.
Here we have two (admittedly) minor incidents spaced twelve, thirteen hours apart, each of them involving individuals trying to force their religious views on others. (One involving pamphlets, one involving money.)
These don't bother me so much as they make me sad. Make me, I don't know, disillusioned.
I don't know if there's a god. If there is, I suspect that we haven't grasped his/her/its true shape and form and, most importantly, intent. This is a cosmic issue that is so vast and deep that to have it reduced to pamphlets handed out at riverside bistros, or donation-fees
pre-determined in a Buddhist ledger is, well, profane.
There's nothing inherently wrong with what the Christian or the monk were doing; one was spreading the word, one was accepting donations (albeit expensive ones). They were both doing what they felt was right. (Unless the monk was not a real monk, only dressed as one to scam money, which is not entirely unpossible.)
Still.
With all the fundamental questions that horrific events like the tsunami necessitate regarding the nature of a Higher Being (like for example if there is a God, and he/she/it has given man free will, and we are responsible for our actions, right, got that, then why the hell did he/she/it inflict, or at the very least not prevent, something like a tsunami, which is something that is most definitely not man-made, unless you argue that man has not yet devised a detection-system, thereby we're all at fault, which is straining the point a bit too far), it just seems, I don't know, mundane to have such noble and worthwhile questions cheapened. To have warnings that I'm going to hell in five minutes unless I repent, or that I must pay what a monk says I must pay because he, well, says so, and all of this given a plain and simple form on rather-cheap paper, ends up robbing me of whatever spirituality the saint and the monk are trying to convey.
If there is a God, I think he/she/it is above all of this kind of stuff.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
SOMETHING ONLY A HUMAN WOULD DO
Having just finished reading Among Insurgents : A Walk Across Burma by Shelby Tucker, a memoir of the author's trek through Burma during the late eighties (when the country was in the midst of a civil war between indigenous people and the government that continues to this day), I've had confirmed what I've always suspected: our own adventures and epiphanies that we achieve in life are often, almost inevitably, overlooked or disregared by others, and that this is not only a good thing, but a necessary one, too. Necessary for our humility and sense of place.
Tucker decided to walk across Burma for the hell of it. Because it was something crazy and extreme. He met a young Swede in a bar, told him that he (Tucker) needed a companion in his journey because his wife would not allow him to go otherwise, and would he (the Swede) like to fill the bill? The Swede thought about it for a few moments, drank his beer, then said sure, why not, let's do it. A walk across Burma would be fun.
It was to be more than fun, of course; it included sneaking over the border from China, wandering around uncharted land while befriending and enlisting the services of various ethnic Burmese that were at war with the military government, and ending with a final vault over the border into India, where they were arrested and held captive for months on end, while the Indian government tried to figure out if this crazy Brit and his motivations could actually be true -- that he was not a spy, no, but just someone who wanted to walk across Burma for the hell of it.
There's a wonderfully telling line near the end of the book where Tucker notes the look of indifference that clouds an an Indian officials face when told of how Tucker and his companion walked, walked, through Burma; it was a hint, Tucker says, of the same indifference he would be faced with upon returning to Britain and telling others of his exploits.
What matters to us does not matter to others. This is a blunt and direct truth I've learned over the years. The transformations and experiences that shape us and mold us and wreck us and rebuild us are, for the most part, interior; when these same experiences are given a shape and a form, whether they are vocalized or put in print, quite often their power is diluted, or even lost.
Why is that?
It's not that we're not interested in other's lives, experiences, attitudinal shifts and religious transformations; we are, intensely so. We go to movies like Schindler's List and tune in to Oprah and read blogs like this on a regular basis (or, um, semi-regular? occasionally?) because we want to feel what others felt, and, simultaneously, want to see that our feelings and emotions have emotional siblings out there in the world, that strangers may think and act similar to us, that we are not alone. We live vicariously through others because we need to connect to ourselves.
There's a limit, however, and that limit is something akin to the space, the physical space, that separates me from you, her from him. There is a gap between people, and that gap is what we are constantly trying to fill. One of the greatest lines in the history of cinema was written by Sylvester Stallone for Rocky, when his girlfriend's brother, Paulie, wonders what Rocky sees in Adrian: "I've got gaps, she's got gaps, together we fill gaps."
We all want to fill gaps. But some gaps our ours and ours alone to fill. My experiences in Japan and Cambodia can't fully be appreciated by you, no matter how much writing I do, no matter how many pictures I show you, no matter how many books and documentaries I direct your attention to. What happened to me happened to me, and it is for me to process; you are welcome to join in the discussion, offer encouragement and commiseration, but if I expect anything else from you, any other declarations of empathy or enthusiasm, well, I'm setting my self up for disappointment.
You achieve your high school diploma. You become a dentist. You recover from a fall down the stairs. You finally pass the driving test (after four tries). You lose the ten pounds. Gain it back. Lose it again.
These are all worthy and trying and distinctly human acts. They are part of your own struggle to achieve in life. And their ultimate fulfillment comes from you and you alone, and that should be enough; that should be sufficient.
It usually isn't; we often want more -- more praise, more attention, more accolades.
The reality is, we ain't going to get it, because most people are locked into their own little worlds, and while, occasionally, we break out of those interior spheres, it's only momentarily, and it's only peripherally. The work you do and the life you lead has to be fulfilled by you and appreciated by you on its own terms. If it has weight and resonance, others will be inspired by your struggles, but such secondary inspiration shouldn't be your point.
The great novelist Paul Theroux asked a French rower, who had performed some ridiculously difficult feat of aquatic endurance alone in a rowboat, why he had done it. "Animals find something to eat, a place to live, protection for their children. All very safe and orderly. I wanted to do something only a human would do."
Yes. Something only a human would do. It is not sane to walk across Burma, or travel for years in Japan and Cambodia, but it is human. It speaks of what we are capable of and what we can accustom ourselves to. It lifts us out of life and into a higher plane of perception.
And it is, in the end, singular. The bike chain you fix on your own. The cookie you don't eat. The orphan you adopt. The card trick you learn. The rehabilitation for your knee that you endure. You can write a book or a run a marathon or walk across Burma, and, as the old saying goes, one billion red Chinese don't give a shit. And it's true. Others may be entertained or illuminated or even inspired, but the only person it will truly mean anything to is you and you alone. It will remain an insignificant and meaningless footnote in the ongoing history of the world.
That's the glory of it.
Tucker decided to walk across Burma for the hell of it. Because it was something crazy and extreme. He met a young Swede in a bar, told him that he (Tucker) needed a companion in his journey because his wife would not allow him to go otherwise, and would he (the Swede) like to fill the bill? The Swede thought about it for a few moments, drank his beer, then said sure, why not, let's do it. A walk across Burma would be fun.
It was to be more than fun, of course; it included sneaking over the border from China, wandering around uncharted land while befriending and enlisting the services of various ethnic Burmese that were at war with the military government, and ending with a final vault over the border into India, where they were arrested and held captive for months on end, while the Indian government tried to figure out if this crazy Brit and his motivations could actually be true -- that he was not a spy, no, but just someone who wanted to walk across Burma for the hell of it.
There's a wonderfully telling line near the end of the book where Tucker notes the look of indifference that clouds an an Indian officials face when told of how Tucker and his companion walked, walked, through Burma; it was a hint, Tucker says, of the same indifference he would be faced with upon returning to Britain and telling others of his exploits.
What matters to us does not matter to others. This is a blunt and direct truth I've learned over the years. The transformations and experiences that shape us and mold us and wreck us and rebuild us are, for the most part, interior; when these same experiences are given a shape and a form, whether they are vocalized or put in print, quite often their power is diluted, or even lost.
Why is that?
It's not that we're not interested in other's lives, experiences, attitudinal shifts and religious transformations; we are, intensely so. We go to movies like Schindler's List and tune in to Oprah and read blogs like this on a regular basis (or, um, semi-regular? occasionally?) because we want to feel what others felt, and, simultaneously, want to see that our feelings and emotions have emotional siblings out there in the world, that strangers may think and act similar to us, that we are not alone. We live vicariously through others because we need to connect to ourselves.
There's a limit, however, and that limit is something akin to the space, the physical space, that separates me from you, her from him. There is a gap between people, and that gap is what we are constantly trying to fill. One of the greatest lines in the history of cinema was written by Sylvester Stallone for Rocky, when his girlfriend's brother, Paulie, wonders what Rocky sees in Adrian: "I've got gaps, she's got gaps, together we fill gaps."
We all want to fill gaps. But some gaps our ours and ours alone to fill. My experiences in Japan and Cambodia can't fully be appreciated by you, no matter how much writing I do, no matter how many pictures I show you, no matter how many books and documentaries I direct your attention to. What happened to me happened to me, and it is for me to process; you are welcome to join in the discussion, offer encouragement and commiseration, but if I expect anything else from you, any other declarations of empathy or enthusiasm, well, I'm setting my self up for disappointment.
You achieve your high school diploma. You become a dentist. You recover from a fall down the stairs. You finally pass the driving test (after four tries). You lose the ten pounds. Gain it back. Lose it again.
These are all worthy and trying and distinctly human acts. They are part of your own struggle to achieve in life. And their ultimate fulfillment comes from you and you alone, and that should be enough; that should be sufficient.
It usually isn't; we often want more -- more praise, more attention, more accolades.
The reality is, we ain't going to get it, because most people are locked into their own little worlds, and while, occasionally, we break out of those interior spheres, it's only momentarily, and it's only peripherally. The work you do and the life you lead has to be fulfilled by you and appreciated by you on its own terms. If it has weight and resonance, others will be inspired by your struggles, but such secondary inspiration shouldn't be your point.
The great novelist Paul Theroux asked a French rower, who had performed some ridiculously difficult feat of aquatic endurance alone in a rowboat, why he had done it. "Animals find something to eat, a place to live, protection for their children. All very safe and orderly. I wanted to do something only a human would do."
Yes. Something only a human would do. It is not sane to walk across Burma, or travel for years in Japan and Cambodia, but it is human. It speaks of what we are capable of and what we can accustom ourselves to. It lifts us out of life and into a higher plane of perception.
And it is, in the end, singular. The bike chain you fix on your own. The cookie you don't eat. The orphan you adopt. The card trick you learn. The rehabilitation for your knee that you endure. You can write a book or a run a marathon or walk across Burma, and, as the old saying goes, one billion red Chinese don't give a shit. And it's true. Others may be entertained or illuminated or even inspired, but the only person it will truly mean anything to is you and you alone. It will remain an insignificant and meaningless footnote in the ongoing history of the world.
That's the glory of it.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
GET A JOB (OR TWO, OR THREE...)
The other day I came out of the Internet cafe and said hello to the owner of Nike's Pizza House, located right next door. (Originally it was named 'Nikee's', with that extra 'e', but the owner said that some foreigners said that 'Nike' was a famous shoe brand that customers would recognize right away. So, in went the new 'e'.)
"How are you?" the owner said. He is a Chinese Khmer who is always smiling and always talking; despite the fact that he has eight, count 'em, eight, children, he apparently doesn't lack energy. (I personally side with the theme song of the old seventies Dick Van Patten show, that eight is enough to fill our lives with joy. But that's just me.)
We chatted for a minute. He asked how my work was, and I told him that I wasn't teaching anymore (though I might be soon), that I had moved on to a different job.
He was a bit confused.
"You only have one job?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Why don't you have two jobs?"
A pause.
"Well," I said, "one's enough for me."
He smiled and nodded and looked a little bit confused.
In Cambodia, I have always held the belief that Cambodians are, well, a little bit lazy.
Intelligent, yes, and compassionate, sure, but most Cambodians will do the absolute minimum of work necessary to get the job done. (This is not necessarily a bad thing; the opposite, overwork to the point of exhaustion, is not necessarily the greatest of endeavors.) There is an old expression: The Vietnamese plant the rice; the Cambodians watch it grow; and the Laotians listen to it sing.
But the pizza shop owner's comments stuck with me, because I've heard them before, from different people, in different variations.
Most Cambodians, by necessity, work two, three jobs. The students I used to teach at the university usually went to two or even three universities -- one in the morning, afternoon and evening, the philosophy being: one degree is great, but why not go for three B.A.s at the same time?
(Which, of course, leads to situations in which the students never complete their homework because, teacher, they have to finish their homework from their other schools, and weekly, sometimes daily (hourly?) scenarios where students high-tail it out of your class because you see, teacher, they have to go write an exam at their other university.)
Still, I realize I was wrong to a certain extent; I bought into the stereotypes I usually spend so much time trying to tear down. Cambodians are workers; they will work two or three jobs and not complain. (I can't see many westerners doing that.) They work because they have to, and they need to; my perceived vision of them being 'lazy' stems from the fact that they do not do more than they humanly have to to get by in life.
Which, when you think about it, is not all that bad a philosophy to live by.
It leaves time for other things in life, like life.
"How are you?" the owner said. He is a Chinese Khmer who is always smiling and always talking; despite the fact that he has eight, count 'em, eight, children, he apparently doesn't lack energy. (I personally side with the theme song of the old seventies Dick Van Patten show, that eight is enough to fill our lives with joy. But that's just me.)
We chatted for a minute. He asked how my work was, and I told him that I wasn't teaching anymore (though I might be soon), that I had moved on to a different job.
He was a bit confused.
"You only have one job?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Why don't you have two jobs?"
A pause.
"Well," I said, "one's enough for me."
He smiled and nodded and looked a little bit confused.
In Cambodia, I have always held the belief that Cambodians are, well, a little bit lazy.
Intelligent, yes, and compassionate, sure, but most Cambodians will do the absolute minimum of work necessary to get the job done. (This is not necessarily a bad thing; the opposite, overwork to the point of exhaustion, is not necessarily the greatest of endeavors.) There is an old expression: The Vietnamese plant the rice; the Cambodians watch it grow; and the Laotians listen to it sing.
But the pizza shop owner's comments stuck with me, because I've heard them before, from different people, in different variations.
Most Cambodians, by necessity, work two, three jobs. The students I used to teach at the university usually went to two or even three universities -- one in the morning, afternoon and evening, the philosophy being: one degree is great, but why not go for three B.A.s at the same time?
(Which, of course, leads to situations in which the students never complete their homework because, teacher, they have to finish their homework from their other schools, and weekly, sometimes daily (hourly?) scenarios where students high-tail it out of your class because you see, teacher, they have to go write an exam at their other university.)
Still, I realize I was wrong to a certain extent; I bought into the stereotypes I usually spend so much time trying to tear down. Cambodians are workers; they will work two or three jobs and not complain. (I can't see many westerners doing that.) They work because they have to, and they need to; my perceived vision of them being 'lazy' stems from the fact that they do not do more than they humanly have to to get by in life.
Which, when you think about it, is not all that bad a philosophy to live by.
It leaves time for other things in life, like life.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
MY GUT FEELING SAYS...
"But in reality, intuition is the condensation of vast prior analytic experience; it is analysis compressed and crystallized...It is the product of analytic processes being condensed to such a degree that its internal structure may elude even the person benefitting from it...The intuitive decision-making of an expert bypasses orderly, logical steps precisely because it's a condensation of such orderly logical steps in the past."
- Herbert Simon,
The Wisdom Paradox
You decide to buy the ticket and get on the plane. Or not. That little feeling in your stomach that is half-way between a claw and a caress tells you to avoid stepping on the boat, so you do, and the boat sinks. The stranger in line beside you at the movies cautiously asks you for a drink, and you agree, equally cautiously, and you end up getting married. (Then divorced.)
All because of non-rational, non-linear thought processes that we call 'intuition'. (Doctors may call it 'indigestion'.)
Is it as mysterious and cosmically cool as we like to think, though? Or is there a more intellectual, analytic process at work, one that is decidedly more rational but exceedingly less exhilarating.
Apparently Herbert Simon, author of the excerpt from his book, um, excerpted above, thinks so. Intuition, he seems to argue, is nothing more than the repository of experience; intuition is nothing more than a neurological short-cut to the proper choice in any given situation, based on the accumulated wisdom we have made from other decisions we have made in the past.
Hmmmm...
Sounds logical.
But what about when we encounter an experience that we haven't had much experience in, uh, experiencing?
I decided to come to Cambodia, in large part, because I had gone to Japan. I made the decision in Japan, flying here directly from there. I thought about the pros and the cons, the long-term consequences and the short term consequences, the interesting points and the potentially dangerous points. (Via a technique learned from Edward DeBono -- a simple one, but remarkably effective.) So it was somewhat analytical, yes, but I still followed my gut. (Which was much bigger then, my gut, but I don't think weight actually influences the intuitional process.)
But coming to Japan for the first time was a pure 'intuition' decision. I had no experience in much of anything at age 23; I just thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and the little voice in my head and my stomach said: Ah, fuck it -- just go and see what happens. I didn't rely on past experiences travelling overseas, 'cause I hadn't been overseas; I didn't compare the working possibilities to other high-level jobs I had, 'cause I hadn't had any other high-level jobs. I just went because I felt it was the thing to do.
So the adult and analytical side of me agrees with Simon's article in principle; many of the decisions we make come from remembrances of things past, and evaluation how those memories compare with the choices in front of us in the here and the now.
But the irrational side of me, the eleven-year old side of me that refused to ever watch Star Trek: The Next Generation because it would be a betrayal of Captain Kirk and his crew, finds all this analytical mumbo-jumbo distasteful. (A vow I kept, although I did see a few of the movies featuring Picard and his gang.) There's so much about the brain that we don't know, so many alleyways and caverns within our gray matter that still await exposure. I would like to think that there are mystical underpinnings at work; that intuition serves as a shortcut to some spiritual force in the universe that does not guide our progress, no, but hints at what is karmically best and proper and true for our journey through (what we call) life.
That's just my gut feeling, anyway.
- Herbert Simon,
The Wisdom Paradox
You decide to buy the ticket and get on the plane. Or not. That little feeling in your stomach that is half-way between a claw and a caress tells you to avoid stepping on the boat, so you do, and the boat sinks. The stranger in line beside you at the movies cautiously asks you for a drink, and you agree, equally cautiously, and you end up getting married. (Then divorced.)
All because of non-rational, non-linear thought processes that we call 'intuition'. (Doctors may call it 'indigestion'.)
Is it as mysterious and cosmically cool as we like to think, though? Or is there a more intellectual, analytic process at work, one that is decidedly more rational but exceedingly less exhilarating.
Apparently Herbert Simon, author of the excerpt from his book, um, excerpted above, thinks so. Intuition, he seems to argue, is nothing more than the repository of experience; intuition is nothing more than a neurological short-cut to the proper choice in any given situation, based on the accumulated wisdom we have made from other decisions we have made in the past.
Hmmmm...
Sounds logical.
But what about when we encounter an experience that we haven't had much experience in, uh, experiencing?
I decided to come to Cambodia, in large part, because I had gone to Japan. I made the decision in Japan, flying here directly from there. I thought about the pros and the cons, the long-term consequences and the short term consequences, the interesting points and the potentially dangerous points. (Via a technique learned from Edward DeBono -- a simple one, but remarkably effective.) So it was somewhat analytical, yes, but I still followed my gut. (Which was much bigger then, my gut, but I don't think weight actually influences the intuitional process.)
But coming to Japan for the first time was a pure 'intuition' decision. I had no experience in much of anything at age 23; I just thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, and the little voice in my head and my stomach said: Ah, fuck it -- just go and see what happens. I didn't rely on past experiences travelling overseas, 'cause I hadn't been overseas; I didn't compare the working possibilities to other high-level jobs I had, 'cause I hadn't had any other high-level jobs. I just went because I felt it was the thing to do.
So the adult and analytical side of me agrees with Simon's article in principle; many of the decisions we make come from remembrances of things past, and evaluation how those memories compare with the choices in front of us in the here and the now.
But the irrational side of me, the eleven-year old side of me that refused to ever watch Star Trek: The Next Generation because it would be a betrayal of Captain Kirk and his crew, finds all this analytical mumbo-jumbo distasteful. (A vow I kept, although I did see a few of the movies featuring Picard and his gang.) There's so much about the brain that we don't know, so many alleyways and caverns within our gray matter that still await exposure. I would like to think that there are mystical underpinnings at work; that intuition serves as a shortcut to some spiritual force in the universe that does not guide our progress, no, but hints at what is karmically best and proper and true for our journey through (what we call) life.
That's just my gut feeling, anyway.
ZOMBIES -- GOTTA LOVE 'EM (OR ELSE)
Last night on TV I caught the first few minutes of the remake of Night Of The Living Dead that came out in the early nineties. (The reason for the remake, I think, was that the writer-director of the original flick, George Romero, was shut out of the considerable profits that resulted from its success, and he, naturally, wanted a bit of financial payback that was long overdue; he was a writer and producer of the new version, which Tom Savini, special-effects grand goremeister, directed.) I hadn't seen the flick in probably eleven, twelve years, and so I was a little surprised to find myself more than a little freaked out by the opening cemetary scene, complete with lurching zombies and a screaming woman and ominous music that sounded, well, ominous. (I remember watching the original version and the new version back to back in my bedroom in St.Catharines with my friend Mike, both of us trying to stay up all night one New Year's Eve back in early high school, and back-to-back zombie flicks seemed like the way to sustain our sleepy selves. Haven't thought about that night in a long time. That was many years ago.)
Zombies are scary. I don't know why. I think it's because there's just something fundamentally wrong with them. Dead bodies dressed in suits are not supposed to shamble around among us. And they're so relentless, zombies are; they shuffle and poke their way forward, never getting deterred, never getting discouraged. They come, slowly, and they will keep coming, undaunted, until they eat you, and kill you. Simple. Primal. Almost unapologetically, ghoulishly pure.
I haven't seen any of the new zombie movies that have popped up over the last few years -- the recent remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, or 28 Days Later -- but there's a reason why they keep coming back. (The movies, that is -- not the zombies. I'm sure they have their own reasons, the zombies, but I know not what they are...)
Horror is all about metaphor, and zombies are a perfect, twisted metaphor for who we (sometimes) are and what we (potentially) could become: mindless, shambling shells of our former selves. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead was set in a shopping mall and was a savage indictment of consumption and excess; he has a new zombie film set to premiere sometime this year called Land of the Dead, and I imagine he'll take some more incisive shots at what western society has (d)evolved into.
The one downside about zombie films is that they are, by their vary nature, awfully repetitive, derivative and one-dimensional. There's not much that zombies can actually do; you have to have a pretty clever story, with intriguing characters, as well as appropriately spooky music and visual flair to offset and somehow accentuate the gloomy monotony of zombies shuffling through graveyards and parking lots.
Still, they're an acquired taste, zombie movies are. (As are zombies themselves.) Not everyone's cup of tea. If done poorly, these flicks are atrocious to sit through and easy to forget. If done well...
You may find yourself looking over your shoulder every now and then as you leisurely wander through your local park on warm, spring afternoon, as dusk paints the sky its patented brand of purple. You may glance nervously at the lingering shadows that start to form between the bushes, behind the shrubs. You may start to slowly tremble when you hear behind you footsteps that softly pad their way across the grassy field. Towards you. And you alone.
Zombies are scary. I don't know why. I think it's because there's just something fundamentally wrong with them. Dead bodies dressed in suits are not supposed to shamble around among us. And they're so relentless, zombies are; they shuffle and poke their way forward, never getting deterred, never getting discouraged. They come, slowly, and they will keep coming, undaunted, until they eat you, and kill you. Simple. Primal. Almost unapologetically, ghoulishly pure.
I haven't seen any of the new zombie movies that have popped up over the last few years -- the recent remake of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, or 28 Days Later -- but there's a reason why they keep coming back. (The movies, that is -- not the zombies. I'm sure they have their own reasons, the zombies, but I know not what they are...)
Horror is all about metaphor, and zombies are a perfect, twisted metaphor for who we (sometimes) are and what we (potentially) could become: mindless, shambling shells of our former selves. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead was set in a shopping mall and was a savage indictment of consumption and excess; he has a new zombie film set to premiere sometime this year called Land of the Dead, and I imagine he'll take some more incisive shots at what western society has (d)evolved into.
The one downside about zombie films is that they are, by their vary nature, awfully repetitive, derivative and one-dimensional. There's not much that zombies can actually do; you have to have a pretty clever story, with intriguing characters, as well as appropriately spooky music and visual flair to offset and somehow accentuate the gloomy monotony of zombies shuffling through graveyards and parking lots.
Still, they're an acquired taste, zombie movies are. (As are zombies themselves.) Not everyone's cup of tea. If done poorly, these flicks are atrocious to sit through and easy to forget. If done well...
You may find yourself looking over your shoulder every now and then as you leisurely wander through your local park on warm, spring afternoon, as dusk paints the sky its patented brand of purple. You may glance nervously at the lingering shadows that start to form between the bushes, behind the shrubs. You may start to slowly tremble when you hear behind you footsteps that softly pad their way across the grassy field. Towards you. And you alone.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
POINTING FINGERS IN CAMBODIA
Yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure which, marked the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's takeover of Phnom Penh. (I'm sure you threw a party with popcorn, Coke, party favors, all the fixings, to celebrate the whole shebang). Anyone who has spent anytime in Cambodia can tell you: In some respects, everything's different; in others, it's as if the whole murderous reign happened only last year, or last month, or even last week.
Last night at Panasastrasa University, New York Times and former Washington Post journalist Elizabeth Becker, the author of When The War Was Over (the first book I read and probably the best book I've read on the Khmer Rouge), gave a short lecture, followed by a rather lively, animated discussion. Her talk centred around her memories of Phnom Penh during the early seventies, when Cambodia was in the midst of a civil war, before Pol Pot and his homicidal gang took over the country. She actually met Pol Pot, interviewed him, but this was before anybody knew that he was 'Pol Pot'; she got chills just from the encounter, but even she did not know the depths to which his regime would eventually descend. She spoke of how literate Cambodians used to be, the spirit of goodness and generosity that they exuded and that she still found here, embodied by the owner of the Monument Books bookshop, who was trying to be a good and honorable man in a society drenched in corruption. It was her first visit here in ten years; she was sickened by the wealth that exists hand in hand with the grinding poverty.
During the q and a session following the lecture, a recurring theme arose: blame. It was ultimately, and almost eloquently, expressed at the end of the question session by a Khmer university professor, who wondered: Why aren't we focusing blame on the U.S.'s role? The UN? China? They are culpable; they played a role in Cambodia's demise.
In some respects, he's absolutely right. And the young Cambodians were right to applaud so feverishly and approvingly whenever anybody mentioned the Vietnamese or Americans that needed to be held accountable. Question after question centred on: ______ is to blame, and _________ is at fault.
And yet...
Elizabeth Becker made a point that I agree with: Cambodia's tragedy of the 1970s was, at its core, a Cambodian tragedy. It was an internal civil war. Other countries share blame, as does the UN; indifference and collusion have their own sentences of guilt.
But there's a trend in Cambodia that is natural, understandable, but not, in the end, acceptable: the pointing of fingers. It's the Vietnamese fault. It's the Americans fault. It's the UN's fault. It's China's fault. Even now, many Khmers are worried that Vietnam still wants to invade Cambodia. Even now, politicians somehow expect the US to save the day here to atone for their past sins, while Becker made clear: You know what? The US just, doesn't, care. Cambodia is too small, too insignificant, too politically worthless in the grand scheme of things; it's the Rwanda and the Sudan of Asia, to a certain extent. Cambodia is Asia's baby now, and besides, America, as the lone superpower, will, by necessity, do whatever it wants; you can blame till the cows come home. If the US wants to invade a country, it will do so; if the US wants to bomb the shit out of a country, like it did in Cambodia, searching for Vietcong, it will do so. It is not fair and it is not right and it is, like it or not, the way that the world works; for Cambodians to expect America to accept blame is pointless, politically naive, and futile. The country is rooted in the past, which is fantastic for religion and culture and fatal, absolutely homicidal, for advancement and moving forward.
And this ceaseless, even relentless desire to blame outside sources overlooks and underestimates the degree to which this twisted revolution arose from the Khmer people themselves. The Germans have accepted responsibility for their Nazi, wartime past, moved on, and the world, more or less, has forgiven them; Japan has yet to accept blame for their own WWII atrocities, and their ongoing textbook and ocean-border disputes with China are a sad testament to how wartime resentment can linger. And fester. I don't think that Cambodians have even begun to come to terms with their own role in their own descent. (I'm not blaming them, believe me; this country has suffered and suffered. I think their fears and concerns are valid and necessary -- but not helpful, not realistic.)
As Becker also pointed out, this country so desperately needs a Khmer Rouge UN Tribunal (which will, hopefully, begin soon), because if the Cambodian Khmer Rouge can get away with mass murder then, of course they can get away with corruption now. If the government can get away with slaughtering innocents for years on end, of course they can get away with stealing land that doesn't belong to them.
There is an unexamined, festering wound in this country that has not been healed, and until the Cambodians who masterminded the massacres (those still left alive, at any rate) are put on trial and put in prison, the lesson of 1975-1979 will be: We can kill whoever we want, and get away with it.
And if that's the case, then the corruption will continue, and so will the pointing fingers, looking for someone, anyone, to take the blame.
Last night at Panasastrasa University, New York Times and former Washington Post journalist Elizabeth Becker, the author of When The War Was Over (the first book I read and probably the best book I've read on the Khmer Rouge), gave a short lecture, followed by a rather lively, animated discussion. Her talk centred around her memories of Phnom Penh during the early seventies, when Cambodia was in the midst of a civil war, before Pol Pot and his homicidal gang took over the country. She actually met Pol Pot, interviewed him, but this was before anybody knew that he was 'Pol Pot'; she got chills just from the encounter, but even she did not know the depths to which his regime would eventually descend. She spoke of how literate Cambodians used to be, the spirit of goodness and generosity that they exuded and that she still found here, embodied by the owner of the Monument Books bookshop, who was trying to be a good and honorable man in a society drenched in corruption. It was her first visit here in ten years; she was sickened by the wealth that exists hand in hand with the grinding poverty.
During the q and a session following the lecture, a recurring theme arose: blame. It was ultimately, and almost eloquently, expressed at the end of the question session by a Khmer university professor, who wondered: Why aren't we focusing blame on the U.S.'s role? The UN? China? They are culpable; they played a role in Cambodia's demise.
In some respects, he's absolutely right. And the young Cambodians were right to applaud so feverishly and approvingly whenever anybody mentioned the Vietnamese or Americans that needed to be held accountable. Question after question centred on: ______ is to blame, and _________ is at fault.
And yet...
Elizabeth Becker made a point that I agree with: Cambodia's tragedy of the 1970s was, at its core, a Cambodian tragedy. It was an internal civil war. Other countries share blame, as does the UN; indifference and collusion have their own sentences of guilt.
But there's a trend in Cambodia that is natural, understandable, but not, in the end, acceptable: the pointing of fingers. It's the Vietnamese fault. It's the Americans fault. It's the UN's fault. It's China's fault. Even now, many Khmers are worried that Vietnam still wants to invade Cambodia. Even now, politicians somehow expect the US to save the day here to atone for their past sins, while Becker made clear: You know what? The US just, doesn't, care. Cambodia is too small, too insignificant, too politically worthless in the grand scheme of things; it's the Rwanda and the Sudan of Asia, to a certain extent. Cambodia is Asia's baby now, and besides, America, as the lone superpower, will, by necessity, do whatever it wants; you can blame till the cows come home. If the US wants to invade a country, it will do so; if the US wants to bomb the shit out of a country, like it did in Cambodia, searching for Vietcong, it will do so. It is not fair and it is not right and it is, like it or not, the way that the world works; for Cambodians to expect America to accept blame is pointless, politically naive, and futile. The country is rooted in the past, which is fantastic for religion and culture and fatal, absolutely homicidal, for advancement and moving forward.
And this ceaseless, even relentless desire to blame outside sources overlooks and underestimates the degree to which this twisted revolution arose from the Khmer people themselves. The Germans have accepted responsibility for their Nazi, wartime past, moved on, and the world, more or less, has forgiven them; Japan has yet to accept blame for their own WWII atrocities, and their ongoing textbook and ocean-border disputes with China are a sad testament to how wartime resentment can linger. And fester. I don't think that Cambodians have even begun to come to terms with their own role in their own descent. (I'm not blaming them, believe me; this country has suffered and suffered. I think their fears and concerns are valid and necessary -- but not helpful, not realistic.)
As Becker also pointed out, this country so desperately needs a Khmer Rouge UN Tribunal (which will, hopefully, begin soon), because if the Cambodian Khmer Rouge can get away with mass murder then, of course they can get away with corruption now. If the government can get away with slaughtering innocents for years on end, of course they can get away with stealing land that doesn't belong to them.
There is an unexamined, festering wound in this country that has not been healed, and until the Cambodians who masterminded the massacres (those still left alive, at any rate) are put on trial and put in prison, the lesson of 1975-1979 will be: We can kill whoever we want, and get away with it.
And if that's the case, then the corruption will continue, and so will the pointing fingers, looking for someone, anyone, to take the blame.
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