Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Finding Faces in the Clouds

1. What's in Life?
Religion or any other ideas and philosophy is nothing but an ornament in life, unless it's from the heart. It means you can't truly comprehend the meaning of life until you have hit rock-bottom and back.

2. What is Logic?
Logic is nothing but a learned set of management skills to make sense of what you observe and analyze in your surroundings.

3. What is Time?
Accordingly (re: #2), time is just rhetoric, putting words to each passing moments of our lives. Kind of funny: some people wish that they have 48 hours a day instead of 24. But then each "hour" in a 48-hour day would be half an hour in a 24-hour day. Everything just evens out, doesn' it? It's all perspective.

4. On My Achievements ...
My greatest achievement yet is to wake up to see the day, to feel love, to hope, to forgive ....

5. East Asian Politics
As a rising power, China needs to realize that it is at crossroads. It has a choice to make. They can make a consicous decision to change the world for the better.

6. US Hegemony and Exceptionalism?
The US will always be special, and no other nation will be the same. However, do not confuse that with US being "number 1". There is no competition. And it's not that kind of a game.

7. A Middle East Solution?
There have been many transgressions made during the Iraq crisis and crises in the Middle East. Most of these transgressions started with the difference in culture. I think one way for the US to pull out from Iraq is to allow the Iraqi regime to create a mediated dialogue other nations in the region that can identify with their culture to come up with a concrete agenda to at least ease up the current situation in that country. Do keep in mind that whatever conclusion these countries arrive at must be discussed at the UN because no country can realistically implement unilateralism in this interdependent world.

8. Comparative Cultures
Two ancient cultures, Iran (Persia) and China, with ties in the past, are so different to this day. What are their differences? Briefly:
- Iran's fundamental belief that church and state are inseparable, hence,
lack of checks and balances;
- Every culture has their mix of fatalism and self-determination
(patrimonialsm and legalism, respectively, as per legitimacy of rule), and
Iran happened to have a mixture that consists of more fatalism than
self-determination as opposed to China;
- Iran and China's level of difficulty of access to power as well as the role
of intellectuals are different;
- The two differ in their management of "chaos".

9. A Civil Society
There are many more tolerant and big-hearted people out there. It is when they start to get taken advantage of that the world starts to turn ugly.

10. Appreciation
THANK YOU, ALL MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY, WHO ARE THERE TO SUPPORT AND INSPIRE ME THROUGH THE UPS AND DOWNS OF MY LIFE! I LOVE YOU ALL!

0 comments :