late night thoughts

David Brooks' article Genius: The Modern View echoes the great words of wisdom of Thomas Edison: Genius is one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration. Genius is not produced by inherent, divine talent, but by methodical practice. Which is to say, that my aspirations to be come a world-famous writer will not be realized unless I blog more often :P.

But seriously, my knitting has improved significantly since I first started over two years ago, but I spend anywhere from half an hour to three or four hours knitting every day. To be fair, most of those hours are spent knitting during movies or Star Trek The Next Generation episodes, but I am still practicing. It makes me wonder: How would the quality of my ideas and communication improved had I made a similar commitment to writing?

If Edison's words are true, then I am not sure if we are to be encouraged or discouraged. It is encouraging to know that anyone with slightly above-average skill in some area can become a "top performer", but it is discouraging to confront the amount of time and discipline required to develop that excellence. It makes me wonder if it's too late for me to excel in any area and to reverse my current trajectory of becoming jack of all trades and master of none. But it also makes me wonder how much is it worth sacrificing to become the best of the best?*


* A professor once told my friend that she was capable of becoming a leading history scholar. She would just have to pick a good area and master everything written on that topic. Of course, her research may also require her to spend several months away from her family each year. Not an easy price to pay.

christmas season

exercises in cynicism and hope (continued...)

"Any history of hope in America must ... make room at its center for this dogged companion of hope--the lurking suspicion that all our getting and spending amounts to nothing more than fidgeting while we wait for death"

~ Andrew DelBlanco in The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope

in pursuit of riches

quick thoughts on lottery games

Many states in America depend upon income from lottery games to support public education and other important social services. The ends seem satisfactory —when you buy a lottery ticket, not only do you have a chance of winning a lot of money, but proceeds are also going to educate children. It seems like a win-win situation.

However, many studies have shown that lotteries actually function like a regressive tax. Someone earning several million a year isn’t going to be tempted by the lotto game, whereas low-income single mothers see winning the lottery as an opportunity out of poverty, and could regularly buy several tickets a week. If their weekly earnings are only near minimum wage, e.g. $250 or so, then $5 is a 2% tax. This may not seem like a lot, but I remember reading about how difficult it was for people to afford the fare increases with public transportation which only amounted to a few dollars each week. Through supposed “voluntary contributions”, the lottery has basically made the poor pay an unfair share of state services.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that lottery winners returning to their same level of happiness as before. The burdens of wealth can cause an undue strain on relationships with family and friends. Lottery winners can also end up poorer than before by buying cars, houses and electronics that they cannot sustain with their income (especially because lottery winnings are often paid out over a long time period so people end up taking out loans to make these purchases). Lower-income winners of the lottery are probably more susceptible to this as they are less educated about proper financial management.

While winning the lottery may promise an end to payday-to-payday subsistence to a few select, it does nothing to alleviate systemic poverty. It dangles false hopes of happiness and riches for the poor and for the middle class. Instead of being content with what we have, we find ourselves secretly hoping for a quick solution to our problems—getting rich really fast and easy.

So yes, lottery games are a good government revenue generator—but do they do any good?



* There was recently a huge lottery jackpot a few months ago. Our office had a pool and despite the fact that several years ago, I had made a decision not to buy lottery tickets, I found myself tempted to participate in my office pool. It didn’t seem like a big deal. It would only be a dollar or two contributions, and I found myself daydreaming about what I could do with all the money—pay off my loans, pay for graduate school, pay off my parents’ mortgage. It seemed so easy and it was so hard not to pull out a dollar from my wallet. But I don't want to support a system that is unjust to the poor, nor do I want to chase pipe dreams of wealth, because I want to be content with what I have. And for all that I do not have right now, I want to trust that God will provide. All those high and lofty things said aside, I did breath a huge sigh of relief when I found out that my office did not win. Life returns to normal. And those dreams of wealth are put to rest, atleast for the time being.

when words do not have enough meaning

perhaps we have a moment of silence in memory of victims because words are not enough.

yet whenever something like this happens, we seem to crave more words, more images, more video feeds, more opinions, more interviews, more information-- until our sudden consciousness of the brevity of life can be stored away as last week's news.


* for the Virginia Tech shootings that took place today
** i am shocked. i am sad. i feel helpless. i wish i had something more than words, because i know they bring no comfort to those who lost loved ones today.

when words lose their meaning (3)*

It's funny how sometimes investment bankers or consultants talk about being afraid of "getting used to their lifestyle" and not being able to change jobs later.

What kind of life is there when you work 80 hours a week?**

*to be continued
**And what does all this work amount to? Some company's stock price may go up by 3/4 of a cent. A lot of rich men might be happy.

when words lose their meaning (1)

Atrocities is such an empty word. Journalists love it. You hear it everyday on the news. You hear it mentioned concerning the events of human history both past and present. The atrocities of Darfur. The atrocities of Rwanda. The atrocities of the Holocaust. And so on and so forth. Does it mean anything any more? Does it mean anything more than a four syllable sound that you hear coming from your plasma screen television, causing you to pause ever so momentarily before you return to eating your dinner?

there are trees and these are splinters

"She preferred not to think about such things"

~ paraphrase from y tu mama tambien

strange the way death potentially unravels the meaning we spend a lifetime trying to make. undone in a moment...

.... Eliot's poetry is not a question of meaning in the first place. The meaning of a poem for Eliot was a fairly trifling matter. It was, he once remarked, like the piece of meat which the burglar throws to the guard dog to keep him occupied. In true symbolist fashion, Eliot was interested in what a poem did, not in what it said—in the resonance of the signifier, the echoes of its archetypes, the ghostly associations haunting its grains and textures, the stealthy, subliminal workings of its unconscious. Meaning was for the birds, or perhaps for the petit bourgeoisie. Eliot was a primitivist as well as a sophisticate, a writer who made guerrilla raids on the collective unconscious. For all his intellectualism, he was averse to rationality. Meaning in his poetry is like the mysterious figure who walks beside you in The Waste Land, vanishing when you look at it straight. When Raine enquires of a couple of lines in one of Eliot's poems whether we are supposed to be in a brothel, the only answer which would be true to Eliot's own aesthetic is that we are in a poem...

~ Terry Eagleton

of long obediences in the same direction

Those who seek fulfillment in adultery have little hope in love.

the most important thing

[2] the ramblings of a not-so-single girl before Valentine’s Day [2]

the most important thing i have learned from being in a relationship is how to forgive.

the best decisions

usually the best choices in life are the ones that we are most scared of taking. they feel a bit like stepping off the firm edge of a rock cliff, into a hazy, insubstantial fog. but really, we just have what is solid and what is mist confused.

Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.

~ Isaiah 50

least of these

Just as the health of a society can be calibrated by the welfare of its most outcast*, so the character of a person can also be measured or she treats the least and the lowest.

[janitors, maids, street-sweepers, waitors, bellmen, taxi drivers, prostitutes, drug dealers, drug addicts, elderly people, homeless, illegal immigrants, day laborers, thieves, murderers, jesus]

The righteous will answer him, saying 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?'

And [Jesus] will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.'

~ from Matthew 25

*Does anyone remember the exact quote?