Ride off into the sunset

I finally sold my bike, which also in a way an end of a time in my life where that bike meant so much to me. I like making one major purchase every year or two in order to capture that period in life. It reminds me of what I was thinking, wanting, avoiding, and any other reason why I make purchases. But I must say I am sad to see it gone. The next person should treat it well.j On the other hand, I am glad that it is gone, because in some weird but unexplainable way, I felt that anchor me too. It is true that sometime to make things better is to just get rid of some things.

Had dinner with B yesterday before heading over to J's birthday party. The topic of mini retirement came up. It is an interesting idea. So basically it is saying start having your retirement when you can. He talked about 10 year, or maybe 5 years, or maybe 2 years. What ever the time frame is, you are officially telling yourself that you are retired. He got this idea from something he read from an article which said this was common among generation Y. That generation saw how their parent saved and struggled. Then they wait to cash in until official retirement age. So may experience great illness or even lead to death while that person worked toward that retirement day. What is sad to this idea is by retirement age, the things that you once wanted can very well be less attractive or disappear due to just a basic factor of age. So this conversation went on and while the alcohol buzz slowly flow through from head to toe and came up with an observation. What is it that when it comes to money or job, we like to stick around when time are tough while we are very likely to leave when time are good. Whereas when it come to other things such as going to a place to eat, when thing are bad you leave that place and then you go somewhere better. You nature instinct is to avoid the negative and seek positive. So, what I was trying to say was that time will always move forward and while times are tough you live your life (by taking what is bad now and turn it into something good for yourself), while when time are good you are still living you life (because when you are working when times are good, it just doesn't seem like work as much). Otherwise you just struggle when times are bad and struggle less (because seeing how you are missing out on the opportunity) while the good times arrive. It sounds to me, we are just not living very efficiently or better yet not utilizing time very well. So with that I have to ponder on his suggestion and then wonder what is the duration of that mini retirement. He said I would be bored by 2 years.

So one good thing happened (by selling my bike) lead to one bad thing to occur. It must of been last night while I my car is parked near New Montgomery, my bumper got hit while someone was either trying to get out of or get into the parking space. People are such a**holes in SF. They have no respect for other people's property. I find that they can boast about the weather and how great the place in comparison to other place. Which only SF people do that. Which also makes me wonder why they have to compare because no one is competing with them. Or maybe it is like a short guy wanting to buy a red Porsche. Yet this crap happens all the time and for some reason people do this kind of thing while the locals just reach with acceptance of it being the status quo. My observation about SF is that they boast how people are nice, but yet when you look deeply into who they are (I am generalizing) they are really are acting for like a closet elitist. They say they care about the macro topics by making loud claim on the environment, health care, rights, etc... and yet on the micro level they separate themselves from other people not like them. I know being fake is everywhere and in other cities, but at least at other places they don't boast on how great their city is and hide behind on the macro issues.

I ism this I ism that

I am tired of seeing all the "..ism" in America today. I swear I see racism, sexism, ageism and patriotism every other day. Trust me there are more ism than what I've listed. These words are in books, newspapers, television and even everyday speech. I see it so frequently that I wonder if people even know why they use it. In my opinion, they are constantly being misused by everyday highly educated people. The reason the highly educated people are major culprit of this is because it is easy to just summarize than to examine the details. Also it make it an useful tool to prove a point. But the topic is not about how smart you are, but about what integrity you have in the search of the truth out there. Furthermore, I think sometime smart people are not always the wise one. Which is why when you look at the history of truly great people, they are not always the smartest, but illustrate how wise they are in that time of need.

So I don't think other country have the need to put everything in some kind of system of belief or doctrine. Here in the land of the free we have to feel superior to everyone else and therefore we categorize people. But what is more disturbing is that we use the word to preach and judge others and yet we are the one that practice such blasphemy. How many time have we gone and condemned other countries for what they are doing. We announce them as inhuman and in the name of freedom we say so. We judge them as they were less than us. Then in all occurrences, year later we found out we were in the position of acting the same inhumanity. For example, in history and as today we see the practice of war for some sort of cause. We justify our action by the use of defamatory statements, insert our enemy into a doctrine, and bless it in the name of freedom for all. This is what is sad in my opinion. The intelligent people use their gift to compromise integrity. If you were to look at what is wrong today, that may be one of the starting point. The real smart one, will use this same practice, build a belief, and then fool other smart people into his cause. But when it come time to show what he has done, he has very little to show for it but to continue pass blame onto others. Well, for those that still in search of the ism, here is one for you.....foodism. Now get ready to separate ourselves from different kind of food.

Run Forrest run

I just watched the movie "Sea biscuit" and can't help but to comment a bit on what I just saw. It it truly an inspirational movie and I can understand why it got great reviews. Just funny how it took me so long to watch it. I guess it has to get on TNT since sticking a DVD just seems too hard. Anyways, that little bit of history is in some way reflective of what is going on today. Although we were lucky to not experience such hardship as compare to the 1930s. Much like the essence of the great depression in the past, today people are forced to displace from their home. Whether that displacement takes in the form of physically moving away, or just reinvent themselves mentally to how the world is. During hard times, inspiration comes from hardship and that inspiration lead to remembered history. I just wonder when I look back 20 years from now, what history will I remember. But more importantly, I wonder what inspiration woke up during that time. As I see it, it always takes something major to change the tide. Maybe that change should of been the crash of the banks (well Mr. O prevented that) or maybe that change is about the shift in world power to come. Whatever it may be, I think the story just beginning versus all the talk about how it is finally ending.