Phone the Universe

Karma, its definition generally understood by many and yet its detail meaning varies when compared among religious views.  I believe in it to the degree that it should exist.  With that understanding then people's actions or at least my action should be noted or even to have some self awareness of the cause and effect of personal acts within the universe.  That is not saying that I aways tries to do good or whether I am aware all the time.  But knowing that "it" is there as the foundation.  With that foundation, I hold to myself the continue balancing act of being self centered at times along with the idea that karma exist, the ying for my yang.
So today I wonder or actually these couple of years as I gotten older, I wonder if it really exist?  I question if to take the saying "what comes around goes around" as something that should be practiced.  I see bad deeds happening all the time.  Well let's not say bad.  But negative actions flowing by each day.  It exist since evil is what help us identify good, that I can understand.  But for example, at work I see how my manager acts without any ethics, moral, or simple consideration for people to serve her own interest.  Her action is not obvious, but her malicious action wrap behind the fake act of kindness.  Yet she is proud of her ability and often boast her willingness to get nasty on people.  So I wonder what came around for her?  Has the universe failed?  Is there a response?  I think it was not until I been in Hong Kong, I notice how there are so many negative action that could happen in a given day.  I see a prosperous location with opulent growth and yet I also see a society with a whole lot of walking dead spirits.  The weird thing about not seeing karma work is that I end up wishing bad things to people.  So that very act is negative and of along with other attitudes afterwards that stem from that vary thought.  So I hope I am able to find or maintain the meaning behind the actions which spring from the intention of an unenlightened being.  Because like the simple understanding of Buddhism, if that deed was done too casually or the intention behind it was not quite pure, that wealth so obtained sometimes cannot be enjoyed.  What I hope is that it is still alive both within me and within the universe in which I operate.  So in finding peace, I pray.

The sick knows the sick

I am still recovering from the singles and because I am really limited to only so many activities, I decided to finish a book that I just can’t seem to finish.  To my surprise, I completed wasting my time on the “too big to fail” book and just in time to catch up on news about how the market been taking a beating within the past couple of week.  Of course all this in sync with my growing interest in purchasing more stocks along with the combination of everything around me has in a way reignited my opinion about finance and politics.  As I said before, the biggest crimes are those made in the name of religion, family, and the act of hiding behind the purpose of serving the less fortunate.  Such example as in finance, where people are led to believe the reason the financial market is going through its turmoil is because of the short-seller, or the banks are too big to fail, or the reason we do this is to save the financial world just frustrate me how people allow themselves to have curtains of lies pulled in front of them and in the expense of so many innocent people.  It is a long and twisted set of explanation as to why I think so.  But I have to point out a few examples.
For one, I think the idea that the short seller are to be blame for market crisis is a basic tactic of placing blame onto someone to distract the truth.  How is short seller different from any participants in the market?  Their strategy is betting on the market to go down, while we have the long buyers wanting the market to go up.  Equally when short need to cover their position, their action will cause the market to go up or vice versa.  Any volume drive a direction in the market, not the position.  We allow the traders to push a stock market up by having them contact their clients.  How is what they are doing any different from the shorts?  The same people who is calling people manipulating the market should really bring themselves out to face same judgment of how the are a hazard to the financial system.

From reading the book, you can not ignore that Wall Street bankers are separated from reality or even have an almost omnipotent attitude of each other.  It is a large fraternity with actions by a small individuals who are without care of anyone else and yet their full display of recklessness gone ignored.  People these days for some reason give so much power and praise to the fat and stupid.  In the same pool, you have the lawyer and other wannabe investors thinking they actually deserve all they are receiving.  Someone how what they have in their wallet is actually an indication of who they are.  Majority of them has the attitude that what they do is some how special and thus they rightfully deserve the money they made and eventually lead to the construction of their superiority complex.  Why the harsh word for this population is because I feel like nobody want to stand up to it because for some reason in society having money gives false power.  For example if you look at the government, in which most people agrees (including the bankers) lack any sense of urgency get things done and lack the ability to put aside their self interest.  Also to blame for the turmoil that the US is facing.  I didn’t make this up, the news and rest of the world says so.  Yet to examine this, the backgrounds of these governments consist of lawyers and bankers.  Again proves my point about how we look at the short seller wrongly because people stop thinking, but instead listen to people to tell them what to think.  But even scarier is that there are more bankers and lawyers being manufactured out from the once Ivy League school.  White collar crime are on the rise in parallel, while frequency of financial fiasco occurring more often, and everyone agrees the world is worse off then it was 10 years ago.  If you were to check other countries who are prospering, their leaders came from engineering and humanities background.  Their background and their building block in discipline is to actually construct and produce something to benefit something or someone.  You see that “thing” to completion and not just look at number, but the whole picture.  It is not a mystery why Asia has been gaining economic strength.  Their leadership and background are very different from the western culture (Europe/US).  At one point, the US labor make up pretty much the same.  Check out how all empire fail.  Trends always the same from producing labor to not producing labor.  Technical skills are highly regarded and eventually serve them when they come to leadership.  The reverse is true where the whole life of a banker is to look at numbers and completely ignoring the elements behind those numbers.  But this will change for Asia as well since doing little to get a lot is contagious and inviting.  For the time being, their foundation is so different.  All this rant from a hater?  Actually no.  I strongly want the US to be better.  But to be better we have to change and bring up what is wrong.  It takes some real self reflection and less on blame.    I only wish it could of happen sooner than to wait 3 years later.  The banks and law firms has a role to play, but for the past 20 years we given so much power to these complimentary services that we failed to ignore the fact that we operate on the tangibles assets and wages distribution is heavily misaligned in today’s society.

This entry is becoming longer than I thought.  So I cut it short by bring out one last point.  Entitlement is contagious and it creeps up on you.  I see this in US and now I am seeing this in Asia.  Major downturn will always happen and also very predictable.  What is so lacking in today’s world is the need to be socially conscience versus acting like you are socially conscience.  What is damaging to US and Asia today is the inability to be a little less imperialistic.  I continue to see blame pass on political parties, pass onto race, pass onto other countries, and pass onto other people.  But above it all the blame is more within themselves.  It the critic do this, they will surely be more forgiving to themselves and will maybe a little bit more forgiving to other people.  I find I am repeating the same comments I made 3 years ago when Obama came into position.  But this is not about Obama, but about the delusional idea that plague many parts of the world today.  I do think there is a greater shock awaits that people are not aware of.  People often say things are not like they once were.  There is a reason, mental state of the society is a bit ill and some therapy is desperately needed by the citizens of the world and I just hope it will not be too late.  Well if it is too late, then hopefully I am not around to see it.

Shingles Sucks

These couple of days been hell.  Both emotionally and physically.  The impact of shingles can vary form people to people.  I don't know how other people handle it, but for me it took me to the point of having crazy thoughts and really mentally crashing from the physically pain of what that virus was doing to me.  When I thought it couldn't get worse, it got worse.  Last night was probably the worse given it felt like my nuts got kick by a horse.  The shortness of breath, the cold sweat, and the wishing that it will be over soon, but it does not.  The other night, my back would ache to a point where I wanted to take a knife and cut myself open.  The night before that, the leg felt like snakes running through our leg taking random bites as different location.  Those nights were the worse, but this awful virus started 12 days ago with its other wrath of symptom that just drive you nutty.  I only hope it goes away soon.

Looking back at the past 12 days I went through so many thoughts and physical challenges.  First and for most, it felt lonely.  When you are awake during 3 AM in the morning crunching in bed, can't sleep, walking in the dark because you can't sit, feverish, or even going to the bathroom every 15 minutes, you start question why me.  That question put you in your own chamber of anger and also isolation from you and the rest of the world.  What is very sad about all this is that no one really understand how that felt.  People will say it must of hurt.  They may read medical journal or even have friends who had it.  But from my experience it is still just myself for the the last 12 days.  It sadden me because I feel that way, which I didn't think I could.  Looking back I wonder if I was feeling sorry for myself and maybe still am.  Yet in my heart I felt that having the emotion that I went through this by myself seem wrong given I do not live by myself.  In my opinion, it is during the unplanned moment that you uncover the unknown.  Therefore I have to question of why I feel the way I do.  Is it something that I do upon myself in those situation?  It is something lacking in my relationship with others?  Is it something lacking I need from someone else?  Is it something that I needed only when the unexpected happens?

I don't have answers, as most of the time I blog on things which I don't have answers for.  I just know I needed some sort of release and hope that compress emotion can flow out of my finger tips.  Maybe someday when I look back I can discover something and understand this artifact a bit more.

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Going through what I went through, I went outside to grab a sandwich.  Being locked up for the past 5 days really takes a toll.  What is strange about going outside and meeting the rest of the world is that that it felt the things I once noticed were "filtered down".  Not knowing how to describe it, but it felt like I was watching things through a glass.  I am in it, but yet I don't feel like I am.

I am going to try to insert myself back into the real world tomorrow by trying to go to work.  I am awake again.  This time at least not as the pain I experience previous nights, but I still can't sleep.  Going on 3 hours sleep is just not good.  I hope this is a sign things are getting better, but if it another round of pain is to come or the pain will prolong, then I have to really consider anti-depression pills because controlling my sanity is getting a bit harder each day.  Let me cross my fingers that this is a road to improvement.