Friday Reflections

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing

 

 

POINT TO PONDER
It seems people are happiest in the moment, when they are able to shut that voice in their head off and get to the tasks at hand.

STORYLINE -- By Rajiv Shah
 
The other day I was driving down freeway on my way to my favorite park. In the backseat was my trusted best friend - my always enthusiastic dog. The window was cracked just enough so she could stick her head outside and enjoy the winds zipping by, lifting her compact, triangular black ears off her head and giving them the appearance of black bats swirling together in a synchronized dance. This little dog was happy. Happy as can be, not a place in the world that she'd rather be than right there in my window getting a natural blow dry from gales of a new day.

Suddenly I felt envious. And that envy continued when we arrived at the park. I let her out and shut the door, my mind still grappling with image of her face blissfully riding the breeze.

Questions raced through my mind. Why are dogs so happy? Why is my dog so content with a simple wind in her face? If I stuck my face out the window, would I receive the same satisfaction?

In the middle of this mental debate warring in my head, I was pulled hard. My dog, no longer concerned with the car ride over was off and immediately onto something else, a healthy rotund squirrel. Up the tree the squirrel went and my dog bounced under, hoping that a fateful misstep would have the chubby little rodent hurtling down towards her. Alas, to my pleasure, the squirrel made it high above, and I felt happy that she didn't get the squirrel. Not because I feared for the squirrel's safety or because I'm a PETA supporter or anything; I was happy because my dog didn't get what it wanted. And then it hit me, the pangs of guilt.

More questions raced to my mind. How could I, as a caring human being, want my dog to be unhappy? Why was I envious of a dog in the first place? Was I bad person for feeling the way I did? And how could I find ways to improve myself? Obviously, this was a sign that I had to get better.

I looked to my dog, prepared to shower her with love to compensate for my ill will - deciding to buy her a pet squirrel if I had to – but at that moment she couldn't have cared less. She was squatted over a nice tuft of grass peeing freely into the greenest parts, a contented and joyous look on her face.

 

REFLECTION
 
A friend once asked me if life is better for a dog. She wondered if dogs were stupid and maybe that's why they had the capacity to feel joy at such high levels. “Ignorance is bliss,” she would say. I have thought about that a lot, about whether our higher functions, our intellect can sometimes get in the way of doing, of living in the moment.It seems people are happiest in the moment, when they are able to shut that voice in their head off and get to the tasks at hand. I wanted to know if dogs had that critical, omnipresent voice that seems to be so well-meaning.

What I found was that noted animal cognition researcher William Roberts studied different species of animals and their ability to remember events in time. According to Mr. Roberts, animals lack the “sophistication” to remember events as humans do, to form memories, to self-edit, their minds committed wholly to the present.

Initially, I wondered how dogs and other animals can remember commands and who we are if they aren't capable of forming memories. Apparently, an animal operates the way a human child would – a child learns to walk, talk, and obey basic commands but cannot necessarily remember when and how they learned how to perform that specific command.

For example, if you've ever done anything where you were so completely entrenched in the doing that you lost track of time and space, that would seem to be the experience of a dog and a child. You didn't think about or remember how you learned that activity, were not mentally editing your relation to it, but just doing it.

Perhaps there is a higher joy in simplicity, in the doing of things in the present moment? Maybe that voice that is so critical of others and yourself is not your best self. The best part exists in the doing, in the moment in front of you, the one in which you do not think but let go and let yourself do.

If You Can Think Of It If You Can Dream Of It You Can Achieve It

A Family Project: From Swimming Pool to Koi Pond. And a wonderful ten years journey since. 

June 24, 2010 - 2020.

Happy Father's Day Wishes and Love to You from Your Friday Reflections Family.

Point to Ponder: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Story Line: The video above covers the journey of a family project we started in the spring of 2010. The first part was to remove the high maintenance, low use swimming pool that was occupying majority of our backyard. The second part was to create a Koi Pond with the help of an expert. And the third part was where we enriched the surroundings with varieties of fish, trees, flower plants and other items. What you see in the video is the evolution of surroundings through the years; majestic colors of the landscape through four seasons, reflections of sunlight during different parts of the day, many varieties of plants, flowers, fruit trees and diversity of wildlife (Birds, Bees, Butterflies, Animals and of course Lizards and Garden Snakes. Not to forget manyfriends from various countries have blessed this pond with their presence. People may find hard to believe that this 'not so secret garden' is very low maintenance compared to what it was before the change.

Reflection: Next Wednesday, June 24th is the tenth anniversary of this creation. It has been a wonderful journey full of fun and a lot of learnings about gardening and wildlife. Every member of family was involved; our son and his mother very intensely, me providing the management guidance (lol) and vision for the size of the pond, our son in law and daughter providing vegetable plants and share their deep experience. Some friends also provided flowers and vegetable plants. Many new lessons learnt; here are the top three.

1. Hire the best man for the job, the second best is too expensive. The person who built our pond was professional, knowledgable, responsive, with high degree of integrity and good people working for him. Till today we haven't had any major issues with the pond. 
2. Let things evolve and don't give up too soon. After getting only 5,7 and 6 cherries from 4th to 6th years, I was thinking of removing the tree. My wife suggested to give some more time. I guess the tree heard us and since then we have had years with continuously increasing crops; this year yielded  2000 cherries. Similarly after the drought years, three old evergreen trees looked pale and terrible. Called tree doctor who recommended doing expensive lab analysis and also removal of two out of three. Our gardner suggested to water them a lot and give some tender loving care. Since then those three are blooming with beautiful white flowers every February and early moring sunshine turns them into majestic gold colors. (in video)
3. Maintaining a balanced eco-system is very important. In nature there is a good reason for the way things are. Removing garden snakes created an imbalace that opened up opportunities for frogs and rats to invade the garden. Only when the park ranger saw us dropping a snake in the woods, he educated us about the benefits of garden snakes and their harmlessness. Since then the rats and frogs have moved away.  Garden Snake

Enjoy the video. Happy Weekend. 

Children are Wiser than Adults

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDQezECAxtQ

First time I heard the story "Wisdom of Children" (also translated as Little Girls Wiser than Men) by Russian author Leo Tolstoy was during my childhood. Last year It resurfaced in mind when I read news about parents getting into big fights during The Little League games. Since I had never forgotten the title and the names of two girls in the story, I could easily find it on internet and saved it foran appropriate time to publish. Seeing the above photos and video last week made it the right time.

Story Line (Synopsis-Wikipedia): The story opens at the beginning of Holy Week, when there was still melting snow on the ground. An older girl, Akulya, and a younger girl, Malasha, go outside to play. They both have just been given new frocks, but they insist on wading through one of the puddles from the melting snow. They both take off their shoes to keep them dry, and Akulya warns Malasha against splashing the water on her new frock. Malasha splashes Akulya despite her warning, and Akulya runs home in tears. Her mother is furious at the ruined frock, and she spanks Malasha in the middle of the street. Soon Malasha's mother emerges from her home, and the mothers begin arguing. The shouts brought the peasants into the street, who also begin arguing with each other. The peasants start pushing each other, and Akulya's grandmother urges everyone to stop, but to no avail.

In the meantime, Akulya had washed off her frock, and she and Malasha returned to the pool. The two girls make a small boat out of bark, and they make a stream from the puddle. They go chasing after the boat together, as happy as ever. Akulya's grandmother urges everyone to follow the example of the children, and take their spirit of forgiveness into their own hearts.

Reflection: Most of the things in life are simple but only wise understand them. What is it that we understood and practiced well in childhood that gets forgotten through the growing years? Love, Forgiveness, Compassion, Kindness are so much easier than EGO, Anger, and Hatred. What a pity that a man must die before he wakes up?

 

 

To him, we say, "Well done"

Louis Liang (1944-2020)

Point to Ponder: To know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Story Line: It was October 1983, I was a new employee at Fairchild Semiconductor and my friend, Steve Kan, was taking me around to introduce to various people. The last stop was a corner office, the person who sat there was head of Assembly/Test operations. As Steve and I entered the office, the gentleman got up and welcomed me to the company. As we sat and talked, he sat straight up in his chair, made good eye contact and patiently asked me questions about my background. After few minutes it became apparent that he was very detailed, knowledgeable, data driven and pragmatic. I left his office thinking that I would need a lot of patience and efforts to deal with him.

Little did I know at that time, despite our mostly contrasting ways of operating (Me, a Dreamer and him, a pragmatic, well-grounded person), it would be the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

Louis Liang was born in Shanghai China. In his early teen years, a small window of opportunity opened to leave and he took the train to join his father in British Hong Kong. Then, his family moved to United States of America, he studied science and started a career in Silicon Valley.

After I left Fairchild, we kept in contact. I enjoyed his perspective on different issues, appreciated his depth of knowledge and advice on many subjects beyond technology and work. He became my defecto mentor and helped throughout life in personal, career, legal and financial matters.

Though very firm and seemingly tough at work, he was very kind, compassionate, helpful person and an extremely loyal friend. He encouraged and supported every business and creative ventures of myself and my children. Like a true friend, he stood by me in difficult times. There are so many stories and memories; he once owned a Chinese restaurant and was a very good cook; treated executives, US senators (in his last job), line workers and Starbucks employees with the same courtesy and respect.

After my retirement we started meeting more often; Tuesday morning coffees at Starbucks. He was very close to his mother and often talked about how much he missed her. Whenever he found out that my mother was at our home, he would stop by to chat with her for hours.

Reflection: In the last week of December 2015, during our coffee chat, Louis informed me that he was going to have surgery for cancer. After that day, he courageously forged his own path with not one, but two stage four cancers. Louis continued his own positive style, kept firm determination, continued our weekly coffee meetings on various subjects and visited my mother. After last November we did Facetime or visited him. He appreciated his life, loved his family and was never afraid of Death.

Last time we could talk was about three weeks ago. My wife and I visited him and he woke up and chatted with us for 20 minutes.  The very last thing that happened before he fell asleep was he pointed at many patents and awards plaques that were hanging in the room and said “all that Useless. Useless.”

Then pointed at the photograph that was underneath; a photo of his daughter, wife and him, and said “That’s all that matters.”  

My friend and Mentor Louis left this world last Thursday.

“And now somewhere, there stands the man
His duty o'er and won
The world will never forget him
To him, we say, ‘Well done’”  - From Old soldiers never die, They just fade away by Gene Autry

Amaryllises - Gifts from our friends and mentor Louis Liang and Jessie Liang

Determination, Beauty, Love

And how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see....

Point to Ponder: How many ears must one person have before he can hear people cry? And how many deaths will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?

Reflection: The image at the top of reflection is Choeung Ek memorial, the reminder of the tragic consequences of the power of hate. It is filled with 5000 human skulls, out of 1.5 to 2 million who were tortured and killed in various killing fields of Cambodia; their fault- having different belief system, education level and status. It is the result of one man and his group of followers’ obsession with hate.

History has many such tragic events in every culture and country; some on a genocidal scale like this and many others, though not as massive, resulting in innocent lives lost because of religious beliefs, race, status or color of the skin. Methods and means for torture were different but the end result was the same; the root cause - Hatred.

These hate initiatives start out small (one person killed, may be a few here and there as the numbers start addingup) but when the ordinary good citizens (other 98% or so) who knew they were wrong didn’t stand up, the other side picked up momentum and forced or coerced good people in joining them with intimidation and false propaganda about the other side. Many people remained silent out of fear.

If such issues are not contained and eliminated at the onset, even if it is just one life, gradually it starts adding up. Right now, this is happening to our children’s future.

But my story line is about a deeper issue.

Story Line: Some may say that there laws and systems to address such issues. But as Dale Carnegie once said “A person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” And we currently see this live in action, in many countries around the world. Hatred and violence against people of different faiths and skin color. Laws, a compliance mechanism, are only as effective as people choose. None of us are born prejudice, but pick them up along the way in school, social gatherings, from-friends, adults, books and media.  The real change will have to come from us making a conscious choice; acceptance of differences amongst us, appreciating them and learning from one another. And whenever we see injustice, prejudice and hatred, we must not stand on the sideline but speak up for what is right. The requires an inner transformation that takes commitment and courage. We must do this for the sake of the future generations.

My own story: For most of my life, I thought I was an open minded, non-judgemental person until my children pointed out my hidden biases and prejudices expressed in casual conversations, “light jokes” and "well intended" actions. After intense dialogues I came to realize that opinions I had developed about different races, gay rights and an individual’s right to choose were not based on any concrete facts but due to my ignorance about their history, personal feelings and information from media or casual conversations. I still have a lot to learn and realize that inner transformation is the first step in how to view and act in the world. For my children and grandsons sake, I have made that choice.

Learn to do good, seek justice, correct opresion, bring justice to the helpless, stand up for the right cause.

In light of current situation, This is a special reflection on Monday.