Friday, December 6, 2013
Gratitude
"If you do nothing else but live this day as if it were the first day and last day of your life... Then you will have spent this day very well."
Brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine Monk
Be thankful that you don’t have everything you desire,
If you did, what would you look forward to?
Be thankful when you don’t know something
It gives you the opportunity to learn.
Be thankful for the difficult times and your limitations.
During those times you grow.
Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.
Be thankful when you’re tired and weary
Because it means you’ve made a difference.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Song of the Barrent Orange Tree
Song of the Barren Orange Tree
Federico García Lorca
(translated by W.S. Merwin)
Woodcutter.
Cut my shadow from me.
Free me from the torment
of seeing myself without fruit.
Why was I born among mirrors?
The day walks in circles around me,
and the night copies me
in all its stars.
I want to live without seeing myself,
and I will dream that ants
and thistleburrs are my
leaves and my birds.
Woodcutter.
Cut my shadow from me.
Free me from the torment
of seeing myself without fruit.
*
_______________________
I view this poem as an illustration of man's existential predicament.
Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize: to see an expansive, indifferent universe in terms of themselves, making it intelligible, warmer and cuddlier. By writing in the voice of a sentient tree that similarly views existence as a reflection of itself, Lorca depicts the absurdity of this perspective.
Just like humans, the barren orange tree is dependent on reflections of itself in the material world for information about its own existence. Thus in the first stanza, it thinks that the day is "walking in circles" around itself, when in reality the earth revolves around the sun, causing the sun to change its position in the horizon, causing the tree's shadow to shift its position over the course of one day. But the tree, of course, believes its shadow to be fixed; it is the world that revolves around it instead. Its belief system places it at the center of the universe.
At night, speckles of moonlight shine between the tree's tangled mass of leaves and branches and illuminate the ground, like tiny "stars." As humans, we know the these fragments of moonlight reaching the ground are merely incidental. Yet to the orange tree, in making sense of limited information about itself and the universe, these fragments of light are literally *itself*: during the day, the tree sees itself reflected in the ground as shadow; at night, the tree sees itself reflected in the ground as bits of moonlight. Starlight issuing forth from molten stars from distant solar systems, from the tree's perspective, are merely copies of what the orange tree believes to be itself. The tree literally remakes the heavens in its own image.
Ultimately, this poem is about the orange tree's struggle with self-consciousness. The tree is seeking tree-like meaning and order in the universe--it wants to see the universe fashioned in terms of itself, in terms it can understand.
Of course, as humans we see the futility of this exercise. We see the absurdity of the confrontation between the orange tree's quest for a meaningful, central role in the universe and its objective inconsequentiality: it will not bear fruit, it will not leave a mark. We can empathize with the tree, while appreciating logically that its situation is absurd.
Thus, the tragicomedy of human existence, expressed metaphorically from the perspective of a barren orange tree.
Federico García Lorca
(translated by W.S. Merwin)
Woodcutter.
Cut my shadow from me.
Free me from the torment
of seeing myself without fruit.
Why was I born among mirrors?
The day walks in circles around me,
and the night copies me
in all its stars.
I want to live without seeing myself,
and I will dream that ants
and thistleburrs are my
leaves and my birds.
Woodcutter.
Cut my shadow from me.
Free me from the torment
of seeing myself without fruit.
*
_______________________
I view this poem as an illustration of man's existential predicament.
Humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize: to see an expansive, indifferent universe in terms of themselves, making it intelligible, warmer and cuddlier. By writing in the voice of a sentient tree that similarly views existence as a reflection of itself, Lorca depicts the absurdity of this perspective.
Just like humans, the barren orange tree is dependent on reflections of itself in the material world for information about its own existence. Thus in the first stanza, it thinks that the day is "walking in circles" around itself, when in reality the earth revolves around the sun, causing the sun to change its position in the horizon, causing the tree's shadow to shift its position over the course of one day. But the tree, of course, believes its shadow to be fixed; it is the world that revolves around it instead. Its belief system places it at the center of the universe.
At night, speckles of moonlight shine between the tree's tangled mass of leaves and branches and illuminate the ground, like tiny "stars." As humans, we know the these fragments of moonlight reaching the ground are merely incidental. Yet to the orange tree, in making sense of limited information about itself and the universe, these fragments of light are literally *itself*: during the day, the tree sees itself reflected in the ground as shadow; at night, the tree sees itself reflected in the ground as bits of moonlight. Starlight issuing forth from molten stars from distant solar systems, from the tree's perspective, are merely copies of what the orange tree believes to be itself. The tree literally remakes the heavens in its own image.
Ultimately, this poem is about the orange tree's struggle with self-consciousness. The tree is seeking tree-like meaning and order in the universe--it wants to see the universe fashioned in terms of itself, in terms it can understand.
Of course, as humans we see the futility of this exercise. We see the absurdity of the confrontation between the orange tree's quest for a meaningful, central role in the universe and its objective inconsequentiality: it will not bear fruit, it will not leave a mark. We can empathize with the tree, while appreciating logically that its situation is absurd.
Thus, the tragicomedy of human existence, expressed metaphorically from the perspective of a barren orange tree.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
My favorite advertisements of all time
So surreal, they feel like they came from an improv comedy sketch. The last one definitely deserves <full-screen> attention.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Chicago in the Summer
Chicago blew past all my expectations. The fantastic architecture, the emerald-green waters of lake Michigan dotted with sailboats, trees and gardens bursting with life, flip-flops reigning galore--this is my kind of city in the summer. When I arrived in California eight years ago, I was told not to worry my little head about those rusting, corn-fed "fly-by" states. And I dutifully internalized that east coast-west coast snobbery that characterizes most of America's liberals. Then again, Chicago also happens to be the home of this guy called Barack Obama.
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| Chicago Skyline North Ave Beach |
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| Beach Volleyball North Ave Beach |
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| Taste of Chicago Festival Grant Park |
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| Chicago's Financial District The Loop |
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| Dusk in Chicago John Hancock Center |
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| Dusk in The Loop |
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| Chicago Skyline at Night John Hancock Center |
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| Buildings on Stilts Residential Apartments by Mies, 330 Lakeshore Drive |
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| Infinite Space S. R. Crown Hall by Mies, Illinois Institute of Technology |
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| S. R. Crown Hall by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Illinois Institute of Technology |
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| World's Tallest Building Designed by a Woman Aqua Tower by Jeanne Gang, Lakeshore East |
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| North America's Tallest Building Willis (Sears) Tower, The Loop |
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| Post-modern, Modern, Hyper-modern Architecture Chicago River |
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| Mies van der Rohe: Skin and Bones 300 Lakeshore |
Saturday, June 30, 2012
How Big is New York Compared to Hong Kong?
My sister is moving to New York in September.
I'm happy for her, really I am. I spent a summer putzing around New York in 2008 while being "trained" as an analyst, and I've always wanted to live there: to ride my bike on the Brooklyn Bridge, to be at the center of the world, to feel the wind beneath my wings, etcetera etcetera. Sometimes, my vicarious excitement verges on jealousy--the pure, unadulterated, make-you-want-to-throw-a-tantrum-like-a-two-year-old kind. She's moving to New York, I'm moving back to Hong Kong, and I want her toy. So I've decided to channel those energies into something more constructive. The two images below show a map of Manhattan (outlined in blue) superimposed on top of Hong Kong:
Central Park alone would encompass the entirety of the Tsim Sha Tsui-Mong Kok urban corridor, or the Wan Chai-Sheung Wan core of Hong Kong island. Incredible.
How big is New York's transit system compared to Hong Kong's? The image below shows the two systems to scale, courtesy Neil Freeman:
Of course, New York's subway opened in 1904; Hong Kong's first line only opened in 1979. Only 24% of Hong Kong's land is developed, and its hilly terrain does not favor an extensive subway system (the pragmatic Brits bulldozed most of Manhattan island flat after taking over from the Dutch). Still, Hong Kong's system manages 1.3 billion annual passenger rides (#9 in the world) to New York's 1.6 billion (#6 in the world). Hong Kong's blue subway line, the "island line," is serviced by trains every two minutes. What Hong Kong lacks in scale, it compensates for with density.
The shortest,"great circle" distance (8072 miles) between Hong Kong and New York, courtesy great circle mapper:
I'm happy for her, really I am. I spent a summer putzing around New York in 2008 while being "trained" as an analyst, and I've always wanted to live there: to ride my bike on the Brooklyn Bridge, to be at the center of the world, to feel the wind beneath my wings, etcetera etcetera. Sometimes, my vicarious excitement verges on jealousy--the pure, unadulterated, make-you-want-to-throw-a-tantrum-like-a-two-year-old kind. She's moving to New York, I'm moving back to Hong Kong, and I want her toy. So I've decided to channel those energies into something more constructive. The two images below show a map of Manhattan (outlined in blue) superimposed on top of Hong Kong:
Central Park alone would encompass the entirety of the Tsim Sha Tsui-Mong Kok urban corridor, or the Wan Chai-Sheung Wan core of Hong Kong island. Incredible.
How big is New York's transit system compared to Hong Kong's? The image below shows the two systems to scale, courtesy Neil Freeman:
Of course, New York's subway opened in 1904; Hong Kong's first line only opened in 1979. Only 24% of Hong Kong's land is developed, and its hilly terrain does not favor an extensive subway system (the pragmatic Brits bulldozed most of Manhattan island flat after taking over from the Dutch). Still, Hong Kong's system manages 1.3 billion annual passenger rides (#9 in the world) to New York's 1.6 billion (#6 in the world). Hong Kong's blue subway line, the "island line," is serviced by trains every two minutes. What Hong Kong lacks in scale, it compensates for with density.
The shortest,"great circle" distance (8072 miles) between Hong Kong and New York, courtesy great circle mapper:
Finally, thousands of photographs stitched together to create Manhattan in motion:
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Creative Writing Reading
I will be reading one of my creative writing pieces at 50 Mason Social House in San Francisco on Friday March 9, 2012. Hope to see you there!
)
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