walking in the morning sun in Amsterdam

Waking up early with a tired mind and a relaxed spirit on a quiet Saturday morning -- effects of jetlag still wrecking hovac in my body, I decided to take an impromptu stroll in the still unswept streets of Amsterdam. Sun had long been shining bright since 6am during Holland's long summer days, and the rain cleared early enough the night before that only small puddles of various sizes and shapes were scattered on the cobbled floors. After a night of exuberant excitement -- of which I was oblivious, the narrow street was uncharacteristically stoic, tranquil to the extent that my rubber-soled shoes lightly drumming the foot path was rhythmically audible. Suddenly I realized my hands hung liberated; after a few days of deciphering Dutch on blindingly colorful, glossy maps, it didn't occur to me that some forms of tourist survival guides would be necessary. Instead of thinking and deliberately taking action, I was ready to just be. The fast-familar scenery was now comforting. I begin to see how one can fall in love with a foreign land.

Of course, shops were still closed, but obviously early-bird merchants were readying their shops already. Most notable, perhaps, were a few young apprentices in a bakery, visible behind a tall glass panel, who were diligently laboring at the art of bread making. The concentration despite a restless night and a hope for a promising future were conveyed through the repeated movement of shaping and pounding of the dough. I smiled wryly, acknowledging this was a road I once traveled myself. Without disturbing their serenity, I walked on.

morning has broken

at the crack of dawn when the first rays of a radiant sun break through the darkness that has engulfed the night for what seemed like eternity, the air can be filled with such hopes and promises, and the accidentally awaken ones gently rub their swollen eyes and wonder if maybe today is the beginning of a new world remarkable, brilliant and magnificant. the silence of a cold morning, tainted only by the yawns of a passer-by street cat, keeps the drifters entrapped in their Utopian homelands and wraps the coming hours in a protective blanket of anticipation. oh, how I wish time halts at this imminent moment of events unfolding, revealing only tempting hints of what is to come but holding the floodgates of inevitables at bay. is it not the anticipation of joy and happiness that is the gold currency that drives us, not the actual mundane repetitions of unfulfilled dreams, heartbreaks and dispppointments? Wishful thinking, I cautioned myself. I roll to my side as the pre-destined hours march in: army boots, military drums and shoulder-strapped rifles.

beauty is a whore

beauty is a whore. relentless pursuit of fickle physical attraction is human yet cruel. transient attraction of subjective beauty, like food attracts hunger, is animal-like instinct that once satisfied is no more. or is it? Is there a higher plane on which beauty can be eternal? perhaps a work of art, a classical composition, or a novel of extraordinary passion and compassion? When God created heavens and earth in six days and declared it "good", what beauty did He conjure?

consider now the prostitutes in whorehouses that lined the streets in Red Light District Amsterdam, goddesses in devil strings, flesh and blood in full display. It is love for sale, and surely, it is as cheap and satiable to wandering passer-by as a harvest moon. when then? when the neon lights dim, marajuana smoke fades and the morning rays break through the horizon, are they not human who hope and dream, tire and sleep, age and die? travellers of the same road, we meet our ends all the same without a whimper.

take heart, y'all sojourners. a moment of passion can well disguise and foul oneself. "women are either goddess or doormats," Picasso said. I say neither. We are all water, flowing to lower elevation until there is no more. Leave beauty to the Higher ground, He who ordains the stars and the moonlight.

relevancy

It is the fear of every man, or perhaps the only fear, to be irrelevant. every artist strives to edge his name in history with a thousand strokes, and every statesman paints visionary pictures with charisma and oral artistry hoping only to survive as a footnote in the journals of mankind. if a writer loses his last reader, a musician relinquishes his last listener, one's existence, one's lifework, would be like sand in an hourglass, time slipping in a vacuum in deafening silence. you can scold me, hit me, hate me if you choose, but don't ignore me, and remember me till the end of time.

yet as time trots away at a steady pace, inevitably each man's relevancy is melting away like an iceberg. memory is like a river bank that over time, every drop of water is washed away by water pouring down downstream. all the joy and happiness, pain and sorrow, fades like rocks by the seashore, perpetually retreating daily and monthly and yearly until there is no more. then the question of when who did what at where will be meaningless. irrelevant. through forces of nature, once a great painting has been retored to a blank canvas. and the river continues to flow, the ocean continues to roar. not a trace was recorded, not a soul was disturbed.

but is that really so? behold, there is an audience of One. From the beginning, He watches. Till the end, He listens. We have only now: past is already gone and will never come back, and future is yet to come. Yet He has always been, is, and always will be. Through him I am made relevant. My heart beats once again.

basketball USA

Ok. So perhaps you have not accepted the imminent demise of USA basketball in the Olympics because you are a dogmatic supporter of US athletics at any cost. Or perhaps you are a wishful believer that like the movie "Miracle" this group of young college drop-outs / never-attended (minus Duncan, who should really have a statue built in San Antonio in his unsurpassed honor for being a model citizen and athlete, a non-drug user, and most importantly, a practitioner of fundamentals like SHOOTING THE BASKETBALL... but I am digressing) will rise to the hostile anti-American climate and claim the basketball gold that the Yankees have rightfully deserved since the dawn of day. In either case you are deluded if not completely brainwashed by the ever-present and subliminally ego-centric American media. Here is the objective truth if there ever was one from watching US throws passes into third row: this group can't pass or shoot a lick, and is not getting any better.

Not that I am an American basher or hater unlike many citizens of the world quietly inhabiting unfriendly if not hostile feelings towards the American way in remote outposts like France, Germany, Lithuania, Serbia-Montenegro, Peuto-Rico... and I am staying the heck away from middle-east. Politics aside, it is just that Americans, and I am narrowing my focus on them NBA ballers in this meditation, obviously have a vastly different notion of "respectus" towards the games and the participants in them than the rest of the world. Exhibit #1. Carmelo Anthony guaranteed a Gold medal before playing a single minute of international basketball. Exhibit #2. The US players were throwing half-court shots during warm-up before the Italian exhibition game (in which they got crushed). Exhibit #3. they are staying at the Queen Mary, protected by NATO, instead of the Olympic village like every other freaky athlete. Exhibit #4. Media and players kept referring every American loss as a "wake-up call". You mean u were sleep-walking the whole time you were taken to the cleaners, and once you wake from your sweet slumber, the world will suddenly be a beautiful place again?

Hopefully one message would get through to the US as we see the wall of American arrogance crumble before our eyes: "The Olympics is NOT a side-show for the NBA that they can just show up with their extended families, sign autographs and crush whoever shows up on the other-side by 20 and go home w/ the gold". What USA basketball needs is more than just finding a few sharp shooters; they, and by "they" i mean the USA basketball selection committee all the way down to the players and coaches, need to learn what everyone else is expected to do when participating in the Olympics: respect.