Songs of Pain and Hope

A while back, I remarked to a friend that I’ve pretty much loved the same girl my whole life.  Different people but all had similar traits. All beautiful and unique in their own way.

And broken.

Like me.

Like all of us.

My friend chuckled at this in acknowledgment and affirmation. No worries here, there were only a handful – I wasn’t a skirt chaser.

I didn’t really have a specific idea of qualities looked for but I would say intelligence was high on the wishlist. Nice too but this was a bit more variable. What I should have prioritized were wisdom and empathy.  Soft eyes, soft heart. 

Looks matter, can’t get around that one but without those qualities, you may as well be writing your obituary.

Look for the detective, attorney, teacher, doctor with the soft eyes, soft heart.

Any different and you’ll be in a world of hurt, maybe even costing your life.

Look for the girl with the soft eyes, heart. She will not disappoint.  She will give you life.

It’s all about the soft eyes and heart.

Can never lose.

There are four classic Chinese books that are epic – translated as Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  I tell my son stories from Journey to the West, which involves the Monkey King, whom he shares a Chinese zodiac sign with.  And the last book, I used to teach my students with – the struggle to gain dominance over China by three warring factions.

This one is about emptying oneself in order to be filled.

I would have gotten fired or disciplined for this but I really wanted to show the movie Red Cliff in class.  It had so many lessons to impart.  It wasn’t the content but the length – the extended director’s cut was around the of two films.  The movie captures one such battle in Three Kingdoms where the most powerful one – led by the legendary minister Cao Cao, is about to annihilate another one.  I won’t go into details but there’s a key scene that is instructive.

The wild card in all of this is that the woman Cao Cao truly loves is married to the military leader of the opposing kingdom.  He yearns for her to the point he has a look-alike for his company.  But she isn’t her.  The problem with all forgeries – you can fool everyone but not yourself.  You never replace Apollonia, especially not with Kay.  

So just as Cao Cao is about to launch his death blow, she shows up.  She serves him tea. 

Slowly. 

At some point, the cup overflows.  She then tells him, he has overreached with his ambition.  She was the one who got away.  And that he lost sight of what he originally stood for – mow so full that he can no longer learn anything or see clearly.  Philosophically, this is all powerful but the real effect is to buy enough time for the winds to shift (literally), thwarting the invasion.  Timing isn’t everything but it matters a lot. Cao Cao is badly defeated and forced to call it a day.

Bruce Lee once said that one must empty one’s mind.  To be shapeless, formless.  This isn’t some purely Zen thinking.  It is practical.  When facing a problem, we often limit ourselves to preconceived ideals. It’s not the worst approach but it can be constricting, especially when faced with a novel situation.  There’s also a key scene in the chess movie – Searching for Bobby Fischer where a student’s teacher swipes off all the pieces of the board to allow him to see the correct solution to the position.  The presence of the pieces are distractions.

And so it probably is with God.  A common motif in the Bible is the desert.  It is often described as a place of testing and training.  But it also is a place of simplicity.  There are few to no distractions.  And this barrenness and emptiness is crucial.  To what – I’ll leave that to wiser minds but it is something you can’t find in other places or easily.  Maybe it’s perspective, wisdom.  Maybe it’s one self.  Whatever it is, it has something to do with being truly filled.

Although this did not end well because of political change, it will be one of the most memorable and proudest periods of my life.  While I cannot specifically discuss what I did for so many reasons, it was a one-in-a-million job.  I will tell my kids one day.  Put it this way, I had the equivalent of a top notch MBA program from an unique perspective.

The honor of service truly belongs to the uniformed officers.  There are definitely brutal, petty, power-hungry ones out there who should be removed and disciplined immediately, but there are truly noble servants.  I’m glad I sat with and shared parts of my life with them.  Don’t get me wrong, I heard and saw pretty egregious instances of misconduct, some of which are unprintable.

My first month, I attended the funeral of an Assistant Deputy Commissioner in Queens.  After the church ceremony, the casket was followed by bagpipe players, honor guard, and a helicopter flyover while all in attendance lined up on the street to pay their respects.

Moving.  

My colleagues and I went to Applebees for lunch.  There was an elderly man eating alone and one officer on noticing this, immediately starts a collection to pay for his meal.  

Moving.

We had this video montage set to the theme of Gladiator and voiced by James Earl Jones.  Always Heroes.  Predictably, my friends would make fun of it, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me chills at times.

My first Chief, who interviewed me in the dark (yes, exactly this for some psychological tactic) called the Department the greatest police force in the world.  Sigh – Scotland Yard, BOPE, GIGN, but ok.  I’ll go with that.

Intimidation aside, I have many funny stories.  Again, not minimizing the very real horror stories I saw and heard.  These scary sounding places are all that, but goofy too.  I once attended a promotional ceremony opened by the band playing not some patriotic song but rather “Wait a Minute Mr. Postman.”

My daughter told me she’s worried about the upcoming school year. Apparently, this year really counts or something like that. I asked her whether it was the social pressure or the schoolwork. She said the latter although the former is going to be also present.

I then told her that I came to this country when I was her age and it wasn’t an easy transition. And that I was a good student, not a great one.

I then told her a story of how I had an absolute zero percentage at midterm in my programming class in high school. None of my programs worked. None.

Grades matter but so do other factors.

In addition to book smarts, street, people, and what I call God smarts.

I did not do all of that perfectly but I certainly tried.

So I just told her what I still tell myself now – One day at a time, one moment at a time. And ask God for help in whatever she does.

I also told her she doesn’t have to be good at everything and it’s other qualities that will get her through.

And here’s the kicker – she will fail at some point and that’s ok. That it’s ok not to be strong all the time. Being weak, scared is normal, human, maybe even divine.

But that programming class?

I claw my way out of that hole and end up with an A at the end of the semester.

The first time I played jazz guitar on stage, these two guys who would look down on me were also playing in the same concert as violinists.  When they saw me, they started to chuckle and asked what I was doing there.  

I said nothing and went on stage with my guitar.  A rarity for an Asian kid to have enough of a skill level at that instrument to actually perform.  And the look on their faces – these entitled, arrogant ones – pure envy and jealousy.

I chose this path because I wanted to be more like Bruce Lee than not.  To change the game, the perception and reality of Asians.  Especially men.

A good journey.  Good stories. 

A good story.

Did I mention how much Pearl Jam speaks to me?  I grew up with them but I didn’t realize how powerful and poetic their music has been.  

In so many ways, their songs mirror the biblical psalms in their conveyance of the range of human emotions.  They are raw and real.  They are honest.

It is telling that Eddie Vedder is arguably the only frontman alive from the major bands of his era.  The others like Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain, Shannon Hoon, Scott Weiland are all deceasesd.  I remember going to one of their concerts in Boston and thought to myself that this resembles a worship service more than church.  Their songs are heavy and intense, but there is hope, grace, love underlying them.

Vedder can sound incoherent, inarticulate, and even drunk when he speaks, but the elegance of his lyrics cannot be denied.  I love U2 and they are also transcendent and played a profound impact on my life, thinking, and writing.

But as I’ve grown, I realize Pearl Jam reflects who I am more accurately, from the stripped down style of play, raw unfiltered sound, and willingness to evolve yet stay grounded.

My daughter and I will be watching them at Madison Square Garden. A true bucket list for both of us.

In one of the newer Star Wars movies – the ones that seemed to be slapped together by a team of randomness, there is a scene where the prized Jedi texts of Luke Skywalker get destroyed somehow.

I wrote some initial thoughts on this matter.

“Because the Force (or Truth) is everywhere and accessible to everyone.  The Jedi texts (or religious ones in this universe) frame principles as best they can but do not describe the truth in its entirety (This sounds like heresy but it is just common sense).  My own experience showed me that I learned the most about faith and truth by living, more than sitting in church or reading (although I did learn quite a bit these way.”

Not to dismiss holy books of all faiths but I think the broader reality here is there is a difference between the source (God) and the conduits in which we experience, connect with, and access Him. Scripture, sermons, hymns, rites, rituals, etc. are all important but I’ve noticed that they can take the place of God when they are overemphasized.

God is really big and powerful. A fact that I have often forgotten. Do not ever put any limits on Him or put Him in any box.

All easier said than done but freeing and the real source of hope. Yes, we have human needs but God knows all that. Another thing I realized is that God isn’t a one size fits all problem solver but rather a specific one. I’ve had considerable difficulty in explaining some of my experiences to others due to complexity and inability to understand. The comfort here is at least one entity gets it.

And this is the real key.

That entity can actually do something.

My daughter asks questions about God – the one that often pops up is who would He favor in a war where there wasn’t a clear good or bad side. Tough question.

Part of my response was that humans are limited in our perception of reality, time, and space. It’s like playing a video game in 2D versus 3D. Daughter goes – So God has an Ocuous VR set.

Close enough.