ken's exchange

The following is an email with an attachment that tabulates the dialogues between brother Ken and his friend and my response to it some time ago. Hopefully you'd find them interesting or thought arousing if you could patiently finish reading them :) 

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Ken Hsu <keyeeh@gmail.com>

Date: Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 2:55 AM

Subject: If you got time, I like your input on this exchange I have with a friend...

To: David Liao <dsliao888@cox.net>, David Wong <cdwong@gmail.com>, Edmond Liou <lioued@gmail.com>

Guys, last week I got caught up with a friend in a discussion that started from media bias in United States but ended up in God, bible, and Christian belief in general.  It's a long email discussion back and forth for about 2, 3 days.  I put the entire exchange in MS Word document in a tabular form.  I was just wondering, what would your answer be?  I know this is a lot to ask.  Take the time you need.  Also I certainly understand it if you don't have the time to do so.  I just simply like to know your answer for future reference.  Seems like I'm having these conversations more and more these days, I would like to be prepared for them.

In Him,

Ken

from: David Wong <cdwong@gmail.com>
to: Ken Hsu <keyeeh@gmail.com>

cc: David Liao <dsliao888@cox.net>,
Edmond Liou <lioued@gmail.com>

dateFri, Apr 2, 2010 at 4:19 PM
subject: Re: If you got time, I like your input on this exchange I have with a friend... 

Ken,

Your friend brought up lots of issues, and each of them can take thousands of words to respond, but overall I think his value/belief system is, in my hunch, many middle-class secular intellectuals', i.e., live-and-let-live, do-what-I-think-is-the-right-thing, and "tolerate" or supposedly keep an open and fair mind about things they don't understand, such as God and human nature.

To me this smacks of settling on "second best" instead of "the best," but this would be my "religious" mind talking, from your friend's perspective, since I already accept there is an absolute truth while I assume your friend does not.

Though not exactly his words, but I agree with your friend that religion probably started because humans want to have meaning for their life, and here's the crux of the issue: without meaning or purpose, or more specifically, recognizing and embracing the Lord of the universe, in a very personal way, how can one do good--Camus' existentialist novels have some brave humanists trying to do so in disastrous situations, but the stories usually end up in confusion or helplessness, as I can recall. Again this circles back to the "best" vs "second best" issue: without a supreme but very intimate power with you, how does one "enjoy it as best as I can, at no expense to other people, and trying my best to be a positive in the lives of any people I deal with," quoting from your friend's.

This is still of course my "religious" mind talking, your friend would say. I think if you really ask hard the humanists what they base their work or optimism on, they mgiht ultimately say it's "humanity" itself, or something like "I believe human beings are basically good." You may also see some people who seem to truly live an active and happy life as if their genes are just programmed that way, without need of any official belief... Then these are people I would really like to approach and get real close with, to try to find out what's the real story behind it--are they really as anchored by their humanist belief as they claim, are those instinctive, good-natured behavior really good enough for these lucky-gene people, does God give out blessings to some people without needing them to respond back, etc..

Some not-so-intellectual responses to the highly intellectual exchanges between you and your friend :)

Have a nice weekend,

DW

eve's wish

One day in the Garden of Eden, Eve calls out to God:

"Lord, I have a problem."

"What's the problem, Eve?"

"Lord, you've created me and provided this beautiful spot, these wonderful animals, and that comedic snake, but I'm just not happy."

"Why is that, Eve?" came the voice from above.

"Lord, I am lonely. And I'm sick to death of apples."

"Well, perhaps I have a solution. I shall create a man for you."

"What's a man, Lord?"

"Man will be a flawed creature, with aggressive tendencies, an enormous ego and an inability to empathize. All in all, he'll give you a hard time. But he'll be bigger, faster, and stronger than you. And while he'll need your advice to think properly, he'll be good at fighting, kicking a ball around, hunting fleet-footed ruminants, and not altogether bad in the sack.

"Sounds good to me," says Eve. "But isn't there a catch, Lord?"

"Yeah, well, there is one."

"What's that, Lord?"

"You'll have to let him believe that I made him first."

pain lesson

One day about two weeks ago, I felt some tinglings on my right foot's Achilles tendon. The next morning when I woke up, the pain became more severe, and was spreading toward the ankle area. Judging from my past experiences, I knew I had passed the time of fighting it off successfully myself, so, though being a drug-averting person, I opened the drawer where I kept some old anti-inflammation medicine from my previous visit to my primary physician, and took one pill for the day.

The next day it got worse. I became walking crippled inside my house. The most tricky thing is stepping up and down stairs. You tend to use the other, healthy foot and leg to carry your whole body weight up and down the stairs in an awkward way, and that could eventually mess up your body structure. I knew this because in one of my previous episodes, I ended up dislocating the hip joint of one leg after a few days of hopping up and down the stairs relying on that good leg.

The pain was now on not only the Achilles tendon, but the whole ankle, and spreading toward the front toes area. But I could still manage to drive the car with it, so that evening I still attended a scheduled training class at Saddleback Church. The class was at Tent 1, and man, for those of you who are familiar with the church landscape, that is the one tent farthest from the parking lot, and once I got off the car, I realized driving with one foot is definitely much easier than walking with two feet on the ground in my situation. Each step of my right foot felt like a couple of big pins piercing right from beneath at me. Blessingly, a good brother attending that same class happened to park right near me at the same time I arrived at the parking lot, and with his company and pleasant chatting, we managed to finish that 100 feet walk in, say, 5 minutes.

The foot was definitely inflaming at its height that night. It was red, swollen from the outside, and burning deep hot inside. I could touch it with my cold hands and felt soothingly warmed by it--it's like I'd got a nature-made thermometer from my own body. But at night, it's excruciatingly painful--everytime I moved the foot, it hurt, and even when I didn't move it, it felt like something is eating my flesh and bone voraciously, and I think I had some head ache too, so I definitely didn't have a good sleep that night.

But guess what I did the next day: I went to Fry's in the afternoon for some computer accessories shopping, and then attended a seminar at the South Coast Plaza Westin hotel in the evening. The hotel was just across a major boulevard from the South Coast Plaza mall, so I parked my car at the mall's lot that's right next to the boulevard, walked a few steps to the street crossing and pressed the pedestrian walk button, then with all the cars ready to gun me down at the delimiter lines, dragged my foot across the 8-lane boulevard to the other side--(picture the scene of an old lady from Pasadena crossing the street). The hotel was then just one block away, it was a side door area I reached, and it's next to their valet parking area. The valet parker there stared at me with a weird look, probably wondering where this funny walking guy came from, and it flashed on me why this is probably one time I had every legitimate reason to have used that valet parking service.. but then, nah, that would be giving up my cheapskate philosophy too easily.

But you don't appreciate how great a job your feet do for you every day until they go out on you. With this bad foot, for example, I could tell the difference between walking on carpet and walking on concrete--one less painful than the other. You also realized how big a deal those special parking spaces and walk ramps and elevators and all that other stuff mean for the disabled, as well as how vulnerable and insecure those less privileged in society must feel in general in their everyday life (back to that old frail lady crossing the street image).

That night I took a second anti-inflammation pill before I went to bed (the recommended dose is one pill per day), hoping it could suppress the pain while I slept. It didn't, but at least the pain didn't get worse either. I continued to take the medicine for another two, three days before I felt the pain had subsided.

But then I decided to see my primary physician. I had withheld doing so because I had visited him several times before on this problem in the past few years and he had sent me to various specialists too--podiatrist, infectionist, rheumatolgist--and none had given me any conclusive answer to the problem. It's not gouts, they say, based on the results of the blood tests they took, but that's about the only thing they are sure of. The podiatrist, through the X-ray and MRI exams I took, suspected I have some miniature deformity between the balls of my foot that rubs up inflammation occasionally; the infectionist and rheumatologist didn't see any obscure bugs or anything unusual in my body or immune system, though at one time some hospital physicians suspected I might have gotten one of those "super bugs" (MRSA) that is anti-biotic resistent. Most of the time, though, they decided it was just inflammation caused by accidental wear or tear (though I didn't recall one happening before the assault) or infection by bacteria from unknown sources, and gave me anti-inflammation and/or anti-biotic treatment. And that's why I decided to visit my primary doctor now, because if it was inflammation plus infection, I might need to get some anti-biotic medicine from him to take along with the anti-inflammation pills I had been taking.

So "here you come again," the doctor greeted me with a smile and I smiled him back, "yes, same-o-same-o problem," I said. Then he brought in my medical records, "Here it is, the first time you came to see me for this, June 2001, the right foot." That I remember, it was when this all started: After playing a sudden, rigorous golf round without any pre-game warm-up, I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain on my right Achilles tendon and came to see him the next day. But then there were records showing I visited him for pains in my left foot, right ankle, left knee, right heel, etc., throughout the past 8 years, and he had no definite answers to what caused them. 

At the end of the visit, he decided to give me some more anti-inflammation medicine, and a prescription for something stronger that I can take if the pain persisted after a couple of days. No need for anti-biotic medicine, though, he said, since I didn't have the symptom--fever or severe head ache--of bacteria infection. I said good-bye to him and went my crippling way. ("Why are you always limping every time we meet?" the doctor made a parting fun with me when I left. Quite a humorous doctor, huh :)

I didn't fill that prescription and stopped taking the anti-inflammation pills a couple of days after the visit, deciding to let my foot heal itself. It's been over a week since then, and I can walk normal again, if only still a bit limpy when I go up/down the stairs--I can feel the tightness and latent pain if I move my foot too rigorously. I have had to stop my daily trademill exercise for the past two weeks too, and gained two pounds as a result. That's pretty painful too!

One bright thing I found throughout this experience, though, is people do care about each other. I am surprised a couple of times by someone asking me how my foot is doing even when I thought I didn't mention my foot problem to them and they shouldn't have noticed it.

So, to you all good people out there, thanks for your concern and I hope this long, unglamorous story about my little lowly foot hadn't bored you to death, and may you all take good care of your body so it'll take good care of you as well!

wooden

"Wooden" is a book of John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach who won 10 NCAA national championships in 12 years between 1964 and 1975. Coach John Wooden is loved and respected by many, not only for his unprecedented (and probably unsurpassable) winning record, but his way of coaching and the life principles he teaches and practices with his players and himself on and off the basketball court. This book is a collection of Wooden's lifetime observations and reflections on families, values, success, achievement, coaching, leading, etc. It is easy to read, but powerful, inspiring, and even-keeled at the same time.

Some examples:

Overachievers

No one is an overachiever. How can you rise above your level of competency? We're all underachievers to different degrees. You may hear someone say that a certain individual "gave 110 percent." How can that be? You can only give what you have, and you have only 100 percent.

Underdogs

I have never gone into a game thinking we were going to lose. Never. Even though there have been games where the experts said there were no way we could win. Even if we were big underdogs I always felt anything could happen. Often enough, I was right.

That's also why I never assumed we were going to win.

Fame 

Fame is just something other people perceive you to be. You're not different. You're still you. It's their illusion. I didn't want it to become my illusion.

  

Hopes and Dreams 

Youngsters are told, "Think big. Anything is possible." I would never go that strong. I want them to think positively, but when you think big you often start thinking too big,  and I believe that can be very dangerous.

Wanting an unattainable goal will eventually produce a feeling of "What's the use?" That feeling can carry over into other areas. This is bad.

Some favorite maxims of his:

Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.  

You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one.  

Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.

Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.

In the final part of the book, Wooden lays out his defintion of success as such:

"Success is the peace of mind that is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming."

He draws a "pyramid of success" that shows how such success can be achieved: 

The pyramid has gained such fame there are actually courses and web sites after it:
http://www.woodencourse.com/woodens_wisdom.html

http://bit.ly/cjpH1k

A few words on Wooden's family and faith, lastly:

John Wooden was born on October 14, 1910 in a small town in Indiana to farmer parents Roxie Anna and Joshua Hugh Wooden. He had three brothers and two sisters, both died before reaching the age of three. Wooden met his wife Nellie when he was 16. They married in a small ceremony in Indianapolis 6 years later. John and Nellie had a son and a daughter. Nellie died on March 21, 1985 from cancer.

Wooden has remained devoted to Nellie, even decades after her death. Since her death, he has kept to a monthly ritual (health permitting)—on the 21st, he visits her grave, and then writes a love letter to her. After completing the letter, he places it in an envelope and adds it to a stack of similar letters that has accumulated over the years on the pillow she slept on during their life together.

In mourning Nellie's death, Wooden has been comforted by his faith. He has been a Christian for many years and his beliefs are more important to him than basketball, "I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior." Wooden's faith has strongly influenced his life. He reads the Bible daily and attends the First Christian Church. He has said that he hopes his faith is apparent to others, "If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me."

flow

Two good books I read last year, recommended by two good friends, deal with happiness and success.

"Flow," a book written by Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a renowned scholar/professor and former chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, is a serious work on the science of what constitues happiness and how it can be achieved for people. In its anatomy of human consciousness, it somewhat borrows the information theory model to define consciousness as "intentionally ordered information," attention as "psychic energy," and disorder in consciousness as "psychic entropy;" the goal then is to direct one's psychic energy away from psychic entropy to achieve order in consciousness, or the "flow" experience. It also examines what constitutes "I", and concludes it is both part and sum of the contents of consciousness that "I" directs its psychic energy to accumulate for--a circular process that constantly feeds and evolves on itself.

The book then goes on to analyze how "flow" state can be achieved in both physical and mental realms--resulting in sports, games and various scholastic disciplines we have in our civilization--as well as in our daily work, and how one can become an "autotelic" personality that self-motivates and enjoys the work he/she does.  

  

Evidence that this is not a quick-way-to-happiness book is in its discussion on the need of balance between self and group, or differentiation and integration: As one takes on and excels in more and more challenges with the "flow" experiences, he/she becomes more unique or different from others, but keeping union and harmonious relationships with others is still a very essential part of the overall happiness for the individual. (The old Confucius saying "君子和而不同" comes to mind, with emphasis tilting toward the other end, though). The same assertion is made again in its concluding chapter on the subject of the meaning of life:

"In the past few thousand years, humanity has achieved incredible advances in the differentiation of consciousness... We have invented abstraction and analysis--the ability to separate dimensions of objects and processes from each other, such as the velocity of a falling object from its weight and its mass. It is this differentiaion that has produced science, technology, and the unprecedented power of mankind to build up and to destroy its enviornment.

"But complexity consists of integration as well as differentiation. The task of the next decades and centuries is to realize this under-developed component of the mind. Just as we have learned to separate ourselves from each other and from the environment, we now need to learn how to reunite ourselves with other entities around us without losing our hard-won individuality. The most promising faith for the future might be based on the realization that the entire universe is a system related by common laws and that it makes no sense to impose our dreams and desires on nature without taking them into account. Recognizing the limitations of human will, accepting a cooperative rather than a ruling role in the universe, we should feel the relief of the exile who is finally returning home. The problem of meaning will then be resolved as the individual's purpose merges with the universal flow."

adam's wish

Adam was walking around the Garden of Eden feeling very lonely, so
God asked Adam, "What is wrong with you?"

Adam said, "I don't have anyone to talk to." 

God said, "I will give you a companion and it will be a woman." He
said, "This person will cook for you and wash your clothes, she will
always agree with every decision you make, she will bear your children
and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of
them.

"She will not nag," God continued, "and will always be the first to admit
she was wrong. When you've had a disagreement, she will never have a
headache and will freely give you love and passion whenever needed."

Adam asked God, "What will a woman like this cost?"

God said, "An arm and a leg!" 

Adam said, "What can I get for just a rib?"

AND THE REST IS HISTORY.

mark itokawa

Mark Itokawa was my last "official" boss between 1989 and 1991.

He was a Japanese American who was born in the US as son of a Japanese consul before World War II. His family returned to Japan when he was young and he subsequently was raised and educated in Japan, got a bachelor's degree in Chemistry and married the daughter of owner of a prestigious, internationally known costmetic company in Japan.

After the World War, with his ingenuity and the chemistry know-how, he invented some consumer product that became an instant hit in post-war Japan. A friend of his persuaded him to form a company based on the product with him. But soon afterwards he felt betrayed in business dealings by his friend-partner, unhappy with his marriage and probably the stifling atmosphere of Japanese society in general, he left the company, divorced his wife, and came to the US, where he had been granted citizenship since his birth to the consul's household in the US.

He started his own businesses in chemical and various other industries, while in the interim was drafted by the US government to serve as an intellgience officer for CIA during the Korean War interrogating prisoners of war ("So, you were bombed by your own government while in Tokyo, and drafted to fight its war in Korea when you came here," I once joked with him), and eventually settled in electronics businesses in California in the 1980s.

When I first met Mark in 1989, he was doing a prosperous business making and distributing cable TV converters and some other RF (microwave) communication products that he paid US consultants to design and manufactured in his own factory in Taiwan. I was introduced to Mark by a person I was doing a project for who wanted to use the project to form a business partnership with him. That project eventually fell through, but Mark took a good impression on me, and I on him, he decided to hire me as a project engineer and a liaison officer between his company here in LA and his factory in Taiwan, thus started my one and a half year working relationship with him.

Mark is a grand mixture of East and West, old generation Japanese decorum and New World spunk and spontaneity, a multi-talent engineer/businessman/scholar in one short, energetic frame. One thing he and I have in common is our enthusiasm in history and human studies in general. Though he doesn't speak Chinese, he can read it pretty well, including some ancient Chinese classics, and honestly I think he knows more about Chinese history than most Chinese people I know, and in a very detail way. Many times we sat at restaurant (mostly Japanese since he knows it's my favorite) table and talked for hours, not about engineering project or company business, but human history and anthropology ("Look at the differences in the skeletons of the Sung Dynasty emperors they found: just within a couple generations, they came from big, stodgy build of soldier men to tiny, fragile civilian frames," he once shared with me), or philosophy and religion (he has a sister who is a Catholic nun in Japan, which he thinks is silly). Once during a trip in Taiwan, after visiting his factory and all the business meetings, he arranged a special trip for me and him to visit mock villages of Taiwanese aborigines together so we could share and discuss our ideas on the origins of people in Asia.

With all that brilliant mind in him, he is really not a good communicator. They say he didn't start speaking until well past the norm age when he was a kid, and he was a loner as a child--story has it that he once sat alone on the roof top while the whole family looked for him all day long. He has a strong temper too, especially when he's frustrated he cannot express his ideas properly. And here comes the rub: The woman partner who co-worked in the company and co-owned the factory in Taiwan with him, occasionally, for some known and unknown reasons, intentionally or unintentionally, angered him. At such occasions, he would throw a big tantrum and go wild, banging his head on the wall, yelling "I am so stupid, I am no good," again and again. Or in some other occasions, he would come to me, with faltering voices, almost like a child begging, "David, could you explain this for me.." I was shocked by such emotional outbursts in the beginning, but then learned to be accustomed to it and even amused by the eccentricity of the man and the situations. 

No doubt Mark is a dynamic personality and has his moments of whimsy ("The most exciting thing about life is you don't know what's going to happen next minute," "I never thought I would have lived past 30," he said) and tough dealings while conducting his business, but he's also very honest and loyal to his associates, contractors, and employees, who have all been with him for decades. He has some soft spot too. Once we were dining at a Chinese restaurant and ordered some fish, then the waiter, as customary, brought out the fish in a bucket to show us that it's very alive and will be the one they'll cook for us for dinner. Upon seeing this, Mark moaned, "Oh, why do they do that.." I asked others in the table what did he mean, they said Mark cannot eat anything if he has seen it alive before it's cooked.

I left Mark and his company because I didn't see much going on for me there, though I knew Mark's grand plan was for me to take over the engineering side of things and then become a business partner of the company. But I was young and thought I could do it better somewhere else then, so one day in my cocky, impudent self I burst out on him: "I had enough here already, I don't want to do this dirty job of being the go-between for you and your factory any more." He was shocked and speechless, probably a bit embarrassed too because he understood those outbursts he had with others might have some effect on me.. God knows he had been extra-careful and kind with me and never bossed me around or even put a harsh word on me, so such comments from me were really unfair and probaby hurtful to him, but I didn't know better then.

We remained friends, though. When I subsequently traveled to Japan and did several tele-campaign projects there for a Canadian guy in the following year, I sent him postcards--he probably was doubly pleasantly surprised that I picked his mother country to do projects in, and I talked to him on the phone, sharing my thoughts on Japanese society ("everyone seemed so stereotyped here," I told him) and some book I recently read ("鴻"--a memoir of contemporary history and the cultural revolution of China), and we went to meals togehter when I was back in LA, just like what we used to do. He actually apologized to me for making me feel I had to leave and offered to continue to pay me as non-resident consultant and some projects to do with him.

We kept in touch off and on through the years. I knew his business was not doing too well though, with lots of debts and continuing troubles between his company here and the factory in Taiwan.

The last time I saw him was in my office, in the year 2000, a couple of months after I started my dot-com company with VC funding in Irvine Spectrum. He came all the way from his office in Gardena to visit me and we had dinner together and then came back to my office. After a few exchanges of words we fell silent, or actually I started busy doing some work at my desk and he fell silent. Finally, he said he had to leave and I didn't ask him to stay.

About one year and a half later, I heard he killed himself.

According to his employees, on that day he didn't show up in his office, and they felt something bad might have happened, so one of them went to his apartment to check, and from the keyhole, he saw Mark slouching in his chair, with a pool of blood and a pistol in his hand.

I was shocked when I heard the news, then I sobbed. All of a sudden, I realized how a tormented man he had been all his life, a lonely childhood, a tender, sensitive heart beneath a hot temper, the feeling of guilt for leaving his wife in Japan, the stress of keeping his company afloat, mainly due to his sense of responsibility and obligation to his employees.. all these he bore day in and day out.. I wish I could have accompanied him more, perhaps brought more joy to him through our mutual sharing of things, that I might/could have helped relieve some pain he had inside... But all I can do now, as I did when I heard the news, is pray that he finally gets his peace and rest in God's loving arms.

In memory of a dear friend, Mark Itokawa, on the eve of his passing 8 years ago.