Humanity Hype

Here is a link to my first song written for the Ukulele after 6 months of picking up this wondrous instrument!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UAQhdsAYOo

Humanity Hype is my response to my new living situation. From the quiet country side of rural Korea to the bustling, fast-paced city, I am overwhelmed by the people. There is a disregard for bodies in space, each with their own prerogative, their own path, unaware of those who surround them. Somehow, we still have to share this space, limited though it may be. (as my friend kindly and factually explained to me my error of quoting our world's population at 6 billion - it is more like 7 billion - and as I said - "and growing") With more people, come more opinions. With opinion comes persuasion. With persuasion comes advertising and then we become bombarded by it. How much of what we see is really a choice anymore? Don't believe the hype that threatens to consume your creative soul. Part of it has to do with the staggering amounts of noise pollution and visual pornography. I have realized because I have been away from it. Those who live in the cities are "used to" it. Accustomed to the mediocre when all that really matters in the large grand scheme of life and its meaning is QUALITY. As one response on Robert Pirsig's topic of quality states:

You would say that this is just a matter of preferences, that quality is just another word for what you like. What is the response to this? One response is the death argument: Thoreau's mentions, "I came to the woods.. so that when I die, I would not discover that I had not lived." (Paraphrased; he said it better.) You only live at least once, and the world is so manifestly full of richness; there are qualitative differences between those pleasures which are just "fun" and those pleasures or goods which deeply touch this "marrow" of life. Even humanity can be at its best ingenius, cunning, and beautiful. The richness of human relations - whether attributable in cause to genetic programming or "love" - is phenomenologically beautiful. And what human beings can achieve when they decide to be noble, to do the dharma that they have in front of them honestly and with dedication, is remarkable. This counts for goods regardless of preference. The Good isn't 'what I like' because richness of quality covers anything so long at it makes life worth living. It covers the famous and the obscure; both the Taj Mahal and the son that loves his father are testament to humanity's capability for goodness.

So why do we jam pack ourselves into pigeon-holed consumerists? Why are we satisfied with this blah? This mundane? Why do we let laziness overwhelm our senses so much so that it is convenience which slowly kills us? I tend to live tipping the scales on the side of positivity. What we scrutinize, we ourselves are. But we can be what we want to be as well, at least within our minds. Within our minds we have a power unlike any other. It is a power that can give us hope and keep us heavy on the positive even when we know all about the dark side. I do this to trust and renew my faith in humanity's ability to delve into kindness and The Good. I guess we are all of this and all of that at the same time.

Taiwan and the land of tea.

A successful arrival and my 11th plane ride in 2010 complete. (Ridiculous – not my personal choice). The humidity is surely near 100% and severely different from Korea. It reminds me of how Malaysia once was 9 years ago. I feel like I could swim in this sticky warm air. The scent is bound for mildew in its most harmless occupancy to which the locals have no doubt become accustomed. I guess it doesn’t help the fact that it is indeed raining outside. I have no idea where I will lay my head to rest tonight, but I am open and ready for the unexpected. I was able to scour through Taiwan’s “Lonely Planet” while en route and I believe I have my fair share of activities planned for the next 4 days, number 1 being my Korean E-2 Visa. With a world so small now and corporations exploiting the indigenous cultures of foreign nations, international travelers can find comfort in a $5 Starbucks latte anywhere in the world, not excluding Taipei.

Fast-forward 2 days:
It wasn’t a quick shot of methamphetamine, it was a pack of Wild Water Buffalo blocking my path. No thirty-foot whipper can even give you that kind of adrenaline. What a feeling to grow a set of balls with breath held and walk past these illusive and unpredictable beasts. 10 minutes later, I am still shaking in the Windward Dwarfed Forest.

And 2 more days later:
In Taiwan I’ve noticed more flats, less heels, less smoking, more scooters and less primping in public. There seems to be a more laid back sense of what life is like here.
I have learned about Taiwan’s tea industry and its history from Cindy at the High Mountain Tea Shop. A 2-hour sipping session revealed the intricacies of traditional tea drinking and its complex preparation processes.
There are 6 types of tea which all come from the same leaf, oolong, green, black, white, red and yellow. It just depends on the fermentation process and the way in which it is roasted or not. The darker the tea, the higher the temperature of water is used. In the tradition of Taiwanese tea drinking, tea is made by hand and each action is important while serving the tea. Taiwan's specialty is oolong tea, a half fermented green tea. High mountain tea can be steeped up to 6 times, as the quality is higher and the leaves are picked by hand. The serving of tea in Taiwan has been celebrated as a performance or "show" in the past. Anywhere you go in Taiwan you can find special tea houses where you can warm your belly and experience this profound tradition of a unique culture.

I won't even tell you what happened.

I like to write a lot. Writing is important to me... this photo speaks of the pain I have endured... (my own drunk fault)

Spain and all its surprizes

Reflecting upon adventures of the immediate past I realize I am so lucky to be alive and well, healthy and aware and able to make the choices I choose.

Desperate times call for delicate thoughts.
Decisions ripe for the plucking as virulent options
strike chords of creativity in conscious creation
Like onions, souls search in silent longing
for complex layers among surface scratching
as the rhythm of the rest of the world rushes past
Take it all in. There are spies around every corner with lying eyes.
Analyze, don’t criticize.

This evening I can see the wind turbines on the hill just beyond the valley of sun. The wind blows like the lungs of Louis Armstrong’s first born up on the hillside at the Finca de Campana as the sun sporadically plays hide and seek with whirling clouds painted pink in the dusk of the day. Bees buzz amongst the fragrant almond blossoms. Suena me busca. This afternoon Jan and I indulged in an adventure out of the ordinary. We headed to El Polverin to climb. It was windy when we arrived at the base of the cliff. We decided to scramble up what appeared to be perhaps a 3 (5.6) grade climb. Bad idea. I got stuck halfway – as Jan said – the point of no return. (He also once told me to never walk around naked in Namibia, unless you are of course alone in the outback. I imagine this wisdom was met through personal experience). I had to wait for about 10 minutes and after 5 I started to worry. Trying to force nasty imaginations out of your head while clinging to almost nothing 15 metres above any flat ground can be quite the mental challenge. When the rope finally fell over the side of the apparent top-out above me, I could only tie it around my waist and pray I wouldn’t fall. And if I did fall, it would save me, but do some rope burn damage to the armpits for certain. I didn’t fall after all thanks to the trusty Chacos, but it was one hell of a warm-up!


Aunque escibo poco, las aventuras viene y va casi todos los dias. Para mi, es la unica manera para vivir! Y, por cierto, con una sonrisa y la mente abierta! Ahh, tengo mucha suerte en esta vida compleja.

With only two days left of the two month Spanish holiday, I decide to spend them on the road with a certifiably mad Swiss man who has been hopping around the world his whole life, kind of like me, although he beats me on years – (name hidden in my memory). I have forfeited my plane ticket to Barcelona and now we are deep within the olive groves and extraordinary monoliths spotted along the Southern coast of Spain as we journey northwards. The weather dozes in and out of moody rains and sharp sun. White fluffy cumulus nimbus play polka dot shadows over the carpets of green leaves in the valleys below us. Swiss man tells me stories of loneliness filled with great wisdom all the while engaging in his self-named intestinal yoga. Imagine filling your belly with 2 litres of water or any particular liquid of your choice and forcing it to swish back and forth like a little boat in a vast ocean storm. Although from the passenger seat of his Peugeot I cannot smell the pink flowers of the almond trees in blossom, I can imagine their sweet scent. Swiss man wants to start a Honey Bee factory with 150 hives on public land in Switzerland. I’d like to help him. Perhaps I will.


Now, at the time of writing this, I sit on the Lufthansa airplane towards Seoul somewhere above Russia, above the Ural Mountains so says the green screen in front of me. Consumerism is still alive and kicking 33,000 feet in the air as the Korean man who speaks better German than English buys a bottle of 18year aged Scotch and a diamond necklace from the catalog without much thought. He must be rolling in the dough. It really blows my mind to fly over places I have only heard about in dreams. And now, we fly over Siberia!