Random thoughts ::: A — Z

A = Air || We all need air to breath. Without air, there will be no life on this planet. Yet we all are still taking air for granted.
	B = Buddha || The greatest teacher on Earth, in my opinion. Buddha’s words and wisdom are so rich and deep but they all can simply be used and applied into our normal daily life. Just for a better body and mind.
C = CSI || I just love this series. It’s sharp and entertaining.
D = Diligent || I believe that as long as you keep this word in mind, you will be successful.
E = Energy || Everything in this world has its energy.  I think it depends on how you release it.
	F = Family || The basic foundation of life.  The smallest community in the society, yet the most important one.
G = Google || Everybody is googling. Are you googling today?
	H = Happiness || I think it’s the most sought element in life. What is happiness to you?
I = Illinois || The State where I went to study. Sometimes, I miss looking at corn fields, having sourdough at the local bakery shop, driving to Chicago, walking across the university, and etc.
J = Jogging || The doctor recommended that it’s good for my heart and help burning the fat.
K = Korea || After watching the first Korean series, I have been addicted to its cultures.  What an impact! I like Kimchi.
	L = Learning || We all learn through out our life.  Sometime, even when we are dead.
	M = Meditation || My alternative way to give myself some peacefulness. I still need a lot of practice though.
N = No || The word that many people find it difficult to say.
	O = Open || I believe that if we could open up our mind, we could live in a better world. Sometimes we have to let go our ego in order to open up ourselves.
	P = Piano || My most favorite instrument. This year I intended to play Nocturne in E Flat Major Op.9 No.2 by Chopin; Prelude No.2 in C Minor by Bach; and try to refresh some pieces that I used to play a long time ago–Sonata in C Major by Mozart.
Q = Queue || The simplest thing to do, yet somebody still not doing it.
R = Respect || Living in such a chaos world, this is the word that we all have to keep in mind. We have to respect everything in this planet called Earth, no matter it is concrete or abstract.
S = Super Earth || As the recent natural disasters happened around the world, many scientists are seeking for the new Earth called Super Earth.
T = Time || One of the most mysterious elements on Earth. Would we be able to understand it in this life time?
U = Unity || Thing that I want to see in Thailand at the moment. Unity leads to peace and goodness.
V = Vacation || I set my goal that at least once a year I will get away and travel to one of my dream destinations like Tibet, Alaska, Egypt, Greece, Italy, etc.
W = WWW || Today, everything has its WWW.  It has come so far that now we cannot think of a life without the Internet, can we?
X = Xerox || It’s the only thing that comes up in my head. It is also a classic case where a company’s trademark of a photocopy machine becomes a verb which people use to refer to a copying process. Today, I hardly see the Xerox machine. Do kids these days know that there is a Xerox machine?
	Y = Yoga || Thing that people talk about but I never try it. Is it that good?
	Z = Zero || Zero means nothing. And in my own definition, I may say it is the line where the two ends meet and form the complete circle. Thus, nothing means everything; and emptiness means completeness.

Living with Differences

Here we go again. Another book that I like. Let see the cover and try to guess what it’s about.

Now, what do you think? What do you have in mind?

On the first day that the book was out on the shelf, I picked it up and wondered what it was about. I was getting more confused when I saw three different sizes of the book–small, medium, and large, wrapped in plastic bag so that I could not see inside. The front cover had nothing but the drawing of the cat and the seagull. There were only a few lines about the book on the back cover, which I wasn’t pay attention to them. I thought it was a notebook since this publishing company used to release many beautiful notebooks. So, I decided not to buy it.

Many days passed. I walked into the book store again. I hadn’t thought of this book in particular. I was more like looking around. Then, walking along the shelf, this book crossed my sight again. Now, I stopped and picked it up. Only this time I carefully read the description on the back cover and found that it’s a story about a cat who taught a seagull to fly. Then I realized that the text on the front cover was actually the book’s title–นางนวลกับมวลแมวผู้สอนให้นกบิน–(HISTORIA DE UNA GAVIOTA Y DEL GATO QUE LE ENSENO A VOLAR). A very long title indeed.

Some detail about the book: it was written by LUIS SEPULVEDA in Spanish and was translated by สถาพร ทิพยศักดิ (Sataporn Thipayasak).

Now it got my interest, so that I finally decided to buy it. Before going to bed that night, I finished the whole book. It was really a page turning book. A cat who hatched a seagull egg, norished the baby seagull, and then taught it how to fly. What a peculiar story line yet interesting. While reading, I thought the animal characters in the book were symbolic of human beings and their personalities. If you thought harder, you would realize that it’s not only a children book, but an adult book. There were many facts of life hidden in the text. Some would seriously get your brain running.

After finished the book, I got a smile on my face and thought that this world was full of surprises and diversities. You had to be able to adapt yourself and accepted things as they were. Many times that we could learn from the differences if we opened up our heart. If you wanted to know why I said that, you had to read it yourself.

21

21. Does the number have any meaning to you? It could be 21st Century, the current century that we all are living in. In some countries, 21 is the legal age that you can do anythings as an adult. In mathematics, 21 is a triangular number or a Fibonacci number. Hell, what am I talking about? The answer is 21 is the movie title. It takes you into the world of greed, betrayal, disloyalty, and double-crossing called gambling and 21 is the name of the game or you can call it a blackjack.

The movie opens with a brilliant young MIT student named Ben being interviewed for a Harvard Medical School’s scholarship. After the interview, the chance to receive the scholarship is very slim. Ben is worried about his tuition fee at Harvard and working in a tailor shop will not taking him anywhere.

One day in the Math class, his answer gets the professor’s attention so that he decides working his way to get Ben to join his team of counting cards–the secret unconventional club led by Micky, the Math professor. At night, 5 young MIT wise students are in session practicing counting cards of the 21 game. Each week, they fly to Las Vegas and take a load of money back to Boston using the counting card trick. With the money issue, later Ben decides to join the team and heading for the 21.

Casinos in Las Vegas are generally equipped with a full stream of security system protecting frauds and cheats. But counting the cards is hardly detected by machine or computerize system and it isn’t illegal. Thus, if you are counting card, there is a slightly chance that you will get caught. Nonetheless, there is a casino security named Cole who does not fully trust the system. He believes that he can beat computers and secutiry softwares by his very own eyes, especially when monitoring for people counting cards.

Couple weeks passes with piles of money, enough for the tuition; however, Ben does not stop. He gives himself many reasons why he should not stop. Nothing is wrong here. With some miscalculation and money losing during the 21 game, Micky is cutting Ben out of the team and makes him pay every pennies losing in the game. Ben does not know that he is playing with fire. Ben decides to go ahead on his own without his professor. Things are not going as planned. In order to teach Ben a lesson, Micky calls Cole and lays out the whole scam for him. Finally, Ben get arrested and beaten up.

After the investigation, Cole knows that Micky is the person behind the whole thing. Cole has been hunting Micky for a long time and he does not want to lost the opportunity. Cole makes a deal with Ben, who now wants to get back Micky. With hate, Ben and his friends are double-crossing Micky at the last counting cards. Micky got arrested.

The best part is that later on Cole is joining Ben’s team making tons of money out of the 21 game. By the way, just so you know, this movie is based on a true story.

Casts are Jim Sturgess (Ben Campbell), Kevin Spacey (Prof. Micky Rosa), Laurence Fishburne (Cole Williams), and directed by Robert Luketic.

After watching this movie, I realize that we, human beings, are full of thirsts, greeds, and lusts. Because we do not know how, where, and when to stop such desires, we finally get into trouble. Many times, just to resolve problems, we may end up losing more than gaining.

What a little book can do!

What should I say? I cried while reading the little book and went on until I finished it. Never in a long time that I was in this state of emotion.

Last Sunday, I went for lunch as usual after inspecting my office in general. As always, I regularly stopped by the book store just looking for some new books and what’s interesting. I was about to leave the store and then I saw this book with bright orange color with the intriguing title, “กฎแห่งกระจก” (The Rules of Mirror). What a name! I pick it up and found out that it was so thin. One of the most thin book I had picked up recently. I decided to buy this book purely from one sentence at the back cover–“Best Seller ที่ 9 ใน 10 คนอ่านแล้วจะร้องไห้” (“The best seller that 9 out of 10 people cry when read it”). I want to know why. The book is written by a Japanese writer, Yochinori Noguchi, and translated by Thipawan Yamamoto.

Nowadays, the how-to, psychology, self-improvement, and religious books sells like hotcakes. Look at “The Secret” by Rhonda Bryne. Nobody does not know The Secret. Then, many books related to The Secret are published by various writers and gurus around the world, for example, The Secret of the Secret, The Keys, Law of Attraction, The Attractor Factor, and etc. I recalled that I tried to get a copy of The Secret from Amazon when it was very popular in the Internet and sold at #1 for a long time at Amazon. However, I couldn’t get it even from the Amazon itself. And then I forgot about it until I met one of my friend who was an air crew and asked her to see if she could get me a copy from Singapore. Couple days later, the book arrived. When I read The Secret, I did not understand its application at all. It seemed so bubble. About a year later, I talked to my friend and she just finished watching DVD version of The Secret, so I asked her for a copy. After watching the DVD, I found it very interesting and tried to use The Secret myself in many occasions. Sometimes it worked, but some it didn’t. Since then, I am seeking for some answers that made me understand the concept and the application better. I haven’t found any complete answer yet.

Well, coming back to this little book that touched me. I think it takes some bits of the law of attraction to the solution given in the book. The books is the story of a mother who tries her best to understand and be there for his son. She knows that her son has some troubles with his friends. No one wants to play with him. Every time that she asks her son if there were anything that she could help. All she gets is a rejection from her son. She is very worried and desperated. One day she makes a call to one of her husband’s friends who is working as a psychology consultant for companies and organizations with a hope that he could help her out some ways. With some simple suggestion but require a brave heart to do it, the mother is successfully winning her son’s trust and things turns out great. Her son makes friends and opens up to her more than ever before. Her relationship with her parents and her husband is at its best. Now, she is happy.

Here are some suggestions or advices or thoughts from the book.

1. Things that happen in life are a mirror reflecting our mind.

2. Things that happen now are the results. If there are results, there are causes.

3. Problems and troubles in life make we realize the importance of something.

4. We can see our true mind from the present event.

5. The satisfaction from forgiveness.

When you come to think about these thoughts, I believe that they will ease your mind if you could do them. When your mind is at ease, things surrounding you will be reflecting that same way too. More or less, I think that the advices from this book are more easier to follow and understand than The Secret due to the fact that it’s close to our daily life. If you have time, just get a copy and give it a try.

Beneath the Numbers

Well, let me begin by saying that I like the title of this entry–”Beneath the Numbers”. It sounds interesting and yet mysterious. Anyway, here is how the story goes.

Last week I watched CNN and there was a scoop about numbers and belief. The report was on how the recent disasters–the Tibet and the earthquake–tied to the Chinese cultural belief in numbers, “Number 8″, especially when the starting date of the Olympic was 08.08.08.

Would it be possible that the number 8 bring bad lucks to China? The news covered that since the breaking of the news that China would be the Olympic 2008 host country, there were many countering voices mainly on the human rights issue. The date August 8, 2008 at 08:08:08 pm (Chinese time) was set to be the beginning of this year Summer Olympic in Beijing along with the slogan “One World, One Dream”, is fully embraced by the belief that number 8 was a good number. The number 8 (pronounce “ba”) in Chinese was sound similar to the word 发 (pronounce “fa”), which meant prosper or wealth or fortune. On the other hand, if you turned the number 8 side-way, you would find it’s similar to the “infinity” symbol. That’s why everything was in “8″.

Entering the year 2008, many bad things and disasters happened and someway-somehow they could be related to the number 8 after all. In March 14, 2008, the Tibet’s fight for freedom was at its peak by the Chinese using forces. Here, the number was 3+1+4=8. Later on, the earthquake hit China and killed more than 60,000 people and the disaster happened on May 5, 2008. Again, the number was 5+1+2=8. So, is the number 8 bringing any good to China at all?

The reporter was taking the poll from Chinese people and many said that they were all just coincident and non-sense. They did not believed that numbers would impact anything in life. It’s superstitious. However, after watching the news, I asked myself, “Do I believe in any of this numbering thing?” How about you? Do you believe?

Being Asians, I can say that, more or less, we all are superstitious in almost everything in life. I think it’s one of reasoning systems that being with us for a long time. Numbers were used since pre-historical time, when man used bones as marks. Then, there are evolutions, developments, advancements, etc., yet the meaning resided in numbers also growing under radar.

Depending on your habitat, you will have at least one belief in numbers. For example, in the Western, people believe that number 666 is the evil sign. Number 7 is a lucky number for Americans. As a result, ten of thousands American couples got married on 07.07.07. Or number 13 is bad, so you will find that in many countries there are no 13th floor in the building, no room #13 on the floor, or Friday the 13th. Moreover, since the 9/11 event, the number 11 is added to the list due to it was the flight number of one of the hijacked air crafts.

By the same token, Asians do have the numbering belief system too. Number 4 in Chinese is a bad number as its pronunciation similar to the word death. Thus, they will avoid labeling things or objects with number 4. Here is the funny bit. Number 6 in Chinese is the good thing. It sounds “liu” similar to the word smooth or flow. Then many shops or stores will be happy if their addresses are 6, 66, or even 666. Imagine if an American wants to buy something and goes to this shop, they would feel creepy.

How about Thais? I think we do have the similar kind of thinking. We like number 9, pronounce “Gao“, meaning progress, forward, or advance. But if you tell this to Japanese, they will shake their head as number 9 in Japanese “Ku” means difficulty or hardship. The same number 6, Thais don’t like is because it pronounce “Hok” meaning falling or turning upside down.

As the world is getting smaller, Western and Eastern cultures are mixed. We all are learning cultures and values from each other. Once we understand enough (do not have to be thoroughly), we can live happier in our own culture and others, can’t we? Just like this article, I just learn the other culture value and that’s it. Let it rest in your brain and you know when to use it.

Well, I vaguely remember that once I read from a book that one cannot hold on to anything tightly, one needs to learn how to let something go, only to keep part of it. The part which you welcome to be part of your life. You have the learn the differences.