It is such a beautiful night tonight.
The rain has stopped
And the trees are rustling over a new gossip in the wind.
From my balcony
I can hear leaves being dragged along the ground by the breeze
Dancing to the mood, though not the rhythm
Of the crickets' incessant calls.
One has to wonder
Whose work it is that the crickets manage to so bring to life
Breathing a tranquility that is not silence into the night sky
Still tinted with a hint of pink.

Further away, I hear cars driving by
Not the roar of rush hour
But rather like the song of the crickets
Whose voices, each singing a very short counter-melody,
Weave together a complex polyphony that is at the same time intriguing and quiet.
It must be the eighteenth day of the lunar calendar;
It's strange to see a moon halfway to a half moon
Look so beautiful against an uncertain blue.
I am tempted to think it impolite to stare at a moon
Changing out of her ceremonial robes, but she sits unmoving, brighter at one edge,
Like a raw tear-shaped gem, back lit,
Adorning the Autumn sky.

There is something about the song of the crickets
It's the loudest thing I can hear tonight
Except when it is interrupted by the occasional hum of vehicles a distance away.
Yet, unlike the soft but insistent mumbling of the rotating electrical fan next door,
The more I try to follow the most identifiable melody and put myself into its sound
The more my ears tell me that I don't hear anything at all.
I was taught to identify instruments when listening to an orchestral work
But this night is full of sounds I don't know how to identify
But I suspect this is what a twenty-four bar rest really sounds like.
I can hear my neighbor packing something into a bag,
And it brings to me memories
of Grandma, packing things on a night
Just days before the Lunar New Year.
Like a nostalgic scent
Reconstructing in my mind a memory I did not see with my eyes
For a moment, part of me, is not quite here.
From time to time, the wind would be strong enough
To make the wind chime ring
Once, Twice, like a clock
Announcing the passing of an hour
As irregular as our memories that mark the years.

Autumn is just an idea
not so much of a season
as it is a period of change between Summer and Winter
which anchor the chain of fleeting moments that just happen to lie in between
just as how Life happens between the two perennial mountains of Birth and Death.
we always use the four seasons as an analogy for Life,
and choose Death to be its opposite.
But if Birth were to be the opposite of Death,
Life would be one single season of change
the next season would seem convincingly its purpose and destination
we forget that all four seasons
inextricably must happen at the same instant, somewhere out there
somewhere out there
someone is born
someone dies
and someone arrives
without having to try

i think one amazing thing about the body is that it was built to live, and built to die. That in the same body was a full package that included what was needed to do cell division, organ formation, puberty, recovery from sickness, reproduction, aging, and death - and every single function is a wonder. every function brings with it not just a biological process, but also a psychological process. the way our bodies change directly affects the way we think, and therefore the way be see the world and make decisions.

i think that this is nature's kindest invention. so that in our youth we will go out and do all sorts of reckless things and push our limits, and when our strength slows down, we change and desire different things. it helps us live our age. i think being able to live one's age is a great gift, because no matter how fast our brains can work, we take time to adjust emotionally. Living our age allows us to adjust bit by bit as our bodies change through its seasons.

simple, isn't it? the toddle ready to walk, the youth ready to run, the adult ready to fly, the wise ready to teach, the aged ready to encourage, and those at the end of the road - ready to die.

Yet one whole lifetime, is sometimes not enough for some of us to learn.

contentment<-reconciliation<-issue<-QUESTION->seeking->answer->satisfaction

Capitalism is beautiful in that it sums up all organizational objectives into the optimization of one single variable - profit.

Profit can be affected by costs, access to supply and availability of demand. Demand drives the demand for demand - and causes marketing and advertising to stimulate, as well as create demand. This causes a lot of people to want things they don't need. This excessive consumption is what causes a strain on the natural balance of things around us - the main one being the Environment.

I think stimulated demands are not healthy. Neither for the planet, nor on a personal level. People end up spending their lives chasing things that they don't really want. I think it is fair to win over a competitor's market, or to open up a new market with a new product that answers an undiscovered need. But to create a desire for a good where there is no real need, is plainly profiting on the goodness of the earth.

There is just so much resources on earth. If someone needs to get really rich, someone's gotta give. And now Nature's giving, and giving too much.

in the game of life,
nobody, has too much too lose.
that's what the floods and earthquakes,
wars and diseases,
recessions and loss,
remind us - that we are mere nothings
putting our everything against a constantly changing world
to stay alive.