Sunday, February 26, 2006

2006 Olympic flames extinguished, another era sets, the dusk of dreams

Tonight I watched the 2006 Winter Olympics flames extinguished in Torino, Italy led by brides clad in white carrying electric candles in their conical bouquets. Another era setting. I experienced a moment of sadness. I never did like goodbyes, nor the dusk of dreams. Although I barely watched the ceremonies or activities these last two weeks, I recalled at its conclusion, the magic that I felt in my youth -- a magic of a faith that believed that everything would be alright if people in all nations could come together for two weeks in peaceful competition and team spirit. Five continents interlocked by common dreams even as we are torn by war in the middle east and terrorist activities. Sometimes it seems it's possible again to overlook our strifes for a universal good.

In these two weeks, we see beautiful moments such as American speed skater Joey Cheek donating his entire Olympic award money to a charity for children. He carries the American flag onto the stage on the final night of the Olympics. Women in beautiful sculptural white gowns with a miniaturized replica of the Italian winter countryside and mountains parade in long lines of white. Fellini-inspired clowns file in...tenor Andrea Bocelli croons in the finale, eyes closed... Pagini's dragon exhales fire. Here tonight men adorned in a fabric flesh of flame red--live sparks flying behind them-- race around the Olympic lit torch, symbolizing that "the passion lives here" in Italy's Olympic moment. Children sing in hauntingly innocent sweet voices- the voices of idealistic faith-- as an Italian 50 km long distance skiier Giorgio Di Centa is crowned as a gold medalist by his sister, also a gold medalist. He stands in his ultimate moment of glory among his countrymen at his award ceremony and you wonder what he's thinking about as he stands tallest on the platform at the pinnacle of atlethic world success, only 8 seconds from second place. As I watched the Italian acrobats with skis and skateboards dressed in futuristic white suits, arms spread wide dance like doves above a 25 mph wind lifting them, defying gravity... magic seemed possible again here where all is quiet but an ethereal melody. White sashes spiral up, confetti whirls down as these floating beings are suspended in time. Yet I'm reminded of the bittersweet truth that this suspension of life's gravity was only temporary.

Regretfully, I noticed that Olympics seem less central these days... only on one channel. I thought that when I was a child, it used to be on every channel and in fact, I felt as if the world held its breath for two weeks, all eyes focused on one part of the world that contained the heart of the world's every nation. I barely recognized any of the new figure skaters-- the last one I followed was Michelle Kwan vaguely... the last time I remembered watching her, she was considered very young for her sport and now when I watched it this year, she is considered nearing the last season of her possibilities for this sport... too old.

I wondered if Americans don't seem to follow Olympics as much these days because we have lost touch with the personalities who were competing much the way that I have whereas in the past, I felt I was able to live their dreams with them on the world stage. Even as I complained that we should care more about Olympics and what it represents, I found myself flipping through tv channels all competing for the Sunday night viewers... the final night for "Dancing with the Stars" (Drew Lachey won the ballroom dancing competition!) on ABC, Olympics on NBC and on occasion, checking channel CBS for a glimpse of "Cold Case." My recent favorite show "Supernatural" on WB wasn't on tonight so one less competition for my attention tonight. I heard that American Idol won more viewers in the USA compared to the Olympics on the night of the female singles figure skating recently which is astonishing. What does it say about Americans when our commercialism trumps our respect and attention to these rare international moments of beauty as represented by Olympics? I must add though in my defense, I am not much into sports and prefer the arts although I used to watch Olympic figure skating quite religiously (but what alternative did I have as a kid with restricted tv viewing?) given its more artistic nature. I am proud of the fact that I managed to watch one full night of the single woman figure skating event -- witnessed a Japanese woman Shizuka Arakawa win her first Olympic gold, American Sasha Cohen winning the silver, and Russian Irina Slutskaya winning the bronze. Phew! Anyway, I believe that children should all be taught the value and beauty of the Olympic spirit and what it represents about international peace and collaboration even in competition.

I think there should be an Olympic Arts event as well -- I guess the problem is that it's hard to evaluate the arts when beauty is subjective. Already I would argue that figure skating is also highly aesthetic and thus, not an easy sport to evaluate. Well then, I wish to see an international week or two to showcase world arts from music, performance arts to visual arts -- maybe not a real competition but there should be some criteria to even get a viewing.

Okay, back to tv... maybe catch the reruns of the Olympics since I missed it earlier... thank goodness for reruns and second chances.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Boba Tea Island at Lake Waban: Wellesley College's New "Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center"

I recently visited my alma mater Wellesley College last week and checked out our new student center called the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center. The architecture is beautiful -- it kinda reminds me of MIT's impressive stata center in that the floors spiral upstairs with views of Lake Waban--although it has a more intimate casual feel. Our student center now features three floors with lovely modern, brightly-colored Scandinavian furniture (?) that have somewhat organic shapes. Colored boba islands amidst corners and niche areas perfect for maze aficionados. They even have a hip looking boba tea coffeeshop area and cafeterias, pool tables, huge tv screens, etc. The Wellesley bookstore is also in this building. Free wi-fi connection. Man, I wish we had this student center when we were in college!

2nd month anniversary

I looked at the date today... February 21, 2006... the second month anniversary of my dear munch2's death date. Strange to think that just two months ago and a day or two, he wrote me his last email the day before he passed away. A farewell email -- only that he didn't know it was a farewell email. If he did, what would he have said? Fortunately it was an email that was so sweet and summarized our best friendship and affections. He thanked me for the "best present he had ever received" -- a collage of photos arranged artfully with poetic memories of our college years named "metamorphosis" after our college project. it was my graduation present to him when he finished his studies at MIT, top of his class. I wrote back to him two days too late. I guess my collage of poetry for "metamorphosis" would be my last farewell words to him as well.

He wrote:
+++++++++++++++
Nuts,

Just to let you know that I arrived back in Shanghai this morning. Before I left, I was admiring the beautiful present of the collage of images and words of our time together at Wellesley and MIT. It's such a beautiful thing - easily the best present I have ever received in my life, and I really cannot imagine anybody being able to do anything more caring, so thank you again for those exquisitive memories - that I would love to have a copy of the content it was authored with to burn to a CD and save with my most valuable documents. Do you still have the .PSD file (or equivalent, if it was not Photoshop), so I can have everything kept with me?

On the flight here I watched a Japanese film called "Trainman". It is supposed to be a true story of how a terribly geeky Japanese nerd picks up the courage to stop a drunk harassing a beautifug lady and the emerging story of how a painfully shy nerd transforms himself with help and encouragement from a diverse group of Internet addicts who also are transformed from teachers to students themselves. It's a very open film, focused really on exploring the hero's transformation. I'm sure you would love it too.

Love,

Brains

+++++++++++++++

Days become a month leading to yet another month that we parted ways. I think often of his sweet parents and how hard it must be for them. His photos still adorn my desk including his Christmas 1997 mousemat that his parents gave him that features a photo of him when he was 5 or so playing with his new toys... such a beautiful young face with his whole life before him. Who knew that it would only be 27 years? His photos that I took of him during our college years arranged in a collage also adorn my desk, smiling with all the innocence of a shy teen. He's looking at me in these photos when I took them. Are photos of loved ones silent, eternal dialogues with the ones who took them and if so, do these photos and moments then truly belong to us? I think of the 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time", a story of soulmates stuck in different times -- lovestruck Chicago playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeves) falls in love with a vintage photo of a beautiful young Elise McKenna (played by Jane Seymour). He later undergoes self-hypnosis to go back in time to meet this young actress. You find out later that the photo he fell in love with was taken when he went back in time and she smiled at him. Do these dialogues remain even when we are nothing but the textures of dusty dreams and faded memories?

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Life: The balance of happiness and sorrows

I wonder how does one ever balance future hopes for happiness with the realities of past sorrows? Ever since I learned of my dear best friend munch2's (Ben Walter) death, I've been thinking of parents that have lost their children. Suddenly I feel I understand the gravity of their heartbreak. Normally death pursues life in chronological order... The older pass away sooner and we gain new loved ones as we grow older usually... First, children followed by grandchildren, and if we're extremely lucky, we'll see great-grandchildren. There is a balance of loss with new additions. What then happens when death cruelly takes away our children which people normally value as the most precious new life additions? Can they ever make a new close friend or gain a new loved one that balance the depth of their sorrows? How can we find a balance of new precious additions in the midst of significant losses that contribute to making life meaningful and happy?

For example, let us ponder the following:
What period in your life would you describe as being happy and if you consider having as many loved ones still with you as a factor in determining life happiness, how would you choose a moment that would include some but exclude others who died earlier? In my case, if I pick a moment in early December before munch2's death, I had most everyone I ever loved or cared about alive and doing fairly well; I had three best friends (Munch2, Grace, Alex) and several close friends; my career seemed to be going pretty well; I was taking art classes at MassArt's continuing ed program. However, my paternal grandfather who died when I was 18 would be a loss in the midst of these wonderful significant additions. If I ever have children, would I choose a moment as being most happy overall that included them but if I did, then it wouldn't include munch2 in my life sadly. His loss would always be at the center of my new significant relationship additions. At the moment, I can't imagine loving children as much as loved munch2 because I do not have children yet. To choose a moment in the past, we may shortchange ourselves to the potential to love others in our lives that we could not imagine living without. For example, before my grandfather died, I couldn't imagine the exact depth of love I could feel for my three best friends who I met while in college or soon afterwards... New additions that I would have shortchanged myself I chose the past.

Another interesting example would be Democrat Vice President hopeful John Edwards... He lost his son to a tragic accident when he was very young. He and his wife were so devastated that they decided to have more children to bring new additions to their life to offset their terrible loss. Now ponder which period in their lives they would choose--the current moment where they now know the love of two young children who would never have come to be if it were not for the tragic loss of their first born in their memory? Or would they choose the past when they had their first born still alive and they were still innocent from the knowledge of that heartbreaking type of loss, but they will never know the love of two new young children? Tough choice I would think.

Essentially, I realized recently that there can never be a period in our life that we will have everything... Happiness cannot be merely dependent on having everything because we will never have everyone significant to us at the same time. There will always be people exiting our lives and new people who will enter our lives and if we're lucky or ready, we will be able to create new meaningful significant deep relationships, offsetting some of our losses. The younger we are, the greater the chance we will meet more people in our lives who will be of sizeable significance to us. We may gain grandchildren someday when we lose parents... Can the love of these grandchildren be so deeply significant that our current moment can almost balance the loss of such significant relationships as our parents, keeping the balance of happiness almost constant?

How can we be happy when we know more significant losses than we know happinesses especially when old people lose their long time spouses? What is the solution to this plight? One, I guess if one deeply believed in God or a heaven after death, that would be comforting because then we would have all the ones we ever loved with us at all times although not always visible to us. Another way to find value in the future is to bring all past knowledge to the foreground of current and future experiences. I would imagine that old people who manage to remain mostly happy overall are people who are able to love new people deeply... Find value in their losses, find room to love others whether it be their own grandchildren or people of the world who need their help, or important causes. If we can fully integrate all the knowledge we have learned from our losses and love that we have discovered from loving as deeply as we did for our dearly departed ones, perhaps, we just might be able to make the future worth living.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

In loving memory of munch2, my best friend: Benjamin John Walter (1978-2005)

Munch at my Wellesley College graduation '98

I lost my dear best friend of over eight years -- Benjamin J. Walter-- December 21, 2005 very suddenly. I think of him everyday. If one's love can be quantified and correlated to the number of pet names one has for another... he had at least 25. My favorite being "munch2" -- short for munchkin, a pet name that he gained when he did this cute imitation of the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz -- "we're from the munchkin land, munchkin land, munchkin land..."

I remember the first time I met the Munch2 in '97 during my fall semester as a senior at Wellesley College (see Ben with the copper hair in the photo here at my graduation with my best gal pal Grace on the left). I tiptoed into my first MIT class "Communicating in Cyberspace" (a web design and communications class), sitting down at a computer to his right. I stared at the black computer screen, unsure how to log in. I looked over to my left and saw Munch2's radiant young, sweet, baby face with a brilliant copper crop of hair typing rapidly at the keyboard and grinning transfixed enthusiastically at his screen. I asked him what he was doing and he quickly replied "mudding"-- without looking away from his computer. I had no idea what that meant. I then timidly asked him if he could get me set up on my machine. He helped me and then returned to his computer. The following week after insisting that my best gal pal Grace Song join me in cross-registering at MIT for that class, I met up with Munch2 again. Both Grace and I picked him to be our project partner without knowing that the other did so as well. Munch2 became our project partner for a MBTI-based personality test web edutainment site called "Electronic Age Metamorphosis." It remains one of our favorite projects that stood the test of time, a project that I know that Munch2 was very proud of as well. Munch2 was a precocious sophomore, a student that even older MIT students in our class would turn to for solutions. He had a delightful British accent and his raw genius abilities deceived me into thinking he was a senior as well. I was always touched by the way Munch2 used to be turn to listen to us and his whole face and ears seemed to turn out in such an open and accepting way. He had a 5000 watt smile that was so genuine and charmingly innocent and the most radiant copper hair. Once when Grace and I fought on the project, Munch2 was the peacemaker, teaching us forgiveness.

I heard the devastating news on Xmas and have been heartbroken and stunned. Feels very unreal. He was one of my best friends ever since '97, inspiring and supportive especially after our years in college. We dated for 2.5 years, a true first love found only when the heart is open and idealistic still.

Munch2 had such a beautiful heart, a rare multi-talented brilliance that was clear even among the most intellectually gifted (e.g. 5.0/5.0 at MIT!), a passionate curiosity, ingenious nature, a child-like idealistic quality, and he always believed in people's potential for greatness. His gentle and witty sense of humor was charmingly delightful and creatively expressed in conversations and in his thoughtful emails. He inspired me to think entrepreneurially and supported me in my efforts for greater artistic achievements. He was my creative North Star who I turned to when I felt lost creatively or worthless and seeking the light of his kind encouragement and unconditional faith in my creative, intellectual and artistic potential. A mellow hippie with a poetic spirit, he introduced me to zen buddhism ideas, oranges, browns and neutral colors, peppermint oils, henna tattos, hemp beaded necklaces, baggy cargo pants with over six pockets, Moby's porcelain song and the Grateful dead, Christmas lights for room decorations year-round, and Pablo Neruda's poetry. He made terms like "psyched" seem cool. He was also a visionary genius imagining the future, someone who could challenge others to think bigger ideas, connect cyberspaces in novel ways. I admired him more than probably anyone else among my peers. He was the brightest constellation among my galaxy of friends... he had so much potential. He could make me cry and laugh at the same time.


(James Blunt song "One of the Brightest Stars" I like to dedicate to dear Ben here)

Munch2 lived an exciting life of adventures and travel... A lifetime of achievements in a short time especially in the last years although I always dreamed of watching him grow and reach his potential. I wanted to see his metamorphosis. I imagine that he would have written a couple novels of his adventures as an expat; taught at universities like his parents who are brilliant professors, consulted at top firms as a world-renown entrepreneur and thought leader; married later in life; had two children; fallen in love with more countries (munch2 was most recently enfatuated with China, previously with the US although originally from the UK); and contributed more to non-profits. We would have continued to collaborate on personal web-based art projects and professional consulting projects. We were sure to have resurrected our project "Metamorphosis" in flash with more complex animations and ideas, perhaps winning an industry design and technology award. Maybe we would have lived in Cambridge area again... we would have shared a lifetime of conversations and found ourselves at last. He was a pioneer and a beautiful, poetic artist of life... A timeless person for all the ages. As his parents or his friends said of him very poetically, "There is something meteoric about his life-dazzling, but fleeting" -- I agree... he lit the universe of my life like a streak of vivid orange light, a flash across the the dark and silent heavens. Alas, how swiftly the light passed yet how long we will marvel at his legacy, the inspiration of legends, a snapshot of our imaginations. I will miss him dearly.

Much love to you and happy cyberspacing, dear munch2.


- Janet Si-Ming Lee
Siming Cybercreative