what people are wanting more of, living comfortably, not my photo…
Opinions, from the Front Page Sections, translated…
The afternoon I left Moscow, it was, twelve degrees below zero. From my hotel, I can see that building under construction from a distance, it looked like the Dome in Taipei, but the difference was, that although the weather was freezing out, the construction workers are taking the shifts, rushing, to get it completed.
Because of work and travel, I’d spent a lot of time moving around in the cities. No matter how many times I flew a month, there’s always that light of dawn and lights from the roads and buildings at night, the scene was always, breathtaking from my plane window. Don’t know when it’d started happening, but I’d started enjoying looking at the ballparks from up high, the ones that looked like diamonds, for baseball, the rectangular ones are for American and European football, and the shorter rectangles, for basketball or tennis.
From Moscow to Amsterdam, Barcelona to D.C., Tokyo to Seoul, every time I flew out at night, those beautiful fields were, illuminated, sometimes, I’d tried counting them all, but shortly after I’d started, I’d realized it was impossible for me to keep track, because most of the cities I flew by, had so many beautiful sights I’d lost count of.
which one would you rather be here??? not my photo…
Everywhere but Taipei.
Ironically, on this trip to Moscow, I took the book by Keichi Ohmae’s “A Society with Little to No Desires”. On the cover it had, “When the economics in Taiwan became L shaped, having low desires, and this newness from being mediocre is, leading us downward. The wages won’t increase, with an unknown future, the newer generations ‘turning inward, going downward, and falling backwards’, lost that drive toward success, only cared for those smaller blessings of life, this, is what makes a society of little to NO desires.”
Although the book is mostly about the situation in Japan, but, there’s that similarity of lowering the desires to own, the drive toward success, the same reliance of those super convenience shops as the primary systems of economics, Taiwan was EXACTLY like the book had described. The status quos slower flowing nature, made success even harder, and more had chosen, to give up, lowered one’s own life desires for a better life. Rather than saying, that people had, chosen this no-desire, satisfaction state of mind, the results became deepening the gap between the rich and the poor, the rich became even richer, the poor, lost even more drive, and became, poorer still.
“Why build the Dome? It’s not like that many people are into baseball.” “It’s only a shopping mall on a grander scale, just tear it down, and build parks instead.” In the low-desire societies, the possibilities of the future were, diminished, one, by one, and all that remained, was that huge, oversized, street decoration that isn’t used for anything at all, which proved how we’re all just, standing still.
There’s an almost thirty-year history for baseball in Taiwan now, but even now, none of the playing fields are comparable in standards to the fields that the U.S. Minor Leagues held their games, the players always played in places that they easily injured in, and the audience never had the chance, of watching the game, in a high-level environment, and we don’t even have those cleaner restrooms; and, the basketballs games went from amateurs, to pros, back to semi-pros, and yet, the players still easily slipped on the court, and there would be holes on the ceilings of the stadiums every now and then; and, let’s not discuss the playing fields of other assortments of sports.
Sure, Taipei doesn’t need a Dome, but, without the Dome, where, would the next setting of a ballpark be? When will it finally be completed? The promises of the Chief Executive from back in 1991, had been ongoing for TWENTY-SIX years now, and yet, after several trade-offs of the party being presidents, still, no end in sight. The ballparks are merely, a face of economics, but it’s also, a microcosm of the situation in our country right now. People are, stuck in the traps of lowered desires, couldn’t see the future, and, if the government couldn’t provide us with the visions of constructions, then, whether it be that the funding came from the government or private sectors, we’re just, going from day to day, then, most of the general public can only hold on to their own “turning inward, going downward, and falling behind”, those declining in number, smaller counts of blessings in life.
this will only exacerbate, and it won’t get better, because the rich are getting richer, and those living below the poverty lines, are, sinking down even deeper, not my painting.
Actually, all of us knows, that we’re NOT at all satisfied with the current state of stagnation. At least, we can only hope, that our own next generations, don’t live in this lowered desire society.
This, is a HUGE problem that the writer mentions, because here, people are losing their drives, to reach and aim higher for those grander goals, because they seemed so out-of-reach, and so, people are settling, for the smaller blessings of life, like making those 3K’s a month, and this lowered drive toward a better life is exactly WHAT will trap us all, and soon, the middle class will be taking over the entire world, it’s slowly, taking over here, and, the gap between the rich and the poor, will get even greater, because the citizens are now, becoming less and less driven, to strive toward better things that they wanted, so, this, would be the results of settling in life………
Life, the Obstacle Course 