Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

The ideas of fighting for honor, to modern human beings, seem like obsolete ideas of the past fit for history books but anachronistic in modern societies where rational considerations for individual and collective interests trump what is often perceived an overtly emotional exercise of avenging wrongdoings for vague moral purposes.  And indeed, the last Hollywood blockbuster "47 Ronin," a sci-fi-tinged retelling of a Japanese true story about a group of master-less samurai revenge-killing a rival lord for their dead master, cannot get more medieval in context.

U.S. embassies all over the world tend to have a shared characteristic: they strive to look like military barracks, surrounded with heavily armed guards and barbed wires to fight off terrorist attacks at any given notice , rather than a diplomatically positive representation of America as a socially advanced and politically liberal place that its politicians seem to tirelessly promote when abroad.  Usually taking up prime real estate in highly urbanized areas, these American missions demonstrate American power, but in the most off-putting and scarily unapproachable fashion possible in everyone's eyes.

It is not particularly surprisingly that as people get older and older, their attitude toward the coming of a new year turn from excitement and anticipation to something more akin to avoidance, nostalgia, or in extreme cases, hatred.  When one starts to become more aware of age and less aware of concrete progress in life, the passage of time, as symbolized by coming of a new year, becomes more and more a sign of meaningless aging, of another year passed without significant accomplishments or achievements, and, again, in extreme cases, another step closer to that inevitable end of human life.

Having had (and from what it is looks like, still having) many opportunities to live different countries where standards of living vis-a-vis their relative costs varies dramatically, the author has come to realize that the common perception that more developed countries = more expensive actually is just a misconception.  The belief that better the standard of living, the more it costs, from a comparative global perspective, seem to have little factual basis on the ground to support it.  The author's latest physical move help further validate the theory.