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<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_e4c3a672-a568-427f-8078-ee65e6db6417"><font color="black" size="2" face="arial"><b style="font-size: 18px;font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;">The human choice to
be</b><br>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">We quoted Kris Kristofferson's words wailed by Janis Joplin
previously: "Freedom is just another word for nothing else to lose,"
a typical Teutonic starting point of the "nothing" perspective. Shakespeare in <i>Hamlet</i> offers the choice: "to be or not to be". It finally does not matter where one begins
or ends. "No-thing" is a
creation of the mind, a psychological apparition; "to be" is concrete
and material.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Lovers tend to count the petals of a flower: "She loves
me, she loves me not." Or, in
private, she does the opposite. "Not"
is a leftover of a previous era of idealism, set against an "ought",
an ideal, rather than congruent to what is, the real.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">In our time, the preoccupation is with the facticity of "being
and becoming" brought about by the scientific understanding that existence
requires both narratives of "substance and process". Nature is seen as both "matter and force,
atomic and energy fields." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Political discourse in a previous generation was about
"freedom from", understood as liberation from an external stranglehold
but reflective of an internal desire to be, like the call for liberation from
Uncle Sam's military cuddle, or from ISIS cutthroat methods. "Freedom to" longs to create and
innovate one's path and direction. I've
called that the "wellness unto life"!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">It is in this last sense that we take freedom to be a human
choice, a banner for being and becoming, a step further than just be liberated
from social limits imposed by the accidents of birth. "Liberation from" in historical
telling is usually accompanied by social upheavals told through a loud
narrative, thus, more noticeable, compared to the muted and personal manner that
being-and-becoming touches when it hits our soul and the apex of a
transformative shift.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">This may be too abstract for many who still chase identities
away from, or dictated by, societal prescriptions, like those in our
geo-neighborhood not yet free until they determine the terms of hosting a US
Air Base. Freedom embraces the facticity
of one's life now, bound by the genesis and terminus of unique cellular life in
a specific place, at a particular time, with chosen roles to play, and more
importantly, of taking the option to relate and demonstrate the substance and
process of one's existence in all its concrete uniqueness and glory. Uncle Sam does not determine our
freedom. We do. Nor does Tokyo do Okinawa's. Ryukyans do!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">In a culture that puts a premium on personal relationship rather
than ideology (Mao guarded power personal relations, accused of encouraging a
personality cult in his later years), keeping one's public "face"
unblemished before others is an artform.
Today, it means that the 3G smartphone has the whole of China talking in
the train and on the bus, in the plain and on the plateau, by the river and on
the hill, walking on the road and on sidewalks, even vehicle drivers while
driving!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">The human choice is no longer just negating the forceful and
coercive dictates and influence of others.
It is taking available assets and plotting out a direction totally of
one's choosing. In China, that means personal
connection to influence decisions on the financial health of one's household
and kin. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">China goes after abusive powers and unexplained wealth. Bo Xilai, former mayor of nationally
administered municipality of Chongqing (the others are Beijing, Tianjin and
Shanghai), and a charismatic member of the politburo, was caught abusing power
by covering up for his wife's murder of a British colleague. His high profile case, the first judicial
proceeding to go on public display, signaled what was thought to be just a
symbolic gesture to pacify drooling laptops and media lapdogs; it turned out to
be the new SOP.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">Xi Jinping drums up the democratic and egalitarian elements
of the China Dream, the CPC on anti-corruption measures, and the bounds of the rule
of law, with equal force. The three loci
of power in China are the military, energy, and finances. To date, he took down top heads of the
military and the energy field. He's got
finance next even if the current head is protected (might even go down with
him) by no less than former President Jiang Zemin.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;">After orchestrating the conduct and content to APEC 2014, PM
Li Keqiang took off for the ASEAN gathering in Myanmar while President Xi
Jinping went to the G20 in Australia, drumming up the civilizational refrain
reflected in a peoples' style and profound national understanding of the middle
"kingdom" of Zhongguo, of always maintaining a balance of differing
forces in partnership and cooperation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 18px;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">We use China in our narrative but we refer to all humans in
the planet, regardless of the circumstances of social milieu. We are born free. It is the exercise of freedom that makes us
human. The choice "to be" is
not about being safe and secure on top; it is about having the courage to expend one's
being away, investing it with care so others may also be free to be. The option to choose is human.</font></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px;"><i>j'aime la vie</i><br>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!</i></div>
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