"Now, more than ever" is a phrase that is lazy English

This phrase is constantly being overused these days that discounts the importance of history and its impact and creates a sense of fear in the “now”. As a whole, the world has never been more prosperous, more % of people out of poverty, more educated…the list goes on. I don’t like how there is just so much basic fear mongering and how in “this time, this moment” is the singular most important moment - only to realize tomorrow is the most important moment. The constant call to action will desensitize us to when true action needs to be taken.

Autobiography of Franklin

I just finished The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and was unimpressed by the structure and layout of the book. To get one thing straight, his life was extremely impressive and he still remains one of the most popular American figures to this day. He represents the pinnacle of the American man.

It is the language and narrative of the autobiography that has me disappointed. The obvious issue with reading 18th century English is that context for words have evolved and made the text difficult to read. This is something you can’t change but much of the nuances in literature makes it much more difficult to understand. Secondly, the narrative jumps around between stories in his life (I.e him jumping to his electricity experiments in book 3, while the preceding narrative was about the militia). The narratives themselves were quite ordinary.

Reading a bit deeper into this, maybe it was a great man’s way to be humble during his life. Him establishing the fire department, libraries and UPenn were just obvious things to do that he doesn’t take much credit for it. He spends an inordinate amount of time talking about politics in the colonies and maybe he believes those are his biggest accomplishments. This is completely speculative and I’d like to believe that. 

Regardless of how I personally felt about the book, I think it was a unique insight at an influential person’s life and choices.  

A short entry

I get good ideas for topics to write about in the middle of the day but by the time I get home to write them, I've forgotten about them. It's like trying to remember a dream 5 minute after you wake up - your brain just doesn't seem to want to store that well and you just forget it. I wonder how many amazing ideas have been lost throughout the years that have been lost that way.

Identity

I grew up as a Chinese-American in Southern California. There are already numerous articles about identity as immigrant Americans and it would be trite to talk about that. What is fascinating to me is that modern society has allowed relatively free travel among countries. It's never been easier to live and work in Spain, China, or South Africa. The most talented people will gravitate towards the places that they can best exploit their talents - bankers in New York or London, software engineers in Silicon Valley/SF, entertainers in Los Angeles. The notion of your identity is now less about your nationality and more about what you can do. We find identity at the smallest common denominator that's still large enough to retain that sense of community. I am more of a product manager than an American. Unfortunately, this is isolated to the very fortunate who have the skills in demand around the world.

For those who were never trained to do so, their identity is even more tied to the land they are born and raised. I worry that as the world passes around them, they dig in to their beliefs because we stop listening to what they have to say. I hope to be proven wrong.