we were trying to explain how politicians should respond to the oil price shock in terms of real business theory vs keynesian theory. then i blurted out, there are two people you can’t argue with: (1) priest – cos s/he will invoke the ‘God is the Truth’ and (2) economist – cos s/he will invoke the ‘it depends on what your assumption is’.
imagine the nightmare if you have to argue with an economist who is also a priest.
i remembered the day i lost all my digital files, the backups and the backups of the backups.
a couple of days ago, jelita lost hers.
lots of us expect our super machines to work the way they always were. but it is a superficial belief.
they always don’t and they fail at times when you don’t expect the most.
imagine all those documents, music, pictures and emails evaporate before your eyes. you can try recovery service, but at the cost of $300.-, not only it’s prohibitive, the chances of you getting them all back is also slim.
we take for granted our system. for that we will be punished severely. at least i have, and i hated every moment of it.
so, when was the last time you back up your files?
it is clear that the sure way to end something bad, is to end it fast. there is no way around it, no matter how much you tried to preempt the eventual.
sometimes, many things were said because it was the proper thing to do. but one should not ignore the fact that in life, things are not as proper as it should. we feel that we are bounded by restrictions – imposed by others or ourselves.
i fear the unknowns.
while the excitement of going through a new paradigm without knowing exactly how it will turn out might be the ride of your life, it creates challenging and dramatic exposure to some place where we could never know.
but it’s not so much of the known unknowns that i fear.
it’s more of the unknown unknowns – because regret always comes later, never early.
“But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are to found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican)