VOism

Dear world,


1.) "To increase knowledge is to increase sorrow." - Ecclesiastes 1:18

The more we understand about our existence the more sadness it will bring in understanding we are only human and thus our reach is limited.

2.) "The wise live a quiet life."

The more noise you make in this world the more attention you will attract. Take caution dear traveler.

3.) Life is a war zone played out by a game of chess. The "quicker" you decide what piece you want to be the clearer your path will be.

Being a pawn can bring sadness likewise as a queen. However, either can bring much joy.

4.) Competition brings out the best in you but it also does so with the worse.

A wild beast cannot be tamed.

5.) You can be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big lake but just know there is also an ocean.

There will always be someone and something better.

6.) Learn to play music.

Playing music in any manner is your long lost soul-mate.

7.) Confidence should be built on trying not achieving.

8.) "Some zeroes go up to heroes but all heroes will come back down to zeroes." - Documentary: "Pulling for John"

9.) Come to terms that you will forever be lost and confused and happiness will come.

10.) Take pride in the fact that you have no pride in anything.

11.) Strength comes from being able to control the animal within.

12.) Help people.

13.) Leave competition and fighting to athletes and sports fanatics. War is what really exists in reality.

14.) The more people you meet the less time you will have to yourself.

15.) Do your body a favor and lift heavy enough weights and do cardiovascular work. Your medical wallet will LuV YooOo LooooOoooong Thime.

16.) You will meet plenty of boys and girls in your life time but men and women are hard to come by.

17.) Trust is earned not given.  Respect is given.

18.) You only start living when you have allowed yourself to die.

This happens many times in life.

19.) Success is not measured by how many times you fall but instead how often you stand up.

20.) Money is a good thing.  It is what we choose to do or not do with it that makes it bad.

21.) Leaders are often born but can also be molded.

22.) Allow yourself to cry once a week.

23.) Boys and girls are easy, men and women aren't.

24.) Tell yourself each morning that you know nothing and nothing will you ever know.

25.) Rolling with the punches is the best advice ever given.

26.) Believe in GOD.

27.) Family always come first.

28.) You should not help someone who does not want to be helped. Family is no exception. Let them rot.

29.) Give 2% of every paycheck to doing something good.

30.) Buy the last batch of oranges or bouquet of flowers from your traffic light entrepreneur so they can go home for the day.

31.) Give that last batch of oranges or bouquet of flowers to a complete stranger just because.

32.) Drive around with $5 umbrellas and give them to wet strangers on a rainy day. Give out ponchos when there is a tsunami.

33.) Tell someone/anyone that they are attractive when they are.

34.) Buy a homeless person dessert.

35.) Surprise your significant other with a plant that they have to take care of. It'll give you time before you have to buy them another botanical gift.

36.) Please do not be frugal with your significant other.

37.) Do silly things.

38.) Traffic violations are fine, just don't get caught or hurt someone.

39.) Rules were made to be broken.

40.) Work to live not the other way around.

41.) If the other way around, get rich fast and get the hell out.

42.) Act like a monkey sometimes.

43.) Make yourself laugh.

44.) Religion is politics.


To always be continued.....

Making Up for Lost Times

Dear world,

Sometimes you just need to write and with that said.............. off weEEEeeEEEeeeeEEeeeE GO!!!!!!!!!!!!




It has been nearly a year since I've written..
Coming back to this feels like a relationship with a prostitute that allows me to come and go as I please..
The only difference is..
Writing to you is absolutely free..

Why have I forsaken and forgotten what it's like..
To have a clear blank page to write on..
My fingers gliding over these buttons..
Is like an orgasm..

7 something billions of people in this world
In the US I grew
Land of opportunity
Why me?

2 sacrifices for the price of 1
Does that make any sense?
Two BMWs for 1 Ferrari?
IT'S ONLY A CAR!

"To increase knowledge is to increase sorrow" - Ecclesiastes 1:18
Does that makes me depressed?
Ignorance is really bliss
Childhood damn I miss

Expectations
Disappointment
Should I stop expecting?
Why is it so hard to use that 80% of your head?

All people were initially created equal
But we partition ourselves
Why
Are we so weak?

"The WISE live a quiet life"
But innately entangled we are
Like a tumor I will dismember
Parasitic, stop coming back

Caterpillar
Butterfly
Caterpillar
Butterfly
Caterpillar
Butterfly

Dear Friend

July 26, 2011

My dear Friend, Teacher and Mentor,

How are you? I haven't heard from you since February. I tried calling almost every night and that lifeless, womanly voice on the distant line keeps telling me to check the number because your phone has been disconnected. I yell at her everytime asking her why would you do such a thing? I mean...........how else are we suppose to arrange another double date without means of talking to one another? By the way, I saw a very pretty twenty-something year old brunette the other day and asked if she would like me to introduce her to a perfectly witty and charming gentleman and you know what she said? She said if only you didn't live all the way across the country. I guess that means I am going to have to visit you again sometime in the near future to let you two meet! I don't want to be known as the devil of love because I know there are painful consequences involving your bat! Anyways, I remember the last time we spoke you told me you were in and out of the hospital because of health complications. I hope things are better so that you are back about your mischievous ways : ).

You know what Maurice, I miss taking you grocery shopping.......to all 5 different grocery stores. I miss how you would try to woo the bank clerk everytime you withdrew money from there. I miss seeing how frugal and cheap you were with money when spending it on yourself, using coupons and putting things back at the checkout counter, but so willingly and generous when buying food for Napolean III or taking Leigh and I out to eat. I miss how we would 99.99% of the time get two burgers, one for you and the other for Napolean, from Carl's Jr. after we were done grocery shopping. But you know what I miss most of all Maurice............. I miss seeing you fight. The way you would take an entire minute to battle your way up and out of the passenger seat of my little sports car. I miss you seeing you grab the small kitchen knife to cut your food while in so much arthritic pain that it makes you shake and moan. I miss seeing that familiar fighting spirit of yours that years ago gave me so much hope and purpose to bring myself back from the point of no return. Not too many people are lucky enough to see the fighting spirit of a human being on the very brink of its existence. So much confusion; so much pain; so much pride but yet so much strength. It is very inspiring to see you fight even when you do not even know what you are fighting for. I guess what I am trying to say is thank you for showing me; for teaching me that when the times come and if needed I have that channel of strength to tap into. Although I hope I will never have to use it.

Leigh says hi. I know you miss her too. I think I was able to make her feel accountable towards you before we left because there were times I would test her and she would pass with flying colors. It melts my heart hearing her talk to you. So gentle; so kind; so nurturing; so comforting and giving. Now if only I can get her to speak to me the same way! Ha. I know you want me to keep her close and so many conversations we had about this. I'm a lucky guy but the world is so much bigger than love. There's so much to fix; so many people to help. I know you may not understand but you are going to have to trust me on this one. I don't think it's in the cards for me.

Well there I go rambling. Sorry........... Well Maurice, I do not know when we will next talk to one another but I hope you are happy. Whatever happens, as long as you are happy and smiling, I promise I'll do the same for you. Until we meet again my Friend, Teacher and Mentor, you keep that bat handy. I'll be back for it.

With sincere love,

Andrew

Human Nature

Monday, February 21, 2011

Human Nature

My name is Human
And I consider myself strong
Superior to all other living organisms
Rarely am I ever wrong

Year after year myself I still amaze
All things imaginable I somehow make
Into a reality that is only bound
By my brothers' and sisters' craze

With my two bare hands
I come, I see, eventually conquer I will
With or without reason
And sometimes just for the sake of the thrill

Buildings, books and even my offsprings too
A legacy centuries after centuries
I constantly produce
Just to remind to each and everyone of you

That my name is Human
And as strong as I consider myself to be
From the ages of simple hunters and gatherers to grand modernity
I still have yet to control the animal that dwells within me

I do what I want but seldom what I need
A social fiend innately cursed by my insatiable desires to seek
The praises and rewards
My fellow animals within this kingdom feed

I follow rules without cynicism
I follow dogmas without shame
Adhering to norms of complacency
In dire hopes of obtaining social fame

I take before I give
I speak before I think
So quick to accept the practicalities
Of this kingdom I choose to live

My rhetoric for change is powerful
But its realization weak
Discipline I ultimately lack
Until circumstances become too bleak

Does this make me wrong?
Does this make me right?
Living in accordance
To the animal I was chosen for this life

Should I constantly battle myself?
Or just let it free?
This overwhelming and perpetual, barbaric animal
That ultimately makes me, me.

-A12

Human After All

Dear World,

I lost a little bit of myself in the last two weeks. After being bed-ridden because of a muscle tear from heavy weight lifting, I finally made it back to work and stepped foot back into the gym. As I made myself to the employee's lounge in the back, I stood in front of the free-weights area momentarily stunned for what seemed like a timeless paralysis of movement, thought and comprehension. The battlefield in which I had come to love so dearly struck quite an intimidating shock to me as I stood speechless with caution staring at all that iron, the weight benches, dumbbells and weight plates. I felt so futile, weak, and fragile. Somehow, the pounds and pounds of metal that I thought built my confident character over the course of years of training deserted me and at that very moment I felt completely naked.
I whispered to myself,
"Get a grip Khanh, you're going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay."
But who was I fooling? Something happened to me during these past two weeks and it wasn't the torn middle and upper trapezius that had a story to tell. It was my world, somehow broken and shattered and here I was left behind puzzled in a leery limbo of time attempting to put these broken pieces back into place with one another with its ridges and sharp edges. It is going to be painful but like everything that hurts, this is going to make me stronger. This is going to complete me.
Probably one of the biggest reasons why I stopped pursing racing cars was because I met Maurice. I saw him deteriorating and all he had to live on was his memories of the past; his lifeline was his memories of when he was that world, soccer, star player for Egypt back in the 1930s. Not an hour went by when I was volunteering with him where he did not boast about the days when he would have given David Beckham a run for his money. But guess what? It all apparently didn't matter after all. He was self-insufficient, unhealthy and desperate to die with no one to talk to other than the ashes of his recently deceased border collie, Napolean III, his third one all physically identical to one another. One and a half years of spending time with Maurice taught me to make sure I would die early but more importantly, it taught me to never put myself in a state where my happiness solely resided on the accomplishments of my past. One of the things I learned from Maurice's curse of old age was to live in the happiness of the moment; live in the happiness of your present accomplishments. So that was exactly what I did.
I honestly do not know of anyone else as talented in as many things as me and up until my recent injury, that made me happy; that made me confident and because of that confidence, I continued to succeed. In any case, "I came. I saw. I conquered." Life was bliss and unlike Maurice I wasn''t living in the past. My confidence was a result of the present; the accomplishments I made day by day.
However, when I recently became injured, as I painfully dragged myself out of bed time after time, I kept looking at myself in the mirror, slowly watching my muscles deteriorate, shrink and vanish into thin air. All those years of hard work started to feel as though they were in vain and after about day three of being a crippled, of being pathetically insufficient to my own standards of confidence and success, I broke down. My confidence was tested and it dwindled into nothingness with unbelievable haste like a flame suffocated by quenching pinch. At one point, I saw my own reflection in the mirror as an old degenerative man very much like the one that surrounded me from every mirror of every angle in the weight room when I finally made it back to work. And that was when it all made sense to me. The confidence I built based upon my physical strength and accomplishments in my endeavors was as superficial as the meat-heads sneaking a peak at their flexed abdominals as they lifted their wife-beaters in the back corner of the gym to look at themselves in the mirror. My confidence was previously built on something that would not be around forever. What I realized that very day was that I am only human after all.
The two, confidence and success, goes hand-in-hand, for better and for worse, like a pimp and his prostitutes. They both exist and survive on the exploitation of one another. Similarly, to succeed one needs to be confident but without confidence one would find it difficult to succeed. This is the reason why it is extremely difficult to sever the relationship between the two. However, it needs to be done because only true (and a safer) confidence will occur. If you do not sever the two, what will happen when your superficial confidence ends? What happens when an athlete is no longer able to compete? What happens when a professional defined by the accomplishments and the success of their careers loses their jobs? The success, which mistakenly and unhealthily have come to define the confidence of the individual can no longer be sustained. What I am trying to say is as competitors within this world, we must find a way to be confident and gain confidence without relying on the merits of success to build it. If we do not do that, what will happen to our confidence when we are no longer able to succeed?
Like me, your confidence will shatter because for example, my inability to maintain or gain physical strength began to negatively affect my confidence as a strong person.
A friend of mine suggested that instead of relying on accomplishments and success to be the fuel for our confidence, we should simply be confident in the fact that we have attempted; that even before we know how well (or bad) we will do in whatever it is we are pursuing, be confident for trying and be content in our confidence regardless how often we succeed if any at all. In taking my friend's advice, this idea of confidence is still new to me as I have always used the merits of my success to correlate to how confident I am. Although I have no doubt in my mind that I will continue succeeding, I need to start all over and build my confidence from scratch again. I need to build my confidence without relying on success because when I am 38, I am no longer going to be able to dunk a basketball. When I am 50 (if I even live for that long) I will not be able to be as strong. Or when I am 70, I will not be able to race cars as well because in the end, I am, we are, human after all and no good thing lasts forever.
So before you go to bed tonight, I would like you to stand in front of the mirror and take a long look at yourself. Try to realize what it is that makes you confident? Is it your looks? What car you drive? How well you can play sports? If you can do something exceptionally well more than others? The money you have? Your past? Your present? Your future? Etc.. If your confidence does not come from within; does not come from simply knowing that you can instead of wanting or needing to know, then you suffer from superficial confidence. I urge you to as soon as possible purge yourself from it and seek out a source of confidence that will continue to last well beyond your years through the biological decay of the human body and its depreciative worth through time.
So for those of you reading; for those of you that are listening; for those of you who really care; this is me, Andrew Vo, an ordinary person with an extra-ordinary gift of caring for humanity making an out-of-the-ordinary effort to change the world for the better.

-A12

A Difficult Battle

Saturday, 5/22/10

Dear World,

Today I hung on rim, with both hands, still standing at 5'7 1/2''. It has been nearly two weeks since I have touched a basketball and everytime I get back on the court, I simply amaze myself of how fast I am improving. I know it is only a matter of time before I am well above the rim dunking. My squat and deadlift is not even twice my body weight yet and I haven't even incorporated power or plyometric movements into my workout program. However, it appears as though the sky still remains as the limit for me whether it was reiterated like it was today playing ball or - as in the past - everything I have dedicated myself to: automotive racing, karting, hip hop dancing, poetry, writing, and strength training.
Unfortunately however, the one challenge I disappointingly and painfully have to admit that I have not quite been able to excel at is explaining to people the need to give back to the community; volunteerism. The mass majority of people I talk to simply do not understand the dire need of helping others; that the world desperately need each and everyone one of them in even the smallest of ways. Those values - at the most fundamental level - of being human seem to continue to be washed away by the norms we so comfortably and mundanely live by and motions which we follow within this society without question, without cynical criticism. We wake, work, wear out, and finally quietly wither away. It's heartbreaking.
It makes me think whether we were born to live or to just survive in the first place?

-A12

Monday Morning

Dear World,

Today I wrote a song about you.
And all that I felt..
As I sat staring out the Wall St. window...
Clutching a heart that never ceases to melt....

It was stormy on this Monday work morning.
At the beginning of spring in March of 2010..
And my world has just started flipping and turning...
In a whirlpool of trapped emotions I just can't seem to amend....

Hustling and bustling the streets became crowded with professional commotion.
Endless numbers of people, insignificantly hurdling to their destinations..
The taxi horns, the dress shoes, and clatter ringing a new day of work...
Sounded to me, like a melancholy melody that brushes happiness aside with no
hesitations....

Have you ever heard a tune that plays pitches only in octaves of survival?
I have and it sounds like a New York City street at 8am Monday morning.

-A12