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These thoughts and comments were originally posted to my Facebook profile in a note, approximately a month before I started this blog and shortly after I had finished my internship in South Florida. They represent an important part of my personal, emotional, and intellectual development in this year of rapid change, and I feel like they should be recorded here. Here they are, completely unedited, since my thoughts and feelings remain exactly the same now as then.
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• I have always been mature for my age, and I never went through that teen - early 20’s phase of reckless hedonism and the accompanying “I’ll live forever” mentality. Regardless, the events of this last year have made me realize that I did take certain things for granted, and to reprioritize accordingly. Everybody could benefit from that type of self-analysis once in a while.
• Southern conservatives have convinced themselves that we black folks haven’t gotten over slavery yet. Funny, since considering the number of Confederate flags I see when traveling through Dixie, I’ve convinced myself that they haven’t gotten the news from Appomattox Court House yet, either.
• “Everything in moderation” is such a profound phrase that it could replace entire volumes of “How to Improve Your Life” literature.
• I still remember vividly how awestruck I was when I first saw the glittering skyscrapers on Biscayne and Brickell when I was 12 years old. As I looked out over Biscayne Bay from the 28th floor of one of those skyscrapers this summer as a 21 year old, I couldn’t help but think about how anything is possible in this great country.
• Its bothers me greatly when I hear people doing cost-benefits analyses on their educations – i.e., “will my salary increase by X if I pay X for this degree?” No – education doesn’t work like that. Profit is not an applicable and appropriate metric for every investment in life.
• Coming out as gay at a still relatively young age was unquestionably one of the best decisions of my life, and I definitely do not take for granted having family, friends, and a community for whom that factor is irrelevant. I am continually troubled by the amount of homophobia in the African American community, especially considering our own recent struggles to achieve social justice.
• By car, only the state of Ohio and 8 hours separate Pittsburgh from Bowling Green, Kentucky; 6.5 hours, Louisville. Yet, living there (and for only 15 months) will be a tremendous step outside of my familiar “comfort zones.” Meanwhile, most of the students in my degree program come from, literally, the other side of the world. There really aren’t words for how much I admire their ambition and focus on education. And that level of competition will drive me to become a better student, a better businessman, and a fundamentally better person.
• Political involvement starts in the family. Had I not grown up in a highly political household, around nearly daily political discussions and regularly reading newspapers and listening to news, I would have been just as apolitical as the next apathetic teenager.
• I still see myself as a technologist first and a businessman second. My view of the world and my thought processes are much more in tune with a person in Silicon Valley than a person on Wall Street, although I am still somewhat amorphous between the two roles. But I do have to say, with a background and education both in business and in technology, the two spheres aren’t as mutually incompatible as some people seem to think. There is no intrinsic reason why the alignment of business and IT/technology objectives so often fails.
• In this election, it has become clear than any person who criticizes small-town America will be branded an “Ivy League elitist.” Well, I live in a big city. I’m college-educated and a student at a top-tier, private Northeastern university. But I also spent most of the first 18 years of my life in rural Dixie, I escaped from that world, and no politically-correct drone will ever scold me for criticizing rural Americans when I grew up surrounded by the damn bigoted idiots. It is time to put an end to this ludicrous notion that cities are havens of decadence and decay while small-town Americans live in this friendly, bucolic paradise where all is pleasant.
• I firmly believe that “home” is where you define it to be, and that “hometown” is often a meaningless geographical location. But I also believe in the importance of family and roots, and I do my best to balance these two differing convictions.
• It will always be amazing to me that some people care more about their income tax bracket and the double taxation of corporate income than they do about the fact that we have decaying inner-city schools that have failed whole generations of (mostly minority) youth, and hard-working families who are bankrupted by emergency medical expenses.
• I have some prime real estate on Saturn that I want to sell to people who believe that offshore drilling is an energy panacea. I also think that Floridians who have jumped on that bandwagon need to visit the pristine beaches of Galveston, Texas and ponder if they want our coasts to end up in that condition.
• It is entirely inconceivable that an Asian child would be criticized by his peers for “acting white” when he earns straight ‘A’ grades on his report card. On the contrary, I never have had many black friends due to that perennial “acting white” criticism. My mother always found herself in the same situation as well. It is long overdue that this baseless phrase be permanently stricken from the African American lexicon.
• Many, many elements of the “latte liberal” stereotype really do apply to me. For better and worse, it would simply be dishonest for me to suggest otherwise.
• I fully agree with Thomas Friedman and Richard Florida – globalization will not make location irrelevant. It will make it even more important than in the past, as the new “creative, high intellectual capital” class seeks to associate with like-minded people. I chose South Florida long ago as my future home for many reasons, and I took a substantial pay cut when I chose a career opportunity in South Florida over an equally promising one in Houston. People who chase nothing more than the highest salaries in choosing a location – relocating every few years and never establishing municipal roots – will not create sustainable careers.
• Living in greater Miami, it sometimes seems pointless to have invested so much time over the last 8 years of my life becoming conversationally fluent in French. Watching the Olympics – where the three official languages are always the host country’s language, English, and French – reminds me that it was anything but a waste of time learning this beautiful, world-class language.
______________________________________________________________________
• I have always been mature for my age, and I never went through that teen - early 20’s phase of reckless hedonism and the accompanying “I’ll live forever” mentality. Regardless, the events of this last year have made me realize that I did take certain things for granted, and to reprioritize accordingly. Everybody could benefit from that type of self-analysis once in a while.
• Southern conservatives have convinced themselves that we black folks haven’t gotten over slavery yet. Funny, since considering the number of Confederate flags I see when traveling through Dixie, I’ve convinced myself that they haven’t gotten the news from Appomattox Court House yet, either.
• “Everything in moderation” is such a profound phrase that it could replace entire volumes of “How to Improve Your Life” literature.
• I still remember vividly how awestruck I was when I first saw the glittering skyscrapers on Biscayne and Brickell when I was 12 years old. As I looked out over Biscayne Bay from the 28th floor of one of those skyscrapers this summer as a 21 year old, I couldn’t help but think about how anything is possible in this great country.
• Its bothers me greatly when I hear people doing cost-benefits analyses on their educations – i.e., “will my salary increase by X if I pay X for this degree?” No – education doesn’t work like that. Profit is not an applicable and appropriate metric for every investment in life.
• Coming out as gay at a still relatively young age was unquestionably one of the best decisions of my life, and I definitely do not take for granted having family, friends, and a community for whom that factor is irrelevant. I am continually troubled by the amount of homophobia in the African American community, especially considering our own recent struggles to achieve social justice.
• By car, only the state of Ohio and 8 hours separate Pittsburgh from Bowling Green, Kentucky; 6.5 hours, Louisville. Yet, living there (and for only 15 months) will be a tremendous step outside of my familiar “comfort zones.” Meanwhile, most of the students in my degree program come from, literally, the other side of the world. There really aren’t words for how much I admire their ambition and focus on education. And that level of competition will drive me to become a better student, a better businessman, and a fundamentally better person.
• Political involvement starts in the family. Had I not grown up in a highly political household, around nearly daily political discussions and regularly reading newspapers and listening to news, I would have been just as apolitical as the next apathetic teenager.
• I still see myself as a technologist first and a businessman second. My view of the world and my thought processes are much more in tune with a person in Silicon Valley than a person on Wall Street, although I am still somewhat amorphous between the two roles. But I do have to say, with a background and education both in business and in technology, the two spheres aren’t as mutually incompatible as some people seem to think. There is no intrinsic reason why the alignment of business and IT/technology objectives so often fails.
• In this election, it has become clear than any person who criticizes small-town America will be branded an “Ivy League elitist.” Well, I live in a big city. I’m college-educated and a student at a top-tier, private Northeastern university. But I also spent most of the first 18 years of my life in rural Dixie, I escaped from that world, and no politically-correct drone will ever scold me for criticizing rural Americans when I grew up surrounded by the damn bigoted idiots. It is time to put an end to this ludicrous notion that cities are havens of decadence and decay while small-town Americans live in this friendly, bucolic paradise where all is pleasant.
• I firmly believe that “home” is where you define it to be, and that “hometown” is often a meaningless geographical location. But I also believe in the importance of family and roots, and I do my best to balance these two differing convictions.
• It will always be amazing to me that some people care more about their income tax bracket and the double taxation of corporate income than they do about the fact that we have decaying inner-city schools that have failed whole generations of (mostly minority) youth, and hard-working families who are bankrupted by emergency medical expenses.
• I have some prime real estate on Saturn that I want to sell to people who believe that offshore drilling is an energy panacea. I also think that Floridians who have jumped on that bandwagon need to visit the pristine beaches of Galveston, Texas and ponder if they want our coasts to end up in that condition.
• It is entirely inconceivable that an Asian child would be criticized by his peers for “acting white” when he earns straight ‘A’ grades on his report card. On the contrary, I never have had many black friends due to that perennial “acting white” criticism. My mother always found herself in the same situation as well. It is long overdue that this baseless phrase be permanently stricken from the African American lexicon.
• Many, many elements of the “latte liberal” stereotype really do apply to me. For better and worse, it would simply be dishonest for me to suggest otherwise.
• I fully agree with Thomas Friedman and Richard Florida – globalization will not make location irrelevant. It will make it even more important than in the past, as the new “creative, high intellectual capital” class seeks to associate with like-minded people. I chose South Florida long ago as my future home for many reasons, and I took a substantial pay cut when I chose a career opportunity in South Florida over an equally promising one in Houston. People who chase nothing more than the highest salaries in choosing a location – relocating every few years and never establishing municipal roots – will not create sustainable careers.
• Living in greater Miami, it sometimes seems pointless to have invested so much time over the last 8 years of my life becoming conversationally fluent in French. Watching the Olympics – where the three official languages are always the host country’s language, English, and French – reminds me that it was anything but a waste of time learning this beautiful, world-class language.
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