Good luck & Peace

Caption   Japanese-American troops of US 442nd Regimental Combat Team at Armistice Day service, Fays, France, 11 Nov 1944 ww2dbase Source    ww2dbaseHawaii War Records Depository Identification Code   1616k Photos on Same Day 11 Nov 1944Photos at Same Place Fays, Lorraine, France
Added By C. Peter Chen Added Date 27 Oct 2008 Licensing  Public Domain
https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=6739

In 2021, I learned so much. How truth doesn't matter. Most people don't want to know the truth. They want to know what is convenient to them and make that the truth. Parents tell children not to lie, but societies are majority about lies. It is probably better to educate children to lie and forget about it. That will help them in the future... but I will never be able to do that. I will explain to my children at one point, so they don't get disappointed. I will have to tell them, It's only work, forget it! 
Many human beings carry weakness and protecting that extra laziness by justifying with aggression and rage of what they never attempted to learn and make false stories to give them the value to deserve what they did not deserve. Why do we need to deserve something? What's the point of being mean because of the fragility that can be compensated in 1 second through simple curiosity?
I personally don't believe in deserving. That idea in it's self is strange. We are given a lot even we don't deserve it and we give a lot too. How imperfect the person may have been, gift is the nature of life cycle. Gift is in many forms: hardship and pleasure. What we make out of it is what changes us. I am not a good gift receiver, especially when gift is rotten. Yet, sometimes I have to look at the rotten gift and see what I can make out of it. I can learn at times what are my weakness from observing these gift. How I should change. If I can't do nothing about the gift, I chuck them out and move on. Gift is our life, our way of connecting to another. We are receiving many things we may not even witness as a gift. Gift circulation is forgotten in the material world. Take fast and much as possible. In this western world, gift don't circulate because people don't know how to circulate it any more. Gift becomes an ego act. And why not admit the pleasure of ego act? ego act is needed at times. The denial of selfishness is what makes the context twisted. My next year will be about self care. Giving doesn't have to be a constant actions. Selfish creations are good, sometimes good for others and at least it serves the self to adventure. These days, I go back to my childhood often. Looking at the Christmas market, seeing the hand made stuff being sold, I think of my best friends from 3rd grade. We used to make objects and sell at the Christmas bazaar. We would spend weeks and moths on the end to make the hand crafts. I went back to crane folding that I used to do when I was a child for our sick classmate. Crane, the national treasure of Japan, my native country. Cranes symbolizes peace and luck.  I probably can fold cranes pretty fast now. But I had forgotten how much work it is to make cranes. I spent weeks on making cranes and putting it on the tread took me 45 mins each. I couldn't even string all the cranes as light was falling. It is winter here in Europe. I left the cranes that I could not thread in 3 boxes. 3 as the odd number traditional number for Buddhist flower arrangements. It was the opportunity for people. my gift to string it if they cared. I was able to offer them and gasho to the place mythical of history, at fays where the  General John Dahlquist  asked the solders to assemble on november 12 after the rescue of lost battalion.  I also brought the crane to the monuments of these Japanese-American soldiers to commemorate them. I would have love the commemoration was made by people in the region. Gasho is to put the two hands together and give that moment to the present, the past people, to thank them for their efforts and existence to rest in peace.