Balance in a Wired World

For two days this week, Internet service to my home was disrupted. A rogue cable somewhere baffled technicians and repairmen for 48 hours until they were able to locate and fix it. But what this unplugged state from the wired world revealed to me about myself is a lesson I am determined to heed for the rest of my life.

It wasn't as if I wasn't on the Web during these two days. Sitting in front of a computer at work, there's always time for checking email from friends, catching up with news, posting a subversive thought or two on Twitter.

It's when I returned home that I realized with a shock that I had become used to repeating what I did at work: Head straight for the laptop, start checking email, catch up with the news, post more stuff on Twitter.

The first night of disconnection made me restless, edgy. My wife asked me to calm down but I couldn't. I was angry at my ISP and began mentally composing the tough words I would use against them. I would post my thoughts on Yelp and other sites. I would let the world know to what darkness my ISP had thrown me into.

It was only when I was feeling so utterly lost that I realized I had a become a prisoner of my deadening habit. The truth was, there was nothing important waiting for me on the Web. Nothing.

I stepped out of the house. A full moon had risen over the brooding hills, surrounded by diaphanous clouds. It had rained in the day and the evening was cool. A night bird called from the dark interior of a tree. Deep silence. Only the leaves stirred in the small wind.

How could I have become so mechanical, so data-driven, when the real world lay about me, richer and more magnificent in every way? Without even being aware of it, I had traded the real for the artificial.

My wife and I took a walk around the block, our path lit by magical moonlight. It was like returning to earth after being away in a cold and distant planet.

Wordsworth wrote:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ...

So this is the promise I have made to myself. No more Web after work. Family, book, laughter, nature, food, music, conversation. Real people and real stuff for the replenishment of the real soul.

Secrets

"How can you live a life full of nothing?"

From this existential question flows a film of lust, loyalty, revenge, justice, passion, redemption and love, so intricately woven that you wonder if a movie like this will ever come your way again. I found myself in its grip from beginning to end, and then some. The Argentine thriller won the Oscar this year for the best foreign movie, and having seen it on the first day of its release in San Jose, I now know it was the most deserving Oscar of them all. In "The Secret in Their Eyes," director and co-screenwriter Juan Jose Campanella has created a movie of layers upon subtle layers that cinephiles can savor again and again.

A retired prosecutor named Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) is haunted by a crime committed a decade ago in the Buenos Aires of the '70s. A housewife was brutally raped and killed. The criminal was never caught and it ended Esposito's career. By writing about the crime, the prosecutor wants to take a final shot at bringing the killer to justice. He interviews the bereaving husband Ricardo (Pablo Rago) and is struck by the "secret" lurking in the eyes of a man caught in a family snapshot that includes the slain wife Liliana Coloto.

Esposito is assisted by his sidekick, a wise-cracking drunk whose insight into human nature (we may change with time but the one constant in our life is our passion) begins a chain of events that fuses menace and mystery with logic and imagination. Argentinians live and breathe soccer. The cinematography and the sheer audacity of the soccer scenes seamlessly integrated into the narrative is breathtaking. The dark days of Argentinian military regimes and their fascistic practices are suggested with an economy of words and scenes that make them all the more chilling.

Our Hamlet-like prosecutor is burdened in his investigation by his unrequited love for the current prosecutor and judge, Ms. Villamil (Irene Hastings). Their unspoken feelings for each other only add to the tension. And just when we think that the murder-mystery has been resolved comes the shattering climax, worthy of the best of Le Carre. There is redemption as well, when "I fear" turns into "I love you."

What is unfathomable is why the movie has been subjected to "limited release." In San Jose, this means that it is playing in only one small theatre. Then I realized why.

Hollywood honchos have figured out that if Americans see movies of the calibre of "The Secret in Their Eyes" in mainstream theatres, they will reject the mindless, asinine fare that the studios routinely inflict on them. Produced in Argentina, "Secret" dialogues are obviously in Spanish but the English subtitle helped me enjoy the movie as much as a Spanish-speaking person would. Besides, San Jose has a large Hispanic population, so tickets would have sold briskly even if it opened in multiple theatres.

The Hollywood-Industrial complex has to keep movies like "Secret" away from popular cinema complexes and mainstream movie-goers. Otherwise, they know that their cookie-cutter fares will take a huge hit. The dumbing down of America continues even with movies.

There is one way you can beat this vicious cycle. Go see "The Secret in Their Eyes" and spread the word through Facebook, Twitter and other social media. We owe at least this much to this brilliant film and what it can teach us about the art of making and enjoying movies. The message may even reach Hollywood.

Earth Day Call to Action

How to sustain the spirit of Earth Day throughout the year? This is the concern of students at a local College in San Jose, California.

Alvarado feels that Earth Day should be advertised more so people can get educated on what it is about and what kind of things can be done to help. He feels that everyday should be Earth Day. He plans to educate the people around him such as his mother, girlfriend and others about what they can do to help. He is hopeful that some of the actions we take on Earth Day will become everyday habits.

Nancy has learned from her sisters to go green everyday, not just on April 22. Her older sister is an environmentalist and her younger sister is a marine biologist. She avoids using plastic bags and unplugs home appliances like the microwave when not in use. "I have learned that little things make a big difference, so I will instill this idea in my little daughter."

Hameed has planned a family gathering to emphasize the importance of conservation in all aspect of his and his family’s lives. In the long run, he feels that children will educate their parents on how to preserve the earth’s environment.

Yvette is part of the Earth Day committee promoting awareness at O'Connor Hospital where she works. She and her group emphasize recycling and going green every day. She will be giving away reusable shopping bags and other Earth Day tokens. She has made a poster of all the things that the departments are doing, for example, saving two cases of paper for board meetings by going digital. Instead of printing graphs for meetings, she makes PowerPoint presentations. She and her colleagues use scratch paper for notes, always print double-sided and makes sure that there are recycle bins on every floor.

For Garcia, Earth Day is a reminder of how contaminated the earth has become because of all the chemicals and the pesticides and man-made pollutions. “Too many people never bother to recycle. They can begin by taking shorter showers. There are many ways to help this beautiful planet. I recycle all the time. I collect cans, bottles and paper and give them to my mom so she can sell them.”

On Earth Day, Rafael plans to do three things. First, he will email all his friends to remind them to recycle every opportunity they get. Second, he plans to buy a bicycle so that he can reduce his carbon footprint by using his car as little as possible. Third, he will pledge some money to a conservation group to help in their efforts “to save our beautiful planet.”

Sindi helps the environment by carpooling five days a week with two other people from work. This helps with gas and parking fees. She and her friends have been doing this for almost four years now and it has worked out great for all of them.

Jessica likes to think Green everyday. She knows that we are ruining our planet but that it is also up to us to save it. She talks to her son about the environment and the little things he can also do to help. She uses cloth bags, reusable drink bottles and bigger home appliances after 7 P.M. But she feels that she can do more as a mother. With her son, she picks a day to use only the bike. That way they both get exercise and get some quality time together. "We also pick a night when we don't use electricity but only candles. My son loves this because he gets to light the candles."

Josephina is happy that there is a day called Earth Day dedicated to celebrating our planet. “I love to learn new ways to become more earth-friendly and learn more about the issues that can be harmful to the planet and can be particularly hazardous to me or my family, including my future family,” she says. “Currently I have no children but it is nice to know that we are taking steps to help them grow up in a clean environment.” Josephina has started to recycle more. “I used to recycle only cans; now I recycle glass, paper and everything else worth recycling. I have also recently bought a bike and have made the commitment to ride it to school at least once a week, weather permitting. I also try to buy food from local farms and farmers’ markets. I do other little things like turning off lights when not in use and not waste water by leaving it running unnecessarily.”

A Reminder to Practice Humility

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried the city of Pompeii under ash and pumice. The Roman Empire was at its height then but against Nature’s fury, it was defenseless.

Time and again we are reminded of our fragility in this connected world when Nature breaks out of her bounds (as we imagine them to be) and clarifies who is really in charge. A shift in the plates here, a buildup of pressure inside the earth there, and suddenly business as usual comes to a halt. All our technology and ingenuity and scientific advances become irrelevant. We are mere spectators gazing at something terrifying and indescribable. Sure, we can pick up the pieces after the fact to study and investigate and add to our knowledge but then suddenly there’s another cataclysm of one sort or another and we are back to where we began.

The volcano in southern Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier sends ash and silicate into the air. Born of ice and fire, the plume travels across land and ocean and soon the airspace over most of Europe is closed. People enjoying their spring vacations are stranded all over the world. Business deals are delayed. Artists are unable to perform. Crucial meetings are postponed. Home seems farther than it has ever seemed before. Even President Obama has to cancel his trip to attend the Polish president Lech Kaczynski’s funeral. Volcanic ash does not distinguish between an ordinary plane and Air Force One.

Natural calamities, perhaps more than ecology, teach us in unforgettable ways that we live in an interconnected world.

What we need to nurture in a technology-driven world is a sense of humility. If we put all of humankind’s achievements on one side and nature’s occasional yawn on the other, guess which side will tilt over? Yet we keep acting like masters of the universe, doing as we please, waging war, threatening, killing, pumping carbon into the air, plundering and raping the earth as if there will be no consequence.

Iceland’s Halldor Laxness, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955 for his epic “Independent People” and other works, wrote of the tragedy that befalls man when he indulges in hubris. Fly too close to the sun and your wings will melt. We forget this but then in the middle of our party, an earthquake strikes, or a cyclone or a tsunami, and we realize anew how small a corner we occupy in the vast canvas of our existence.

Apple, Mindshare and Passion

It has become almost a cliche to say that Apple has a lock on mindshare unparalleled among technology companies. It is still 48 hours away for customers to buy iPads but the excitement and anticipation is reminiscent of the Harry Potter books. Can any other company equal this?

The iPad may not solve global warming and world hunger but you will be hard-pressed to convince the aficionados. Besides games and entertainment, the iPad is expected to make the health care process smoother and easier and, consequently, less expensive. Looking up patient records and sending data seamlessly to physicians for remote diagnosis are just two of the potential applications that can make the iPad an indispensable tool in hospitals and homes. Coming in the wake of Obama's revolutionary health care reform, the iPad is already poised to make history.

But there is a story behind the iPad story. And that story belongs to Steve Jobs. Nowhere will you find this story more eloquently expressed than in Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University in 2005.

"... it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me," said Jobs. " The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life ... Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did."

That is the story in a nutshell. Jobs loved what he did and that's why no setback could set him back. The great physicist Hans Bethe expressed the same sentiment: "Never work on a problem for which you do not have an unfair advantage." Where does the unfair advantage come from? From love for what you do.

Millions of Americans are now without jobs. The long shadow of recessions is unlikely to disappear soon. Yet if you are passionate about something - and you have to have something to be passionate about - nurture it and sooner or later the sun will shine through. As Jobs said, "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life ... have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

So, no matter how useful the iPad may turn out to be, it will always be secondary to the story of the man who loves what he does and never loses faith in himself.