We're the soliders of RUF!

Out of all the heartbreaking wretched plight of Sierra Leone as portrayed in Blood Diamond, one of the most tragic plot was the one involving the portrayal of how abducted children (often after their parents are raped and killed in the process) are turned into child soldiers in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) guerilla army. These children are subjected to incessant barrage of ideology propaganda, war training, sensitivity purge, and forced drugs and alcohol abuse that are designed to eradicate all traces of humanity in these little souls, and turning them into merciless, vindictive killers. Watching the scene where a gang of these children rake the village with their AK-47’s, mowing down screaming villagers with a blank expression on their faces, I was struck with an epiphany.

How are consultants like the child soldiers of the RUF guerillas army?

The consultant candidates are plucked away from the carefree collegiate campuses, handed a notebook computer and sent to a boot camp where they’re preached the virtuous principles of consulting in indoctorinating party line and training drills, designed to churn out consultants that will march lockstep into the gates of hellish client projects, offering themselves on the alter of the glorious cause, burning the wicks of their ephemeral youth into the late nights in empty client offices to “shock and awe” the clients, knocking down every obstacle with relentless intensity and determination, until the “objective” is reached. They do not know why they do it – it's certainly not for themselves in reality – and any paltry rewards doled out by the commanders are just gratuitous taste of the “final reward” (the "big bonus" or "making partner") preached about in the countless propaganda that fills the Inbox, to remind them, that how bleak things seem today is really just transient, and the people (shareholders and firm partners) are grateful for your sacrifices and there’s nothing more virtuous than the “glorious death” for the sake of the cause (make more money for the partners).

I shared an uncharacteristically cynical view on this, but on the verge of reaching my eight year in a global consulting company, I reflect often these days on my own journey so far in this profession. Being exposed more to the wheeling and dealings that happen at “executive level” these days often leaves me disillusioned about the “cause,” and it disgusts me that I often find myself consumed more with power struggles and Machiavellian maneuvering on the orders of my “commanders,” or finding myself diving head first under the table like dogs with the next guy, fighting tooth and nail for the spoils and booties thrown our way (more P.C. terms are ‘raises’ and ‘promotion’) -- when you say, "value-added work" to whose benefit are we talking about? A more balanced life (friends! family! get out of work at 5pm!) during weekdays probably helps ward off the illusions, but thinking about how the week days fly by at client sites, being shuttled back and forth between hotel and client office with no life outside the company of the fellow ‘soldiers,’ I’m reminded of the scene where the AK-47s are propped against the table where the child soldiers barely into their teens are smoking, drinking beers and gambling on card games after a day of brutal massacre.

The truth behind the supposed ‘glamour’ of the consulting lifestyle is a lot uglier than your peaceful, boring life in your sleepy little village. Just start praying when you see a dirt smoke rising up from the horizon and hear tires grinding on the gravel roads as the jeeps full of these maniacal killers are speeding toward your village, and you realize... we’re coming.

(Certainly, how I portray the consulting world greatly mirror the type of week I'm having... and I've had my share of peaks and troughs during the eight years so far... perhaps when I'm in my usual happy mood, I'll focus on the positive virtues of this twighlight zone-like universe.)

Mini-vacations

Topics discussed during lunch conversations at work rarely stray away from the mundane work-related issues (mostly frustration over politics or petty rat race woes), and I relish those uncommon occasions that open doors in my imagination that takes me far away from the office. (The obvious interpretation of this, of course, is that I need to find a new job!)

Over lunch today, my buddy was sharing some of his plans for a business trip to Prague and Amsterdam in a couple of weeks, and mere mention of “Amsterdam” brought an immediate smile to my lips – I was already shedding my office garbs and found myself in the line of bicyclists riding along the canals, the locals scurrying along on their daily chores, and me, just carefree, aimless, and thoroughly feeling a sense of being in a strange city. Ahhhhhhh……………

As the Mastercard advertisement goes, certain things in life are priceless. Being able to take these “mini-vacations,” even if they are like fleeting scent in the breeze that stirs up a sudden rush of nostalgia, then dissipate as abruptly as it came, is a priceless delight gained from the eight weeks I spent backpacking in Western Europe last summer. I dare not go beyond this, because I’ll be up all night rummaging through the treasure chest brimming with dazzling memories, lost in la-la land. You see, when I returned from the eight weeks, I’ve put most of the souvenirs from the trip – random tourist maps of exotic cities, ticket stubs, random keepsakes and even my journal – into a box that I haven’t opened since. Every time I feel that I should go through and organize these mementos, I cannot bring myself to do it – somehow, how these remain as tokens in my memories is far richer and colorful than the actual souvenirs themselves -- and what’s in the box are like foils that will turn these mementos and make them fade away to grey.

Secret to most of these little nuggets of happiness in my life seem not to have come to my possession through haggling prices and getting the best deal; I seemed to happen upon them, sorry to say, mostly by (just luckily) stumbling upon them – unplanned discoveries. In that respect, I’ve been blessed that such things in my life that turned out to be priceless have been gained “for free.” It’s ironic to realize that these, out of all things that I thrash and wiggle to hoard, are what I’m willing to pay any price to keep.

You are inadequate, but the Spartans are here to help

According to the movie, 300, you can pretty much name any culture in the 5th century (e.g. Arcadians, Asians, Athenians... just to be alphabetical) -- in other words, "those who were not Spartans in the era between the rise of city states and when Romans showed up
-- and they deserve our collective contempt and pity. Well, because they. were. not. SPARTAAAAAAAANS! In some aspects, the Spartans were the Chuck Norrises of the 5th century B.C. world:

• We have democracy today only because the Spartans let us.
• Spartans don't eat. They kill until they're full.
• There's no record of alien sightings in ancient Greece, because Spartans killed them all.

Most of the film critics who reviewed this movie could not seem to pry their gaze away from the pecs and abs, and it's too bad that their ramblings dwell too much on the style, but even besides the amazing anime-like cinematography, the timeless theme of "the final stand" is enough to make this movie a must-view on my list. I finally caught it at the new Lowes Theater in Georgetown, and it's a pity that I watched it alone -- oh, what fun I could have had, barking up "Spartanized" one liners ("blah blah blah... FOR GLORY!") with buddies all afternoon long. (Sadly, I had to satiate such sophomoric urge with leaving my brother a predictably lame voicemail.)

The movie maker bolstered the movie's theme with a Emeril-worthy peppering of rather irrelevant references to fighting for freedom and preservation of democracy (Want more reference to freedom? "BAM!" There you go.), and just like the gratuitous heaping of cayenne peppers, the movie really didn't need it -- the raw desperation and honor of "the final stand" should have been enough.

Growing up in Korea during the early eighties, the militant propaganda designed to drill children with Confucian ideals of achieving honor and glory through allegiance to the country and sacrifice for greater good have been a dominant factor in my elementary education (after all, the country is still technically at war with our communist brethren), and having emigrated before I was old enough to develop my own perspectives on these, these ideals have lodged themselves firmly in my core values and manifest themselves in the weirdest aspects of my life. (For the better or for worse, I'd have made an ideal military officer candidate.) Nonetheless, I reckon this is a big reason why I find themes like the last stand at Battle of Thermopolae so appealing.

Reflecting on the movie's theme in a bar a few hours later, I recalled reading an article a few years ago about Pat Tillman, a Cardinal's player who gave up a lucrative NFL career to serve his country in the post-9/11 army. Most people are afraid to make a bold statement or firm commitment, preferring instead, clever and ingenious ways to weasel they way out of real responsibilities and mask less-than-noble intentions with altruistic claims. (To me, they sounded awfully similar to the "boy-loving Athenians" the Spartans were joking about in a scene.) Well, I guess I'm just coming back to the "... but not all men live" Braveheart line again.

I wish the movie had spent a tad bit less effort on tweaking the visual contrast that would make the pecs and the abs "pop," and more on developing scenes that show what beats beneath the muscle... Leonidas' got ample treatment, but it was unfortunate that most of the other two hundred and ninety nine were treated more like graphical emphasis, not much more interesting than the wall of Persian corpses in the backdrop. Rather than having the audience admire the Spartans, it would have been nice to have walked out of the movie theater feeling like one of the three hundred.

For you, a thousand times over

I've read an interesting article on how making of movie based on The Kite Runner is reviving the traditional kite craft businesses in Kabul after the Taliban-imposed decades of banning.

Kabul in the seventies, as depicted in the novel, doesn't seem not much different from my own childhood in Korea in the early eighties. Recurring preoccupation of the Afghan children, such as the kite fighting in the winter (a major theme in the novel) is something that you could have transplanted thousands of miles across the Asian continent into the memories of my own childhood. It's sad that so few pictures and images of Afghanistan in the peaceful days have survived through decades of warfare and cultural eradication. Then again, landscape in Seoul has changed dramatically (fortunately, due to the dizzying economic advances), with hills and open fields replaced by a megapolis of nondescript high-rises, and few children these days give thoughts to brave the wintry elements, preferring instead, the comforts of their game consoles hooked up to the flat-screen TVs.

In this age of economy, productivity and practicality, doing anything for anyone just once, let alone a "thousand times over" seems to be a quixotic stretch. Yet, when Hassan swears to Amir, "for you, a thousand times over," I have no doubts that Hassan sincerely will live up to his promises, at least nine hundred and ninety nine times again after he's lived up to his word, without a single moment's judgement on whether the request was a just or a fair one. While I often lament that I don't have enough people like Hassan in my life, I am turning a blind eye on myself -- because in truth, I know that underneath it all, I'm often more like Amir than Hassan, questioning if a friend "deserves" my loyalty and servitute. I make more money every year, but I feel less rich and find myself more wanting, full of petty judgement and shallow manipulations. I have a feeling that corrective insights probably won't come from the Business Week best sellers that are crowding my bookshelf these days.... hmmmph.

I digress. The first half of the The Kite Runner, rich with subtle foreshadowing and fleeting emotional glimpses that, for me, was a much more enjoyable reading than the latter half, which accelerates to a pace worth of a 90 minute Hollywood flick, with over-the-top plot development. I have a mixed feeling about recommending this novel -- while the writing has its own merits and the plot rich with themes of friendship, secrets, betrayal, ethnic tensions, integrity, courage and redemption (just to list a few) are worthy of a satisfying discussion among any book club circles, having spent a good half day reading the book, if the movie version could be as well made as, say, The Namesake, then I'd say, wait for the movie and save yourself a few hours. Then again, meeing Hassan and larger-than-life characters like Baba might be worth a rainy Saturday afternoon on the couch.

start, stop, continue

A simple teamwork exercise I picked up over the years is consists of listing three things the team should do under each of the following categories: START, STOP, CONTINUE.

What should the team START doing that will improve teamwork? What should the team STOP doing that is destructive? What is the team doing right now that it should CONTINUE to do?

The best thing about this exercise is that it cuts right to the core -- no equivocating, no sugar-coating or no drama -- just simply fill in the damn form!

The most effective diagnosis aften tend tend to be the most straight forward and this one is no exception. Also as in most cases, these types of exercises can be applied to personal life as well.

It's absurd how we clutter our minds with so much junk that such simple and basic logic sounds refreshingly, well, fresh. That 'junk' which prevents a clear diagnosis of one's life also infiltrates out emotions -- how difficult is it for a lot of people to face up to what really makes them happy at the core? Expectations set by culture (bigger, better, more!) and sometimes even by those who claim to love you (success, stability, achieve!) really screwed up a lot of people to a point where happy (the real kind) is often associated with an absurd sense of guilt. I'm no exception.

Being sick in a hotel at a client site sucks. It's like being sick in a stranger's house, and you feel bad for being sick there. I spent the whole day in bed with incessant sneezing and fever, and strangely, I cannot wait to get back to the office to avoid having to be sick in a hotel room in a strange city. I hope I'll discover something new to be happy about this whole consulting/IT thing in the office tomorrow.

Living ripens verbal intelligence

I recently ran across the following except from a Kerouac novel, while reading a Jonathan Ames essay:

... and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, becuase the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "awww!"

I see less and less such people these days, and that leaves me rather depressed and prone to become a bit recluse when it comes to social gatherings. I reckon when I was younger, and those around me were just as young, in our mutual attraction, we mostly confused the youthful exuberance with the glow that comes from a mad-to-live spirit. As the that veneer tarnishes over the years, just as women seek to hold on to the vestiges of youthful appearances in the latest creams and fashion, the men turn to the material possessions and social advances, mistaking the drive as honorable vigor, which, in reality, is driven by insatiable greed and incessant insecurity.

My favorite evenings these days are ones spent with friends who still burn, burn, burn... and in their company I am humbled by the grace that surrounds my life; that even during the most wayward days of my youth, my life was full of chances for friendship, meaning and conversations that survived the test of aging.

Passing of time and what it does to one's beauty is not what devastates -- it's the aging of the spirit that truly saddens me.