euro - zone of suffering: the impending collapse of the monetary union

The brouhaha about the status of the Greek economy within the eurozone has been boggling minds and lives for the past year or so. Indeed, the future of the eurozone is at stake. The terminal state of the Greek economy is not only rattling minds in Greece, it has forced policymakers and common folk alike across the eurozone to rethink the viability of the euro experiment.

 

I am no economist nor a financial professional in any stretch of the word, but I believe that the euro experiment was never a comfortable marriage for the following reasons:

1. The economies that bonded to form the euro were never in the same level of economic development, and because they were never on equal footing economically, other countries became more competitive than they otherwise would have without the euro and others became even less competitive although they maintained a lifestyle of artificial success. Such scenario will eventually break over time and would drag the entire union into the gutters.

2. The eurozone countries did not make a common financial pact regulated and binding in all countries that would designate one body to regulate the financial activities of each country within the union. Such uber-body would control spending and budgetary initiatives of each member country. The absence of such arrangement created a free-for-all attitude of reckless borrowing and unsustainable financial policies. 

3. The eurozone countries did not really commit fully to the union as evidenced by the populace in each countries reluctance to give up certain rights to make the union more financially stronger, such initiative would mean giving up monetary sovereignty to the ECB. It seems that the less developed economies did not make painful financial policy changes to catch-up with the more developed economies and more developed economies flooded liquidity to the less developed ones which only incentivized their reluctance to delay necessary changes. The euro countries therefore wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

With such structural defects, the eurozone would eventually face an up-hill battle to keep it together - the hen has come to roost. 

Many articles have been written depicting the scenarios that would happen if and when the euro collapses, all would certainly cause more suffering, and could possibly disentangle the eurozone itself.

For all of the inherent problems facing the eurozone and the Greek economy in particlar, there is an increasing possibility that Greece could possibly move out of the union by the end of 2012, possibly by October, then again, that is just me.

TV SHOW REVIEW: Supernatural S04E17 "It's a Terrible Life"

Dean and Sam are swept in a new world. Both working in a call center company but seemingly unaware of each other or their past. Dean is the director for sales and marketing while Sam works as a technical support agent.

When two employees of the company committed suicide after receiving an e-mail purportedly from the HR department ordering them to visit said office at room 1444, Sam begins to question things. The duo investigates room 1444 and finds an employee down on his back with a steel cabinet on his top. As Dean and Sam try to save the employee a ghost appears, that of P.T. Sandover,  founder of the company. Both Dean and Sam are able to fend off the spirit, both seemed to know that iron and salt works on ghosts.

Sam begins to increasingly doubt his life, his career, and his way of life. Dean too feels the same way. Both felt they were called to a different life, a life vanguishing evil.

This got me thinking, we do indeed feel it when the life we live is not the life we truly want. What do I want? The great mythologist Joseph Campbell once said that life is not the search for meaning but the experience of being alive. Campbell said in his interview by Bill Moyers (set into a book titled "The Power of Myth") that in order to be happy in life, we have to follow our bliss, because when we do, we come to bliss. To be trite, it means to be living a fulfilling and contented life.

Sounds simple? I think not because knowing what we want is to know to listen to ourselves, and in a world distracted by the bewildering array of technology and materialism, this is a challenge. A challenge we have to eventually face for if we refuse or cannot do so, life indeed becomes terrible.

kamingaw - loneliness ini

i wake upon a dark and steely night
cloaked stars amidst whispering winds
scrape but a tingle in my hushed ears.

standing in solitude embraced by the dark
with limpy arms stretched by ghostly vines
downcast eyes see a crouching shadow.

to where will i look so alone i will not be
to the sky so heavy, so dark, so silent
so glam so alone i am indeed.

to where will i listen so alone i will not be
to the leaves that whimper, so vexing, so eerie
so tearful so alone i am indeed.

to where will i touch so alone i will not be
to the ground so rough, so stony, so cold
so lifeless so alone i am indeed.

i beg upon the dark and steely night
that aching loneliness i have inside
be gone and be carried by the wind.

kneeling in solitude kissed by the dark
with leaning stems of spindly stems
i look, i listen, i touch - it is you beloved.

Death and the Nurse

As a registered nurse, I have encountered death in its manifold manifestations. Indeed, death is an everyday experience. Biologically and metaphorically speaking, dying is what it means to have life, and to live is to die moment by moment.

One thinker once said that "Dying is as normal as being born." From a biological perspective, it is practically true. Everyday, millions of cells die as millions more are being born. This is the eternal paradox of life - that in dying birth is made possible. But death is more than the corruption, destruction, and annihilation of life - it is life itself. For death does not only erase an entity, it simultaneously makes it possible for life in the same or some other form to exist. Take for example the black hole, that all powerful remnant of a dying star, so powerful that it even bends and sucks light into it. As it reaches its critical mass, it explodes and from it a new form of cosmic substances are sprung forth.

Philosophically speaking, death is just a way for life to renew itself. We die everyday. When we get retrenched from our jobs, we die. When loved ones part, we die. When friends leave us, we die. When relationships break, we die. But in as much as death brings pain, it also brings life, it brings life because it renews us. The renewal can take the form of a more profound understanding of what it means to be alive, to live life, to understand and experience the experience of life.

Nurses are unique professionals in that they encounter life and death on a regular basis. As such, the nurse must have a clear view of what his thoughts on life and death are, for the understanding of what it is for him to have life and to witness death can impact how he deals with the patient, the significant others of the patient, and his fellow health care team members. If a nurse for example views life as not only the search for meaning but the experience of living, then he exudes in himself a sense of quiet confidence that can calm a patient and make him a willing partner in the healthcare process.

In the same way, a nurse who sees death as a moment of reunion, reflection and renewal will radiate to dying patients a sense of dignified calm and fortitude of spirit. This will help the patient, the family and the healthcare team make the dying experience an avenue for emotional growth and enable the dying patient face death with peace and serenity.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE GREY (2012)

I love watching movies, none more so than those that not only provide entertainment but also engages the mind in philosophical reflection.

The Grey is one of those movies that opens our minds into the realm of the oft-unthought of realm. Indeed, it shows the brutal reality that life really is. But that our beliefs and decisions are what truly defines how we live our lives. That friendships are born in the most unusual circumstances, that challenges will always follow us like a shadow in a dim-lit alley, that our beliefs in a higher being shapes our views of ourselves - our fears, hopes, insecurities and convictions, that personal relationships makes the journey that is life worth the while, and that finding meaning in life is what makes life truly wort living, and finding love gives meaning to our lives.

The movie is one big metaphor for life itself. When a group of oilmen journey through a stormy Alaskan night by plane, I am reminded by the "journeys" we have to take in different periods in our lives - deciding to go to college, leaving home, choosing a career, finding work, choosing a life partner, raising a family among others. In the journeys we take, sometimes our planes crash - typhoons come that are incarnated in the form of failures in school, career, relationships. There we will meet people of all classes and persuasions, some will succumb to the challenge, others will rise to lead us, like the lead character John Ottway. Sometimes we are the John Ottway, we are challenged to lead others despite our own insecurities, emotional baggages and dashed hopes and dreams. But at some point in our lives we are placed in a situation were we have to calm others in their most tragic, hopeless and terminal states - like when Ottway in the movie tells the dying Lewenden he will die, and die indeed he was, but peacefully thanks to the calming influence of Ottway.

Sometimes, we are like John Diaz, the antagonist of the group. We question those who try to lead the group, those who among us rise to the challenges that life presents. We become cynical like Diaz, cynical of life itself, of others, of ourselves in fact. We lose faith in religious traditions, in a belief in God - but sometimes it makes sense to lose faith in God, it gives us a reason to really think about what life really is all about. But it can make us emotionally vulnerable too, to not lean on something so abstract, so powerful, so encompassing for then we will have to stand alone, alone to face that life is indeed harsh, that man alone defines his purpose. And not everyone is cut out for this.

We are called to leave the comfort of our homes to find our place in the universe, like Ottway's group who have to leave the relative safety of the plane wreck to journey into the vast, icy cold wilderness to seek refuge in the forests of pine trees. Some of us do not make it, like Flannery, who falls behind and is killed by the wolves. This is a metaphor for those who cannot keep up with the pace of life - they just wither in the fields of time. It is painful, it leaves an emotional scar on those who are left to witness the event, but life moves on. The journey continues.

When the the survivors finally reach the forests, they try to light a fire, it was to keep them warm, to protect them form the wolves and to provide food. They killed one of the wolves and cooked it using the fire. In life as in the movie, we creates fires too, friendships are that fire that keeps the coldness of reality from biting us. They provide guidance, strength and hope. It is difficult to keep the fire of friendships burning against the storms and typhoons of life, but we have to find ways of keeping the light, and those light that survive, and very few do, are what we will forever be greatfull for, and rightly so, for such fire that burns amidst the wintry cold air is a fire that we can bring until the twilight of our existence.

The chasm that the group has to cross to reach the other side is another feature of what it is to be human, we have to cross difficult ravines at one point in our lives - and in order to do such, we have to face our fears, own our fears, tame our fears.

John Ottway led his group away from the territory of the wolves, or so he thought, but at the end of the movie, we realize that after everyone succumbed to death, he was right in front of the wolves den, facing the Alpha Wolf. Cold from hypothermia, ignored by a God he doesn't believe, he faces his greatest fear - and there, finds meaning in life he so wanted to end.

This movie is so philosophical, so reflective, so much a reflection of what is to be human as what life is all about.

I end this post with the poignant words of Ottway's fathers' poem:

Once more into the fray...

Into the last good fight I'll ever know.

Live and die on this day...

Live and die on this day...

adoramus

i stand with an aching loneliness
bequeathed by circumstance to creeping sadness
unrequited longing for time in eternity here now today

arrest the moment i cannot
only to hold to memories past and gone
let this night be the one
to where forever begins

but whats infinity feel without you
whence it begins alas when i met you
now the thought chokes me
that this summer of bliss shalt end

destiny they say we choose
no but i believe destiny chose us
for in the fields of time we met
to sprout and kiss the sky

freedom beauty peace love
thats what it is to be with you
but like the words in this poem
lets not add punctuations but let it flow

and forget have i that this is life
where pain and joy are our shadows
that separation comes as encounters arise
to pinch hearts strong and hard

can i fight to surrender
do i surrender to the fight
the thought of separation kills
and kills indeed to the core

none can hold on to the raging river
none but faith that somehow somewhere sometime
we met and understood
and that somehow somewhere someday
we will meet again