About Honor

Honor/Honour: (from wikipedia) is the evalutaion of a person's trustworthiness and social status based on that individuals espousals and actions. Honour is deemed exactly what determines a person's characotr: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity or fairness.

Maintaining a honorable existence can be really difficult. It means one has to follow through one's words with actions and not talk out of the side of one's neck.

I can not say that I am the most honorable person in the word, but I understand the concept to the most basic level; things such as being on time, don't say I will do this or that when I can't follow through.
I have been wondering; how does one teach a child how to be an honorable person when the world is full of dishonorable people?
How did I learned the meaning of honor? Did I have good role models or was it taught through the culture I was raised?

I have been very poor financially most of my adult life. I have learned when I have no money to throw around to buy friendships, loyalty or services, I only have my words to go by that shows my integrity and value. My words are my worth, I must follow through to gain trust and what come out of my mouth has to be valuable; no joking matter.

Through the years of meeting people who don't respect their own words had dishearten and disappointed me so much that I tried to end my life, I wanted nothing to do with a world that is filled with endless ugliness of humanity. It is hard to maintain a positive attitude when there seem to be no light in the tunnel.

Some how through the lowest bottom that I sunk, I was rescued by a few individuals that were honorable in their existence. Through these few rare gems that were my mentors whom took me under their wings, I came back to life and tried to find my place in the world again. I was very lucky to find myself again through such crisis, it is hard to say how many lost soul out there are being wash away by the ways this world has become.

But really, what can a little single me do to change things for the better? the world is very large with millions of people and many I will never meet.

I worry, my child may grow up without understanding the value of honor and would become lost in the dark existence of lies and deceptions.

I only hope I can maintain my positive attitude and honorable way of being the best I can through the rest of my life, so when I die and ready for my urn my child would feel proud to have had an honorable parent like me.

Adultery and Military

I was raised in cultures that it was OK for men to have multiple wives; my grandfather had 4 I know of and more that I don't know of, maybe not at the same time but every few years he changed and rotated to one lady or another. I now have countless aunts and uncles that I can not keep track of nor know what their names are. He sure was busy spreading his seeds. To my surprise given he has so many wives, he died at a fairly early old age alone, dirt broke and in debts, while all his mistress and wives took every penny he had. During a visit years ago, he had no idea who I was but kind of knew from my face I was one of his legal children that carried his last name.

As a teen, I lived in the middle east because my mother is married to a Muslim; it was and is permitted for any Muslim men to have 4 legal wives at any given time, it is his choice to make if he choice to have more because a divorce is simply "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you". A man's passport has 4 extra spaces to allow room for his wives to travel at the same time with him, the women there aren't accepted to travel on their own without an adult man accompany her. Needless to say, I am very disgusted by such culture, rules and laws that permit and accept adultery; or that a man is allow to mess around with multiple ladies while he is still legally married to one woman.

To my delight, given that we are living in a military town. My fiancee told me about how the military has such thing as "conduct unbecoming of an officer"; meaning adultery is consider an act that is unbecoming of an officer and gentleman which would prevent him/her from ever be promoted from the current position. There is also a possibility of him/her be dismissed from the military due to adultery depending of the seriousness or proves of each case.
"adulterous acts are prejudicial to good order and discipline or are of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces"

After doing a little research, I also found that an officer who committed adultery can be court martial-ed http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/bladulterydefinition.htmunder
under Paragraph 62. Article 134 of Manual for Courts Martial Definition, given that if an officer committed adultery while living in military housing can be removed the privilege of ever living on base housing again. "The misuse, if any, of government time and resources to facilitate the commission of the conduct"

I have to applause US government for taking such behavior seriously, I also wonder about the stress and pressure of being in the military. Does it make a person do wrong at times to rebel against their authorities? While the military provide good benefits to members of the arm forces, what would the reason be for people to behave in such a way that he/she would sabotage his/her life and career?

In such cases of adultery, no one really wins. Everyone get hurt due to a few individuals' selfish, thoughtless behaviors for a few hours of pleasure. But then again, who am I to say who is right or wrong? In other parts of this world, it is not a crime to have a few wives and have a few dozen bastard children from different ladies. I don't like it because I came from such a family.

I suppose only those individuals involved can say if it is moral for him or her, and that he/she can sleep peacefully at night knowing that the children would suffer needlessly due to lack of resources and disharmonous up bringing.

Functioning in the dysfunctional world

I have to admit I am and was an idealistic person, I always wish the world "should be" this way or that way. In my mind, the world is capable of being perfect like how I imagined it to be, but simply isn't because people don't try, don't change and too lazy to do things differently. So "The world is not perfect!"; how often have you hear or read this phrase everywhere you looked, readed and listened?

I have had moments of clarity and I often have to remind myself; the world isn't perfect because by being not perfect, it gives itself a chance to work on trying to be perfect.

Working for a place that is not perfect and not functioning smoothly is very much like living in a not perfect world, a dysfunctional world. Even if we are a functional person, working in a dysfunctional world would make us dysfunctional.

Look at it objectively; if the perfect work force or perfect world exist that is functioning perfectly and smoothly, would there be a need for people like you and me to work as employees to help make it functional? There would be no jobs, no grants given. No money generated.

Would there be a need for any bank, company, corporations or schools to continue to exist if any government operate smoothly and perfectly? Would there be any need for doctors, janitors, sales or managers of any kind if everyone and everything are self healing, self reliant and independent?

The truth is, all jobs and all governments are created because it is not operating smoothly. It generates money if not for you and me then for someone who is needed for the world to be dysfunctional, broken, unhealthy, incapable and dependent. We live in a world that is not perfect and dysfunctional so we can continue to live, make money and have meaning to our lives by working toward it. Life would have no meaning if everything and everyone are perfectly provided for and functioning smoothly.

So to continue to survive in a job we don't like and live in a world we feel unhappy with is to understand that This IS our function in this dysfunctional world.

The glass is half full. Really~! It is simply the way it should be, dysfunctional and not perfect. That is how we know our function in the world, keeping our jobs and have a paycheck coming every payday.

Ageing

It is natural for us to be growing older, meanwhile we have a mate, have children (or young people whom we adopt), own a car and maybe a house.
As I looked at a picture of my grandfather who is now 85, I fear for his death. I panic at how little time I have left to see him, I want very much to go to visit him knowing that death is knocking on his door. As I watch the joyous laughter of my own child, I see myself getting older. I only hope when I am old, my daughter would not be too far from me and that we will get along well enough to bring her children to visit me often.

I am half an earth away, I left a long time ago and have gone so far that is hard to return. Given my limited income and it is costly to travel such long distance with a small child. The heart is willing, the circumstances and finances is unable. I hope I have enough time before it is too late.

I don't want to have to say goodbye.

Matter of the heart

Lately, the matter of the hearts are on the plate of discussions. Why a married man would want to go back to an ex-girl friend while he is still married is beyond my understanding. A massage of the ego perhaps. While a tormented wife with a young toddler had to leave the house they share and watch in agony when he brings his girl friend into their house while her belongings are still there. The girl friend would have the balls to sleep on the bed where the wife recently layed. Where is the moral in all this? Doesn't the word "adultery" enter their minds? They are not even divorced. I suppose all these are just good material for a subject to be written or a dramatic movie to be made.

All these make me feel grateful I am not in such messy situation any more... And yes I remember it well I once was, maybe not exactly the same but close enough to remember the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach and the hurt in my heart. Too many times it had happened to myself that I can still feel the sadness, anger toward the mistakes of being a young adult myself. As they play games with each other as a way to discover themselves.

The matter of the heart takes a long time to understand and heal. It would take years and much effort in communications and acceptance to reach a understanding when the couple finally become adult enough to stop doing and saying things that hurt each other. My question is... do they really stop eventually? Do they really learn from their mistakes?

Net addiction

I heard on the radio today that modern day moms have a new addiction due to being isolated at home and have no outlets for social interaction. The addiction to Internet; so much to the point of not bathing, ignor the children and house chores.

I have to admit, I am one of them because I am isolated in a little border town soon after I gave birth. Being away from family and friends, I soon found myself loosing my mind more and more as I spend time alone at home with a young needy toddler. I turned to the net for outlet because I don't know anyone in the small town I lived in. It didn't helped that it gets to 120 degrees in the summer with very limited resources and outlets for a new comer.

After 2 and half years of being in this town, I have became a frequent user of cafemom, myspace and facebook. The new hot things is twitter which I haven't tap into and afraid to do so since I am already addicted to the net.

I am starting to blog in hopes this so call modern addiction would turn into something useful. I am sure there are people out there doing the same with the same idea.