A Day in the Life of Chaos

There are places in the world where beauty defies expectation.  Sometimes they are found unexpectedly in the smallest of things or the most unpredictable moments. When I awoke at 5:30 in the morning in my bed not far from the junction where northern Thailand, Laos and Burma meet I rolled over and looked out the window of my hotel room.  I was physically quite close to a place romantically and once nephariously called the Golden Triangle. It was place of lore, once known as the central hub of heroin trafficking across a remote section of South East Asia.  Now it was a region filled with economic development.  The jungle trails and combat fatigue clad mercenary armies have been replaced by casinos and Chinese tourists.  The men who once commanded heroin movement from their jungle bases now run multimillion dollar gambling empires.  The traffickers are still there, they are just woven into the fabric of economic development and their camouflaged clothing has been replaced by a veil o

We tend to define ourselves by our national identities.  Well that's not exactly correct.  I think first comes sex, then race and then national identity.  It is like we are members of a club.  Perhaps it makes us feel exclusive in some way and lord knows human beings like to feel exclusive.  We long to be in some way unique and a nation is undeniably unique and exclusive in its very nature. I have traveled and lived in many parts of the globe and as the years have turned I have come to view myself less as a member of a country and more as a citizen of the world.  The concept of humanity becomes much larger and all encompassing.   A citizen of the world is an alien concept to most.  It defies everything we have been taught all our lives of what it means to be a patriot.  Patriotism, the connotation of the word denotes unquestionable loyalty to a national identity.  The very essence of patriotism defies our biological similarity and harkens back to tribalism.   Perhaps it is th

The Bangkok skyline is gray and foreboding.  Less than 12 hours ago the city welcomed me with a dazzling display of light.  Today the sky weeps as if to compliment my own tears and trepidations.   They are not the result of sadness, simply a reflection of adjustment to a new and very different world. Last night after 27 hours of transit I emerged in a new place, my tired eyes adjusting to a very different life.  I felt like a cast member of the Walking Dead or at the very least like I had just emerged from a dark movie theater squinting and opening my eyes.  The process of getting from airport to hotel was not as complicated as I thought and I definitely appreciated the assistance I had from an analyst that currently works in our office here.  Trans Pacific flights seem to have a way of altering all reality leaving one to feel oddly disconnected.  I felt almost as if I entered Star Trek mode and some how become one with the Space Time Continuum whatever the hell that means. Fo