Another year spending Christmas here in the city of sin ( Las Vegas) despite the spike in Covid 19 once again and it seems like this pandemic will never go away at anytime soon but to remain and continue to affect people around the globe from travelling and returning to normalcy. Thousands of flights have been cancelled around the country during this holiday season due to the increase in Covid cases, shortage of staffs and the severe winter weather conditions. I have been to Las Vegas for the past 24 years and I have never experienced such coldness in this city of sin and it seems like I am spending the vacation in North pole. This winter in Las Vegas is historically cold down to the upper 30’s and walking outside is just simply miserable, but it doesn’t stop people from everywhere coming to this lively city to enjoy the glamorous shows and the fantastic fireworks on New Year’s eve. Yes, this city is absolutely vibrant and filled with enormous amount of energy. Traffic is horrific as usual with aggressive people out on the road as if drag racing is a common sport here on every streets. Like I said before, I don’t recommend people driving in Las Vegas because this is simply one of the most dangerous cities in this country to have your car out of the road and not to mention people walking and crossing the streets are crazy too. In all these years I have been to Vegas, I never had a scratch on my car or hit anybody and that is a miracle. Maybe I need to update my belief in God very soon ( jk, don’t get your hope too high now). But overall, it’s been a good holidays to me gathering with some friends, relaxing and self reflecting.
As always when I travel, I watch the News to keep up with what’s going on around the country and the world and as I often expected to see bad things happening everywhere on CNN ( Constant Negative News). Airplane crash with no survivors in San Diego county, spree mass shootings in Colorado, wildfire destroying homes in Colorado, 16 year old girl got shot and killed by police while trying on a new dress in the dressing room inside the store, and I can go on and on and generate a long list of all the catastrophic events happened during this wonderful holidays season when people are simply trying to enjoy the time spent with loved ones and family after the long 20 month of fighting this goddamn pandemic which apparently is haunting us more than ever before with this new variant. Then people ask ” why”? Why do these things happen to innocent people who were looking forward to the holidays? Can we really come up with any reasons behind it? This goes back to my previous blog when I wrote it during Xmas spent in Hawaii 2 years ago ( How vs Why). If you have not read it, this is a good time to go back to that blog. Catastrophic events are part of what we have to deal with whether it is related to natural disasters, rare form of illnesses, the loss of loved ones, suffering from a broken heart and/or financial losses, that’s just the way it is where the only difference is to what degree of impact there is within our lives. Freak accidents are hard to explain and if anyone comes up with a reason for each of the freak accident, that person is simply speculating and better yet, ” bullshitting”. Religious fanatics would say ” God has a better plan for the victims” and I am so sick of hearing it. What they are saying is that God decided to take their lives away from their parents and they can live better in Heaven while their parents are just devastated with their losses. Such retarded fairy tale thinking just make me vomit. We try to be cautious with everything we do but we can’t control every single outcome. That 16 year old girl was so excited trying on the new dress for the holidays but ended up in the deadly cross fire in the dressing room. Who would expect to be shot in the dressing room? She had so much hope and dreams for her future, planning to study at Harvard University. The day she tried on the new dress was when she passed the math and physics exams with an “A”. For those who love “bullshitting” with reasons, try coming up with one. Ohh, right, a religious freak would say she missed her Sunday Mass for the last 4 weeks.
With all of these tragic events going on, I am in Las Vegas enjoying my holidays and does it feel right? Why not me? Maybe soon. God has a plan for everyone. Well, I am not going to live my life based on His plan if there is such a plan. As a scientist, I can’t disprove the existence of God but at the same time, I can live my life based upon my own plan. We create our own meanings and purposes in life, not sit around and wait for some supreme freak out there to dictate us what to do and how to live. We have the power to make choices, good or bad and we have to be responsible for our own actions. Karma is unreliable because bad things can happen to good people and in fact, they happened more to good than bad people. Reasons are only blind speculations which cannot be tested nor replicated. Since our life time is so short and unpredictable, we have to do our best living a full life, treasure all the magical moments with friends and loved ones, and more importantly, leave fond memories for people to remember us by when we are no longer around someday. Last and not least, contribute to the world with whatever that you do to make this world a better place to live. These always have been my principles in the past 35 years and I am grateful that I am still able to doing these things especially at a time when this world is so divided, chaotic, and haunted by this pandemic which seems never ending. But I continue to do my best to live my life to the fullest without regrets until I can’t do it any longer, whenever that is.
Here I have one more week to go in this city of sin and I will relax as much as I possibly can and I wish you all a Happy New Year of 2022 and hopefully it will be a much better year to come. To all my friends here and abroad, stay healthy, stay safe and most of all, stay happy. We all have different quality of lives and there are no perfect ones. The essence of life is to make changes for the better. Accept the world as it is and only humans are here to polluting it. There are no devils or satan for we are our own satan and devils.. Human intellect is the source of all evil for we take what is supposed to be good and turn into something bad for our own benefits and this is simply the nature of our species. Create your own purpose to make this limited life worth living rather than speculating with reasons for everything that happened because that would only make you miserable. This world is not going to get better but that doesn’t mean we cannot be better for ourselves. If we are governed by all of these reasons and purposes from the Divine, what’s the point of living? While I am ending this blog in my hotel room, the TV is showing the concert of James Taylor and Carole King. They contribute something good and enjoyable for the audience and they will always be remembered and cherished when someday they are no longer here. That’s what I am trying to get across to all of you. Enjoy the rest of your holidays!