The last few days in China have been total wildness, madness, and everything like that.

They are getting rid of people who are just a mere inch outside of the policies that a certain “central organisation” (as they say here) subscribe to. If they’re not getting rid of these people, they are at least making their lives hell. They are firing people who invite the president over and guarantee that everything is doing great. And they are stripping people of their ranks who have tried (with all measures, sane and insane) to fight “bad people” in the big cities.

And then I wondered:
All the censoring… and demoting… and firing… and stuff like that:
Why with all this negativity?
What is with all this negativity?

I remind myself of things I’ve read. Which, in random bullet form, appear like this:

• Be confident. Don’t repress people because otherwise you’d appear anything but confident. Censorship is a giveaway that you’re not self-confident. Believe in yourself (but don’t be arrogant either!).
• Aesop’s Fables… Be like the sun. Get the guy to take off his jacket because you’re accommodating. The wind may be tempting — as in, an attempt to get people to harken to your line using brute force may be tempting. But it isn’t… it did not work with Aesop…
• We met someone whom I think I hardly ever had a moment which I felt down. (Odd, eh?) Thing is: Humans are not gods, but there are humans who, when you’re with them, inspire you to do things you thought you couldn’t really pull off.

Some of the people I meet on social media will tweet a lot, and they’re positive. At times I have been inspired by this positiveness, which has then resulted me in asking myself questions. Questions like:-

• When one of these crazy Beijing drivers gets the better of you, do you bang into him (even hit him or kill him), or take down his license number, or just — let it be?
• If someone wants you to retweet something, will you not do it just because you have (or you think you have) bad blood with just one person that’s mentioned?
• Do you treat people the same — but to such extremes of “equality” that when you are mad at people, you are as “equally belligerent” to a farmer as you are to the president of a nation?
• Have you ever been treated so bad that you feel like creating a “sh#t list” of people and then record every single mishap they have done to you?
• Do you coerce people?… or do you talk them into doing things without making them feel bad?
• When you get your train tickets at the Beijing South Railway Station, do you kindly request (with a smile) a countryside guy (probably from the poorer interiors of China) to stand in queue — or do you “come down upon him” like the operator of one of those tanks in the square?
• When the railways start running slower, do you call the present minister an S*B or do you find ways to ameliorate the situation?

I’m hoping that I’ll answer my questions I just posed in a more positive manner from today onwards. Of course, I have been inspired by many positive people. My wife is one. Lotay is another. I think there are a lot of people that can make it to the list.

I’m not expecting 100% miracles, but as long as I have a resolve to be “less of a prick” (as one of my classmates in my teenage years would say), I think I’m a bit closer to being on the right track… I don’t consider today an “epiphany”: more a case of: OK, I’ve gotten my thoughts together — now less of the old and more of the new.

Of course, there are a few principles I’m keeping to:—

• To “piss less people off” (if you must say it this way), I’m remaining neutral politically and religiously. I have never belonged to any political organisations in China, Switzerland or anywhere and I’d love to keep it this way. In the same vein, I don’t subscribe to religious convictions but as long as a religion is accepted as right and proper, they’ll be afforded respect my end.
• My stance against intoxication, tobacco, gambling, drugs, porn, infidelity and the endangering of families remain (and by endangering I mean trouble both inside homes and from outsiders who might be threats). I personally believe that these aren’t for me and for my family. As she is part of the family (of course!), the wife subscribes to the same. However, my friends are on more lenient terms. I’ve friends who drink and smoke, or goes to casinoes, and that’s OK — as long as my family isn’t dragged into this. (I don’t unfriend or unfollow people online just because they did a post on, for example, alcohol or gambling.) Still, I prefer to keep my distance away from those of less good character, and it is of course certain that I won’t count drug traffickers, criminals, or porn stars amongst my circle of friends. Everyone has their own principles and I think we ought to respect that.
• Finally, a solid principle of my career is that everything I do must be to the benefit of society at large. It won’t be a sin for me to get rich, of course, but I can’t live in a luxury castle while not caring about poor kids in, say, sub-Saharan Africa. That’s just not me. I don’t live to get rich or famous, but when one or both happens, I share the goodness — I don’t huddle all those microphones together, so to speak, and by no means egoistically — but I hand them out to people with legitimate needs to get speak out, so that they share their views freely, or I use the “mic power” and media influence to make lives get better.