Today is my birthday. Well, there’s less than two hours left of it, but it still is. I haven’t posted since last November, so I can say that a lot happened. A LOT. Right now, we are in Shelter-in-Place ordinance led first by the Mayor of the City of New York, all the way up the chain to the President of the United States because of the COVID-19 Corona Virus Pandemic. This is a momentous event in history of mankind that has not happened in a century, where everything in the world seemed to have eerily stopped. We are all in this situation no matter where we are in the world. It is a strange combination of “togetherness – alone” as we all stopped socializing in person for the same reason all around the world.

All of a sudden, we are all forced to adopt the virtual medium to continue our social activities.

Those whose employer is still in business have all adopted WFH (Work from Home). I should be happy I work for a company that is still in business, and that I work from home. But I am also aware and concerned for the millions of persons whose livelihood has been turned upside down. The ones who eked out their day-to-day living with everything they earned that week – or the homeless persons who now have no one to turn to for change (because there’s no one on the street) and no place to go to have their meal (because the soup kitchens have closed).

Yet, I cannot physically be there to assist any one of them lest I have the virus and I give to them, or I contract the virus while helping them. I have my family still to look after, and if I can avoid getting sick, I would. I am asthmatic, so such respiratory illness as COVID-19 represents a serious threat to my life. So, I struggle to figure out, “What exactly can I do?” Not finding any answer is been my despair for the past month.

It is in such a time that I celebrated my 58th birthday.

I started off with leading an on-line Morning Prayer Service at 7:00 am, then riding my bike to get necessary groceries from a store on 132nd Street. It was sunny but rather on the chilly side. It felt like a Sunday morning with such few traffic. On my way home at around 10:00 am, I began noticing the contrast between empty streets and queues around some areas. It turns out all of the Supermarkets had lines of people, all respecting the “social distance” of 6 feet apart. The local bank had two lines – one to the right and one to the left. Starbucks Coffee Shop had a line even though they weren’t letting anyone in – they were serving the coffee lovers outside. At least that is what it looked like. Then on my block I found another line – a line in front of the Dry Cleaners. They recently began selling Lottery tickets, and it was a line to buy tickets. I suppose each person has their priorities – what would bring them outside to “shop for necessities.”

Friends from my church celebrated my birthday – on-line – at 5:00 PM.

My wife and I had a sukiyaki dinner at 7:45 PM.

Then at 8:15 PM my daughter joined via Zoom to celebrate.

Too bad she couldn’t be with us in person to taste the cake my wife baked – apple torte. She played for me a Happy Birthday on her baroque violin – a la Bach! It really, really made my day!

My daughter shared about what’s going on in her mind – she was about to graduate from Juilliard Graduate Program and launch her career this summer. All her plans have been ruined. It pains me to hear firsthand what the Pandemic has done to a budding career like my daughter’s. All we could do was to mention that everyone is in the exact same boat. While nothing will be the same even after the rate of infection will have waned, this also means that everything will have to be re-started in a new way, and that there is an opportunity right there.

We cannot stay still and wallow in misery. We need to think on what we have to do next after Shelter-in-Place ordinance is lifted, and do it! It doesn’t matter if someone might think it’s ridiculous or that no one will listen. Let’s do it! Having failed doing something is better than not having done anything at all. At this point, let me share a famous speech Theodore Roosevelt made, a section of which has become known as “The Man in the Arena”:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic

I mean to continue with the building of this website. This is what I set myself to do. I believe in the discovery I made about the Open G# Flute, and I wish to share my findings so that others could also rediscover this wonderful mechanism. This year, on my 58th year on this planet Earth, I will continue my work to deliver helpful content and stories – as long as God gives me breath.