“Today’s traumas are tomorrow’s patinas.”

(NOTE: I often write to myself (same as talking to yourself but more socially acceptable I find) to sort things out.  Generally because I have a sympathetic listener/reader.  But it doesn’t always work out that way and lately I am finding a more critical response from that inner voice…..  Nothing new here for you who know me well, I thought you might appreciate that I am finally catching up a bit.)

I hate to give up.  If I start something it is because I think that it is worth doing.  Something that I will enjoy doing, something that meets a need, meets it creatively and
will benefit many.  To quit what I have started is very difficult for me.  But more and more in China, I find myself just giving up before realizing the ‘grand vision.’

I am coming to that point again and once again it is time to think through how I got there.

This is the second time I have had a go at forming a media/event company in Sanya.
There is clearly a need that is being very poorly met as you know from my many previous reports.  Last year with two Chinese partners I formed a licensed media company, .M.A.G.I.C. MEDIA (in English — no telling what they had it saying in Chinese).  We went through all the official paper work, furnished an office (before there were any employees -partners idea, not mine), and I took on an assistant (even rented an apartment for her).  It took me three months to realize they (the partner and assistant) were doing only what they wanted and nothing that I requested and needed done to accomplish what I had formed the company to do.  So I gave up!

I only re-entered the fray this year to respond to a request from a major five-star Resort in Yalong Bay to provide entertainment from the Christmas/New Year’s Holiday.  For that I formed M.A.G.I.C. PRODUCTIONS by myself (unofficially — there is nothing to be gained here but headaches by going the official route).  I provided 6 performers for 10 days, it was a grueling challenge.  The establishment was devious, always showing a happy public face while continually stalling behind the scenes.   Incompetence and imprecision were rampant there.  I certainly learned some good lessons about negotiating agreements, the ever-present duplicity of the opponent and adapting to failed expectations.

The only thing that made it worthwhile for me (all the others were handsomely paid) was the bond that I thought we had created getting through the adversity together.  I just caulked off all my investment in time, energy and money to be for more big shows in the future (All the shows were real big hits, by the way).  I was soon to learn that that bond was an illusion….  All the effort and expense I extended on these performers behalf is not being repaid by any kind of artist-agent loyalty but by around the back maneuvers to exclude me from the process.  And when I ask for explanation I only receive negative interpretation of all my efforts.

I am about to give up, again.

Going through this disillusion process again points to a very dysfunctional pattern of mine.   I start getting upset when others have already finished.  Long after others have “given up the ghost” because “there is no money in it,” I continue  “for the fun of it.”  I tell myself, it is good enough that I am really enjoying doing something of value, which benefits others.  Although to be truthful, I must admit something inside me is hoping for some appreciation and acknowledgement in return.

So my decision-making criteria then is a bit irregular, if not pathologic.

First, I don’t need to make money to do something I enjoy.

Second, While I would like some appreciative feedback from those who have benefited from my efforts, I will characteristically continue without it.

But the limit comes when my good works start receiving nothing but negative feedback, are impugned as just naive self-interest or worse as sly deception. I refuse to believe that acting contrary to the selfishness and greed that rules the realm makes you an ignorant fool.  An obdurate idealist perhaps but not a moron.

The fact that those criticizing can’t identify with my motivation and ethical standards is not an indictment of me but of them.

Having said all that I am the first to admit that, in general, I don’t take well to criticism,
especially from someone who does not know what they are talking about — and I do.
So much of reaching this limit may just have something to do with the fact that I am tired of be critized for doing good (nothing I have been doing has harmed anybody, taken a thing from them- only given…).

I have a friend who keeps saying to me when he sees me beginning to redden and angrily react,   “David, Stop, Would you rather be Right or Happy.”  For me, he hits the nail on the head, I have a real thing about “being right.”  What is “right” is a topic for volumes to come.

It in part comes from an uncompromising family upbringing and is strongly reinforced by a scientific schooling.  I was taught that you do what you say, you only say what you know and you are as analytic and objective as you can be to know something. Wherever it comes from I know I take it to an extreme.  I can’t stand “sloopy thinking.”  Here I mean letting your thinking be too influenced by unreasoned opinions, biases of powerful interests, financial concerns…etc.

But the world is full of such sloppy thinking.  It is in fact ruled by it (Just look at the US over the past decade).  And China has its own twist on all of this which only adds to the frustration.   This is a fact of life — I am not going to change it.

I spent over thirty years of my life trying to fight such sloopy thinking on things such as global warming only to see it prevail, as it still does (not withstanding Al Gore’s recent epiphany).

So I have to be reminded to stop worrying about being right and take my own advice and stop waiting to be happy (see below).