So my big dream came to me when I was in the Philippines on a small island called Puerto Galera, more specifically in a small town in Sabang. I was invited by some friends of mine that work with the US Embassy in Manila, to go scuba diving there. I did go on one dive and while the corals and fishes were beautiful, I couldn’t believe the amount of trash I saw down below and the fish came really close to my camera and I can see the sadness in their eyes.
It was supposed to be for just the weekend, but on my last night of hotel, I step outside of my balcony and I over look some kids playing basketball in the dark on a dirt court, without any nets, and they’re playing barefoot. So instead of heading back home, I decided to stay behind and get some new balls, nets, and paint their court for them.
Suddenly, I’m recruiting a team of local boatman, I’m talking to the owner of this land, the captain of the city, the local electrician and going on a two hour boat ride to pick up all our supplies. And as we arrived to Calapan, where they have all the supplies we needed to renovate the courts, I see Filipino kids swimming in almost black ocean water. I’ve never seen such polluted water before, I thought I was imagining it. And for the kids to be swimming in this happily made me think it must of been this dirty for quite some time now.
We’ll will this thought in my head, it gave me the motivation to complete my project with the courts and the most amazing thing was when I got the lights turned on for them. The kids were screaming for joy as if they saw the sun for first time! And I realized it brought the biggest joy in me than I’ve ever had, even bigger than when I got my first big commission check or when completed my renovation project of my own condo. There’s no monetary value to see children excited or grateful for their future lives.
And the backboards looked like empty canvases, so I wrote a quote on each of them, “Always winning, never losing, never lose the lesson,” on one and “Follow the three R’s: Respect yourself, respect others, responsibility for your actions, on the other.” With all the names of the kids that helped on the back of one and the names of the local villagers and parents that helped. We had a wonderful time with a on each day tournament and I gave out some prizes to the winning team. But overall, I came on top because of the rewarding feeling I got from seeing the happiness in those kids and the all the parents alike. And I never thought you can get famous for just being kind, but suddenly everyone in the local area knew who I was.
Then one morning as I’m having breakfast at my hotel, I’m chatting along with one of the partner owners of the establishment. And he’s watching some space expedition show on TV. It then suddenly dawns on me, God have us the ability to land on the moon close to 50 years ago and all we did race to see who can get their faster, Russia, China, and now India has one of the most advance and efficient way of getting a satellite into space.
God gave us the ability the throw out our trash, but here we are storing in our bedrooms everyday. Instead of fighting to see which country is the best or smartest, could we have got together as one planet and taken our trash off this earth? Then maybe we wouldn’t have have all these crazy weather conditions we’re currently encountering. In my home in Los Angeles, there was one of the worst brush fires, where over 30,000 acres of land burned up in 24 hours. And the east coast specifically New York had one of coldest winters they’ve ever experienced along with most of the European countries.
If this dream of having a space station that supported by the entire world, it would be the first time in the history of Mankind that people will gather together and possibly even be willing to pay to see on pay-per-view TV and watch trash get taken out. I know it’s a big dream of mine, and it could cost billions if not trillions of dollars and financially it just doesn’t make sense.
But what if I told you this could cure all cancers, tumors, Autism, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and all other diseases we lost our loved ones to.
Instead of putting our funds to medication that prolongs our lives, what if we put our funds to preventive care? Isn’t that what I doctors always recommend us doing anyways? Like like how keeping up with the maintenance of a car can make it last for years beyond it’s original intention, but we a lot of us wait for something to break down and then fix the problem as they come. These are the cars they never last long or have to be disposed of earlier than they where intended to.
Well, now that we’re seeing a lot of unhappy people in the workplace, in the third world countries, and even in the most advanced technological countries like Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, they’re having issues with suicide rates on the rise and unemployment for new college graduates; and even early retirees going homeless.
When traveling to Asian countries, it’s almost like time traveling into the future. You see everyone depressed on their phones on the subway, no one being polite anymore and because we’re runnig out of “clean space” everyone seems so over protective of their space. I even notice it in the erratic ways people drive while in traffic in LA. Soon enough we’re all gonna be at each other’s throats for clean water and air.
My future involves government jobs that people actually want like hiring millions of astronauts to explore places in space to throw out our non-recyclable trash, to have scuba divers that clean our oceans while exploring the beautiful ocean, to have clean air and water wherever we go in the world. And to allow our children’s dreams of being a real astronaut or explorers become a reality for them instead of working a 9-5 job we never really enjoy.
We need to stop finding reasons to hate each other and start finding reasons to love each other. I don’t have all the answers to reach this big dream of mine, but they’re coming to me as I pass along my thoughts. I think music and sports is the most common denominator start tying our countries together. So me lip syncing at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony this past February was a start. Everyone can lip sync even when they have horrible voices, they have emotions...I think it’s amazing how one BALL, like a soccer ball or football or baseball at a championship game can get millions of people to watch and be together.
Continuing my journey and finally sharing my thoughts on here and hopefully someday this could be a great planet for all our children from the third world to the first to live harmoniously without any classism, rasicism, or diseases to worry about. And the biggest world concern will be who gets to light the torch the final Olympic cauldron.
Could this kind of world exist or is it just a cruel imagination that’s just making me exhausted doing everything I can to make it happen?
