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Writer's pictureHans Ebert

About the cards you’re dealt and the cards you play…



We’re all different and we’ve all had very different life experiences and journeys, and it’s all this supposed joie de vivre that doesn’t always end in “And they lived happily ever after” that has led us to where we are today.


Where actually ARE we today and what happens next?



For those of us on the more “mature” side of life, it’s probably not finding the magic elixir of youth, but how we make the most out of the time we have left.


There might be a sudden need for answers as time has caught up with you.


None of us are exactly like two peas in a pod and it’s this difference that needs to be addressed and understood and celebrated.


It’s also about having the inquisitive mind, something that not everyone has.


It’s this Inquisitive Mind that keeps us questioning everything without becoming a human drone and making empty sounds, but trying to make sense of things and how one can continue after the party the night before has wound down.


Parties are fun, and maybe works for a while and makes for a good memory, but often, it’s nothing more than a Facebook moment.


In Hong Kong, there’s a very heavy feeling of almost carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.


Most of us are unhappy.


To be more precise, we are confused, angry, concerned, and trying to see a future in the city beyond chubby red balloons, fireworks and different types of vouchers.


The ongoing dramas aired again and again for the world to hear about the banning of the song called “Glory To Hong Kong” has not been good for anyone.


It’s really hasn’t because it’s added another layer of negativity and suspicion to an already steaming bowl of hot chicken congee and where we’re inside it and swimming against the tide.


Some musicians who write in Chinese are wondering where all this is going to lead?


If more and more censorship is on the cards, that’s something like telling Bob Dylan that he cannot release “Blowing In The Wind,” so why bother to do anything?


Not to say that this will happen, but who knows anything about nothing these days?


Maybe this is the point: The uncertainty of many things often appearing because of copy and paste jobs not carefully thought through, where we’re travelling in something that isn’t the exciting international city that Hong Kong once was and functioning knowing that we have the freedom to evolve without fear.


What’s there to do in Hong Kong these days?


Show off that you drive a Lamborghini and drink expensive wine with the happy party people with the sad eyes and nervous giggles?

And?


Those “good old days” could never last, but haven’t there been “contingency plans” put in place, or have all the flowers and new entrepreneurs left for greener pastures?


What’s “international” in Hong Kong today? Horse racing and some pockets of activity that are so underground or old school that their values are buried six feet in the ground?


This active inactivity is suddenly going to have tourists from outside of China and this region flocking to Hong Kong?


Despite friends asking, “Why bother?”, I’m still moving forward to give Hong Kong a multi media driven Museum Of Music (MOM), and even if this happens, I ask myself if this is enough?


I’ll be fine as I have still much of the world to explore, but what about the kids?


What are we doing to expand their horizons and motivate them to think differently and be inspired enough look beyond the obvious?


Staring into the darkness of the obvious is what many of us oldies tend to do because the needle is stuck on the same groove.


I was extremely fortunate to have a mentor who showed me how to be more than a copywriter in an advertising agency churning out bland hotel brochure copy.



Keith Reinhard showed me the importance of music in selling a product and which led to learning to play a guitar and be a storyteller.


Hopefully, those kids I know- so-called Covid generation kids- who are thinking very differently and asking things like whether Mr and Mrs Santa Claus have venison for Christmas dinner and are painting and writing short stories and wondering why “bad people” cannot be replaced by “good people”, have the answers?


There’s so much us adults, wherever we are, can learn from listening to and watching children- and the learning tools given to them or created according to their needs and not inherited by the village elders that might keep them trapped in an online world of false promises of fame fed on greed.



Child is often father to the man, something especially obvious when nothing that worked before continues to work and hold the same level of interest as things once did for us.


I guess this is the circle of life or fixing what has been broken and having the next generation inherit the best possible world from which they can make things even better.





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