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This review is cheap is because I am a cheap person, not the common type of cheap. I mean I would rather be wrong than be expensive. For example, I downloaded illegal movies and music. When I was in SF last winter, I almost joined homeless people to get free food. My hobbies are equally cheap. For example, my favorite thing is to sit in Barnes and Noble to read "Free" books.
Right infront of me is Obama's "The audacity of hope". I stared at it as if it is a monster book and will bite me as soon as I open it. I have to admit that it is a fearful thing to read Obama's book. I confronted my fear just to know one thing: Am I wrong about Obama?
He is officially the first president who I don't like. I even didn't dislike Bush. To me, he was simply not visionary enough to foresee the possible unhappy endings of many brilliant things started by the presidents prior to him. He was also not sophisticated enough to prevent the emerging of the unhappy endings of his things before the termination of his term. Nobody was born to be visionary and sophisticated, including those who voted for Bush.
I disliked Obama is not because that he is not a good president. He just ruined my day once. On that day, I waked up in one of his speeches. I am generally good at resisting other people's speeches. But in that morning, I was half sleep and half awake. His speech about 'we can make a change' found its way to invade my brain. I ended up waking up completely with my blood boiling. Seeing his slogan "we can make a change" on a daily basis often made me wonder: why he didn't point out what needs to be changed?"
On that morning, I found that he never had to given an answer, since with the boiling blood, everything seems to need a change. For instance, I happened to receive my pay check on that day. I found it was absolutely necessary for me to demand a higher pay. With a heated head, I had completely forgotten how much I had learned from this job.
That day, my head was entirely hot. As an academic nerd, that is the least thing I would want to have. I happened to have to revise one of my manuscripts and I happened to have to read the reviewer's comments again. I almost had the urge to smash the brain out of those reviewers. How can they be so "stupid" and fail to recognize the value of my brilliant paper.
Being angry all day, I went home and changed the radio channel. Now, infront of the Obama's book, I held a cup of ice water and ready to pour it on my head whenever it gets heated.
The first chapter was unbelievably well written. It describes his journey to cool down his boiling blood. You can see peace in his recollection of his pass.
At one point, he mentioned that he was surprised to see how modest people's basic needs are: a job provides pay that covers basic living, time with kids, and a decent retirement. He then decided to set his career goal to satisfy these basic needs.
Initially, I was very touched by the simplicity of his career goal. Few seconds later, I found out why I disliked him. He seemed to have forgotten one thing: those modest needs are achieved by deep thinking and years of struggles with greed which always grow freely whenever people'e blood were heated. Only people with a cool head can articulate a modest need.
Obama's speech touches every fiber of people's heart and it unboubtedly can boil people's blood. His career philosophy however counts on the depth in people's thinking and a cool head above everybody's shoulder.
He seemed to understand that it is a painful process to cool down the boiling blood, since he provided a length explanation of the hell he went though to cool down his blood. But he chose to boil everybody else's blood. It is almost like saying: I went through my hell, now it is your turn. The inconsistency in his saying and acts is too obvious to me.
Maybe this the reason why people generally think politicians do the dirty work. They just said too much and did too much. I failed to find a way to like Obama, at least for now.
Maybe I am just being so cynical and I shouldn't comment on him. Look how cheap I am. My fingers helplessly wondered into my pocket almost every minutes, where I kept a coupon ....
...(After I wrote this, I kept asking myself if I have been so severe about Obama. He had a lot of pressure already..Should I be nice? Maybe I should...)
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