2015: Taking stock, and looking ahead...

I have come to enjoy this little ritual of mine, to read my year-end entry of my journal of the previous year(s) about taking stock of the year, and to look ahead. In ways big and small, it allows me to reflect on changes on both personal front and the larger world, keeping a hopeful eye to the year ahead.

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Losing a parent is never easy, and I've come to learn that. I loved my dad, and when he passed away, I felt like part of me (the better part) has died with him. No, I'm not depressed, and I've recovered from grief in the months since his passing. I'm only so grateful that there was much fond memory that I have of him, so that every time I think of it, I would make the food that he liked to cook for the family, and me in particular, since I shared a love of the many dishes with my dad, including salty/spicy squids, steam fish (and its skin, and fish belly part for fresh-water fish, and back of the fish for salt-water fish), the many soups, and congee (with fresh beef or sliced fish). I learnt so much from him, the work ethic and discipline in life, the wider perspective in things. More importantly, he's a good father, a family man, patient and understanding, allowing me to do the things I want to do without ever doubting my ability to achieve them, giving me the space and independence to go out and pursuing things without undue worry. Unlike my mom, my dad was the "me-worry?" type. His easy laughter was always infectious to me. And I learnt how to cook rice on his first teaching when I couldn't, for the longest time, understand how mom did it. My parents teach things in very different ways, and dad had the ability to appreciate how kids need to learn it, he could always show me the "tricks." I missed him dearly. 

I have thought I would become more religious with his death. Afterall, my whole family is religious, and they are all praying for my "salvation." Thankfully they let me take my time. I was hoping I could feel dad's presence after his death, but somehow I didn't feel anything. Somehow I feel like that's the end of it, and the light's out like an extinguished candle. 

I'm glad that at least mom is still holding strong and active. She's adjusting to the nursing home life. With dad's gone, there is no more bickering, and mom seems curiously peaceful about it (though she looks sad in the first few months since dad's passing). Perhaps it's just as well.

It seems like suddenly the kids' milestone is upon us, when one day I realized they're all taller than me already. They are about to enter the rat race. That's something I don't want to contemplate too much on right now.

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With the first rate hike by the Fed since 2008, I'm just so glad that I've wrapped up the refi of the property that was previously still on an ARM mortgage. Now that all of them are on 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, and the cash outlay on that front is known, I can at least rest a bit more easily without having to worry about further rate hikes which will surely come in 2016 and beyond. 

The other thing I'm happy to have wrapped up before the rate hike last week, is the re-balancing of the property portfolio, cashing out on some of them while keeping the solid ones. I don't want to be too overweight on real estate or in stock market.

No doubt those who rely on the easy money policy from the Fed and China are not going to be happy about the tightening in US policy and the softening in economy in China, but one should realize that it's not necessarily a bad thing to have ups and downs as part of the economic growth. The up and up trajectory between the late 1990s (with only a small blip in 2000 due to the tech bubble burst) and 2008 is simply not sustainable in the long term.

With those in place, I should be able to switch my focus more on the job/work front which I very much look forward to doing in the coming year. That should be exciting.

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There have been so many world events that worth noting, but I can't help looking at the horrific Paris attacks last month and the worsening refugee crisis in Europe that has no end in sight. Discrimination against Muslims in wholesale fashion is wrong, yet it's hard for average citizens not to cave in to that tendency. I really don't see how that can be resolved without first stabilizing Middle East, in particular, Syria, and Iraq, Afghanistan. 

In comparison, Russia's invasion of Crimea seems almost benign and peaceful; afterall, there are indeed a lot of those people in Crimea who identify themselves more with Russia than with Ukraine. How ironic.

With all these geopolitical crises, the bailout of Greece (yes, again) in mid year looks decidedly like soap opera. Afterall everyone knows that EU would not let Greece fail, and Greece would not drop the use of Euro so that one way or the other, Greece will have to play ball (which it did, eventually and as expected).

Will 2016 bring more peace and quiet? I kind of doubt it. China's mini-aggression in South China Sea will continue. China's economy will continue to slow, and most likely on an accelerating rate, sending shivers to all other countries that have come to depend heavily on the China trade. Greece economy will flare up again, no doubt. There will be many more millions of refugees (genuine or economic ones) rushing the shores and borders of EU, to further test its limits, resources, and patience. The seesawing of all the military conflicts in the Middle East will continue, with radical groups continue their social media campaign (thanks to the insistence to "free speech" by all the social media companies and Google and Apple that implicitly lend them a helping hand in recruitment).

On the domestic fronts, White House will change guards in 2016, with the presidential election. At least US economy should continue to limp along, with growth in jobs, GDP numbers, but not in wages. Some things, though, will remain unchanged, including broken infrastructure. Inequality in income and wealth will continue to widen. 

Are there any reasons to be hopeful about the wider world? I do hope so, but somehow I'm holding my breath. When can I exhale?

On student stress, and high parents expectations...

It's hard to be a parent, but I guess most of those who are a parent themselves would attest to that. You might think it's hard when the kids are small, but to me, it's actually more manageable. As parents, you can have much more control the environment and even the outcome. You can decide on group daycare versus nanny versus stay-home, 24x7. You can decide if the kids should have vaccine shots. You can decide where to move to for schooling. You can decide if kids should go to public or private schools. You can decide where to go for the next vacation, and kids will tag along all the same. You arrange for all the playdates. You can decide what they wear (since you're buying), and what they eat (since you're cooking). You can decide what activities kids should do, and drive them too. Surely there are aspects that parents need to work at, like the financials, the work-life balance thing, the works. But those are things parents can work on, and decide. (Well, I'm sure a lot of people might disagree, arguing that even just the work situation can be out of an individual's control, but hey, you can always look for another job.)

Wait till the kids get older, and you'll feel it when that sense of control will slowly slip away from your fingertips. It might not be a bad thing, in some ways. Kids get more independent. Kids can get to choose more, and parents will acquiesce. Parents might still push, but kids will push back. Increasingly, the society will push back too. Case in point, the school debate in Princeton, New Jersey.

No doubt there's a cultural aspect to it, in which Asian-American parents (particularly first-generations parents) expect the world from their kids, pitched against the largely liberal-minded (if you can call it that), mainly white American parents who want everything to be fun and game to their kids, with the slightest hint of stress as a bad thing. Anything short of a hurt feeling or bruised ego must be banned.

I am the first to admit, I'm partial to the debate. I'm asian, I'm a first generation parent to my kids born in this country, I was raised in Asia even though I've lived in US for decades now. Having lived and studied and worked in US and four different countries over three continents does lend me a certain perspective on things.

Believe me when I say to you, you don't want to be brought up under that Asian system. True to God. I was brought up under that "stuffed duck" education system (as the Hong Kongers call it), ie. you just stuff the duck to fill it up, never mind how the duck feels, never mind if the duck needs the food, never mind if the duck can actually absorb anything. It's more about the process (the stuffing, the grades, the exams) than anything else. It's almost sad to admit to this, but I have always thought the system works perfectly, even though I hate most of the teachers, I do love my school. I hate the learning part (because that's what the teachers stuff us), but I love my friends in school. It's like, you can be patriotic and love your country, but you hate the government.

That kind of dis-associative thoughts never really crystallize in my head until much later in life when I have experiences in other forms of systems.

As it turns out, I was pretty good in that old Asian system. I excelled in tests/exams because I like the adrenaline rush. I have a pretty good memory, and I learnt to beat that system. I never bothered to study because there's no point, the teachers didn't want or expect you to. You get "A" or 100% full mark when you can regurgitate texts from books. You don't need to understand the text as long as you can do brain-dump well. It makes the teachers' job easy in grading because if you quote the full text from textbooks, it would be full mark. To game that system, I would always do last-minute all-nighters on the night before the tests or exams, crammed as much from the textbooks into my head (the short term memory of my brain), then dumped everything on the paper, and voila, you're gold.

I'm sure for anyone who reads the above way of "learning," you'll see the problem in it rightaway. There's no learning involved, there's no understanding in the materials, there's no initiative (because everything was driven by what the tests/exams demanded of me, nothing else). I got good grades fairly easily even though my mother would get upset at me. She would see me loitering around most of the time, then all-nighters the nights before exams, and she oftentimes couldn't understand how I got the good grades.

It wasn't until I graduated from high school and moved away from that system, when I started college overseas, that I realized the huge pitfalls of the "education" that I've received. Good grades notwithstanding, I felt so inadequate because I never developed deeper understanding of anything that I should have mastered. I didn't have sufficient initiative to push myself forward since the western system expect me to push, and I didn't know how.

Catching up with the 12+ years of prior schooling in the few short years in college is hard. I cannot tell you how stressful it was. But no, I never once considered quitting or suicide, because they were not an option (I have told myself that much, without anyone telling me so). I've decided that the college degree is what I've wanted, and I'll make it happen, no matter what.

All the while, I have to work multiple part time jobs during college in order to pay my own way. (No, I never asked my parents to fund my college.)

So, you see, I know a thing or two about stress, and about dysfunctional educational systems too. I've had first-hand experience of education systems in four different countries, all of which are different. If there's something to say about adaption, I can add a few footnotes to it too.

Back to to the NJ parents' debate about the schooling change/reforms, I can totally see the fault line.

On the one hand, there are the Asian-American parents who feel that even though it's an excellent public school district, the superintendent is introducing the changes to make school/learning almost too easy. They are always pushing their kids to go for AP classes, extra-curricular activities like music and math, without which, the thinking goes, their kids would have less chance of success in this foreign land (even if their kids might be born here, and are as much an American as the next white kid). Every chance to gin up the kids' chance must be seized on. Expectations and the bar must be set high, because anything otherwise is not an option. It is the constantly under siege mentality that I don't think any white American parents who themselves grew up comfortably and didn't have to compete too hard (against 1.3 billion people of your own kind, perhaps) would never appreciate or understand.

On the other hand, there are the largely white liberal American parents who worry their kids are under too much stress, that there's too much work, that schools are no longer fun, that johnny and jane are not eating well, so much so that things must be too difficult for them. These are the parents who are equally adamant as the Asian-American parents, and who would not hesitate to jump right in to lower the bar, just so that their kids, all kids, can get through the hurdle. Afterall, isn't that saying goes, that no child should be left behind, that every kid is a success. If that is indeed true, and if any kid feels like they can't make it, the altruist impulse must be to stop the game, and wait for the kid to catch up. Well, won't we all feel good in the end (!!).

Dramatization aside, I'm sure everyone sees the problem here. On the one hand, one group wants to raise the bar higher so that only the most discerned kids (their kids, hopefully) will get through, while another group wants to lower the bar so that every kid will make it to the finishing line. Can there be any middle ground?

Before we get to the middle ground discussions, one has to acknowledge a few facts and understanding:

• As noble and altruistic a goal as it is, not all kids will succeed, at least not by the same standards to everyone anyways. In a society, you need doctors and lawyers, but you also need car mechanics and coffee shop workers, and kids don't follow the same path, nor do they need the same cookie-cutter kind of education or training. Some people are never cut out for academics, much as some people are not cut out to be soldiers. Should we push everyone to the frontline in a battle because we believe everyone should be a soldier? Of course not. Some might want to drop out of regular school and learn a trade. Does that make them less of a success? Well, if you measure everyone by how much they earn, then yes they are less successful. But should we define success so narrowly? As most, if not all, liberal-minded folks would agree, one has to follow their heart and choose a path that makes them happy in life, and if these kids are happy to be a tradesman (albeit earning less), then they are as much a success as the next CEO who might be earning millions in compensation. Unfortunately our society these days have conditioned (brainwashed, even) everyone to thinking that EVERYONE has to get a college degree and go for white collar desk job to be successful, so much so that every other kid who does not want to follow this path is labeled a failure. This is just so wrong.
• How much stress is too much? Nobody can tell exactly, since everyone's threshold is different. While no one wants to see any suicide to happen, is it really true that every stressful situation would lead to that one conclusion when a kid will take his own life? I don't think so. I can't recall how many times I felt almost suffocated (literally gasping for air) with pulsating heartbeat when I thought of the hurdles ahead of me during college, the amount of work (and the self-learning that I had to do before I could do those work), and how little time I had. It could be said that the one driving force in me, was the fact that I really do want this (to finish the college degree), and I'm generally a stubborn person. And so, I kept going, and I slowly learnt to master my own system to deal with stress, to multi-task, and to prioritize the tasks. I have to learn it myself, in my own way, in my own time. My parents could not have done for me, however much they might want to help. No one can, and no one should. 
• Parents need to understand that kids have to learn to deal with failures, as much as how they need to learn to deal with stress. Parents cannot do the learning for the kids. It is oftentimes the parents who cannot deal with the idea of failures that they push the kids forward (as the Asian-American parents do), or pull the kids back (as the liberal white American parents do), worrying that their kid cannot compete, that the kids will feel bad and hurt their pride/ego. 

With that said, I would only say a few more words, and no more.

There's almost no point pushing your kids to be just as academically good, but be a "square" in everything else. Getting into a brand-name college might give your kids a leg-up in johnny's first job, perhaps, but three to five years after graduation, there won't be much discerning difference anymore.

The kids need to be doing the pushing, ie. that driving force (of what they want to pursue), need to come from the kid. It cannot and should not be coming from the parents. If the kids don't have that, they would languish later on in life.

At the same time, we can't be lowering the bar of expectation every time a kid says "work is hard." What kind of message do we, as adults, send to the kids by removing every chance of hard work so that they expect everything else in life to be easy and a piece of cake? I still recall the tremendous amount of satisfaction and pleasure when I finally made it through one of the most difficult classes in college, all on my own. I felt like I could take on the world, if I could get through that, and I did. I would not trade that feeling for anything else. Those liberal parents should take away that chance of push and hard work that johnny should be doing, so that he would learn to stumble, stand up again, and make it on his own terms. As a student, that kind of learning and discipline would benefit the kid for the rest of his life.

So, where's the middle ground?

One has to ask, with this very excellent public school system being around for so long, why is it that suddenly everyone thinks it's broken and needs to be fixed? Why do the kids need more work, or less work, today when kids from decades past didn't and those alums all did just fine?

Is it that the middle ground should have been more choices? Why does the school superintendent need to take away the work, effectively lower the expectation of the kids to make things easier? Why can't there be different track, where kids can choose their pace, the same way one can choose between taking (or not taking) AP classes? Surely if those white American parents want less stress for their kids, their kids can opt for the less intense classes, whereas if the Asian-American kids want to push, they can opt for the AP classes.

But of course we all secretively know the answer to that, even if no one wants to admit it outright, when we see the kind of passive-aggressiveness of so many liberal white Americans in general. While they want to make things easier for their own kids, they realize that their kids will be at a disadvantage if they don't take AP classes (for example). In order to maintain the status quo, they cannot allow any other kids to get ahead (the Asian-American kids, in particular) so that their own kids can catch up. And the only way for that to happen, is to change the rules of the system, alter the rules of the game in their favor.

You can see now, that I'm a fairly aggressive person, and I'm not a pushover. Hence, I have a particular distaste of passive-aggressiveness. I see all these being played out in my kids' current school system as well, although not as acutely as those in NJ.

Given my own experience, I do constantly remind myself that I need to step back, to let the kids learn independence, to allow them time to find their own internal driving force. As I told them many times before, as they get older, I'm not going to do the pushing anymore. I do have certain expectations of them, and I do know their ability (of how far they can go), but the rest (what they want to do, where to push it) will have to come from them. For parents, this is a constant learning process to letting go, and to have faith in the kids that they'll push through ok somehow. My parents had the wisdom to let me take the driving seat and decide what to do, I can only hope I learn to have enough trust in them to let them drive. It's not easy, and I'm still learning the rope.

On the appeal of Donald Trump, and the angst of American voters...

The GOP primaries are coming up shortly, and I find pretty good entertainment from its primary season. On top of having a real entertainer (Donald Trump) in their line-up, the GOP has every other man (and woman, in the form of Carly Fiorina) seeing themselves as the next US president when they look themselves in the mirror every time, never mind whether they are up to it or not. While a few losers (hello, Bobby Jindal) admitted defeat, there are still some ten of them refused to admit to the fact that they're just wasting their own as well as everybody else's time. Early on, I have thought Jeb Bush might be the one, given the name stake, the money machine and establishment solidly behind him, and the relatively moderate tone in his rare speeches at the time; but no more. Now Bush is just decidedly an also-ran, giving way to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Who would have thought, even just a few months ago. No matter, Trump is still sitting at the top, seemingly unfazed by any attacks to him about his outrageous acts, speeches and positions; in fact, the more outrageous he sounds, the more support he seems to get, perhaps even from the disillusioned Tea Party voters.

I would be the first one to admit, I'm totally turned off by Trump the entertainer, what with his very fake hairdo, very artificial tan on his face, and the very outrageous speeches. Oddly though, I find certain part of my inner self saying, there is certain appeal in what the guy is saying, or at least what he represents. No, I'm not saying at all that Trump represents the little guys completely, but he's willing to go out there, and say the politically incorrect things that most people have on their mind but are unwilling to say it due to etiquette, or politically correctness. Even Trump's manner and tone, the crassness that this guy has come across, the decidedly low-classness (billionaire notwithstanding) would mirror a lot of little guys whose voice has long been ignored by establishments from both the left- and the right-side of the aisles in Washington. Remember the 1960s movie Network? Trump has succeeded in channeling that famous quote "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." That's what all the Trump supporters have wanted to say.

I have no doubt that there's sufficient disillusionment from the left, of Obama's Audacity of Hope campaign slogan that has fallen way short of the false hope that Obama has sold to the voters. While he might be the first black president to take the White House, his impact is really largely symbolic. He is not really that different from any other Democrat's president (say, Hillary Clinton). Under his watch, the livelihood of the blacks hasn't changed much; in fact, given all the incidents underlying the Black Lives Matter campaign (if you can call it a "campaign"), it's really just same old, same old. Yes, he pushes through Affordable Care Act (dubbed as his namesake ObamaCare), but it's nothing about healthcare reform that it's claimed to be, which at its core, is simply a health insurance change, rather than healthcare coverage change. While ACA doesn't affect me at all personally, I can certainly appreciate the anger from those people who are forced to seek and buy insurance coverage, or risk paying penalty, particularly in those states where the plans available from the so-called health exchange are getting pricier due to insurers exiting poorer states.

There has been much talk about the explosive growth of student debts in just the past decade and a half, and Washington failed to act on it to ease the load. Why? Because politicians in both parties are all in the pockets of lobbyists whose interests are in protecting the investors' interest (hello, Wall St) rather than the voters.

And then there is widening gap in income and wealth. To be sure, government policy shouldn't be about redistribution of income and wealth, but there is nothing that helps in leveling the playing fields. All everyone wants is quick fixes. GOP wants school vouchers, rather than fixing broken/failing public schools. Democrats wants to give more money to teachers unions, but no guarantee of results. Nobody wants to test the students, saying they alone can't fix failing student performance. So, what do we do? Instead of testing every students to find out where they're at (as demanded by No Child Left Behind Act), Obama is throwing the baby out with the bath water by repealing NCLB and rebranding it as Every Student Succeeds Act. And what does it do? You can still test the students but no one will be held accountable to the test results, hence why would anyone care? Yes yes, education is hard to fix, education requires long term vision and investments, precisely the kind of things that US seems totally incapable to do these days. Is that why every other voters get angry? I know I would.

Same goes with issues in affordable housing. Democrats and liberals in general want us to believe that in order to lift the lives of poor, the quickest way to fix it is to let them live side by side with the wealthy. The thinking goes, that would be an immediate resolution to allow poor families and children to have immediate access to better schools and facilities. No one wants to do the tough job of fixing poor neighborhood. What ends up happening is, the well-to-do feels squeezed and the poor feels envious. Is there any wonder why no one loves the "poor door" arrangement in New York City, even though the poor fight over each other's bodies to get their hands on it like it's a lottery won already? It's only going to benefit a small handful of families while the rest of the dilapidated neighborhoods continue to flatter, yet politicians can claim they are doing something to help the poor without even trying.

And don't get anyone started on the economy which is picking up speed, so much so that the Fed feels prudent and comfortable to raise the rate, the first hike in eight years. As impressive as it may sound, in this two-speed economy when the well-off class has been doing quite well already and can surely handle a 0.25% hike, everybody is still waiting to see their green shoots, particularly in states that are not on either coast.

While US and Europe have been wallowing under the weight of the Great Recession, China has been flying high. Even with the slowing growth in China in the past couple of years, its economy has come a long way so fast that it's been the World No. 2 and is set to overtake the No. 1 position by US as the world's biggest economy in coming years faster than anyone might think. While the Chinese in general feel a sense of hope in their future (matched by the aply named China Dream slogan), with the diminishing world dominance, the American Dream looks decidedly broken. The stature of being an American doesn't count for much anymore in the world stage, even as a tourist these days. Who are we to lecture others about human rights (or abuse), civic society, government structure, ideology and more? When you're going downhill, you lose the rights to gloat about how good you are, because others have shown that their alternate form of government and society can do just as well, maybe even more so.

This is on top of all the disastrous major military undertakings overseas, in the form of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the heedless foreign policy that aims high and shoots low. George W Bush would say democracy to be the cure of all evils, Obama openly praises Arab Spring to give powers to the people, all these are but ideological talks without understanding what that would really do to a society. So, one by one, stable (authoritarian and oppressive, notwithstanding) governments were toppled, the aftermath of which US has not prepared for. In their stead, power vacuum is created in every other country in the Middle East, allowing radical terrorist groups like ISIS (even worse than AQAP) to spring up, displacing residents with civil wars. Is there any wonder millions are rushing the shore of Europe in the refugee crisis this year? The Paris attacks were horrific, but it's just a matter of time that it happens. No one wants to imagine that to happen in US, but the San Bernardino shooting should be another wake-up call to show how easy this is to be carried up, planned by just a few nutjobs.

The list goes on.

It's in the news, day in day out. Is there any wonder why voters are anxious, angry, and feel vulnerable? It can be just as upsetting when average Americans are told we're just fine, that things are really alright, that economy is good (even though you don't feel it), that our kids can really compete in the global marketplace (even though more jobs are being shipped overseas), that we are all over-reacting, that we should open our borders even more (even though a lot of voters are already feeling overwhelmed by competing for jobs locally), that we should pay for more refugees to come in to show our goodwill (even though a lot of classroot voters can't even put food on their table or pay their bills).

These are messages that Donald Trump is saying out loud that no one wants to say it and his anti-establishment message personifies, because to do so is to admit defeat (that our economy is bad, that we're losing the No. 1 position, that we're too poor to tell others what to do or listen to us, that some developing countries are living a better life than we do, free speech be damned because politically correctness is killing the "free speech" in this country anyways).

It is thus that I'm not surprised to see that, as anecdotal as it is, even a Democrat voter is going for Trump. While I don't think Trump has what it takes to govern a country, he would have no trouble attracting sufficient protest votes to tell both GOP and Democrats that voters don't want either of them anymore. And while die-hard libertarians and Tea Party voters might not warm to Trump, he would appeal to their contrarian spirit to, heck, upset the status quo, for a change.

On de-cluttering, digitization (and disappearing) of our footprints...

The other day when I was walking around the block, I came upon a few boxes of "free stuffs" that people put on the street, the stuffs that they intend to throw out that someone else might find interests in. I found a few things of interests. In them, I found a couple of old books, old prints hardcover books that were from the 19th century. There were inscriptions in the front pages, notes of gift to some friends, one of them had notes from a god-parent to the child. 

I don't really have any needs for these old books, but for some reasons, I felt compelled to take them, almost as if I felt the needs to save these very old artifacts from going to the landfill. Part of me too, felt soothed when holding something so ancient in my hands, it feels so real when I touch those yellowed pages and tattered covers.

And so, when I read the New York Times article about de-cluttering, I truly feel for it.

Articles like this are almost always written by older folks feeling nostalgic about a fast disappearing era where there are physical artifacts to touch, to feel, to keep, to past down to the next generations, the same way I would have felt for those old books. The larger social trend though, is moving in the opposite direction.

I bought my first Nook for my kids more than a few years ago out of necessity. In the past, whenever we go on road trips, my kids would load up on books, borrowed from library. That works out fine since they could bring as many books as they want and put them in the car. (They usually bring 25-30 books each time.) That won't do when we go overseas as it becomes too cumbersome bring all those physical books. The Nook was almost a godsend since they can bring as many e-books as they want, and they can read on their own device. These days, they've built up their own digital library of hundreds of books, and they can read them anywhere, anytime. How else could you bring the complete Sherlock Holmes collection, and all the Jane Austen's books, and all the books with you all the time? There's simply no way it can be done physically, and digital copy is an elegant solution to a practical problem.

The kids love it because they have become used to all things digital. While they still read physical books from school and library, they are used to having everything else in softcopy. I'd actually argue that all those studies that equate kids' academic performance to the number of books at home are rather outdated because those studies simply do not have the empirical evidence from homes that have gone digital. In other words, for kids that are older, I don't think they read any less than on e-books than they would otherwise have with physical books. Well, not for my kids anyways.

I would say though, that it would still matter for very young kids to learn reading with a physical book, read by some adults to them physically. That makes a much bigger impact when their very young brain is still forming and needs to learn from touch and feel. But, that's a different story.

There is no doubt, however, that my kids would have missed out on a connection to a past era when there will no longer be any physical artifacts to be had. These days, we don't write letters, we don't buy books, we don't keep the physical stuffs. The home is so clear of everything, it's like a neo-minimal furniture showroom, with nothing on the shelf except a few pot plants.

Even this journal that I'm writing, this blog that I've really just meant for my kids to read, a journal that I would otherwise have kept and written in my long hand, would evaporate in the ether, should blogger.com cease to exist. All that it takes, is for someone to pull the plug on this blogger.com server, and all these years' of journal entries will be gone. 

I sometimes feel ambivalent about that kind of minimal footprint. There will come a day when I pass away, and there will be very few artifacts that connect back to me, except these binaries. I generally don't mind it, but I'm beginning to think that I should really discuss this with my kids, of how their generation would treat this subject. Do they really need - or want - physical artifacts to remember me by? If so, maybe I should start building a collection for some time capsule for them someday.