Walking With Wei Qi

Walking With Wei Qi
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis” – Wei Qi (pronounced Way-Jee) is composed of two characters: one represents danger, the other opportunity

I need to brag.

Well, sort of. I am proud of something I did because it reinforces and reconfirms a lesson I learned a long time ago, one that we need to remind ourselves of time and time again.

I googled my flickr screen name yesterday and came upon a photo of mine that had been posted to someone else’s flickr collection.

My gut reaction was perturbance, bordering on some sort of token anger. Being intimately familiar with the issue of intellectual property rights and piracy, I felt, if only for a moment, that I “should” be angry.

But then, I reminded myself of two things. First, anger is primarily a futile emotion that either usually only makes matters worse or can only be positive if it’s energy is channeled into constructive action. Second, I reminded myself of the old Chinese proverb: in every crisis lies an opportunity.

So, immediately I asked myself, “What am I going to do about this?” I wasn’t all too worried for a few reasons though. The person had at least given me some credit by writing “by lorenzodom” in the caption. However, there was no link to the original photo or to my site, and the photo was entitled differently than what I had originally titled it.

There were a few other elements that threw me off and further intrigued me to think positively about the situation. This included the fact that my photo was the only one he apparently had “borrowed.” The hundred or so other photos were screenshots of a math physics website in Chinese, a language I do not know. Furthermore, the website with the link that led me to his photo album was almost entirely in Chinese, except for the few lines that mentioned “the lost man chronicles” and “by lorenzodom.”

Ultimately, what I decided to do was to post the following message in the photo’s comments section:

Thank you for posting my foto to your site.

For anyone who is interested the original name of the photo is Monk Lets Intuition Be His Tour Guide

You can view the entire set entitled Monk in The City by clicking HERE.

And if you are interested in the lost man chronicles click HERE.

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I figured that I would check back later and if my comments were removed and the photo was still there, I would then consider other action.

Subsequently, what actually happened was that the photographer added me to his contacts list, and even designated me as a “friend.” Being that I was his only-lonely contact thus far, I was flattered. Somehow it made me feel special and it made me smile. Smiling is always a good thing.

Hence, once again I felt that by thinking positively, by controlling my emotions and understanding what and why I was feeling (i.e. what is it that really bothered me, not getting angry, staying cool amidst confusion), and by trying to comprehend rather than pretending that I already do (i.e. presumption), I not only made a friend, but perhaps have quietly built that fabled tunnel to the other side of the world where a billion souls eagerly await to exchange information, ancient secrets and a few bits of lost worldly wisdom.

This photo was blogged by Cakue by Yohan Yudanara
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