“The Sakura Matsuri, hosted by the Japan‑America Society of Washington, DC, is the largest celebration of Japanese culture in the U.S. It’s a marquee event of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.”
Camera: iPhone 15
Location: Washington, District of Columbia
My sixth set of Spanish poems focused on showing attention to your beloved, having a queen in your life, the fight of your life, dignity being everything, and escaping when it’s necessary.
Óyeme bien
Óyeme bien, finalmente,
Estamos juntos de nuevo.
¿Qué puedo contarte todo de mi corazón?
Mis orejas podrán aguantar eso.
Sin ti, no tengo nadie a quien contar mis secretos.
Óyeme bien con tu voz bonita y fiel.
¿Dónde está mi reina?
Mi reina de mi corazón.
Ninguna persona es como mi reina.
Mi reina de mi felicidad.
Puedo luchar por mi reina para siempre.
Porque para mí, mi reina es todo el mundo.
La lucha de mi vida
¡Sube al ring,
Ponte los guantes!
Mantén la guardia alta,
Nunca temas el golpe.
La vida te golpeará duro,
¡Asegúrate de devolver el golpe con más fuerza!
¡La dignidad lo es todo!
Respeta a la gente que trabaja,
Respeta a la gente que estudia,
Respeta a la gente que hace que la vida sea lo que es.
Todo trabajo tiene dignidad,
Toda persona tiene dignidad, igual.
No lo olvides ni por un minuto.
Afuera de aquí
Ya no hay nada para nosotros.
Solo violencia, dolor y miseria aquí.
Recuerden lo que nos arrebataron a nosotros y a ustedes.
Almas atrapadas aquí para siempre, lastimosamente.
Aún tenemos una opción para sobrevivir y vivir.
Salgan de aquí ahora, antes de que sea demasiado tarde.
Playing tourist for the evening in a walking tour of Times Square and The Oculus at World Trade Center with a stop in between for ‘Tommy!’ musical on Broadway!
Camera: iPhone 15
Location: Manhattan; New York, New York
“You should not be performing for other people and achieving goals for their attention. The ‘likes’, the ‘emojis’, the ‘congratulations’ are all well and good but when it comes down to it, you don’t owe the world a status update.”
Not everything in your life needs to be broadcast to other people, especially strangers. It’s preferable even to move in silence while you work towards achieving your personal goals or achievements. True self-growth is about achieving your wins in life because of your own hard work and desire and not just to seek validation from others. You should not be performing for other people and achieving goals for their attention. The ‘likes’, the ‘emojis’, the ‘congratulations’ are all well and good but when it comes down to it, you don’t owe the world a status update.
You build a legacy for yourself and not for chasing the validation of others, whether they end up giving it to you or not when your success comes to fruition. We live in a world where broadcasting every tiny move is celebrated, which is fine for those who choose to engage in it, but that’s not what your life should be focused on.
Telling people too much, especially too soon, can be bad for your goal setting and put undue pressure on you to reach that goal even more. If you fail, everyone will know who you shared the original goal with which could sting. While telling people can provide external motivation, at the same time, you are also putting a lot more stress and anxiety on yourself to perform for others because of how public you made your goal.
In my view, overexposure kills momentum and the energy you give towards outside attention can distract you from setting and achieving your goals. To give a personal example, in the past, I let some people I trusted in my life know about my goals, especially when it comes to launching a business or passing a certification for professional reasons. While I enjoyed letting those people I cared about know, I should have waited until I had achieved my goals in both areas before making it public even to close friends and family.
The sting of failure or falling short is accepted best by those closest to you but it can still hurt knowing that you may have let them down by promising more than you could deliver. Often, it’s best to wait until the goal is achieved, like having a profitable business or acing your certification before you let others know you were even working on that accomplishment to begin with.
Some things in life need space, time, and most importantly, privacy to develop like the roots of a tree as they form the foundation for growth. Self-improvement can be shared publicly but it should be thought of primarily as a private contract within yourself, and not public performance. Real growth takes a lot of time and achieving tough goals takes years, decades, and sometimes an entire lifespan.
Updating others constantly will get boring too and if you are going to update others, make sure you are only doing it when you achieve something along the path to success. Progress should be boring and predictable, and you shouldn’t need applause or praise to keep going towards your goal or objective as well.
I find that the most successful people often work in silence until its time to deliver the final result, not announce to the world that it’s in progress. Whether it’s Albert Einstein working on the e=mc(squared) result, Michael Jordan putting in the years as a teenager and college basketball player to make it to the NBA and become a legend there, or even Steve Jobs getting rejected multiple times for what would become world renowned tech products like the iMac and iPod.
These legends in different fields of mathematics, technology, and sports did not announce to the world when they made progress towards their goals, they only announced to the world that they had made it when they achieved their goals. For a personal example, I didn’t tell the world when I started a martial art, I only let it be known to people when I had been doing it for a few years and had some progress or goal achieved to show for the efforts I had made. It’s great to start towards a goal but only announce it after you’ve been grinding for a while and have achieved a result with that job or activity or passion.
Let the results do the talking when you work in silence. When your final product or achievement is ready, it’ll speak louder than any fan or hater will have to say about it when it becomes public. Again, don’t tell people or especially strangers on the Internet your plans, show them the outcomes and the results that you have achieved and maybe how you got there if you want to give that away too. I think it’s best for anybody to be devoted to improving themselves and bettering their lives with real goals is to build in peace and quiet.
Keep your head down, have a steady heart, work consistently towards your goals, whatever they may be, and do so only loud enough for you to hear them constantly, until they echo for everyone else once you’ve achieved what you set out to accomplish.
From nighttime to sunrise, New York City never sleeps. I captured these images both late at night and at sunrise to capture a few neighborhoods in Manhattan and also some clear views from Hoboken, New Jersey across the Hudson River.
Camera: iPhone 15
Locations: Wall Street, Lower Manhattan, and Hoboken Waterfront; New York, New York and Hoboken, New Jersey
“In an age where it’s hard to agree about anything, I do think having nationwide high-speed rail as the rule rather than the exception is something most Americans would support if given a choice of whether to fund it.”
Introduction: Connectivity Beyond Broadband and Rocket Ships
Connectivity in the modern age is more than high speed broadband or rocket ships that can go to the Moon or Mars, it can be as simple as connecting major towns and cities together. It is a simply an economic win-win when you think about having high speed rail being as common as any kind of subway, commuter rail, or streetcar. It is an economic investment that pays for itself over time and is a great way to support local to national economies. It is the exact kind of rail that I believe America is lacking outside my home region of the Northeast and which continues to be neglected despite the benefits far outweighing the costs. In an age where it’s hard to agree about anything, I do think having nationwide high-speed rail as the rule rather than the exception is something most Americans would support if given a choice of whether to fund it.
From Railroad Pioneers to Going Off the Rails
Long ago, the United States was the leader in rail across the board especially when the transcontinental railroad was first established connecting the continental nation together from east to west in the late 1860s. Fast forward to the mid-20th century, America decisively turned away from rail and embraced cars and planes as symbols of modernity and freedom. The construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, along with generous federal subsidies for aviation, made driving and flying faster, cheaper, and more convenient than taking the train. As families moved to the new and sprawling suburbs, car ownership exploded, and passenger rail ridership collapsed.
Meanwhile, freight railroads, struggling with shrinking margins, often abandoned or neglected passenger services. Amtrak’s creation in 1971 was a last-ditch effort to save intercity rail travel, but chronic underfunding, outdated equipment, and lack of political will left it unable to compete with well-funded highways and airports. This shift cemented a car-and-plane culture in the United States, relegating trains to a niche role in the American transportation landscape rather than the preferred mode of transportation. Unfortunately, today, it continues to be a disappointing national story as trains and train speeds here are some of the slowest, most infrequent, and bordering on dysfunctional in the modern era.
There are a whole host of factors and finger pointing to go around in terms of how we got to where we are as a nation in 2025 from NIMBYism to the airline and auto lobbies to cost overruns that drain support for any of these high-speed rail projects. However, I’d like to focus first on where America stands now compared to other developed nations and how far the U.S. needs to go to catch up to other nations who have surpassed us in this key area of development.
China Leads, Europe Excels
China is currently the world leader in high-speed rail with the biggest network of high-speed trains on Earth with top speeds clocking in at around 220 miles per hour (350 kilometers an hour). If you look at any map of Chinese high-speed rail, all major cities are connected to each other by a train and often for one day, multiple trains serve each city at different times a day making it a better option than flying within the country. Many more cities in China are connected by high-speed rail than American cities and the trains are much faster by comparison.
Unfortunately, this is not only the case in China but in also much of the European Union. France, Germany, Spain, and Italy all have high speed rail networks that are extensive, fast, and reliable, whose coverage far exceeds the U.S. when you do an overlay of their networks compared to the regional networks in the U.S. or per capita in terms of access despite the size difference. Other major players in high-speed rail include Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, with Thailand, Vietnam, and India looking to start building their ‘bullet’ trains in the 2020s. Even developing nations in Africa such as Morocco have invested in having their own high-speed rail with Morocco’s Al-Boraq line between Casablanca and Tangier having opened in 2018, which is the first high speed train in Africa (approx. 180 miles per hour / 300 kilometers per hour) and not likely to be the last.
High-Speed Rail: A 21st Century Economic Engine
As we get close to being well into the second half of the 2020s-decade, high speed rail investment makes more sense and not less sense. It is a win-win to me economically when you can create jobs in construction, project management, and other related industries. As more economies pivot to clean energy, I find that high speed rail is a more efficient, less polluting form of travel that is also extremely safe and reliable if run well. Regional and local economies can flourish more especially when high speed rail comes to their communities’ bringing tourists and possibly new businesses to set up shop there.
Business travel can expand as well when you don’t have the options of only relying on renting a car, taking a bus, or flying on a plane to get to a conference or a meeting in another city in the same day. Cutting carbon emissions is a goal almost universally shared in 2025 so a keyway to do it is embracing forms of travel that are better for the environment such as high-speed rail. Multiple studies in Europe show that every dollar or euro spent on high-speed rail returns multiple dollars in long-term economic gains. The overall return on investment speaks for itself and that’s why more than ever, nationwide high-speed rail efforts should become a national priority.
America’s Missed Opportunities in High Speed Rail
My love for the Northeast’s Amtrak lines as someone who rides multiple times a year, especially the Acela and Northeast Regional, comes from knowing how liberating it feels to speed past gridlocked highways and soul-crushing airport security. However, I would like to be clear in that what we have in the Northeast United States is the exception, not the rule. The rest of the nation is left with woefully inadequate or non-existent passenger rail options, especially no high-speed rail train options.
California’s notorious and still unfinished high-speed rail project, originally envisioned to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in under three hours, has become a cautionary tale of political infighting, spiraling costs, and endless delays, now more than fifteen years since voters approved it, the line remains incomplete as of this writing. Texas’ proposed Dallas-to-Houston bullet train, based on Japan’s Shinkansen technology, has been mired in lawsuits and land disputes, while Florida’s once-promising plan for a Tampa-Orlando-Miami high-speed corridor was killed by politics despite federal funding being on the table. These failures aren’t just isolated missteps; they’re a systemic reflection of America’s inability to plan, fund, and execute transformative infrastructure projects in the 21st century.
A Vision of a More Connected America
Imagine for me now a future United States where a high school student in Indianapolis could visit Washington, D.C. on a field trip by getting there in 4-5 hours, or where a business traveler could commute between Atlanta and Charlotte in 90 minutes, turning what’s now a grueling four-hour drive into a swift and productive journey. France’s TGV system, which I have been lucky enough to ride from Bordeaux to Paris has long proven that high-speed rail is profitable and competitive with air travel for distances up to 600 miles, drawing millions of passengers who might otherwise fly or drive in that country.
China’s network, the world’s largest as mentioned earlier, has shrunk travel times dramatically: for example, the 819-mile Beijing–Shanghai route, once a ten-hour slog by conventional train, now takes just four and a half hours. A similar Chicago–New York high-speed line, roughly the same distance, could cut today’s fourteen-hour Amtrak ride by more than two-thirds if it were ever developed and invested in.
The creation and development of a nationwide rail grid could connect major population centers such as Houston, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, Denver, and Los Angeles with frequent, fast trains. This would wholeheartedly reshape the American economy as we know it and foster new hubs of innovation, tourism, and opportunity in cities both large and mid-sized, and if smaller cities can be added to a more local line with more stops, that’s a positive as well.
Overcoming America’s High Speed Rail Barriers
There’s no denying the hurdles that exist and will continue to slow the development of a nationwide high speed network: federal and state governments have rarely aligned on rail priorities; outdated regulations, such as the Federal Railroad Administration’s archaic crash standards, make it difficult to adopt off-the-shelf European or Asian trainsets; and NIMBYism often turns local communities into fierce opponents of new rail lines.
However, none of these obstacles are insurmountable if America learns from the examples set by other nations. Spain’s national AVE system, for instance, was built with robust public support and clear national commitment, resulting in more than 2,000 miles of high-speed track in a country with less than a seventh of America’s population. Japan’s initial Shinkansen line was completed in just five years, transforming travel patterns permanently, and this is despite being a mountainous island nation where political gridlock can also occur.
America could adopt federal legislation to streamline permitting, incentivize public-private partnerships, and dedicate a long-term funding mechanism like the Highway Trust Fund to ensure reliable and consistent investment. Beyond these present technicalities, it will take real leadership willing to communicate to the American voter that high-speed rail is not a luxury for a developed nation, but a real necessity for economic growth, energy security, and national competitiveness in the 21st century.
Conclusion: It’s Time to Board the Train of Real Progress
I am writing this article on an Amtrak Northeast regional train to Washington, DC ironically but not intentionally because as someone who treasures the unique sense of freedom and connection offered by train travel in the Northeast United States, I believe deeply that every American deserves the same opportunity. This should be the case whether they live in Houston, Detroit, or Los Angeles. We have the financial resources, the technology, and the know-how; what we lack is the political resolve to make high-speed rail a reality nationwide.
Our tax dollars should be able to build systems that make our daily lives better, and there are few investments more transformative than modern, fast, reliable trains that knit together our cities and regions. High-speed rail would give Americans more options, less stress, and cleaner air, while restoring our global reputation as a nation of builders and innovators. It’s time for the United States to leave the station of outdated thinking, board the train of progress, and embrace a future where high-speed rail is not the rare exception, but the expectation for every American traveler.
Note: The views expressed in this article are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinion(s) of any outside organization, firm, or entity.
Works Cited / Endnotes (MLA)
Enjoying the views of the greatest city in the world, New York City, from the observatory deck at One World Trade Center.
Camera: iPhone 15
Location: One World Trade Center; New York, New York
“When I say romanticize life, it’s about choosing a balance between being aware of suffering and cruelty in all its forms but not letting it steal our joy or every drop of beauty we should experience during our short time we are living on this planet.”
A star-filled sky, a sunset that looks like a colorful painting come to life, a delicious cup of coffee on a patio or rooftop, a smile from a stranger, or a song that just puts you in a good mood; romanticizing life itself is important to maintaining one’s contentedness. Romanticizing life itself isn’t about deluding oneself about the ills of our troubled world or denying that life has its problems, but it’s about choosing meaning, joy, and pleasure in a chaotic thing that we call existence. When I say romanticize life, it’s about choosing a balance between being aware of suffering and cruelty in all its forms but not letting it steal our joy or every drop of beauty we should experience during our short time we are living on this planet.
What does it mean exactly to romanticize life itself? For me, it’s about viewing life not only through its troubles, struggles, and effort, but also about embracing wonder in all its forms, keeping your imagination going, and living life with intention to observe joy and be appreciative of being able to exist in this moment. Being able to romanticize life does not come easy and we can lose track of how precious life really is. However, you can appreciate life more when you’re able to enjoy the small rituals and little moments that bring you a sense of calm and contentedness.
Maybe it’s your morning coffee or your daily walk around the neighborhood. If you’re a parent, maybe it’s the sound of your child’s laughter or if you’re married, your partner smiling at you. In those precious moments, you are left with a sense of what the good stuff in life is and that it can be good. You know those moments don’t last forever so it’s important to recognize them when they happen and to find enjoyment in them. I also think romanticizing life is about embracing yourself as the ‘main character’, which I have written about in a previous article. Being able to embrace new places, new foods, new cultures, and new adventures can give your life much more volume of good memories, meaningful connections, and some amazing stories to tell upon your return.
Life isn’t perfect and neither is your own, but it’s important to remind yourself daily of the good stuff even if it’s minor things in your routine and daily rituals. Even if life seems bad, I always think there’s the ‘little’ things in life to be grateful for and to remind yourself of what to be fortunate for even if things can look bleak at times. Romanticizing life matters even more in today’s world in my view. Modern life is designed to overwhelm us seemingly everyday and can drain our joy completely if we are not careful.
A lot of us are burnt out from work, overstimulated by 24/7 news cycles, and overwhelmed by the technological change going on around us. Romanticizing life is not about ignoring these changes going on around us but to remember exactly why life is still beautiful and how to find out what inspires us, moves us, and allows us to embrace the good things in our world.
It is also a good antidote to apathy, nihilism, and numbness to the problems in our society because remembering the good things in life and what’s worth fighting for. We cannot control the world or right every wrong, but we can control how we experience and move through the world in our own way. Being able to romanticize life and the good it can offer us encourages positive feelings of gratitude, mindfulness, and presence especially when there are so many distractions around that can cause us to lose sight of what we really should be focusing on.
While I advocate for romanticizing life, I’ll never shy away from acknowledge the pain and suffering we all inevitably go through in life. However, we cannot let ourselves be consumed by the pain we experience or seek to escape reality in unhealthy ways. Remember to be able to hold the good and the bad of life in you, the joy and the grief, stress and peace, happiness and sadness.
Don’t romanticize life to escape your problems or the pain you experience but instead use it as a tool to ground yourself, to have perspective, and to think in a more balanced way rather than ‘everything is terrible’ or ‘everything is perfect.’ For some examples of this you may experience in life, you can still pay your bills and light a candle for a nice dinner in the same day. You can still enjoy Paris while it’s raining down on you and you’re late for a tour. You can still have a bad day and still journal your thoughts down while being grateful for the good things you have in your life overall.
As the famous philosopher Albert Camus once wrote, “There is no love of life without despair of life.” To me, this quote represents that you can still be in touch with life’s beauty and joy without being broken by the pain and sorrow you experience that’s a part of life too. This is the kind of perspective that you should be cultivating like Mr. Camus in that you need to be romanticizing the ordinary and mundane of life and to find some beauty in it if you can.
How to do this exactly? Well, I like to write and observe to romanticize and find joy in the world. For others, it could be reading literature, watching films, or learning about art. Even better than that is to create these types of output yourself and to collaborate and work with others because building out human connection through these endeavors makes life more enjoyable and makes it easier to romanticize it all.
Romanticizing life does not mean broadcasting for the world every photo you take, every meal you consume, or every sunset you enjoy. It’s about living in the moment, not being performative or fake about what you experience, and taking the time to really embrace beauty wherever it can be found. It’s about being intentional in how you embrace life, little by little, the good and the bad. You need to have perspective in that things are never as bad as they seem nor as good as they seem. Romanticizing life is not about pretending bad things don’t exist or that good things don’t exist, but it’s about believing in that there is good in the world still and it’s worth taking pleasure in.
If you’re into romanticizing life through travel and adventure, do more of that, and for others it could be the comfort of family and friends, while others can do it more simply with watching the passing of a cloud or the blossoming of a flower, you need to find one small way each day to bring some good energy to your life and to uplift oneself when you can. Life is not meant to be an endless grind where we are meant to struggle endlessly without taking some time to reflect, be present, embrace beauty when we see it, and to live life with as much passion as you can muster when we find things worth enjoying, both big and small, both random and planned, and above all else, reminds us that while life can be tough, it can also be beautiful too.
A trip back to New York City in March of 2024.
Camera: iPhone 15
Location: New York, New York
“However, they both are excellent detectives, dedicated to solving crimes, and are each other’s yin and yang by keeping the other one honest.”
True Detective, Season 1 on HBO aired over ten years ago but it’s still regarded as one of the best TV drama seasons of all time. Part of its lore lies in its storyline and direction, but a lot of credit also should go to the lead actors, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. The two actors who play Rustin ‘Rust’ Cohle and Martin ‘Marty Hart’ respectively do an excellent job of showing these actors at different periods in their lives and careers as detectives with the Louisiana State Police. Both men appear to be opposites at the start and the friction(s) that they have intensify over the year. However, they both are excellent detectives, dedicated to solving crimes, and are each other’s yin and yang by keeping the other one honest.
Few shows since that season of True Detective or the seasons of the popular anthology series since the 1st season with Rust and Marty have achieved the same level of on-screen chemistry and presence. It helps that off-screen both actors are close friends and have known each other for decades. They’ve been quoted as almost being like ‘brothers’ sharing the same sense of humor, profession, and having different hobbies in common. While True Detective with Marty and Rust happened over ten years ago, there are rumors swirling around that both characters could come back in the future for another story by showrunner Nic Pizzolatto.
One scene on the show that really sums up their rocky relationship and occurs later in their troubled careers. Not only do they have unfinished business with each other in terms of reconnecting and perhaps getting over their troubled past but also to attend to possibly solving a murder mystery central to the season’s plot. At this point in the season, they are older, not on the force anymore as detectives, and life has both affected them in different ways including estranging them from their former family and friends.
Marty Hart, for example, is balding, lives alone after separating from his now ex-wife, and doesn’t have sole custody of his daughters anymore. He doesn’t cook much (it’s implied), likes to fish for a hobby, has trouble finding purpose in his current job, and has resorted to online dating (unsuccessfully so far) even though he insists it’s ‘casual’, but likely wants to have a new relationship via Match.com. Rust Cohle, has grown his hair and beard out, looks a bit older due to his smoking and drinking habit, owns a bar in rural Louisiana, is isolated but does seem to enjoy the quiet of living by himself and spending time watching the sunset each night while drinking a beer.
You can tell by the montage of this scene in the show that as the years gone by, they’ve lost connection not only to their purpose and to each other, but also to what made truly worth living. They may have other jobs and maybe some other things keeping them going, but they miss the work they did, the past relationships they squandered, and even each other begrudgingly.
While the montage showing them settling into middle age monotony may be unsettling, the short scene does give them a chance to reconnect again, get to know each other on a personal level outside of detective work, and work together to find a purpose again. In this case, there’s a murder mystery to solve and they cannot do it by themselves. Since they both are single, one divorced and the other non-committal to it, seemingly estranged from their current work and lacking purpose, they need each other ten years later more than they could ever know.
Life can get lonely without friends or family but especially if there’s no one around to help you find your purpose. I think that’s why this scene is so key within the show is that it shows Marty and Rust may feel like they’re alone, but they do have each other despite their past differences. Sometimes, you must go through some solitary times in life to find out what you really want to do or who you really want to spend your time with. Rust knows he is alone as the scene makes clear, but he has made peace with the loneliness even if he might wish for a girlfriend or a friend to drop by the bar after it closes. Marty had a marriage and a good relationship with his children but unfortunately, he was not able to balance it with his work life and his infidelity.
The scene’s montage shows the years have been a bit hard on Marty as he tries to rekindle what he once had but being unsuccessful at doing so. The montage shows you just how precious our situation can be with work, with love, and with family, and that you can’t go back and change the past. As much as you might wish to catch lightning in the bottle twice as is the case with Marty in terms of finding love or companionship, sometimes, those second chances never come around. The fact that they each have each other in their lives again, even with their storied pasts, is a good thing and shows that they still have an innate purpose regarding their work as detectives and that they are better off working together than being apart. In time, they will get back their skillset, work to solve the case, and even become friends again, which can help put their loneliness at bay.
While this scene of them living isolated lives may be looked on as depressing, I think it is a realistic look at how life can get as you get older. You may have to deal with periods of loneliness or getting swept up in a routine that grows stale. However, it’s important to remember for all of us watching is that life throws us curveballs sometimes and you never know who will appear in your life again or what kind of purpose and worth you can find in the most unlikely of places. For Marty, it was seeing Rust’s trust again on the road after ten years as they drove on the same road, and there was more to their story together, and they think they were both happy to find each other again and work towards getting their sense of purpose back together.
