On Obama's Election

"We reward people a lot for being rich, for being famous, for being cute, for being thin ... one of the values I think we need to instill in our country, in our children, is a sense of 'usefulness', in other words, are we useful, are we making other peoples' lives a little bit better?' - Barack Obama

Mr Barack Obama's election as the next President of America, is indeed historic, and has grabbed attention and attracted euphoria all over the world. Youths especially have been invigorated, stimulated and excited by his vision of change, his background and his charisma. Many news reports have written on how the US and the world indeed could become, under the Obama presidency. I will not go into all that, and will keep this post short.

To me, Barack Obama is not about being an antithesis to George Bush, he is not about pulling out of Iraq, he is not about getting America out of the current financial crisis, he is not about being the first black American President. These are things the American electorate (if not the world) want to hear, and therefore, are the things he has said to gain their vote and support. To me, Barack Obama is much more. He is about intuition, a man in tune to his own thoughts and feelings, a human beings who inclines towards the tangible and woolly, often-much shunned concept of 'social fairness'. When studying in Indonesia as a young boy, he told his teacher he wanted to be President. His reason? 'So that he can make everyone happy.' This was his intuition speaking, something he would never be able to use hard facts and figures to prove how, something that is not 'rational' as the term is currently understood. But critically, this was his heart. Before anyone jumps to conclusions and misunderstands, make no mistake, this guy has a great brain. The key though, is that his brain is guided by his even greater heart.

The next four years will likely be tumultuous, I can only hope that at the end of Mr Obama's term, the very same people who are hula-balooing now about how great he is, will not judge him by the so-called facts and figures, and praise or criticize him on that. If so, I do not think they understand the greatness of this man. I hope Mr Obama shows to our world, that if you have your heart in the right place, you will never go wrong following your intuition. I respect him for that, and admire him, for his ability to gain the votes in today's calculative world in spite of his fundamental intuitiveness. That speaks volumes, for his brains.