A Lonely, Angry American

A Lonely, Angry American 

I am lonely and angry. I harbor homicidal thoughts. I used to have thoughts of killing myself, but not anymore, not since 1972. But that does not mean I am free of self-destructive behavior. And I've read books on philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and literature in order to understand my affliction. 

When I say I am lonely, that does not mean I am not popular with ladies. Far from it. I've been married eight times and romantically involved with twenty (or was it married three times and romantically entangled with twenty-five  ? Memory is failing me. I'm suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's. I took to writing to keep the demon at bay, as long as I could) women other than my wives, but I still feel lonely, maybe because I think out of those twenty-eight women who went through my life, only one and possible two others who really loved me, and they were all dead or are in the coma or suffering from dementia as I do. So you see, I am not a lucky guy, deep down. Not really. 

One woman who professes to have loved me for a long time gets on my nerves occasionally. She used to live a life of denial and inauthenticity. She is on a mend, but I think she's not right for me. Plus, the hurts she has caused me are too big and too much for me not to remember them. She questioned the values I placed on myself. She intimated that I was a fraud. She wanted to inflict pain, even though she is living in goddamned Russia, twenty thousand miles away from me. She is a Jew. Not all Jews are smart. Some Jews have delusions of grandeur about the beauty of their thoughts. Look at Karl Marx. 

All other women taught me that I was a fool. The lessons were so plentiful and painful that nowadays I have forgotten how to open my heart. One white woman in the Northwest professed to believe in God and to be a Christian. But she lied to her husband and to me. She was a supreme liar and manipulator. She was no Christian. I was dead sure about that. Yet she made me feel good at one time. Now I wonder how I could be that stupid. I am sure if there's Hell, she will go straight to it, first class. 

An Asian young thing of 28 is trying to seduce me in order to get at whatever money I still have left, after the debacle of stock trading addiction. She keeps inviting me for dinner at her house, and I keep smiling and saying nothing. She is pretty and a blatant, brazen gold-digger. She thinks I am stupid and senile. She keeps a constant refrain of how smart, handsome, and sexy I look, in spite of my being at the age immortalized in a Beatles song. I despise gold-diggers. I would rather fuck a leper than her.  She thinks her flattery will weaken my will-power and strengthen my dick, but she is wrong. 

Women are not the only ones who make me feel lonely. Certain male assholes do, too. They also make me mad enough to contemplate putting a bullet through their heads. I have been able to resist the impulse, but I don't know how long I will hold out. To keep that unwholesome thought under control, I am resorting to telling stories, mostly to myself in a language that I didn't grow up hearing. That way I would not feel really embarrassed if the stories were half-assed sensible. These stories came to me even before I had the words to articulate them, in any language; they came to me when I was in my mother's womb. That was why sixty-four years ago, when I emerged into the world in the fading sunlight of that Sunday late afternoon in the Mekong Delta, in a thatched hut by a canal full of floating vegetation and water palm trees and sampans laden with fruits, I was crying at the top of my lungs. My mother didn't know I was trying to tell my stories. I was born to make noise, to talk, to annoy, to make my presence felt, to write poetry, and to tell stories. Stories are all I have to remind me of my raison d'être, to assert myself. I tell stories without giving a fuck if there's an audience. What matter to me are the stories themselves. The stories are the thing itself,  the sui generis.

I have meditated on the issue of violence. I thought of my early exposure to it, my being victimized by it, and my reactions to it. I know one of these days I will be destroyed by it. Violence must not be gratuitous. Only cowards and sick people perform gratuitous violence in order to regain a semblance of self-respect. Brave and wise folks resort to violence as a last option. And they do so dispassionately, without rancor or joy. They recognize life at its core is violent and Death is a constant at every level of existence. I watched the movie "A History of Violence" the other evening and I understood. Life is all about predation. But the issues of violence and aggression are more than just involving predation. With social animals, they are also about domination and power. That's where I have problems with, even though I understand the dynamics. That's why I want to exterminate cowards who crave power and try to obtain it by surreptitious means. These cowards will never openly stand up and oppose tyranny. Instead, they kiss the asses of the power-holders while trying to assert whatever their fucking power they think they have over their family members and their peers. They make me want to throw up when I see them opine that they are not hungry for power. They are cowardly hypocrites. They love titles. They love empty fame. They get their rocks off on illusions of grandeur. So behind the scenes, they scheme and plot and kiss the asses and lick the dicks of power holders. Yes, I hate them and will destroy them when and if the opportunities present themselves. Who the fuck these assholes and scumbags think they are? I also want to destroy the other assholes who chimed in and praised these motherfucking cowards while shooting me down with their opportunistic, cheap comments. What the fuck did these assholes think they achieve by making me mad? Age has no statute limitations on stupidity. Speak only when you really have to. Silence is really golden. Except for trying to articulate something profound that has been percolating in your brain for years, normally you don't really think when you speak. Most humans just create noise pollution when they speak. I should know. I am speaking from experience. My garrulity has caused me harm. It has lowered respect in people's minds for me. They think I am shallow and childish and mentally ill. Maybe I should not be writing these words. But fuck, I don't know. I'm suffering from Alzheimer's or as the Ignoramus called it, Asperger's. What was their excuse? Was it arrogance or stupidity or just plain meanness? 

I read recently in Newsweek online that globally deaths by suicide exceed the combined casualties of war, murder, and natural disasters. Suicide is the twin brother of homicide. They are the two sides of the same coin of violence. That is what I have known all along. I didn't know the impulse to hurt oneself was stronger than the desire to hurt others in recent years. It just didn't make sense to me. What went wrong? Is life on this planet getting harder and lonelier and one way to deal with it is self-destruction? 

The funny thing is that after I finished the Newsweek cover story, I felt much stronger because I now know more than ever the dynamics of suicide. It is extremely unlikely I will destroy myself. Neither will I fall to pieces if those who are dear to me decided to do themselves harm. I am not going to suffer over the stupidity of others. Grief over suicide is stupid. The proper reaction is indifference. Memory should be for the positive. The reason why suicide fascinated me was that at one time at the stupid age of 23, I foolishly and gamely saved the life of somebody who was bent on harming herself. I did save her life, but she almost destroyed mine. How ironic and that was the second time I learned about human selfishness and cruelty (the first time was when I was 22). Thenceforth I realized that the life I save should be my own. But I have a foolish heart. I keep reaching out for lonely, misunderstood souls. Occasionally, my efforts are appreciated. Those rare moments are beautiful. And I feel connected with something basically human and yet "divine" and sublime in me. 

I just finished watching again an ultra violent but moral movie, "Pulp Fiction". It's also very funny and original. The screenplay is just sparkling with fresh, profane, intelligent dialogue. It is a classic and considered as one of the best 100 American movies of all times. The movie resonates deeply with me. It gives me peace and pleasure at the same time. I smiled  throughout the movie, except for those moments when the movie hits on its religious theme. The ending is just superb, full of religious redemption. Actually the whole movie is about redemption. In the movie, Those who believe in redemption are given a second chance, and thus potentially saved. Those who are cynical or evil meet their rightful fate. Deep down I am a very religious man, fully aware of right and wrong, and the path of righteousness. Whenever I encounter acts of true religiosity or genuine humanity, I am touched and transformed for the better. Meanwhile I must work on my anger and silence, one day at a time. 

(To be continued)