Everybody knows living is not easy for all kinds of sentient beings. Everyday there's a danger of being eaten or destroyed by superior or more numerous foes. To enhance the survival probability, organisms have evolved and adapted and developed defense mechanisms. For humans, the mechanisms involve deception, outright lies, exploitation of the gullible, the trusting, and the feeble-minded. Some insecure, fucked-up, inferiority complex-ridden assholes and motherfuckers even resort to badmouthing and slandering those humans who are more gifted than them. I personally know three assholes and motherfuckers who behave exactly like that. Two hailed from North Vietnam. One came from Hue, the former capital of Vietnam when it was a kingdom in name under the stupid and ineffectual Nguyễn Dynasty. These assholes and motherfuckers managed to graduate from college and hold jobs. They obviously regard themselves as smart. I concede that they are smart all right, but animal-smart, not human-smart. I mean, they lie, cheat, slander, and are envious of the achievements of others. They have not accomplished what sub-humans cannot do. They can't write, can't paint, can't sculpture, can't produce anything that distinguishes them from others or ensure their names would live on in posterity. They don't read, therefore their knowledge is abysmal. In addition, they don't reason worth a damn. They all assert without any substantiation.
One thing I hate and despise most about them is that they meaninglessly love to brag about themselves. One of them brags about being a fighter for human rights but the motherfucker is a coward. He dares not set foot in Vietnam. He dares not make himself known as a fierce anti-VC fighter. He labors in obscurity because he is a chicken shit "human rights fighter" ( sic!).
One bragged that he is a womanizer and has the most girlfriends in the 200-plus-members organization. When asked to produce evidence, he sheepishly backed off.
The one from Hue is a sly back stabber and a hidden "envier". He pretends to be a soft-spoken, sharply-dressed gentleman, but everybody knows he is a cheap bastard. The wedding present he brought to my wedding was a joke!
Don't take me wrong. I am not against bragging and braggarts. I understand the need to brag. If you are not your own best fan, who is? Bragging is good for lonely, insecure, self-doubting souls. It boosts up much needed confidence. It props up sagging self-confidence. But bragging must be about real, true, concrete accomplishments, not about airy, masturbatory, dreamed-up achievements.
Take Nietzsche, if you want an example of real bragging. The only not quite correct bragging he did was about his military service in the Prussian Army. He did serve, but not as gloriously as he insulated. The rest of his bragging were borne out by evidence. He predicted that he would be famous and an event in the history of human thought and he was right. He asserted that only he and Heine were the best stylists in the German language and he was right. He inspired me to take up German because I said to myself that if he was so good in English translation, he must be awesome in the original. Nietzsche has influenced generations of thinkers and writers. He had penetrating insights about humans. He had original thoughts about morality and the sick, unhealthy doctrines embraced by Christianity. He was also a poet, a philologist, and a musician. Not knowing Nietzsche is a sin! To read him is to be transformed.
Okay, I am fond of bragging myself. Why not? I never respect social conventions. They are for morons and cowards. So what have I bragged about? Let me count the ways:
1. To start off, I look really good and sexy at the age of 65. I am likely to stay so for the next 10 years.
2. Women have flocked to me like bees to honey because I possess a magnetic, dynamic personality besides my looks. I can be funny and witty. I crack jokes. I have the best one-liners in this part of the hemisphere. I am endowed with a "feminine" personality, so I understand women. I know what they want to hear. If not for my thriftiness, I would have a hard time to keep women from knocking on my door. The line would be ten miles long!
3. I read widely. I can think, reason cogently, and boy, can I write! I am the best translator of Vietnamese poetry, hands down. When I am turned on, I can write beautiful, lyrical poems in English. I know I have about six poems that will live on after I die, one of which is Laura, a poem originally written in French by me and marvelously translated into English by yours truly. It was about the bitch Laura whom I foolishly loved and pined for over 30 years until one Sunday morning when I suddenly realized, got a satori, an aha moment, that she didn't deserve my love and that emotionally I am constitutionally better than she is.
4. I know several languages. From my studying them, I have come up with some theories about the functions of the human brain, the nature of language, and the process of language acquisition.
5. Like Nietzsche, I am no mere man. I am dynamite. I am a phenomenon.
Have I turned you off yet? Anyway, another Happy Holidays greetings from me. The sun came out to play today. Sunlight was dancing on my way to work this morning.
Thus Spake Wissai
December 20, 2014
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