Leslie picked me up at the pier terminal right on schedule. I was one of the first passengers that got off the ship. Leslie was punctual, as usual. As soon as I got into her black Lexus, she got right down to business after a few perfunctory questions about my yearly Caribbean cruise.
-"Met anybody interesting?"
-"No, but not for lack of trying!"
-"You, lecher you. My dear, you're getting less handsome and bigger around the waist. You're not the same Roberto I met three years ago when I first interviewed you. I hope you're noticing that."
-"I'm. Shit, I ate too much rich food on the ship. I'll go on a diet and do more running. I promise.
-"You'd better. I read the latest story you posted on the Net, the one called "Love and Survival". Any truth in that? I don't like the ending. Did Carmen get on the plane for Cartagena?"
-"If you have to ask, you missed the point of the story. All the clues for the ending were established throughout the story. I thought you majored in Literature, besides Journalism, in college. As I was writing the story, two lines of advice reigned supreme in the forefront of my consciousness: 'There must be an unconscious of a story. It must have something underneath.'"
-"So, enlighten me!"
-I won't. But I'm going to talk around it. You see, story-telling, or writing poetry, doing the so-called literature, is not easy. You must have a gift for it. I don't know if I have the gift. It doesn't matter if I do or not. What matters to me is I'm drawn to stories and poems, and sometimes I feel compelled to express myself in them. That's all. Some stupid, idiotic assholes who cannot write a coherent, single sentence in their mother tongue Vietnamese, and yet shamelessly mock my efforts and keep talking about how come I haven't won any literary prizes for my literary efforts. They are too stupid to realize that they're venting, airing in public their envy and their sense of inadequacy and inferiority. Ditto for the assholes like Paul Van and TamiKaKa who don't know shit about Spanish and English, respectively, but brazenly put in writing on the Net that they do. They've brought upon themselves humiliation and shame, but since they are basically sub-humans, they don't know what humiliation and shame are all about. What they have in abundance, however, are stupid lies and false pride.
Of all the assholes I've encountered in my life, none has nauseated me as much as TamiKaKa. This little doggie is revolting, repugnant, repulsive beyond imagination. It hides its leprous, pathetic nature behind polite but biting words. It even ventured a hideously ignorant opinion that smart students would enroll in technical fields, whereas only flunkies would opt for liberal arts in Vietnam because there are no entrance exam requirements in the latter fields.
The little doggie has failed to see that in the final analysis, education is not all about training students to become technicians who could easily get jobs. Education is about training students how to think in a rigorous, logical manner. In essence most technicians like doctors, engineers, and the like, are glorified workers. They keep the machinery of society running, but they don't contribute, enrich the human thoughts, or revolutionize human thinking unless they're exceptional scientists and deep thinkers like those in the liberal arts. In the long run, the philosophers, historians, poets, writers, musicians, and politicians define, shape, and direct the human experiences and ultimately destinies.
Take the case of Jesus of Nazareth. Here was a guy who was no doubt a rebel, a failed politician, a slightly (some would even say very much so) demented revolutionary, uneducated, but by the sheer force of his personality and character, made a very big impact on people around him. If you ignore/put aside/ dismiss all the nonsensical alleged pronouncements of his about God, Son of God, Salvation, Kingdom to come, and the so-called miracles he allegedly performed that only the benighted and the brainwashed would believe in, and concentrate on his message of Love for the poor and the outcasts, you would see that this very message really moved people and has kept Christianity alive and relevant to this day
Ditto for Buddha, Muhammad, and Socrates. None of them was a person with technical knowledge, but they were all thinkers par excellence. Only an idiotic little cur like TamiKaKa would glorify folks with technical knowledge. The little doggie has failed to realize that a great majority of technicians die like dogs, leaving no lasting memory with posterity whereas poets, writers, musicians, warriors, philosophers, and thinkers would be remembered fondly if they are very good. And to be human is to try to leave a positive legacy and to be remembered. All humans want to express themselves, some dramatically, others slyly, but we all want to be heard, known, and remembered. The difference among us lies in the quality of the message that each of us wants to deliver. To me, there's no doubt that the message of TamiKaKa is full of "sound and fury, signifying nothing", reflecting the mind of an bumbling, ignorant idiot.
Back to story-writing, if you think it's easy to write a story, any story, just try to do it yourself and you will see how difficult it is. First, you must have something to say, a point to make. Then you construct your narrative around this point, to get your point, your message across. Meanwhile you have to be concerned that you wouldn't lose your reader in the process. You must tell your story in such a way to maintain the reader's interest. Finally, the conclusion/point of the story must be feasible enough so that the reader doesn't feel cheated. In other words, the ending shouldn't be contrived. A mark of a good story is that the reader is shaken/delighted/ with the unforeseen/ambiguous, but feasible ending. It forces him to think again of the journey he has just vicariously taken. So he goes back rereading the story, this time more leisurely to savor the words and the narrative that he didn't fully get at the first reading. And if the story is really, really good, a few days or weeks/months later, he revisits the story like visiting an old dear friend. He knows what his old friend would say and act, but he still finds the visit pleasurable and uplifting. Of course, there's a question of taste involved. Not all stories are of the same genre, just like not all humans are of the same, unvaried personality. Generally, we only like and appreciate what we can identify and understand. I cannot stand stories about horror or science fiction. I don't read them and I don't write them.
-"OK, garrulous, long-winded old man. I heard you. Gee, can't you be brief and concise? So, what's your next story about? "
-"I don't know. A story comes to me on its own. I don't go look for it. I'll be travel again, in June around the British Isles and Ireland. In November in Dubai and India. Maybe something will happen during these times, triggering in me a desire to tell a story."
-"Will you travel solo again or in the company of some woman I don't know about?"
-"You're asking too many questions. I'm not popular with women as I've pretended to be. You're the only female friend that I have."
-"You liar! What's about Salomé, the stupid Cuban bitch you told me about, who called you while you were making love to me?"
-"She's history. Sad, tragic history. I'm in mourning. I'm waiting for the right time to break the news to you. She was on the Egyptian Air flight that went down in the Mediterranean last Thursday. Her daughter called me last night"
-"Oh, my God. No kidding? I'm so sorry, Roberto. I really am. Oh, my God. No wonder you look like shit."
May 20, 2016
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