Reality and Fears

Reality and Fears

In trying to appear superior and knowledgeable, we usually end up looking inferior and ignorant. We are not that inscrutable and unfathomable as we fancy ourselves to be. The world can see through us, easily. The more we try to bark, to yelp, to call attention to ourselves, to appear clever, the more we tell the world that we suffer from an acute inferiority complex. It is stupid and embarrassing to invoke Petronius when we know nothing about the Latin language, when we don’t even know how to use properly some common Latin words that have crept into the English language, when the world know that we cannot even know how to write a decent paragraph in English after living in the States for 34 years, studying in an English-speaking country for 6 years, and having 7 years of study of English as a foreign language in high school. Yet we try hard, hemming and hawing ourselves every fucking day in a forum in order to intrude into the consciousness of others. All we can do is to copy the news and views of others and post them in the forum. Occasionally we harp on the tiresome theme of loneliness. We even indulge in “composing” inane, unrhymed, insipid “verses” about it. In some rare moments do we bravely venture our “opinions” based on undigested facts and illogical reasoning. We then see those “opinions” quickly shot down, taken apart and demolished by a gatekeeper of truth and sound reasoning.

We are known to be petty-minded, stingy, envious, and full of venom. Everybody avoids us and treats us as if we were lepers. We are social outcasts, lonely to the core, and drifting in a sea of frustrations and unfulfilled aspirations. Then why don’t we kill ourselves, to put an end to this miserable existence? The answer may be that we are not human enough, not self-aware enough. We live our lives like animals, operating on unquenchable desire to survive at all costs. We know nothing about pride and dignity, let alone self-improvement and admission of ignorance and wrongdoing when others kindly point out those errors to us.

Freud, in spite of his dogmatic pronouncements, did contribute something to the understanding of the human psyche. He advanced a view about Death Wish as opposed to the Life Force. He opined that in humans, there was a desire to debase, to demean ourselves, usually unconsciously, in order to balance out the desire to live. You submit that his view has some merit as you see some humans do engage in self-destructive habits. We smoke, drink, have unprotected sex, gamble, overeat, and use a stupid nickname Monkey (and are proud of that!). We even use vulgar terms expressing human female sex organ and acts of copulation in public and in writing. We swear and curse in our mother tongue and post them in an Internet forum. We brazenly and routinely make an ass of ourselves and then we blithely go on with our lives as if nothing has transpired. Stranger still, with all those despicable acts of ours, we absurdly demand respect from others, especially from those who are born merely two years later than us, on the principle of age seniority! How ridiculous and stupid of us! We should know, especially now we are in our 60’s, that respect is earned, not demanded or begged.

Wissai
October 25, 2009
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