Life and Death Ad Nauseam

What can I say when I encounter lies, miserliness, self-righteousness, cowardice, and all the wonderful qualities that afflict most members of the human species? I have tried silence, sarcasm, and susurrous sermons; I have attempted thunderous denunciations; I have essayed sweet whisperings. Finally, I gave up and came back to my shell and now am attempting to bring a stone axe down on the frozen sea within me.

So, what the fuck I can say to myself, to my own private, isolated, shut-down, sheltered, completely alone self that the bitch who I thought loved me turned out just to be another nagging, motor mouth old hag with a baditude? That I was stupid and gullible and dumb and naive at the ripe old age of 62? That I have begun to beat an emotional retreat (the physical retreat will come later. I don't know when. I'm in no fucking hurry) and shut her off from the inner sanctum of my soul? Yes, I am doing all those and more. Life is full of surprises and there are no angels. Only bitches. Take my word. If you don't, you'll be in a fucking world full of hurt. Do I sound bitter and disappointed? You can bet your sweet ass that I do. Anyway, I have nobody but myself to blame for my predicament. That's what I got for ot playing the game of life right. I am getting wiser, I'm telling you, starting today. Now I know why people keep telling me that I am stupid and naive.

The weather of today has been quite gorgeous. The sky is blue; the ambient temperature hovers in the middle 50's with soft breezes blowing from the south. But I feel like I'm living in a twilight zone with a perpetual permafrost inside my heart. I feel gray and cold and cynical. I don't take any bitch's word at face value anymore. Apparently I am not the one who feels like that. This afternoon some chica intoned that she had been advised by her psychotherapist-cum-hair dresser that I was full of bs. When I expressed surprise and indignation at that faux, foolish, farty accusation, my interlocutor danced away from the outrageous characterization and clarified that the stupid and homemade and homely psychologist humbug said that the bs epithet was reserved for the whole class of Vietnamese men, and not my own puny little self. I rhetorically queried that how many Vietnamese men the stupid haircutter actually "knew". I really hate bitches who make broad, unsubstantiated categorizations and generalizations. Oops, a discerning reader probably would take me to a woodshed and spank the daylight out of me because I myself was guilty of a broad, unsavory allegation when I said earlier that life was full of surprises, at least to me, and that there were no angels, only bitches. Maybe the statistical sample (26 so far) of women that I encountered was not credible enough, but it was big enough a sample for me. And I am in no mood to "sample" any more women. You wouldn't either if you were in my shoes. Am I sounding misogynistic? Not really. Just wary and weary. A simple case of lassitude. Since I no longer adore myself nor women, nowadays I just adorn my house with books and my face with a perpetual sneer and an occasional snicker, especially when I see assholes pontificate and bitches wax poetic about how "nice" and "honest" and "high class" they are.

Predictably enough, some bitch who had nothing better to do in a Saturday evening surfed the Internet and somehow wandered into this blog of mine and had a hissy fit after reading this particular entry. The hussy a.k.a. the harridan registered ire and outrage at the tone of the language. By the way, she apparently couldn't tell advertising apart from pornography. Advertising gives beautiful names to ugly things while pornography lends ugly names to beautiful things. What I have written so far in this meandering narrative is a combination of advertising and poetry via psychotherapy. On the other hand, the narrative could be nothing but a combination of complacency, arrogance, ignorance, and petulance. I recently came to a realization that the world is a truly savage place and life in its essence is an unending contest for supremacy. While I still do try to find pabulum in higher aspirations, I now tell myself that in order to survive unscathed, I must deal with the savages in their own terms. In other words, I have to interact with them with a ferocious savagery when the circumstances call for such a conduct.

Yes, you are right if you think I am trying to infuse this blog of mine with an adrenaline-fueled, scorching, rip-roaring, unforgettable prose full of braggadocio and plain bullshit. Any reader who looks for soul-lifting verities had better look somewhere else. But if he is interested in some el cheapo verbal entertainment, he is at the right place. In fact, I would even say he has found a home. He would find out that, as I did, that when you're alone for a long time you have no choice but to confront yourself. You gain a self-knowledge if you don't break down first and go loco. Nietzsche was right. If you don't collapse and crumble, you will stand tall and strong. What didn't destroy you, will make you stronger. Your whole fucking being is like a muscle. It responds to stimuli and stress. If it can survive the challenge, it will be stronger. A simple case of experience and practice. Sounds sufficiently suffused with sagacity, right? Wrong! I just heard over the cassette some love songs of yore. And I just crumbled inside; my eyes moistened with long suppressed tears. Tears of sorrow, of a love gone horribly wrong. But what could I do now except soldiering on?

What makes me persist in asserting myself, in reminding myself that I am indelibly, undeniably Vietnamese despite all the pressures to conform to the mainstream and to forget where I was born? The language, the food, the music, I suppose. Of the three, the music is the most powerful . Certain songs trigger a tsunami of memories. They unmoor my mind. I see it drifting across space and time and I am back in Vietnam once more, the Vietnam of my youth. My body experiences a feeling, a sensation of memories of innocence and naïveté.

Somebody once told me about borders. Borders are more than just physical, he intoned. "They are often a state of mind. There are mental borders and there are moral borders. If you cross the first kind you can perhaps make the round trip. But if you cross the second, you are very unlikely to come back. Your return ticket is cancelled. You are a changed person. You are on your own. Very lonely. And very eager to justify yourself besides adopting a cynical, know-it-all persona."

I know all about borders, and not just physical kind. I crossed them, back and forth, at will. To be honest, I don't where I belong. I am a modern-day Hamlet with regard to morality. I only know I need to be more brutal and less indecisive. At any rate, one time long ago, circa 2001 right before the attack on the World Trade Center, my six-feet-two girlfriend asked me to tell her about Vietnam. Dreamily I told her "about golden beaches edged in emerald necklaces of jungle. About water so green and blue that only a stoned God could have dreamed up the colors. Told her about crazy, motley birds doing Charlie Parker riffs at the incitement of sunrise, about small-framed brownish-yellowish men and women with smiles as white and pure as winter and hearts to match. About sunsets of gentle fire, warm but not burning, satin black nights lit only by star shine."




(to be continued)