Year-End Meditations

I once told my High Priestess that it took more than at least three million U.S. dollars for me to find her. And she was worth it. She had a very biased (and high) opinion of herself. She didn't think she was fallible. I learned not to argue with her. Some blind people never learned to realize that they were blind. As the year of 2011 is drawing to a close, I have the following meditations:

1. Most humans are fucking no good. Education does not really make a damn difference to their character. All it does to accentuate their foibles and shortcomings, especially they have no grounding in philosophy and respect for truth and integrity like the Asshole and the Monkey I mentioned in various posts of mine.

2. The worst traits humans have are three: greed, anger, and mania. They all have to do with lack of moderation. Of those three, I have two. That's probably why greedy people turn me off. Yet these same people often righteously condemn me for being "cheap". I'm telling you, most humans are no fucking good. They are ready to condemn others and usually are easy on themselves. I look at their simian faces and I feel like putting them out of their misery.

3. With special homage to Chip Mosher, I have the following largely plagiarized words:

A few more short days, I'll turn sixty-three.
For more than thirty six years, I've been free,
Free of hunger and suppression.
But more than four million Vietnamese
Had to die so I could live with feelings of liberation.
A few weeks ago, they announced the war was over in Iraq
When the news reached me, my heart cracked
What a war! And for what?
Just like the wars in Korea and Vietnam,
All were for nothing.
I wonder what this once great country is coming to.
Useless ventures in order to serve the vultures.
The walking wounded and the living dead.
Souls maimed, humans turned animals.
Residual costs were in several trillion dollars lost,
All in the name of freedom and liberty,
But actually for the sake of making money
For the privileged few.
This adopted country of mine, sweet land of liberty,
Is now like Germany, after WW II, a nation of war criminals.
I have read the news today.
Oh boy, the war is over.
But how come no joy, no parties,
No dancing in the streets,
No parades of celebration,
No church bells clanging, banging ,
No people hugging one another.
Daily I look at the faces in the streets
And I realize I'm not in Garden of Eden,
But a cesspool of humanity,
Where Cain is chasing Abel,
Singing, I'm not my brother's keeper;
Don't you know I'm his killer
For he has what I want
And I envy who he is

4. Doesn't the fact I can't write anything these days without a shrill, strident tone suggests that I could not really shake free of the past? A friend of mine told me I had to get the past go if I wanted to be free. He was right, of course. But somehow I keep clinging to the past, my long lost country with all the noise, the dust, the music, the aroma of food wafting in the air, and the faces of young women I used to know. I don't think I suffer from a pathologization of sentiments. I think I just hang dear to the memories so I would know who I am.

5. I like the wilderness. I grew up in the tropics where the flora was abundant and verdant even during the dry season, where water and swamps and irrigation canals and ditches were everywhere, where there were bugs and birds flying around of all hours. Now I am discovering I like dry, arid lands. The few weeks ago, I camped in a national park near Las Vegas. I went for a walk on the first night. The night air was thick with an undefined odor of wilderness. The wind came down from the mountains and I felt its coolness. I saw the leaves on the some willow-like trees ripple in the wind. I smelled the pine and the scent of flowers. I looked up at the sky and thousands of twinkling stars and the full solitary shining moon. And I felt a kinship with the land, the air, and the sky. But moments like those are rare. These days I am laboring to put away my nagging desire to strike, to draw blood. With great efforts, I am writing. I write so the demon can be kept at bay.

6. As I said, I am not really a greedy man. I just want to make enough money to pay for food and shelter so I don't have to beg in order to survive. I never want to steal and cheat and lie and take away things, including money, in order to prove that I am smarter than my victims. I look at myself in the mirror have no reason to feel shame. Greed brings sufferings. I have seen that over and over again.



(to be continued)