Reading and Writing

Reading and Writing

If you read long enough, day after day, as time rolls by and your life unfolds slowly and sometimes swiftly in front of your eyes, and if you are ambitious enough to read in languages other than your mother's tongue, you will find yourself meditating on words and the magic and mystique of stringing words together in order to get more in touch with yourself, to quiet the rising turbulence inside you, and to understand better assholes and scumbags--the human animals of the homo sapiens species, as to why they are so different from you, why they are so afraid of facts, truths, and logic, and then have no sense of self-respect as evidenced by their efforts to lie and make up stories to paint themselves in a good light while casting aspersions on others who have questioned their integrity, level of knowledge/ignorance, and intelligence. 

A new but dear friend of yours suggested that this world, let alone the universe, is a mystery and so are the humans in it. He is of an opinions that all humans are the same. What you have noted the differences between you and those for whom you currently harbor a contempt are merely differentials in development. You beg to differ. Your interest and reading in abnormal psychology and daily observations of human behavior tell you differently. While some humans did evolve and did learn to be better and ended up providing as well as tasting the milk of human kindness, there are those who take delight in being mean and power-hungry. You are of the camp that we humans have willpower and moral choices.  We choose to be good or bad, unless our brains are organically impaired to begin with. You have been around and exposed to pathological liars and shameless pontificators long enough to realize such scumbags are a sorry lot and deserving to be exterminated. And if they are, you would not shed a tear for them because it was their conscious choice to be who they are. Of course, you could choose to be magnanimous and charitable in your thinking towards them for they are deep down stupid, vain, and greedy.  However, you know you would not be much, if any , better than they are if you hold yourself superior to them. To hold yourself superior and to be contemptuous of them is to be ensnared and bogged down in stupidity and suffering. So you are writing instead and trying to adopt a supreme indifference to them while acknowledging that they did enrich your life for showing to you how evil and mean they are. Your knowledge about the existence of human scums has improved because of them. 

But you went off on a tangent. You didn't mean to give a discourse on the pathology of the human mind. What you meant to write about was your reactions to a  book you just finished reading. It was a debut thriller written by a young, good-looking former poker reporter, not about poker, but about a kidnapping business conducted by four unemployed college graduates. The book was surprisingly good, earning kudos from established thriller writers. You almost cried when you got to the end because you cared about the characters. Three of them died because the group had "moral" principles and they were not professional enough. You almost cried because you fancied that you are very much like the group leader: intelligent but too sentimental. It  was his sentimentality that got him killed. You wonder whether in these twilight years of your life you are trying to get rid of the sentimentality that has plagued your life and brought you pain and suffering.

Wissai
July 3, 2013