A monologue on a dialogue

A monologue on a dialogue 

The piece was not about you. It was about the fucking bitch VAW. You are JAW. She is VAW. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. 

I wanted to dance on the edge of the precipice and to skate on thin ice and to walk barefoot on burning coals. But that would be very stupid. So I wrote instead. You were "bad", but not that "bad", not anymore. You have begun to face realities, instead of sleeping with excuses. Always remember, if anybody who shows signs of disrespect/annoyance  to you, very likely the fault lies with you, not with that person. There must be something you did that triggered that kind of stupid, self-destructive behavior from that person. She disrespected me because I left her cold and decisively. I had to. I  ran away from her. I saw her for who she was. Because of my spilling my guts to her in the past and telling her who I was and what my shortcomings were, she is now using the info to taunt me, trying to make me mad instead of asking me one simple question "Why did you break off with me so decisively?" She was afraid if she asked the question, I would tell her the reasons. She didn't want to hear unpleasant facts about her. She preferred to think she was a "lady" (sic! ). A smart woman would do one of two things:

1. Come to me and confront me. Ask me directly why I walked away. She didn't because she didn't really love me. She never did. She was using me for her ego. She was self-centered and self-righteous. She was like that with everybody. Everybody was at fault, not her. In hindsight, it was very clear to me.

2. Observe silence. 

Pride is one thing; false pride is another entirely different. All my mistakes and sufferings in life came from false pride. I still have it, but it's getting smaller as my wisdom gets bigger. All it takes is courage and intelligence to face and analyze realities. It takes courage to face realities, but it takes intelligence to analyze them. I have both. You used to have none. Now you are showing signs that you have them. 

Not everything I write is about you. Stop fantasizing. The sun never revolves around you. My words are like the sun. If they shed light on some matters for you, good; if not, ignore them. But never ask me a stupid question again, like you and the other woman did, such as what exactly my "accomplishments" were and then commented that I was not any better than you. The question said a whole lot about you and her. I had reasons to feel superior not only to you two, but also to many, many other scumbags and motherfuckers out there who asked me stupid questions. Common sayings are not always right. Some questions are very stupid because they come from very stupid people. If I could, I would not hesitate to do something drastic. 

Still, you argued with me some more. You stated that it was all about working on the "potential", and that I was just further along on the "potential" than you. Annoyed and exasperated beyond relief over your stupidity, I wrote the following:

It's not so much potential as true nature. No matter how I use up my "potential" I know I cannot be an Einstein or a Wittgenstein or a Shakespeare.  I am not in their league. I may learn from them, use them as inspiration, but there's no chance in hell I will be like them, even if I live for a thousand years. Their brains are wired differently from mine. They are geniuses. I am not.

When we interact with a person, essentially we have an attitude/assessment: "if I really work hard, I will surpass him or I must admit that there's no way I will surpass him and all I can do is to use him as an inspiration to work harder."

Potential is shit if we don't know what it is. If I work very hard, I may produce some memorable poems and maybe some stories, but that's all I can do. I will never write a good novel like Dostoevsky or paint like Picasso or sing like Marvin Gaye does because I don't have it within me. 

One must be honest with oneself. Have you ever wondered if you can write in English, a language native to you, but foreign to me, as creatively, as critically, and as beautifully as I do, even if you live for a thousand years? VAW intimated that she came to the U.S. later than I did; that was why her English was not as good as mine. That was a sorry piece of excuse. My English was already far better than hers when we were both in Vietnam. What is your excuse? Give me the facts, ma'am, nothing but the facts. 

It is a fact I have not met or known anybody who could translate from Vietnamese poems into English as well as I do. I am sure there are several, but unlikely more than 5 or 6 on this entire planet, out of the population of 90 millions. If there is anybody out there, please speak up. I am waiting. 

I know myself. I am an artist with words. I am vain and arrogant, and very ugly for being so. But that's who I am. I don't pretend to be otherwise. I understand Wittgenstein's sense of superiority when he had to explain to others what he thought about logic and philosophy and language. He was rude and he was angry and he was intense, but he was intellectually honest; he was not a fraud. Neither am I. I am intellectually very honest. I know my place in this world. I am not that bright or sensitive, but compared to most earthlings I am better. I am better than you and superior to you and VAW in terms of intellect and artistic sensibilities and verbal fluency. Those are the facts. Do you understand them? Or do I have to repeat myself one more time? Oh my goodness, why do I have to waste time with the likes of you and VAW when I have books to read, languages to learn, things to write, and money to be made? I am wasting my precious time!

Wissai