This morning I woke up with a start. A flood of thoughts was washing over me. So I reached for my iPad and let my fingers be the guide. I touched on many of the following thoughts before. I tend to dwell on the same things over and over again. I'm going to elaborate and amplify on them. A man's core beliefs cannot be too many. My fingers are flying all over the keyboard.
To function effectively in life, a man must fully know and accept who he is. Self-alienation is a terrible condition to be in. A real man must have a modicum of self-respect and pride. He must not live with lies and myths either foisted upon him by religious and political "leaders" or invented by himself. He must conduct and surround himself with facts, truths, beauty, justice, and logic. Failing to do any of the aforementioned "things" (a better word should be used, but it escaped me at the moment) in the preceding four sentences makes a human incomplete, half-baked, unfulfilled, persistently unhappy, perpetually dissatisfied. Ignorance is not Bliss. Neither is Failure. I firmly believe, have a unshakeable conviction that I am closer to Reality than most people, hence the arrogance and the stupid, perpetual grin on my face. I am not perfect and I will never be. I may lack humility, but delusion and dishonesty are not part of my make-up, as I see in most humans.
1. God
I am of barely above intelligence, but of exceptional metaphysical acumen. I don't believe in a Personal God "Who" created the "world", listens to human entreaties, rewards the believing do-gooders and punishes the unbelievers and believing transgressors. "God" didn't make Man in his own image. It was Man who invented God in his own image. Man is a being often resorting to self-projecting when facing the unknown and the mysterious. Man had to invent God to deal with his sense of aloneness and impotence regarding certain issues like death and meaning of existence.
2. God and Infantilism
It takes courage, intelligence, and a strong sense of self to not believe in God. Atheists have always been a minority throughout human history, even during the brief heyday of Communism. There's something of a child in most humans when it comes to metaphysics and love.
3. Love
Man is a social animal. His need for love is as perennial as grass in the tropics, even during the dry season. I have been married several times. I also have had many lady friends of a staggering variety. And I can tell you one thing: I have been both blessed and cursed when it comes to love. Only three women have really loved me. One is dead. One is currently married and living somewhere in Chicago. One has driven me to the brink of despair and loneliness. Love is not overrated but it is rare. Selfish and cheap humans know nothing about love. They think they do, but they do not. It took me over thirty years to understand a simple truth: nobody loves the unlovable; nobody walks away from things and beings of value. So, if nobody loves you, the fault lies with you. Entirely. By the way, I am not lovable at first, but the more you know me, the more you can't help but love me. All ladies who were patient with me knew that. I have what you would call a hidden charm. I am a diamond in the rough. I possess a magnetic personality. I cannot be ignored. I stand out like a sore thumb or a conflagration in the dead of the night.
4. Languages and poetry and German
I was born to talk, to make noise even though I was born a stutterer and mispronouncer of sounds. I acquired languages quite easily although I speak them with a heavy accent. Words, mispronounced or not, roll off my tongue quite effortlessly.
I am not a poet although I enjoy poetry and occasionally try my hand at writing verse. However, I fancy that I have yet met anybody who could translate Vietnamese poems, even the famous ones, into English as well as I do. During those moments, a certain feeling of intoxicating pride and joy takes over my being and I am in touch with the marvels of my brain, at least as long as linguistic abilities are concerned.
I am learning German in earnest. It is a strange language, concrete in word formation and illogical in word order. The more I know it, the more fun and peace I have. Some people asked me what drove me to learn German. My answer was that I wanted to stretch to the limit my linguistic abilities. For me it is fun to see my brain struggle in the twilight of my life to understand a new system of sounds and meanings.
5. Death and Meaning of Existence and the name of Wissai
Death is the end of the individual entity, but not of life in general. Death is part of life, but there is no reincarnation of the individual which dies. Existence has no meaning by itself. It just is. It is Man who insists on the meaning. So he creates meanings the best way he knows how. Most humans love a hedonistic existence and power over other humans. A few "enlightened" ones like me just concentrate on the pursuit of beauty, justice, and knowledge. Knowledge makes me free, free of the superstitions and the bullshit peddled by sham priests and monks who prey on stupid and weak-minded and ignorant folks. Salvation must come from within. You must work it out yourself. You do not acquire it from the outside. You may get an impetus from the outside, but you must work at it by yourself inside. I should know. I have been at it all my adult life. What else do you think I am writing these words for? To know about the meaning of existence you must first confront the issue of suicide. I did the confrontation twice, at the age of 15 and 23. When I did the confrontation the second time and decided to live, I knew then nothing could really destroy my inner core. What didn't destroy me made me stronger, as Nietzsche put it so succinctly and beautifully. He also said that one must have chaos within oneself in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I had plenty of chaos within me at the age of 23. I still have some now. There have been no dancing stars birthed by me except for a few poems and essays and short stories of no exceptional merit, but I am ok with that. As I said at the outset, a man must be comfortable with who he is. He must know where he stands in relation to others. While I am not a billionaire or a world famous person, I am doing all right in terms of not being an intellectual or religious moron hence slave as the majority of humans are. From that standpoint I am not a loser at all as a stupid, little, ugly, short-statured, impecunious female kike said I was.
Wissai is the combination of the first three letters of Saigon and Wisconsin. It is also akin to Wissen ("To know"in German). Knowledge turns me on. The more I acquire it, the more at peace I am with who I am. But may I remind you that at heart I am a dreamer and born-again Walter Mitty. This essay, like so many others I have penned, could be not autobiographical and in fact is a piece of fiction written in order to achieve self-salvation. In the end emancipation and liberation only come from within. And silence is the answer to cheap slander. Also, there is always a court of law to seek justice if too much personal injury is at stake. Anyway, the more we denounce others in vulgar language, the more we degrade ourselves. Only if we are real winners, do we earn the right to call less-accomplished fellow humans as losers. But if we are losers ourselves, what right do we have in calling others losers? Doesn't that make us look cheap, pathetic, and pitiful, and incur lasting enmities from those we denounced? But humans are strange animals, full of inferiority complex and self-projections. We often feel that we must bring others down so we could feel better about ourselves. However, by employing cheap sarcasms and false, ugly characterizations we keep ourselves in the mire, swamp, cesspool of ignorance and suffering. If we must speak at all, we must speak unalloyed facts and with logic. If a human is a loser, he/she has no right to call others losers even if that is factually correct because what he says turns logic on its head. By accusing others as being losers, he accuses himself. Maybe he is unconsciously doing so. Man is the only animal that engages in self-flagellation. He does so because he does not feel comfortable with who he is. I suppose I should end this long-winded "essay" by pointing out that I have come to a full circle. I am repeating what I wrote at the beginning, that is, we must know who we are and accept who we are. We must not run away from ourselves. Self-alienation is a terrible thing to have. Only by confronting who we are, do we have a chance to improve who we are if we think we need improvement. Some of us fancy that they are perfect and thus need no improvement.
There's no God out there to help us. Only we and our fellow humans. Our fellow humans are either our friends or enemies. The choice is up to us (largely) and them (to a lesser extent). People usually treat us the way we treat them. God will not be involved. He is only a fiction concocted by us in moments of ignorance and weakness. And there is no Heaven or Hell either. Only this beautiful Earth and our finite existence. Blessed are those who have found love and friendship to make their existence less painful.
Wissai
October 12, 2014
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