Days OF Enchantment

Days of Enchantment

Warning : For smart and sensitive adults only. Dumb asses and children, please stay away. 

An old flame, almost extinguished but somehow refusing to flame out, called me up 

last night, way from the frigid lands of Alaska, asking me how I had been, what I had been up to lately, and who were the latest women that caught my fancy. Sassy was her name. I called her Snarling (combination of Sassy and Darling) by way of a pet name. 

I replied, "You wouldn't believe what I'm gonna tell you". I was speaking to her in my ugly-beautiful, youthful, blustery, cadenced voice of mine. 

-"Try me!" retorted Snarling in that high-pitched, rapid, raspy, whining Brooklyn accent of hers.

-"To start off, I've been in a state of naked, wondrous, blissful enchantment and gratitude. I thought I was through with all that silly, chest-pounding excitement, but I was utterly, completely wrong. I feel like driving to the Red Rock Canyon Park and screaming my head off to release the built-up tension. My head is buzzing with thoughts racing a million miles per hour while my heart is being flooded with uncontainable, explosive joy, and my ears are filled with music during my waking hours. The song Rolling in The Deep is taking over my body. 

So here is a quick review of my perennial thoughts. Some may be of universal vales; most are just meaningful to me:

1. Love is the highest, most ennobling experience. It anchors and sustains and strengthens a person. Love is friendship catching fire, the conflation and confluence of affection and respect.

2. Love leads to sex. That's the progression in developed humans. Sex should be the ultimate physical manifestation of love, the physical fusion of the person who loves with his beloved. Sex without love is animal-like and unfulfilling and self-degrading.  I am different from most men. I never have sex with prostitutes. I have had sex with love and sex without love. There is a big difference between the two. To buy sex and to sell sex are degrading to both parties. One must have pride in in oneself. One must not engage in self-degrading activities.

3. I live for a true and proper pride and a pursuit of a life with morality. I don't lie, slander/libel, steal, or betray the trust of those who have faith in me. I work on my mind and body constantly. A person with an ugly body and an undeveloped mind has no true pride of himself. One must respect oneself before expecting to be respected. So one must dress, speak, and act properly both in and out of the house. Privacy must not be an excuse to be sloppy. The internal and the external must be in sync. 

4. I have a big Ego, but I also recognize that I am nobody in the grand scheme of things. And I must constantly work on myself, physically, intellectually, and morally. One must confront oneself. Relentlessly. 

5. Money and Ego are the two most reliable tests of a person's character. I am not cheap. I am only frugal. I spend big sums of money when it's necessary. On the other hand, I will not spend a dime on unnecessary things. I am not defined by the material things I own, but by the products of my mind, my physique, and the beauty of my heart. I don't generally give a shit of what people think of me. I only take into account the opinions of those whom I consider as friends. I despise crowds and herd mentality. Most people are more stupid and less informed than me..."

Snarling interrupted my monologue, "I've heard all this shit before. You're a broken record."

I laughed and said, "Who was the fuck that called me first? That's the problem with you, Snarling. You always confuse sarcasm with wit, annoyance with charm. You're nothing but a piece of stinking shit. Weren't you the one who called me a "stupid failure" while forgetting to have a quick look of your face, your body, and your life? Fuck off!, bitch!". Then I clicked off my phone. 

Snarling is a douche bag that ascribes and attributes to others what she feels bad about herself. In other words, she is part of the lamentable, pathetic part of humanity that struggle to find pride and relevance for their existence on this planet. People who are like Snarling, are wont to huff and moan and holler and whisper words of cheap, ready-made insults to ease the pain and the sense of humiliation and discomfort they feel about themselves. They have no talent nor any courage to get ahead in life.They suffer, find no joy in life, get sick and then die like broken-down animals and human garbage that they are. I despise them. I don't feel sorry for them as I used to, for I realize my pity did me nor them no good. I've vowed to myself that I would rather die than "live" like them. There are certain rabid animals that need to be put down and there are human garbage that need to be incinerated. Trust me, certain animals and humans need to go up in flames, in the bonfire of stupidities, in order to create a better gene pool for the human race. 

Man is an incomplete animal. Some are more incomplete and inconsequential than others. I must say I am less incomplete than most. I have a real heart, a true brain and an endless supply of intellectual curiosity, in addition to being drop-dead handsome and sporting an athletic build. So what are my problems? I talk too much and tend to be too trusting and confiding

Shit, I'm getting to be misanthropic as I get older and the more I get to know the human animals. These animals almost invariably think more highly of themselves than they deserve. 

I am a guy who's fond of melodrama, pathos, bathos, the far-out, the impossible. I like to live on the edge, step close to the precipice and look down into the abyss. I push myself to the limits of endurance and sanity. I explore the unknown and test the untested. I would love to fly up in the sky, get close to the sun, and explode into a thousand pieces. 

Recently I made an adaption of Someone Like You into Someone Like You, Someone Like Me. My adaptation made the lyrics a timeless, lasting work of art, a minor masterpiece. 

I'm good with words. I know that. I'm trying to be better. I'd like to smother the world with my pains of yesteryear when I was green and trusting, when I thought Love was something that could last until Death arrived. But I was wrong then, and I am wrong now. There's no love. There never was. Only the call of one Ego to another. 

When you're alone, who would occupy your thoughts? When you're in pain and lonely, to whom would you cry? Is there someone who would gladly help you out when you're in a jam? Love is not about yourself. It's about reaching out, about the externals, about giving without asking for nothing in return. Love appeals to the noblest sentiments in you. Love must make you feel strong and calm. This is a truth, and not necessarily a rhetorical flourish. If you don't think of Love in terms of what I just outlined, you know nothing about Love. 

Oscar Wilde said, "If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out." But I suppose, the same thing happens, if one tells the lies. So, my dear readers, it's up to you to find out if the words that are confronting you here are truths or lies or somewhere in between. Once you figure out the true nature of my words, you'd know who I really am. Actually, your mission is very easy if you're of the same character as mine. Too often, however, my words are like the mirror in a clear day. People see themselves in my words, instead of stepping back and looking at me standing behind the mirror, all smiling and crying at the same time. I really don't know why nobody understands me at all, not like I'm trying to be mysterious and unfathomable. Hardly. Not at all. Pas du tout. Au contraire, I'm a bawdy, bellicose, bold, boisterous, bombastic, brazen baron of words. I am a  self-styled verbal brawler. I am une bête intellectuelle of the New Left. I'm full of myself, needless to say. Yet though everything I say and do has the anti-poetry and the crudity of the crass,  upon closer examination, however, there's a ring of artistic sensibilities, a timber of tenderness, and a voice of philosophical truths, if you know where to look or, more precisely speaking, know how to listen. 

Though my life has budged with flaws, I'm not spiritually incontinent. I know what uplifting, eternal values are and where to look for them. But I was not born with that ability. It was acquired through blood, sweat, tears, and near-Death experiences. I was born with a strong propensity for gullibility and a tendency to mistake superficiality for reality. Then I learned, though very slowly, that Man has an innate drive for deception not only of others, but also of himself. So nowadays, if someone says he's good and kind, I stay away from him. And if he says he's an asshole, I stay away from him also. I only stick around if the guy talks little about himself. You see, a really good person doesn't need to talk about himself. He's at peace and he's quiet. He let his actions speak for him. And when he has to open his mouth, he says only a few necessary words. He doesn't need to impress anybody, like con artists, assholes, and scumbags do. 

Years ago, I cried upon learning that two women for whom I happened to have a high regard thought that I was just a childish, stupid man. I suppose those were my tears of innocence. Now that my innocence was gone, I recognize the two women for who they are. Although they're smart, they're unkind and selfish. I thus don't hold them in high-esteem anymore. In fact, I think they are just banal and common like so many women I have happened to know. So, my ugly, unpleasant life experiences have taught me that for real love to occur, there must be a confluence and conflation of affection and admiration. One cannot love the Other for the qualities one hates within the Self or in Others. Love must contain at least two flaming ideal qualities: complementarity and transcendentalism. One acquires what one lacks and one feels transcendental in the feelings one has for the beloved. Without these two basic qualities, Love would not last and Sex is just a short-lived exercise in lust and adventure, not an expression of the desire for Fusion, the Meeting of the Missing Half. 

Love must not only affect me but also must improve me. It must be a merry, contagious experience. But who am I to say with authority on the subject over which I have nothing to show for, except one abject failure after another? I know, I know. If I would deign to wheedle and cajole and be sensible and sensitive, I would walk tall in the hallowed hallways of Love, but I'm too proud, too egocentric to listen to the entreaties of my head. I always act imperiously, following the dictates of my vain and wounded heart. La Rochefoucauld said, "Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue". I am firmly against that bribery. I am not a tribute man. 

But look around you, you will see hypocrisy and cowardice in full bloom. Hypocrisy and Cowardice are twins, just like Religion and Politics. This fact is obvious, but so many dumb asses miss it. Let me tell you something else: this world Is full of stupid, envious, and resentful assholes and scumbags. When you are stupid and ignorant, you are bound to feel envious and resentful. And you would feel annoyed and pissed off at individuals like me. That's fucking right, pal. You would feel a surge of anger when I proclaim myself a thinker, an independent thinker to boot and no less, and not a fucked-up, stupid, slavish follower like you. I, like many other clear-headed and intelligent brothers of mine, assert that it's against human dignity to believe in a Personal God to Whom one pray for assistance. You see, praying is an act of self-deception, a game of pretense. If you do that to calm yourself in moments of stress and distress, that's okay, but the moment you believe in your own lies, you're fucked, man. That means you're a stupid coward, an intellectual nitwit, a piece of human shit, and have no right to be proud of yourself. That's why I, in principle, feel sorry for Christians who believe that an ignorant, illiterate, uneducated, angry, deluded, demented, albeit kind at times---especially to the outcasts and dredges of society---is The Son of God. What a stinking croak of shit/belief! How cowardly and sorry can you get if you embrace that kind of nonsense and regard it as an unvarnished truth? To live with a full pride in yourself, you must not have that kind of bullshit in your head. Have some respect for yourself, will you? Don't be conned so easily. You must resist brainwashing. Be skeptical regarding what doesn't make sense. Use your head. Beware of con artists who prey on the deepest longings of your heart, on your wishful thinking, on your greed. Jesus didn't die for your sins. He died because he was an inept political rebel. He defied the political order of the day. A man must know his limitations. Your ambitions must not exceed your abilities, otherwise you will run into problems, sometimes fatally. It does not matter an iota that after you die, your stupid followers are being conned into believing that you were some kind of divine figure, coming to Earth to proclaim some kind of kingdom that's not of the here and now, but reserved only for the believers. You were already dead, nearly two thousand years ago. Not a single person has seen you to come back to lead the faithful to the promised kingdom, because it is a physical impossibility. Death is the end of you. End of discussion. Humans are divided into two classes: the gullible, stupid folks; and the skeptical, thinking, and smart folks. The moment I hear an individual proudly proclaims himself to be a Christian as if it were a badge of honor and distinction, I question right away the level of intelligence and intellectual honesty of that person. The Christian Faith is one of the most fucked-up, superstitious, nonsensical ideologies ever established and foisted upon the human race. There's some hope for Mankind, however. Christianity is on the decline. Church attendance has been going down. True humans finally are beginning to wake up after a long slumber. 

Take another case in point, the GWOT. You don't know what the fuck that means? It stands for the Global War on Terror. It's another croak of shit. It's draining America's resources and bleeding her dry. Why doesn't China get involved in this? The Chinks are filthy rich these days and they should have the Uighers to worry about. But who else but is America that's leading the "GWOT", at the behest of the Zionists and the Vatican. GWOT is nothing but a modern-day Crusade. The American invasion of Iraq under false pretenses was a blatant violation of international laws. Now I hope you realize that it just doesn't make sense that a bunch of jihadists in third-word countries wanting to wage war on America, the strongest military power in this world. There must be a limit to suicide and insanity. Not every jihadist wants to die. The truth may be that they are simply defending their lands against the attacks by America and her allies. GWOT, as a plot concocted by Zionists (with gleeful support of the Vatican) who control American Congress, the White House, and maybe the Judiciary branch as well, makes more sense. All it takes is to stage some spectacular "terrorist" attacks on America's soil (9/11) and elsewhere (London and Paris) and the American public and her allies would buy into the "terrorist" threat. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if one day it is unfolded to the gullible and ignorant public that the Chinese were behind these attacks. Meanwhile the Chinks are busy getting richer and more powerful and in a few more decades will replace America as the number one power on Earth. By that time, America will be too exhausted and poor to do anything. See, you must fucking know how to think and read between the lines and beyond the headlines. Now, don't you think I have reasons to feel good about my intellectual prowess? I told you, I'm full of myself, and not necessarily of shit either. Okay, okay, I know can be vulgar, vain, venomous, clever, considerate, and charming in the space of half an hour. But I am no intellectual bully. You're welcome to put up your counter-arguments. I'll listen to them and if they're good and cogent, I might agree with you. But few dare to do so with me, because I usually tear those counter-arguments to pieces. Facts and logic are at my command. I just happen to be gifted with them. Maybe because I work on them relentlessly. They're my sources of comfort, the nectar for my soul which is common parlance for consciousness. Again, unlike the masses, I don't believe in reincarnation of individual entities. Yes, there's a recycle of energy, something to do with some law of Thermodynamics, but no, you cannot "come back on Earth" as another manifestation of an earlier you. Once you're dead, that's the end of the individual you. The energy and the elements that constituted you will be recycled/reconstituted, but the you and the consciousness that earlier made up you would be gone/vanish forever. You are nothing but a phase, a very short phase, in the endless journey of energy. Where did the Energy come from? Why, not How, did the Big Bang take place? I don't know. And nobody else knows either. Please, don't bring "God" into the equation, otherwise I will ask the inevitable question, "Where the fuck did God come from?" I absolutely have a conviction that only real dumb asses are preoccupied with "God", and not with Knowledge, Justice, Ethics, or even Love because the question of God is really an exercise in mental masturbation whereas the other questions are real and of the here and now. Only stupid and little humans are concerned with frivolities while pretending they're wrestling with gravitas. You see, the more I interact with the human animals, on and off the Internet, the more I realize how rare, special, and beautiful I really am, although I do swear and curse a great deal. Damn, I'm falling in love with myself. There you go, that's my problem, in a nutshell. Don't you dare think that I don't know myself! 

Of course, there's an obvious simmering, shimmering, unresolved anger in me. I'm angry at assholes who lust after power, at stupid fools who act as if they were smart intellectuals, at misers who pretend to be generous and classy. I recently read about Friedrich Schiller's grandiose statement that human stupidity was what the gods fought  in vain, but another man, a writer of espionage novels, ventured an opinion that what the gods and reasonable humans fought in vain was not stupidity, but the massive and wanton indifference to anybody's interests but their own. In other words, deep down humans, a vast majority of them anyway, are selfish and love nobody but themselves. That's why humans often feel alone and lonely. If you freely give away love, you wouldn't feel alone and lonely. You would feel fulfilled and much loved. Humans talk and preach about love all the time, but only a very few practice what they preach. The rest are just members of the NATO Club (No Action, Talk Only). Well, if you are stupid, you tend to be selfish. It makes sense for you to be selfish. I'm not saying that intelligent folks are not selfish. I've met a lot of intelligent assholes who are selfish, miserly, and hypocritical to the core. What I'm saying that if you are intelligent, you realize that you really have a choice in terms of ethics, and you thus don't have to be selfish. I am proud to assert that I am fair and loyal to a fault. I don't act in terms of self-interest. I never stab in the back and betray those who have been kind to me. I am not a human animal. I may be quick to anger and vengeful, but I have a well-honed sense of fairness and loyalty and love. 

Ah, love, the flutterings of the heart, the holding of hands, a simple but primordial tactile contact between two primates, preferably of the same species but of opposite genders and of the same age, will electrify the individuals if they happen to feel a certain romantic and hence sexual tensions towards each other. That experience never fails me, going back almost five decades ago when I was a greenhorn in the land of Love. If I experience no electricity running through my body when I touch a woman, I know I don't really love her. Yes, I know what Love really means. And this is what Sex with Love is supposed to be like:

"....She moved beneath him, slowly at first, but increasingly faster. She was writhing, like a serpent, and moaning. Unbearable feelings of pleasure assaulted her. His belly and chest bumped against hers. Their hands clasped tightly. They were now entangled, hands, arms and legs, in a fusion of sounds, smells, and tastes. Their mouths fastened to each and she was sucking his tongue with such a force and it almost went down her throat. She then opened her mouth wide and panted, "Baby, faster, faster. Ah, I'm coming, ah, Baby, ah, I'm coming, ah, Ro...ber...to " And he came also, a few seconds later. She clasped his shuddering body with mouth, arms, legs while he pressed his body into hers. They were lost in each other and became one. A peaceful, contented, serene, blissful feeling enveloped them as she lay on top of him. They didn't want to get up and wash themselves. He kissed her softly on the forehead and said, "Waverly Baby, I love you! " She smiled and said, "I love you, too, since the first day, but I was afraid of the age disparity. I was terrified that I might make a fool of myself. At my age, I couldn't afford to do that. Oh, Roberto, what will happen to us?...."

Amat victoria curam (victory favors the prepared), but Roberto wasn't prepared for anything like this. Never. He had lived his life unplanned. He let it come to him. He stupidly believed in chances and serendipities and the sweetness of his character. Prior to meeting Waverly in person, he had allowed himself some faint, far-out hopes, but never did he entertain a thought she would be this alluring, this passionate, and this loving. A good question, indeed, what will happen to them? Discretion is the better part of valor, but Roberto was neither discreet nor brave. He was just a fool in love. And he knew what you cling to, only gets stronger. What you think, you become. You are what you think. Every act has consequences, even the act of thinking. Don't think you're in love unless you're ready to face the consequences. Love is more than a game. It is more than an involuntary reflex to kindness and affection and respect."

As Warren Buffet to money, so Roberto to words: He’s covered with the stuff, preposterously endowed. They pour off him like rain in a summer night in the tropics. They ratify the profligacy of his nature. He loves words. He surrounds himself with them. Books are everywhere in his condo: in the bookcases, on the floor, on the bedside table, in the bathroom. He's into several foreign languages, but he only knows one in depth, the rest are for extension and curiosity. His favorite saying is that it takes a lifetime to study just one language. A man is usually defined by how he speaks, i.e., the words he uses and the manner of their delivery: the tone, the cadence, the accent. A person's words are his songs that bear his stamp of identity: the contents/the meanings lie in the lyrics, the music resides in the way of speaking. More than any other creature, Man is a verbal animal par excellence. He communicates mostly by words. He alone in the animal kingdom possesses a highly developed spoken language, besides grunts; howling; hooting; facial and body expressions; signals like smoke, signs and written language, statues, paintings, buildings, and sound including music. 

Roberto's life, the love life in particular, has always been askew. There's always a borderless empty place in his heart. He feels he must go on pilgrimage in search of a lost soul mate. Several times he thought he found one, but they all turned out to be bitches and assholes who resorted to vulgar language when he had to say good-bye. They all blamed him. Not a single one felt that she fell short of expectations. They all fancied that he was lucky to know them. Oh woman, thy name is vanity. We are all dreamers. We are too big for our britches. At night when the stars come out dancing, Roberto feels lonely, like a single moon in a starry sky. There are many stars, but only one moon, shining all alone above this particular corner of the world. I could go on and on, telling you about Roberto and his wrestlings with Reality versus Appearance, with Being versus Becoming, but I don't want to bore you. I trust you already got the drift of what I wanted to say. I know you're not benighted, not by a long shot. My language is simply not energized enough to describe Roberto in detail and the journeys he has undertaken. I lack the narrative gift and the depth of characterization. I wouldn't do Roberto justice. Sometimes I have a nagging feeling that you and I live a kind of life that bears only a nominal resemblance to reality. We dare not investigate our respective life enough, dare not risk it, dare not go to the other side of the moon to see what it's like. We play safe, then we get old, sick, and we die uncontested, unfulfilled, and full of regrets. Tell me what turns you on in life, and I will tell you exactly what kind of a human being you are. 

This piece Days of Enchantment is the frankest baring of my soul I have done to date. I thus would "only" post it on my blog, on Facebook and send it to few recipients. Because it was so frank, it would undoubtedly invite misunderstanding. Because it was so graphic, it ironically became obtuse. Still, I must say I achieved catharsis while writing it. 

For "closing", I must say that like every human, I desire respect, but I go about it in my own way. I know I should lie a little bit, act a little more, and be reasonably discreet. But as a former victim of deception played on by many individuals, I don't want to deceive anybody; I want to be accepted and loved on my own terms, warts and all, while recognizing the universal human need of respect. Any human, even a thief or a scoundrel, fashions some kind of illusion and delusion about respect and pride so he can live. However, the more I read the verbal diarrhea posted on Vietnamese-language forums on the Net, the less I am now inclined to mouth off my opinions because I realize so many writers in those forums are demented and pathologically proud of themselves while they should not be, because they are stupid, ill-informed, and poorly educated. They remind me of dogs barking at their own shadows. Barking, like expressing oneself verbally or via writing in the case of humans, is a natural expression of dogs, but barking at one's own shadows is a sign of madness or stupidity. Maybe that was exactly I just did with this piece of writing, entitled Days Of Enchantment 

Wissai

May 19, 2015