You've told everybody you've met, if they care to listen, that you're an unpublished writer of sorts and a poet. But the truth of the matter is that now and then you just have a need to put words together when things are out of joint. Like today, for instance.
Dusk was arriving. Sunlight was receding to the west. And then it was dark in the sky, except for the crescent moon and then the stars. You felt empty and lonely and strong and cynical. You thought of her, of evening excursions to the park, after university lectures, where she and you would haltingly explore each other's body. And then bam, what you thought as Love vanished into thin air, without a trace, without a lingering regret on her part.
Lyrics of Traces by Classics IV, written in 1968, the year she and you started going out came on the radio about half an hour ago. The relationship you had with her lasted only three years, but the impact on you has lasted a lifetime. Love is a strange and yet familiar thing, like Fire. Don't play with Love or Fire. You might get burned and scarred for life.
Faded photographs, covered now with lines and creases
Tickets torn in half, memories in bits and pieces
Traces of love, long ago that didn't work out right
Traces of love
Ribbons from her hair, souvenirs of days together
The ring she used to wear, pages from an old love letter
Traces of love, long ago that didn't work out right
Traces of love, with me tonight
I close my eyes and say a prayer that in her heart
She'll find a trace of love still there, somewhere, oh
Traces of hope in the night that she'll come back and dry
These traces of tears from my eyes, oh yeah
Unlike the sentiment expressed at the end of the song, you gave up on the hope she would ever come back to you. Still, only recently do you have the control of your emotions when you hear the song on the radio. This song, "Sugar", and "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart" always evoke the time and the place when you first heard them.
After she disappeared from your life and lingered in your heart, there were so many others that came and went, but no one came close to rekindling the fire and the love you had for her, not even Harriet who really loved you, but was too coarse and crude to bring you peace of mind.
Now there's another "she", the one who lives in New York and sundry other places. You look at her photograph and savor the memory when she took your hands into hers and spoke obliquely of what might and could have been. She is no raving beauty, but has a kind heart. And you are a chicken-hearted romantic fellow, too scared and too scarred to let her know how you think of her, and of your dark, deep secret of the night.
Sun is cold, Rain is hard, Sex is overrated, and Love is elusive, but to live is to find somebody to love and to be loved by somebody. To live is also to forget the past, live for the present, and prepare yourself for the future and your eventual demise. To live is to find meaning for our brief but often fraught existence, to struggle with its inherent absurdity, to cope with the lies and venality of our fellow humans who are mostly inferior to us in terms of intelligence and knowledge and have nothing to offer to us by way of enlightenment.
You had a pleasant dream about Alicia the other night. It woke you up, but you didn't bother to record the dream right away. You were very surprised that the dream was very nice and romantic, since nowadays you realize with jstark awareness that she no longer has a hold on you though you understand that she has aged well and gracefully. You suppose you finally recognize that Love is really a dream and a fantasy, and it is really overstated and overblown. Or it could be that you now think that she does not deserve your love and affection because she is just as common as the others. You now use the memories of her and Laura to better yourself. The past is gone, like water over the dam. Life is for the present and the future.
A concerned friend asked you why you are wasting time on imbeciles and assholes. You told her that having a "dialogue" with these scumbags is a way for you to know how some human animals "think" and feel. The "dialogue" has energized you and once more brought to the fore a realization that you are indeed blessed that you are not like those pathetic animals. These animals have no true pride, deep down. Not really. If they did, they would do something about their conditions. A fucked-up and terminally ill lesbian lodged a nauseously sel-righteous and pathetic complaint about your language. She made you laugh about human nature. No wonder we have wars and atrocities. Some, if not most, human animals need to be exterminated like vermin, since they pollute the gene pool. The old adage rings true in her case, "you must shut your fucking mouth if the matter on hand doesn't concern you. In fact, only speak when you're spoken to." The problem with the human race is that most humans don't know how to keep their mouths shut.
From reading the book review of Primo Levi's Coomple Works of Primo Levi, you leaned about evil and the complexities of human nature, especially the drive for power, the despair, as well as the sheer human will at any costs---to live is meaningful by itself. To search for life's meanings is an intellectual and emotional exercise only when one is safe and free from harm, only when one has to confront daily ennui. But when one's physical existence is in danger, the instinct for physical survival must kick in, and everyday is the repetition of the mantra, "Survive, survive, survive at any price". Your body will not give up if your mind does not give up. Now you understand why many former internees of the VC's concentration camps are still hating the VC with a ferocity, despite the passage of time. Still, a life lesson is being etched in your mind here: to survive in this increasingly absurd and unjust world, you must cultivate an attitude that calls for stoic and cynical acceptance of two things: Bad Luck and Man is largely an evil creature who responds by instinct to vengeance, greed, power, and sadism. Of course, there are humans who are kind, fair-minded, and not venal. Those are true humans, but they constitute no more than 10% of the human race. The other 90% are human animals who make life a problem, not a yoyful existence, for themselves and othes, including non-human species. So, who are you? part of the 10% or the 90%? The choice is up to you. To be human is to be blessed with choices. To survive jmeans not to be burned up with Hate and a preoccupation with Justice and Revenge.
So, after gallantly and ferociously asserting his will to live through degradations and depredations of life in Auschlitz, Levi took his own life at the age of 67 in 1987, 43 years after his arrest and deportation to Auschlitz. Levi evinced his zest for life in prose, but in poetry he bared his darker feelings: isolation, bitterness, and even hatred of life. In "Song of Those Who Died in Vain.", there is a line that reads, "We're invulnerable because we've died." As the book reviewer remarked, "Reading the poems , one wonders not that Levi killed himself, but that he took so long to do it."
So Auschlitz did kill Levi, only it took 43 years. One can tell if a person is really emotionally and mentally tough. Usually such a person does not talk much, not because he internalizes most of his thoughts, but because when he talks, he merely tries to convince himself and others. Strong, tough-minded men think much and talk little. He is sure of his thoughts and emotions. There is no need to articulate them for himself and an audience in order to seek feedback. Strong, tough-minded men don't usually write poems of despair.
You are 66 years old now. You twice flirted with suicide, but you didn't consummate the act. You looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked backed, smiled, and sweety said, "Come on down. Jump. Your pains will be over in a few seconds." You looked at the abyss and you heard her voice loud and clear. And then you walked away, slowly, to your car and drove home, with the etched image in your mind of your Mom proudly looking at you as you bid her goodbye to catch a bus to the airport for graduate studies overseas. You had won a scholarship two months prior. You didn't take your own life because of your love for your mother was bigger than your own pains.
You no longer think of suicide. You have stopped writing poetry with regularity. There is no longer a need to confront and transcend pains.
Instead of suicide, you have flirted with homicide. You know it is easy to kill. Only dealing with the consequences is not easy. Also, killing is an irrational act, except in self-defense. It just does not solve problems. It adds to the problems. Still, you know why humans kill. Humans are prone to acts of irrationality. Are you irrational enough? No, you are not. Is today is the day the scumbags, the ones who spread lies and mistreated you, will meet their "Maker"? No, it is not. Neither us any day. Except in self-defense, killing adds complexities and headaches to life which by your definition is complex and full of problems and heartaches because you want to shine, to prove to yourself that you are a man of brains, not brute force.
As you freely admit, you know you are not exceptionally bright. In fact, you are quite stupid. But you are eternally surprised to run into assholes who are more stupid than you. Take the motherfucker Jimmy Phan, for instance. He opined that to have an argument is to find areas of agreement. That's a biggest croak of devious, lying shit you've ever heard of. Evidently, the motherfucker didn't know or pretended that he didn't know the difference between argument and negotiation. Having an argument is to come to terms with the differences of opinions and to see if the opponent has arguments that are sounder and more persuasive than your own, while negotiation is to find common grounds and interests where both parties feel what they gain is bigger than what they give up in reaching an agreement. Guys like Jimmy Phan make you want to throw up, feel better about yourself, study and read more.
(To be continued)
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