Cowardice Part Two
Cowards never meditate on cowardice. Only the braves do that.
Having a strong instinct for self-preservation is not always laudable, certainly not for the braves. To them, dignity and pride and self-acceptance trump self-preservation.
Unlike lower forms of life, Man is an animal not always shackled and hampered by Instinct.
When transcending Instinct and being indifferent to Life, Man begins to acquire a certain Pride and Nobility.
In most cultures, Warrior-Kings and or Philosopher-Kings command the most admiration and affection. It's not how we live that always gives meaning to Life. it's how we die.
The heroic freedom fighters who are currently risking their limbs and lives in fighting against the oppressive and rapacious VC regime are not fearful of the VC, but are fearful that their lives lack meaning. They cannot stand idly while the VC regime is destroying Vietnam. These heroic freedom fighters are real men and women, not sheep awaiting slaughter or slaves willing to live in shame.
Ask yourself a question: Are you real humans, or are you sheep and slaves?
Remember these points:
1. Tyrants and dictators despise and laugh at sheep and slaves and cowards. To be weak is to invite attack. To be submissive is to be unjustly ruled. Forever.
2. Vietnamese people, it's time to rise up and reclaim your Life and your Dignity!
3. We all have to die sooner or later. Meanwhile we must live a life full of Pride.
Bravery and Cowards are more than labels/semantics/language games. They are intimately related to reflections/meditations as to what the hell I'm doing on this planet since I know I'm going to die anyway
Cowards are usually lazy and full of excuses. Bravery is more than just physical. It involves the ability and willingness to change.
Enough said.
May 28, 2016
I used to have a big issue with cowardice. I wasn't brave, but I didn't want to be a coward. There lay the problem. To be brave, one must be really crazy and cocksure of oneself. I wasn't really crazy although I had tried to be, and I lacked self-confidence. So the problem simmered and stayed on.
In my early and middle adolescence, I had my share of fistfights with neighborhood kids and classmates. I lost more than I won. The reason for that ignominious record was that I was skinny and not strong because I was underfed. Food was not plentiful in my large household. Dad was only a breadwinner. His salary was meager, barely enough to get his eight children, him and Mom sheltered, clothed and fed. I was always hungry. In my sleep, I dreamed of feasts in which I ate meat and delectable fruits to my heart's content. Now, I can afford fine dining and sumptuous meals, but I rarely indulge in them. Ironically, food is now not a big thing. I eat simply and heartily as I used to do in my distant past, in a land tens of thousands of miles away.
Something happened in the summer of 1967, a few months before my turning eighteen. I was falling in love with a beautiful , French-speaking girl named Agnes with long flowing hair. Or so I thought. But I was a diffident, confidence-deprived coward. I was unsure of myself. Besides, I was concerned that my feelings for her would interfere with my university schooling. So I stayed away from her while my heart was aching, throbbing, pining for her night and day, like a coward that I was. At the end of my first year in college, a bright, sexy, but homely-looking classmate named Laura who also spoke French, helped me put Agnes out of my mind. I went out with Laura for three years. They could be the best years of my life as far as Love was concerned. I loved Laura. I could die for her. And I thought Laura loved me. But I was wrong, dreadfully and almost fatally wrong.
After Laura, I went through a turbulent but fruitful period during which I lost my idealism. I was no longer a coward. I was no longer a bashful, shy, diffident dude. I acquired an in-your-face aggressiveness. I read a lot of history, philosophy, psychology, literature, and anthropology. I exercised. I studied languages. I discovered several truisms:
1. Love is conditional and circumstantial.
2. To be loved one must make oneself lovable.
3. Love is simply an amalgamation of affection and admiration.
After I discovered these truisms, women started flocking to me. Agnes and Laura became distant memories. Death was not an issue to be avoided. I confronted it head-on. Meanwhile I went through wives and concubines with abandon.
Now I must say I have courage. I'm not afraid to die or kill. I'm not fearful of solitude, prison, or ostracism. I don't believe in God. And I look at the world through a prism constructed of cynicism and an awareness that Life is an accidental process and Man is an animal driven mostly by biological imperatives, power and recognition, and very faintly by Love.
When I close my eyes for good and heave my last breath, I'll be comforted by a thought that in looking back on my life, there were two, maybe three, women who really loved me; one of them was a Vietnamese, one was a Filipina, and one was an American Jewish woman scholar, 6'1" tall.
May 27, 2016
Wissai
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