Thoughts on the way to the bathroom and back:
I hate to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. You are sound asleep. You are totally oblivious to your surroundings. You might just as well be dead. In fact you look like you are dead, except the color of your face is not pallid and you are breathing deeply. All of a sudden some long drawn out weird dream takes place and then it occurs to you that you have to drag your tired, lethargic body to the bathroom in answer to the call of nature. Most people go right back to sleep and wake up fresh as a daisy in the morning. Not me. I have weird thoughts from my way to the bathroom and back. And I just had several a few minutes ago.
I would scream bloody murder and swear to …God? No, I can’t. I am an atheist. OK, I would swear on …my dog’s grave and to… the stately beautiful oak tree outside my house that if I see another diatribe about “Chổng” (slang for lonely, invented by Vietnamese students studying in New Zealand) in this forum, I would shave not only my head but all the heads I meet in the streets because I would like to get rid of all the lice in this world so I would no longer experience feelings of puking lousiness. The truth is I cannot stand to see yet another sophomoric attempt to make the banal sublime, the trivial momentous, the meaningless meaningful. Maybe the writer of diatribes about loneliness cannot make art out of life, so he tries to make his life into art.
It could be true at one time in that faraway land we once were lonely because we were suddenly cut off from our families, because the Kiwis didn’t want to hang out with us, making us feel very much the strangers in a strange land. But we are no longer teenagers. We all have spouses and families, and thus all these harpings about loneliness sound so tiresome and artificial. That reminds me of an old cliché that you are what you write. Le style, c’est l’homme. We can pretty safely guess a man’s character by what and how he writes. If all he can offer is trivia, then we must reach the inescapable conclusion that he is trivia incarnate or at least his mind is full of nothing but trivialities. I would rather see a dog pissing at a tree or a monkey scratching at its armpit than reading yet another diatribe from a man in his 6o’s yelping about loneliness. I would rather read about why a man believes in God or how he develops herpes or what attracts him and what repulses him in a woman than listening to a grown man moaning about loneliness. It is not dignified to cry, sincerely or not, about loneliness. It is simply not decent, just like one does not walk around in public with a shirt on, but is bare below the navel. It is frankly obscene and out of place.
I also don’t like needless cryptic oracular pronouncements. If one wants to say something, just spell it out. There is no need to appear more profound than one already is. Also, endless pontification is bad. And so is posting sex materials on the Internet, especially when you are in your 60’s. Maybe you cannot get it up anymore without the aid of Viagra, so you have to compensate. Mind you, I am not a prude. I believe in eroticism and I do have a sense of aesthetics, but I find indulging in the titillation of prurient thoughts quite crass. I don’t find the image of a female human urinating funny or sexy.
I am not saying because I’m getting old and thus don’t find the female form appealing anymore. Quite the contrary, I don’t have any thrombus in my heart. I still find succor in the female beauty as long as it is not commercialized or obscenely posed. I still find the following lines smotheringly charming:
Phải chi đêm ấy đừng mưa
Phải chi đêm ấy đừng đưa em về.
I wish there had been no rain that night
I wish that night I had not walked you home
CanNgon
August 27, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Love, Anger, Action, and a News Analysis thrown in for free
LOVE, ANGER, ACTION AND A NEWS ANALYSIS THROWN IN FOR FREE
Chaque homme a son destin
The same for a nation
Love and Anger are two of the most powerful emotions a human can have. Together they drive most of his actions.
I originally wrote this piece using the pronoun we, but upon rereading it, I decided to switch to first person singular since I didn’t wish to come across as presumptuous. I only could speak for myself and not for my two colleagues. I saw the way the Chinese Navy personnel mistreated our Vietnamese fishermen who were working in the same areas they had done for generations. And I experienced both love for my fellow countrymen and anger at the Chinese. So, being a simple human with emotions not yet overridden by other concerns such as apathy, selfishness, and fear, I acted. Maybe I was impetuous and amateurish, but I felt that I had to do something instead of rationalizing away the intolerable situation in the East Sea. I did some more thinking and realized that the East Seas incidents were part of the grand scheme of Chinese planned take-over of Vietnam. I raised the alarm, drafted a declaration to bring to the attention of the world and especially the Vietnamese back home about the invasion. I got a support of a precious few who did not regard my actions as “infertile” and quixotic. I did what I did because our heart told me so. To me, silence was not an option. I wanted to be able to sleep at night. I wanted to look at myself in the mirror every morning and not to feel ashamed of myself for doing nothing or mouthing off negative comments in order to dissuade others from doing something for Vietnam. I wanted to do something for our people back home and our country because I felt I had to respond to the call of duty as an educated and caring son of Vietnam. I just simply did what the responsible forefathers of ours had done over four thousand years of our long history. I didn’t feel self-righteous although I certainly felt that I did the right thing. I did the only way that was within my power: using words to raise the consciousness of those who still care about Vietnam. All fights begin in the minds.
I didn’t feel I was an alarmist, raising hue and cry over nothing. I have seen with increasing clarity the danger China is posing for the survival of Vietnam as a sovereign state and possibly for other states in Southeast Asia as well. Let me back up my assertion with some news and news analysis against the backdrop of some formal education in Political Science and some knowledge in world history and understanding of the nature of Man as an aggressive, expansionist-minded animal.
China recently conducted a military exercise involving sea, air, and ground forces. The exercise involved amphibious landing. I don’t think the exercise which cost a lot of money was done for showing off. Nor do I think the exercise was carried out as a preparation for an invasion of Taiwan. So, which country was the target? Which country did China conduct a limited border invasion in early 1979 and received a humiliating clobbering? The clobbering occurred for two main reasons: One, the failure to engage the Chinese air force due to its rather primitive aircraft fleet. China didn’t want to risk having its fighter planes shot down by the Vietnamese vaunting sophisticated anti-aircraft missile systems maintained and supplied by the Soviet Union. Two, Vietnamese artillery was deadly effective against Chinese troops (source: Wikipedia. The Sino-Vietnamese border war of 1979). The war taught China a valuable lesson and ever since it has modernized its forces and vows when the next full-scale invasion comes (and it is coming sooner than you think), it will not lose face again.
Alarmed by the increasingly bellicose posture of China in the East Sea and the Indian Ocean, countries such as Indonesia and Australia have increased their defense expenditures.
Vietnam has ordered a purchase from Russia six submarines. These submarines, once delivered, will be trained by India.
Vietnam has mobilized its forces. It has called men from eighteen to fifty years of age for military service; it also ordered its veterans back to duty. It has conducted training exercises. Relatives of high-position cadres of the Vietnamese Communist Party have taken part in an exodus as tourists to overseas.
The Vietnamese state-controlled newspapers have begun vociferously condemning China for its actions in the East Sea.
In a few weeks, India and the United States will have a joint military exercises. The United States a few months ago has entered a formal agreement to transfer nuclear technology to India.
South Korea successfully launched a satellite into space from its own soil. A few months ago, Vietnam had a satellite launched into space. Both countries declared that the satellites were for weather and communication purposes, but we knew better. Satellites are very useful to observe troop buildup and movements.
The Obama administration, unlike its myopic predecessor, has certainly recognized China as the rival and the threat to the United States. While coping with the massive economic problems at home and fighting two wars, it is vigorously conducting a full-court press of foreign policy within merely the first eight months of its existence. Obama went to a Muslim country and made the case that his administration would be vastly different than the Bush administration. He extended his hand to Iran. He dispatched Hillary Clinton to Southeast Asia confirming and affirming that “America is back” and then to Africa where China has made tremendous inroads due to the neglect of the Western powers, the U.S. included. He sent Bill Clinton to talk with North Korea, ostensibly to win the release of two Asian-American journalists. He sent Jim Webb, a freshman senator with a Vietnamese wife and a former marine in Vietnam as well as a former Secretary of Navy, to a tour of five Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam where in a period of twenty fours he met various highest members of the Vietnamese Communist Party and government. It is also important to note that Senator Webb chairs a Senate subcommittee dealing with East Asia and Pacific Affairs. I have sent him a letter and an accompanied declaration but have not received a reply nor do I expect to receive any, since I am not his constituent. I wrote to him just to stress the point, as if he didn’t know already, that the East Sea disputes over the Paracel and Spratly Islands could be the ignition that started war in the region
Ladies and gentlemen, do we need more facts to realize that we are living in an “exciting”, history-making time in Southeast Asia? Today, China is behaving like the Nazi Germany did in the late 1930’s. With Russia being busy building up its shattered economy and the United States bogged down in two (could be three, if you consider Pakistan) wars and mired in economic troubles, China with its rising economic prosperity, is flexing its muscles and carrying out its Greater Han expansion. It is supporting Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan in order to encircle India. It is trying to displace Vietnam as a decision maker in Laos and Cambodia. It is encouraging cooperation in military matters between Myanmar and North Korea. Simply put, China is expanding its zone of influence under the belief that the 21st century belongs to it and it is behaving in a manner befitting its rising stature.
It is human nature for the strong to attack the weak, for a strong and bigger country to swallow up a smaller, weaker country. To China, Vietnam has been a tempting meal for thousands of years. At one time, China had Vietnam inside its mouth for a thousand years. It thought it could chew and swallow up Vietnam as it did to other lands south of the Yangtze River, but somehow the Vietnamese forced it to throw up Vietnam. Ever since 939 AD, China has tried many times through naked invasions to defeat and assimilate Vietnam once and for all. Today, thanks to Vietnam being weakened after a long, brutal civil war instigated and encouraged by the Chinese, China has its best chance for two centuries. The take-over of the Paracel and the Spatly Islands, the grabbing of land at the border, the construction of dams in the upper reaches of the Mekong River, the presence of estimated 100,000 “laborers” in Vietnam, Vietnam huge trade deficit vis-à-vis China, and the flooding of Chinese goods in Vietnam are all part of the plan to conquer and assimilate us. Wake up and stop diddling around with nonsensical diatribes. Be serious for a change. Our country is becoming like Austria in 1938. Once Vietnam falls, Cambodia and Laos will follow. Thailand and Myanmar will be next. It is in the genes of humans to wage wars of conquest, as witnessed by historical events since the emergence of Man on this planet. A lack of knowledge of history will ensure a repeat of past mistakes. If we (with the world’s help, but we must bear the main burden) don’t stop the Chinese now, soon India, the United States, Australia, and Indonesia will have to fight to stop China from taking over the whole Southeast Asia. In peace, we have to prepare for war. During war, we have to plan for peace.
Sooner or later, we, the Vietnamese people have to fight the Chinese, unless we are willing to roll over and become slaves and get assimilated in the process; unless we are willing to let the Chinese take all our women, grab all our natural resources, destroy our books and all evidence that we are different from them, and rewrite history and tell our future generations that the Vietnamese are really Chinese. By that time, the assimilation in Vietnam is complete as it was in South China.
Ladies and gentlemen, Vietnam is in dire traits. It has no friends nor does it have allies. It has no defense treaty with any country that I know of, except with China! Its leaders are busy lining up their pockets with ill-gotten monies. The Vietnamese are sick and tired of the corrupt ruling clique and hungry and thirsty for a regime change. China is planning to do that and is aiming to supplant the Vietnamese Communist Party as the new ruler of Vietnam. When I think of the situation in Vietnam, I wonder how one can be chortlingly habituated to cheap jokes and sex-laden materials. I cannot derive any exquisite caloricity or pleasure from reading those jokes or viewing those materials.
Wissai
August 26, 2009
Chaque homme a son destin
The same for a nation
Love and Anger are two of the most powerful emotions a human can have. Together they drive most of his actions.
I originally wrote this piece using the pronoun we, but upon rereading it, I decided to switch to first person singular since I didn’t wish to come across as presumptuous. I only could speak for myself and not for my two colleagues. I saw the way the Chinese Navy personnel mistreated our Vietnamese fishermen who were working in the same areas they had done for generations. And I experienced both love for my fellow countrymen and anger at the Chinese. So, being a simple human with emotions not yet overridden by other concerns such as apathy, selfishness, and fear, I acted. Maybe I was impetuous and amateurish, but I felt that I had to do something instead of rationalizing away the intolerable situation in the East Sea. I did some more thinking and realized that the East Seas incidents were part of the grand scheme of Chinese planned take-over of Vietnam. I raised the alarm, drafted a declaration to bring to the attention of the world and especially the Vietnamese back home about the invasion. I got a support of a precious few who did not regard my actions as “infertile” and quixotic. I did what I did because our heart told me so. To me, silence was not an option. I wanted to be able to sleep at night. I wanted to look at myself in the mirror every morning and not to feel ashamed of myself for doing nothing or mouthing off negative comments in order to dissuade others from doing something for Vietnam. I wanted to do something for our people back home and our country because I felt I had to respond to the call of duty as an educated and caring son of Vietnam. I just simply did what the responsible forefathers of ours had done over four thousand years of our long history. I didn’t feel self-righteous although I certainly felt that I did the right thing. I did the only way that was within my power: using words to raise the consciousness of those who still care about Vietnam. All fights begin in the minds.
I didn’t feel I was an alarmist, raising hue and cry over nothing. I have seen with increasing clarity the danger China is posing for the survival of Vietnam as a sovereign state and possibly for other states in Southeast Asia as well. Let me back up my assertion with some news and news analysis against the backdrop of some formal education in Political Science and some knowledge in world history and understanding of the nature of Man as an aggressive, expansionist-minded animal.
China recently conducted a military exercise involving sea, air, and ground forces. The exercise involved amphibious landing. I don’t think the exercise which cost a lot of money was done for showing off. Nor do I think the exercise was carried out as a preparation for an invasion of Taiwan. So, which country was the target? Which country did China conduct a limited border invasion in early 1979 and received a humiliating clobbering? The clobbering occurred for two main reasons: One, the failure to engage the Chinese air force due to its rather primitive aircraft fleet. China didn’t want to risk having its fighter planes shot down by the Vietnamese vaunting sophisticated anti-aircraft missile systems maintained and supplied by the Soviet Union. Two, Vietnamese artillery was deadly effective against Chinese troops (source: Wikipedia. The Sino-Vietnamese border war of 1979). The war taught China a valuable lesson and ever since it has modernized its forces and vows when the next full-scale invasion comes (and it is coming sooner than you think), it will not lose face again.
Alarmed by the increasingly bellicose posture of China in the East Sea and the Indian Ocean, countries such as Indonesia and Australia have increased their defense expenditures.
Vietnam has ordered a purchase from Russia six submarines. These submarines, once delivered, will be trained by India.
Vietnam has mobilized its forces. It has called men from eighteen to fifty years of age for military service; it also ordered its veterans back to duty. It has conducted training exercises. Relatives of high-position cadres of the Vietnamese Communist Party have taken part in an exodus as tourists to overseas.
The Vietnamese state-controlled newspapers have begun vociferously condemning China for its actions in the East Sea.
In a few weeks, India and the United States will have a joint military exercises. The United States a few months ago has entered a formal agreement to transfer nuclear technology to India.
South Korea successfully launched a satellite into space from its own soil. A few months ago, Vietnam had a satellite launched into space. Both countries declared that the satellites were for weather and communication purposes, but we knew better. Satellites are very useful to observe troop buildup and movements.
The Obama administration, unlike its myopic predecessor, has certainly recognized China as the rival and the threat to the United States. While coping with the massive economic problems at home and fighting two wars, it is vigorously conducting a full-court press of foreign policy within merely the first eight months of its existence. Obama went to a Muslim country and made the case that his administration would be vastly different than the Bush administration. He extended his hand to Iran. He dispatched Hillary Clinton to Southeast Asia confirming and affirming that “America is back” and then to Africa where China has made tremendous inroads due to the neglect of the Western powers, the U.S. included. He sent Bill Clinton to talk with North Korea, ostensibly to win the release of two Asian-American journalists. He sent Jim Webb, a freshman senator with a Vietnamese wife and a former marine in Vietnam as well as a former Secretary of Navy, to a tour of five Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam where in a period of twenty fours he met various highest members of the Vietnamese Communist Party and government. It is also important to note that Senator Webb chairs a Senate subcommittee dealing with East Asia and Pacific Affairs. I have sent him a letter and an accompanied declaration but have not received a reply nor do I expect to receive any, since I am not his constituent. I wrote to him just to stress the point, as if he didn’t know already, that the East Sea disputes over the Paracel and Spratly Islands could be the ignition that started war in the region
Ladies and gentlemen, do we need more facts to realize that we are living in an “exciting”, history-making time in Southeast Asia? Today, China is behaving like the Nazi Germany did in the late 1930’s. With Russia being busy building up its shattered economy and the United States bogged down in two (could be three, if you consider Pakistan) wars and mired in economic troubles, China with its rising economic prosperity, is flexing its muscles and carrying out its Greater Han expansion. It is supporting Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan in order to encircle India. It is trying to displace Vietnam as a decision maker in Laos and Cambodia. It is encouraging cooperation in military matters between Myanmar and North Korea. Simply put, China is expanding its zone of influence under the belief that the 21st century belongs to it and it is behaving in a manner befitting its rising stature.
It is human nature for the strong to attack the weak, for a strong and bigger country to swallow up a smaller, weaker country. To China, Vietnam has been a tempting meal for thousands of years. At one time, China had Vietnam inside its mouth for a thousand years. It thought it could chew and swallow up Vietnam as it did to other lands south of the Yangtze River, but somehow the Vietnamese forced it to throw up Vietnam. Ever since 939 AD, China has tried many times through naked invasions to defeat and assimilate Vietnam once and for all. Today, thanks to Vietnam being weakened after a long, brutal civil war instigated and encouraged by the Chinese, China has its best chance for two centuries. The take-over of the Paracel and the Spatly Islands, the grabbing of land at the border, the construction of dams in the upper reaches of the Mekong River, the presence of estimated 100,000 “laborers” in Vietnam, Vietnam huge trade deficit vis-à-vis China, and the flooding of Chinese goods in Vietnam are all part of the plan to conquer and assimilate us. Wake up and stop diddling around with nonsensical diatribes. Be serious for a change. Our country is becoming like Austria in 1938. Once Vietnam falls, Cambodia and Laos will follow. Thailand and Myanmar will be next. It is in the genes of humans to wage wars of conquest, as witnessed by historical events since the emergence of Man on this planet. A lack of knowledge of history will ensure a repeat of past mistakes. If we (with the world’s help, but we must bear the main burden) don’t stop the Chinese now, soon India, the United States, Australia, and Indonesia will have to fight to stop China from taking over the whole Southeast Asia. In peace, we have to prepare for war. During war, we have to plan for peace.
Sooner or later, we, the Vietnamese people have to fight the Chinese, unless we are willing to roll over and become slaves and get assimilated in the process; unless we are willing to let the Chinese take all our women, grab all our natural resources, destroy our books and all evidence that we are different from them, and rewrite history and tell our future generations that the Vietnamese are really Chinese. By that time, the assimilation in Vietnam is complete as it was in South China.
Ladies and gentlemen, Vietnam is in dire traits. It has no friends nor does it have allies. It has no defense treaty with any country that I know of, except with China! Its leaders are busy lining up their pockets with ill-gotten monies. The Vietnamese are sick and tired of the corrupt ruling clique and hungry and thirsty for a regime change. China is planning to do that and is aiming to supplant the Vietnamese Communist Party as the new ruler of Vietnam. When I think of the situation in Vietnam, I wonder how one can be chortlingly habituated to cheap jokes and sex-laden materials. I cannot derive any exquisite caloricity or pleasure from reading those jokes or viewing those materials.
Wissai
August 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Knowlege and Silence
Knowledge and Silence
I received an email forwarded from a friend, in which there was a series of exchanges about knowledge concerning Vietnamese culture, meditation, and Buddhism. I read the email with keen interest and amusement. However, by the time I reached the end of the exchanges, I stopped feeling amused. Instead, I experienced a strange mixture of sobering humility and self-awareness.
The subjects discussed in the email are familiar with me since they have been the areas of interest to me for a long time. I don’t fancy that I am an expert of these subjects but I think I know more than an average person. In fact, I am perusing a book which touches on religion, God, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, logic, language, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. Some of the materials covered are tough going for me, but I am not totally lost. I fancy that I am in good company and on the right path to an understanding of where I am in relation to life around me and my place in the universe. What I need to guard myself is not to heap scorn on those who love to show off their meager knowledge and pretend that they know more than they actually do. What I need to control is not to have feelings of nausea and disgust when I see amateurish attempts of pontification and poor reasoning skills displayed in the forum of which I am a member. What I need to do is to practice silence and not be like those who make me want to puke whenever I read their words; in other words, I need to write only when silence is no longer necessary and I only write for the common good, for the sake of my home country, and not to satisfy my ego.
CanNgon
August 24, 2009
I received an email forwarded from a friend, in which there was a series of exchanges about knowledge concerning Vietnamese culture, meditation, and Buddhism. I read the email with keen interest and amusement. However, by the time I reached the end of the exchanges, I stopped feeling amused. Instead, I experienced a strange mixture of sobering humility and self-awareness.
The subjects discussed in the email are familiar with me since they have been the areas of interest to me for a long time. I don’t fancy that I am an expert of these subjects but I think I know more than an average person. In fact, I am perusing a book which touches on religion, God, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, logic, language, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. Some of the materials covered are tough going for me, but I am not totally lost. I fancy that I am in good company and on the right path to an understanding of where I am in relation to life around me and my place in the universe. What I need to guard myself is not to heap scorn on those who love to show off their meager knowledge and pretend that they know more than they actually do. What I need to control is not to have feelings of nausea and disgust when I see amateurish attempts of pontification and poor reasoning skills displayed in the forum of which I am a member. What I need to do is to practice silence and not be like those who make me want to puke whenever I read their words; in other words, I need to write only when silence is no longer necessary and I only write for the common good, for the sake of my home country, and not to satisfy my ego.
CanNgon
August 24, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The post of a fellow member of this forum on the death of My Lai massacre hero Hugh Thompson Jr., a former U.S. military helicopter pilot who helped stopped one of the most infamous massacres of the Vietnam War, triggered the following rambling memories and thoughts.
1. Emile Zola, a French writer of naturalism, talked about the beast within Man’s heart. Humans are somewhere between angels and devils, between full-fledged homo sapiens with complete developed higher consciousness and incomplete brutes with sole preoccupation with lower, crude desires such as sex, cheap and infantile humor, survival at all costs, and turning their backs on their fellow countrymen who need help. Hugh Thompson Jr. was a true homo sapiens. Richard Nixon who commuted Lt. William Calley—the architect of the massacre, from life sentence to three months of house arrest, Calley himself, and the congressman who told Thompson that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai incident, were true animals. I wonder how some men turned out to be real men and others were merely humans in disguise. Was it upbringing, genetics, or a simple failure of one’s heart to respond to the calling of higher consciousness?
2. I recall leafing through the pages of Life magazine in a classroom of Faculty of Pedagogy in Saigon sometime in late 1968. A classmate had brought the magazine to the class. In the magazine were pictures of the massacre. Children and babies along with their mothers were shot dead. Blood rushed to my head and I was consumed with anger and hatred. But then I told myself no matter how I hated my enemy combatants, I would not do the same thing to their innocent loved ones because it was simply unfair. Fairness has been the over-arching principle by which I conduct myself.
3. I live in the comfort and safety in the United States, far away from the land of my birth where my fellow countrymen live under a totalitarian regime that does not respond to the needs of the people, and, worse still, seems to cater to the needs of our historical enemies, the Chinese. I ask myself a question: since I fancy myself as a fair-minded individual, what should I do? Armed with only some felicity with words, all I can do is to expose the injustice, the unfairness, and the quiet but comprehensive step-by-step take-over of Vietnam by China, currently under way, aided by the inept, corrupt, and totally selfish Vietnamese Communist Party leadership. Hopefully, somehow my words reach my fellow countrymen back home and they realize there are people like me out there who have not forgotten them. Hopefully, they find solace and strength and hope in my words and somehow decide that change is possible and to fight for survival is an option instead of rolling over and playing dead while China is taking over the country.
4. At this moment, as I am typing these reflections, my esteemed friend and comrade, Mr. HC, is laboriously typing almost a thousand of names of Vietnamese who find resonance in my words. Mr. HC has spent his own money to put an ad in the local Viet paper in Sydney, Australia to print the Declaration of the concerned Vietnamese worldwide regarding the quiet but comprehensive invasion of Vietnam by China. The ad should be out sometime next week. The act of Mr. HC is an act of unadulterated love, an act of true homo sapiens. His act reflects a man of real fire, and not of smoke, a man of true music, and not of banal noise.
Can Ngon
August 22, 2009
The post of a fellow member of this forum on the death of My Lai massacre hero Hugh Thompson Jr., a former U.S. military helicopter pilot who helped stopped one of the most infamous massacres of the Vietnam War, triggered the following rambling memories and thoughts.
1. Emile Zola, a French writer of naturalism, talked about the beast within Man’s heart. Humans are somewhere between angels and devils, between full-fledged homo sapiens with complete developed higher consciousness and incomplete brutes with sole preoccupation with lower, crude desires such as sex, cheap and infantile humor, survival at all costs, and turning their backs on their fellow countrymen who need help. Hugh Thompson Jr. was a true homo sapiens. Richard Nixon who commuted Lt. William Calley—the architect of the massacre, from life sentence to three months of house arrest, Calley himself, and the congressman who told Thompson that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai incident, were true animals. I wonder how some men turned out to be real men and others were merely humans in disguise. Was it upbringing, genetics, or a simple failure of one’s heart to respond to the calling of higher consciousness?
2. I recall leafing through the pages of Life magazine in a classroom of Faculty of Pedagogy in Saigon sometime in late 1968. A classmate had brought the magazine to the class. In the magazine were pictures of the massacre. Children and babies along with their mothers were shot dead. Blood rushed to my head and I was consumed with anger and hatred. But then I told myself no matter how I hated my enemy combatants, I would not do the same thing to their innocent loved ones because it was simply unfair. Fairness has been the over-arching principle by which I conduct myself.
3. I live in the comfort and safety in the United States, far away from the land of my birth where my fellow countrymen live under a totalitarian regime that does not respond to the needs of the people, and, worse still, seems to cater to the needs of our historical enemies, the Chinese. I ask myself a question: since I fancy myself as a fair-minded individual, what should I do? Armed with only some felicity with words, all I can do is to expose the injustice, the unfairness, and the quiet but comprehensive step-by-step take-over of Vietnam by China, currently under way, aided by the inept, corrupt, and totally selfish Vietnamese Communist Party leadership. Hopefully, somehow my words reach my fellow countrymen back home and they realize there are people like me out there who have not forgotten them. Hopefully, they find solace and strength and hope in my words and somehow decide that change is possible and to fight for survival is an option instead of rolling over and playing dead while China is taking over the country.
4. At this moment, as I am typing these reflections, my esteemed friend and comrade, Mr. HC, is laboriously typing almost a thousand of names of Vietnamese who find resonance in my words. Mr. HC has spent his own money to put an ad in the local Viet paper in Sydney, Australia to print the Declaration of the concerned Vietnamese worldwide regarding the quiet but comprehensive invasion of Vietnam by China. The ad should be out sometime next week. The act of Mr. HC is an act of unadulterated love, an act of true homo sapiens. His act reflects a man of real fire, and not of smoke, a man of true music, and not of banal noise.
Can Ngon
August 22, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Regression Analysis
Regression Analysis
One of my mottos to live by is: “We don’t know who we are until we are tested.” I certainly didn’t know I was capable of deep feelings of anger and disgust and repulsion until I saw the way I reacted to a certain individual recently. I thought I could practice forgiveness and overlooked his infantile behavior, but I was wrong. Instead, I felt viscerally and physically revolted by his recent words which I found to be infantile, inane, insane, ignorant and plainly stupid. I wondered who was suffering the regression to second childhood, me or him? I then concluded it had to be him because he was blithely ignorant of his shortcomings whereas I am eternally vigilant to mine.
The bastard has an ego but very little talent to back it up. Just because he managed to go to college, he fancies that he is educated and intelligent. His reasoning is infantile and has no sequacity. He does not know Jack shit about anything of substance and yet he is not shy of mouthing off his opinions just about everything under the sun. He is a strange animal indeed. In fact, his pen name is that of an animal. How apt, how fitting, and how ridiculous! As I put it in my recent email to the forum of which I am a member, after reading his nonsensical and jejune diatribes, I could not help but wonder about his mindset, his taste, and his upbringing. I was kind when I used the word upbringing because I didn’t think he had any. He must have been a bastard, an unwanted and abandoned child who grew up in the orphanage and later in the streets, because he has no manners of a civilized, cultured human. His behavior is that of a thug, a brute, an animal. No wonder many members of the forum treat him as if he were a leper. They stay far away from him and practice silence to everything he brings up. Some felt so disgusted that they left the forum altogether.
Wissai
August 19, 2009
One of my mottos to live by is: “We don’t know who we are until we are tested.” I certainly didn’t know I was capable of deep feelings of anger and disgust and repulsion until I saw the way I reacted to a certain individual recently. I thought I could practice forgiveness and overlooked his infantile behavior, but I was wrong. Instead, I felt viscerally and physically revolted by his recent words which I found to be infantile, inane, insane, ignorant and plainly stupid. I wondered who was suffering the regression to second childhood, me or him? I then concluded it had to be him because he was blithely ignorant of his shortcomings whereas I am eternally vigilant to mine.
The bastard has an ego but very little talent to back it up. Just because he managed to go to college, he fancies that he is educated and intelligent. His reasoning is infantile and has no sequacity. He does not know Jack shit about anything of substance and yet he is not shy of mouthing off his opinions just about everything under the sun. He is a strange animal indeed. In fact, his pen name is that of an animal. How apt, how fitting, and how ridiculous! As I put it in my recent email to the forum of which I am a member, after reading his nonsensical and jejune diatribes, I could not help but wonder about his mindset, his taste, and his upbringing. I was kind when I used the word upbringing because I didn’t think he had any. He must have been a bastard, an unwanted and abandoned child who grew up in the orphanage and later in the streets, because he has no manners of a civilized, cultured human. His behavior is that of a thug, a brute, an animal. No wonder many members of the forum treat him as if he were a leper. They stay far away from him and practice silence to everything he brings up. Some felt so disgusted that they left the forum altogether.
Wissai
August 19, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Nietzsche and I
Fiction, Essay, Nietzsche and I once more. Another Manifesto.
On a beautiful day like this when an unexpected cold front from the North brought cool fresh air and relief to the scorching South, I feel expansive and uninhibited and thankful to be alive.
Yesterday, the weather was just the opposite. I came home from a long trip and as the twilight began to come on, the sky was turning black and my car hissed into a wall of rain. I put the wipers on full strength and slowed down the car. Cars driven by idiots and maniacs passed me by and sprayed my car and blinded me for a second or so. The rain peppered the windshield and the roof and the tires made a hissing sound as they went through a thin layer of water. I felt strangely relaxed. Water is life. I drove for hundreds of miles and my mind was groping for the meaning of why I kept punishing myself.
Today, the rain was long gone. Everything is crisp and clear, trees and grass are in their luxuriant green, and flowers and butterflies are everywhere. I went for a walk, the morning was awash with sunlight, and I felt every molecule in my body dancing. On the day like this, I feel like writing some fiction, but lying (creation) is an art, and few do it well to the point that the readers are transported and transformed by the words of the creator. It’s much easier to write nonfiction, to state one’s opinions in a straightforward manner without allusions, without a framework of a story.
So, Nam Le got another award for his marvelous book of stories. Every Dick, Tom, and Harry can appreciate popular music and rhapsodize on the transcendental beauty of roses and orchids, but it takes a rare and thus more evolved sensibility to appreciate literature, painting, and sculpture. It is no wonder writers and poets and painters and sculptors feel they are very special, far above the coarse common crowd who make mere noise and nothing else. The more mediocre a person, the more noise he makes. Maybe I am myself one of those guys. Anyway, the following are words mostly taken verbatim from Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo (I’ve read the book at least 10 times and every time I read it, my mind soars and my heart sings). Occasionally I throw in my own words to confuse the reader as to who is speaking here. [(I believe I once said that N and I shared the same birthday as that of a Prussian king. In fact, N’s first and middle names derived from the king. N’s father was a pastor and for a few years lived in the castle of Altenburg and taught the four princesses there. Sometimes I have an inkling that N lives within me although I am far luckier than he was in the department of love. He lived in a household full of women and so did I (I have six sisters and one brother), but he could not find a wife. Throughout my life, my best friends have always been women and some of them were more than friends]. Without further ado, let us plunge into the world of N, but I do feel obligated to warn those of tender or jealous sensibilities to stay away, because N’s words (and mine, too) are only for the strong and the not jealous. N had a mental breakdown a few months after writing the book. He lingered on for almost twelve years until he died in August 1900 without regaining consciousness of the fact that he once wrote books that he rightly predicted that they would make a big impact for generations, if not centuries, to come. It was poignant to note that the breakdown occurred when he rushed to the street in order to restrain a coach driver from whipping the horse. Walter Kaufmann, the authority on N, surmised that N he suffered from consequences of untreated syphilis contracted during his student days. N was in poor health and was almost blind during most of his adult life; yet in spite of this, he wrote books after books. He celebrated the will to power and advocated a robust approach to life as a revolt against and a sublimation of his own poor health. One only philosophizes from one’s own experiences.
I live on my own credit; it is perhaps a mere prejudice that I live.
Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else. But how could you? My contempt is so transparent; my disgust so palpable; and my disappointment immense. No matter how hard you try to hide, I can see through you. I have keen eyesight and you are not that difficult to read.
Those who can breathe the air of my writings know that it is an air of the heights, a strong air. One must be made for it. Otherwise there is no small danger that one may catch cold from it. The ice is near, the solitude tremendous—but how calmly all things lie in the light! How freely one breathes! How much one feels beneath oneself!
How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare? Error (faith in the ideal) is not blindness, error is cowardice.
Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.
Among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself. With that I have given mankind the greatest present that has been made to it so far. Here no “prophet” is speaking, none of those gruesome hybrids of sickness and will to power whom people called founders of religion. Above all, one must hear aright the tone that comes from this mouth, the halcyon tone, lest one should do wretched injustice to the meaning of its wisdom.
It is the stillest words that bring on the storm. Thought that come on doves’ feet guide the world.
The figs are falling from the trees; they are good and sweet; and, as they fall, their red skin bursts. I am a north wind to ripe figs.
Thus, like figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends: now consume their juice and their sweet meat. It is fall around us, and pure sky and afternoon.
It is no fanatic that speaks here; this is not “preaching”; no faith is demanded here: from an infinite abundance of light and depth of happiness falls drop upon drop, word upon word: the tempo of these speeches is a tender adagio. Such things reach only the most select.
Not only does Zarathustra speak differently, he also is different.
The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends.
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath?
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you
On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not only the grape turns brown, the eye of the sun just fell upon my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never saw so many and such good things at once. How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life?—and I so I tell my life to myself.
All pathological disturbances of the intellect, even that half-numb state that follows fever, have remained entirely foreign to me to this day. A physician who treated me for some time as if my nerves were sick finally said: “It’s not your nerves, it is rather I that am nervous.”
A well-turned-out person pleases our senses, he is carved from wood that is hard, delicate, and at the same time smells good.
I am warlike by nature. Attacking is one of my instincts. I attack falsehood masqueraded as truth and ignorance presented as knowledge; I attack hypocrisy, envy, jealousy, and cowardice; I attack reasoning without sequaciy; and I attack pettiness within myself and of others. Bragging, pride, and arrogance, no matter how distasteful or obnoxious, don’t bother me since they have something to do with truth. A person is allowed to feel good about himself as long as what he feels good about is factual and true.
I have never reflected on questions that are none—I have not wasted myself. “God”, ‘immortality of the soul’, “redemption”, “beyond”—are concepts to which I never devoted any attention or time; not even as a child. Perhaps I have never been childlike enough for them?
I do not by any means know atheism as a result; even less as an event: it is a matter of course with me, from instinct. I am too inquisitive, too questionable, too exuberant to stand for any gross answer. (Ich bin zu neugierig, zu fragwurdig, zu ubermutig, um mir eine faustgrobe Antwort gefallen zu lassen). God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers—at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: thou shall not think!
When I seek another word for music, I always find only the word Venice. I do not know how to distinguish between tears and music—I do not know how to think of happiness, of the south, without shudders of timidity.
At the bridge I stood
lately in the brown night.
From a far came a song:
as a golden drop it welled
over the quivering surface.
Gondolas, lights, and music—
drunken it swam out into the twilight.
My soul, a stringed instrument,
sang to itself, invisibly touched,
a secret gondola song,
quivering with iridescent happiness.
-- Did any one listen to it?
Wissai
June 6, 2009_
On a beautiful day like this when an unexpected cold front from the North brought cool fresh air and relief to the scorching South, I feel expansive and uninhibited and thankful to be alive.
Yesterday, the weather was just the opposite. I came home from a long trip and as the twilight began to come on, the sky was turning black and my car hissed into a wall of rain. I put the wipers on full strength and slowed down the car. Cars driven by idiots and maniacs passed me by and sprayed my car and blinded me for a second or so. The rain peppered the windshield and the roof and the tires made a hissing sound as they went through a thin layer of water. I felt strangely relaxed. Water is life. I drove for hundreds of miles and my mind was groping for the meaning of why I kept punishing myself.
Today, the rain was long gone. Everything is crisp and clear, trees and grass are in their luxuriant green, and flowers and butterflies are everywhere. I went for a walk, the morning was awash with sunlight, and I felt every molecule in my body dancing. On the day like this, I feel like writing some fiction, but lying (creation) is an art, and few do it well to the point that the readers are transported and transformed by the words of the creator. It’s much easier to write nonfiction, to state one’s opinions in a straightforward manner without allusions, without a framework of a story.
So, Nam Le got another award for his marvelous book of stories. Every Dick, Tom, and Harry can appreciate popular music and rhapsodize on the transcendental beauty of roses and orchids, but it takes a rare and thus more evolved sensibility to appreciate literature, painting, and sculpture. It is no wonder writers and poets and painters and sculptors feel they are very special, far above the coarse common crowd who make mere noise and nothing else. The more mediocre a person, the more noise he makes. Maybe I am myself one of those guys. Anyway, the following are words mostly taken verbatim from Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo (I’ve read the book at least 10 times and every time I read it, my mind soars and my heart sings). Occasionally I throw in my own words to confuse the reader as to who is speaking here. [(I believe I once said that N and I shared the same birthday as that of a Prussian king. In fact, N’s first and middle names derived from the king. N’s father was a pastor and for a few years lived in the castle of Altenburg and taught the four princesses there. Sometimes I have an inkling that N lives within me although I am far luckier than he was in the department of love. He lived in a household full of women and so did I (I have six sisters and one brother), but he could not find a wife. Throughout my life, my best friends have always been women and some of them were more than friends]. Without further ado, let us plunge into the world of N, but I do feel obligated to warn those of tender or jealous sensibilities to stay away, because N’s words (and mine, too) are only for the strong and the not jealous. N had a mental breakdown a few months after writing the book. He lingered on for almost twelve years until he died in August 1900 without regaining consciousness of the fact that he once wrote books that he rightly predicted that they would make a big impact for generations, if not centuries, to come. It was poignant to note that the breakdown occurred when he rushed to the street in order to restrain a coach driver from whipping the horse. Walter Kaufmann, the authority on N, surmised that N he suffered from consequences of untreated syphilis contracted during his student days. N was in poor health and was almost blind during most of his adult life; yet in spite of this, he wrote books after books. He celebrated the will to power and advocated a robust approach to life as a revolt against and a sublimation of his own poor health. One only philosophizes from one’s own experiences.
I live on my own credit; it is perhaps a mere prejudice that I live.
Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else. But how could you? My contempt is so transparent; my disgust so palpable; and my disappointment immense. No matter how hard you try to hide, I can see through you. I have keen eyesight and you are not that difficult to read.
Those who can breathe the air of my writings know that it is an air of the heights, a strong air. One must be made for it. Otherwise there is no small danger that one may catch cold from it. The ice is near, the solitude tremendous—but how calmly all things lie in the light! How freely one breathes! How much one feels beneath oneself!
How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare? Error (faith in the ideal) is not blindness, error is cowardice.
Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.
Among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself. With that I have given mankind the greatest present that has been made to it so far. Here no “prophet” is speaking, none of those gruesome hybrids of sickness and will to power whom people called founders of religion. Above all, one must hear aright the tone that comes from this mouth, the halcyon tone, lest one should do wretched injustice to the meaning of its wisdom.
It is the stillest words that bring on the storm. Thought that come on doves’ feet guide the world.
The figs are falling from the trees; they are good and sweet; and, as they fall, their red skin bursts. I am a north wind to ripe figs.
Thus, like figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends: now consume their juice and their sweet meat. It is fall around us, and pure sky and afternoon.
It is no fanatic that speaks here; this is not “preaching”; no faith is demanded here: from an infinite abundance of light and depth of happiness falls drop upon drop, word upon word: the tempo of these speeches is a tender adagio. Such things reach only the most select.
Not only does Zarathustra speak differently, he also is different.
The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends.
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath?
Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you
On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not only the grape turns brown, the eye of the sun just fell upon my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never saw so many and such good things at once. How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life?—and I so I tell my life to myself.
All pathological disturbances of the intellect, even that half-numb state that follows fever, have remained entirely foreign to me to this day. A physician who treated me for some time as if my nerves were sick finally said: “It’s not your nerves, it is rather I that am nervous.”
A well-turned-out person pleases our senses, he is carved from wood that is hard, delicate, and at the same time smells good.
I am warlike by nature. Attacking is one of my instincts. I attack falsehood masqueraded as truth and ignorance presented as knowledge; I attack hypocrisy, envy, jealousy, and cowardice; I attack reasoning without sequaciy; and I attack pettiness within myself and of others. Bragging, pride, and arrogance, no matter how distasteful or obnoxious, don’t bother me since they have something to do with truth. A person is allowed to feel good about himself as long as what he feels good about is factual and true.
I have never reflected on questions that are none—I have not wasted myself. “God”, ‘immortality of the soul’, “redemption”, “beyond”—are concepts to which I never devoted any attention or time; not even as a child. Perhaps I have never been childlike enough for them?
I do not by any means know atheism as a result; even less as an event: it is a matter of course with me, from instinct. I am too inquisitive, too questionable, too exuberant to stand for any gross answer. (Ich bin zu neugierig, zu fragwurdig, zu ubermutig, um mir eine faustgrobe Antwort gefallen zu lassen). God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers—at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: thou shall not think!
When I seek another word for music, I always find only the word Venice. I do not know how to distinguish between tears and music—I do not know how to think of happiness, of the south, without shudders of timidity.
At the bridge I stood
lately in the brown night.
From a far came a song:
as a golden drop it welled
over the quivering surface.
Gondolas, lights, and music—
drunken it swam out into the twilight.
My soul, a stringed instrument,
sang to itself, invisibly touched,
a secret gondola song,
quivering with iridescent happiness.
-- Did any one listen to it?
Wissai
June 6, 2009_
Stumbling, mumbling, numbling, crumbling, crummy thoughts
Stumbling, mumbling, numbing, crumbling, crummy thoughts
So he wants to talk about the mystery of women. Ah, what does he know about women? (Just kidding, my friend. I took a liberty here. I hope I was granted a liberty.) Oh, I forgot. He once made a grand pronouncement that he was a champion in the love department. I didn’t know if the pronouncement was made in zest or jest. I suspected that it was made in earnest. Anyway, it was a gesture of self-confidence. Congratulations to him! I must confess that I don’t know anything about women except that they are mysterious and hard to figure out. The more I know about them, the lonelier I feel. That’s why I write poetry to alleviate my sense of existential loneliness. I would like to ask him question: What part(s) of the male anatomy the women find most sexually attractive and why? He must answer the question on his own without consultation with his wife and/or his numerous female friends. Come to think of it, the question should be extended to those males who are interested in this rather practical matter.
As regards the line from TCS, I find it beautiful and romantic and erotic since I interpret it as the girl’s wish for rain so her blouse would get wet and reveal her female form more transparently as she was heading home. I suspected what she hoped for was not a mere drizzle, but a downpour, so she would look like a Venus in the rain and all men in the vicinity would pant with unstoppable excitement.
Now, allow me to share with you in the paragraphs below, the words of Raymond Tallis, an emeritus professor of geriatric medicine and a poet and novelist and philosopher, from a book with a lofty title The Kingdom of Infinite Space. I sometimes would jump in and offer my own sophomoric comments
“Man”, Hazlitt said (citing Aristotle) ‘is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.” This quote resonates deeply with me because so many times I find myself both weeping and laughing at the same time over what women have done to me. I weep for my stupidity and naivety and I laugh over the absurdity of the thing called love. In the name of love, I have done so many stupid and irrational things. And I am sure the women, and there are so many of them, are laughing at me now, at my stupidity.
They laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian and a writer. Well, I became a comedian and a writer of sorts. They are not laughing now. But I am laughing, hence this compendium of stumbling, mumbling, numbing, crummy, crumbling thoughts.
We laugh sometimes so that we shall not cry. And sometimes we laugh until we cry tears of laughter.
Speech is conscious of itself. When I speak, I know that of which I speak, why I speak, to whom I am speaking, what I hope to achieve through speaking, and that I am speaking.
Speech, which uses abstraction, says how things are, denies how they are, says how they might or ought to be and, most fundamentally, say that they are. It accompanies us from morning to night, from the end of infancy to the end of dotage. And when we are not speaking out loud, we are speaking to ourselves in the windless speech of thought. We even speak in dreams and dream that we are speaking.
We are explicit animals. The propensity to transform expired air into sounds that are used to refer to other things, to possibilities that may or may not be realized, presupposes an explicit sense of oneself, of the material world, and of other humans.
Speech is a compendious, elaborate, folded, oceanic expression of what is there. In saying what is there, we are saying something about ourselves: we say what we are; we exhibit ourselves, we put into circulation and image of ourselves. Speaking involves a mixture of air and history, breath and memory, beyond our consciousness. We make the language we have on loan our own possession, the most immediate and intimate expression of ourselves. The choice of words, the structure of our sentences, the games we play with accents and sounds, and so on—all mark the common language as our private property. Beyond the distinctive pattern of kindness or cruelty, helpfulness or obstructiveness, ignorance and knowledge, gloom and joy, there is a special inflection of the semantic breeze, an idiosyncratic mix of imitations and echoes that mark it out as ours.
Yet much of what others say bores us. Speech descends to wittering; and conversation is merely a “vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.”
Now, I have to catch my breath. It’s your turn to speak. Please speak with sense and sensibility and beauty and music.
Now, you know why I am interested in language and languages. I am a talker, a maker of speech, not a speech-maker. I put words together and fall in love with their magic. Through talking and thinking aloud in words, I discovered my humanity and what a humanity it is!
I typed this “speech” today with confidence, without any sudorific anguish or anxiety. I came close to the line, but I didn’t cross it.
Wissai
June 8, 2009
So he wants to talk about the mystery of women. Ah, what does he know about women? (Just kidding, my friend. I took a liberty here. I hope I was granted a liberty.) Oh, I forgot. He once made a grand pronouncement that he was a champion in the love department. I didn’t know if the pronouncement was made in zest or jest. I suspected that it was made in earnest. Anyway, it was a gesture of self-confidence. Congratulations to him! I must confess that I don’t know anything about women except that they are mysterious and hard to figure out. The more I know about them, the lonelier I feel. That’s why I write poetry to alleviate my sense of existential loneliness. I would like to ask him question: What part(s) of the male anatomy the women find most sexually attractive and why? He must answer the question on his own without consultation with his wife and/or his numerous female friends. Come to think of it, the question should be extended to those males who are interested in this rather practical matter.
As regards the line from TCS, I find it beautiful and romantic and erotic since I interpret it as the girl’s wish for rain so her blouse would get wet and reveal her female form more transparently as she was heading home. I suspected what she hoped for was not a mere drizzle, but a downpour, so she would look like a Venus in the rain and all men in the vicinity would pant with unstoppable excitement.
Now, allow me to share with you in the paragraphs below, the words of Raymond Tallis, an emeritus professor of geriatric medicine and a poet and novelist and philosopher, from a book with a lofty title The Kingdom of Infinite Space. I sometimes would jump in and offer my own sophomoric comments
“Man”, Hazlitt said (citing Aristotle) ‘is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.” This quote resonates deeply with me because so many times I find myself both weeping and laughing at the same time over what women have done to me. I weep for my stupidity and naivety and I laugh over the absurdity of the thing called love. In the name of love, I have done so many stupid and irrational things. And I am sure the women, and there are so many of them, are laughing at me now, at my stupidity.
They laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian and a writer. Well, I became a comedian and a writer of sorts. They are not laughing now. But I am laughing, hence this compendium of stumbling, mumbling, numbing, crummy, crumbling thoughts.
We laugh sometimes so that we shall not cry. And sometimes we laugh until we cry tears of laughter.
Speech is conscious of itself. When I speak, I know that of which I speak, why I speak, to whom I am speaking, what I hope to achieve through speaking, and that I am speaking.
Speech, which uses abstraction, says how things are, denies how they are, says how they might or ought to be and, most fundamentally, say that they are. It accompanies us from morning to night, from the end of infancy to the end of dotage. And when we are not speaking out loud, we are speaking to ourselves in the windless speech of thought. We even speak in dreams and dream that we are speaking.
We are explicit animals. The propensity to transform expired air into sounds that are used to refer to other things, to possibilities that may or may not be realized, presupposes an explicit sense of oneself, of the material world, and of other humans.
Speech is a compendious, elaborate, folded, oceanic expression of what is there. In saying what is there, we are saying something about ourselves: we say what we are; we exhibit ourselves, we put into circulation and image of ourselves. Speaking involves a mixture of air and history, breath and memory, beyond our consciousness. We make the language we have on loan our own possession, the most immediate and intimate expression of ourselves. The choice of words, the structure of our sentences, the games we play with accents and sounds, and so on—all mark the common language as our private property. Beyond the distinctive pattern of kindness or cruelty, helpfulness or obstructiveness, ignorance and knowledge, gloom and joy, there is a special inflection of the semantic breeze, an idiosyncratic mix of imitations and echoes that mark it out as ours.
Yet much of what others say bores us. Speech descends to wittering; and conversation is merely a “vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.”
Now, I have to catch my breath. It’s your turn to speak. Please speak with sense and sensibility and beauty and music.
Now, you know why I am interested in language and languages. I am a talker, a maker of speech, not a speech-maker. I put words together and fall in love with their magic. Through talking and thinking aloud in words, I discovered my humanity and what a humanity it is!
I typed this “speech” today with confidence, without any sudorific anguish or anxiety. I came close to the line, but I didn’t cross it.
Wissai
June 8, 2009
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