Surprise and No Surprise

The relief effort for Christchurch by some former students in New Zealznd has brought forth some surprises, at least to me. Rats stay rats, but some perfumes have lost much, if not all of the fragrance. As I often say, a person's true color is only revealed when he is tested. Anyway, onward to more pleasant contemplation. One has to have control over one's words. Be pleasant at all times. Be humble and modest. And be calm and self-possessed.

Words, Music, Philosophy, and Politics

Deep thoughts rarely arrive like thunderbolts. Instead, they percolate and simmer until they demand outward expressions, either orally or in written form. They bear signs of rumination and repetition and slow digestion. They sometimes ferment and give off strange odors; they could also emit delightful fragrances. A man is about to die. All he will behind are his thoughts. That's why most literate men want to write.

You looked at the raucous, tumultuous, cacophonous scenes of demonstrations against tyrants and dictators in North Africa and the Middle East and you felt alive and privileged. You are living in exciting times. Revolutions of all stripes are taking place. Technological revolutions are transforming modes of communication and information diffusion; cultural revolutions in music (rap), club dancing (lascivious and openly sexually suggestive gyrations while wearing tight, body-hugging attires), recreational drug use, widespread tattooing and body piercings; economic revolutions ( rise of China, India, Brazil, and Turkey, and relative decline of Europe and the U.S., not to mention China's audacious challenge to the U.S. as a military and world power); and political revolutions (disintegration of the Soviet Union, collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and now the overdue collapse of autocratic Arab regimes).

You imagine you are part of the freedom-loving, democracy-seeking Arab standing in a downtown square, shouting slogans and expressing deep-seated human longings for fairness and dignity. And there they are, brave men and women jump to the platform, arms waving to the crowd, exhorting it to repeat to repeat the slogans and whipping the crowd into the frenzy and enthusiasm because they know a quiet and unemotional gathering of demonstrators would be likely to fizzle out. These brave men and women on the platform are the leaders, who stick their necks out in this moment of history, in this decisive moment, to lead the revolution to its triumphant outcome. It is not the moment to be cautious, to hide among the anonymous crowd for the sake of safety. This is the moment for the brave and the bold, those who believe in themselves and in the rightness of their cause, and in their fellow men who will follow them to the right and correct destiny.

This is also the moment you discover the true dynamics of life, which in its most naked form, is the pursuit of power because power drives everything else, including food, shelter, and sex. Without power, one's existence becomes precarious. Politics is the drive for power, for the ability to allocate resources for survival. Once the allocation of resources becomes grossly unfair, humans will rebel and will fight for fairness and justice. But with humans, a complex and restless species, things are never simple. To humans, power is more than just the economic allcation of resources, as with lower and simpler forms of life. Power takes on the ability to determine and sometimes to legislate what others think, say, and believe. In other words, humans go for total domination. Thus, we see a fierce fight among humans over what is right or wrong (values/ethics), whose version of God or lack thereof is correct (religion) and even what is acceptable or not (definition of madness/sanity). Human history is thus a history about power: power over oneself, over one's neighbors, and over nature.

Those philosophers who are sensitive to the notion of power begin paying attention to history: Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and the risk-taking son of a physician, Foucault who had unprotected homosexual encounters in the bathhouses of San Francisco and died of AIDS as a consequence.

Talking about history is visiting the raging conflict of the two opposing views about the nature of society: one, mainly embraced by the fiercely individualistic British and American--and decidedly quaint and ludicrous notion, in your estimation---that argues the individual and the individual self-interest form the basis of society, and that society itself, is simply an artificial concept or idea. (This attitude is the core philosophy of the curiosity that calls itself the Tea Party Wing of the Republican Party); the other insists that there is indeed society/tribalism where the members are bound and tied together by blood lines or moral, cultural, and even religious beliefs.

The will to truth is indeed the will to power, at least with men who are attracted to knowledge and thus truth. Yet at the same time those men recognize for each human as well as for each society, and of course for each religion, there is a "general politics of truth" (Foucault's phrase) where only a certain discourse is accepted as true. Meanwhile these men seek refuge from the tumultuous nonsense and meaningless noise made by ignoramuses or self-declared scholars, in the power of evocative and harmonious sound called music.

Roberto Wissai

Peacefulness and Truth

Pleasant childhood memories and other nostalgic recollections are what make living a worthwhile experience. Gaining knowledge and wisdom should only be an incidental byproducts. You must learn to forgive yourself and others if you want to have peace. Be careful out there. Don't indulge in excesses.

Fear and Revolution

Fear is an instinct valuable for survival. We are born with fear built within us, but humans are the only beings routinely learn to override instincts. So we can learn to overcome fear for higher values such as freedom, dignity, liberty, independence, and patriotism. A life perpetually lived in fear is not much of a life because it robs us of dignity; it takes away our self-esteem; it confers the tyrant's undeserving power over us; it validates the tyrant's control over us; and it confirms we are no better than slaves. 

It's time to rise up and assert our worth and demand our place in the sun. Time spent in fear and darkness was long past. It's time to bring the tyrants and dictators down. They are no better than us. They have used fear as a weapon to rule us. Once we show we have no fear---even the ultimate fear of death since everybody dies and everybody only dies once--- the tyrants and dictators cannot keep us down because there are more of us than of them. Strength is in the number. When the people are united and stand shoulder to shoulder and demand freedom, fairness, and dignity restored, the tyrants and dictators all will be swept away by the wave of the will of the people. 

True men only die once. Cowards die time and time again. Cowards are no different from animals. They have no sense of shame nor of dignity. All they want is to prolong their useless, meaningless, and undignified lives.

The time for the revolution is now. 

Long live Vietnam!

Long live the Vietnamese people!

Madness and Brilliance

How do we know that we are going mad, that our thoughts are no longer lucid and connected with reality? Are we capable of truly objective about ourselves, especially about the workings of our minds? How do we know if we are suffering from delusions and denials? I submit that we don't. Maybe at the beginning we are conscious of our eccentricities and oddities, but once we cross the point of no return into the realm of madness, self-awareness is losing its potency with each passing day unless the brain somehow gets healed by some internal regeneration either spontaneously through meditation, change of diet or introduction of therapeutic chemicals (drugs).

I knew Hitler was mad when he ordered the burning of Paris in the face of the advancing forces of the Allies. Fortunately his generals bravely refused to follow his order. Additionally, I knew Hitler was mad when he conscripted teenage boys to defend Germany. The picture of the rapidly aging Hitler shaking hands of the young teenagers of the brigade to "defend" Berlin showed the "The Führer" was in advanced stages of madness. Madness aside, there was evidence that Hitler was brilliant and full of vitality in his prime. And he did have leadership qualities and did inspire fierce loyalty almost to the very end.

Quaddafi was not as brilliant as Hitler, but his madness was almost up to par. Eccentricity is often the sign of madness or brilliance or the combination of the two. Quaddafi has been odd a long time. His long tenure of autocratic rule reflected his brilliance. But when he gave a speech about fighting to the last drop of his blood and his willingness of being a martyr, I sensed that he was mad, not just determined. My suspicion was confirmed when he showed no love for his countrymen by ordering aerial bombardment of civilians and merciless revenge killings.

My interest in madness has a long history, both for personal and scientific reasons. The reason for today's reflection on this subject was two-fold. I just came across another book on cognitive science. And I just had lunch with a brillliant but clearly delusional Russian immigrant. He is kind-hearted and well-read, but his head is full of conspiracy theories and he could not help making fantastic stories about his accomplishments which clearly defied statistical odds. Today he predicted there would be no 2012 election and that Obama was a communist plant sent to destroy America. He also accused me of being a communist. When I replied that I was only a socialist and deftly supplied reasons for my self-regard, he became quiet and changed the subject. When the lunch was over, he shook hands and said he was sorry if he had offended me in any way. So, he still has moments of lucidity and self-awareness. I have a distinct impression that at least two Viet expatriates I know are very odd and do indeed exhibit patterns of behavior that reflects madness. But they could be saying the same thing about me.

Roberto Wissai

Myths and Journey to Light

Humans are myth-makers. Myths are designed to explain the unexplainable (yet) and to justify one's actions or views of oneself and others. Some humans are comfortable with myths foisted upon them; others are born to question and wonder.

Myths have many types: religious (most bizarre and yet most enduring, a testament of the paradox of Man), scientific (usually in the form of assumptions and hypotheses, and most susceptible to changes and revisions),  political/social ("White Man's burden, the inability of non-white and non-Europeans in Asia to govern themselves, concept of nationalism is foreign to peoples in Asia and Africa, superiority of social and economic developments of Protestant Christian societies over Catholic counterparts, the "fatalism" and "passivity" of Hindu culture and Buddhist culture were responsible for the stagnation of India and China, the "endurance" of the "monolithic" Communism, and the lethargy of the "Arab Street", to cite the examples of political/social myths which were bandied around for the last two hundred years).

One by one the aforementioned myths fell to the wayside. The myth concerning the lethargy of the Arab Street is being shattered right now. The Arabs are rising up against autocratic regimes which have long suppressed them. They are no longer lethargic. They are no longer fearful. They are becoming a fearsome force.

There are several myths concerning the Viet people. They are of exalting origin (descendants of the union between a dragon and a fairy). They are brave and intelligent and hard-working. They are an assertive and aggressive race (they conquered the Champa kingdom, took lands from the Khmer, and were in fact colonizing Cambodia and Laos when the French invaded their country under the pretext of protecting Christian converts ).They value independence. They have fought against and defeated the Chinese, the French, and the Americans in the name of freedom and democracy. Let us see if years (since 1954 in North Vietnam and since 1975 in the South) of living under the oppressive, repressive, shamelessly lying and corrupt (and thus lacking legitimacy and support) VC regime, the once-valiant, freedom-loving, and self-respecting Viet people would rise up against their oppressors or will they continue being content with basic animal needs, especially those related to survival, and continue "accepting" the red capitalists of the name Viet Cong as their masters?

Meditations

Other bloggers write about everyday events. You dwell on the fighting, conflicting forces in you. This morning upon waking up, you were amused with the ultra-violent thoughts you had concerning a scumbag. That led to an insight that it is important for you to be pleasant at all times because you would never know what kind of dark thoughts you could arouse in the minds of monkeys and dogs and pigs. You have interacted with them and you already know what kind of trashy thoughts and ideas that they hold as "true". In fact, they have made you feel much better about yourself. You realize that you are not stupid after all. Also, the insolence and undeserving haughtiness of the ugly and stupid bitch amused and pissed you off at the same time. Every dog thinks it is some kind of special dog, meriting respect and esteem, while in fact, it is only a miserable runt, roaming the streets of life and feeding on human shit and garbage in order to survive. The moment it opens its mouth and starts barking, you know exactly what kind of shit-eating dog it is. That's the funny thing about humans and dogs. Prolonged inferiority complex leads to undeserving feelings of grandeur. Too often ignoramuses try to pass themselves off as scholars. Sick and pathetic! Don't think the irony is lost on you. You are learning to be sensitive to all manifestations of transference and projection. Unlike most scumbags and assholes, you are very honest with yourself. Ignorance is not a crime. Nor is it a permanent condition. All you need to know is to realize you don't know shit about a certain subject. Then you start learning about it. That honest attitude is far better than to open your stinking mouth pontificating or mouthing off as if you did actually know what you are talking about. The stupid thing about humans and dogs is that they don't want to appear that they are ignorant, so they pretend to speak as if they knew something. That's when you look at them and feel amused and nauseous at the same time.