Human Hearts

Human Hearts 

In the Summer of 2013, you discovered something about yourself and your fellow men, something hitherto you had only read about in books and the news. 

1. Stupid and ignorant and yet stubborn bitches cannot help themselves. They are too stupid and ignorant to know better, and too stubborn to change. Anytime they open their mouths, their bitchiness comes out. Yet they loudly thump their chests and say they are students (sic!)  of Buddhism.You see, there is a large variation in human behaviors. Some humans are not much different from vain and stupid monkeys. They cannot be helped. These monkeys even think they are good-looking. Maybe they don't have mirrors in their houses, but there are mirrors in public restrooms. You suppose that they are too cowardly and insecure to look at themselves in the mirror because if they do, they would see that they are exceedingly and incredibly and horribly ugly because of their piggy eyes, obesity, and midget "height". No wonder they have no boyfriends. You wonder how some of them would even be married. Their husbands must have been uglier than them or suffered from congenital blindness and/or idiocy. These motherfucking, ugly bitches need to be exterminated and eradicated since they are a disgrace to the human race. Hitler was right about them. Where is he when we need him?

One of them told you that her words are personal (sic!) and sacred (sic! and sick!) and should not be shared with others. Fuck, her words don't mean shit to you . If you want to spread them around, that's your business. If she didn't want her words leave a trace, she should not have committed them in writing. She should have just talked to herself in that pigsty apartment of hers. 

2. Okay, you are wondering what set you off to this verbal savagery and meaningless  destruction of goodwill and affection, why your hard-earned inner peace is devolving into chaos, and why you seem to get a delight from moments of turmoil and rupture. Is it because you feel unanchored, angry, nihilistic, even homicidal? Of course, you were  being aware what you were doing with the above verbal thundering denunciation. You  hesitated long enough to realize you were making an emotional suicide, but then you kept going. You have made so many wrong moves in your life that one more wouldn't make that much difference. Not anymore. And not really. You already feel alone in this world: a man without a country, a home, a wife, a friend. You are just here, occupying space and feeling unconnected and unrelated. You just don't know what's going on anymore in a human's heart at any moment in time, you own heart or anybody else's. A guy pontificated that a man with true pride didn't need approval of others. Wise words, but are they necessary or even really true? Nobody is so strong that a gesture of understanding and approval doesn't mean shit to him. 

So you deftly soldier on while Wagner's haunting music is ringing in your ears. You are the music, the symphony of the universe. What you just wrote was not just rhetorical flourish. You feel the music. In fact, you are the music. The day the music dies is the time for you to go. 

Unlike many others, the mediocre ones of this world, your words announce themselves. They draw attention to themselves, as if they exist independently of you. The gap between fantasy and reality lies in the magic of words. And you keep on going as day rolling into night and night evaporating  into sunlight.

3. Ego makes a person do and or say foolish, stupid things. Silence is strength fortified with wisdom. Why do you dislike the bitch and others and why do others dislike you? Because of stupid, harsh words uttered in moments of anger and smugness. The bitch has no fucking grace and neither do you. 
   

Lovability and Gracelessness

Lovability and Gracelessness 

A former girlfriend of mine, very dead and deceased and diseased, kept complaining to me via email and about me with our mutual friends. She (her name is Crazy Suzie) said I was coarse, crude, and uncouth. She thought by saying so she would ignite my temper and rekindle my attention, but she was wrong. I wondered if I was that bad as she alleged. If I really was, then why she was attracted to me in the first place. Her words were redolent with nastiness. She said she was giving me the same medicine I had dispensed to her. What a cheap and stupid bitch! I didn't know what in the world and why I took an interest in her in that month of January. Maybe I was unbearably lonely and desperate. You know, desperate men do desperate things. Going out with her, in retrospect, was an act of desperation. 

Since I don't believe I am coarse, crude, and uncouth, I've hit on women of all ages trying to prove my irresistible charm and lovability. Boy, was I right and Crazy Suzie was just dead wrong. I've made women chuckle and laugh with my wit, and delirious and delighted with my slippery, silver Cicero tongue; I've dazzled, amazed, astounded them with my "intellect" and "erudition"; and I've made them swoon at the sight of my sculpted physique. I am 64, but easily pass for 54, a result of having been going to the gym religiously for almost three years running now. In the last three months, three women, all of them far more attractive and financially solid than Crazy Suzie, have wanted me to be more than just a ship passing through the night. I am holding out for a better prospect. I am on the lookout for a really "deep harbor". 

I post everything I write in my blog. Crazy Suzie promptly fired a salvo of emails denouncing me after reading the above. I told you, the woman is crazy and bitchy. She never realizes bitchiness is a sign of weakness and gracefulness is a sign of strength and nobility. Hemingway, the Ernest, not the Margaux one (they are related, however), once famously said, "a real man, a man with courage and heart, must maintain grace under pressure; he wouldn't blink; he wouldn't yield to panic and pettiness." Crazy Suzie's penchant for tit for tat is a big turnoff and an indication of pettiness. She never seems to understand that I am an aspiring fiction writer (at a late age of 64!). Most, if not all, I write is stylized fiction and tongue-in-cheek narration. They are all lies to convey some truth, my personal version of truth, a truth that guides me, that makes sense to me. Okay, I confess, I made up the Hemingway's quote, but he did say something about grace under pressure. The phrase holds a mysterious mystique, an alluring attraction, a charming captivation to me, and has been a guiding light for me to go through life. Of course, I fall short constantly. I am often graceless and prone to anger and moodiness and homicidal thoughts. Only occasionally do I exhibit mental strength and emotional fortitude. I'm telling you, what I really hope is that what I write would make you laugh at first, and then later, maybe late at night when things calm down a bit and a stillness begins to descend and wash over you, you go back and reread what you have read earlier in the day---in the haste and hassle and harried and harrowing moments of your daily life--- and finally my words begin to sink slowly to the bottom of your soul and you recognize them for what they are, and your heart would break into pieces like mine already did and tears would arrive. In my heart of hearts, I hold an undying view that I am a lovable, loving man even if my lugubrious though limpid and lambent prose sounds cute and pretty and manufactured. Actually my prose is unfinished, unprocessed, unadorned, and very unsettling, at least to a sensitive soul, leaving an unforgettable fragrance and sillage. I am not saying that after you really experience and savor my prose for what it actually is, you would rush over and knock on my door and ask me if I know what cataglottism means because it is what you would like to do to me. No, ma'am. Not what I mean nor imply nor hope. I am too jaded now to conjure up such a scenario. There are certain realities that have hardened in me. I can't free myself from the curses that various vicious souls placed on me in times not long ago. These individuals are masters of the black, dark arts whose own pain made them cruel and stupid. Having said that, I am not suggesting that I am worthless. As the drunk master of free verse Bukowski exhorted the self-doubters, "Nobody can save you but yourself, and you're worth saving." If I sound uninhibited and yet hesitant, if I sound self-conflicting, then that's it. That's the really me speaking. Truth is not always a big, bright, polished diamond glittering in the afternoon sunlight or sparkling under neon lights at night. Sometimes it is a lazy stream of smoke snaking from a drunk's cigarette in a poorly lighted, damp, smoky bar. 

Morning has broken. There are no blackbirds singing in my neighborhood. There is just a humming of early morning traffic echoing off the streets down below. I need to get some repose. See you. 

Living in the Moment

Living in the Moment

So Ariel Castro, the sick dude who kidnapped 3 women and held them captive for years, was found dead in his cell, killing himself by hanging. Apparently he couldn't live in the moment. Prison life wasn't agreeable to him. You wondered if he ever wondered how his victims thought of their own long imprisonment by him. Castro was an example of how degrading and depraved a human could be if he gave in to the impulses and lures of lording over others. 

Man is a very interesting, self-conflicting animal, capable of acts of sublime nobility as well as deeds of horrific depravity. You shudder when reading in the news about robberies of pizza delivery men and taxi drivers. The other day, a taxi driver told you his colleague was burned alive by the robbers. Apparently they were not content of robbing him. They felt they had to do something extra. Those accounts remind you that you live in a dog-eat-dog world and you must be on eternal vigilance if you want to survive. There are many human animals who have no true pride and would do anything, absolutely anything, to survive or to feel superior to others or to feel good about themselves. If you run into an ignorant and stupid human that has no respect for facts and is very comfortable about lying to make himself look good while making others look bad, you would include that such human has no pride and is a vicious and yet pathetic animal and must be avoided, if you aren't in a position to exterminate it. 

So you don't really blame your friend Omar who has concluded time and again that some animals really deserve to die. And when they do and get buried, he would visit their graves  and piss on them. A catharsis has to be obtained somehow, he keeps reminding you, otherwise a sensitive being would explode and do something really stupid. He said, "Roberto, stay in touch with your feelings, whatever they are. Don't suppress them. Deal with them, instead, one way or another. Don't pretend to be somebody else. You must be comfortable with who you are, warts and all."

You replied to Omar, "okay, mi amigo, I know I have a lot of fantasies and all my literary productions have been of the Walter Mitty variations, but I do think I'm endowed with a high degree of intuition, even with some paranormal powers. My life has been nothing but a serial episodes of pain and suffering because I didn't make use of my powers. But I'm gonna change my attitude about who I really am." To that assertion of yours, Omar just chortled and rolled his eyes and smiled at you, but said nothing. 

Yesterday you had lunch with Donny, a Chinese-Korean old friend of yours. He asked you where was the black Lexus you claimed a woman who was stricken by cancer, bequeathed to you. You coolly told him that you sold that beautiful fully loaded car for 30 and some change because as much as you loved it, holding onto it would be a painful reminder of Angie. He then quickly and slyly followed up with an inquiry that if any chance you took a picture of the car. You  whipped out your HTC smartphone and showed photos of the car. You also showed him the photos of you and Angie in her unit at Turnberry Towers. He looked confused and perplexed and then said, " So...Angie was...real. You didn't make her up." You nodded your head while tears were beginning to form in your eyes. "Shit!", exclaimed Donny "What's about Omar? Is he real?" You answered, "Want to meet him? It'll cost you some real cold cash." Donny was stubborn and a die-hard skeptic. Although he claimed to be of Chinese and Korean ancestry, but the way he acted, you'd swear he must be related to David Hume, the famous and rotund skeptic Scotsman. "How much?"

-Ten grand

-Ten grand? Get the fuck out of here. Why so much? (He protested and looked visibly upset).

-Omar's not cheap, not like me. It cost you nothing to have lunch with me, but with him, you must come up with ten grand and I'll arrange a meeting and a guy that fits the description of Omar will show up. And you can interrogate him and ask him all the questions you want and then decide for yourself if he's for real. 

You could see that Donny was mulling over a decision and looked straight at my face, trying really hard to detect any signs of bullshitting from me. He then bargained.-Two grand.

-Ten grand. The guy must make preparations and research before flying over here. He'll ask me all kinds of questions about you to make sure you are legit. He doesn't come cheap. Take it or leave it.

-You serious? 

-As serious as a heart attack. How about you? How serious are you?

-Not that much (he sighed and shook his head and looked outside at the sidewalk as if he was hoping that at that time Omar would materialize out of thin air and that would cost him not a single red cent to meet the world famous but reclusive assassin).

But Donny was tenacious. The son-of-a-bitch didn't give up.

-For all I know, you would ask some guy pretending to be Omar and telling me bullshit stories just to get the money and split it with you. 

-Donny, how long have you known me? Would I do such a thing to you? Would I need money that bad? You know my net worth. I showed you the other day. Fuck, I really am upset that you would think I am that low (your voice was rising).

-Sh! Tone it down, will you? I'm sorry. Just forget about it. Let's talk about something else. You were saying about the counterfeiter who was also a poet. Tell me more about her. You sure know a lot of interesting people. 

- Donny, I can talk about her, but you probably wouldn't believe any of what I'm gonna say because you're a born skeptic, a modern-gay, oops, I meant, modern-day doubting Thomas, a cynic who thinks I'm nothing but a teller of tall tales. 

-Cut the crap out Roberto. Either you're gonna tell me about this counterfeit-cum-poet or you're not. Don't beat around the bush. Let me reserve the right tosay what you're gonna say sounds plausible or too fantastical to be true. Now go ahead.

-Since you insist. In fact, it sounds lie you're actually begging for it. So I'm gonna oblige you since after all you're an old friend of mine. I just met her two days ago at my former land lady's house. I didn't know it was all pre-arranged or what, but it didn't really matter. I was invited for lunch. We had the bánh xèo (Vietnamese crêpes containing shrimp, pork, mung bean, bean sprouts, onions wrapped by lettuce leaves and garnished with cilantro, mint leaves, and dipped in fish-based sauce containing pickled diced carrot and white radish, and red chilli) and chè xôi nước (rice flour fortified with coconut oil wrapped around mung bean paste boiled in a sweet syrup containing slices of fresh ginger) as dessert. We just finished eating and were shooting the breeze when the counterfeiter dropped by. I had never met her before but had heard of her. Being a Vietnamese woman and got involved in a counterfeit ring made her well known, if not downright notorious, in the community. Anyway, the former landlady introduced us, saying that I was a "poet". I corrected her. I said I never really regarded myself as a poet, even a poet of sorts. What I have are poetic sentiments which occasionally overflow and demand expressions. That was when Annie, the counterfeiter or more precisely speaking, the passer of counterfeited bills, said she was a real poet. She then proceeded discussing poetry with me. She apparently was a good poet. What struck me, however, was her intense personality and her colorful life which the Yvette, the former landlady, told me after Annie had departed and left me with four (!) CDs of her poetry collections.

It appeared to me Annie lived in the moment with gusto and daring and a strange mixture of kindness and hard-boiled realism. She was arrested for her offense and had to post some bail money.  She was married several times to old men who left her with money when they died. She wrote widely circulated anti-VC poetry and is no longer welcome in Vietnam. She has a boyfriend in Vietnam and is sending him money every month to support him. Yvette phone me later in the evening that Annie had called and asked her if I said anything after her departure. Yvette said that I thought kindly and highly of her "Roberto said that beneath your exterior of rough, intense language lies a bruised but still caring heart". Apparently Annie liked that and told Yvette that I was a good (sic!) "judge" of people. I told Yvette that Annie was a self-conflicting poet, just like several intense, but egotistical persons I know. We all have our seamy side and try hardest not to show it. I am probably one of the very few humans on this planet reveling in revealing my warts and all. I am unlike those motherfucking unartistic liars out there who are ugly, short, fat, ignorant, and stupid, but think the world of themselves. 

-Roberto, next time you meet Annie, bring me along, won't you ? 

-That will cost you money.

-What? Money again? What's happening to you? Why did you turn into a kike, all of a sudden?

-Just kidding. 

Wissai

September 6, 2013

Love, Power, Politics, Religion and all that Jazz

Love, Power, Politics, Religion and all that Jazz

In 'Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday' ("Postscript" in his Autobiography), Bertrand Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken." 

Russell's vision resonated with me and recalled my father's oft-repeated saying when he deigned to speak to me at all in my early teenage years: "one should live for ' le vrai, le beau et le bien' (the true, the beautiful, and the good) . He often evinced contempt for my aimless existence and sloth. Little did he know that his verbal reprimands and occasional physical beatings administered to me left an indelible mark on my psyche. (I never told him about the impact. He died shortly after I turned twenty). Neither did he know that I discovered philosophy when I was fifteen. My father's corporeal punishments meted out to me and my later orientation to philosophy as a solace largely made me become who I am today: incorrect, nonconformist, disdainful, irreverent toward authority, and fond of le vrai, le beau, and le bien.  Russell is one of the earliest writers that left an influence on me. I read his eminently readable "A History of Western Philosophy", a collection of essays with the eponymous provocative title 'Why I am not a Christian",  and some fragments of his autobiography in which he disclosed somewhat gleefully that as a teenager he tried to fondle a house servant and she protested, saying he was the son of the aristocrats and she was a commoner and he shouldn't do that! He further revealed as a youngster he was fond of the play on words:

"What's mind?" 
"No matter."
"What's matter?"
"Never mind!"

He was at first the teacher of Wittgenstein, but later publicly said that he found the later Wittgenstein too much of a mystic for him to stomach. Russell impressed me for his political courage and incredible clear English prose. He was a mathematician. His sentences read like mathematical arguments: clear, concise, and articulate. I don't know if his writing style left any mark on mine because I was equally enthralled by Vladimir Nabokov whose prose was the opposite of that of Russell. Nabokov, a Russian aristocrat, was an artist and an authority on butterflies.. He studied English at Cambridge, not really as a non-native speaker of the English language. He was trilingual (Russian, French, and English) thanks to having French and English governesses at a very early age. His English is universally acknowledged as something out of this world. He was considered the world's best prose stylist in English in his times. He wrote in a stylized, captivating, ornate, vocabulary-rich English. Just read the first ten pages or so of his most famous book, "Lolita" and you would be amazed. If you are not, well, words are not your thing and you have missed out something beautiful in this world. 

Nabokov, whose family fortunes suffered a reversal because of politics and was forced to become an emigrant in various countries before settling in the US and found literary fame and comfortable living again, apparently found politics distasteful and refrained from taking part in political activities. But Russell, on the other hand, whose family blood ran deep in politics, was a political activist and jailed for his political beliefs and activities. Russell used his fame to advance his views on politics. He loved women. He was four times married and involved in numerous affairs. He also loved justice and freedom. He hated tyranny, be it in politics or in religion. In fact, he found religion more harmful than useful. It was of no surprise to me that he was an atheist. Most eminent thinkers are atheists and have no use of the notion of a Personal God. God makes sense only for the stupid, the ignorant, the weak, the delusional, and various combinations of the above. That is my crystallized view and you can take it to the bank. 

But I know for the masses, God and religion (instead of philosophy and rational thinking) are part and parcel of their lives. Religion and power and economics are intertwined and inseparable. They're so strong that they even transcend blood ties and ethnicity. That's what happening in the Middle East. What else to explain why the Syrians are killing each other while receiving support from their allies, even from the racially unrelated. There the Sunni Arab majority are in open revolt against the Assad regime which gets the support from the Arab Alawites (branch of Shia Islam) and the Arab Christians. The Iranian Shias and their protégés, the  Arab Hezbollah Shias in Lebanon, are fighting alongside the Syrian Arab Alawites while the Arab Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar,  and the Turkish Sunnis are helping the Syrian rebels with arms and money. What we are having is the old-fashioned sectarian bloodletting between the Muslim Sunnis and Shias which has been going on intermittently after the death of the Muhammad of Mecca, with a potential horrific regional war looming if Israel and the US join the fray. 

Iran has publicly warned that it would not stand by idly if the US bombs the Assad regime forces. Assad himself told the French daily Le Figaro that the Middle East would become a powder keg and a regional war would break out if the US goes through with the bombing threat. 

How credible is the American threat? It looks pretty damned credible to me, given Obama put himself in a box when declaring that if Assad used chemical weapons, the red line would be crossed. Now the red line has been crossed, for the sake of his credibility and the credibility of the US, he would have to act, even if the charade of seeking authorization of the heavily Jewish-influenced American Congress isn't fruitful. Given the war-weary American public and the drain on the treasury, the charade is absolutely necessary because the war would not be limited and short-lived as outlined to the public. 

War by its very nature is rarely limited and of short duration, especially if lethal weapons are involved and regional in scope. For Israel and America, the objective is not really to stop Assad from ever using chemical weapons again, but at least to degrade the Assad regime sufficiently enough for the rebels to achieve victory. And if Iran and its proxies are foolish enough to join the war, it is the perfect time for Israel to take out Iranian nuclear installations. Considering that Iran views Syria as its buffer zone, it's difficult to imagine that Iran would not support Syria in full force if Syria is attacked by the US. So for what it is worth, it is my calculus, regardless of what the American Congress decides to do regarding the attack (read: war) authorization, that a regional war in the Middle East will break out shortly. 

It's time to gather cash and take advantage of the swoon of the stock market when the war gets on in earnest. In addition, be prepared for the war repercussions at home. The enemy will not go down without putting up a fight. 

Few wars are absolutely necessary. Most are born out of greed and ambitions and blind surrender to emotions and religious beliefs. Man is driven more by his Heart and his Beliefs than by his Mind and Reason. He cannot help himself. That's how he is made up. While he speaks of peace and order, his heart revels in the drunken intoxication of power and the lures of chaos. Additionally, he has this strange fascination with intangible things called Honor and Respect. He would rather die for them rather than to retreat or surrender in order to live another day. That is the paradox of a being called Man. Few men live for "le vrai, le beau et le bien". I once took an informal survey of a group of players at a poker table. I asked them what they would prefer in life: love or power? All nine of them replied in a decisive manner: "power". I knew then why I always felt I was a loner and why I was different and alienated from my fellow men. Let me tell you something else: all the jackasses I have met in my life who hunger for and lust after power don't really know what power is and how to use it. They are just plain animals who want power so they can do what they want and force others to comply with their stupid commands. Jackasses love to assert and exert power over others. Real humans assert and exert power over themselves. If we want to go to war, let's hunt down jackasses and kill them all. I will be the first one to volunteer into the such a war and I will be glad to be the first one to pull the trigger. And I will not rest until I kill every one of them on this planet.

Wissai
September 3, 2013

Silence and Ego, Roberto and Omar, a Fantasy.

Ego and Silence, Roberto and Omar, A Fantasy 

The more you live, the more you realize the more stupid and ignorant a person, the more likely he speaks nonsense in defending his fragile, petty, inconsequential ego. Upon reflection, you would see that he does not have much to defend. That's why he is very touchy about his meager ego which is a pathetic constellation of unfulfilled desires, fanciful wishes, and midnight wet dreams. He hems and haws and makes a fool of himself, thinking he's somebody and that he's left a mark for posterity. He hungers for fame and lusts after power while the truth of the matter is that he is a big zero, a nothing, a stupid and ignorant bumpkin fellow who loves making noises to attract attention. He can't sit still. Silence is foreign to him. 

In addition, the asshole, whose totem must be a jackass, loves being sarcastic. His propensity for sarcasm used to bother you, but not anymore. You now see him for what he is: a fly that eats shit and bothers  people. You are now beyond homicidal rage. You have ascended to silence. You can't bear to hear nonsense and stupidity and ignorance coming out of monkeys' mouths. This beautiful planet is being overrun by simians. The only thing you can have silence is not to talk with simians. Just tune them out. Look at them and laugh your head off inside. Say, if you have one week left to live, would you waste your precious energy to talk with monkeys and jackasses? No way, right? In fact, if you had  power and resources, you no doubt would blow their motherfucking heads off. That's what I would do. 

You probably know by now that the stories and tales told by me aren't usually sweet and harmonious. Instead, they smack and smell of bewilderment and confusion, inchoate anger and near-madness, obsessions and dreams, the stuff nobody really wants to know and read about. More importantly, perhaps, they are about thwarted and unfulfilled loves and screaming, suffocating silence. If what I just wrote is a shade and a shadow beyond your understanding and you're shivering and shuddering in anticipation of a breakthrough, I don't really blame you. For years I had stood in fear and trembling of the specter of a thing called love until a few months ago I had a revelation that while love was real and beautiful for a lucky few, to me it was forever an illusion. And yet I keep writing sappy, romantic love poetry. Ironic, isn't it? Last week, I changed my will. I erased the names of three individuals whom I determined unworthy of my love.They were selfish. All they cared about were themselves. They talked a good game of love, but their actions indicated otherwise. Ego is an ugly thing. Selfishness smacks and smells of animalism. 

You (first and second singular pronouns in this piece and many others of mine are interchangeable) woke up from a dream. Lonely and sad and confused, you called Omar, a dear friend of yours, up and asked for his comments. Omar is a modern-day Renaissance man and an assassin. He reads widely and has a keen understanding of the human mind. He said:

-Roberto, wake up. You're an old fool. Don't you see she's fucking with your mind? Stop dreaming impossible dreams. Only fools do that. I admit you're difficult to understand and harder to love, but you must maintain a high standard. Work on your writing and learning languages. Take care of your health. Stay away from monkeys and jackasses. They would just annoy and anger you. Unlike them, you're no scoundrel. Those who think you are, don't know you and are fucking imbeciles. Life is unfair. Some are born smart and sensitive; most are born stupid and stay stupid. Don't hang around with stupid and ignorant people. Sooner or later, they would say or do something that offends you. Life is too short to feel offended all the time. Besides, you're not that strong to take offenses. Capisci? (not "capisce", as most fools would use. Capisce is used formally to address second person. I know capisce as an American slang, has degenerated and degraded the original meaning in Italian. The same thing has happened with the au courant 'no problemo' used by Americans who don't know shit about Spanish. The correct usage is 'no problema') 

You feel okay? Want to travel with me next Saturday to Chicago? I have a "job" there waiting for me. I've done a thorough research. It would take three days to a week to put finishing touches to it. You wouldn't have to do anything. Just sight-seeing and staying in a hotel-room, watching TV or reading books. That'd be a nice change of pace for you, a break from the rut of cooping up in that high-rise condo and fantasizing that this woman or that woman is falling for your "charms". Traveling with me would help you confront naked, real, brutal, arbitrary  realities where people die violently, for their sins, for their being an inconvenience or an obstacle of somebody's ambitions and greed or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time. A taste of death at close range would make you appreciate life more, even from the distance. Of course, you don't have to pay for anything. I need a "traveling companion" to relieve me of the "existential loneliness" that's been weighing hard on me lately.

-I'd have to think about that. I hate to be a "collateral damage" while you're carrying out your "duties". But what's this shit about "existential loneliness" that you're talking about? I thought you were above that. 

-Nobody is, Roberto. Nobody. If they say they are, they're lying. I'd bet you that the Pope's lonely. Ditto Obama. Putin. Assad. The only humans that are not lonely are kids under six. They're too young to feel it, to have that consciousness. What they have instead is separation anxiety if being away from their caretakers. 

-Okay,  "professor". Seriously, I thought with your "knowledge", "savoir-faire" and "savoir-vivre", a commonality like "existential loneliness" wouldn't bother you, but apparently it does. Then tell me, frankly, what do you live for? What makes you wake up in the morning and decide to go through the whole day without giving into the temptation of putting a bullet through your head? 

-Roberto, there's not a single day I don't think of Death, the finality that puts an end to our absurd, arbitrary, gratuitous existence on this planet. I think of Death not so much because of my "profession" but as the result of a careful confrontation with and examination of various metaphysical questions: God, why I'm here on this planet and in this world, and what I should do with my life.

You already know what I think of the notion God as an entity that has an interest in the welfare of earthlings. I definitely have a firm, adamantine conviction that those who believe in a Personal God are stupid or cowardly or both because all the empirical evidence points out in a very crystal clear direction that the entity called God is man-made and an exercise in wishful thinking and willful delusion. 

With God not being part of the equation we call Life, Life becomes impersonal, arbitrary, and meaningless by itself. It is up to us---humans mostly if not exclusively because I really doubt if subhumans have an awareness beforehand of their inevitable death ---to create, to make up the meaning of our existence. Each human goes to the business of making up the meaning by himself, ideally speaking, but the reality is that for most humans who have the slave mentality, the meaning of life is already made up for them by the mind controllers: their religious and political "leaders". 

Of course, I am not part of that majority. I never was and I never will be. I live out of curiosity. I want to know what I am really made of. Thus, I put myself in extreme situations to test myself. I also want to know about what will take place in the near term, in my life span. I have to eat. I have to earn my daily bread, but I don't want to feel like a cog in a machine, a slave in a modern-day corporation, a farmer whose livelihood depends on the weather and economic forces. So I opt to be a hunter. Everybody has to die, sooner or later, if not at my hand, then at somebody else's or by illness or accident. If I don't carry out the contract, somebody else would. That's the nature of the business, of the world. The question of "morality" does crop up from time to time because of my penchant and predisposition to metaphysics and ethics and fairness and justice, but I "solve" it by deriving no "pleasure" from my "work", just like a munitions worker who has no qualms of contributing to destruction and death in faraway places. He does his job because he has to eat. If he does not take the job, somebody will. He can choose another job if his conscience bothers him. I chose to be a hired killer because I was trained to be a killer by the government to protect the vested interests. I used to kill for some faceless bureaucrats and businessmen and politicians. Now I kill for my benefits. But I do thorough research. Almost all of my targets deserved to die. I have turned down job offers when I feel something fishy is going on. And I don't do work that involves women and children. Listen, most assholes in this world think that my line of work is despicable, but they assassinate the character of the people they don't like by spreading false, malicious rumors and innuendos. They bring destruction to the lives of many people by their sheer everyday conduct in the form of deception, lying, and hypocrisy. Those assholes are truly animals. Every time I hear one of them or their loved ones get mortally sick or meet some unfortunate accident, I feel overjoyed and I go to a bar quietly celebrating. Yes, I do have Schadenfreude in abundance. Call me Omar. Call me Ishmael. Call me amoral and heartless. Call me whatever name you want. But don't call me a liar because if you do, I probably have to pay you a visit. Capisci?

But I spoke too much, too frankly, and in too personal terms. I'm tired, Roberto, very tired. Too much blood for too easy money. I sometimes feel I have to speak very softly, when I must speak at all,  because I'm afraid I'd wake up the dead. I've tried to rationalize that if I hadn't taken the jobs, somebody else would have taken them anyway, but the rationalization is getting old. 

(To be continued)

Meaning of my words

Without affecting a deeper attitude than what it actually is, if I may say so, my words are a stumbling search for a true, authentic plane and path of spirituality where actions, not words, reflect one's nature; where love, not power nor money, is the balm of our existence; and where truths, knowledge and forgiveness, not ego nor blind ambitions, hold redemptive power. 

Alienation ails me. Yet I don't really blame others for failure of understanding and lack of respect. My style of existence and my disregard for rules and normalcy are the ones that lead to my sense of estrangement. My words are a way to transcend alienation. 

To write, like to paint and to sculpture, more so than to sing and to dance, is an exercise steeped in solitude and is an opaque and oblique way to communicate with others. 

Roberto Wissai/NKBa'

A Hired Killer

A Hired Killer 

Ah, hired killers. Hit men. Assassins. Unsavory characters? Cynical men without conscience or hearts? 

Very few women are in this line of "work". They don't have to. They rob and kill lonely and gullible men the legal way: go straight for the men's hearts with their smiles and then sweet talks and clothes disrobed. After that, the poor bastards are helpless and open their hearts and wallets at the same time.

Please allow me to introduce my friend, Omar Sabat. Omar is his real name, he confided in me, but on the job he goes by a certain alias, depending on the circumstances. Yes, he was the same guy I mentioned in an earlier "story" of mine. He was the one who said to me, "Roberto, everybody dies. It is just a matter of when. In the overall scheme of things, in the way things are, whether you die or somebody dies now or 20 or 30 years from now, it makes no difference. We all die. Life is brief, anyway, although for some it may be unbearably long. You may as well be the one who gets paid, instead of some quack doctor, for somebody's death. If you want, I'll show you the ropes." I respectfully declined his "kind" offer because I don't have the street smarts, the cynicism, the predatory predisposition, the self-discipline, the athleticism, and the courage Omar possesses.

I don't have his looks either. Omar, 38, 6'2", devilishly good-looking and athletic, single, is a salad bowl of various genetic traits and backgrounds. Son of a Sunni Lebanese merchant father and Irish-German journalist mother. He attended American University in Beirut, graduated with double degrees in English and Electrical Engineering, fluent in Arabic, English, French and German, worked for IBM in Beirut and then in Chicago before leaving everything behind and became a member of Delta Force. He was sent to Iraq in 2003. The romance and excitement of war quickly dissipated for him. He became disenchanted with the corruption, the ineptitude of leadership, and the senseless deaths and bloodshed on both sides. He couldn't wait to find a way out. It came when he was wounded. He faked suicidal talks when he was convalescing. After a few sessions with an Army shrink, he was given a dishonorable discharge with reduced benefits which embittered him. He was employed as a math teacher in Dallas when a former Army buddy of his contacted him and talked him into working for a renegade former Delta Force colonel who was running a business of dealing with "Special Situations". 

The terms hired killers, hit men, and assassins are interchangeable to the laymen, but in the business parlance, "hired killers" are at the bottom of the totem pole. They can be anybody, willing to kill for as little as $100 or some drugs. They are losers, young, addicted to drugs, starving, and often get caught. "Hit men" have a criminal, "the Mob" connotation while "assassins" refer to men in political, big business, military, spy operations. Assassins are highly professional, well paid and well respected. They are often recruited from the malcontent veterans of special branches of the armed forces. Omar is an assassin, but he is also a freelancer, willing to take on any job as long as it requires meticulous planning, daring, and hefty compensation. Omar is not only an assassin, he is also into the arts and a poker aficionado. And if his business takes him to Las Vegas, which is fairly often, he would try to squeeze poker into his schedule.

I became acquainted with Omar during one of those absurd exciting, loose, noisy poker sessions at Aria poker room in late December 2010. It was Friday night. Well-heeled tourists and amateur poker players were in town. Omar and I were at a $2-$5 no limit hold'em table. A group of four lawyers buddies from London were downing shots of Vodka diluted with water melon juice and ringed with salt, like they were going out of style. The cocktail waitress was in high heavens because the lawyers tipped well. She kept supplying them with fresh drinks. She had a big grin on her face. The lawyers were having a good time. They were loose players, especially when they were playing against one another. They talked shop, then of course, sports, politics, and then the war in Iraq. I was tuning them out and busy trying to get their money. Omar was on my right. He was a decent player, but was losing quite big to the Brits who were incredibly lucky in drawing to almost impossible odds. They high-fived and laughed hysterically when one of them won, meanwhile they kept saying "bloody" this and "bloody" that. It was annoying to Omar, evidently, because he kept breathing hard. Remarkably, he kept a stony face and said nothing while he kept going to his wallet for a rebuy of playing chips. I watched him as I watched everybody else at the table while taking in all the body language clues and verbal utterances. Several times, I tried to draw him into a conversation but got nowhere apart from the "information" that he had a Lebanese father and Irish-German mother which accounted for his unusual chiseled looks. 

The Brits then talked about movies, which piqued my interest. I used to go to movies by myself, way back when I was an adolescent. Even back then, I was aware of my alienation. Movies provided a respite and refuge from it. Even back then, I was drawn to movies with a "message" and "artistic merits". Anyway, I couldn't help myself and joined the conversation. I volunteered my opinion that "Pulp Fiction" was a great, genre-setting movie and I told them why. One of the Brits objected. I held my ground. He then said the movies "Mr and Mrs Smith" was a "great" movie. I sarcastically asked him what made him think that it was "great". He hemmed and hawed and finally said because it made him feel good and he liked "assassins" movies anyway. I snorted. I couldn't help myself. I cogently told him the movie was a romantic action comedy and a far cry from realism and everything about it was fake and an exercise in mindless and cheap entertainment. Then another Brit chimed in a cheap joke, addressing to me: "Be careful, mate. This bloke here, my buddy, is an assassin. Don't make him mad because he may make a history of you." His friends all thought it was a very witty remark and they all laughed their heads off. Omar then uncharacteristically leaned over and whispered "Please say nothing more. " The way he said that startled me. The quiet, controlled, baritone voice was delivered with finality and authority. I took a good look at him and his eyes looked back straight at me and his head nodded slightly. "Yes?" He intoned once more. I nodded my head. Then all of a sudden, he announced: "I'm hungry. Are you? Let's find something to eat. My treat. Let's go, heh?" He then touched my arm. A jolt of electricity went through my body. I sensed something momentous just happened. This was not the first time that happened to me. Twice it had happened before. The first time was when I was about to be blindsided by a dude on motor bike in Saigon in 1970 at an intersection when somehow some unknown force told me to turn my head and that helped me avoid a collision at the last second. The other time happened about a year and a half later. I met an evil woman. My inner voice told me to stay away from her, but I was weak-willed and I was enslaved by my ego (she flattered me, saying I was handsome and sexy, etc.., and she was persistent). The result was that I was almost destroyed by her. It took everything I had to surmount all the obstacles and emotional mines she laid in my path. Ever since I have listened to my inner voice. It has not failed me. The voice keeps my ego in check. It has helped me to survive and resolutely stay away from evil people. 

We went upstairs to a steak house. Omar exuded familiarity with luxury and fine dining. He ordered a bottle of red wine to go with the steaks. We had the whole works. Appetizers, entrées, desserts. It was a long late dinner. He did most of the talking, after posing a series of screening questions to establish that I was straight and was not an actor supreme nor a member of the police force or one of those espionage services. He then added ominously, "I don't know why I like you a lot, old man, but if you ever betray me, you and your loved ones, whoever and wherever they are, will be very sorry." Blood was draining from my face. I looked at him, speechless, and feebly nodded my head. I was normally a garrulous fellow, but at that time I was at a loss for words. I was wondering what the hell I was getting myself into because I was not the kind of guy who could keep a secret for long. As I said, Omar talked and I listened.

"Don't look so scared. I'm sorry. I want you to enjoy your dinner. Come on, I do like you a lot. I am human, like everybody else ( what's this?). And I need to talk to somebody outside of my profession, somebody normal (sic!) and understanding. That person might as well be you. I'm a good judge of character. Something in your mien and countenance, your delivery of words, told me that you are a trustworthy man. Besides, I miss my Dad ever since he died two years ago. You look like my Dad. As you probably guessed, I didn't want to hear you criticize the movie "Mr and Mrs Smith" because I am an assassin (oh my goodness!). I was in Iraq. There I killed people so some corrupt politicians over there and back home and their buddies got rich. I didn't know that at first. I thought I went there to protect my dear country against terrorism, like I was told. But that was not true. People lied to me. My buddies died to protect the rich and the powerful, not to advance democracy nor to defend it. So one day I decided that if I had to kill, that was for my benefit, and not for anybody else's. Besides, I like being the predator, not the prey; the hunter, not the hunted; the master, not the slave. I am an atheist. Atheism makes more sense in the scheme of things. God is a human invention, a figment of Man's imagination. The notion of God does not square with realities that I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. There's too much suffering and injustice for God to exist. The notion is untenable. To argue otherwise is just an exercise in sophistry. 

I've been very lonely. But I cannot maintain a normal heterosexual, romantic relationship in the line of work I am doing. Do you know that the last word in "Lonesome" is "me"? I stay away from that word. So I decided that you're gonna be my friend in the normal world, my surrogate father. Now and then, I may need your help, but I will pay you for your help. I won't use you. On the other hand, if you ever need my service, just let me know, heh, hombre?

You were saying that you were full of intuition. Yes, intuition is a powerful instructor. You must learn to be attuned to it. You must listen to its instructions. Intuition is nothing but unstructured and unformalized knowledge. 

For the first three years in the business, I saw a shrink. I told him I was a "corporate trouble shooter". I was in therapy because I wasn't comfortable at killing unarmed and unprepared civilians. The bastard was smart. He caught on that I was an assassin, but didn't let on until the third year and only after I baited him. After that I quit seeing him. 

Since then I've done a lot of reading, trying to understand myself and the world I am in. I believe therapy is an adventure and a journey of discovery and self-discovery. Like life itself, in therapy the pleasure and meaning is in the march, not at the terminus of the march. But now I don't need a therapist to undertake the journey. I can do the poking and probing inside my head all myself. All I need is to have a right attitude. Emotional pain is the failure to accept realities and to know who you are. Now, to me, killing people for my personal profit is an adventure, a journey of discovery and a therapy. I convert chaos into order (though the target's loved ones may think that's just the opposite).To do my job properly requires infinite patience and meticulously planning. And then making lightning and decisive moves when the right time comes. No hesitation. No interference from "conscience", if I want to come out okay at the other end. A lot of my peers got killed and destroyed because of moral "weakness". I always adjust to new realities, to updated information, and I do my job with ruthless efficiency. No flair, no flamboyance, no flash, and no panache. Kissinger was right. Power is an aphrodisiac. I invariably feel powerful and sexually potent when I strike.

You've heard of the "butterfly effect", right? Some butterfly in Africa flutters its wings. One thing leads to another. And the next thing we know is that a tornado is about to touch down in the state of Kansas, right here in the middle of good old USA. Everything is connected. Why you chose to play poker? Why was I sitting next to you? Why the stupid Brits made so much noise and ruckus and then why they had to talk about assassins? You see, nothing exists alone, by itself, unconnected. Nothing is accidental. What has happened to us  is preordained, a convergence of gratuitous events. I'm not saying that we have no free will, but our free will exists in a larger framework of gratuitous events. Sounds paradoxical? 

Some people subscribe to a metaphysical principle---and I am getting to be one of those people with each passing day---that propounds that deep down, unconsciously, we choose everything in our life and that what happens to us is also the manifestation of our unconscious wishes, and not merely the result of our conscious desires. Bur once again, as I said earlier, our choices are not taking place in a vacuum and free of interconnection. I hope I'm making myself understood (a bit too heavy for me Omar, and I did read philosophy and psychology for fun. I just take your word for it. Whatever you say. What do you expect me to do? Disagree with you, a cold-blooded killer?) 

Today I violated my own credo. I don't keep things to myself. I don't keep my own counsel. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. Perhaps that old lonely feeling again. I repeat again: you're like my surrogate father, but if you tell the authorities, I would have to kill you. 

I was an engineer, a soldier, a math teacher, now a killer. I never thought that was how my life would turn out. Strange, heh? Maybe I'm telling you all of this, to a stranger, really, because I feel tired. My job involves a lot careful planning and it does tire me out mentally and emotionally from time to time. Today is the time. You asked me if I ever killed a wrong guy. Yes, twice. Wrong info was provided. I felt bad for a week each time and thought of quitting, but after careful "soul" searching, I concluded that shit happened. Like airplane crashes. And tornado touchdowns. 

Time to go is time to die. It doesn't matter when and how. "

Wissai
August 24, 2013