Humans get into troubles for two reasons: ignorance and ego. Ignorance can be easily remedied while ego is a tougher problem since it is far more complex than ignorance. While ego is useful up to a point for a human to function, it often is the cause for destruction and self-destruction. I should know what I am talking about since I possess an ego which is quite wily and intractable. My recent run-ins with pitiful humans all involved ego, mine and theirs. While I was far more honest and upfront in acting and showing the world who I was, the other assholes hid behind the exterior and image and persona of being "nice" and "sensitive" and even "Buddha-like", but the assholes turned out exactly who they were: assholes when they were tested. They were mean, small, petty, and devoted to low blows in their attacks. What a bunch of nauseating hypocrites. That is what happens in the real world. A bastard puts on a mask of an angel and a dog masquerades as an lion. Fucking cheap, don't you think? As for me, I only said I was an incomplete man, a creature of contradictions, a man in the making, a man trying to integrate warring, conflicting personalities.
I am sick and tired of assholes who are into power trips. A strong person is a person of few words, of understanding, of love, and of forgiveness. I have forgiven many, how many have forgiven me, have apologized to me for their transgressions against me?
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Lessons for survival
Thoughts at large and by no means original:
1. Life is an endless struggle for survival of the group. To do so, individuals in the group must band together. Altruism must override selfishness. Individual selfishness, if carried to extreme, will end in the destruction of the group. The selfish individuals will die first, but he is too stupid to realize that. He thinks he can live to ripe all age. Vietnamese selfish individuals must realize this fact in the current strugge by the Vietnamese people against the threat from the Chinese who have already taken the islands and the land at the northern border, threatened the rice bowl in the Mekong Delta by building damns in the upper reaches of the Meking River, occupied the mines in the strategic Central Highlands, absconded with the Vietnamese women who are put up for sale, and flooded Vietnam with cheap and sometimes poisonous goods.
2. To survive as individuals, some humans have learned to do away with any sense of fairness and justice. They will lie, cheat, steal, kill, and do anything to give themselves an edge in the game of survival. They have regressed back to being animals. They have forgotten the human qualities: honor, responsibility, altruism, and love. Their faces have taken a look of animal cunning and shameless brazenness.
(cont.)
1. Life is an endless struggle for survival of the group. To do so, individuals in the group must band together. Altruism must override selfishness. Individual selfishness, if carried to extreme, will end in the destruction of the group. The selfish individuals will die first, but he is too stupid to realize that. He thinks he can live to ripe all age. Vietnamese selfish individuals must realize this fact in the current strugge by the Vietnamese people against the threat from the Chinese who have already taken the islands and the land at the northern border, threatened the rice bowl in the Mekong Delta by building damns in the upper reaches of the Meking River, occupied the mines in the strategic Central Highlands, absconded with the Vietnamese women who are put up for sale, and flooded Vietnam with cheap and sometimes poisonous goods.
2. To survive as individuals, some humans have learned to do away with any sense of fairness and justice. They will lie, cheat, steal, kill, and do anything to give themselves an edge in the game of survival. They have regressed back to being animals. They have forgotten the human qualities: honor, responsibility, altruism, and love. Their faces have taken a look of animal cunning and shameless brazenness.
(cont.)
Anger and Change
Roberto, you are busy to instigate changes. What you need to to bring change to yourself.
But without acting on causes and interacting with others in the process, I would not really know who I am and what aspects of my personality that need to change for the better.
Good point. But please watch your anger and your words very carefully. All your life you have been hurt because of them. You have been lucky and you have been wise in not acting on your stupid thoughts. Meditate more. Be more loving and gentle. Breathe deeply. Contain your ego. Work on yourself. There are always people smaller and bigger than you. You cannot change them. The only person you can change is yourself. Go placidly in this world of noise and treachery. I know you have been naive about love and despite your adopting an indifferent exterior to it, you secretly hope and think and fancy that you are loveable. The trick is to cultivate peace inside you and it will manifest in the way you interact with others. Slowly, as time passes by, you will see a difference on how others perceive you and act towards you.
But without acting on causes and interacting with others in the process, I would not really know who I am and what aspects of my personality that need to change for the better.
Good point. But please watch your anger and your words very carefully. All your life you have been hurt because of them. You have been lucky and you have been wise in not acting on your stupid thoughts. Meditate more. Be more loving and gentle. Breathe deeply. Contain your ego. Work on yourself. There are always people smaller and bigger than you. You cannot change them. The only person you can change is yourself. Go placidly in this world of noise and treachery. I know you have been naive about love and despite your adopting an indifferent exterior to it, you secretly hope and think and fancy that you are loveable. The trick is to cultivate peace inside you and it will manifest in the way you interact with others. Slowly, as time passes by, you will see a difference on how others perceive you and act towards you.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Power in Human Relationships
It looks like I am reminded of power in human relationships today. The guy with a dog acted tough and brusque although he was overweight. His weight didn't befit his duty at all. Anyway, the whole thing was built on an edifice of lies. Once again, I was a victim due to my outspokenness. People twisted my words around to their benefit. I must learn to be taciturn. I was so upset that my mouth was dry instantly and I needed water to flush out bad chemicals in my system.
I must remember when there is a action, there will be reaction. I would need to calmly accept the consequences and move on. Agitation would make me look stupid and self-righteous. Excessiveness stems from self-righteousness. The bottom line is there are very few understanding, caring, forgiving, generous, broad-minded humans. Most humans would revert to animals when provoked. They would be willing to inflict damage, to lie, to do anything to get even, to get over their own feelings of hurt. Loud-mouthed people are the worst. They have no self-control; they are ever ready to play dirty to win. Very few humans really gives a damn about justice. Be careful out there. Look at their actions or lack thereof. Take their their sweet words with a grain of salt. How do I know that they don't lie? what guarantee do I have that they speak the truth?
I woke up this morning and experienced a surge of suppressed anger against the froggie asshole. Let that be a lesson for me not to be like him.
I must remember when there is a action, there will be reaction. I would need to calmly accept the consequences and move on. Agitation would make me look stupid and self-righteous. Excessiveness stems from self-righteousness. The bottom line is there are very few understanding, caring, forgiving, generous, broad-minded humans. Most humans would revert to animals when provoked. They would be willing to inflict damage, to lie, to do anything to get even, to get over their own feelings of hurt. Loud-mouthed people are the worst. They have no self-control; they are ever ready to play dirty to win. Very few humans really gives a damn about justice. Be careful out there. Look at their actions or lack thereof. Take their their sweet words with a grain of salt. How do I know that they don't lie? what guarantee do I have that they speak the truth?
I woke up this morning and experienced a surge of suppressed anger against the froggie asshole. Let that be a lesson for me not to be like him.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Academics, scholars, and thinkers.
Further thoughts on "Academics" on a beautiful sunlit Friday in late March 2010.
I can't help myself. Thoughts arrive like a cascade over a chasm and I have to let them fall. Disjointed thoughts. This is not an essay. You have to participate and connect the dots.
The term "academic" usually has a negative, pejorative connotation. It is often used to describe a person associated with an undistinguished teaching position at a university. A scholar has a somewhat better reputation than an academic. It means the dude knows in depth a subject in which he specializes. A thinker does not usually carry with him the baggage of a possibility of having an undistinguished teaching career as an academic does. He does not have to be a scholar or university-trained, though that doesn't hurt. All he needs to demonstrate is the ability to think critically and with originality and flair and attracts a following. In other words, he must create a splash, gets noticed, and is taken seriously by other thinkers. If you stay with me thus far, I think you get my drift that none of the so-called Vietnamese "academics" associated with the sideshow of NGS has achieved a status of "thinker". I don't even think they merit the appellation "scholar" since they are not well known or widely respected by their peers. Any Dick, Tom, and Harry with a PH.D., with some due diligence, can obtain a teaching position at a college. But that does not mean he is a Norm Chomsky nor does he attain the stature of the cosmologist whose family name is Trinh and who recently won some prestigious award, if memory serves.
Only thinkers command my respect. Academics get involved in sideshows and crave for recognition through the under-handed efforts of underlings get nothing from me but contempt.
Somebody did make me feel better about myself. Just when I thought I had him figured out, he stumped me and reminded me that I am a green horn in the real world. All my life I have taken refuge in books and fantasies. I don't interact much with humans and I am indeed naive. I am curious about a person's academic training because I believe schooling has some bearing (not much) on one's views of the world.
I have no inferiority complex toward Ivy League academics or any academic since I have travelled in the world of thoughts all my life. A person, academic or not, would have to be original and contributive to the annals of human thought for him to impress me. Academics expect to be respected and admired simply because they are academics even if they possess no real talent or originality of thought. A really
good academic is the one who puts the field in which they specialize on fire, revolutionizes the way it is practiced, and gets widespread respect from their peers. Some are so good they even become known by the public.
France, despite its relatively small population has produced a lot of thinkers whose thoughts have influenced those who really want to know the human reality, and jot just the physical reality. Recently somebody posted a disparaging remark about the paucity of France's contribution to the annals of human thought in the 20th Century. I almost laughed out loud when I read that stupid "opinion". Apparently the person didn't hear about Sartre, Camus, Derrida, Foucault, Ricoeur, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, and Barthes. And those are the only ones that are on the top of my head. I am sure there are others I can't think off hand and others I have not heard of. Educated people in the hard sciences who don't bother to enrich themselves with knowledge in the humanities tend to become just mere technicians and robots and are easily duped and misled by those whose passions are into understanding what drive men to act the way they do.
I like thinkers because I fancy I am a thinker myself. I know I am not a deep one or anything like that. But I enjoy thinking, especially after I came across a saying from Buddha who uttered these immortal words: " All of what we are is the result of what we think". I only have one original thought and it is so banal that almost everybody else can think of it. Thus, it is not really original at all, but it helps me to navigate through the maze of human diversity.
I want to know what I live for, who I am, if I am smart, if there is a God and life after death (reincarnation) and what love really is. I also think of the nature of human relationships. Is it based on power or on love or the combination of the two or just a naked competition for food, sex, and power and status (maybe the efforts of Ho Tue Linh to undermine me and others in a public way had something to do with a drive for power and status)? I want to know if all of us carry a tension between a public persona and a private self or if there are some individuals who are so comfortable with themselves that what we see is what they are.
People with clichés and platitudes bore me. Those who are into poses and posturings make me laugh. I like real, authentic people and especially those with a heart.
I can't help myself. Thoughts arrive like a cascade over a chasm and I have to let them fall. Disjointed thoughts. This is not an essay. You have to participate and connect the dots.
The term "academic" usually has a negative, pejorative connotation. It is often used to describe a person associated with an undistinguished teaching position at a university. A scholar has a somewhat better reputation than an academic. It means the dude knows in depth a subject in which he specializes. A thinker does not usually carry with him the baggage of a possibility of having an undistinguished teaching career as an academic does. He does not have to be a scholar or university-trained, though that doesn't hurt. All he needs to demonstrate is the ability to think critically and with originality and flair and attracts a following. In other words, he must create a splash, gets noticed, and is taken seriously by other thinkers. If you stay with me thus far, I think you get my drift that none of the so-called Vietnamese "academics" associated with the sideshow of NGS has achieved a status of "thinker". I don't even think they merit the appellation "scholar" since they are not well known or widely respected by their peers. Any Dick, Tom, and Harry with a PH.D., with some due diligence, can obtain a teaching position at a college. But that does not mean he is a Norm Chomsky nor does he attain the stature of the cosmologist whose family name is Trinh and who recently won some prestigious award, if memory serves.
Only thinkers command my respect. Academics get involved in sideshows and crave for recognition through the under-handed efforts of underlings get nothing from me but contempt.
Somebody did make me feel better about myself. Just when I thought I had him figured out, he stumped me and reminded me that I am a green horn in the real world. All my life I have taken refuge in books and fantasies. I don't interact much with humans and I am indeed naive. I am curious about a person's academic training because I believe schooling has some bearing (not much) on one's views of the world.
I have no inferiority complex toward Ivy League academics or any academic since I have travelled in the world of thoughts all my life. A person, academic or not, would have to be original and contributive to the annals of human thought for him to impress me. Academics expect to be respected and admired simply because they are academics even if they possess no real talent or originality of thought. A really
good academic is the one who puts the field in which they specialize on fire, revolutionizes the way it is practiced, and gets widespread respect from their peers. Some are so good they even become known by the public.
France, despite its relatively small population has produced a lot of thinkers whose thoughts have influenced those who really want to know the human reality, and jot just the physical reality. Recently somebody posted a disparaging remark about the paucity of France's contribution to the annals of human thought in the 20th Century. I almost laughed out loud when I read that stupid "opinion". Apparently the person didn't hear about Sartre, Camus, Derrida, Foucault, Ricoeur, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, and Barthes. And those are the only ones that are on the top of my head. I am sure there are others I can't think off hand and others I have not heard of. Educated people in the hard sciences who don't bother to enrich themselves with knowledge in the humanities tend to become just mere technicians and robots and are easily duped and misled by those whose passions are into understanding what drive men to act the way they do.
I like thinkers because I fancy I am a thinker myself. I know I am not a deep one or anything like that. But I enjoy thinking, especially after I came across a saying from Buddha who uttered these immortal words: " All of what we are is the result of what we think". I only have one original thought and it is so banal that almost everybody else can think of it. Thus, it is not really original at all, but it helps me to navigate through the maze of human diversity.
I want to know what I live for, who I am, if I am smart, if there is a God and life after death (reincarnation) and what love really is. I also think of the nature of human relationships. Is it based on power or on love or the combination of the two or just a naked competition for food, sex, and power and status (maybe the efforts of Ho Tue Linh to undermine me and others in a public way had something to do with a drive for power and status)? I want to know if all of us carry a tension between a public persona and a private self or if there are some individuals who are so comfortable with themselves that what we see is what they are.
People with clichés and platitudes bore me. Those who are into poses and posturings make me laugh. I like real, authentic people and especially those with a heart.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Moral Courage
Moral courage is the bridge between talking ethics and doing ethics. It is a readiness ro endure danger for the sake of principle. The courage to act is found at the intersection of three elements: action based on core values, awareness of the risks, and a willingness to endure necessary hardship.
Based on the above analysis, definitely Le Thi Cong Nhan has moral courage, much more than I do while I have much more moral courage than the assholes and motherfuckers around me, who love to pontificate and yet do nothing when action is needed. Thus explains my feelings of utter and complete contempt for them. A man who is too much into saving his own skin is not much of a man. Cowardice is contemptible because it makes a person look small and it robs him of dignity.
Based on the above analysis, definitely Le Thi Cong Nhan has moral courage, much more than I do while I have much more moral courage than the assholes and motherfuckers around me, who love to pontificate and yet do nothing when action is needed. Thus explains my feelings of utter and complete contempt for them. A man who is too much into saving his own skin is not much of a man. Cowardice is contemptible because it makes a person look small and it robs him of dignity.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Anger
We all know it is stupid to arouse anger and provoke enmity in others, but we usually don't care because we think what the fuck the other guy can do to us. Then one day calamity strikes, then we know, but it is too late then. Prevention is better than cure.
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