Sectarianism and Survival

Sectarianism and Survival

Today (June 13, 2013) the news that the U.S. decided to arm the Syrian rebels because ostensibly the Assad government had used chemical weapons against the rebels set off a chain of "thoughts" in my mind which I am sharing here with you in the interest of searching for truths and answers about the overriding issues of survival and self-actualization.

A human child is born. A potential miracle or a terrible waste is about to occur for Human is a strange, self-conflicting, gifted, most evolved organism on this planet. The child grows up and develops consciousness of himself and of the environment around him. He starts asking questions and receives answers first from his family and then from good, scholarly books, if he is lucky not to be indoctrinated and brainwashed by mind traffickers at a tender young age to believe in nonsense and superstition and wishful thinking. He goes to college where hopefully he runs into minds superior to his own. As he joins the work force and earns his daily bread, he tentatively and unwittingly formulates theories to make sense of what's happening in the world while justifying the reason for his absurd existence which he knows is finite. 

A functioning human must balance between his own needs and the needs his family>tribe>people>nation has placed on him. He is a social animal but acutely driven to assert himself. Along the way to search for answers there are forces (false and stupid doctrines of religions and philosophies alike, secular propaganda from commerce and politics, fears, complexes--both inferiority and superiority, power structures, basic needs of food, shelter, and sex) which slow him down but ironically are part of the gist of answers. A real human is the one who, in his search for answers, relies on facts and logic, not on blind faith and acceptance of what is presented to him, contrary to logic, contrary to scientific knowledge, contrary to common sense. Those fail who do so are merely children who suffer from arrested development, and are easy preys for charlatans. We all die anyway. We must die as free men, not as slaves, "religious" or otherwise. To be stupid is to be exploited. To be weak is to invite attack. Whoever controls the mind of the other owns that person. 

Humans function in groups which develop customs to aid in the survival. Religion is nothing but a stylized custom of providing answers to existential questions and furnishing a moral code to help the group>tribe>society function in harmony. Religion becomes a problem when it gets ambitious and decides to go extra-territorial or when an invading tribe>society conquers its neighbors and imposes its religion (its way of thinking, its myths, its mythos) on the conquered subjects.

Religion is more of a dividing than unifying force because each one, despite paying lip service to being respectful of others, "thinks" it is the only "right" one. Within each religion itself there are sects. And they turn on one another with pitiful ferocity. Note the bloodshed in the name of Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe in centuries past, and the endless fights between the Sunnis and the Shiites in the Islamic world. It is also noteworthy that of all religions, Buddhism is the only one which has not spread its influence by force, by trickery, by appeals to nonsense, but only by quiet appeals to reason and reasoning. In addition, there are no wars between Buddhist sects. But many scholars think Buddhism is not a religion per se, deep down and at its core. It is a philosophy, a way of looking at the world. It is comfortable with itself and is not in any frantic hurry to spread its message. It does not believe in Doomsday scenario. It does not believe in numerical superiority either. It knows that a single wise man is worth more a billion slavish idiots. Its converts in the West tend to be affluent, educated, and know how think logically. 

Religion is closely tied with political-socio-economic status. Syria is a good example. It used to be a Christian country until the explosion of Islam from the Arab peninsula in the seventh century. Now the country is being torn apart by sectarianism. The minority but ruling Shiites and Christians are fighting a war against the majority Sunnis, which left more than 90,000 dead already and millions homeless and displaced. Syrians are killing themselves, with the aid and weapons and even personnel furnished by non-Syrians. Now with America getting into the fray, Assad's days are numbered, but not before the country is reduced to ruins and tens of thousands, if not more, of Syrians are going to perish. Religion is bad for Syria. 

Religion is also bad for Sri Lanka where Buddhists killed a lot of Hindu Tamils, for Myanmar where Buddhists are clashing with Muslims, and for the Philippines where the Muslims in the South are waging a low-grade but persistent war against the Catholics in the North. In Vietnam, as a source of social unrest and divisiveness, religion was a non-issue throughout its history until Catholicism was introduced there by evangelical, ambitious white missionaries. The Vietnamese Catholic minority latched itself with the ruling elites (French colonists, Diem and Thieu presidencies) to dominate the Buddhist majority. I remember in the wake of the overthrow and killing of Diem, the beloved and revered President of the Vietnamese Catholics and is now being "sanctified" and "beatified" by them, busloads of young militant Christians were unloaded in Saigon streets where they marched with grim, angry faces, and sticks of freshly cut tree limbs in their hands. Luckily there were no violent street religious clashes in Saigon, despite this ugly and stupid provocation. The triumphant and enlightened Buddhist leadership knew better and decided not to meet stupidity with stupidity. Now with the 50th anniversary of the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức's martyr death coming up, there is a resurgence of vociferous accusation that the Buddhists were the tools of the Vietcong and thus contributed to the loss of South Vietnam, which invited the retaliatory condemnation that the Catholics were the followers and collaborators of the French invaders. The Vietnamese Buddhists and the Catholics are busy denouncing each other, instead of joining forces to fight against the common enemies which are the Vietcong and the Red Chinese. 

I personally believe religion does not really change the essence of a human. Religion may enhance his veneer, and may provide the ignorant and the stupid with some guideposts so they can go through life without being completely bewildered and lost, but if history is any guide, it had done more harm than good. When the Christian Spaniards reconquered Spain, their religious zeal and fanaticism led to the expulsion of Sephardic Jews and the Moors, leading to the weakening of intellectual life in Spain. It is not widely known that when the Islamic Moors themselves ruled most of Spain for many centuries, they were tolerant rulers and let the Christians and the Jews practice their own religions.

A country beset by sectarianism fed by religious differences is an easy prey for foreign domination. The country may not survive as a sovereign entity. That is what is happening in Syria. To negate the harms brought about by religion and bigotry and willful wishful thinking, academic courses like philosophy, rhetoric, world history, and biology must be rigorously taught in high school.

A human mind is a terrible thing to waste. 

Wissai
June 13, 20136

Coffee, Coke, Memory, and the Mind

They waxed poetic about coffee

Reminiscing about black and café au lait

Sipped in the ambience of love and romance

And how sugar melted and milk danced

In the ocean of coffee darkness 

I could not help but think about our times of happiness 

When we were young and green and freshly in love

And how we ate beef noodle soup

And drank coke in a restaurant's alcove.

The ice-cold coke had a sharp, biting hit on my tongue

Leaving me with an exquisite high

Which disappeared soon after you took off in flight.

I no longer drink coke, nor do I smoke. 

What I really want to do nowadays

Is to kill you, if not in person, then at least in my mind.

Wissai

June 12, 2013

P.S.

When your senses detect something in your environment, a signal goes to the thalamus for processing. From here, the signal splits into two pathways, one to the cortex and the other to the amygdala. The signal to the amygdala goes fast, while the one to the cortex takes a lot longer. As a result, the amygdala reacts long before the cortex does if the sensory info includes signs of danger. The amygdala does this by using memories and knowledge stored in the nearby hippocampus about what's harmful or dangerous. Moments later, the cortex adds more info about what the senses detected. 

Using the info, the reader would perhaps understand why I wrote the above poem the way I did. He would also understand how I approach writing. Simply put, my words are the adjunct of how I reacted to the stimuli, in a stylized, compensating manner.  

Angry Feet

Những Bàn Chân Nổi Giận

TP. Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam

Tháng trước, Tòa Án tỉnh Long An Việt Nam đã kết án nặng nề hai sinh viên yêu nước ở độ tuổi 20. Trong những tội danh bị áp đặt có tội "nói xấu Trung Quốc". Những cáo buộc  này đã chạm vào điểm nhạy cảm bậc nhất trong tâm thế người Việt Nam là lòng yêu nước và tinh thần dân tộc. Người ta phẫn nộ vì như thế là ai đó đã hợp đồng với Trung Quốc xâm lược để quay lại đàn áp người yêu nước. Bi kịch lớn nhất của một số người lãnh đạo Việt Nam là sự ám ảnh về cái gọi là "cùng chung một ý thức hệ xã hội chủ nghĩa" nên đã không quyết liệt đáp trả những thủ đoạn bành trướng nham hiểm và những hành động xâm lược ngang ngươc của Trung Quốc. Họ lại quyết liệt đàn áp những người yêu nước, bóp nghẹt dân chủ, bưng bít thông tin và khủng bố tư tưởng công dân mình. Đầu tuần này, công an Hà Nội đã đàn áp một cuộc biểu tình chống Trung Quốc và bắt nhiều người, hành hung, đánh đập họ, trong đó có cả phụ nữ.

Dân tộc Việt Nam có quyền tự hào về truyền thống bất khuất, quật cường của mấy ngàn năm dựng nước và giữ nước trong vị thế oái ăm, sát cạnh một láng giềng khổng lồ chưa bao giờ từ bỏ giấc mộng bành trướng nhằm nuốt chửng Việt Nam. Đất nước này đã từng chìm đắm cả nghìn năm Bắc thuộc. Trong cái đêm dài đau đớn ấy, kẻ thù luôn tìm cách đồng hóa dân tộc Việt. Và chúng đã thất bại.

Việt Nam đã từng đánh bại đế quốc Nguyên Mông vào thế kỷ XIII và những kẻ xâm lược khác trong thế kỷ XV, XVIII và XX. Bản lĩnh dân tộc Việt đã được hun đúc qua những cuộc chiến tranh khốc liệt chống ngoại xâm. Nhưng hôm nay, bất chấp luật pháp quốc tế và chà đạp trên nguyên tắc và đạo lý, Trung Quốc đã ngang nhiên thực hiện mộng bành trướng trên Biển Đông, cái "lưỡi bò" ham hố và bẩn thỉu đang thè ra chực nuốt cả vùng biển rộng lớn, nơi có trữ lượng dầu mỏ đủ đáp ứng cơn khát nguyên liệu của một nền kinh tế đang cố ngoi lên vị thế siêu cường. Nơi đây cũng là con đường huyết mạch trên biển để Trung Quốc thực hiện tham vọng của họ.

Vì thế, những “bàn chân nổi giận” đã rầm rập xuống đường biểu tình chông Trung Quốc xâm lược. Cùng với những cuộc biểu tình ấy, những khiếu kiện tập thể của nông dân cũng dồn dập bùng lên. Sự nối kết giữa tầng lớp trí thức với giới trẻ ở đô thị và nông dân – những người bị đẩy vào cuộc sống đói nghèo vì mất đất sản xuất khi người ta nhân danh "sở hữu toàn dân" để tước đoạt quyền sở hữu mảnh đất cha ông họ để lại mà  không được đền bù thỏa đáng. Cùng với điều đó, mạng lưới thông tin qua Internet đã trỗi lên như nấm sau cơn mưa biểu thị tinh thần yêu nước bất chấp mọi đàn áp đang đang mở ra một cục diện mới.

Sự nổi giận của người Việt Nam lại càng tăng lên khi một số những người lãnh đạo lùi bước trước những hành động tội ác của Trung Quốc xâm lược Việt Nam nhưng lại quyết liệt đàn áp người yêu nước đấu tranh đòi dân chủ và tự do. "Nền kinh tế thị trường định hướng xã hội chủ nghĩa " là một khái niệm rất mơ hồ, những người lãnh đạo lại dùng nó để duy trì một hệ thống chính trị đã quá lỗi thời.

Nếu không có những đổi mới ở thập niên 80, nền kinh tế tập trung có lẽ đã đưa Việt Nam đi đến bờ vực sụp đổ. Tuy nhiên, những cải cách kinh tế đó đã bị đình trệ vì không có cải cách chính trị song hành. Tuy nói rất nhiều về một nhà nước "của dân do dân và vì dân" nhưng người ta chưa bao giờ muốn xây dựng một nhà nước pháp quyền và một xã hội dân sự đúng với ý nghĩa đích thực của nó.

Với cuộc chiến đấu chống Mỹ cứu nước thắng lợi, Việt Nam đã nhận được sự đồng cảm, lòng tôn trọng và ngưỡng mộ của nhiều người yêu chuộng hòa bình trên thế giới. Đáng tiếc là từ đỉnh cao của chiến thắng, người ta lại duy trì một hệ thống chính trị lạc hậu và một hệ tư tưởng giáo điều nên nền kinh tế Việt Nam đã không thể phát triển mạnh mẽ như nó cần làm và có đủ điều kiện để làm. Để rồi  họ trở thành thành mục tiêu phê phán của cộng đồng quốc tế về đàn áp dân chủ và vi phạm nhân quyền.

Chính vì một số nhà lãnh đạo Việt Nam bị "cái mũ kim cô"  của chủ nghĩa bành trướng Đại Hán siết chặt nên đã đẩy đất nước ra khỏi quỹ đạo dân chủ để gánh chịu lạc hậu và lạc điệu so với thế giới văn minh, một thế giới mà Việt Nam đang rất cần hòa nhập để đất nước có điều kiện phát triển.

Ấy thế mà từ lâu, các nhà lãnh đạo Trung Quốc đã từ bỏ chủ nghĩa xã hội để thay thế bằng một "Chủ nghĩa tư bản mang màu sắc Trung Quốc" man rợ nhằm nuôi dưỡng mộng bành trướng của cha ông họ mà họ chưa bao giờ từ bỏ. Cho nên, cái gọi là "cùng chung thức hệ" mà ai đó đưa ra chỉ là cái bình phong che đậy cho tham vọng quyền lực, nhằm giữ bằng được cái ghế mà họ đang ngồi. Những ngôn từ đạo đức giả được đưa ra, rồi mười sáu chữ bịp bợm về "láng giềng hữu nghị" được tung hứng chỉ là trò khôi hài.

Nhằm bảo vệ cái ghế quyền lực của một số người đang giành được những vị thế quan trọng, để củng cố và mở rộng những lợi ích béo bở của mình, người ta đang quay lưng lại với nhân dân. Một số trí thức và nhân sĩ, trong đó có người viết bài này, đã đưa ra hàng loạt kiến nghị về thực thi dân chủ và nhân quyền trong Hiến pháp nhằm hướng tới việc tạo ra một hệ thống chính trị thực sự dân chủ. Tuy nhiên, đề xuất của chúng tôi đã gặp phải những lời lăng mạ và vu khống trên các tờ báo chính thống được chỉ đạo sát sao.

Người ta đã không thấy được rằng, một khi phong trào yêu nước chống ngoại xâm gắn kết được với cuộc đấu tranh dân chủ và thực hiện quyền con người đã được ghi vào trong Hiến pháp, sẽ đẩy tới những bước hợp trội trong sự phát triển, tạo ta những đột phá không lường trước được, hình thành một cục diện mới, đưa đât nước đi lên.

Cho nên, càng sử dụng bạo lực và đàn áp, càng cho thấy sự phi dân chủ, vô nhân tính của những người sử dụng nó.

Người lãnh đạo nắm bắt được cục diện mới, nhanh nhạy đáp ứng được lợi ích dân tộc, đặt lợi ích của Tổ quốc lên trên hết và trước hết, sẽ nhận được hậu thuẫn mạnh mẽ của dân và sự đồng tình của bạn bè quốc tế.

Ngược lại, nếu tiếp tục quay lưng lại với dân, nấp dưới chiêu bài ý thức hệ đã lỗi thời, bám chặt mô hình toàn trị phản dân chủ, chỉ cốt giữ cho được cái ghế quyền lực đã rệu rã và đưa đất nước vào ngõ cụt không lối thoát, thì sự cáo chung là điều không thể tránh khỏi.

 

***

Vietnam’s Angry Feet

By TUONG LAI

Published: June 6, 2013

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — LAST month, Vietnamese courts imposed heavy sentences on two patriotic students in their early 20s who had been charged with “speaking ill of China.” These charges touched the most sensitive nerve in the nation’s psyche — our patriotism and spirit of nationalism — and publicly exposed the government’s shady collusion with foreign aggressors.

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Vietnam’s greatest tragedy is that the illusion of a common socialist ideology has been used by the Vietnamese government as an excuse to allow Chinese expansionism to run rampant and to stifle democracy, censor and suppress information, and psychologically terrorize its citizens. Earlier this week, the police in Hanoi broke up an anti-China demonstration and sent the organizers to jail.

We Vietnamese are rightfully proud of building and defending our nation for thousands of years despite its perilous position, bordering a gigantic neighbor that has never abandoned its expansionist dream of devouring Vietnam. We endured 1,000 years of Chinese occupation. During that long and painful night, China constantly sought to assimilate the Vietnamese people. But they failed.

Vietnam fought off the Mongols in the 13th century and defeated other foreign aggressors during the 15th, 18th and 20th centuries. Our character was forged by these ferocious struggles. Yet today, in defiance of international law and trampling on principle and morality, China’s territorial claim stretches into the South China Sea like an ox tongue trying to swallow up waters that hold in their depths a vast reserve of petroleum to feed an energy-hungry economy that dreams of attaining superpower status. It is also a vital maritime artery that would enable China to achieve its ambitions.

In response to China’s actions, so-called angry feet have pounded Vietnam’s streets in demonstrations that have united intellectuals and urban youth. They have been joined by farmers, who have been forced into lives of poverty because the government, under the banner of people’s ownership, has expropriated their fields without providing adequate compensation. Meanwhile, Internet communications networks have sprung up like mushrooms after a heavy rainstorm, displaying a spirit of patriotism that ignores all repression.

The people’s anger is rising at a time when Vietnam’s leaders are showing themselves to be timid and weak. And factional fighting has been fierce and getting nastier between an anti-Chinese camp and the more doctrinaire old guard.

The “socialist-directed market economy” that Vietnam’s leaders now talk about is vague and unclear. They are trying to cling to a political system that is outdated. If it hadn’t been for the market reforms of the 1980s, centralized planning would have driven Vietnam’s economy to the brink of collapse. However, those economic reforms stalled because there was no accompanying political reform. Our leaders never built a state that was governed by the rule of law and enjoyed a genuine civil society.

In the wake of its victory over the United States in the 1970s, Vietnam gained the sympathy, respect and admiration of peace-loving people around the world. But because our leaders insisted on maintaining a moribund political system and a dogmatic ideology, Vietnam’s economic fortunes declined and our government became the target of international criticism for its repression of democracy and violations of human rights.

Vietnamese leaders became overly subservient to China, falling out of the orbit of democracy and far behind the rest of the world, a world into which Vietnam now desperately needs to integrate itself so that it can grow and develop.

China’s leaders long ago discarded socialism for an unbridled right-wing capitalist system that nourishes the expansionist dreams that their forefathers never abandoned. And Vietnam’s leaders are using the smoke screen of shared socialist ideology to protect their own hold on power. Their hypocritical words about being friendly neighbors are a farce.

To protect a small political elite and vested interest groups, our leaders have turned their backs on the people. A number of intellectuals, including me, have put forward a series of petitions to enshrine human rights protections in the Constitution and make it genuinely democratic. Yet our proposals have been met only with insults and slanders in government-controlled newspapers.

Our leaders must recognize that the confluence of patriotic opposition to foreign aggression and demands for democracy and human rights will lead to dramatic and unpredictable changes. The more the Vietnamese government employs violence and repression, the more it reveals its own inhumanity.

A leader who has a firm understanding of this new situation, rapidly responds to the people’s will and places the national interest above all else will receive popular support as well as the sympathy of Vietnam’s friends abroad.

If, however, in their effort to hang on to their crumbling thrones, our leaders turn their backs on the people, if they hide behind the tenets of an outdated ideology, if they stubbornly cling to an obsolete model of anti-democratic governance and lead our nation into a blind alley from which there is no escape, their demise will be inevitable.

Tuong Lai, a sociologist also known as Nguyen Phuoc Tuong, was an adviser to two Vietnamese prime ministers from 1991 to 2006. This essay was translated by The New York Times from the Vietnamese.

__._,_.___

Peace

Peace  

Spit it out

And say it loud 

Like some poet has said

Don't leave it unspoken

Don't leave it in the barren wasteland 

Of your head

Tell me now 

Tell me what's on your  mind

Don't cry and don't pout

Don't be shy

Remember, you used to be my Valentine

Although I love you no more

I'm still curious what you have to say  

What it is in store 

What you want to convey

Okay, I just want to be nice

You have the right to stay silent

But stop calling me in the middle of the night 

And asking for my advice

We were already through

And I no longer love you

Understanding

Understanding

Tửu phùng tri kỷ thiên bôi thiểu
Thoại bất đầu cơ bán cú đa
Dao tri hồ thượng nhất tôn tửu
Năng ức thiên nhai vạn lý nhân
                           Âu Dương Tự (in Sino-Vietnamese)
Cùng bạn biết mình muôn chén thiếu, 
Với ai khác ý nửa câu thừa
Trên mặt hồ một chung tiễn bạn
Nhớ tới người nơi vạn dặm xa
                 Vietnamese Translation
(A thousand of drinks together would not suffice in true friendship
But half a sentence spoken would be too much in lack of understanding
Sitting in the middle of the lake, this drink is for my friend
Who's now ten thousand miles far away)
                    Translated by Wissai

We are what 
We have lost 
              Alex Kuo

One becomes what one is
              Nietzsche

Several friends of mine have commented that my words have a jarring, jolting, terrible beauty about them. I replied if they really thought so, then perhaps they understood me. 

Okay, I didn't have the guts to tell them the reason I wrote the way I did was that I was scared, angry, and wounded. And Lonely. Yes, the one with a capital L. But that doesn't mean I don't have lady friends to talk to. I do. Tons. A lot. But I still feel lonely. That's my basic existential problem, besides not believing  in a Personalized God, the kind that has human attributes and to Whom one talks to and asks for help. Yes, that kind of God, not Spinoza's God. 

I am lonely because none of my lady friends understands me while I understand them perfectly. One-way understanding is getting old to me. 

Take the case of Sylvia, a Russian Jew in St. Petersburg,  who has been my friend for over 14 years. I knew her when my hair was not gray, when I was at my fighting weight of 157 lbs (I weigh 169 now), when I was a budding millionaire. I still know what turns her on and off, her likes and dislikes and why they are so. I know why she views politics is a dirty game, why she believes the world will end in fire and then ice, and why she loves animals more than humans. But, she, on the other hand, does not know my values and what keeps me going. She does not know no price is too high for owning yourself. To live like a slave, intellectually that is, is a terrible thing to do, but that's what at least 90% of humans are doing, in my conservative and humble estimation.

Or the bitch by the name of Leona in Liverpool. She was stupid and stingy, poor and portly, but she thought she was pretty and classy. Vanity, thy name is woman!

Or the strange, curious phenomenon of Harriet of Harrisburg,  She was formidably intelligent but uneducated, hot-tempered but forgiving, stingy and yet generous at the same time. She said she loved me, but threatened to kill me almost on a daily basis. When she died of a heart-attack, I got down on my knees and cried with relief because I no longer would have to go to bed with a loaded automatic under my pillow. 

But the root cause of my alienation, I suppose, was none other than Annette, the French woman of yore. I thought she was sweet and tender and generous to a fault. Because of her, I wrecked my mind to labor in French. I thought she loved me because I did love her with an intensity of a lad of nineteen. We went out for three years.Then the sky fell, disillusion arrived, and depression took root. It took me more than 30 years to get over the hurts and the pains. And when I did, Nietzsche's words came to mind, "what did not destroy me, would make me stronger". I did get stronger and have not got depressed since even though I lost many things which were dear to me.

Alex Kuo was right. We are defined by what we have lost. What remains is essentially who we really are. A man would know who really is when he has no money, no job, and no friends, when what he only has is his body and his mind and his honor. If he can bounce back, if he can get on his feet and fight against the forces of negativity and gravity while nobody believes that he can, then he would know what he is made. 

I have some money now, enough to see me maintain a middle class lifestyle until I hit 80. I don't foolishly flirt with insolvency anymore, although I still take risks. The other day a bitch asked to "borrow" $100,000 from me. I laughed and said, "Tell me, my dear, is your pussy covered with rubies and diamonds? I was stupid once, but not twice. Get the fuck out of here!" 

I am going to the gym in a few minutes. I am getting back to my fighting weight, one pound at a time. I still look good and sexy. And my mind is still sharp. I have stayed away from booze and drugs and even women. I am living a life of an ascetic. I observe, think, read and write everyday. I no longer give a fuck about what and how people think of me. As far as I am concerned, they can go to fucking Hell. They are lucky that I do not personally send them there. Most humans deserve to be exterminated like vermin. That's what I believe. That was what Hitler believed, too. 

Of course, I am being self-indulgent and hyperbolic. That's the problem and beauty of writing to yourself. The manner, not the medium, is the message. If you read me or Henry Miller or of course, Phạm Công Thiên, literally, you would miss the point.  We three love words and we love to hear ourselves talk. Our message is not really the meaning of our words, but the manner of which the words are used. You must get past the prose and go to the poetry. I don't bluff nor lie, however, unlike some assholes I know. I have a problem with people aping Nietzsche (as Phạm Công Thiên did) and blasting Socrates without giving a clear (just like Nietzsche himself did) reason why. I always wonder what was wrong with Socrates. 

Life is getting clearer as I am getting closer to my finish line in this life on this planet Earth:

1. Am I happy now? Am I at peace with myself?
Yes and yes, despite the impressions I have given by my words. I was not lying. I was just playing games.
2. Am I financially secure to have a comfortable retirement?
Yes, despite blowing a lot of money. I learned a lot about myself and, more importantly, others who meant a lot to me, after teetering on the edge of financial abyss. I learned who really loved me and who only stayed with me because of money. 
3. What do I live for? 
Knowledge and literary creations, not power. Power is for animals and assholes who have inferiority complex, deep down. 
4. What do I think of humans?
Not much. Most are scumbags and assholes whose deaths mean absolutely nothing to me. I am getting misanthropic with each passing day. 
5. What were three biggest lessons I recently learned?
a. Social animals love power, sometimes unwittingly. 
b. Keep my big mouth shut and keep on listening. If I have to speak, speak only what people want to hear, not what I want to say. Be cool.
c. Don't underestimate human ignorance, stupidity, and obstinance. They have a stupid kind of Pride. They don't know what true Pride is. 

Das Leben

von Johann Gottfried Herder

Ein Traum, ein Traum ist unser Leben
Auf Erden hier.
Wie Schatten auf den Wogen schweben 
Und schwinden wir.
Und messen unsere trägen Tritte
Nach Raum und Zeit.
Und sind (und wissen's nicht) in Mitte 
Der Ewigkeit.

(Life

A dream, a dream is our life

here on earth.

Like shadows on the billows

we float and vanish.

And measure our slothful steps 

by space and time.

And are (and know it not) in the midst 

of eternity

The funny thing is that I may be stupid in thinking that I finally know something about humans. Let me put my understanding as follows: most humans are weak, stupid, ignorant, fearful, superstitious, and self-righteous. They are vastly inferior to me in intellectual and emotional honesty. I learn nothing from them, except not to be like them. About 10% of them have something in them that I can emulate. I know I am unique and different and I have suffered for stupidly interacting with certain assholes and motherfuckers. I wish I had the power to exterminate them one by one, by my own hands. But then without interacting with them, I would not have known how depraved they could be. Empirical knowledge is vastly superior than  ivory tower theorizing. As much as I know in theory that humans have the capacity to lie, to cheat, to make up stories, and generally to have no shame in trying to win with whatever means possible, that knowledge is always theoretical and does not have much import until I actually run into assholes and scumbags and motherfuckers who behave worse than I theorize. 

Unlike other bashful souls, my words are full of social commentary and have plenty of messages in their teeth. They don't provide uplift to the human spirit, nor do they show humanity the right way to conduct and breathe. I am just a mere neurotic scoundrel who happens to love words and fancy that he can express himself in an alien tongue with some degree of grace and y vividness. 

Yesterday I met an eye surgeon at a poker table who took a shine on me. He said he was impressed with my book knowledge and my humanity. He didn't reveal his occupation until at the end of the conversation when he handed me his business card and asked for my phone number. It seems to me that only educated people recognize my worth. About 15 years ago, a cognitive scientist (college profefssor) was very taken by my ability to express myself orally in English and he said so. He further remarked that I spoke English far better than his native born students. Today an old friend of 67 years of age disclosed to me that he is dying of prostate cancer. Life is precious only when we are are about to lose it. He told me about fear of dying and panic attacks. I hope I won't be like him when I meet my demise. I am trying hard not to get my ego involved with assholes and motherfuckers. The best way is to have nothing to do with them. I already know their true colors, their animalistic nature. And as I said before, if I could, I would do something, but now the only course of action for me is to to avoid and to wait. 

The more I live, the more misanthropic I become. I find humans worse off than dogs. Humans are treacherous and ungrateful, unlike dogs. In the twilight if my life, I realize I was dumb and stupid for harboring a torrid, burning longing for Big Face. Now I am just indifferent to her since I no longer find her worthy of my enduring affection. 

(To be continued)

Không

KHÔNG Không bao giờ phôi phai Anh mãi là thần tượng Là ông Hoàng, thiên tướng Là bóng mát che đời Giữa không trung lưng trời Theo cánh mây phiêu lãng Đôi chim "nghèo" lang bạt Hẹn cõi vắng bay về Xứ người buồn lê thê Nhớ ai, ai có thấu Lòng sục sôi..nung nấu Phút trùng phùng tâm giao Bên vần thơ ngọt ngào Hồn say ánh trăng bạc Dập dồn giòng suối nhạc Quên thế giới sầu miên. Chúc Anh NEVER You never fade away For you're my idol, My lord, my angel,  My life's shade, my soul You fly high in the sky Roaming with the clouds Two scrawny wandering birds Return to secluded stomping ground  Land of exile is an unending stretch of sorrows I yearn for you, do you know? Deep, burning longing Memory of meeting my soulmate  Via sweet, tender poetry Drunk in the silver moonlight By magical bubbling stream Away from endless earthly worries Roughly translated  by Wissai/NKBa' May 8, 2012

A Lonely, Angry American

A Lonely, Angry American 

I am lonely and angry. I harbor homicidal thoughts. I used to have thoughts of killing myself, but not anymore, not since 1972. But that does not mean I am free of self-destructive behavior. And I've read books on philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and literature in order to understand my affliction. 

When I say I am lonely, that does not mean I am not popular with ladies. Far from it. I've been married eight times and romantically involved with twenty (or was it married three times and romantically entangled with twenty-five  ? Memory is failing me. I'm suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's. I took to writing to keep the demon at bay, as long as I could) women other than my wives, but I still feel lonely, maybe because I think out of those twenty-eight women who went through my life, only one and possible two others who really loved me, and they were all dead or are in the coma or suffering from dementia as I do. So you see, I am not a lucky guy, deep down. Not really. 

One woman who professes to have loved me for a long time gets on my nerves occasionally. She used to live a life of denial and inauthenticity. She is on a mend, but I think she's not right for me. Plus, the hurts she has caused me are too big and too much for me not to remember them. She questioned the values I placed on myself. She intimated that I was a fraud. She wanted to inflict pain, even though she is living in goddamned Russia, twenty thousand miles away from me. She is a Jew. Not all Jews are smart. Some Jews have delusions of grandeur about the beauty of their thoughts. Look at Karl Marx. 

All other women taught me that I was a fool. The lessons were so plentiful and painful that nowadays I have forgotten how to open my heart. One white woman in the Northwest professed to believe in God and to be a Christian. But she lied to her husband and to me. She was a supreme liar and manipulator. She was no Christian. I was dead sure about that. Yet she made me feel good at one time. Now I wonder how I could be that stupid. I am sure if there's Hell, she will go straight to it, first class. 

An Asian young thing of 28 is trying to seduce me in order to get at whatever money I still have left, after the debacle of stock trading addiction. She keeps inviting me for dinner at her house, and I keep smiling and saying nothing. She is pretty and a blatant, brazen gold-digger. She thinks I am stupid and senile. She keeps a constant refrain of how smart, handsome, and sexy I look, in spite of my being at the age immortalized in a Beatles song. I despise gold-diggers. I would rather fuck a leper than her.  She thinks her flattery will weaken my will-power and strengthen my dick, but she is wrong. 

Women are not the only ones who make me feel lonely. Certain male assholes do, too. They also make me mad enough to contemplate putting a bullet through their heads. I have been able to resist the impulse, but I don't know how long I will hold out. To keep that unwholesome thought under control, I am resorting to telling stories, mostly to myself in a language that I didn't grow up hearing. That way I would not feel really embarrassed if the stories were half-assed sensible. These stories came to me even before I had the words to articulate them, in any language; they came to me when I was in my mother's womb. That was why sixty-four years ago, when I emerged into the world in the fading sunlight of that Sunday late afternoon in the Mekong Delta, in a thatched hut by a canal full of floating vegetation and water palm trees and sampans laden with fruits, I was crying at the top of my lungs. My mother didn't know I was trying to tell my stories. I was born to make noise, to talk, to annoy, to make my presence felt, to write poetry, and to tell stories. Stories are all I have to remind me of my raison d'être, to assert myself. I tell stories without giving a fuck if there's an audience. What matter to me are the stories themselves. The stories are the thing itself,  the sui generis.

I have meditated on the issue of violence. I thought of my early exposure to it, my being victimized by it, and my reactions to it. I know one of these days I will be destroyed by it. Violence must not be gratuitous. Only cowards and sick people perform gratuitous violence in order to regain a semblance of self-respect. Brave and wise folks resort to violence as a last option. And they do so dispassionately, without rancor or joy. They recognize life at its core is violent and Death is a constant at every level of existence. I watched the movie "A History of Violence" the other evening and I understood. Life is all about predation. But the issues of violence and aggression are more than just involving predation. With social animals, they are also about domination and power. That's where I have problems with, even though I understand the dynamics. That's why I want to exterminate cowards who crave power and try to obtain it by surreptitious means. These cowards will never openly stand up and oppose tyranny. Instead, they kiss the asses of the power-holders while trying to assert whatever their fucking power they think they have over their family members and their peers. They make me want to throw up when I see them opine that they are not hungry for power. They are cowardly hypocrites. They love titles. They love empty fame. They get their rocks off on illusions of grandeur. So behind the scenes, they scheme and plot and kiss the asses and lick the dicks of power holders. Yes, I hate them and will destroy them when and if the opportunities present themselves. Who the fuck these assholes and scumbags think they are? I also want to destroy the other assholes who chimed in and praised these motherfucking cowards while shooting me down with their opportunistic, cheap comments. What the fuck did these assholes think they achieve by making me mad? Age has no statute limitations on stupidity. Speak only when you really have to. Silence is really golden. Except for trying to articulate something profound that has been percolating in your brain for years, normally you don't really think when you speak. Most humans just create noise pollution when they speak. I should know. I am speaking from experience. My garrulity has caused me harm. It has lowered respect in people's minds for me. They think I am shallow and childish and mentally ill. Maybe I should not be writing these words. But fuck, I don't know. I'm suffering from Alzheimer's or as the Ignoramus called it, Asperger's. What was their excuse? Was it arrogance or stupidity or just plain meanness? 

I read recently in Newsweek online that globally deaths by suicide exceed the combined casualties of war, murder, and natural disasters. Suicide is the twin brother of homicide. They are the two sides of the same coin of violence. That is what I have known all along. I didn't know the impulse to hurt oneself was stronger than the desire to hurt others in recent years. It just didn't make sense to me. What went wrong? Is life on this planet getting harder and lonelier and one way to deal with it is self-destruction? 

The funny thing is that after I finished the Newsweek cover story, I felt much stronger because I now know more than ever the dynamics of suicide. It is extremely unlikely I will destroy myself. Neither will I fall to pieces if those who are dear to me decided to do themselves harm. I am not going to suffer over the stupidity of others. Grief over suicide is stupid. The proper reaction is indifference. Memory should be for the positive. The reason why suicide fascinated me was that at one time at the stupid age of 23, I foolishly and gamely saved the life of somebody who was bent on harming herself. I did save her life, but she almost destroyed mine. How ironic and that was the second time I learned about human selfishness and cruelty (the first time was when I was 22). Thenceforth I realized that the life I save should be my own. But I have a foolish heart. I keep reaching out for lonely, misunderstood souls. Occasionally, my efforts are appreciated. Those rare moments are beautiful. And I feel connected with something basically human and yet "divine" and sublime in me. 

I just finished watching again an ultra violent but moral movie, "Pulp Fiction". It's also very funny and original. The screenplay is just sparkling with fresh, profane, intelligent dialogue. It is a classic and considered as one of the best 100 American movies of all times. The movie resonates deeply with me. It gives me peace and pleasure at the same time. I smiled  throughout the movie, except for those moments when the movie hits on its religious theme. The ending is just superb, full of religious redemption. Actually the whole movie is about redemption. In the movie, Those who believe in redemption are given a second chance, and thus potentially saved. Those who are cynical or evil meet their rightful fate. Deep down I am a very religious man, fully aware of right and wrong, and the path of righteousness. Whenever I encounter acts of true religiosity or genuine humanity, I am touched and transformed for the better. Meanwhile I must work on my anger and silence, one day at a time. 

(To be continued)