Author's Note
During my university years (in 1992, to be specific), I gained the opportunity to study abroad in Paris, France, at the University of Paris. Besides developing a deep affinity and a keen eye for the city’s illustrative history, vibrant art and time-honored architecture, I was lured into the cafés, where I refined my skill for people watching. Elating and socially engaging, Paris was less a physical city and more of a mysterious method that kept me immersed in deep thought. The art of observation is a skill I managed to continually improve upon throughout the years.
For me, in 1992, one of the best spots to indulge in that skill was in the 1st arrondissement near Châtelet–Les Halles, one of the oldest sections of the famed City of Lights. I often frequented the 1st arrondissement during my evening people-watching excursions. Observing the flocks of people descend on a Paris train station, just before the last train left at midnight from Châtelet–Les Halles, provided a plethora of both story and character inspirations.
That was twenty-seven years ago. Much has occurred in the City of Lights since then, not to mention myriad events before my time there. In fact, one of the most infamous accounts of modern history occurred in Paris, exactly one hundred years ago at the time of this writing in 2019, and it is the inspiration for my initial essay from my forthcoming work, Drive Like a Peruvian.
The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 was a significant event. Thus it is somewhat ironic that it is not celebrated, much less mentioned in any mainstream fashion in 2019. Its aftermath continues to affect the world to this very day. Please note that I do not mean this in any beneficial manner. Had it lived up to its decree, if the framers specifically of the Treaty of Versailles hadn’t unfairly saddled Germany with the brunt of the blame for World War I (particularly financially), perhaps there would not have been a Second World War.
Not all tragedies would have been averted during the somber, sober era just after the First World War, though. The long shadow of Marxism, in the form of communism, was grossly neglected with grim consequences. The heinously grisly takedown of Tsarist Russia had already come to pass, with the horrific Holodomor about to transpire. The murder of the Imperial Royal Family, the unfortunately doomed Romanovs, had already occurred.
But in another timeline, one can imagine that under the piercing gaze of Tatiana Romanov, the murdered Grand Duchess, a much more just and better world might have evolved. In that scenario, Karl Marx’s insidious vision of socialism might have been wholly and thoroughly eradicated.
For our current timeline, the jury is unfortunately still out. Yet, with hope, more will do their own research and come to the realization that the Marxist philosophy is a failed, vile and dangerously erroneous theoretical experiment. In this case, the truth won’t just liberate minds, it can possibly save lives.
I’ve combined my notes from twenty-seven years ago with my life experience up to now in an effort to properly understand the many failures plaguing the modern world and get them on paper.
Because of my deep love and abiding respect for history as it has occurred and not how it is presented by various educational institutions, I’ve experienced, first-hand, that knowledge and life lessons that aid in keeping one on the path to individualized wisdom can be found in a variety of mediums, not simply in an academic setting alone. Case in point …
Every year in the month of January, I watch Masaki Kobayashi’s cinematic masterpiece The Human Condition. I do so for several reasons. In 574 minutes, Kobayashi deftly portrays Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume chronicle of a moral man (Kaji) attempting to stay true to his own beliefs while honoring and respecting his native culture during a truly immoral era. What Kobayashi manages to cinematically convey, in a beautiful, novelistic approach, is that even the best intentions and honorable morals cannot withstand or survive in a world already thoroughly corrupt.
I am anti-“offensive” war. Political affiliations and those who cast votes to keep unconstitutional war engagements afloat are the Achilles’ heel to peace. At this point, I suggest that both major U.S. political parties are just one: the War Party. Actions speak louder than words. As such, recognizing that a people can never truly heal and become whole after the traumatizing effect of an aggressive “shooting” war has come and gone … when, if ever, have the American citizens had a chance to heal? It is said nature heals with time. Yet I suspect in some areas it does not; especially when a most egregious wrong has gone unacknowledged and thus remains unremedied.
Throughout the course of history, some tragedies are known while others simply are not. There always seems to be a desperate need for a proverbial antagonist (“bad guy”) versus the beleaguered protagonist (“good guy”) scenario. This is not a sign of a mature society. Life and people are a little bit more nuanced and complex.
This piece is merely one effort to bring attention to a very pertinent aspect of the human condition that humanity can no longer afford to ignore: respect for our ancestors who are no longer here to voice the reasons for their actions and choices while existing in a wholly decadent world society.
Although this article was first inspired in 1992, when looking at current international events, its message is more pertinent today. Twenty-eight years ago, there still remained a promise of change for humanity in the coming 21stcentury. Now, just two decades into the new centennial, there’s no evidence of a course correction toward a more humane and productive society. Divided, warring and full of distrust, the human species remains on a trajectory of death, ignorance, fear, exploitation and violence. In short, the world is on a savage path leading deeper into a fate of self-destruction. The key to instituting genuine transformative change rests within knowing when it’s advantageous to act in accordance with the appropriate era. Remember, everything is cyclical.
Consider my words as an encouraging nudge toward a genuine step of healing in order to become whole once again. Nature respects balance by rewarding those souls who adhere to the natural way with abundance.
“Man can become as strong as he wishes. He need only find the cause of his unhappiness.”
—Mr. Wang Heng Li, The Human Condition (“No Greater Love”)
Grand Duchess Tatiana Romanov
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
—Voltaire
Hot Vanilla Tea
(Thé chaud à la vanille dans le premier arrondissement) (1992)
“Most people who are genuinely becoming aware of the senselessness of unceasing war should enter the new decade by first admitting the world under this current human stewardship can no longer afford the status quo.”
—Shen Briscoe Brevard, winter 2019
The cold of the incoming night nips at my tightly bundled-up personage as I briskly walk down the Boulevard Saint-Michel. Boul’Mich to me, now that I’m an inhabitant, a temporary Parisienne via my university student status.
To my left is the Luxembourg Gardens. Due to the hour, the section I observe is primarily void of even modest numbers of Parisians. It has been only a few months since my arrival in France. Being a student by status and a writer at heart, Paris is so far proving to be quite an inspiration for stories, characters and joie de vivre. With two short stories already completed amid my academic assignments and my next paper not due for several days, tonight is purely to indulge and satisfy the creative writer in me.
Instead of taking the nearby Metro (Métropolitain) to my destination, I opt to walk, taking a different route to Châtelet–Les Halles, the center of Paris. When it comes to exploratory diversions and spiritual growth, I think, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” My station is Saint-Michel, only two stops’ distance by way of RER (Réseau Express Regional) to Châtelet. Of the twenty arrondissements of Paris, Gare de Châtelet is located in the first, which is simply known as premier. I reach into my coat’s outer pocket with my gloved hand and find my Walkman. A mixtape is already inside. Pressing Play doesn’t distract from the still visually captivating scenery before me.
Being the birthplace of the Gothic style, the architecture is a sheer optical delight. The street, not quite crowded, is far from being empty, even with the cold winter chill.
It’s late February, so I’m exuberant with hope to discover whether Charlie Parker’s “April in Paris” is more than just a song. Spring’s arrival should usher in the soft, warm sunlight, coaxing the flowers to bloom. Then the Luxembourg Gardens, located just across the street, will usher in and joyfully host picnics and frivolity in the park. Until then, besides layered clothing, I have the warm, melodic voice of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Anything Goes” to entertain me.
Unlike my native San Francisco, California, no skyscrapers are present on my route. In keeping with its historical façade, particularly in this segment of the capital of France, the skyline is no more than five or six stories high. The intricate skill and architectural majesty of these buildings would put the Victorians of my hometown to shame. The skyline’s exquisite beauty provides a near perfect background for my late-evening stroll. Nothing prefab here.
Ironically, Ella’s timeless jazz song serves as a perfect theme, matching the ambience of the street and people I pass. My eyes break away from such beauty of the past centuries in order to chance offhand glances at moving and stationary visages.
The countenances of those who are not bundled up betray very little. I’ve yet to master the “passing glance” observation so I’m not overly bummed. I’m more successful getting a feel for the people, their energy, their liveliness. Evening is giving way to night, and the pace is not one of anxiety or hurried tension. On subsequent visits to New York City, night excursions weren’t much different from navigating the daytime streets: nervous, hurried, slightly aggressive and extremely impatient NYC. Hmm … and who says culture doesn’t play a part in forming the spirit of a people?
Arriving at a corner, I’m stopped by a light holding its red luminescence. It provides me with an opportunity to feel inside my backpack. In a little pouch located near the mouth of the bag, I finger five paper bills, sight unseen. Having placed them there earlier, I know the exact value of each note. It is enough for my choice of drink and perhaps a modest dessert. My bank account might not justify living in the Latin Quarter, but I have the spirit, the ever-vibrant creative soul, of a writer-to-be. In my opinion, that’s more than enough justification.
With only one more year remaining at university, soon I will fully take on supporting myself in a manner akin to a responsible adult. Ho hum, here comes the dull, ever un-illuminating rat race. My thoughts move on to more exciting near-future events.
The year is 1992. Thus, it is the beginning of the last decade of the turbulent twentieth century. With the twenty-first century only eight years away, who knows what unrealized hopes and dreams I could achieve?
Wow, here comes an entirely new century … what fun will that be. A chance to start afresh for all and leave the ceaseless wars behind. How refreshing a century of peace would be to counter and balance this century of ongoing war and severe regression of any beneficial societal progress.
The light changes, allowing me to proceed to cross the street. Upon reaching the other side, a familiar voice calls out to me, “Shentale!” It’s pronounced in the proper French vernacular, “Chantal.” I recognize the individual, a fellow student from my program. Her timing is perfect—Ella’s song has just finished. Ella ends. Eleni begins … gee .
My classmate is seated at an outdoor café. Her table is situated near a railing that meets the sidewalk. A firepit not far from her table provides vigorous warmth. Walking toward Eleni, I stop just short of the railing, welcomed by the heat of the fire. A neat, short stack of papers is situated next to a single sheet resting beneath her hand. Steam slowly wafts from a mug, and a half-eaten sandwich is positioned to the other side of the paper. Although the establishment is rather crowded, most of the clientele remain seated inside. My jovial classmate is one of several braving the early, wintry night.
“Eleni, hi.”
“Come join me.”
“Thanks, but I’m on my way somewhere.”
“Where are you going in this cold?”
“Châtelet–Les Halles.”
“Have you completed your paper for class?”
“No, I haven’t. I do have a topic, though.”
She nods as I point to the papers in front of her. “Is that your paper?”
“Yes and no.” She gestures at the stack. “My assignment is finished.” Next, she points to the paper. “This is a letter to my best friend back home.”
“I see.” I direct my eyes closer to the page. Beneath the weak illumination from the nearby fire, I’m able to discern the distinctive Greek script.
She smiles at me and continues. “You read Greek?”
“No. I wish.”
“It’s never too late to learn.”
“Don’t know if you remember or not, Eleni, but I’m already studying Japanese. I can only learn one alphabet at a time.” I direct the conversation back to the letter. “So, what’s going on back in your country?”
She sits back as if reflecting. “Not much … only the chaos the Americans are still causing.”
“What Americans?”
“The ones building that ‘for-profit’ university I told you about.”
I vaguely recall her mentioning how education, even higher education, is basically free for all Greek citizens. Just recently, she’d told me, that dynamic had been undergoing a change due to an outside financial influence. Some American profiteers had traveled to Greece and were in the process of opening several universities there. Unlike the current university system, these new educational institutions would charge tuition. According to my classmate, their tuition was exorbitant. Eleni’s complaint bemoaned that American businessmen were changing education from what had always been considered a necessity and a right to something more akin to a status symbol. This was very apparent as only the more affluent Greeks would have the opportunity to attend.
Eleni, and those like herself, believes universities such as these will divide her fellow citizens. More grievously, she says, this venture is being perpetrated by foreigners whose only goal is to secure a substantial profit, and in the process Greek social cohesion is being destroyed. I find grounds to agree with her, up to this point. Her solution is where we quickly part ways.
“When it comes to societies and equality,” she adds, “Karl Marx was on the right track, as you Americans say.”
The late great Nobel laureate, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (from 1978), cuts into my thoughts before I can process Eleni’s erroneous proclamation. “The well-known mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind unto death.”
An image of the ritualistically butchered Tsar and his family, the Romanovs, springs to mind. This grisly vision is rapidly followed by various gruesome pictures of the numerous emaciated and destitute victims of the rarely mentioned Holodomor of the Ukraine. The dirty deeds of the Spanish Republicans against innocent Spanish citizens circa the 1930s is next, with macabre images of book burning during the 1966–76 cultural revolution in Mao Zedong’s China peppered throughout. The killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the re-education camps of Vietnam after 1975, forced starvations throughout Eastern Europe under Soviet rule in order to make certain financial quotas, various poignant and profound lines from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize–winning book The Gulag Archipelago—all vie for mental dominance. These and more chilling images weave in and out as I catch my breath and try to keep at bay the horrendous carnage spawned by Mr. Karl Marx.
Before I’m able to properly expel these unwholesome and foul images from my mind, a return to the untold violent acts and wanton bloodletting perpetrated against the Russian intelligentsia after October 1917 flashes then fades before my mind’s eye.
Yeah, the right track to misery and hell on steroids.
Solzhenitsyn rapidly returns with, “As humanism and its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation, at first, by socialism and then by Communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say in 1844 that ‘Communism is naturalized humanism.’ […] One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism […].”
Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 Harvard commencement speech was titled “A World Split Apart.” Indeed, that’s the unfortunately apt description of the present-day Hellenes when it comes to Ellas and their ties to antiquity: the Mycenaeans, the Heracleidae, the Carians, the Laconians, et cetera.
My Greek is nil. Her English is good but I’m not sure it’s good enough when it comes to Marx’s perversion of Hegel’s socialism; such a delicate dance indeed. Like all serial killers, I mused, he aptly deserves the three-name moniker, Karl Mordechai Marx. He might not have “pulled the trigger,” so to speak, but his poisonous, pernicious junk theories have murdered untold millions and socially retarded the political systems of far too many nations.
Generally, I believe that any human being caught up in an ineffective societal conditioning is worth saving. My motto: “Ditch the erroneous ideology. Keep the person.” It’s when an individual continues to pursue and carry out criminal acts after being warned—at that point it’s time to abandon that person and recognize them for who and what they are: a threat to one’s basic survival.
The insidious theories of Marx render their victims spiritually bereft, economically destitute, mired in socially retarding political systems and vulnerable to becoming a stooge or pawn to forces that do not mean humanity well. Marxism (or any of its like-minded offspring) promotes rampant thug culture. It has no place in a land with a celebrated past such as Greece and certainly not anywhere on this planet that deems itself an enlightened society.
It’s one thing to be ignorant and have no consequences play out beyond your own small existence. It’s another to not familiarize oneself with a highly flawed, extremely anti-nature political ideology and then proceed to foist it upon one’s fellow humans.
I return my focus back to Eleni and the present. I don’t see her suggestion of Karl Marx as a solution as being based in personal ineptitude. No. I see it as a breakdown somewhere in the society whence she came. She’s just lost. Would she be lost if it hadn’t been for the 376-year-long Ottoman occupation of her homeland? Or maybe if Venizelos would’ve been a little more persuasive at the Paris Peace Conference back in 1919? Hmm …
Eleni continues the conversation. “That American university is going to divide my town and my people.”
The Hellenes were dividing themselves long before the U.S. was even a colony, much less existed as a country. Surely she knows about the Peloponnesian War. Even closer to our time, I recall the Greek War of Independence. The Hellenes are the only people in modern history that I know of who during a war to remove foreign occupiers from their ancestral lands, launched a civil war. Further, they managed to liberate a good portion of their ancestral homelands from the Ottomans while successfully fighting that civil war. The Hellenic example in action is nothing to discard.
Reflecting upon other conversations and what I’ve researched thus far in life, I recognize we live in a spiritual world just as much as the physical one. We’re surrounded by what some deem the Aether realm, even if it cannot be perceived. Within this realm, exists the actions of the “past.” What I find curious is how this modern Hellene, Eleni, seems oblivious to her own people’s history. I don’t have the heart or the desire to counter her statement, especially since I also don’t support what the Americans want to do in her town back in Greece.
“If Americans aren’t spreading war,” she says, “they are spreading division in the name of profit and democracy. They should know—the Greeks invented it and didn’t want democracy, which means—”
“Mob rule or rule by mob.”
“Yes, well, you know.”
“I sure do,” I say. “I also know the U.S. was founded as a representative republic and not a democracy.”
I begin to muse. Which quote should I use? James Madison: “ ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Or John Adams? Adams wins out.
“John Adams said: ‘Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.’ Seems the Founding Fathers of the U.S. have something in common with your ancestors."
“I like you. You know history.”
I begin to muse. Which quote should I use? James Madison: “ ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Or John Adams? Adams wins out.
“John Adams said: ‘Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.’ Seems the Founding Fathers of the U.S. have something in common with your ancestors."
“I like you. You know history.”
“Yes, I do. I also know that most modern political systems eventually devolve into kakistocracies in the long run. Democracies just get there faster than most. As Plato stated, ‘Democracy always leads to debt, bankruptcy and chaos.’”
“So, Shentale, what type of government would you recommend?”
“A political solution is not going to resolve what plagues humankind at this point in time. It’s universal. It goes deeper than politics.”
She leans back in her chair. “Please, join me.” She indicates the chair across from her.
“Sorry, but I can’t. Perhaps another time?”
“Yes. But soon. You’re an interesting American.”
“Thanks, but my beliefs are a lot more common than you think. Not a lot of Americans support endless, unnecessary wars; especially where I’m from. That part of the U.S. is vehemently antiwar and pro-community.”
She smiles. “Well, I’m looking forward to hearing a Californian’s perspective on how to solve the world’s problems.”
I hold up my index finger in her direction and wag it at her in a playful manner. “Not the world, only the human species, then the fauna and flora.”
She laughs. “Okay. Then after those, the world as the next discussion?”
“Let’s take it one step at a time, Eleni.”
I depart the railing and my classmate. I genuinely like Eleni, but her admiration of Karl Marx is puzzling and more to the point, downright disturbing. It makes no sense. Instead of discussing the ravings of the criminally imbecilic Marx, Eleni should be consulting Plutarch, Hypatia or better yet, Demosthenes, about keeping her people together. Nothing beautiful or honest about Marx’s specious version of Hegel’s dialectic, which can be seen as stemming from Aristotelian logic. Yet I digress.
Best to exemplify Demosthenes, an astounding orator, a genuine statesman who was the embodiment of wisdom. Maybe I’m superimposing my image of the ancient Hellenes onto a modern Hellene in Paris. Is this unfair? No. The culture of the ancient Hellenes was created by Hellenes. She’s their descendant. One should always seek to learn from their ancestral heritage.
The written words of Theodor Abt and Erik Hornung enter and validate my thoughts: “Consciousness has to reconnect with the ancestors’ knowledge and experience of renewal. By respecting the ancestors, the one in need of renewal can find the necessary confidence and mental support. This respect for the ancestors enabled the [King] again and again to reconnect with the past achievements and made possible a continuity of culture of around 3,000 years. This is something unique in world history.” Even though they were specifically addressing ancient Egypt and its successful longevity, this piece of advice applies to all nations.
Didn’t the Hellenes pass on knowledge from antiquity to the rest of the human species about truth and beauty? Nearly all languages from humanity’s antediluvian era lay extinct except for Greek. Yes, the modern version of the language does differ. The precursor, though, still has substantial links to its present-day variation.
Memory chromosomes rest in a human being’s DNA. As such, one always has access, if they so desire, to tap into it. I think of the Greek statesman, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, and how he might have felt during the Paris Peace Conference so long ago. Where had he stayed? What was he thinking? The Megali Idea, of course. All that fighting the Hellenes had gone through and still were yet to go through … probably. I’m guessing some of his strength and confidence to push the agenda of his fellow Hellenes was founded in a knowing of his people’s past achievements, their present predicament (at that point in time) and how they could once again be wholly independent and free thinkers in the future. However, when all was said and done, was it just a cruel, false hope?
The Burning of Smyrna creeps into my mind. I quickly push it back to the recesses of my memories. The irony of it all is that Eleni isn’t talking about Venizelos and the crash and burn of the Megali Idea. She dwells instead on the terrible economic gap the American-backed universities are sure to bring to her native land. I’m not saying that’s not a problem, but it’s been my experience that in order to resolve a current obstacle, it’s best to understand the source of the dilemma. Something, some situation or circumstance had to have occurred prior to the advent of the immediate obstacle or concern. If one addresses the source that allowed the adversary to appear, in most cases, the adversary will not be victorious.
A land unfortified by blood memory is open to corruption, permitting possible exploitation by those harboring ill intentions and a rapacious nature.
It’s always best to go to the foundation, the source of a society when examining its shortcomings. Specifically, when seeking answers as to how society has gone wrong or off course, as have many of those today. Concentrating on an individual town, village, city, country or perhaps nation is a logical, progressive approach. However, even if it is possible to correct and bring some manner of order and progress to one small area, what of the larger picture? If the adversaries of this society are not properly identified and addressed, then all other efforts are rendered irrelevant. All possible resolutions are null and void well before their completion unless acknowledged on a worldwide platform.
Even though I’m focused more on my thoughts, my body is on autopilot as I continue to navigate my way toward Gare de Châtelet.
My mood resumes its calmness the more distance I put between me and the café with the firepit. I need to try harder not to be so serious and brooding all the time. This is Paris. I should be enjoying the moment, not dredging up tragedies from the past. What’s even more curious, I’m not even Greek. However, I care deeply about all the tyranny they’ve had to endure after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire. My singular focus could also stem from a book I’ve recently read, Renée Hirschon’s Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe. I have to ask Eleni about that book one day. Perhaps when we have our next discussion?
I realize I’m standing in front of a chestnut vendor. The man asks if I’d like anything. I say no before realizing I had been staring in his direction while in deep thought about the Anatolian Greeks. I continue walking, but the Hellenes do not leave me.
My ultimate concern is born from my intense admiration for antiquity. Humans knew how to live then. They constructed megalithic structures, pyramids and had access to the divine realm … sometimes at will. Now?
A hand lightly touches my shoulder. I turn around.
“Hey, Shentale … what’s up?”
“Daniel, hey … and it’s Shen. No need for the full name.”
“Okay, Shen. Where’re you headed?”
“Châtelet–Les Halles.”
“Cool. I’m headed in that direction. Can I walk with you?”
“Sure, why not? Where are you going?”
“A café.”
“Sneaking in some night writing as well?”
“No. I’m not a writer. I’m a person in search of more money.”
“What gives? I thought your uncle was paying for your semester, all expenses.”
“He is. But it’s not enough because I want to explore Europe, not just remain in France. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to see and do here, but …”
“Hey, you get no argument from me. I have the international travel bug too. However, unlike you, all I have is my imagination and lots of desire, with no uncle to fund either.”
We both laugh at my attempt at humor. Daniel is enrolled in the same program, but we don’t share any classes. He’s three years younger than me and basically fluent in French. He is in the program only to attain college credits.
“So, where’s your first destination outside of France?” I ask.
“Not sure. I’ve heard a lot about Praha. It’s cheaper than here, has a rich history and is just as beautiful.”
“Praha?”
“That’s what we say.” His tone acquires a droning tinge. “It’s Prague.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Next, I want to see Buda and Pest.”
“Hungary. See, I knew that one.” I smile.
“Yeah, well, it’s the same as in English.”
He winks at me playfully as I roll my eyes. He continues with his fantasy itinerary. “After, it’s on to Firenze.”
“Oh, come on, Daniel. We’re both English speakers. Just say the English equivalent.”
“No, Shen. Why should we only say the proper French names for destinations in France and not the others?”
“Umm, let’s see, maybe because we currently live in France?”
“Very funny. What I mean is almost every person I meet here calls cities and towns throughout Europe by their native names and not their own native language equivalents. The only people who don’t do that are—”
“Wait, wait, let me guess—Americans?”
“C’mon, it just makes us as a nation look bad and a bit unsophisticated, that’s all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it unsophisticated. Self-centered, maybe, but not gauche.”
He shrugs while offering, “I just don’t want to fall into the habit of looking that way. I like the cosmopolitan approach.”
“Uh, I wouldn’t go with cosmopolitan either. Culturally aware, insightful, learned, et cetera, but cosmopolitan? Not a good thing in the long run.”
“Why not? It’s not like you’re from some small rural town. You live in S.F. just like me.”
“It has nothing to do with living in a city or living in the countryside, Daniel. To me, that definition means a person with no ancestral home or heritage. Just a single human tumbling from one place to another, belonging nowhere. There’s nothing special since that type can be found anywhere in the world. It’s sort of like McDonald’s or a generic brand with no special meaning. Somehow it seems to cheapen a person’s overall worth. Social cohesion and culturally belonging to a location through historical ties does have value. It shouldn’t be discounted.”
I stop walking, as does he, and turn toward him. “You see, Daniel, there are no ‘cosmopolitans’ in the spirit realm.”
“Well, you didn’t have to get all philosophical. I guess I’ll ditch cosmopolitan and
stick with insightful and learned.”
“There you go.”
“And here we are. Or at least where I’m headed.” We’re standing in front of a bistro-style café. The smoke from the clientele’s cigarettes generously meets and greets us at the sidewalk. “Wanna come in for a minute?”
“No, I’ll pass. Too much smoke for me.”
“They smoke everywhere here. What’s the difference?”
“I can tell from here that the people in there have cigarettes with no filter. I really don’t want to subject my lungs to that much intensity.”
He laughs and waves his hand at me in a dismissive fashion. “Okay, but what if I get a job here as a waiter? What then?”
“I guess you’ll be going to Praha and Firenze with Budapest in between. Oh, and don’t forget to get your passport stamped.”
“What? Oh yeah … they won’t be doing that after the EU is fully formed.”
“I know. Somehow, I plan to travel just to have those soon-to-be obsolete stamps. Oh, and see some sights as well.”
“Ha. So, you wouldn’t come and hang out? Y’know, write?”
“Unless they get filters on their cigarettes in there, that would be a no. But—”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sure we can find someplace in a city like this to go and hang out.”
“Why not Berthillon tomorrow afternoon?”
“Ice cream in the cold. Only thing missing is the fog and it would be just like home.”
“You say you’re a writer.”
“I am.”
“Then stick with it since you’re no comedian.”
“All right. So, here’s the answer a writer might give: Berthillon? Ah, yes, it’s decadent, it’s sinful … it’s anything and everything we’d ever want.”
“Then it’s a date.”
“Mais, oui, mon ami. And I look forward to practicing my franglais.”
“Ciao a bis, Shen.”
“Ciao and good luck with getting the gig.”
“Thanks. Enjoy Châtelet–Les Halles.”
“Will do.”
I depart with a smile on my face. The conversation with Daniel had reminded me of home and thus temporarily successfully steered my thoughts away from the dark past and the failed Peace Conference of 1919. Yet the irony isn’t lost on me. Daniel is a naturalized American originally from Vietnam. Boom! Perverted socialism returns with a voracious vengeance.
The fact that Daniel’s birth nation had been severely affected by both Marxism and the failure of the Peace Conference is ironically rich. First, Venizelos and the Greek connection to Paris 1919. Now my friend from home and his birth nation’s connection to the same conference.
I sense in my bones that tonight I wish to be alone as a writer. The subject matter, potential story ideas and characters-to-be are literally beckoning my presence and currying my attention. It is like the spirit of Paris itself is guiding me, preparing my constitution for some grand epiphany that is soon to be realized in the “premier.” Perpetual battles, failed treaties and Karl Marx are all necessary catalysts posing as deputy tour guides to a hideously ignored past. An event that absurdly, severely affects humankind to this very day.
My search resumes for the perfect observation spot before reaching my deadline of midnight. I still have more than enough time to secure a seat at a café to my liking. I slip my headphones back over my ears more for warmth than a desire to listen to music. I opt for silence in order to ruminate a bit on the paradox of my friend and his search to be hired on as wait staff.
Before Ho Chi Minh was Ho Chi Minh, he was Nguyen Sinh Cung (or according to some, Tong Van So), a random busboy at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. Well, he was a lot of other things too, such as a student. But in relation to the theme of my walk, Ho Chi Minh’s time as a busboy in Paris is where my concentration falls. He was employed by the Ritz Hotel, which is still located in the premier, the 1st arrondissement. Daniel cuts into my train of thought.
Hey, the premier, I’m headed that way. Maybe Daniel should’ve been too? Wouldn’t that be priceless if he landed a gig at the Ritz instead? Hmm, with the new century less than a decade away, he just might follow in Ho Chi Minh’s footsteps. This time, instead of war, he could somehow be an instigator of peace for his adopted home country. How this can manifest is beyond me, but … wow … I must rein in my imagination.
Ho Chi Minh quickly replaces Daniel in my rolling rumination.
In 1919, he and a group of his fellow countrymen petitioned for recognition of Vietnam as a sovereign state to the Western powers at the Paris Peace Conference. Even though the defeated nations of World War I were being shed of their own territories and overseas acquisitions, the victors of that conflict had no intention of liberating any of their own said properties or colonies. In short, Ho Chi Minh and his associates were ignored. Indochina remained untouched and unchanged since it fell under the jurisdiction of France.
Who could have known that such an indirect slight to that particular group would later return to the world stage in such a bloody, looming fashion mere decades later?
Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard commencement speech re-enters my troubling reflection.
However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam War. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or Communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia. […] But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide, and in the suffering today imposed on thirty million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?
[…] Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing space; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you.
Being a staunch pacifist, I forgo entertaining the difference in opinion I share with the late Nobel laureate concerning ending the war hostilities in Vietnam. In fact, they could be considered rather nuanced. One could argue that the terror ultimately originated with Karl Marx and his pernicious ideology. Instead, I focus upon a burgeoning realization concerning the 1919 conference. When observed in hindsight, a large number of treaties (and non-treaties) are possible sources for the genesis of multiple future theaters of war. Blame is to be placed there. The merchants of merciless, diabolical destruction of unprovoked warfare. “Just like witches at black masses …” I manage to repress further lyrics of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” in order to continue with my train of remembrance.
It is the horror known as the Second Indochina War, the Resistance War Against America, the American War or, as my fellow citizens commonly refer to it, the Vietnam War. That was one of many “battles-to-be” first coaxed and nurtured into existence by the consequential events in 1919. Now, I realize that myriad factors manifested in order to form that specific, horrific war. However, like a recipe set up for tragic consumption, that foreboding conference was the main ingredient. Why? Because a wrong could have been made right and was callously overlooked so that perceived power could endure.
Weren’t there twenty-seven treaties in all? Man, I forget the exact number. I do remember the senior statesmen were there for six months, with the last treaty being signed in 1923. But how many treaties? This is something that should be remembered well beyond a surprise exam or history test. But then again, if you think about it, I guess the number doesn’t matter. It’s more significant to know who actually wielded true power during all those negotiations. The latter is what really mattered. Power. To empower and to disempower (or “depower,” as Ingo Swann would state) is what seems to truly make the world go round, as they say.
As if on cue, Ingo Swann’s words make an appearance. “Different kinds of power require the implementation of different kinds of depowerment in order to disarm the masses. […] Societal power formats are artifices designed to acquire and manage power by the few.”
It seems to all come down to power and “depowerment.” Power comes in many forms. Energy is but one. How a person possesses and uses certain types of energy is all that truly counts. If power (energy) wasn’t an innate human attribute, then those currently lording over the financially disadvantaged masses of the human species wouldn’t go through so much trouble to conceal “depowerment.” You see, what I’ve observed up to this point in my life is that the greatest power one can hold over another human being is the power of perception.
Controlling a person’s world perception and perspective means you can control not only their core belief system but also the manner in which they perceive reality. For there are things that exist regardless of a belief in them existing. Commanding personal power in the form of keen discernment paired with arcane knowledge poses a formidable challenge to any who push tyrannical rule and covet a multilayered system of exploitation over humanity.
Wait a minute, I begin to think. Speaking of perception, what was the first far-reaching war to commence that was in direct connection to that ill-fated conference? Hold on. Even though the burning of Smyrna occurred two years and eight months after the Peace Conference’s conclusion (if not including the Treaty of Lausanne), that tragic event wasn’t a worldwide conflagration. It obviously wasn’t Croatia—that’s occurring now. It wasn’t Iraq, which was just last year. The Kurds are still fighting for a homeland, so no, not them. And even though Vietnam has haunted me since I was a child, it wasn’t the first to feel the brunt of the conference’s failure. No. I guess seeing the fall (or liberation, depending on the perspective) of Saigon on television when I was a very young child has personalized that conflict, since I witnessed its end as it occurred. Of all the wars gone by, that’s the one that looms largest in my world.
I stop walking and move closer to a storefront in order not to block foot traffic.
But … my God, World War II can seriously be seen as coming into fruition due to the Treaty of Versailles. Wow. That unjust treaty can be cited as one of the key aspects leading to the Second World War. How could I have overlooked this timeline in all these years of study?
It’s like when I was standing in front of the chestnut vendor. I was looking right at him, yet didn’t see him with my distracted mind.
The brutal fire bombings of defenseless Laos, neutral Cambodia and targeted Vietnam were preceded by fierce cultural bombings. Continuous human-made firestorms over German cities as well as over Japan resulted. It’s as if fire bombings were instituted in the Second World War by the Allies then were perfected by my birth nation over the rural nations of Indochina. Even more sordid, not a single human being out of billions living throughout this world could stop it. Talk about severe “depowerment.” At least there were no more atomic bombings over civilians but still—people are of the Earth. Without the Earth there would be no people. But with no people chances are there would still be an existing planet.
The image of Napalm Girl is expands over and over in my mind’s eye to include countless German citizens and Japanese subjects.
Yet, unlike the burned, naked and running little Vietnamese girl, no photos of other people’s plight dominate, neither in Germany nor in Japan.
Where the photos are lacking, my imagination amply fills in.
My God … all that hellish, unnecessary death, murder really, since conventional bombs pale compared to what was done to cities like the doomed Dresden or unfortunate Hamburg along with all the other destroyed cities as well. Incendiary bombs mixed with white phosphorus (or the like) caused its victims to burn to death, even when they jumped into water.
I compel your intellect to fully discern this. Fire of that nature is only extinguished when nothing remains to feed the flame. Suddenly, snippets from various books, articles and other material I’ve read over the years come rushing in. They converge to meet and fill in the macabre descriptions of alighted people frantically attempting to end their suffering.
My God … why was there never an exam on any of their lives? Their fates? They were someone’s brother, mother, sister, father, cousin, grandma, grandpa, friend … wow. Just wow.
None are more maligned and disrespected than the consciously abandoned war dead. For with every passing month that stretches into a year then matures into decades, the initial crime against those callously forgotten victims undergoes a silent, cruel revictimization, often at the hands of their very own descendant culture. The irony? Willfully forgetting one’s very own dead predecessors causes irreparable harm to the culture and collective spirit of the people. Over time, a prevailing sense of guilt will never be truly eradicated from the collective soul of a living people until the matter of their disrespected dead is properly addressed.
I feel a tear well up. Quickly, my finger squeezes it out of existence before it escapes my eye.
Even worse, who really remembers all those ill-fated human beings?
I stand still near the storefront as people bustle past me. I wonder if any of these people ever contemplate the seriousness of the utter failure to humanity the conference in Paris wrought. Just because one dwells in a city where something so cataclysmic took place doesn’t always mean they continually feel the great injustice that was done. Perhaps this somber reflective fate is solely designated for the artists, the victims or their immediate kin.
Alone with my sudden, disturbing realization, my numb body yields to various images of postwar Germany. Visions appear of predominately rural Indochina carpeted with multitudes of napalm bombs (and God knows what else). Faint traces of lingering sketches depicting the diabolical deeds being foisted upon unsuspecting people, instigated by more failed applied communist Marxism, join in the mental menagerie of murder. Wait a minute. The re-education camps of East Germany preceded the re-education camps of South Vietnam.
Quietly, a freshly born realization seeps in. Wasn’t Germany fighting a communist takeover after World War I? First it was the Freikorps, then it was the storm troops. Enter communism once again. The maliciously malevolent theory that keeps on spewing perpetual rancor and endless unnecessary suffering: first in Tsarist Russia, then in Hungary, followed by Germany, which coincided with Spain, next in Eastern Europe, over to China, moonlighting in Cuba, then entering Vietnam. I’m sure I missed some poor people under that mania. Wow, I need to move away from such dark subjects, especially while out in public streets with only my thoughts to console me.
Vietnam didn’t just have the ghost of Marx working to tear its nation apart. No. It also had a craven creature by the name of Henry Kissinger. He made Robert S. McNamara look like Mister Rogers. With the entry of this latest goon of war, I’m able to compose myself and return to my journey by foot to the center of Paris.
I guess the fact that he’s still alive and, by some slight off chance, could possibly be brought to justice is what gives me the spark of hope that ignites my movement.
While the deeds influenced by Karl Mordechai Marx bring me to a numb standstill, the undertakings of Henry “Killer” Kissinger ignites my passion to see justice served. Hah, they both sound like two thuggish mobsters. Fitting.
Kissinger’s meddling in the affairs of Cambodia, leaving that country ripe for the brutal coup d’état by the murderous Khmer Rouge, was just the tip of his treacherous iceberg. It is said three million Cambodians perished in the brutal killing fields. The only requirement for entry: those who wore either eyeglasses or watches (or both). To Pol Pot and his cohorts, those two items were signs of the intelligentsia class.
Ironically, these thoughts pelt my mind as I walk the streets of Paris. Was not the Reign of Robespierre just as brutal against the same class of people? The bourgeoisie, unlike in Cambodia or even Tsarist Russia for that matter, fared much better. The French had Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican with the rare name of Germanic origin. He realized that a stable society could not be maintained without the intelligentsia (or the middle class). No one can say there was any wasted potential with that move—that was one good thing he did. But what of the Congress of Vienna? The Napoleonic Wars were the main catalyst for that unprecedented gathering of ambassadors of European states.
I catch myself. Am I not walking the streets of Paris? Vienna will have to wait. Back to the infamous Emperor and his positive aspects …
What about all the other nations that weren’t so fortunate to realize embracing an idea that destroys the best and the brightest is a ticket to subjugation of some form? I’m no Solzhenitsyn, but I’m a person possessing empathy, an energetic spirit and a soul. Can I possibly be one of the few living people in this era who “gets it”—the utter danger of this heinous pestilence passing as a benign political ideology? Surely humankind can do better than this. But how?
People say it’s about love. I hold this belief to be highly erroneous. What the world needs is love? No! I believe what is first required is respect. One can respect something they do not like. But it is impossible to love something or someone whom one does not respect. Hmm … City of Lights … more like City of (En)light(enment).
My mind endlessly churns in search of an ironclad resolution. Something that is a guaranteed call to action that leads to an idea for exposing and countermanding all the murderous mayhem.
My thoughts are interrupted by a passing flower vendor’s cart. It jostles my coat pocket and engages my Walkman. Jackie Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops” begins. Coincidentally, it accompanies my own. I only become aware of my tears when the cool night air gently brushes against the wetness on my cheeks. No fingers brush them out of existence this time.
All those lives brutally cut short. All that wasted human potential wiped away without any significant concern. Yes Jackie Wilson, I get it. But my teardrops are caused by the willful blindness to a hideously murderous ideology that far too many embrace out of sheer ignorance. Why can’t they see that all those unnecessary deaths and socially stunted attempts of pseudo-intellectualism came about in a most perverse fashion? Why? But that’s just one problem. The overarching issue is constant conflict resulting in perpetual battle.
I begin to think. Humanity has just eight more years to live this out, then, collectively, there will have to be enough people who wish to move on to something more positive and beneficial.
I begin to think. Humanity has just eight more years to live this out, then, collectively, there will have to be enough people who wish to move on to something more positive and beneficial.
In short, this is a city that witnessed the ultimate diplomatic failure. And here I thought S.F. held that title with the failure of the League of Nations. I’m engaging in an intransient, lonely peek behind the veil of polite society.
I stop walking. It isn’t because of the crushing somberness of my overall thought process. No. I remove my gloves in order to retrieve some tissue to wipe my face. I turn discreetly away from the street and duck into a sizeable alcove. Unbeknownst to me, I’m near the entrance to an apartment building. A woman calls out, “Chantal! Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” She is directly in front of me before I can respond or hide the fact I’ve been crying. She, Gordana, another classmate, gently places her hands on my shoulders.
“Hey, are you all right?”
I rapidly nod then attempt to realign with a semblance of composure. My mind pushes back the recent images of the burnt Vietnamese children, the war-deformed infants, countless homeless Vietnam vets peppering the streets of U.S. cities, and bombed out German and Japanese homelands from post–World War II.
“Yeah. I’m okay. I was just thinking about something, that’s all.”
She beams the warmest and most endearing smile I’ve ever seen. It’s so infused with kindness I can almost feel her empathy permeate directly into my person. Her hands shift to a hug as she guides me inside the building.
“Well, leave it behind, wherever it came from. You are in Paris. We are in Paris. Let us enjoy life.”
We walk several flights up. I reflect back to the time when Gordana and I had become fast friends. We were both enrolled in the same art history and architecture class. The class made on-site visits to Musée D’Orsay, Musée du Louvre, Château de Vincennes, Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, Palais Versailles and Fontainebleau. Overnight trips to both Chartres and Strasbourg were planned for the near future. It was during an on-site visit to Fontainebleau that our friendship was forged. She was instrumental in my acquiring near-perfect photos with my disposable camera of the stairs where Napoleon had bid farewell to the soldiers of his Old Guard after being banished to Elba.
Back to the present moment …
The vigorous climb greatly assists in pushing any lingering gruesome images of war and its aftereffects from my mental contemplation. Shortly, we arrive at a flat. The door is partially open. We enter and the place is full of people.
There’s a gathering of some sort, possibly the waning portion of an earlier, sizeable dinner party. She takes my backpack and places it among the other guests’ belongings. The crowd is a bit too clamorous for me.
“My dear friend Chantal, I want you to meet some good people.”
All I can do is return her kind words with a grin. My eyes locate what looks to be a spacious balcony. I opt to brave the cold on the outside versus the warmth and noise inside the apartment. She guides me through the crowd and onto the balcony, which overlooks the street where I was just walking. A small park is situated across from the building. Few people are out here.
Gordana beams her friendly smile at me once more. “I want you to meet some good people,” she repeats.
I rub my hands together.
An overly confident guy approaches us. He is fairly tall, about six feet. His red hair and faintly freckled face match his slight Irish accent. “Well, does this jolie jeune fille have a name?”
Gordana is quick with an introduction. “Seamus, this is Chantal. We’re in art class together.”
“So, are you an artist, like Gordana?”
“No, I’m—”
Gordana finishes my sentence. “She’s a writer. An extremely talented one, if you ask me.”
“Oh, really now.”
My friend doesn’t allow him to continue as she completes the introduction. “Chantal, this is Seamus—”
He playfully cuts in. “We’re not in art class or in any class, for that matter, together.”
We both share a laugh while the hostess continues. “No, he’s just a touring comedian.”
I reply with, “Oh really?”
Now, it’s their turn to share in a laugh. “No, he’s not,” Gordana says. “He’s here visiting his brother who is my wonderful boyfriend.”
We shake hands. His face forges a look of concern. “Your hands are freezing.”
Gordana chimes, “Let’s warm them up! You like hot cider?”
“Yes.”
“Then one hot cider coming up.” She departs.
I fumble in my pocket and successfully retrieve my gloves. Soon they are back on my hands. I turn my attention to Seamus. “So, where in Ireland do you live?”
“I’m originally from Belfast but grew up in the Boston area.”
“Boston? As in Massachusetts?”
“Yeah. My uncle took me and my brother in when our mother was killed and my father was, uh, how’s the saying go? Sent away.”
“Oh, wow, I’m sorry …”
“Oh, no. My father didn’t kill my mother. It was the unionists, Protestants, who did the deed.”
“I don’t know what to say. How awful.”
“It happens. My father was avenging my mother’s death in his mind.”
“But why would the Protestants do that?”
Seamus studies me, as if trying to figure me out, with a slightly suspicious eye, then speaks. “As a writer, you might let me appeal to your artistic heart, not the American mind.”
“Go ahead.”
He gives me a serious look tinged with an inviting air. “So, Chantal, you’re mature enough to hold a polite, constructive conversation about politics and the like with a perfect stranger, are you?”
“Yes. I would appreciate that, actually. And, it’s Shen. That’s my nickname.”
“Okay, Shen. People aren’t disposable, or at least they shouldn’t be treated like they are. Best advice is to live and let live. You’ll find it makes your life much easier if you do so.”
“Killer” Kissinger slinks into my mind. “Well, I don’t know about that, Seamus. I mean, I appreciate what you’re saying. Hey, even agree up to a certain point. But there are some who are responsible for a lot of untold death and strife. And quite frankly, the world would be a much better place with fewer murderous psychopaths in power.”
“Shen, hear me out …”
I acquiesce with a shrug, wearing what I hoped was a neutral expression.
“Ever heard of the Irish Troubles?”
I feel myself soften. “Yes, yes I have.”
“My father believed he was avenging my mother’s death, but he destroyed our family in the process. Righteous anger should never ever be confused with blind hatred.”
I offer my response in a cautious but considerate tone. “True. A lot of people have trouble distinguishing between the two.”
“It all comes down to discernment. If you lose that, you lose everything. Also, chances are you run the risk of becoming something you don’t even like.”
“How’s that?”
“By constantly reacting emotionally to the actions of those you despise—your enemies—they will have made you who you are, Shen. The very people you so despise would have taken away from you the power to define yourself. Think about that.”
I smile slightly. A car horn from below honks, drawing our attention. As I peer down at the street, the yellow headlights jar my memory. Turning to Seamus, I offer an inquiry. “Hey, Seamus.”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think about the upcoming European Union?”
He grins widely as he answers. “Where did that come from? Desperate to change the subject, are ya?”
I shake my head then nod toward the street. “No. It was the car. The yellow headlights reminded me of how some in France don’t want to give up their yellow headlights or the French franc. Then you also have the many concerns of the French farmers.”
“It’s not just the French who have their doubts. Others have them as well—from big concerns to small ones and everything else in between. Whatever or whoever is behind the whole EU concept is either willfully blind or downright sinister.”
“Sinister?” I say. “Whoa. I mean, I have my misgivings too but ‘sinister’?”
“I call it like I see it.”
“You grew up in the Boston area so you can see being united as states is a far cry from being united as separate countries, with long histories and a variety of customs and cultures. But there’s nothing evil about …”
He gives me a steady gaze as my voice trails off. His even tone isn’t as passionate as his words. “Take the economy, for one thing.”
I nod.
“The exports alone of all the countries are just too varied. But more importantly, the overall mission of the EU is sinister because it attempts to place a value or categorize something that can never be.”
“What’s that?”
“Nature. Heritage. Europe is Europe and Europeans are connected by blood. You can’t place a price tag on it. There’s no label that needs to define one’s connection to their own heritage, ancestral land or kinfolk. But even before you expand your horizons, so to speak, you have to learn to appreciate what you have at home, in your own country. If you don’t, then someone or some idea can come along and take advantage and exploit a divided people. I know this from experience. Look at the Troubles.”
“I’ve never thought about it that way,” I say. “But you have a point. Whether the EU comes into fruition or not, being European doesn’t hinge on treaties or trade deals. Nature is nature. Humans cannot usurp her. But that’s just common sense. One shouldn’t have to state the obvious.”
“Well, there may come a day when we aren’t permitted to ‘state the obvious,’ by law. You’re beginning to see the picture?”
“Oh, I’m very aware of the big picture. For some reason, I just hadn’t applied it to the EU situation.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re an American.”
“Maybe. But if things were ever to become extreme, I’m sure there’s a clause or two that can be invoked against the EU taken from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
His expression becomes thoughtful. “I’d go with the International Bill of Human Rights. Might be better.”
I counter, “There’s also the ten points of the Nuremberg Code that directly addresses human rights and the illegality to force a people under fear to do harm against themselves. They do state what is allowed under International Laws in codes 1, 4, 6, 9 and 10.”
“Those apply to medical matters,” he offers.
“Yeah, but you did say ‘sinister.’ Surely some international law can be applied in order to remedy a dire, worldwide situation which may occur in the future?” “Those apply to medical matters,” he offers.
Seamus stifles a grin then responds.“Before it comes to forced experimentations or poisonous vaccinations, Europe should just aim to keep trade agreements and whatnot between her countries. Trying to force almost half a billion people into a human-made monolithic culture will only serve to further divide ethnic Europeans and stir up old rivalries while renewing dormant animosities. Let’s hope it fails now so we don’t have to go any farther down this road. Otherwise it can, and most likely will, get ugly.”
He gives me a thoughtful look.
Gordana returns with the hot cider. I was so engrossed in my discussion with Seamus that I’d forgotten the frigidness of the night. She hands me the warm cup while directing her words at my conversation-mate.
“Oh, Seamus, I hope you’re not talking about the European Union. No politics tonight.”
“Actually I’m the guilty party, not him”, I say.
“Well, don’t get him started.” She turns back to her boyfriend's brother. “Besides, I thought you were leaving?”
“I was. The conversation was just too good to pass up.”
She turns her attention to me. “I have someone else I want you to meet.”
“Oh? I really—”
“Wait, right here. I’ll be right back.”
Seamus and I are alone once more. The lover of antiquity gets the best of me. “Not to abruptly change the subject, but …”
His face shows curiosity. “Yes?”
“I wanted to go to Ireland but it’s looking like I won’t be able to make it there just yet. So, I was wondering if you’ve ever been to Newgrange? And if so, what’s it like? It’s one of the first places I’d love to visit besides the pyramids in Egypt. It’s extremely ancient and possibly has a connection to the Mound Builders of Ancient America.”
“I’ve heard of it. Never been. Some believe the site is older than the Egyptian pyramids. No matter. I try not to get too hung up on the past. Life happens today. Why waste time? Too many I know get caught in the past and settling a grudge or carrying sad memories around like it was their next breath of life. Problem is, these problems, the fighting, the poverty … just the overall unfairness of it all is being carried out by people and things much bigger than you, me and everyone living on this block and those like ’em. If they don’t get ya here”—he points to his heart—“they get ya here”—he points to his temple. “Well, they ain’t catching me with any of their rubbish. I’m not dead and don’t plan on acting like I am while I’m still living.”
“You have a point.”
“No. It’s the point. Remember that. And don’t you forget it. Practice living in the moment. Enjoy Paris since this is where you are now. Newgrange, Egyptian pyramids and all that has survived millennia. They’ll still be there when it’s your time to visit.”
Gordana is making her way over to us with a guy in tow.
Seamus directs his gaze at me. “Well, don’t want to get in the way of the hostess’s plans.” He winks at me. I smile. “Thanks for the conversation, Shen. I enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll get to see you before I leave?”
‘‘Yeah. That would be great. I enjoyed our conversation as well.”
“I know where to find you.”
“Yeah. In an art class.” We share a warm laugh and he leaves the balcony.
With Seamus gone, the awareness of the hour becomes more apparent. Gordana and the new guy stand in front of me. My tone is cordial. “Hi, I’m Shentale.”
“Hi, I’m Ilya.”
I politely smile on the outside and cringe on the inside. The only Ilya I’ve ever known about was Ehrenburg, the so-called writer. He was primarily responsible for forcefully encouraging the Soviet troops to rape the women of the defeated German nation after Germany’s surrender in the Second World War. Oh my God. Hello darkness, my old friend.
Gordana speaks. “We should move inside? It’s too cold out here.”
I agree, and the three of us head indoors. Gordana slides the door shut. It is then I realize no one else is out on the balcony.
As I observe the party-goers, everyone is laughing and genuinely happy. Ilya’s name revives the thought of Paris during 1919. It cuts into my moment of observation. There wasn’t any laughing for any of those agitated and targeted nations afterward.
Whatever is said next, I tune out. It seems I’m already wholly committed to completing whatever is assigned to me tonight by my muses or at this point, their close associates known as “guardians of the netherworld.”
Ilya is at my side. I search but can find no words. I am silent as I seek inward consultation. The words of the Soviet (Bolshevik) propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg scream out in my mind:“Kill! Kill! In the German race there is nothing but evil. Stamp out the fascist beast once and for all in its lair! Use force and break the racial pride of these German women. Take them as your lawful booty. Kill! As you storm forward, kill, you gallant soldiers of the Red Army.”
I am not, nor have I ever, advocated for anyone to refight World War II or any offensive war, for that matter. But the sheer ugliness of it all must never be forgotten. This is a way to assure that it will never occur again. War or no war, what sober, sane mind would incite men to “break the racial pride” of any woman, anywhere, anytime? Furthermore, why single out the women? Only a weak-minded male attempting to pass as a poor version of a man would do this: Ilya Ehrenburg.
Be that as it may, thankfully, not all of Russia at that time was under the sway of such malignant minds back then. In his material, Solzhenitsyn, who was a young captain in the Red Army during World War II, recounted: “All of us knew very well that if girls were German they could be raped and then shot. This was almost a combat distinction.”
Here is one more firm reason I am ardently anti-“offensive” war. This kind of war elevates the most reprehensible characters to prominence—those who, under normal circumstances, would pass unnoticed by the world at large.
Eight more years of this wretched war-filled century, then we’ve got to be moving on to greener pastures.I want to leave the party before my minimally gained reasoning is terminated.
Perhaps I should have never read The Gulag Archipelago? If I hadn’t, I might just stay and have more hot cider and good conversation with them. But no, that’s not to be the case.
Solzhenitsyn had opened my eyes, as had Kobayashi, to the bleak, recent history of the human condition. Once seen, it cannot be unseen. This mode of thinking may at first appear extreme. Keep in mind, though, that I’m only recounting what I’ve researched. There were those who actually lived and suffered through highly unconscionable, dehumanizing situations.
Hmm. This guy isn’t responsible for his name. And I really have to write tonight so …
“Ilya, it’s very nice meeting you, but I was actually just leaving. Excuse me.”
Not wanting to dampen Gordana and her friends’ current merriment, I excuse myself, retrieve my backpack and soon resume my walk in the direction of Châtelet–Les Halles.
After leaving the apartment party, I’m alone with my thoughts. It is difficult to reconcile the dark memories of Paris’s past with the vibrance and happiness of the present moment. Several cars pass by and I note their soft yellow headlights. Desiring to keep the tempered approach to righteous anger, I reflect upon Seamus’s point of view. It is as if he represents the masculine energy to balance my roiling feminine energy of vengeance. This act of temperance prevents righteous anger from slipping into blind hatred. Masculine energy doesn’t always have to operate in the aggressive while feminine energy isn’t always mired in compassion and pacificism. I refocus my attention on the exquisite architecture surrounding me.
What were his words? “Enjoy Paris since this is where you are now.” This moves my concentration away from distracting memories of nations betrayed and endless murder.
I find it interesting that Seamus has never visited Newgrange. He’s been near the location. I guess a counterpoint to this would be me never having visited the Grand Canyon. I was right there, so to speak. Yes, the U.S. is rather expansive, but I’ve been to Las Vegas plenty of times. What stopped me from foregoing Sin City and appreciating Mother Nature? Something to ponder at some point, I suppose.
There is much to see in nature, so much to enjoy. Also, it’s beneficial for human beings to reconnect with their natural habitat and with one another—specifically, when separated from human-created urban sprawl and seas of unnavigable technology. It’s purported there’s palpable energy in negative ions one can feel when outdoors and surrounded by water, trees, grass and the like. The longer one is exposed to an untainted, natural environment, the more receptive the human body becomes to it and the more one’s very spirit becomes recharged.
Some believe this is what antediluvian humans accomplished with their societies. More specifically, the builders of megalithic structures now lying in ruin worldwide.
Today, civilization behaves more like a parasitic paradise. Only a few would appreciate and comprehend the wisdom of the Ancients at present. It’s as if the human species has a secret colonizer on its back. One of the first actions of a colonizer upon entering a conquered territory is to brainwash. The conquered are deceived or forced by their colonizer to accept that, before their arrival, only barbarism existed. More importantly, indigenous peoples are manipulated to believe that no prior civilization or culture was worth saving.
The words of Plutarch meander into my mind: “When transactions are of such antiquity it is not wonderful if the history should prove obscure.”
I recall the recent advice of Seamus: “Newgrange, Egyptian pyramids and all that has survived millennia. They’ll still be there when it’s your time to visit.”
Another epiphany unfolds within. Since humans’ early history, the evolving construct of social behavior has been based on the instinct for survival. The best and strongest hunters and protectors were given deference within their groups. The most aggressive warriors and leaders always held positions of power and esteem. Wasn’t it Master Jedi Yoda of Star Wars fame who declared,“Great warrior … war makes not one great.”
I realize that in desperate times societies require the presence of a warrior. The valiant Saxon leader, Wittekind, comes to mind regarding his armed conflict with Charlemagne. He’s accompanied by the Apache medicine man of the Bedonkohe band, One Who Yawns (Goyaałé), who joined Cochise and Mangas Coloradas in fighting both the Mexican and U.S. military, now known to the world as Geronimo. But I hold out; these are examples of justifiable defensive action. For some reason, offensive warfare isn’t distinguished from its defensive counterpart, especially in the modern era. It is crucial to approach war by comprehending the immorality of preventable battles ending in combat.
How we look at history and heroes is based on conquest. Past and present-day war commanders are greatly revered and given reign over governments. Why not admire Qiu Chuji or Confucius over Genghis Khan, celebrate Leonardo da Vinci Day rather than Columbus Day? Who were the inventors and thinkers of the Aztecs, the Maya or the Inca?
Another viewpoint is the “be true to your school” aspect. Universally, your school is the best. Your city is the best. Your nation is the best. Your culture is the best. Your language is the best. So embedded is this territorial superiority that it seems innate to human nature.
As one’s world expands, one’s territory expands, yet the basic instinct does not change. However, with exposure and a sense of maturity, one can still be territorial and have respect for other cultures. The key is to allow maturity to surpass raw, emotional urges. But where does one learn such a lesson if it is not offered outright? Maturity allows moral intellect and social intellect to blossom.
Still, the sword gets respect in terms of the Pavlovian manner in which most history is remembered and instructed to this day. In a sense, it does command or represent respect, but of what kind? Earlier, it occurred to me how there are different kinds of power: power defined by only regarding its description and power determined by how it is administered (delivered). This is where the sword represents just one mode to deliver power: overt and in your face. Generally, this is considered the easiest because it primarily relies on base emotions and a superior form of force exerted over a targeted opponent.
Now, if one applies G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical approach to ascertaining the truth of a matter or discerning forces of change in the material realm, there are three stages: thesis, its antithesis, and the synthesis being the resolution.
Nonetheless, modern-day academia is not wholly designed to teach us to think. Foregoing the infamous Rockefeller quote of “wanting a nation of workers and not (natural) thinkers,” duplicitous academic intellect is promoted and formulated as something to praise in the United States. One finds that through deceptive academic systems it is easier to control information flow patterns. Thus, guided acquiescence is rewarded. Self-regulation is its goal, paired with self-censorship, even when one doesn’t realize it. Often it is the basis for the academic elite to look down upon and devalue those who undertake other modes of intellectual pursuits. The modern day version of Academia (alone) is dispassionate and sterile. In the long run, one gets nowhere as a human being. One will not become whole, instead becoming a victim by any other name, robbed of emotional well-being, intellectual curiosity and basic human dignity.
The absence of a well-honed moral or social intellect (through no fault of one’s own) is not a determinant of being either a good or a bad person. I was once uninformed and unaware. How can you know something if you’ve never seen it? How can you feel something if you’ve never felt it? How can you sense it if you’ve never experienced it?
Imagine spending a lifetime in a sheltered, sterile environment. Suddenly, that individual is whisked off to Seattle, Washington, in the middle of the night. There, they awaken in the early morning and go outside into a torrential downpour. To that previously sheltered person, the rainstorm would appear to be the end of the world.
This example is indicative of how the majority of mainstream theories are manifestly accepted as fact. Dangerously, until proven otherwise a theory is principally not fact; otherwise it would not be considered theoretical. Indeed, such theories masquerading as fact are merely assumptions supported by subjective, unsubstantiated research. It is best to strive for a multifaceted perspective. After a thorough research endeavor, process all the information you have gathered, and the answer resulting from such an unbiased, unemotional approach should provide an authentic answer.
The optimal approach to navigating through life as unencumbered as possible is to always know what one is dealing with, whether it be a person, place or thing. It hinges upon how one perceives their reality, the world at large. For if one is ultimately in control of their reality, is that not the meaning of genuine liberation?
I understand Seamus’s point about live and let live. However simple a concept this may appear to be, there are far too many people in decision-making positions (historically and today) who seem to be derelict, unwilling or unable to comprehend a proper form of governance. Yet these types of personalities with their far-reaching actions are increasingly hard to ignore in world society.
Willful disregard for the natural order.
Perhaps Seamus is right? Maybe things are just too big at this point in time to truly make a difference? Why should individuals who are aware of reality waste their lives trying to make other people conscious, those who aren’t truly free, and never have been? Didn’t Plato’s allegory of the cave go down this road so long ago? How many have listened to him or heeded his advice? Best to just keep to myself and enjoy life as much as possible.
Unexpectedly, my mind challenges Seamus’s preferred approach to life. An adage of Edmund Burke resoundingly counters with: “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only little.”
My inner voice concludes, The least I can do is remember the exploited German and Japanese women of post–World War II, all the war dead of all failed 1919 Paris peace treaties and questioning why the majority of their premature deaths are rarely revisited in academia or outright remembered as a whole. If I succeed at convincing only ten or even two people of this importance before I expire, then I’ve done something.
First Venizelos, next Ho Chi Minh. And now there’s Serbia—well, really Croatia, which are both part of the former Yugoslavia —and the war waging there since last year, which shouldn’t even be happening if the 1919 conference had been for the betterment of humankind. Also, what of the 1944-1948 genocide of ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia? Approximately 540,000 Danube Swabians had lived for generations in the region that would become Yugoslavia. Does Gordana ever think about those misplaced, mistreated people? Do any of the former Yugoslavs? Everything always seems to come down to material matters these days.
Since when did war profiteering become more important than the living standard of the humans on this planet? An adage comes to mind: “It’s not a matter of who is right but what is right.”
I take a deep breath and collect my thoughts. Time for some Bach.
My musing and troubled contemplation begins to settle as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” audibly soothes me. The irony for me regarding Gordana is that her former fellow countrymen, the Croats, are warring while she’s partying and I’m out here alone, concerned and engaged in mental torment of wars, past, present and (most likely) future.
I understand war. I fully comprehend that the brunt of the consequences is borne by those least desiring to kill their fellow human beings. Those least affected by the rabid insanity and cruel fate of war complacently sit out of harm’s way while deceptively manipulating the personal destinies of those more economically disadvantaged. These creatures of comfort callously stand on the sidelines of life, remaining unscathed by the hideous horror of humans engaged in never-ending battles. Additionally, even more foul, too many of these entities amass substantial financial gain.
A tiny, sardonic chuckle escapes my lips. It’s followed by a small smirk of irony that accompanies my walk to the center of Paris. I’m reminded of Kaji’s foot journey home near the end of Masaki Kobayashi’s film The Human Condition. Kaji, the main character, is a devoted humanist attempting to resolutely maintain his morals in an immoral world. Oddly, he was a pacifist who once flirted with Marxism.
He and Eleni should talk. Perhaps he can show her where that got him … Wow! Truly I live way too much in my head. Must learn to relax and live in the moment and not go from one past war to the next.
Still … how can one who is an artist tap into the collective soul of humanity and not be immersed and affected by a century of almost constant conflict? Even more disturbing, how can people just forget about all the war dead and carry on with their lives and not be haunted by all the carnage throughout this century? Are these the war pigs Black Sabbath sang about, the perpetrators able to continue on, virtually unchallenged? Jesus wept! When is enough destruction enough? Yeah, I’m really looking forward to the year 2000.
There has to be an answer, a solution to be deciphered. It should be akin to what the South American language of Aymara is thought to be—a bridge language. A bridge “action” is required to transport modern human beings from ignorance, depowerment and exploitation leading to insight, empowerment and liberation. Something akin to Aymara is in desperate need of use in order to generate a significant improvement in humankind’s wisdom and awareness.
Just eight more years of this lingering sorrow and vast injustice to endure and then—then what? Surely humanity can do better than this.
* * *
I arrive in the premier. I spot a café where I enjoyed lunch the other day. Desiring something new, I continue my walk and turn down a side street. A perfect view of one of the many entrances to the train station opens up. The name out front: Café Anima.
Soul Cafe. Perfect for some soul searching. Or surfing …
Where this errant thought originated or what it means I do not know. The soft, melodic trickle of a fountain interrupts my wonderment and eases my mind. I have succeeded. The inviting café for tonight’s observation is one I have never seen. Formidable! Once again, Paris proves to amply deliver on delightful surprises.
I enter. There is a modest crowd. Strangely, the cigarette smoke is almost nil. Several people hold quiet conversations with one another. On the back wall I notice an elaborate tapestry depicting a lush garden scene with a sizeable stream leading to a tranquil lake.
A young, personable server approaches me. “Ah, jolie jeune fille. There’s a place for you right over there.”
My eyes follow his gesturing hand. It is the perfect spot, right near the front with an unobstructed view of the street and entrances to Gare de Châtelet. I walk over to the table and settle into a comfortable position. After placing my drink order, I spot a classmate and a young woman approaching me.
“Shen, hi.”
“Hi, Fritz.”
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“I just arrived.”
“Ah, while we are just leaving.” He introduces the woman standing next to him.“This is my sister, Ivka. Ivka, this is Shen, my classmate.”
Fritz had previously told me his sister was in Paris, but I had yet to meet her. She’s older by several years and not in our program. Ivka is a doctoral student working on her dissertation with a focus on the megalithic builders and how they have a connection with the ancient American mound-building culture.
We shake hands. “Nice to meet you,” she says.
“Nice to meet you as well, Ivka.”
“She likes antiquity just as much as you,” Fritz says to his sister.
Ivka looks at me with greater interest. “Oh really? Sounds good. Is history or archaeology your major?”
“Neither. I’m a storyteller, writer.”
“I see.”
“Your brother’s told me about your area of study. When you have some time someday soon, I’d love to take you to coffee and sit down and talk with you.”
“I would like that.”
Looking at my open notebook in front of me, Fritz comments, “So, are you here to write your paper?”
“No. I have a topic, but I haven’t started it. I’m here for another reason.”
Ivka asks, “What, then?”
“A city like this is a hotbed for characters and scenes. This is an urban social anthropologist’s dream and a writer’s paradise when it comes to inspiration.”
“Yes, you sound like a writer. A very pioneering spirit in the creative.”
“Thanks, but I see my vivid imagination as a curse sometimes.” We all laugh, and I continue. “The last trains leave from Châtelet–Les Halles.”
“So?” Fritz says.
“Which is just over there. People will have to pass by here in order to make that last train.”
Ivka sums it up. “So you are positioned in a perfect spot to snare your inspiration. This sounds like when I was in the Serengeti.”
“Good analogy. I’ve never journeyed to the Serengeti. Yet I’ve watched my share of travel shows on cable. In a way, Châtelet station can be seen as the equivalent to watchful predators at a watering hole.”
My classmate joins in. “I love it.”
“So, Fritz have you started your paper yet?”
“No. I don’t have a topic.”
“When do you plan on doing it?”
“It has to be soon. I’d love to do something that includes psychometry.”
“Now that’s a blast from the recent past.”
Ivka queries, “How so?”
“When I was growing up in the seventies, there was a spiritualism craze in the U.S. Tons of TV movies touched on people’s extrasensory abilities.”
“Sounds interesting,” she responds.
“Well, a lot weren’t that great, but think about the possibilities. With your interest in megalithic structures combined with the ability to learn through touch, you gain the potential to read the history of an object by holding it in your hands … Think about exploring that.”
Fritz nods in agreement and contributes to my thought. “It would be a personalized spiritual coup to develop that specific sixth sense then travel to ancient megalithic structures and touch them.”
I comment further. “Right. No books, no middleman author or self-appointed scholar—just you, your psychic discernment paired with your hands. I likes.”
Ivka joins our fantasy trip. “I would go to the Gate of the Sun at Tiahuanaco in Bolivia and find out why the Sun God was crying.”
“That’s cool,” I say. “I don’t know where I’d begin.”
Fritz smiles. “Me neither.”
Ivka interrupts. “Hey, Shen, sorry, but we have to go. We don’t want to miss our train. Very nice to meet you.”
“I understand. It was great meeting you. And don’t forget, my schedule is open anytime you’d like to meet. My treat.”
“Yes. Are you doing anything for the week-long break?”
“No plans yet.”
“Why not come to Morocco with Fritz and me?”
“I’d loved to but—”
Fritz interjects, “It’s our treat.”
“Well, that’s very generous of you, but I—”
Ivka adopts a persuasive tone. “We’re taking the train through Spain then a boat from Algeciras to Tangier, so there’ll be plenty of time for good conversation.”
“Well … okay. I’m sold.”
Fritz nods once in approval while his sister vocalizes her response. “Great. My brother will let you know the itinerary. Looking forward to seeing you.”
“Thanks to you both. I look forward to it as well.”
They depart just as a curious-looking garçon arrives with a most exquisite porcelain teacup and saucer. It looks aged but still elegant—as if it’s from 1919 itself. With Fritz and Ivka gone, my imagination has returned with force.
“A special cup for a fortunate jolie jeune fille.”
Ah, my fave phrase. I will certainly be coming back to this establishment.
I inspect the teacup. The delicate beauty of the porcelain cup in my hand looks too perfect to have survived the brutality of war.
I reach into my backpack and realize I have forgotten my Lovecraft anthology. As I study the stoic garçon with discreet glances, it occurs to me why he looks a bit out of place. He strongly resembles H.P. Lovecraft reincarnated. He should be in England somewhere and not France … and definitely not serving the public …
I look out at the street before me. The hurried pace of all the would-be passengers picks up. I’ve taken to dividing them into three separate categories. Regarding the first group of train-folk: Their stride is no more than a brisk walk. There’s no worry about missing the last train to their desired destination. These are the planners, the ones who schedule all their life activities; including party time. Usually they are older in age but some are mature in character and not necessarily fully grown.
I start the Walkman and await the sound of what is becoming my anthem for people-watching in Paris. Hola, Charles Mingus.
The second category begins to seep into my view. Concerning this particular assembly, they are a mixed bag of “planners” and people who haven’t totally abandoned their sense of responsibility for their actions. Their age range is varied. Some still maintain the brisk walk of the first group. Others have adopted a calculated run toward the station’s entrance.
I look out at the street before me. The hurried pace of all the would-be passengers picks up. I’ve taken to dividing them into three separate categories. Regarding the first group of train-folk: Their stride is no more than a brisk walk. There’s no worry about missing the last train to their desired destination. These are the planners, the ones who schedule all their life activities; including party time. Usually they are older in age but some are mature in character and not necessarily fully grown.
I start the Walkman and await the sound of what is becoming my anthem for people-watching in Paris. Hola, Charles Mingus.
The second category begins to seep into my view. Concerning this particular assembly, they are a mixed bag of “planners” and people who haven’t totally abandoned their sense of responsibility for their actions. Their age range is varied. Some still maintain the brisk walk of the first group. Others have adopted a calculated run toward the station’s entrance.
As “Boogie Stop Shuffle” jams in my ears, Kobayashi’s film In a Cup of Tea comes to mind. With his film, I’m reminded of the proposal to abolish racial discrimination proposed by the Japanese delegation to the 1919 conference, which was later to become the League of Nations. It read:
The equality of nations being a basic principle of the League of Nations, the High Contracting Parties agree to accord as soon as possible to all alien nationals of states, members of the League, equal and just treatment in every respect making no distinction, either in law or in fact, on account of their race or nationality.
Though the proposal’s instigation was meant to benefit Japan and its nationals, had it been implemented in a sincere fashion, through the trickle-down effect, it could have changed the course of world society and its dynamics.
So, in keeping with the spirit of remembering 1919 … might as well honor Prince Saionji Kinmochi—an alumnus of the University of Paris—Baron Makino Nobuaki and Prince Fumimaro Konoe, along with Sutemi Chinda, in my own self-styled way.
I decide to practice the title of the proposal in its original Kanji script:
人種的差別撤廃提案
It is a bit advanced for my current skill level. Let’s see where years of writing hiragana and fifteen years of reading manga gets me.The first character represents a person or people. I prefer 人々 (hito bito, ningen). It is easy to write, although the rest is challenging. With the first completed, I move on to the second and third characters. I mildly surprise myself by completing them with nominal ease. It is the sixth character that stumps me.
I lift my eyes back to the street. More late-night commuters are hastily trekking to the train station. The third category has made their appearance by thoroughly replacing the first group while nearly engulfing the second. These are the people who never plan and leave all of life’s decisions solely to their emotions and the Fates. Although the majority are youths, a fair amount of seasoned adults are included. Sober maturity is their adversary as they stubbornly hold on to the short-term perspective of the young mind. Not all are steady on their feet. These train-folk are the most entertaining and attract attention not just from curious observers such as myself.
Their various states of panic and anxiety (tempered with some intoxication) seem to draw in the frenzied energy of war accompanied by its eternally enchained victims of premature death.Their presence doesn’t alarm me as they gracefully weave above and below the unsuspecting crowd. No tangible forms are manifested, only delicate outlines of bodies. I sense rather than observe their purpose. My eyes dart toward the café’s wall clock. It is now fifteen minutes to midnight.
I lift my eyes back to the street. More late-night commuters are hastily trekking to the train station. The third category has made their appearance by thoroughly replacing the first group while nearly engulfing the second. These are the people who never plan and leave all of life’s decisions solely to their emotions and the Fates. Although the majority are youths, a fair amount of seasoned adults are included. Sober maturity is their adversary as they stubbornly hold on to the short-term perspective of the young mind. Not all are steady on their feet. These train-folk are the most entertaining and attract attention not just from curious observers such as myself.
Their various states of panic and anxiety (tempered with some intoxication) seem to draw in the frenzied energy of war accompanied by its eternally enchained victims of premature death.Their presence doesn’t alarm me as they gracefully weave above and below the unsuspecting crowd. No tangible forms are manifested, only delicate outlines of bodies. I sense rather than observe their purpose. My eyes dart toward the café’s wall clock. It is now fifteen minutes to midnight.
As Mingus enters his last notes, the bustling electricity of the plaza combines with the anxiety of the people generating a new mode of sensation. I take a sip of my tea, nearly burning my tongue. I gingerly place the cup back on the table, allowing it to cool.
Suddenly, my Walkman stops on its own. The batteries are new. It’s puzzling why the song abruptly stopped. As though I’m in a trance, my eyes are hypnotically drawn to the teacup. I peer inside. The rising steam mesmerizes me. The fingers of my left hand become fastened to the cup’s handle as if by some invisible but nonabrasive adhesive. Before I can react, a new song begins. Instead of emitting from my headphones, it seeps in from a newly forming scene unfolding before my eyes. I recognize the dark chords of Burzum’s “Jesu Tod.”
The steam from the cup slows as if keeping pace with the mood of the song. But instead of dissipating, the vapor sinks onto itself then rises once again to circle in a retrograde fashion. Utterly fascinated by this turn of events, my curiosity easily outweighs any fear or concern for this peculiar occurrence. I notice a tingling sensation spreading throughout my skin and soon my entire body. I’ve never felt anything like it before. There is no pain. It is just unusual. It’s as if I’m being simultaneously reignited then realigned to a primal frequency.
I cast a quick glance down at the人種的差別撤廃提案 (Jinshutekisabetsu teppai teian; proposal to abolish racial discrimination). Strangely, as everything around me begins to fade, elements of the kanji not only remain but appear to resonate. It becomes more sharply defined; 人々(hito bito, person) is the most prominent.
I begin to realize that the café setting around me is dimming. It’s fading away while I remain intact. An inner-knowing reveals to me that I’m being reverted to a different harmonic frequency. The kanji script depicting “person” is soon the only character left to see.
As the conscious transformation veil thins, I feel my astral self slowly ascend with the Japanese characters. Above the plaza and above the ghosts of war, there is a new layer of spirits. They resonate with the time of the Huguenots’ rebellion in France. I find it intriguing that this particular segment of France’s history still lingers so close to the material realm of Paris. One presence in particular emits the spirit of Gaspard de Coligny. His is the only essence in this sector of the realm that acknowledges my attendance. Before any communication is exchanged, I feel a gentle pull moving me away from this level. My ascent surpasses the Huguenots.
I find myself standing outside of the material, linear, chronological state. However, I remain well without the boundaries of the Lower Region of what is known to the Gnostics as the Upper Aeonic Realm, a region of the Astral Plane .
My future self merges with my present university-student self and meets in the realm of “no-time.” A genuine limen state (threshold to a psychological state) is unintentionally achieved.
One hears of this arcane process when reading about the Dingir An Anannage. It’s written they are able to create “no-time,” possessing the ability to separate material space from time itself.
As such, regarding my current state, I didn’t require any Anannage. I achieved this feat driven by a combination of my creative and formidable imagination, the anxious Métro passengers, Paris, and a yet-to-be-revealed source from the netherworld.
My curious cup of thé à la vanille is the mirror conduit that allows my soul to become an active agent providing a peek into the past. I sense from the domain itself that my entire being is about to be brutally impacted by humanity’s past as it is projected into my present state as an attempt to prevent (continuing) unnecessary bloodshed in the future.
As my impromptu venture into the astral realm expands, a familiar presence is encountered, the ancient Egyptian deity Upuaut, one of my muse-guardians.
Upon his welcomed appearance, deep down I realize that this foray into the netherworld is going to be most adventuresome and highly unpredictable. Although this is not my first full-body projection between the realms of the material and astral (while fully conscious), never had the spirit of a city propelled me into such a state.
With time no longer a barrier, standing in the stead of Upuaut, is my new guide Chu Tsun, the mandarin from 1836. His earned place in history was due to his elegant plea to his Sacred Majesty (the Daoguang Emperor) inspiring the Chinese ruler to engage in the first serious attempt at ending the spread of the opium production and addiction within the Chinese nation.
Chu Tsun, in traditional court attire, is standing on one portion of the now tremendous kanji character with an outstretched hand. I take it and position myself on the point across from him (what I call the “bito” of hito bito). He stretches both arms in front of his body with palms facing upward. Chu Tsun then passes one hand over the other while his arms remain extended. This is done only once. When this motion is complete, symbols or a script in an uncommon shade of violet, reminiscent of kanji mixed with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, appear and hover before floating forward. Their trajectory is akin to an inverted funnel as they begin to pilot us deeper into the spiritual domain. We appear to be moving in a forward motion. I sense it is more like the arcane symbols are creating an expanded pathway into the nether regions. How this is being achieved physically is well beyond my comprehension.
No words are spoken. Nothing is written and yet the form of communication between us is the most clarifying I’ve ever experienced. I can sense or rather feel Chu Tsun’s intentions (and the information) as he conveys both to me.
Curiously, the sound of Burzum’s melody continues in the background. The familiar riffs are extended and do not play in order. It’s as if certain chords sound at the command of the spirit domain. “Jesu Tod” does not follow the audio order that it possesses in the physical plane.
In the recesses of my perception, it dawns on me that I am not piggybacking on any plant-based consciousness. No hallucinogenic substance is required for this peek into the spiritual timeline of this world. By utilizing my own intuition, buttressed by an extremely determined quest for learning about the past, we become thrust more deeply into the ethereal domain while harboring in a transported bubble of this otherworldly territory. The hito bito character we stand upon comes to a stop. The symbols mixed with kanji script slightly fade as they merge onto the almost transparent surface of the bubble my guide and I are cocooned within. Soon, they are barely perceptible. My “view” is unobstructed.
A murky, blank, grayish-black background is before us. The doom-filled theme of the music conjures up burdened military airplanes as the singular visual effect. Some are laden with standard bombs while the others are fastened with incendiary devices. One squadron is the Royal Air Force (RAF) of 1945. The other is the U.S. Air Force (USAF) of 1968.
Because of my personal history, my attention is drawn to the USAF of 1968. As if switching channels via a television remote control, immediately Chu Tsun and my astral self are transported to Vietnam 1968. One moment we are observing two “scenes” of two different war theaters, and the next moment one of the scenes literally engulfs us, thus becoming our sole focal point of reference.
As we are viewing from the divine perspective, all our senses are heightened, coinciding with every conscious being. We are all one.
It does not take the USAF long to deliver its deadly payload of carnage. Incendiary bombs explode over the land. The barrage and sheer firepower of focused destruction lays waste. In mere seconds, the once dense, verdant foliage crumbles. Ugly, blackened gashes pockmark the targeted ground. A nasty air of unwholesome energy lingers in a most gripping fashion. The concentrated exercise is repeated ad infinitum, resulting in widespread destruction over a large portion of the Indochina region.
I turn away from the carpet-bombing and mangled foliage, and toward my netherworld guide.“If the land is this badly scarred,” I telepathically communicate, “what on Earth did this wanton violence do to the people native to that land? How are the people on the ground expected to even survive the aftermath? The human body is nowhere near as durable as the foundation of the Earth.”
A thought-image is almost instantaneously sent my way. It enables me to discern something: Although the human body may be fragile in many ways, the person harboring an intact, energetic spirit endures since their essence is not of any known material substance.
As if on cue, the broken, mangled bodies of the bombs’ victims release points of etheric light. The brilliance is of a majestic grace I’ve never witnessed. This is no ordinary light.
The regal luminosity spirals out from the top of their heads. For those who no longer have one, it’s the gaping hole between their shoulders. Curiously, the ascent halts not far from their deaths’ lair. It’s as if the lights encounter a barrier of some sort and merely hover not far from their dead physical incarnations. Without glancing at my guide, I realize that the barrier has been unexpectedly created by their untimely physical deaths as a result of the chaos of war.
Suddenly, the glowing spirits begin to lose their luminescence. Where a brilliant platinum once existed, a tarnished yellow now becomes prevalent and continues to dull. They maintain no distinctive form save for an outline of what they used to be while in a material body. Con ma —this is the word that I understand is what these unfortunate victims are now to become, ghosts of the wrongfully killed, or in this circumstance, war dead.
I thought war could be fully comprehended simply through visual images, photos of the decimated. Until now, I have been sorely in error. To feel war, to properly experience it to the fullest, is to utilize all of one’s five physical senses: smell, touch, taste, hearing and sight, then to successfully incorporate them with the dormant sixth and burgeoning seventh senses. This experiential endeavor proves much more intense and enlightening than even what the victims and all belligerents endure on the battlefield.
Instead of a “you are there” sensation, you are within, without, all around the periphery, up above in the sky and down below embedded in the earth. Basically, you are “beyond there.” My heightened, cohesive senses resonate in complete harmony with the overwhelming disharmony of this point in time.
Following the Con ma’s wayward trajectory, they lead us to Germany. I’m not sure of the city’s name, but I am sure of the diabolical carnage about to be unleashed upon the people who dwell there. My silent spiritual herald turns to me. I get the strong feeling that it didn’t have to be. Without words or telepathy, I receive this information via a feeling extended from him to me.
The astral scene is now of a hospital. I sense it is 1943 in the month of July. I have gained access to a moment in time that is forced to perpetually play out each grisly outcome for its unfortunate victims. The hospital is under attack. A good portion of the building has already been hit. Because of the number of pregnant women, it appears to be the remnants of a maternity ward. Nurses, doctors, patients and others frantically attempt to flee the impending doom of the building’s destruction.
It enters my flow of thoughts that somewhere, someone, a hand (mine) is holding on to a porcelain teacup from that cursed conference, assisting in maintaining a link that had been established and initiated. Since the energy of the midnight train passengers appeared to be one catalyst to this all-encompassing tour with my mandarin guide, I cling to the belief that once the passengers’ energy wanes, perhaps the connection will dissipate some.
Still, if I’m in a space of “no-time” how does a place of “time” affect my duration, if at all?
Overall, I become so engrossed and fascinated by it all, along with the Astral Plane platform, that it is difficult and most likely next to impossible to release and project myself back to my own time and location at will. A slightly bitter taste of a metallic nature forms in the back of my mouth. It’s as if I’m sharing some of the pregnant women’s last moments. I close my eyes. Since I am seeing with my mind’s eye, it is a futile effort to block out the macabre scene, a slice of brutal history.
There is “no-time.” So, instead of events being locked in place, wherever my attention goes, so goes the action. But unlike a “free” spirit, my being is tethered to the mandarin of the Daoguang Emperor’s court.
In the near distance, a scene unfolds that I couldn’t imagine under any material circumstance. Chu Tsun directs a “feeling” communication my way. Witness astutely your modern era’s attempted Februa. Women are giving birth on the grass not far from the collapsing hospital building. It is deep night, dark, save for the flares and distant fires of the bombed-out town. The only other light emanates from the newborns. Theirs is a glow that is celestial.
Their tiny, illuminating bodies cut a stark contrast against the shadows of death, destruction and misery all around them. It is as if the novel appearance of their freshly arrived life holds the dealers of mayhem at bay. I notice some of the mothers’ own light. What I know to be their life force quickly dissipates after the newborns enter this world.
Once again, the process is repeated like the Con ma. Spirals of light that cast no shadow attempt to ascend. A few actually make it through the unseen barrier; most do not. I can see another being intercepting, then drawing these liberated lights toward it. Their light passes through the guide-being and becomes unseen to me. The ones not going directly toward that entity do not make it beyond the barrier and begin to lose their luminescence. However, this time, before they tarnish completely, the guide-being projects a differing light, that of a milky white thread-like texture, toward the trapped newly dead.
Its radiance splinters off and begins to circle an individual pre–Con ma German woman. My stealthy observation is interrupted by a gratifying sight taking place near this individual. The spirits of the women who successfully ascend pass the barrier, do so by gliding on the light of their newborns. My herald offers via a “feeling”: Lupercalia inverted.
The more I view this curious scene, the more I begin to understand. Born to die …Chu Tsun interrupts my supposition with Born to liberate. The newborns who are returning to Source are carrying their deceased mothers beyond the war-erected barrier. The newborns who remain do so with their dying mothers, whom the guide-being is directing toward the glowing textured strings.
The guide-being dims then evaporates. Another guide-being who has come in with a “born to liberate” infant takes its place.
Chu Tsun directs more thought-feelings toward me. Unwholesome. Unnatural. Unsustainable. He’s addressing the overall situation, not the makeshift assistance the guide-beings are currently offering.
I respond with my own passion-filled thought-feeling. But what am I to do? My access to influential power is limited and the reach I have in the material realm is minimal, at best. Even if I report what I’m seeing, how many will listen?
The mandarin deftly generates the quote of Edmund Burke I’d earlier pondered while walking to the premier: “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only little.”
Point taken, is my thought-feeling response.
Guide-beings are now extending their “duties” by exhausting all their allotted essence to assist in returning as many dead mothers to Source.
I refocus my attention back to the current guide-being. The more I concentrate on the entity’s action, the more I realize this is not a psychopomp like my mandarin (a guide of souls to the place of the dead) but rather a specialized guide assisting the newborns to properly incarnate. Since it manifested with the newborns, drawn by them, it was able to pass through the chaos of war, the unseen barrier. Moreover, although it promulgated the transition of spirit into physical life, it was able to use its energy to maintain the integrity of the recently deceased mothers. How long it can keep this up is not shown to me or even known, since this is not its function. This spiritual denizen remained in a makeshift duty post stirred by sheer compassion.
Premature death guarantees instability in both the physical and spiritual worlds, and all that lies in between. The damage to the latter is the most insidious since the odious acts of transgression are veiled from the material masses operating from a position of widespread ignorance.
My attention is withdrawn under the command of my silent, stoic guardian. Before I’m able to process the incredible hospital scene, I become aware that our presence is now in wartime Japan. The year is now 1945. Although we remain unharmed in our bubble of “no-time,” the emotional trauma and heightened anxiety of the physical parameters of Japan are acutely experienced throughout my entire being.
The specific location of our concentration is in the eastern area of Tokyo. Basking under a serenely luminous moon, a beautiful, expansive public garden comes into view. Air-raid sirens blare incessantly as most of the groundskeepers drop their water canisters. Despite their elderly appearance, they hurry for shelter in the sole standing building -- all except for one determined man. It isn’t because he is unable to flee, but because he chooses not to.
The man desperately grabs the sleeve of a running coworker and pleads with him to stay and assist. The coworker gives him a disgusted look, as if he’s insane. He violently shakes off his friend’s hand before disappearing into the building. A look of loathing crosses the man’s face as he watches his fleeing colleagues. His frustrated anger at them heightens because they have chosen to save themselves, shirking their responsibilities to the surrounding flora. His anger pierces my presence.
The specific location of our concentration is in the eastern area of Tokyo. Basking under a serenely luminous moon, a beautiful, expansive public garden comes into view. Air-raid sirens blare incessantly as most of the groundskeepers drop their water canisters. Despite their elderly appearance, they hurry for shelter in the sole standing building -- all except for one determined man. It isn’t because he is unable to flee, but because he chooses not to.
The man desperately grabs the sleeve of a running coworker and pleads with him to stay and assist. The coworker gives him a disgusted look, as if he’s insane. He violently shakes off his friend’s hand before disappearing into the building. A look of loathing crosses the man’s face as he watches his fleeing colleagues. His frustrated anger at them heightens because they have chosen to save themselves, shirking their responsibilities to the surrounding flora. His anger pierces my presence.
“This is all because of man. We must protect God’s gifts from man’s folly of internecine destruction. We have a responsibility! Dammit! We are the stewards of nature!”
With an unceasing sense of urgency, the man proceeds to pick up two of the discarded canisters from the soil nearby. His frail frame now manages three canisters in total. He rushes from section to section, spraying a fine, generous liquid mist from the nozzle. He quickly depletes his first canister then moves on to the next. With his load lightened, his movement becomes more agile through the garden.
A raging firestorm crosses the perimeter of the outer shrubbery of the botanical garden. The man is undeterred. Keenly focused is his concentration on the urgent task at hand, all thoughts of his own safety having long vacated his cognition. The groundskeeper feverishly shakes his head as he gathers all his strength and runs from section to section.
“Chotto matte … chotto matte … chotto! Chotto! Chotto!” (“Wait a minute … wait a minute … wait! Wait! Wait!”)
I am so caught up in the frantic man’s action of abating the encroaching flames that I’m even more shaken by the next occurrence. The chords of “Jesu Tod” return and serve as the perfect prelude to the escalation of devastation. As the vocals unleash a shrieking, primal scream of rage, I hear, or more accurately, I feel the plants begin to scream and howl as if in the most anguishing peril. The hellfire attacks then obliterate any traces of their existence from the physical domain. I attempt to look away, feel away, withdraw all my senses from the hyper-macabre scene.
Somehow, Chu Tsun does not allow any such reprieve. Instead he directs a thought. In times of peril, ignorance connotes guilt.
With this comment, my thoughts are now one with the elderly man. The groundskeeper’s rushed desperation is born from him being the last of his lineage to possess the liquid formula that he desperately sprays onto the plant life. I glean from his memory that the precious liquid was created by one of the legendary kami, Ōkuninushi, in order to enhance the self-awareness of plants. He prided himself on knowing this was recorded in the Kujiki (prehistoric Japanese texts detailing deities and the bestowing of kingship from the Divine). With his entire clan wiped out by the fire bombings, when he dies, the formula will sadly pass into oblivion. He is feverishly trying to provide a path for the plant’s consciousness to return to Source via dispensing the preciously kept secret formula gifted from the Divine to his clan long ago.
As the first volley of fierce flames begins to lick at the inner sanctum of the garden, I notice that the flora sprayed by the groundskeeper emit a light akin to the dying people’s. It’s just as brilliant but not as far-reaching. Collectively they gather, forming a sizeable lustrous sphere. The sphere then rushes toward the same unseen but familiar barrier to the spirit realm and hovers. It seeks an entrance into a sanctuary which it can protect itself from the wicked attack of violence.
In contrast, the flora that was not sprayed burst into flames, and their inner light is turned onto themselves and dissipates into a blackened, hardened ash. The groundskeeper screams to himself in abject disgust: he has run out of liquid in his final canister. He forcefully throws the empty apparatus to the ground.
As if taking a cue, the firestorm engulfs the inner sanctum. All latent natural beauty of the landscape is quickly engulfed by the profane destruction of war. What was once an exquisite retreat into nature has now become a burning, barren wasteland of scattering ash and foreboding misery. The groundskeeper falls to his knees with his arms raised to the enflamed sky and screams again at the top of his lungs. Blood freely flows from his mouth as his lungs succumb to the combination of intense heat and deadly sulfuric vapor. With his last breath he offers up to the heavens, “Sumimasen, sumimasen … go yoosha kudasai!” (“Excuse us, excuse us … please forgive us!”)
I struggle with all the strength of my presence to look away. I am beyond tears. My entire being resonates with this fellow human being’s overwhelming sense of helplessness in the direct presence of humankind’s active naked aggression and selfish, foolish, myopic indulgences. My emotions have entered a territory where no emotion can properly be described. I am unsuccessful at breaking any “sense” connection and know this is the doing of the spirit guide. I am a prisoner forced to witness my fellow humans’—humanity’s—folly of degenerate, unnecessary warfare. I sink to my knees. I do not wish to see, hear, taste, feel, smell or interact any longer. My tether to this reality remains unchanged.
My attention is drawn to the impassive mandarin. He sends a thought my way. Humanity’s prelude to redemption. My silent guide lifts a finger and, nearly simultaneously, tiny openings in the impenetrable barrier appear. The plant life’s sphere rushes forward toward the pinpoints of escape, which lead to a desired sanctuary. Before all of their life force vacates the hellish inferno, the last remaining part of the sphere splinters off to surround the kneeling, screaming, sobbing, dying groundskeeper.
As his life begins to spiral out of the top of his head, the lingering plant life force tilts its spiral motion to encircle his own. In essence, the force shields him by keeping his light-essence intact. Separating his illuminated being from within its gentle grasp, the force proceeds to carry him through the miniature holes in the barrier, giving “the keeper” passage into sanctuary. The haunting words of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara reverberate throughout my being:
“We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo—men, women and children … If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he’s right. He (Curtis LeMay), and I’d say I, were behaving as war criminals.”
Operation Meetinghouse was one such devastating bombing raid.
All tangible and vital objects abruptly vanish from our point of perspective. Even Burzum’s rousing soundtrack of rampant destruction is halted—paused, really. Standing on the enlarged kanji of hito bito, I temporarily bask in the state of transitory euphoria of having all the horror of warfare with its overwhelmingly sullen atmosphere suddenly cease.
The acute diminishing of all sensation is extremely short-lived. Chu Tsun’s thought-feeling abruptly slices into my concentration: Secret War?
The first sense alerting my consciousness that the macabre menagerie is about to reinitiate is that of sound quickly followed by a far-reaching fetid smell. It is a combination of burnt vegetation, smoldering human bodies, decimated and rotting soil—all generously mixed with decaying farm animal flesh.
Soon, an eerie chorus tenaciously takes hold. An unnerving, never-ending off-key hum reverberates loudly as its undertone. When it comes to overall despair and bleakness, the earlier howls of agony from the public botanical garden in Tokyo pales in comparison. This is a symphony of the damned. Humans, flora and fauna all seamlessly combine to create degenerated moans of anguish stuck on an infinite loop, unleashed by a relentless, maniacal brutality against all things living with spirit. The malodorous stench fights with and begins to overtake the offensive audio.
I attempt a glance at my spiritual herald but am too overwhelmed to dedicate any thought or sense in his direction. I am no dispassionate observer of this tragedy in time. I am still a prisoner, a captive witness, to one of my birth nation’s most unforgivable past transgressions. The only thing to challenge the noxious odor are the words of a most unwholesome character of my era: Kissinger on bombing Indochina:
“It’s wave after wave of planes. You see, they can’t see the B-52 and they dropped a million pounds of bombs … I bet you we will have had more planes over there in one day than Johnson had in a month … each plane can carry about 10 times the load [that a] World War II plane could carry.”
Because the terror and criminality of the fire bombings in WWII went unacknowledged, Indochina, especially Laos, bore the brunt of this “man’s inhumanity to man” moment, another astounding crescendo of death.
A visual depiction joins the unfolding terror. The familiar hum of bombers accompanies a sea of planes in an infinite flight formation. What was once lush, fertile, undisturbed countryside is in the process of being transformed into another barren, scarred wasteland. No air-raid sirens sound since this is a region of the world less sophisticated than the cities of Japan or Western Europe. Besides, even if there were proper warning, the only secure place of safety is a series of caves and nothing more.
Chu Tsun sends a clarifying thought-feeling: The Plain of Jars with its many scars caused by the country of the Stripes and Stars.
I counter: It’s difficult to blame a people or a group for something they aren’t even aware of.
The town of Phonsavan was located in one of the hardest-hit regions during Operation Barrel Roll (occurring almost simultaneously with the Vietnam War). Rather than land with a plane filled with a compartment of cluster bombs, the USAF indiscriminately dropped their superfluous explosives over Phonsavan before returning to their bases in Thailand. More than two million tons of bombs were dropped on Laos by the U.S. military (equivalent to) “every eight minutes, twenty-four hours a day, for nine years.” Even elephants were shot to death since they could potentially carry supplies for the “Communists.”
If they were ever needed, it would be just for the Naga, the benevolent sky “gods” of ancient Indochina, to reappear in their sky ships and defend this unprotected land. Those capable of “shaping rock without breaking its spirit” would be more than a match for the savagery unleashed by the USAF throughout this region.
An unending wave of cluster ordnances continuously fall with destructive force leaving countless mutilated limbs strewn across the land like seeds to be plowed. The sky is a charcoal black.
Chu Tsun again communicates: In times of peril, ignorance connotes guilt.
I counter: History shows that knowledge can be lost, not just gained, with the progression of time.
Is holding on to a burgeoning realization that one’s country isn’t what one initially thought merely an exercise in straddling the dichotomy of reality as it is, as opposed to what one wishes it to be according to natural law? How does one successfully achieve such a feat? Is it even wise to attempt to hold on to a reality that is rapidly crumbling before one’s eyes under past and present heinously treacherous actions?
The neglect in addressing the serious overkill in WWII of innocent human beings led to the devastation of Laos. The land itself is spiritually repressed and has been beaten back into a submission of horror, which even to this day has yet to emerge from its bombed stupor or begin to properly recover. Today, approximately seventy million unexploded ordnances (UXOs) litter the land. Over one hundred people a year to this day are killed by UXOs throughout Laos.
The mandarin’s thought-feeling introduces a new scene: Secret slaughter.
We arrive at Tham Piew (Rocket Cave). There are no more screams, neither from the flora nor from the fauna. Snippets of “Jesu Tod” seep in and out of the scene. Its black metal chords act as a needle weaving a tale of doom via audio enmeshed with atmosphere. An eerie vapor of putrid death is the sole component that constitutes the battered, silent land. Huddled inside the deep cave are 374 civilians. A rocket is shot into the cave. They all perish, some faster than others.
Being born on the 4th of July, I cherished sharing my birthday with that of my birth nation, land of my ancestors. They were on the land before the U.S. was even a nation. But in viewing the kaleidoscope of careless carnage playing out over Laos, I feel shame at my ignorance for …
Chu Tsun completes my realization with a directed thought. Nine years, twenty-four hours a day, every eight minutes resulted in 2.4 million tons of bombs being dropped on Laos without a break.
That’s approximately 262 million anti-personnel cluster bombs dropped. I remain unresponsive. The U.S. military dropped more bombs on tiny, rural Laos than during the entirety of WWII. Think about that. What was really going on there in that so-called Secret War?
An undisturbed plain of immense jar-like structures dating from humankind’s hoary past comes into view. Malicious destruction immediately commences upon this irreplaceable “site” from antiquity. On the ground, the peasants scatter like frantic ants. Unlike in previous scenes, no souls light the darkness. Before escaping the dying flesh, a brief incandescence flares then expires. The life essence is being shattered simultaneously with the dying flesh. The scene expands, displaying mountains of cadavers left unattended and unmourned.
The Secret War was not so secret to financially impoverished, spiritually rich and rural Laos. But in some strange, unspoken pact, academia in the U.S. maintains this dirty little secret to this day. A stream of McNamara quotes bombards my senses.
“That’s one of the major lessons: no president should ever take this nation to war without full public debate in the Congress and/or in the public.”
The war resulted in 58,220 U.S. military deaths and 303,635 wounded. Approximately 3.5 million people were killed in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.
I find myself wondering what McNamara himself thought about the consequences of implementing his Project 100,000 plan. This was the use of low-IQ troops, some of whom weren’t even capable of comprehending what war and fighting meant.
Another quote from McNamara enters my thoughts: “Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.”
Under the auspices of Operation Popeye, weather manipulation was undertaken. Then there was Operation Ranch Hand, which consisted of spraying twenty million gallons of Agent Orange to defoliate jungle cover and destroy food crops. In the process, this bitter harvest managed to cultivate untold numbers of human birth defects to this very day. And if that’s not enough, one can still ponder the Phoenix Program, concocted with the assistance of the American CIA in order to perpetrate torture, counter- terrorism and assassination against the people of Indochina. Add all this to the simultaneously implemented brutal, unrelenting ordnance bombardment campaign.
McNamara’s older self astutely contradicts his younger persona with another observation: “The picture of the world’s greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.”
Names of towns appear and disappear.
Banging in Ban Ang then on to Phu Keng… jeez, one can’t make this stuff up.
There’s more to war than profits procured from suffering in order to benefit psychopathic stooges. The words of McNamara stubbornly refuse to take leave. This time he’s accompanied by the self-evident war criminal and former secretary of state at that time.
McNamara, concerning both President Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Vietnam policy: “We were wrong, terribly wrong.”
Kissinger’s response to McNamara: “He (McNamara) had no stomach for an endless war.”
McNamara: “War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend … Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.”
Kissinger: “Boohoo, boohoo … He’s still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty.” (Pretending to cry, rubbing his eyes.)
Their words end with my own contemplation. Who on Earth would support a virulently immature and depraved character such as that war criminal? But more importantly, the U.S. is involved in a grotesque game of long-term self-sabotage. Why?
To dialogue with or celebrate the devil’s stooge is confirming one’s fate of spiritual annihilation.
For the U.S., the Vietnam War began in 1955 with the arrival of military advisors in Indochina. Combat troops from the U.S. were sent in 1965. With the passage of the Case-Church Amendment by the U.S. Congress on August 15, 1973, the U.S. military was prohibited from operating in Indochina without congressional approval.
Indirect involvement occurred for almost two more years until April 23, 1975. This was when President Gerald Ford gave a speech at Tulane University, stating that the Vietnam War “is a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.” Seven days later, South Vietnam surrendered to the North Vietnamese in Saigon. The city was promptly renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Operation Frequent Wind marks one of my earliest memories of watching television. I saw some of the dramatic airlifts of Americans and refugees from that day in Saigon from the safety and comfort of my home in California. As a five-year-old, I was able to comprehend only the extreme fear of the people on the television, and I hoped they wouldn’t be sad for too long. I sincerely wonder what the thoughts and feelings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were at that specific moment in time. Perhaps his 1978 Harvard commencement address, “A World Split Apart,” is but one such result.
Desiring to be included, Charles Bukowski sneaks in some words from his poem “The Genius of the Crowd”: “The best at war finally are those who preach peace.” His quip is perfect when describing Nobel Peace Prize winner Kissinger. Hmm … perfidy at its best.
As the wicked stench of violence overcomes this particular theater of war, Chu Tsun shifts my awareness to a newly developing scene. The heavy metal melody discontinues and fades into silence.
Next, my stern guide of the netherworld and I are back in Germany 1945, just after the Allies’ victory over the Axis Powers in Europe. I find his war-filled tour to be obscenely cruel. Yet as a pacifist I know that somewhere within the recess of my soul, in my very spirit, because I belong to the human species, part of the blame rests within me as well; even if it is minuscule. I turn to my silent psychopomp. I get it. I understand war and its consequences.
Without looking at me, he responds with a firm thought. No, you do not.
My attempt at ending this tour of destruction has failed.
We now stand near one of the Rhine-meadows open-air prison camps. A severely beaten man in a tattered military uniform lingers behind a fence. A peasant woman silently approaches him. The guard on duty averts his eyes. Although he is tasked to keep them at a distance, something in him, innate empathy perhaps, convinces him to look away. The phrase, Just be quick about it, resonates from him with authority. With the American no longer paying attention, the peasant woman reaches into her worn leather satchel and produces a sizable square of crumble cake. The captive soldier’s eyes light up.
He hurriedly whispers, “How's Karl?”
She begins to extend her hand with the treat and whispers in return, "He leaves tonight to join his sisters."
The soldier adds, “And you?”
The woman stops her hand midway. “I am where I should be.”
The soldier responds with a questioning expression. Hesitantly, she partially unwraps it then brings the cake to her mouth and takes a generous bite. After, she offers it to her caged paramour by sliding it underneath the fence. He eagerly takes the cake and shovels it into his quivering mouth. An expression of extreme sorrow maps her face as the woman watches her emaciated man savagely wolf down the treat.
She urgently whispers to him, “Please take care. Don’t eat too fast, you can get sick.”
Her words go unheeded. The cake is the sole focus of the half-starved man. I hear the peasant woman’s thoughts.
Oh, why do our lives have to be so miserable? Why do the gods punish us so? Weren’t the Americans supposed to be better than the Russians? What kind of people withhold food from POWs? Savages. Those filthy savages.
Her thoughts end as she seizes her stomach. A sharp pain is quickly followed by another.
The man swallows the last of the food and looks at his love. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. In a hurried, whispered voice, he calls to her. “Ilse? Ilse? What’s wrong?”
Ilse smiles at him and leans against the fence. Their faces hover just inches away from each other with only the steel fence separating them.
“Oh, look at you. Look at us … Kurt.” Ilse brings one hand to the fence and gently threads her fingers through the mesh.
A look of extreme concern clouds the defeated soldier’s countenance. “I am so sorry. I should be there for you, not trapped in this American-made living hell. I—”
She winces, takes hold of her stomach once more and slowly sinks to her knees. His posture mimics hers from his side of the fence. The couple sink simultaneously to the ground. As their slow descent commences, I gauge their interacting thoughts, along with words, to one another.
“It is nothing.”
Oh Ilse, I have failed you.
Although in pain, her smile is serene. No. No one has failed me. Just to see you, to be with you … especially today.
His dejected expression is interrupted by a look of severe pain. Their fingers strain against the fence to touch each other.
It has to be this way, Kurt. Are we not in control of our destiny?
“Oh, Ilse, what have you done?”
I have made it so no one, none of the Allies, can hurt either of us ever again.
It is now Kurt realizes the cake was poisoned. A strange, numbing sensation, absent of physical pain, starts to course throughout his body.
His wife beams a look of unconditional love as she offers on her dying breath, “Happy birthday, my love.” She collapses to the ground on her side with a look of peaceful contentment on her face.
Kurt’s voice fills with anguished heartbreak. “Oh, Ilse …” Simmering tears course down his dirty, hollow cheeks. Because of the fence, he can only stroke strands of her hair softly blowing through. He grasps the barrier out of frustration. Knowing that he is dying, the soldier is unconcerned about bringing the attention of the guards to himself.
His body is shutting down. However, it’s impossible for him to find anger with his wife of twenty years. In a liberating way, he is relieved that his suffering from the encampment will soon be over. Kurt begins to realize it is the perfect gift for the day. The only other wish of the soldier at this moment cannot be fulfilled—to hold his wife in his arms one final time. Giving in completely to his pent-up frustration, he violently assaults and shakes the fence, fueled solely by emotion.
Several guards come running with batons drawn. “Hey! Hey! Get away from there! Get back!”
Upon arrival, they abruptly stop. The dying soldier releases the fence, and while remaining on his knees collapses to the ground, having expended the last of his life’s energy. He lies on his side, looking over at his lovely wife. Ilse had fallen on her side yet still faces him in death. Excruciatingly, he reaches an outstretched arm in her direction. With the last of his breath, he tenderly offers to his beautiful Ilse, “Happy anniversary, my sweet wife.”
I see the familiar spiral of life force exit from the tops of both Kurt’s and Ilse’s heads. Once they are fully free of flesh, both spirals vigorously intertwine. As they connect, their luminescence becomes more brilliant. They then ascend into the higher spiritual realm together.
I return my attention to the lifeless bodies of the couple. Both prisoners and guards gather at the fence. The guard in charge of this section of the fence is receiving a severe dressing down by his superior officer.
“But sir, I’ve seen her before. That’s his wife. She just wanted to give him birthday wishes …”
“Birthday wishes? This is a detention center for disarmed enemy combatants, soldier! A war was fought. They lost. These men are the defeated enemy. We are not running a nursery school!”
Hushed whispers of concern pass among the POWs.
“The Americans have taken to beating us to death in broad daylight.”
“Where is the Red Cross?”
“It is not enough they give us very little food and no proper shelter?”
“Did they kill the woman and he tried to stop them?”
“I am sure that is what happened.”
“Wait! I know that guy, he’s Kurt W.”
“I think you mean was…”
“Why kill an unarmed woman?”
“This now proves it! They are just savage beasts just like the Russians.”
“You mean the Soviets. They both must be stopped.”
“Agree. They refuse to call us POWs—that’s why they can get away with this.”
The crowd of POWs rustles to life with anger. The guards begin to move the prisoners away from the fence where Kurt’s and Ilse’s bodies lie. As the initial guard stares in stunned disbelief at the escalating scene, I feel his anguish and helplessness. He mentally questions the entire reasoning for the malevolent existence of the Rhine-meadows encampments.
I turn to my guide of the netherworld. He repeats the movement of his arms with upraised palms that initiated our journey. The archaic, unfamiliar symbols brighten and regain their enchanting incandescence. They detach from the surface of our bubble of protection then retrace their initial trajectory. We are escorted away from the war-filled region of the spirit domain.
All movement discontinues as the symbols fade into nonexistence. Our phantasmagorical ride has reached its conclusion. We are now just within the company of each other. Gone are the soldiers, the airplanes, the bombs, the endless fires and blaring air-raid sirens announcing the arrival of utter disparity. A stillness descends, creating a purgatory-like atmosphere. I initiate communication before he does.
Constant conflict brings not only premature death but confusion and even more: unnecessary wasted potential. It also changes a people from naturally evolving into something they collectively choose on a group level. This generally transpires into an unnatural and manipulated nation open to exploitation. Ultimately, it leads to more confusion as they are unable to properly define themselves or their destiny. The confusion proceeds to spread throughout the entirety of the human species and thus—
Chu Tsun interrupts my mental summation. There is no collateral damage in the realm of spirit; material man’s wars cause only upset.
Agree. Further, I was not finished.
He lifts an eyebrow on his otherwise neutral visage.
The problem is that as an American, my nation cherishes free speech as the foundation of what we stand for. Yet what use is free speech when a tenacious ignorance permeates and grips the land? What’s the value of being permitted to speak one’s mind unchallenged when a pertinent message consistently falls on deaf ears? Logically, America’s “freedom” is neither gained nor sustained by severely bombing Southeast Asian peasants, children, defenseless civilians, animals, the land, newborns and the elderly. All I see is a continuing freedom to remain blissfully unenlightened in the face of the rest of the world’s population. This tragedy must cease, not just in my country but, throughout the world wherever it may thrive.
The mandarin slides his eyes to the side. My familiar muse-guardian into the netherworld appears within this sanctuary of two. With the reappearance of Upuaut, my impassioned statement is emboldened.
I know that if humanity gains the opportunity to reconnect with its past, particularly antiquity, the ancestors’ knowledge and examples can once again be known and practiced, thus re-establishing a link to humankind’s past greatness. Yet I also realize that before even this step is undertaken, the wrongs such as the many treaties originating from the Paris Peace Conference must be soberly recognized for what they entailed and addressed accordingly.
The ancient Egyptian deity nods his head once. It is almost imperceptible. Chu Tsun follows suit. With that, I am back in my seat at Café Anima.
I look up from the ornate porcelain teacup. To my astonishment everything in the café appears to be the same. I dart my eyes at the clock on the wall. It is fifteen minutes to midnight. The third category of train-folk have made their appearance. This entertaining group is heading to the station with escalating intensity while I return my gaze to my still-hot tea.
A cup can represent a channel for nourishment, whether it be for the physical body if serving hearty soup on a crisp winter evening or for the soul used as a catalyst for concentration while engaging in deep, soul-searching rumination. The latter circumstance also represents East meeting West. Antithesis vs. Thesis = Synthesis. This process liberates human beings from the wheel of suffering by acquiring knowledge when internalizing it as Eternal Wisdom. When harmony is reached within, one can reflect such a state without.
The thé, with its illustrious cup, was merely a conduit that connected with the frenetic, chaotic anxiety and determination of the would-be train-goers linked to the soul of the city. Coupled with the presence of Chu Tsun and the arcane symbols, the contents formed a spontaneous alchemical elixir catapulting the “ghost victims” of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference in a projected, psychometric vision gone interactive.
Actions speak louder than words. As such, one can learn a lot by the actions of the victor (or victors) of an armed conflict by their treatment of a defeated foe, who are extremely vulnerable people.
Pretty, sensible words attempting to gloss over or paint a certain picture are but empty reminders that cannot erase the brutal reality of the consequences of unnecessarily vicious acts committed against defenseless men, women and children. The ferocious treatment of the surrendered German soldiers, German citizenry, and especially the women, was beyond atrocious and utterly reprehensible. The same applies to the Japanese. No sane, civilized or refined mind would ever celebrate such disgustingly deplorable behavior.
Everything is not what it seems in the material world.
Unlike Vietnam, when one flies over present-day Germany and Japan, there are no vicious scars on the earth visible to the naked eye. Sophisticated cities and well-manicured landscapes interposed between rivers and waterways are all that greets the eye of the air traveler. It is easier to not be reminded of the horrors of war when there is nothing to see on the surface but law and order.
Occasionally, people on the ground run across an unexploded mine, forcing them to evaluate why the unexploded ordnance is there. What’s more concerning is that, for the most part, cosmetic cover-ups of the pain inflicted have been successfully achieved. The same isn’t so for Indochina, especially Laos.
Pockets of their savagely wrecked, previously unviolated innocence … innocentia inviolata...freely remain out in the open for all to bear witness. Geographic scars endure to this present day, on full display for air travelers who dare to view. Always remember human beings are a species. Thus, when one ethnicity is under attack or ailing (especially an older culture) the negative ramifications take on myriad proportions. Often, they manifest in a variety of vile and insidious ways throughout the entirety of humankind’s collective psyche and soul.
Human capacity to understand the reality of life in a much deeper context is certainly a necessary requirement. But few wisdom seekers of present-day Earth realize: God does not come to you. You must go to the one true Creator God of all Source, Love and Beauty. The totality of these offensive, ceaseless wars has cheapened human life overall. This, as it is, bodes such an unnecessary tragedy, a sad commentary for all humanity and sentient life existing in the world.
How am I to write about this? Such tough stuff. It is essential to possess a skillful command of a language; especially when it comes to clear communication. However, where an artist in the vein of a writer seeks to paint with words, her message may become lost where a wider audience is concerned.
I’m reminded of the curious connection between Marx, Hegel and Aristotle. Having recently read Nicomachean Ethics, it seems to me a rather sinister mode of collective social control with solid roots in Aristotelian logic. I could use innate ideas as influence instead.
Marx placed more importance on material circumstance as opposed to ideas regarding social change. In this way, manipulation can be easier to conceal as something beneficial when it is actually the very opposite. How is it done? A problem is created. Two extreme propositions are presented as possible resolutions: an excess and a deficiency. Neither is perfect. Enter the synthesis (the compromise), and it will be the most attractive option. Under normal circumstances, no one would ever accept any of the three proposals. However, if the problem continues unresolved it could possibly become insurmountable.
In short, create the perfect, false paradigm, brimming with fear, and … Hegel is not easy to grasp.
Even though I haven’t formally studied the philosophy of Hegel, an English acquaintance had pointed me in this theoretical direction. Hey O, appreciate the lead.
Real-life examples can prove to be just as informative. This mode of operation keeps all the wars going. But could other events permeate worldwide? It seems obvious that as humanity enters the twenty-first century, enough people will recognize this manipulative game.
I finish my thé chaud à la vanille and stare at the empty cup in front of me. Kobayashi returns with Kwaidan: In a Cup of Tea. An author awaiting the arrival of a publisher writes a story about a samurai who sees a mysterious man’s image in his cup of tea. The story was left unfinished, as is the film clip. Horror is attempting to enter my immediate reality. I place my notebook in my backpack. I hurriedly thank the waiter, settle my bill and stand to leave.
I press Play on my Walkman. The Supremes “Reflections” fills my senses. As I casually walk, my ruminations reflect on the irony of how I witnessed a mere hideous snapshot of The Human Condition while taking In a Cup of Tea. Doomo arigatoo gozaimasu, Kobayashi-sama.
I pass a crêpe stand. A sumptuous-looking crêpe is being doused with cognac and flambéed.The aroma is absolutely enticing. After such mental barrage of violent, abject aggressiveness, that cognac crêpe is looking incredibly delicious. How does one remain sober and sane upon internalizing the harsh reality of the real world?
A man brushes by me. It isn’t rough but his jostling is just enough to jar my mind back to the crisp chill of the Parisian night. On this particular nocturnal excursion, I notice more people on foot walking in the same direction, away from Gare de Châtelet. I smile to myself and wonder, Perhaps, even if some missed the last train, they intentionally did so but on a totally subconscious level.
After reliving offensive, ceaseless wars and witnessing the daily degradation of human lives and their value, I come back to Kaji from Kobayashi’s The Human Condition. In the face of the Kwangtung Army’s decimation, I give deferential admiration to Kaji’s heroic efforts. Through it all, he struggled to hold on to his humanity in a horrifically inhumane world and won. But the cost was extreme.
Most people who are genuinely becoming aware of the senselessness of unceasing war should enter the new century by first admitting that the world under this current human stewardship can no longer afford the status quo. Kaji’s voice supplants my thoughts.
Kaji: “As long as you’re with me, I give the orders. Forget about rank. While we’re at it, let’s get something else clear. I didn’t expect Mutanchiang to fall so soon. The Kwangtung Army must essentially be wiped out … So I’m no longer concerned about rejoining them.”
Terada: “What do we do?”
Kaji: “We go back to our former lives. South Manchuria lies in that direction. My former life awaits me there. And I’ll do my best to get you back to your former lives. If you don’t agree, we can part ways now. We decide right here.”
Corporal Hironaka: “Kaji! You can’t just ignore the soldier’s code.”
Kaji: “What we need now is the defeated man’s code. If you want to go on soldiering, take Terada and go.”
I’m willing to bet, if given a choice, a good number of people would opt out of continued soldiering and seek the same route as Kaji. But instead of following a “defeated man’s code,” it is time for a genuine renaissance of the mind, body and soul. This coming new century is the perfect occasion to launch such a noble and collectively beneficial endeavor. A segue of sorts must first be sought then initialized. Only then can real change truly be seriously undertaken. Everything is cyclical.
The nineteenth century was a series of liberations: a significant portion of the Greek ancestral homelands returned to Greek dominion, Mexico and all the Spanish American wars of Independence, the Belgian War of Independence, the American Civil War, the Italian Unification, the abolition of slavery in most colonies of the British Empire, the unification of Germany into a federal nation state and the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire. In contrast, the 20th Century reverted to a horrendous version of tyranny; this time via global warfare paired with a detrimental, financial aggression enabling an all-encompassing spiritual suppression.
Solzhenitsyn’s words return from his infamous 1978 Harvard University commencement speech: “After suffering decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, exemplified by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.”
Now, the human species is on the cusp of the twenty-first century. In order to rise above this persistent, tyrannical clique, humans need to become more in tune with themselves, to seek genuine religion in order to successfully reconnect with the Divine via their own senses, especially those presently dormant. This action is imperative. Humans can no longer afford to be spiritually enslaved through empty organized religions.
The words of the shaman Don Juan Matus of Carlos Castaneda book fame slowly penetrate my consciousness, infiltrating my quiet contemplation. “Sorcerers of ancient Mexico […] reasoned that man must have been a complete being at one point, with stupendous insights, feats of awareness that are mythological legends nowadays. And then, everything seems to disappear, and we have now a sedated man. What I’m saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. […] It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He’s an average piece of meat. There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to be a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic.”
Hmm … Workers (cattle) of the World Unite, indeed.
There is never, ever any justification for the deliberate mutilation of another human being’s mind or body. Absolutely none, if you harbor a shred of humanity within your soul.
Yet to still have modern-day individuals ardently attempting to justify all the “cultural bombings,” forced starvation, atrocity propaganda and postwar mass rapes, their “actions”—their so-called grim accolades of defense of such heinous acts—are nothing but verbally unwholesome, scabrous sophistry at its most gruesomely finest.
I follow a philosophy that when it comes to an egregious injustice being committed, no matter what, no matter when, no matter where … everything that is done can be undone, especially if corrective intentions are founded in the Divine.
Circling back to the unseen colonizer (before arriving at Café Anima) … what if the colonizer were spiritual? That’s Don Juan Matus’s adversary of humanity. In this scenario, something of such a sophisticated design should be able to recognize there comes a time where a strategic decision is to be taken. If only a few of the spiritually subjugated break free from their chains and learn of the grand scheme of deception, is it not wise (prudent) in the long term to allow passage to these few? For if they are to remain imprisoned against their will, their passion will only fuel others into stirring from their stupor by learning of their true plight. This is highly plausible since unnatural thinking leads to authentic rebellion.
It can all be so weird, or rather Urd. Whether Lovecraft wyrd or the Germanic Urd, the latter fits best if attempting a polysemic quest (per Christopher McIntosh): “… that which became and therefore contains the future.”
My suggestion to all the sober, sane and mature for an immediate remedy? Create your own self-styled vision quest, minus any plant. Keep in mind the steadfast goal, which should be to properly reconnect with your spirit-self and expand your own consciousness.
Perhaps the twenty-first century is to usher in an enlightened era of spiritual advancement as a catalyst for real world peace? Keep in mind, though, that an authentic, sober assessment of reality is required before one can initiate a true spiritual journey. Why would a person try to escape routine habits when they believe they are already liberated?
It all comes down to respect for love as an attitude, not as an emotion, and applying this to fuel the potential that humanity can achieve. Also, retain the right to form your own perspective, free from outside influences that may harbor a duplicitous agenda. Diligently pursue the importance of being grounded in the truth of this world’s reality of material life as it relates to spiritual clarity.
“Reflections” ends and the next song begins, "Looking Back," by Nat King Cole. I somberly smile to myself. Perfect theme for the U.S. concerning its rather tenuous relationship with genuine, liberating peace. The message is for the relationship of Earth and humanity as we enter into the twenty-first century.
You see, sometimes, it’s best to miss that last train, break free from the stifling status quo and embark instead upon a new route home. It would be advantageous to bravely labor beyond what the Ancients dubbed “Ring-Pass-Not” and reap the paradisiacal rewards of the spirit realm as opposed to perpetually engaging in the delusional soul domain’s parasitical toil. One must strive to live up to what the Ancients realized: “Magnum miraculum est homo!”
The 21stcentury will be the era when man realizes that only he can rescue humankind.
“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”
—Molière
“A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of life.”
—Thomas Jefferson
Postscript
“There’s nothing more pitiful than the women of a defeated nation.” Statement from a raped Japanese female refugee to Kaji, in The Human Condition: A Soldier’s Prayer.
Kaji responding to the Japanese female refugee via his thoughts: Minor incidents from a historical standpoint can be of vital importance to the individual. For those who’ve seen such failings, the scars never heal. The blood of hatred will continue to ooze from the wound, forming a breeding ground for distrust that can’t be wiped out. A trivial event perhaps, but also a stain on humanity. How can you defend such a thing?
“The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to two million. According to historian William Hitchcock, in many cases the women were the victims of repeated rapes, some as many as sixty to seventy times. At least 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports, with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath. Female deaths in connection with the rapes in Germany, overall, are estimated at 240,000.” From “Rape during the occupation of Germany,” Wikipedia.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn addressed the encouragement of the superiors of the Red Army to inflict rape upon the women of the enemy nations, during and after combat. It also must be noted that other Allied soldiers were involved as well in these sexualized crimes, such as the Americans. Although this was seventy-five years ago, these victimized women should be remembered. A good source to begin with are those who lived during that time in a “defeated nation.” It is best to research unbiased sources and honor their memory, for they are (and were) fellow human beings.
Books, stories and speech recommendations:
Paris 1919, M. Macmillan, read with The Fire, Jorg Friedrich
The Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 1768–1913, Thomas W. Gallant
Former People, Douglas Schmidt
The New Plutarch, Gaspard de Coligny, Walter Besant
McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War plus the Induction of Unfit Men, Criminals, and Misfits, Hamilton Gregory
The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens
The 13th Element, John Emily
War and Shadows, Mailan Gustafasson
“Hell” and “Good-bye,” Yoshihiro Tatsumi
“A World Split Apart,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Song recommendations:
“Anything Goes,” Ella Fitzgerald; “Lonely Teardrops,” Jackie Wilson; “Boogie Stop Shuffle,” Charles Mingus; “Jesu, the Joy of Becoming” and “Violin Concerto in D Minor, Chaconne,” J.S. Bach; “Jesu Tod,” Burzum; “Bullfrog Blues,” Rory Gallagher; "Reflections," The Supremes and “Looking Back,” Nat King Cole.
Movie recommendations:
The Fog of War (2003)
The Chekist (1992)
The Human Condition (1959-1961)
