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| QUOTATIONS 1060-1071 |
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| 1060. It is one of the few universally accepted, almost to the point of being axiomatic, rules of social conduct that one has to "be nice" to other people. And not only because it ethically the right thing to do, but also out of purely pragmatic considerations - for the one who doesn't treat the others well should expect to be treated in a likewise fashion in return. And nobody, understandably, wants this. Yet, despite the self-evident benefits to be derived by following above mentioned rule, for some people who are not naturally "nice" but, let be honest about it, downright nasty to"be nice" is a rather difficult role to perform on continuous basis. And so every once in a while, some more often than the others, they lose control and begin to behave in the most natural for them manner, i.e. acting their nastiness out. But since they know perfectly well that nastiness is uniformly disapproved, and also being afraid of retaliation, they are constantly looking for an excuse to justify it. And they do it in the easiest way possible by making the very people they mistreat responsible for it. Thus in any conflicting situation, which their lives seem to be full of, they invariably portray themselves as victims, never given enough respect, ones who are unappreciated, insulted, humiliated, abused, etc., etc. All of which, whether being true or false, allegedly gives them a perfect right, nay the moral obligation to do to everybody else exactly what they accuse the others of doing to them. Moreover, after performing this miracle of transforming their nastiness into righteousness, they stubbornly persist in trying to make everybody else believe it, no matter how little sense it makes for the rest. Furthermore, because such nasty characters put themselves into a state of perpetual war with the rest of humanity, they divided it into the two categorically opposite groups - allies and enemies, and to become an enemy one has to do as little as simply disagree with their interpretation of the conflict they are presently engaged in. Even impartiality is a hostile act as far as they are concerned. One is either blindly and without any reservations for, or if not, then undoubtedly against them. In their universe there is no middle ground. Consequently, it is not surprising that as such people go through life they accumulate more and more enemies and retain less and less friends. Could anything be done to help these people, or to be more precise to help us to protect ourselves from them? Hardly. For since their nastiness must be innate, any attempt by the outside world to correct it, or to prevent them from abusing almost everybody in sight is viewed by them as yet another proof of societal oppression and encroachment on their freedom, of misunderstanding and disrespect. 1061. One who is aware of his nastiness and even publicly acknowledges it is not much different, as far as his real behaviour is concerned, from the one who vehemently denies it. Such an acknowledgment apparently makes him feel better, but hardly anybody else. For as long as his social conduct stays the same it is of little consolation for the victims of his mean-spiritedness, whether he admits it or not. They suffer at his hands or mouth all the same. Moreover, such an acknowledgment should not be confused with repentance. On the contrary it is but a warning to the rest of us that that's the way this person is, neither willing or able to change, and so we better get used to his abusive behaviour for being now forewarned we have no rights to protest or complain any more. 1062. Those who teach, preach and practice literary analysis and criticism, like most academics employed by the various and numerous departments of Literature at universities, do labour under the gross misapprehension of what the books are written for. Being insulated from the rest of reading humanity by seemingly impenetrable walls of self-confidence in their intellectual superiority, supported in this conceit by bestowed upon them position of authority over the powerless students, they apparently are incapable of freeing themselves from the erroneous notion that books are written first and foremost to be analysed and criticized. Yet, it is obvious to anybody who does not remains forever in a state of absolute conviction that nobody else but a literary analyst and critic can fully understand and appreciate the written word, that nothing could be farther from the truth. For the one and only purpose why a writer writes a book is for a reader to read and enjoy it. 1063. One can have all the power and freedom in the world but if he doesn't have it in his own house everything else hardly matters. 1064. It is better to remain till the end unaware of one's latent potentials and capabilities than to discover them too late in life, when there is neither time nor energy left to develop them and to get recognition and acknowledgment for the results. For there is no worse affliction as one approaches death than the gnawing pains of the belated realization of a wasted and unfulfilled life, of impotent regrets for what could have but yet has never been. It is like spending all your life in a decrepit hut, in a perpetual state of poverty and depravation only to discover at the very end of it that under the floor boards, you were planing to make your coffin with, there had lied all this time a pot of gold. But what's the use of all these riches when one has no longer teeth to eat the fancy food, or a robust young body to wear the beautiful clothes, or the time to travel to all those wonderful places, or to do all those marvellous, exciting things one has always wanted to but could never afford till now. And what pangs of anger and frustration one must suffer from to get the means when the ends are no longer attainable. Does it really matter, when it's too late, whether it is too little or too much? 1065. Everyone likes to be saved from harm, be it by God, by hero, or by one's fellow man. And yet, most people most of the times, and in most situations, will either out of fear or indifference, laziness or lack of imagination, or for thousands of other clear or obscure reasons, do very little to save anybody, including, surprisingly, even themselves. 1066. If man is a product of his environment and myths are creation of men, then this or that particular environment or geography must provide the key to the understanding of the origin of this or that particular mythology. Lets begin with The Bible, this compilation of Judeo-Christian myths central to the Western mythological tradition. The Biblical stories, from the creation and fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the death and resurrection of Christ in Judea, took place in the area of Middle East called sometimes "The Fertile Crescent", the slim bend of the livable space winding its precarious way through the inhospitable mountains and deadly deserts, and which can be envisaged by following the journey of Abraham beginning at Ur of Chaldeans (Persian Gulf), going up north along the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, then turning at Haran south and continuing through Syria, Lebanon and Palestine (Canaan) until it reaches its final destination - Egypt. The area just described is an unsettling combination of the narrow fertile valleys periodically flooded by rivers, surrounded by arid naked mountains and parched, forbidding deserts. It is the land of extreme and disturbing contrasts, of small and vulnerable oases in the midst of the huge and ominous wilderness, of the islands of milk and honey lost in the vast ocean of hunger and thirst. It is the land that creates life and brings death and where Hell is just around the corner from Paradise. In the land like this there is nothing to intercede between man and Nature-God. The utter desolation of the death-breathing desert removes all illusions of self-sufficiency and only God, who is as faceless and as omnipresent as the desert itself, is the sole possible giver of life and protector from death. And since there is no other God (with the exception of Satan) who could possibly be imagined in such a singularly forbidding homogeneity of the seemingly infinite desert, the relationship of this solitary God and lonely man is the stuff the Biblical myths are made of. In its religious and mythological universe the two central factors of the region, the desert and the well assume the symbolic meaning: the desert signifying the wrath of God and the water well his mercy and grace, with his wrath being as vast as the desert itself while the grace is as rare as the wells in it. Consequently, the suffering of man because it is so prevalent in such conditions is taken for granted, believed to be deserved, while the rare happiness is greeted as the undeserved mercy, the gift of the forgiving God. And so, throughout the monotheistic trinity of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each being but a different hypostasis of the essentially same religion, coming out of the same geographical location in the Middle East, the man's longing for the well of hope in the desert of despair and God's absolute power to satisfy or to frustrate it remains the principal mythological leitmotif. Second only to the Bible in its importance to the western mythological traditions stands unquestionably the mythology of the ancient Greece. But its geographical setting, the soil from which the Olympian gods, Titans and Heroes had sprung bears little resemblance to the sands which gave us Jehovah and patriarchs. The territory of the ancient Greece consisted of the three parts: the mainland Greece occupying the southern part of Balkan peninsula and Peloponnesus, numerous islands of the Aegean and Aeonian seas, and the west coast of Asia Minor called Ionia. The landscape of the mainland Greece is very diverse. Mountains alternate with plains and rivers' valleys. Flora and fauna of the ancient Greece were rich and varied. Thick forests covered the mountains. The forests were full of wild animals - lions, bears, wolves, etc. And though on the whole Nature was generous to man, the North was cold in the winter, the South hot in the summer, the sea was both inviting and frightening, the permanent source of delight and danger, while the grooves, streams, mountains were full of the enchanting and menacing mysteries. In the sea the islands, sprinkled abundantly everywhere, each one is somewhat different from the rest, were close enough to ensure the unity, and yet far enough to allow to keep the distance. And finally, the Ionia provided the conduit through which the Eastern mythological traditions could enter the Greek world for mixing and cross-pollination. All this served as a perfect background for the colourful and imaginative poetry of the Greek mythology. It is also not surprising that such a tremendous diversity of the environment has produced equally numerous variety of deities, the true reflection of this environment, who, unlike the metaphysical and disembodied Jehovah of the empty desert, had names, faces, bodies and in all their habits and emotions were hardly distinguishable from men. The main difference was im mortality, but even this gap could be bridged, since Gods had the power to grant it to men and thus make them equal to gods. Naturally, the relationships between such gods and men were quite different from those between the Hebrews and their one and only God. The similarity provided a lot of room for interaction and negotiation. Because of the multiplicity of gods there was plenty of opportunities to form alliances with some of them to protect oneself from the others. And all these interactions and negotiations, coexistence and interdependence of men and gods which, in essence, were the reflection of relationships between the ancient Greeks and their environment, have made the Greek mythology what it is. The creation of yet another great mythologies that are at the root of Western civilization, those of Scandinavia and Northern Europe took place in the environment which was unlike both the Middle East and Greece. From the bleak, hard land of Scandinavia, through the endless, dense, almost impenetrable forests and impassable swamps of the Northern and Middle Europe, till the insurmountable Alpine peaks, Europe of the ancient times was harsh and demanding land to live on. The long, cold winters had to be endured and the wet summers to bear with. There was game in the forest and fish in lakes and rivers, but the soil was poor, sun and warmth rare and only the sturdiest could survive. All this hardship and struggle with Nature was reflected in Nordic and Teutonic myths with their fierce and cruel Gods and fearless, mighty, larger than life Heroes. Finally, to sum up, if one agrees that Gods' and man's interrelationships, which is what the ancient myths are all about, are but the symbolic reflection of Nature and man's struggle to survive within it, then it is clear that since Nature is not one uniform, generic abstract of the philosophers but the living reality different everywhere, the specific geographical region of the world had produced, of necessity, the specifically different mythologies, uniquely suited to this or that particular environment. Next, I'll try to explore the perils and pitfalls of the transplantation and adoption by the people, whose way of life had been shaped by a particular geography and climate, of the mythologies native to the drastically dissimilar environment, and I'll use as an example the stormy, love-hate relationships between Judaism and Christianity on one side, and the inhabitants of European continent on the other. 1067. It must be considered as a great historical mystery that Bible, the unquestionably unique book of the truly distinct, obscure and insignificant, even at the time of their brief local flourishing, people of the ancient Israel, became the foundation of Western civilization, the "Great Code" in which allegedly everything is contained in its archetypal form and through which, it is claimed, all could be explained, at least as far as this particular civilization is concerned. It is also no less of a cultural paradox to have this idiosyncratic creation of a tiny Semitic tribe, continuously tittering throughout history on the brink of disappearance, been appropriated as its own by the vast masses of just emerging European barbarians destined to conquer the Earth. For how can one dismiss the irreconcilable differences between the resignation and humility of a small, defeated people, faced with their virtual extinction, the people who found in love and forgiveness and in the rewards of Kingdom of Heaven their last refuge, on one side, and the fierce and brutal, full of vitality and strength, optimistically aggressive, adventurous and daring Frankish, German and Scandinavian tribes on the other. And this glaring incompatibility of the foundation of the Western civilization and its edifice, between its Middle Eastern, fading away originators and emerging European inheritors has created ever present contradiction at its very core. And this seemingly irreconcilable incompatibility, I believe, is the main cause of the continuous turmoil this civilization has been in for the past two thousand years. For while it adopted and ostensibly proclaimed the Prince of Peace as its one and only God, in reality the European barbarians were never capable to reconcile Him with their war-like nature and had thus condemned themselves to lead the schizophrenic existence in perpetuity. On the other hand, a religious person can probably see in all this the God's design to temper the reckless fierceness of the newly emerging, victorious and overconfident power with the weary wisdom of the old and defeated one, the kind of meeting of Attila the Hun and Ecclesiastes, and thus save the world from total devastation. But for those of us lacking in faith, this whole thing appears to be just another example of the essential insanity of human existence. 1068. As one goes through life trying to get what one wants from it the truth of the Biblical saying "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul" becomes more and more apparent. And so the biggest trick of all in life shall forever remain to be able "to gain" what is important for one's satisfaction without "losing" what is essential for the peace of one's conscience. 1069. No matter how self-assured and self-reliant one might be, there is always this nagging feeling of uncertainty present inside everyone, suggesting ever so subtly that perhaps our good fortunes are not entirely of our own makings, and that we should be thankful to something else, be it God or luck for it. Taken in a broader, public context this private tendency manifests itself most explicitly in the celebration of Thanksgiving, the main features of which are shared by all cultures. For though it is mainly the men's labour which produces all that "bounty of Nature", yet it always seems somewhat undeserved and thus demands some expression of gratitude. Needless to say, the blame for our misfortunes, both personal and collective, is almost universally laid at somebody else's feet as well. 1070. Coming to the end of one's life, the answer to this most important of all of them questions - whether it should be considered a success or pronounced a failure - depends largely on the relative degree of freedom, as opposed to the absence of it, one had to pursue throughout this life what one would, given a choice, prefer above anything else and not the accumulation of riches and the attainment of prominence, unless of course these were one's primary goals in life to begin with. But of course all will agree that the luckiest ones are those who didn't have to sacrifice one thing for the sake of another, and got their fame and fortune while living in a manner they would have anyway, regardless of outcome. 1071. Why are we so much fascinated by the Evil, so much interested in all its ugly and revolting aspects, its seemingly infinite forms and manifestations, and, on the other hand, are so indifferent, so impervious, so lukewarm toward the Good? Is it not because our main preoccupation in life is the survival and not the attainment, as much as possible, what we consider good, as some philosophical schools claimed. And since it is the evil that threatens our well-being, it is quite natural to pay such a disproportionate amount of attention to it and thus to learn, albeit mostly intuitively, how to protect ourselves from it. |
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