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| QUOTATIONS 1392-1424 |
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| . 1392 I have a rendevous with dreams after midnight, when all is quiet, then, as if driven by a whim they flee and leave not a trace behind. 1393. The answer to this famous question "What's in the name?" depends largely on the one who is asked. For some (and they are in majority) it is everything, for others very little, but no one can claim in all truthfulness to be totally free from this almost universal "enslavement" to the power of "name". 1394. It is undoubtedly true that one fool with machine gun can kill a hundred unarmed geniuses. Then again, what kind of geniuses would put themselves in a situation which allowed a fool to kill them with impunity. 1395. One of the psychologically useful byproducts (if not its main purpose) of traveling is to provide one with an illusion of some activity while in actuality doing nothing. 1396. The great thinkers who come up with the great ideas how to improve the lot of humanity invariably forget one little detail, namely, that if and when their great ideas are going to be implemented it would be inevitably done by the little, ordinary people, who as the weak and imperfect mortals would pervert, distort and abuse those ideas and as the result instead of benefitting humanity would create even more misery and suffering in this world. 1397. Death is the ultimate and universal deadline. And to the awareness of this fact many of our accomplishments must be attributed, the accomplishments which would probably never been achieved if one thought there is plenty of time to do it later. 1398. Since men, statistically, have shorter life span than women, every married woman must be contemplating and having plans for the eventual widowhood. But those married to the famous men can look forward to even more glamorous than the past future upon the demise of their celebrated spouses , namely, the position of "widow of the Great Man", which entails, among other things, receiving and accepting tributes and veneration they consider their well deserved due for being "the woman behind the Great Man". 1399. Sometimes I wonder what is my place as a writer in the world where Harlequin sells a mind boggling 153 million romance books to women a year. 1400. I find the introduction of the new specialty television chanal WTN (Women Television Network) devoted to women's programming somewhat redundant. For women already have their own chanal, catering exclusively to their needs. It's called TSC - The Shopping Chanal. 1401. It is doubtful that people who invented the windshield wipers ever imagined that this device would be primarily used by policemen to secure parking violation tickets. 1402. Could one who attends church's services regularly be really blamed if he begins to think that collection plate would be more appropriate symbol of Christianity than cross. 1403. This is one, quite unexpected outcome of information revolution produced by technological progress: there is no need to burn books anymore since few people read them and even fewer take them seriously. 1404. If there is one truth that the American Television has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt it is this: there is no person so bland, no subject so trivial, no event so insignificant, which under the close scrutiny would not revealed itself to be of almost universal importance. 1405. There is just one little problem with following this famous commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, namely, what is the actual size of one's neighbourhood? 1406. What do the aboriginal people everywhere want nowadays? The same as everybody else - they want a "good life", which in a modern sense means life of consumption of cars, houses, television, computers, boats, vacations, modern conveniences, etc., etc. etc. And what do they do to get all this? Do they join the ranks of industrial workers and professionals? Do they flock to the factories, mines, offices? Do they become the wage slaves or businessmen? No. They put on the traditional costumes, their ancestors discarded long time ago for convenience of western dress, they dance, they chant, they beat the drums, in a word they use the excuse of turning back (only symbolically, not really) to their traditional way of life to acquire the fruits of the modern one. And so, when the native leaders of Canada don their feathered head gears they are not trying to revive the ancient cultural traditions but to go to bank to get compensation for the loss of them. 1407. While the great and sudden disasters, especially when manmade, inspire a few real insights into the nature of human condition they also unleash the avalanche of worn out platitudes repeated one after another by the bewildered multitudes trying to rise to the occasion with something profound but due to their inherent shortcomings producing nothing but trivia. 1408. The physical courage is often equated with righteousness. Yet this world knows too many instances when, faced with adversity, the criminals displayed remarkable courage while the honest and innocent succumbed to weakness and fear. The fact that the early Christians allegedly met religious persecution, torture and death with courage and resignation doesn't make their faith any truer but could be explained as a result of ignorance, superstition and arrogance of self-delusion. Willingness to suffers and die for one's convictions, believes and principles does not necessarily mean that those principle, believes and convictions are objectively valid and, moreover, positive as far as the majority of mankind is concerned. And becoming a martyr for a cause doesn't mean that the truth and justice is on your side, that you are right and your opponents are wrong. 1409. If you are sick and tired of reading books about other people, the people you really have nothing in common with, if you want, at least once, to read a book about somebody like you, there is no other way but to write this book yourself. 1410. Is it justifiable to call Israel a racist state, because it tries to preserve the position of Jews as the dominant majority and thus in effect curtails certain basic rights of Arab minority in it? Before answering this question I would like to tell you about an unusual building in my neighborhood. What is unusual about this building is that it is entirely populated by women and their children of both sexes, though boys could not be older than 16. Not only men cannot live in this building, no man can even enter it. The reason for this unusual restrictions is that all its female tenants are traumatized victims of abuse at the hand (literally) of men - their former spouses, boyfriends, etc. The very existence of such a building is the explicit acknowledgment that these women apparently cannot share their living environment with men, because of permanent fear and distrust of men, any men. By analogy, the state of Israel is populated by the Jews who have been abused and traumatized by all other people they lived amongst for the last 2000 years, without exceptions. Thus for them Israel is a "shelter" in the same way as above mentioned building is a shelter for the abused women, for the Jews, both collectively and individually, is an abused nation, and not only historically, in the past, but very much in the present and, realistically speaking, in the foreseeable future. There are, of course, other Jews, the majority, who like the majority of women continue to live in the "outside world", apparently having learn how to cope with it. But the "shelter dwellers", in both cases, couldn't and have chosen separation rather than the risk of ever present threat of abuse and violence. Now, if one is willing to blame the Jews of Israel for the decision to live "alone" and calls them racists, one has to be consistent and blame the women who have chosen to live in women's shelter for being sexist. Jew in the world of Gentiles can feel secure just for a while Like lonely swimmer far from land his fate is in his own hands since danger always await in sea of prejudice and hate Until he finds friendly shore to stand upright and fear no more. The West Bank settlements that seems to be at present the main point of contention between Palestinians and Israelis are mostly populated by the recent immigrants from Europe and America. These are the people who came from the most developed, the richest, the safest countries in the world. They left well paying jobs, comfortable houses, families and friends. They seemed to have all that everybody wants, but with one exception: they were not "loved by their neighbours". In today's world when it is widely recognized that to feel to be loved and appreciated is the most important thing to give one peace of mind, certainty and self respect, they were at best tolerated, but mostly disliked, despised and even hated. The majority of the Jews in diaspora had learned to live with this affliction, accepting it as a price of existence. But four million have found it intolerable and chosen to leave and settle in the State of Israel, tiny speck of land in the vast Arab sea. And what Arabs are saying is, "We don't want you here, go back where you have come from." And the Jews say, "No, we wouldn't." And the Arabs say, "Yes, you would." And it doesn't look as if all wisdom of Solomon would solve this dispute ever, because there is no solution. History couldn't be changed, people couldn't be changed. And to quote Thomas Wolfe, "It is therefore beyond the power of any one of us to condemn, judge or understand. I'm simply sorry for everyone." 1411. Re: Muslim matrons of Jihad by Margaret Wente, November 10,2001. Though it is not easy to find the voices of "moderate Islam" we have no choice but to keep looking for them to get the world out of the dangerous and potentially lethal mess it is in now. The relations between Christianity and Islam have a long (1300 years) and bloody history of which Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are only the latest manifestations. Amongst the best known is 700 year war in Spain, which ended in1492 with the expulsion or forced conversion of Muslims. Crusades with their legacy of mass slaughter, the destruction of Byzantine empire - the cradle of Eastern Christianity, and to make leap forward - the conflicts and wars in Lebanon, Sudan, Philippine, Nigeria, etc., etc. Clearly, there is enough blame to share on both sides. What the world is urgently needs now is some sort of Truth and Reconciliation Commission composed of Christian and Muslim clergy to sit down and talk to each other, admit and confess their sins and find the way to forgive each other. It is obvious by now that generals can't solve this problem. They much too much like to play with their bombs. The politicians lost their credibility long time ago everywhere. The intellectuals, which nowadays means mostly academics employed by universities, are either talking to themselves or to each other and are too far removed from the lives and concerns of ordinary people. Only the clergy still retains the spiritual and moral authority in today's world and it is to their authority employed, to repeat, in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission comprised of Muslim and Christian religious leaders, we have to appeal to save us from the impending disaster. 1412. As far as Nature is concerned man is but a life support system for penis and woman is nothing more than a container for womb. 1413. The belief in reincarnation, when stripped of its moralizing raiment regarding human behavior , is in itself a very rational, even materialistic one. For out of the same elements Nature creates either mice or man. And it is a pure chance that I am a man, for as far as Nature is concerned I could have been as easily a mice 1414. For a city to be considered "civilized" in the broadest sense of the word it has to have a sufficient number of streets one can walk without feeling compelled to pretend of going somewhere. 1415. If the survival of the fittest is both the cause and the effect, the process and the product of evolution, why after tens of thousands years of it there are still so many fools around? Don't believe me? Just have a look at the people lining up to buy lottery tickets. 1416. The first and foremost duty (and the test) of every true intellectual is to always try to elevate the level of discourse, yet not too high lest making it unreachable for the less informed and enlightened and thus provoking resentful rejection instead of enthusiastic acceptance. 1417. What has always made The New Testament- the Christian Bible - such a useful religious tool is the well known yet seldom acknowledged fact that if you don't like or disagree with one statement or passage you can easily find another which is totally opposite to the first one. 1418. A contemplative man shouldn't marry in the first place, but if he does then (to reduce the damage) to a woman who is either not given to an idle chatter or, preferably, to the one who is mute. 1419. As a way of introduction to the poem below (and to remove some mystery from the process of poetry writing) let me say something about my reading habits. First - reading is unquestionably my favorite pastime. I would read rather than..., and you can put anything after and the statement will still be true. It is an addiction, let's face it. Second - my reading is desultory in the extreme. One day I read Kurt Vonnegut, the next - Plato. Then Sinclair Ross, then J.K. Galbraith. Portnoy's Complaints and Shock of the New, Bible and Main Kampf. And so on, and so forth. You've got the drift. Now, considering the fact that most of my working life I've been practicing civil engineering (with some sailoring, laboring, carpentering , etc., here and there), it is clear that there were absolutely no practical benefits accrued to me whatsoever from the thousands of books I've read during almost 60 years of my life. So, every once in a while (and the older I get the more often it happens) I ask myself: why am I doing it, and should I continue in this rather purposeless pursuit. For, as the saying goes : you can't take it with you. So, after such a prosaic introduction, read the poem below as my attempt to answer this question. The furnace of my mind I read whatever I can find in Library of The Mankind so multifarious and vast creation of the ages past under compulsion that I must burn it in the furnace of my mind And among ashes which remain in smithy of that restless brain lie scattered here and there my thoughts like lumps of iron to be wrought into a single mighty sword with which the dragons of deceit I slain 1420. In a less technologically advanced times putting up with your spouse character's "imperfections" would have almost guaranteed the peaceful coexistence. Nowadays, to achieve the same results, one also has to tolerate the "imperfections" of the ever increasing number of mechanical and electronic devices one's partner acquired. 1421. Considering the amount and the intensify of the nationalistic fervor the modern Olympic Games ( which were supposed to promote peace and brotherhood of mankind) engender, they could justifiably characterized, like diplomacy, as the continuation of war by other means. 1422. Why do some men who are so successful in arranging their own affairs, attested usually by the personal wealth and position, are often proven to be so appallingly inept when entrusted with the public ones. On the other hand, those who are considered to be failures in a worldly sense of the word, when , by some flick of fate, are given the opportunity to make a contribution in a civic field acquit themselves so well. One of the possible explanations of this paradox lies in difference between smart and intelligent people. The smart ones are very good at knowing what they want and how to get it. Their main, if not the only concern, is with their personal welfare. Devoting the necessary time and efforts to benefit others is simply against their nature. If and when they perform some social duties it is always to either enrich or glorify themselves, or both. The history is crowded by the rulers who, while building stupendous monuments to their vanity and fabulously enriching themselves, impoverished their subjects and ruined their countries. The modern CEOs who collect millions of dollars in compensation while their companies go down the drain are their direct descendants. The intelligent people, on the contrary, are so much preoccupied with the "bigger picture" and with the interests of their fellow man and the "fate of mankind" that they tend to neglect their own good. Moreover, they can't help but to act in this unselfish, altruistic manner. For this is as much in their nature, as it is in the nature of smart men to be selfish and egotistical. Which only proves again the point made two thousand years ago: "No man can serve two masters..." 1423. There is one casualty of the September 11 which is seldom if ever mentioned, i.e. the exercise of the foreign policy by sovereign states: history has not ended, but diplomacy has. For on that date the process of monopolization by the USA of international politics has been completed Of course, as if by inertia, the other countries of the world still go on through the motions of maintaining foreign affairs ministries employing the huge apparatus of foreign service. But they all became totally irrelevant. From now on everything is decided in Washington which, to use the economic terms, has attained, as far as international politics are concerned, a perfect monopoly, i.e. it dictates both the output and the price. The American have the most bucks and the most bombs, and they use both with equal determination. The choice is only between buying or bombing. And the choice is entirely theirs. The so-called "international coalitions" USA manufactures to pursue its geopolitical goals are nothing more than a face saving device for the other member-states. They learned quite well through the previous experience that any objections they may pose either to these goals or to the means of achieving them would be disregarded By the USA, which is prepared, as president Bush so bluntly proclaimed recently, to act , regardless of consent or objection by its "partners", alone. Following Louis XIV, the absolute king of France who declared to his subjects: "L'etat c'est moi", after the September 11 USA went several steps farther and announced to the world: "L'monde c'est moi !" 1424. How many more holocausts we must endure to be left alone, in peace? |
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