Mountain and Sea, Pt. 1

How is home? Everyone asks me that, as if I could explain, in a few words, the effects of those years of absence and the tangible reminders they bring of Time's erosion in my return. Or as if the ecstasy of coming home to where your spirit resides and grows in the love of those who matter most in the world to you, was so banal as to be expressed. I try to find words that describe how good it feels, how painful it is, and wish that you were here in my heart to experience it with me. But every joy is tinged with regret that it cannot be shared, and every pain is made sweet in its dedication to those who embody the purpose of my life and its meaning.

To all those I have come to care for so deeply in my new life beyond the sea, would that you could know, beyond what I could show, the depths of my life and self, the roots of my being. Those roots that are nourished in love and goodness, wholesomeness and earthiness, and that though you may stretch me twice around the globe, will never leave this land or this people.

And you the founders of my life and self in the land of the mountain and sea, would that you could know, beyond what I could show, the breadth of my life and self, the branches that grow outward and away, higher and wider, towards the light of humanity and awareness. Those branches, pruned and guided by the unerring hand of experience and openness, of friendship and the unifying quest for truth. Those branches that, though you may strip them bare, will blossom again, and though you tear them off, can only lead to my rebirth, if only from the barest seed.

I am unspeakably blessed, and yet cursed with having to make the choice between them, always, to favor one, while the other withers, moving between, as the race with time is set, before something snaps, and everything comes falling apart.

I come to see Siddhartha's metaphor of life as a river to be more and more accurate as time goes by, as things and people pass by, ever changing, yet stable and predictable. Thus, after two years of absence, I find my home; completely changed and yet still the same. My memories are shattered and scattered to the winds, mere relics as relevant to the present as leaves in the wind. And there is in my heart and mind a great unease at the pace with which it has all unravelled, at which the solid years of my existence, the bedrock of the secure familiar I have in this place and in my people, has worn away. The fear of death and decay, the worry of insecurity, instability, and the fragility of it all, is now sharp upon me. Not that I fear for myself, though I may sometimes. It is for those I love that I fear.

I have ever taken boundless joy in seeking out love and friendship from those who would welcome me into their hearts and lives, the wardens of my self, makers and mirrors of my soul. But with every one comes a new worry, and a burden upon my heart and an agony of shame and disappointment that I am powerless to give them all they should ever desire, to shield them from every harm, and lay the light of truth and happiness on them.

But the sharpening of this bitterness, sadness, and regret, is hardly noticeable, in the delight of renewal, and the fulfillment of connecting and reconnecting. And if there is complexity, and pain, and confusion, with regard to the people around me, with regard to their lives and their bonds with me, with each other, and with the All, then in me there is only serenity, gratefulness, and wonder when it comes to this land.

My greatest pleasure in my short time here, apart from my time with my family, has been exploring this blessed mountain range on the sea, historic refuge of the oppressed. More will come on that note, later. And I promise, next time, my entry will be much less esoteric, and will include details of all that I have spoken tonught, and also some fun (or not so fun) stories of my little adventure back in the homeland.

With that I bid you good night, be safe, and peace be upon you and yours.

Honors Thesis

So, my honors thesis is complete, and for those of you with any interest in what my life has been dedicated to for the past year and a half, here's the abstract of the 80pg monstrosity that I have birthed.

'Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.' -General Omar N. Bradley

'I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles but today it means getting along with people.'- Gandhi

'The great leader speaks little. He never speaks carelessly. When all is finished, the people say, “We did it ourselves.”'- Lao-Tzu

Although a prodigious amount of research exists on the topic of intergroup relations in conflict, the argument over the applicability of positive intergroup attitudes and the other ideals of principled nonviolent movements that foster them is not adequately addressed. The role of principled leadership in particular in conflict management and prevention has not been examined. An experimental design for an adaptable conflict simulation addressing this factor; the Leadership, Intergroup Attitudes, and Conflict Simulation (LIACS), was developed and tested. Results showed that two personality factors; Social Dominance Orientation and the extent of the circle of moral regard were correlated to increased positivity of groups' political actions. And despite there being no significant differences in intergroup bias and attitudes using the measures selected, the use of principled leadership rhetoric did significantly increase positivity in communication between groups in a conflict scenario, as well as decrease potential conflict escalation through the reduction of hostile actions.

Conversation

There was a conversation the other day that I thought was important to preserve. Here it is, for all you breathless followers of this electronic version of my random mind:

1: I feel inadequate

2: how are you inadequate now?

1: a - I'm ugly.

b - I work in vain.

2: a - your opinion of how you look doesn't matter, and the people who matter like how you look.
b - we're students, we haven't done work yet so how can you label it as vain already.

1: I just feel like I'm going nowhere. I've worked hard all my life and it's for nothing. the world is going to shit.

2: First off, why is it necessary to feel like you are going somewhere? there's nowhere more worthwhile than nowhere.
Second, you've worked hard because working hard is part of who you are, I hope, and not because you aim to achieve something.
And finally, the world is going to shit and there's nothing anyone can do about it. law of entropy: its gonna happen sooner or later.

1: I've been bleeding into entropy forever. Can't I just disappear already?

2: why? is there any more meaning or peace in chaos and nothingness? or is it cowardice that turns you away from that which tries you?

1: That's the thing: I never turn away. I bombard into it. That's suicidal and I don't like it.

2: Don't do it then. Live in apathy and fear.

1: No. Apathy is against my nature.

2: Live in pleasure and the present then, for there is nothing inherently better about the alternative.

Return

I have refrained from writing new posts to honor my grandfather's passing and to give my words to him their appropriate place at the top. Five weeks have now passed, and the world has moved on. I just want to thank those who expressed their condolences. You were precious few. God grant the rest of you the little consideration necessary to express your sympathy for your friends' losses.

A lot has happened in the interim, and I would I know satisfy those gossip-thirsty among you with many juicy tidbits, were I so inclined. Unfortunately, I think gossip is poison and hold it very much in disdain and contempt. Yes, I am being pretentious, but I am done being politically correct about my views. I will not abandon my humility, but I am a coward and a hypocrite if I do not express that which I believe is truth. And in the meantime, if anyone wants to call me out on my pretentiousness, if anyone can find in my actions or thoughts a hint of hypocrisy, by all means slap me in the face with it. I am done bringing myself down for others, I am done being 'one' of 'them', and I am done investing all I have in people. I have spent the semester chasing after that which I cannot have, and it has cost me dearly in honor, pride, time, and resources. More importantly, it has cost me my own sense of self-respect.

Recently, something happened that could potentially change much of this. But my own incompetence and pathetic desperation will work to ensure that the law of inertia remains intact. So now, I have only my return home to look forward to; my 5 weeks of heart-wrenching yearning and the inevitability of impermanence and the death of many things both physical and sociopsychological. The great experience of the banality of bureacracy, the fetid corruption of my nation, and the rotting of its breathtaking innocence by the touches of greed and consumerism. If only you knew what it was like, if only you knew so that when I spoke to you of this you did more than categorize what I say into neat little emotion/personality slots you have deemed appropriate for me after your judgment of who I am. And yes, you have judged and categorized and made assumptions about that. I at least will admit that I have and that I am aware of it, and that I try to revise them as often and as accurately as I can based on everything I ever experience in my interactions with you.

But for all of that, the love of those I love, my love of the land and its bounty, my love for my home and its grace and its truth; these are more than enough to make me anxious to leave already. God knows I have not loved anything or anyone, or been loved, in two years of this cold land. I am too nice, apparently. Or too lonely. Or too serious. Or too unattractive. Or too intimidating. Or too opinionated. Or too different. Or too conforming. Or expect too much. All these (and there are many more) are real things that have been said to me. Or have been implied, when the culprit was not an individual but a larger entity such as a group or the community or even this whole culture. And the question then is, if so many qualifications and conditions are set upon one by the people of this society just for simple, honest, true caring, is that caring even worth seeking out, is it worth anything, is it even real? Love is most beautiful when unconditional, unreasoning, and instinctive. But what do you do when the real thing is not around? You look for the closest alternative, obviously, because there is nothing worse than having nothing at all. But what if you give all you have, and fail at finding even the crudest semblances, the faintest of shades? What does that say about you as a person?

My Grandfather

My grandfather, my jiddo - an agent of the Light if ever there was one. Pious and courageous in his faith, he lived a full life, and faced his death with grace. In his mighty spirit he held all that is good and pure in our culture, and all that is worthy in men everywhere. He spoke only truth, and gave of himself without thought or desire soiled by self. In joy, he upheld the respect of all those he knew, and shined at them with fellowship and amity. He held himself with dignity, and yet was not too proud, and dealt with all fairly and in good faith and spirit. Gentle as ever a man was, and humble, and virtuous in all his conduct and thought, he wrought only the good, the ever noble, in thought and deed. In his patience and self-discipline, he inspired us to be more, to move beyond desire, beyond self. A gentleman through and through, refined and cordial, he was more princely than any prince, despite - no - because of, his suffering, his toil, and his humble means. In his heart was love of life, family, friends, community and country, and his duty to them was no duty, but instinct, as natural and as certain as the passing of Time. Like a crystal his love caught and concentrated his every virtue and beamed it out at all those around him, so that we were made better for it, for him.

Time has taken him from us, ripped from him the garment of his body, and set him elsewhere. And though his passing may be the blessing of others, with his spirit in new raiment, pristine white, or enjoined and whole with the Universe once more, our loss is hard to bear, in a world where so few remain with his wisdom, his honor, his soul, brave and true in its gentleness, unshakeable in endurance and integrity, mighty in love and character. It is my only hope that I may aspire to find him still in my life, and to found him in others', to preserve and elevate his essence in all that I do. All that is left to me is to fight for that cause, and pray that I achieve but a fraction of the purity and humanity that characterized my grandfather, in my worshipful eyes. God bless and protect his soul, and keep those he loved from harm, and give to us the strength to ensure that his self and what it stood for, his memory on this earth, never wanes.

I pray, Grandfather, that Gibran, that great mentor to whose wisdom I owe my being, and whose acquaintance I owe to you, spoke true:

What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

But regardless of whither your grace has landed, jiddo, (and I know it is a good place and bettered by you), I swear, in your name and in God's, in my life I shall not cease; I will rage, rage against the dying of the light!

Music

I learned oud, or lute, for 3 years. Even though I gave up in exasperation and despair of ever being this good, I find that I miss it now. I wish I could create beauty, joy, or goodness by virtue of a talent, or knowledge, or skill. Would that I could flood the world with the reservoir that is my soul. But I have been given no tap, and that which I strive to fashion for the moment in every moment is ever rusted, blocked, a crude and pathetic attempt at elevation above the mundane, at becoming more than a consumer of the efforts of other beings and things.

Later

Tonight I have no urge to do anything. I just want to put everything off until later. If I could, I would put all of life on pause. Since I am deprived of that particular talent, I have to settle for being 'unhealthily' good at procrastination. I don't know why my severe lack of motivation is worse these days, but I do know the weather is not helping. I went down to the Cape for a night, and it was so beautiful I did not know what to do with myself coming back. There were so many stars I could not be sure of Orion's lines. And, there was family. The closest to family that I have away from my family. They are in mourning, as am I. He was a fine man, and always kind and generous to me. I will miss him.

It is important to know want, to become a truly mature and responsible human. And not just know the fleeting desire and the shallow, in the ignorance of youth, but true need biting felt at the height of awareness and intellectual capacity. At the same time, while it is an essential developmental milestone, I believe that its extended presence hinders growth and creative potential. A system that employs techniques whereby need is incorporated into learning could be quite powerful, especially if combined with Socratic disturbance. Educational systems are key to the natures of people and their societies. Theoretical exploration followed up with trial implementation of experimental methods needs to be encouraged a lot more than has been done in any of today's societies. I hope to do some of this work myself...later.

I've been thinking a lot lately about pressure, and the strangeness of that construct, and the incredible variation that exists in people's interactions with it. Stephen King mentions it significantly in his The Langoliers. Maybe I'll come back to it.

As hard as we try to distance ourselves from our origins, parade our transcendence above the physical, the sensory, and the bestial, we cannot but fail. We are cruelly, inexorably linked in reason, emotion, and behavior to our physical state and all material influences upon it. Free will exists, and is a powerful driver of human history and civilization, but in most of our everyday lives, for most of the everyday people, it is but a mirage. Would that knowledge be upsetting? Should it be? What is our need for control, and where does it come from? Is it pride, or is it fear? A sense of and need for agency are built into us neurologically, and I find that fascinating, because there can be no human without it, and yet some are able to recognize that it is often false. Just one more example as to how people are not and cannot be equal, either in their rights or their responsibilities. Controversial, I know. I guess I'll try to address that particular issue in the future as well.

If there is time. Think about that. You do not have the time to do all you wish, to discover all you do not know, to answer every question and fulfill every need, to pass through every experience, sense every sensation, feel every emotion, and think every thought that you ought to. What does that do to your morale? Because mine's not happy about it.