barefoot

Greetings,

early dawn streaks orange skies. two barefoot mendicants are walking down the cambodian broken dirt road. one looks well fed. he wears simple tattered white cotton clothing. a red and white checkered kroma scarf is knotted around his head. 

he carries their possessions in three white rice bags on a simple bamboo pole balanced on his shoulder. he is followed on the dirt trail by his friend, a tall gaunt man. they are talking.

man #1. these bags are heavy. i am tired of carrying them. you carry them. 

he drops the bags and stick on the ground. they crash on the dirt. startled birds leave leaves. a river changes direction. he walks over to a large cistern filled with water. he splashes his face. he drinks deep. 

his friend stoops over, adjusts bamboo through twine and hoists the stick and bags onto his shoulder.

man #2. where are we going?

man #1 (muttering to his feet in red dust) down this road.

Metta.

 

gateless Gate

Greetings,

I love the new gate at our Beijing community of Chinese migrants. It keeps us in and the rich people out.

It's clean, efficient and durable. It's really fancy. I imagine it cost someone in the Housing Community Control big money. Local officials call it "sealed management." 

''Closing up the village benefits everyone,'' read one banner put up when the first, permanent gated village was introduced in April.

Metta.

NYT
 

 

Conditioning

 Greetings,

Welcome to the world of subtle pervasive conditioning. It's a bRave New World baby.

Happiness is all. Civilization is sterilization. 

Metta.

"And always, everywhere, there would be the yelling or quietly authoritative hypnotists; and in the train of the ruling suggestion givers, always everywhere, the tribes of buffoons and hucksters, the professional liars, the purveyors of entertaining irrelevances.

"Conditioned from the cradle, unceasingly distracted, mesmerized systematically, their uniformed victims would go on obediently marching and countermarching, go on, always and everywhere, killing and dying with the perfect docility of trained poodles.

And yet in spite of the entirely justified refusal to take yes for an answer, the fact remained and would remain always, remain everywhere -- the fact that there was this capacity even in a paranoiac for intelligence, even in a devil worshipper for love; the fact that the ground of all being could be totally manifest in a flowering shrub, a human face; the fact that there was a light and that this light was also compassion"

"History is the record of what human beings have been impelled to do by their ignorance and the enormous bumptiousness that makes them canonize their ignorance as a political or religious dogma."

-Island by Aldous Huxley

June's blues

Greetings,

June is leaving. June was so beautiful, soft and kind with temperamental tears. She walked through red dust back to the slum inside the smell of burning rubbish looking for her mama. Her poor heart skipped a beat. Nothing but June blues, living in the space between sharp currency notes, between strangers.

June sleeps with her sisters in a village. Danish soldiers showed up after dark. They were on a serious international peace keeping mission. They were hungry animals wanting real serious action.

Mr. Lonely Denmark found an attractive one playing in his fantasy who was super aggressive. His instinct said no. She’s crazy. A tall thin demure soft one sat down, eating fruit. Great angelic face. She worked for her “mama.” We're short of time, ask mama how much for a few hours, he said to his translator. $50.

Ask her if she wants to escape, said LD. Yes, she said, skipping away to change. The angry one thought it’d be her. She spat angry words and gestures. The fury of a woman scorned. 

LD paid mama and they left. They ate fish, vegetables, rice and went to bed. LD was the fish. Normally her customers were short jobs so he helped her slow down. Take your time. She was flat and flat on her passive back. No hurry, sweet thing, said LD. She had an extensive vocabulary. Boom-boom?

LD needed to get back to his unit. June accepted his unit on a short term lease arrangement. Always on, always connected in her passive universe. All for mama, loving the Danish and doing her best for international relations. Heat and serve. Ready to eat.

Don't you just LOVE the smell of Rubbish in the morning? Yes, you do.

Metta.

Laughter fears sex

Greetings,

It is 9.11 in the morning. Only numbers. Do the math. You attach your personal meaning to 9.11.

Another lousy day in Asian paradise. I work for the Fun Police. The reality is I am surrounded by idiots. The idiots are the foreigners. They live on death row.

The local people remain traumatized by their history of genocide. It will take another generation to see clearly. Disconnected. Unfocused, easily distracted. Watching other people make things happen with dead eyes. 

I said this once to a couple of native teachers in Asia Minor. They may have thought it was: Rude. Impolite. Scary. True. A reality to be avoided like H1N1. They didn't feel comfortable facing this UNpleasant Fact. I love facing unpleasant facts because these facts are great lessons in humility, honesty, compassion and foolishness. 

Human intelligence on Earth is a rumor.

Daily survival business is nothing but wear and tear on people.

Children, adolescents and adults are rounded up and taken in for questioning. The SYSTEM is well designed for these interrogations.

RUBBISH! screams a 25-year old English woman coddling her disturbed, distraught English boyfriend. She is his secret mother. He doesn't know or realize this fact. 

They've created their own personal fiefdom. It's like an NGO. They get the money and create jobs, opportunities for people with disabilities, empowering people with dignity and respect and value.

He is afraid of intimate emotional sex. In fact, he's so afraid of sex he changes the subject, avoids her sharp piercing eyes inside the swirling chaos of her rusty loudspeaker. She pushes her voice down the broken street yelling RUBBISH! RUBBISH!

This highly intelligent and slightly evolved life form expression is all. Everything clear and direct. When you love RUBBISH setting fire to human lives is easy. She is afraid of emotion truth and authenticity. Their life is one deep black hole. They have so much in common, like a mutual fear of sex. They need more practice.

Do you want an example of my recent practice? he asked her while cramming eggs into an orifice. If you must, she whispered, but hurry up, I'm late for work, work, work. I'll be brief, he said. 

She reclined inside the blue hammock on the porch as twilight filtered through leaves of time. Shadows danced in her 24 childlike freedom. He gestured they go in. He explored her neck, lips, ears. She didn’t like kissing. Kissing in her culture was the ultimate sign of intimacy. He roamed small hills with his tongue down to valleys. 

She gave him her passport to heaven and he slaked his thirst with her essence. She was more relaxed and passionate. They were familiar with each other’s bodies. Her boom-boom demands were muted. The vocabulary of touch. Sleeping, her face was a calm Apsara dancer, refined elegance, soft cheeks, brown glow.

He walked her through the morning garden down to a moto, smelled her long neck, tipped her bye-bye. She returned to the slums waiting for night. Waiting for strangers. 

His flame grilled girlfriend started screaming, RUBBISH! RUBBISH!

Calm down baby, he said. Give a person a match and they'll be warm for a minute.

Set them on fire and they'll be warm for the rest of their life, she said. I am the mother of all RUBBISH!

Take them in for questioning. Get the answers. 

What's the next question?

Metta.