Endangered Species
How can something as silly as elegance survive a
million years amid sheer hostility?
These kinds of enigmas began haunting the Vandal psyche in a deep past,
when the first men turned into Vandals, thanks to what existence
was doing to them, in fact. They couldn't help it: Nature was
serving it to them every
day, they had to fight the Elements, or
perish. This was a corps-a-corps, all right, no
blows held back, no quarters spared.
Vandalism grew out of a reaction to the
harsh conditions in prehistoric times—but especially,
because not everyone in the tribe was having it as
hard.
Those who were struggling without a break
became resentful. After another time, the minds were made up:
there was an internal rebellion, and they split from the group,
no longer able to sustain a daily parade of injustice. They did
try hard to coexist, and then coerce the other members into
experiencing life at their own level of suffering. But the
happier fellows weren't losing their ability to be happy, no
matter what. Then, the unhappy ones left the community. This was
well over a million years ago. And the same happened wherever
there were people in a group. Vandals have different names
according as location of initial tribe. We historically think of
them as Asian Herds who made a mess of things everywhere they
passed, on their way to Europe; they also integrated there as
other Barbaric Tribes did, eventually becoming lords.
Survival is an option...
Any creature
runs a serious risk of disappearing, if it keeps betting on the power to
prevail by its own strength, instead of frequently checking its
selective capacity.
Self-Preservation Theorems
Survival only selects options!
Survival consists in selecting options.
Selectivity often bothers itself with desirable outcomes, and nothing
less.
Optional Thinking: a course of action taken with a specific outcome in view.
When the outcome isn't clear, as such, options are selected by a
system of personal preferences [likes & dislikes]. This is
something that one does in a way, after envisaging all the other
ways of going about it, to the extent of one's knowledge.
The Elixir of Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is a key to fixing all sorts
of problems; we are universally trained
to think of it in this light, and take it as a magic potion.
However one says it, self-confidence
is a key. This educational criterion is
socially distributed regardless of creed, culture or status.
Trendier venues warn their habitués: If your self-esteem is low, fix it—for, you can't
fix anything without it.
Take this belief away: what is left? Who
wouldn't feel as though the carpet had slid from under their
feet?—a bully would, a grotesque villain; not only the good
and loving people would.
The 4 MUSTS
Self-confidence, self-worth, self-image,
self-esteem.
These 4 items are now generally used as one.
What matters is to be able to do any one of them. The order is
irrelevant, since they all mean the same thing: if you have one,
you have the other 3. There is a variant belief: All is possible, if you own the set, of course,
though 1 out of 4 will take you a long way!
These acclaimed precepts do not
constitute the beginning of a second thought, wherever one spends
the day.
Insinuation to the effect that one is nothing
or a nobody without them seemingly requires no further
questioning. Yet, revolutions often spark up over a lot less.
Unfortunately for both coaches and trainees these socially
acceptable slogans & practices are apt to turn something good
into a first-class psychic burden:
OBSESSIVE concern over self-significance leads to psychological
mortification.
The more eagerly one strives for self-worth, the more convinced
one grows of not owning any.
In other words, affirmation has another side to it. As I keep
repeating to myself, You can do it,
you can do it, I am only confirming to
myself that I can't do it!
Here, the driving-force is actually a war waged against one's self-acknowledged limitation.
This procedure uses up energy, which amounts
to whole seconds, in terms of Athletics. And fractions of seconds
are what most sports depend on...
If one is certain of not having any self-confidence, thinking of
getting some may be a negative process—or negated at the
outset. A better thing to tell oneself might be:
This thing I need is already
there—I must find a way to bring it out!
First, don't look at it as an external object.
PHAEDRA on The 4 Musts:
Confiding is a mark of trust
Trusting someone also shows esteem
Worth is what one values
As to self-image, what one values generally reflects upon
oneself.
Confidence & Self-confidence
From the Latin: With faith in oneself
One may use the word confidence by itself.
A lion is a symbol of confidence.
A hero is confident. In remembering
Ancient Combatants, say confidence, not
self-confident—which would be taking elegiac latitudes. It
can even be offensive.
Self-concession is internal
hazard
Self-concession is hazard enough as is,
without adding that of neurotic self-confessions at
random.
Confession does lighten up one's burden, brightens up one's
day—it also makes one free, it gives life, by giving it
back, and etc. And so is the power of confession universally
acknowledged at all walks, including at street-level,
where letting it all out
became the war-cry of modern times. Nor would
any emancipation have taken place without this expression of
soul. Indeed, letting it all
out is a way of going into the Holy of
Holies, without going to church. Yet, self-confession can be a shortcut for becoming
spiritually irreverent, even if one
didn't mean it.
A [Christian] priest does not judge good or bad, he merely hears
out what is to be heard in confessional sanctity, then puts the
matter before God [through Jesus, in this instance.] He may
absolve sin, insofar as he has been
invested with the means of performing
such transaction. He may also cast out or banish noxious
thought-forms, on this same basis, but would no more judge a
person's behaviour or ideas than think of saying the Lord's
Prayer on top of a Minaret during the yearly Pilgrimage at
Mecca... Not that there ever is time for criticism in the heat of
the action, for nothing is more complex than confessing someone.
Basically, a sin may be absolved but no man or saint
may dissolve it. Dissolution of Sin
is a technique the Supreme Being has kept to
Himself, while having made everything else available to us and
thinking beings in all other worlds... This is what the
famous Tree of Good &
Evil stands for in Eden:
we can do all we like, good or very
bad, but we may not deal with the consequences of our deeds or
misdeeds, or propose ultimate judgment on the significance of our
own acts—because it takes a kind of perception the Divine
alone is capable of sustaining. The latest Cyborg-Prototype would
melt, just thinking about it...
Frankenstein in the
Streets...
Self-confession often is a shortcut to
irreverence, because it is all too easy to forget what we are
made of, and subsequently run a risk of assuming divine
stance...
All pathology may be a variation on this
theme.
Here is an explanation for the countless
fanatical episodes in each era:
He is a fool who unwittingly assumes
a divine stance. Such a cretin will turn into a psychopath,
overnight—unless, of course, he realises that he had been
in a state of Grace since birth, as we all are. Failing to
acknowledge this fact, the maniac eventually becomes a fanatic,
which is to say, one who works to undo life, to give it another
shape.
Anyone who knows of terrorism only through
the Media may be excused for thinking that it started a few
decades ago with Carlos, The
Jackal, reaching its apotheosis in
Manhattan, courtesy of some Arab
fanatics belonging to a large network of Arabs, whose forefathers
invented terrorism and also cretinism in the Middle
East!...
These views are so bruised, one could hardly
walk on the jetty in a mild breeze without falling into the
water...
Nor is it especially recommendable to hold
on to such a standpoint for another decade, for safety's
sake.
Discrimination—a sorting out of issues in context—is where
security begins and succeeds or fails. Security-measures cannot fail when targeted on relevance.
Whereas tightening the system becomes a
nightmare: first, all sharp items are confiscated at the
airport— but what if a couple of obnubilated fellows
hijacked a plane by threatening the crew with spoons & forks,
which can be just as lethal? Next thing you know, you can only
eat liquid food with a straw during a flight.
It is not possible to use
preventive-measures on a basis of withdrawing potentially lethal
items, because anything at all may be turned into a
weapon: a newspaper can be used to
deliver a deadly strike, or
derail a train.
The Pinocchio-Syndrome...
The list is endless, and it would be wishful
thinking to suppose that terror-operatives were trained to make
trouble with guns, sharp objects & explosives, only! Hence,
confiscating items, tools & appliances only serves to
paralyse life & commerce. Why not squarely impose
Stalinism, to be
safer? You can't go to the movies, as this could give some
deranged individuals bad ideas—or you could go to an
afternoon session, once a week, but only to see the same
picture. Pinocchio, perhaps... And even that might be considered a
threat to the state. Why? Because, Pinocchio goes out wandering,
to seek out his life... Any despot knows that he has little time
left in power, when his people begin
to be moved by some simple casual curiosity as to what existence
might be, out of a wooden shell.
Terror strikes away from its
nest...
Tightening the security-bolts at large may
also invite pockets of terror to proliferate elsewhere. Usually
under one's nose. The same applies to most types of offenders.
One is not born a bandit, one must acquire proficiency in these
obscure arts. Recruits &
converts would spend a time in
kindergarten, then be moved to a training-camp. Even Nemesis needs
nurturing, first of all. And when it is ready to strike chances
are it would cause havoc anywhere, but where it has nested. What
appears to be a random execution of civilians must be able to be
reduced to an equation. The terms would be motive & purpose to be acted upon at a certain point
in time, in a location that could be anywhere. But the area of
impact must be at a variable distance from the point of origin.
When it strikes near its nest, it must be weakened internally.
When it strikes very far from its nest, it must do that in haste,
to prevent breakdown in its own systems.
Difference between a volcanic eruption and a
terror-strike:
A volcano is where it is; it strikes in its own time but always
in the same general region.
Terror strikes all over the place, because it has no home, it
only remembers having grown up somewhere.
If Nemesis had a home, what on earth
would be left for it to reclaim?
Has it been robbed of its home?—is that possible at
all?
History has had to put up with millions of
turbulent monomaniacs. In most cases, these begin a career in
social hallucination by destroying certain things, then the lot,
convinced of doing everyone a service.
There is no way of assessing terrorism outside history.
Posterity is impartial, because it cannot
afford casual aberration in language.
There has been so much terror in a thousand
years past, adding up all bombings since 2000 hardly reveals
anything new to the sin of
crime. What could one call the events
leading to the French Revolution, but pure terror? If the
Inquisition wasn't a living terror, what was it? Likewise,
Religious Wars, now with a Massacre of Catholics, then of
Protestants; Genocide in Poland, Congo, Burundi, Cambodia,
Bosnia—to name a few.
Mass-murder is as bad as it gets, but not
calling it terror will not buy more safety. Because Charlie is
out there spreading it under a different name.
This makes it all the more dangerous a
predicament, considering that global rogues may now juggle with
technical options, whereas earlier neurotics were so content
after another kill, they could have reached the 27th century on
horseback!... Then, it is high time to re-look at the picture,
bearing in mind that technology
specialises in making things smaller—and our world has become more portable; but so has
crime.
Fanatics have been a terror to everyone
since remote Antiquity. But these
dipsomaniacs are found at the heart of major religious
institutions, as well as in a jungle without culture, where
dancing around a head stuck on a pole represents the highest
moment in a tribal agenda for the month... If Cannibals aren't terrorists,
what are they? Starved or ferocious, animals won't go near
them!
Important:
1) Religious
zealots, atheists or iconoclasts
all are equally driven by a belief in a kind
of paradise especially made for them.
2) They
secure a place in it as they prove worthy of that
glory—which they acknowledge to be greater than
any earthly status.
Head-Hunters, or jungle-terrorists, have no interest in material power
or worldly solace—because they don't live here. Existence
is despicable to them; why should they respect life?
3) Whatever shape it takes, terrorism or fanaticism only
exists because of a metaphysical belief in a higher life.
Tyrants, bomb-throwers, stranglers or dictators live in hope of
gaining entry into this select Valhalla. However, no one in this
business expects free-access, prior to having undergone a modicum
of cleansing. A human being is capable of abomination but will
not pass away without some form of atonement or other.
Self-purification is the foundation of this whole metaphysical
edifice—and this is achieved most directly through
confession! No one is unaware of sin. Only the meaning of it
varies—and then, so does the method of
atonement.
A rudimentary savage prepares for the
After-Life by gathering so many lion-claws in a string, or
putting up a collection of heads around the village... Delirious
church-attendants would go after witches, instead.
Apart from occasionally enjoying the sight & sound of
torture, these sadistic Inquisitors believed that the more odious
the punishment they handed out, the better for their own
soul:
3 more heretics expired on the rack
today, 15 are still agonizing—I should be nearer God by
week's end, at this rate!...
Chief Executives for the Nazi Program were
likewise convinced of having been cleansed, and confessed, for
taking another 8,000 people away from the world:
This is doing everyone a big
favour!... But, now, tell me—how many did we do this month,
all combined!... 143,000? Hmm, we could do a little better;
still, in a year we may almost without a sin in us—even at
that slow pace!...
Here again, a group of visitors from another
planet would spend a time with us, learning our ways, our
History. What do they think as they watch a documentary on the
Nazi period?...
Reportages From Afar
TITLE: Stupidity versus Atrocity
Reporters: Sophie, Jack &
Louise
SOPHIE
You seem perplexed, rather than horrified; am
I right?
XYLO [one
of 2 visitors—many more being guests elsewhere]
We don't have this, where we come from...
SOPHIE
A world of human people, and no
atrocity?...
XYLO
We have them, too. But...
JACK
Not as bad, hey?
XYLO
Maybe not quite the same type—but I
don't mean that. It's, it's how you call it! We don't refer to
our atrocities as horrible, and leave it at that, you see, once
we know where it has happened and who was involved, the whole
population becomes one voice, pointing a finger at the
perpetrators. These are dismissed to indefinite oblivion, for
having been so vividly stupid—not because they were
atrocious! To us, a monster measures the extent of idiocy. Crime
& cruelty stem from that.
|
 Club version sample
More Strategies links:
Psychological Impact of Economic Depression
Logistics of Economic Values
Ways of
Fighting
Multicultural
Warfare |
