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Who are you?
"Hi. I'm Jim, and I used to kill people for a living." That's what Jim would say sometimes when I would introduce him to friends of mine.
That's how he defined himself at the moment. So he said it.
What about you?
Hi, I'm John, and I'm an optimist.
Hi, I'm Linda, and I'm depressed.
Hi, I'm Tom, and I am really self-confident.
Hi, I'm Martina, and I was abused as a child.
Hi, I'm Allie, and I'm really mixed up about morality.
Hi, I'm Scott, and I'm an addict.
--Hi Scott, hello Scott, hi Scott, as it goes around the circle. That last one really happens, just like Jim really happened.
But some people exude what they are, in their own self-perception, without saying it out loud. And it's just as obvious.
So what do you do? Work on what your definition is. Work on what your self-perception is. Work on what your dialogue is when you meet people.
You can be in charge of what you are. You make your etre-pour-soi as well as your etre-pour-autrui.

With whistle and steam the train came alive, lurched, and began moving away from Paris, from the Gare de l’Est, away from the crowds and noise and bustle and fear and rush and smoke and anomie of October 1918. Soon it would be trudging through fields and mists and rain and trees and farms and steeples of Aube, or Champagne, taking everybody home. All the strangers going home.

The train grew stronger, surging out of the city, and the speed increased the clicking of the wheels and swaying of the cars. Guy was not content with his bench or the compartment or the people in it, and got up slowly, painfully, and grabbed his sack from overhead, and slid the door open, as they all watched, and went out into the corridor. There was a window down, and the chill wind was flowing in, filled with the smell of the train smoke, but with a hint of hay now and then. Further ahead another window was open and a man was smoking, and blowing the smoke out the window into the mist and fumes rushing by. The tobacco smoke came in the window in front of Guy in tiny wafts. He stood there for a minute or two, and moved down the corridor, going towards the back of the train, looking into the compartments further along.

There was one, with only three people. He slid the door open, nodded his head, with “M’sieur, —dames.” An old couple nodded, and watched, as he put his sack up above his head and sat down on the bench where there was only one person, across from the bench where there were two. He looked at them. They looked at him. The two persons across from him were an withered like apples on the ground, dressed all in black. The old woman looked weary, and wore the wrinkles of sadness around her eyes. There was no more light in her eyes. She looked at him as though he were some old photograph, squinting at him, sighing. The old man looked back out the window, and shut his eyes. Between them was a sack of clothing, but well could have been the sack they carried potatoes in from the shed to the house.

The person on the bench with him, next to the window, who had not looked at him when he came in and put his sack up above his head, was a young woman dressed against the chill, with a large hat, black plumes, lace, and a shawl; and it was hard to see what she looked like. Guy sat, straight, then slumped and slid towards the edge of the seat, and put his legs out straight, careful not to be anywhere near the legs across from him. The old woman pulled her legs closer to the bench anyway.

The train made its clacking and creaking noises, and swayed just a little, and Guy dozed off. When he awoke, rain was streaking the window, and it seemed almost twilight because of the grey skies roiling so close to the trees and the rain dragging the light down into the ground with it. As he opened his eyes he realized his head had fallen to his right, and he was staring out the window; but in the corner of his eye he saw the young woman looking intently at him. As soon as he opened his eyes, though, she turned away. ‘She has been watching me as I slept,’ he thought, and wondered if he had done anything while asleep to worry about. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he said things.

In that brief glimpse, he saw her eyes. Now he closed his eyes again and tried to recapture her eyes in the moment before she turned away. They were beautiful. He tried to remember them. They were enchanting. He opened his eyes again, and she was looking at him again. Yes, her eyes were astoundingly beautiful. And now he could see her face, round, surrounded by plumes and shawl and hat and hair. She was beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman Guy had ever seen in all his twenty years. She offered a hint of a smile, as a sort of ‘hello,’ and then turned toward the window again.

Guy stared, and as he stared out the window into the grey rain and countryside, he could sometimes see her reflection, as something very dark would pass by outside making a mirror effect. He stared without worrying about anyone saying something about how rude it is to stare. He didn’t care. There were so many things now that he didn’t care about. And more people stared at him now than he had ever stared at in all his life. He stared at the young woman’s cloak, and shawl, and hat, and hat pin, and dress, and little purse, and gloved hands, petite.

His neck hurt, so he turned back straight and unbuttoned the top button of his uniform. He looked down at his puttees, with his legs stretched straight out again, and quickly put his left ankle over his right ankle, covering a stain that had not come out with washing. Washing and washing.

His head drooped, and before his chin touched his chest he was asleep again. So tired. So tired. He slept long and deep.

He dreamed. He dreamed of this and that, things that made sense and things that might have made sense. He dreamed of the pleasant feel of a woman’s skin, a woman’s hand touching his. It was such a warm dream.

He awoke, but didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t move. No one knew he was awake now. But he was awake, and yet he was still feeling that beautiful feeling of the warmth of a woman’s hand on his hand. On his right hand. Was he awake? Yes, he was awake. He felt the train. He heard the train. And he felt a hand on his right hand, and it moved ever so slightly, moving on his hand to cover his hand better. He did not move. He dared not move. He didn’t open his eyes. The young woman had her hand, without her glove, on his hand. She squeezed his hand so very gently. He did not move.

“Pauvre enfant,” he heard the old woman across from him say in a whisper, with some missing teeth.

The young woman’s hand was warm, and tighter now. He opened his eyes. He saw her hand. He felt her hand. He slowly turned to her, not moving anything but his head and his eyes. He looked into her eyes. She smiled, and squeezed his hand.

It had grown darker outside, and the rain was still streaking across the window of the train, jostling through the fields and forests, heading home.

Who was she? Why was she doing this? He dared not speak for fear of breaking the spell. She still clung to his hand, and smiled, a bit of a sad smile, really. He looked at her. She was so beautiful. He looked at the window behind her, and saw his reflection. ‘How could she be holding my hand?’ he thought. ‘Look at me. Inhuman. Ghastly. Half a face. A gruesome wreck of what used to be me. How can she look at me, and hold my hand?’

But she did. He felt the warmth of her soft hand. He felt her skin, her care, her kindness. It was such a comfort. He didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes again; but did not sleep.

We folded our pain

Into origami frogs

And tried to laugh

When they wouldn’t jump

Poem? Or not? It was meant to be a poem. Does it work? Poe's criterion, "the rhythmical creation of beauty" is the supreme test. Does this pass? He didn't say rhyme, but never wrote anything that didn't. And is rhyme necessary? Yes. Unless... and so is this one of those "unless" times?

atapaxis

Ἀταραξία

Ataraxia

Aaaaahhhhhhh……!!!!! Easy does it. Thass it. Ooohhhh yeah. No worries. Hmmm? Whass that? Naahhh, not to worry.

物 の 哀 れ

mono no aware

"the pathos of things"

There are things easily said in one language that may take a page to say in another. Winter turns to spring, and there is the symbolism of hope, of renewal, of life, of fertility, of continuation.

物 の 哀 れ is Japanese, and sounds like , mono no aware and means "the pathos of things"… The Japanese talk about this at hanami, when they go to the best place to see the sakura, the cherry blossoms.

Cherry blossoms fall from their delicate cling to the center of the blossom, the part that is clinging to the branch, that is the dark and twisting lifeline to the blossoms. Then for some reason, at some time, they fall, like snowflakes, or like time, they fall at 5 cm / sec. … and Japanese go to places where there are hundreds or even thousands of cherry trees loaded with blossoms, and they have a festival all about it, hanami, going to look at the blossoms.

Why talk about mono no aware at hanami? Hanami is looking at the blossoms, but also eating some green tea ice cream and throwing back a few cups of sake, or just a normal party with chips and Coke, and it’s a party; but mono no aware is quite philosophical, even bearing a tinge of Zen sadness if you think about it. The pathos of things, meaning the suffering of things, or more for us the empathy for things, is really a rumination on the transitoriness of things, such as cherry blossoms, that last but a few days. As St James says, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, then vanisheth away. Like the cherry blossoms, we will live for a little time on this earth, and then drop. Or like the cherry blossoms, a lifelong friendship may just cease clinging to the branch, and fall. Or a passion held between two hearts, like the sakura, will fall, at 5 cm / sec and be gone. Gone.

The only thing that can capture the blossom forever is art.

Nobody is more sincere than a dupe.

What does it take to be a dupe? Stupidity? Maybe a little; but sometimes a dupe is quite intelligent in one arena, while being very gullible in another. I think a true dupe is really quite sincere. The true dupe is a believer, but a quickly converted believer, who doesn’t need much evidence. Or maybe they need evidence, just enough, and if the evidence is convincing because they are already predisposed towards that idea, then they go for it.

The worst dupes of all are the dupes of political factions. The dupes in the ‘between-the-wars’ period who were enamored of Hitler and his ideas on a better Germany—especially Brits and Americans who supported him and defended him, were monumentally wrong. But even worse than those dupes were the thousands or millions of people living in the free world—remember that phrase? –we don’t use it any more—too bad—it’s still true—who were the dupes of the commies. I knew them. I went to college with them. I taught college with them. Americans, well-to-do Americans with PhDs in history or sociology or political science, or botany, or English lit, living a comfy life, the life of academe, sheltered and perverted as it was, turning their hearts to murderous commie ideologues and regimes. Standing up for them and condemning us. “The USSR has never been an aggressor nation,” she told her history classes semester after semester. What a wicked woman she was. And what I mean is, she was wicked to say that. I also mean, she was committing some hidden wicked little sin, like adultery, that makes people more prone to becoming the dupes of evil empires and ideas.

In fact the worst dupes of all are those who stand up for the ideas and policies of Beelzebub. They defend abortion, and want ZPG (zero population growth) and would kill off millions by starvation to save a patch of nice green forest somewhere. Like Stalin killed his forty million in the Ukraine, the likes of Al Gore want to do the same today in the name of saving the planet. Of course, hypocrisy must have something to do with being a dupe. But that’s another issue.

You who sit in silence

Who cannot slice your words

Who wince at joy and hide

Black crumbs of hurt inside

Who moan the dingy portents

Who sing the mournful lay

Who cry white cotton tears for

Knights to turn your way

To slay the vine that holds you

To free your shrunken heart

To make the scales fall from your eyes

To take the wind out of your sighs

To prime the hope of some new start

To pick the best of morning dew

To straighten up the frame

Someone to call your name

Get up and go do something. Shake it off. At least go outside for a few minutes. But if you want to change things, go out there and help somebody else. Too many people sit and dream about things, fueled by watching movies and TV—I wish I could say by reading books, but you’re too lazy for that. Reading takes moving your eyes across the lines, down to the next line, over to the end, back and down, over, back and down; but more than that it takes a mental exercise that watching TV doesn’t. TV watching you just stare at the strike zone, and you don’t have to process words into visuals in your imagination. No o- o- . That would be effort. Don’t want to do that.

So break away. Snap the flimsy cords that bind you down to inactivity, and get up. At least go outside. But more than that, go help somebody. I mean, it just infuriates me. You know?