ritual disembowelment, as a form of chosen death in a brief life of 30 to 100 years, with a perfectly sharp sword made for this purpose of violence, is not ever done for others; or for some human or godly cause.
it is the planned, accurate, effective and worthy way to end ourselves, simply because we mean too much in our time for the time to bear. Time is limited, as is its burden.
this death must be more painful than anything in our worst life experience to have meaning.
this noble death is the gift of ourself to ourself at the end we choose for ourself.
this death is not taking pills, or using a gun, or jumping out, or driving some car into a wall.
the death we choose must be more thoughtful and purposeful than the life.
it has nothing to do with cause and effect and it has nothing to do with others and nothing to do with disease at all.
it is our own honour we sacrifice to our own knife in our own hand in our own time for our own purpose.
in this way only can we understand the meaning of our own death for ourself before we dont exist.
there is nothing that is made wrong or right simply by thinking it or by doing it.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Eighteen words from Yukio Mishima's beautiful novel 'Thirst for Love'
"Kensuke and his wife had, like all bored people, a sense of kindness that was close to disease."
Copyright, 1950, Yukio Mishima, Tokyo.
The Question: How did he get all that into eighteen simple words? He's just such a fucking good writer. He really is. He's a God we fail to recognise, to our great ongoing... relief. I'm sure he knew he'd never win the Nobel Prize if he said that, but he knew it to be true, so he said it.
Copyright, 1950, Yukio Mishima, Tokyo.
The Question: How did he get all that into eighteen simple words? He's just such a fucking good writer. He really is. He's a God we fail to recognise, to our great ongoing... relief. I'm sure he knew he'd never win the Nobel Prize if he said that, but he knew it to be true, so he said it.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
For an Australian, Thailand is hard to understand, but China is easy to understand
Thailand is hard to understand, except to Thais. They love their country to the ends of time. They love their beloved good King Rama IX, the Great King, the King of Kings, the Avatar of God, and so do I.
Still, China is much easier for me to understand. It is a much larger land mass than Australia, sure, with higher mountains and giant rivers, for sure, and it has about 16 bordering neigbours where Ausralia is somewhat a lonely island without anyone to learn from, but still, China isn't hard to understand. Just envisage Australians as numbering 1.4 billion goodly people who have been in the one original Australian nation, in a multi-ethnic and continuous human society, for a lot longer than 5000 years, struggling towards the great human goal of harmony. Those good people are working hard and saving hard and analysing hard and thinking hard and doing what they can for their families. That's China...and it includes Tibet province and it includes Taiwan province; and includes a great love for the Koreas, because Family is Family.
Still, China is much easier for me to understand. It is a much larger land mass than Australia, sure, with higher mountains and giant rivers, for sure, and it has about 16 bordering neigbours where Ausralia is somewhat a lonely island without anyone to learn from, but still, China isn't hard to understand. Just envisage Australians as numbering 1.4 billion goodly people who have been in the one original Australian nation, in a multi-ethnic and continuous human society, for a lot longer than 5000 years, struggling towards the great human goal of harmony. Those good people are working hard and saving hard and analysing hard and thinking hard and doing what they can for their families. That's China...and it includes Tibet province and it includes Taiwan province; and includes a great love for the Koreas, because Family is Family.
China Dating TV Show
The contestant, a beautiful young Chinese girl on one of China's popular Dating TV Shows, was asked if she would ride a bicycle to contribute to the universally serious responsibility to control Global Warming. The reply: "I'd rather cry myself to sleep in my BMW."
Books In Progress
There's two Writing Projects I'm working on. These will take a few years.
One: The Rama Project deals with the meaning and illusion of life and is really about how all meaning and illusion are the one exact same thing, and the real secret of life is to never seek to separate them; and that this deep truth is known basically by everyone, except by wankers. The Rama Project is a very hard piece to write. It may be the death of me.
Two: Brother Tamada: This is a serious moral study, as raw comedy, overflowing with swear words, of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Ford's Apocalypse Now. It is the story of a Japanese Christian Brother, Brother Tamada, who wanders the earth of remote rural China as an English Grammar Tutor... and a secret agent of a major religion (where the leader wears funny hats). It begins with: How the fuck did I end up in Cheng Du?
One: The Rama Project deals with the meaning and illusion of life and is really about how all meaning and illusion are the one exact same thing, and the real secret of life is to never seek to separate them; and that this deep truth is known basically by everyone, except by wankers. The Rama Project is a very hard piece to write. It may be the death of me.
Two: Brother Tamada: This is a serious moral study, as raw comedy, overflowing with swear words, of Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Ford's Apocalypse Now. It is the story of a Japanese Christian Brother, Brother Tamada, who wanders the earth of remote rural China as an English Grammar Tutor... and a secret agent of a major religion (where the leader wears funny hats). It begins with: How the fuck did I end up in Cheng Du?
September 28 seems to be the day
With massive security in place for over a month now, September 28th appears likely to be the day the Workers Party members gather to meet in Pyongyang regarding issues related to the royal succession and the rise of Kim Jung Un. An important meeting in a critically important country.
Monday, 20 September 2010
North Korea, China, and Isolated Japan
I think one of the things the Western media hardly ever takes into account about the regime in North Korea is that it is a form of government and not just a bunch of 'demonised' madmen. We see this kind of thing all the time. In Iraq Saddam Hussein was a 'madmen' yet it was the West, US UK and helped by Australia, that killed a million men women and children there in the name of liberation...and destroyed the total infrastructure of that relatively modern secular country, as it was, apart from the oil pipelines and oil business buildings. That is a kind of selective horror and poignant madness well in excess of old Saddam.
As for North Korea, I was talking with an old Chinese guy who had visited there ten years ago and he said that North Korea was the most inhuman government on Earth; but he also said that China and North Korea are blood-brothers and share a bond forged in war against the Americans and that China will never ever betray its brother.
So, as well as being a country in a state of perpetual Cultural Revolution, North Korea is also linked to a Han-Manchurian family structure the West doesnt really understand. We don't have families of that deep, bloody strength and tenacity. That's not our culture.
We spoke about a number of things. I told him I was trying to learn the common language of China, Pootonqa, or mandarin, whilst also trying to learn Thai. He said "Dont worry about learning the language of the small countries in Asia, they are simply the border towns. Learn the language of China. China is Asia."
I believe he is correct. When you see the scale of humanity and the rate of change that is China, then you begin to understand how this really is the rising empire and that nothing can or will stop that. China certainly won't become democratic at all. That's not on the cards. The plan they have is working very well.
At the same time the empire will be far different to that of the Romans, the UK or the USA in that it is not an empire forged in invasions, occupations and pillage and in the destruction of anything it doesnt like, as have been the others. It is an empire that does not expand militarily at all. It is not warlike. They are interested not in world domination but rather in trade. You could ask 'well, isn't that the same thing?' And the answer from the million dead Iraqis, butchered for the noble American/UK/Australian cause (or the countless murdered Vietnamese) has to be: "No, it is not the same at all. War is hell." The countless, nameless dead of Afghanistan, a country with a median population age of 17 years of age, also have names. That's a lot of names and a lot of boys and girls.
I think eventually, and it wont take a long time, Taiwan will be somewhat unified into China with some special considerations beneficial to the people of Taiwan. I don't think North and South Korea will be unified. I think that, far more likely, China will keep its brother close, and closer, as time goes by... and this will be of benefit to the North Koreans and indeed to stability. Some degree of formal inclusion of the NK regime into the Chinese system with some market reforms, with a nominal NK leader. Very few people on earth would think that to be a bad idea.
As for Japan, well, China and Japan are not friends or brothers at all. There's still the Nanjing Massacre and the occupation of China by Japan for all those bloody and horrible years, to be dealt with. You dont kill and burn 20 million Chinese people for the love of your Emperor and never say you're sorry. You dont inject into a civilisation the terror of burning bodies, of race-hate on a scale unknown before or since, and then expect them to just forgive and forget. That can't happen. That absence of formal regret is one very real reason that North Asia is so 'tectonic' with America strongly supporting Japan and thus, strangely and strongly supporting the terror of that 'exotic adventure'. Much like the Nazi atrocities but on a much, much larger scale, it will have to be acknowledged and there will have to be real apologies and real reparations.
In Shinto culture, there is no need to apologise to the weak; that is seen as weakness in itself. The problem for Japan now is that China is strong and Japan is weak. the other problem for Japan is that the USA is growing weaker as well. For the US to continuously defend Japan, they would need to borrow money from China.
As with the Romans, it is best to be the rising power rather than be subjects of it. China's rise will benefit China, as it should. This is the natural obligation and inherent design of Family. We on the outside may find the next 100 years somewhat uncomfortable but as long as we trade and do business rather than seek war, we will be okay, mostly. China won't 'save the world economy'...the US and the Europeans broke it and it doesnt work now but that's not China's fault. All that has happened due to gross institutional and government neglect and avarice in the West is that China has accellerated along its developmental time-line at a faster rate. What would have taken 30 years in terms of rising trade and real power dominance now will only take ten years and none of that is China's fault. The future is arriving faster than planned, due to bad capitalist management in the West and good capitalist management in China.
As Leonard Cohen noted "And by the way, you won't like what comes after America." But then, he was talking to the Americans, not to the Chinese. I think the Chinese will like it a lot, and so they should. They haven't gone to war to steal it, they haven't borrowed it, they've worked hard for it, planned smart for it, and saved hard for it. They will have it.
As for North Korea, I was talking with an old Chinese guy who had visited there ten years ago and he said that North Korea was the most inhuman government on Earth; but he also said that China and North Korea are blood-brothers and share a bond forged in war against the Americans and that China will never ever betray its brother.
So, as well as being a country in a state of perpetual Cultural Revolution, North Korea is also linked to a Han-Manchurian family structure the West doesnt really understand. We don't have families of that deep, bloody strength and tenacity. That's not our culture.
We spoke about a number of things. I told him I was trying to learn the common language of China, Pootonqa, or mandarin, whilst also trying to learn Thai. He said "Dont worry about learning the language of the small countries in Asia, they are simply the border towns. Learn the language of China. China is Asia."
I believe he is correct. When you see the scale of humanity and the rate of change that is China, then you begin to understand how this really is the rising empire and that nothing can or will stop that. China certainly won't become democratic at all. That's not on the cards. The plan they have is working very well.
At the same time the empire will be far different to that of the Romans, the UK or the USA in that it is not an empire forged in invasions, occupations and pillage and in the destruction of anything it doesnt like, as have been the others. It is an empire that does not expand militarily at all. It is not warlike. They are interested not in world domination but rather in trade. You could ask 'well, isn't that the same thing?' And the answer from the million dead Iraqis, butchered for the noble American/UK/Australian cause (or the countless murdered Vietnamese) has to be: "No, it is not the same at all. War is hell." The countless, nameless dead of Afghanistan, a country with a median population age of 17 years of age, also have names. That's a lot of names and a lot of boys and girls.
I think eventually, and it wont take a long time, Taiwan will be somewhat unified into China with some special considerations beneficial to the people of Taiwan. I don't think North and South Korea will be unified. I think that, far more likely, China will keep its brother close, and closer, as time goes by... and this will be of benefit to the North Koreans and indeed to stability. Some degree of formal inclusion of the NK regime into the Chinese system with some market reforms, with a nominal NK leader. Very few people on earth would think that to be a bad idea.
As for Japan, well, China and Japan are not friends or brothers at all. There's still the Nanjing Massacre and the occupation of China by Japan for all those bloody and horrible years, to be dealt with. You dont kill and burn 20 million Chinese people for the love of your Emperor and never say you're sorry. You dont inject into a civilisation the terror of burning bodies, of race-hate on a scale unknown before or since, and then expect them to just forgive and forget. That can't happen. That absence of formal regret is one very real reason that North Asia is so 'tectonic' with America strongly supporting Japan and thus, strangely and strongly supporting the terror of that 'exotic adventure'. Much like the Nazi atrocities but on a much, much larger scale, it will have to be acknowledged and there will have to be real apologies and real reparations.
In Shinto culture, there is no need to apologise to the weak; that is seen as weakness in itself. The problem for Japan now is that China is strong and Japan is weak. the other problem for Japan is that the USA is growing weaker as well. For the US to continuously defend Japan, they would need to borrow money from China.
As with the Romans, it is best to be the rising power rather than be subjects of it. China's rise will benefit China, as it should. This is the natural obligation and inherent design of Family. We on the outside may find the next 100 years somewhat uncomfortable but as long as we trade and do business rather than seek war, we will be okay, mostly. China won't 'save the world economy'...the US and the Europeans broke it and it doesnt work now but that's not China's fault. All that has happened due to gross institutional and government neglect and avarice in the West is that China has accellerated along its developmental time-line at a faster rate. What would have taken 30 years in terms of rising trade and real power dominance now will only take ten years and none of that is China's fault. The future is arriving faster than planned, due to bad capitalist management in the West and good capitalist management in China.
As Leonard Cohen noted "And by the way, you won't like what comes after America." But then, he was talking to the Americans, not to the Chinese. I think the Chinese will like it a lot, and so they should. They haven't gone to war to steal it, they haven't borrowed it, they've worked hard for it, planned smart for it, and saved hard for it. They will have it.
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