Mr. Liu dreams

Greetings,

Inside my solitary confinement cell 300 light years from freedom I was dreaming about fantasy baseball playoff games, international human rights and my wife when the starving destitute guards showed up.

It was dark. The bases were loaded in the top of the 9th.

1.6 million fans were standing, screaming and waving red star flags. It was a full count. The micro-managers in the Forbidden City were tearing their hair out. They'd exhausted their bullpens, bloody fountain pens and bullshit. 

A guard scratched on the iron bars. Let's go, he said, We're moving you out. Orders from the Noble Leadership. It's dynamite. Everyone's afraid for your safety. We need to get you to a safe undisclosed secret location.

They shackled me to Charter 08 and dragged me down a long and winding labyrinth. It smelled like yesterday's pig slop.

A white rabbit carrying a pocket watch ran past us. I'm late, I'm late, for a very impotent date. Farewell cruel world!

They put a bag over my head. I couldn't breathe. They stuffed me into a vehicle. They drove forever and a day. Years later we reached Oslo, Norway. I heard a familiar language.

They stopped, opened the door and threw me out. Don't come back! they screamed.

I hit the bricks. I rolled. I tumbled. A child found me. They removed my hood. I blinked, blinded by clear light. Another child cut off my chains. They led me to a castle. My wife was there. All my friends from human rights organizations, writers, artists and supporters were there.

I was free.

Metta.

sorrow

Greetings,

"People who cause you difficulties you should think of them as very, very valuable teachers because they provide us with the opportunity to develop patience."

I'm a mercenary of the false disguise inside poverty's domain.

The land of fairytales inside lost childhood contains historical perspectives. 

Forgiveness and trust dance with passionate ambivalence. 

People here practice saying the I'M SORRY syndrome in the present continuous sentence structure. They say I am sorry from morning to night. When you ask them, "Why are you sorry?" they have absolutely no answer. They stare at you in pure dumb amazement. They know three little words. Their eyes and heart are blinded by fear, doubt and uncertainty. 

They repeat. I'm sorry. Perhaps this sorrow, this feeling of regret and loss and contrition and sadness is history speaking. Does history have a voice? Does history whisper or shout? 

Do genetic structures speak? How do new generations adapt, adjust and evolve with their ingrained, deep rooted genetic and cultural and historical lives of suffering? 1.7 million humans suffered and died between 1975-1979. The older generation teaches, by example and action how to be silent. I am sorry is acceptable.

Nuth is 10. She has parents. The other young people at the NGO supported cafe are orphans. We are all orphans sooner or later. They have a safe place to stay with their friends and learn practical job skills like cooking, customer service and basic cafe operations.

Nuth and I hang out, drawing, practicing English and sharing food. One day, no matter what I said, Nuth said, "I am sorry." I asked her what she was sorry about. She couldn't or wouldn't say. There was no context.

In a sense she was merely miming the older girls. Someone taught her. She heard. She repeated. Everyone here has paid the price of sorrow. It is endemic. They wear their perpetual sadness like a shroud. Their eyes and heart cannot hide their deep fear.

They are easily distracted, unfocused and always looking over their shoulder.

Before someone kills you say I am sorry. I am sorry for everything. I am the cause of all suffering.

Metta.

Death wish

Greetings,

Speaking of a driving school, educational malaise and general laconic ironic bubonic atomic plagues, here we are. In paradise.

The public's death wish is prevalent, precarious, precocious and precious. You see it, taste it, hear it, smell it and touch it. In other words you feel it. Fear cannot mask, hide, avoid, escape, deter, ignore, deny, lie, or try to fly. It is an integral essential element in the genetic strain, a strained well trained artificial injection of reality.

Paradise is the perfect place to pretend you are a crazy English teacher.

"Feed me," yell the adults and children. "Give me the fish. Push me through the system. I secrete sadness."

"Sorry, you need to learn, understand and comprehend the value of learning how to feed, educate and care for yourself and others in your community."

"Are you a lunatic? For decades, for generations we've had foreigners (NGOs) giving us money, medicine, education, food, condoms, handouts, free stuff.

"There's no way we (the majority) are going to begin accepting responsibility for our country, our people, our lives."

"Have it your way. Here's a free ticket to the new entertainment toys."

"Wow! Thanks."

Metta.

Mind at large

Greetings,

Your filters are up-to-date. What's a filter?

Filters are variables. Human brains have diverse filters. Give us an example. Humans evolved to survive. They were the prey. Life is short, nasty and brutal. Nature is kind and cruel. A paradox. A contradiction.

Human brains filter or eliminate non-essential sense data. Keep it simple stupid. KISS. 

Flight or fight central nervous system filters operating with naturally produced chemicals and produce reactions. Do I stay or do I go (fight or flight) is a basic immediate automatic response when a human faces what they perceive to be a potential life threatening situation. Do I run? Hide? Find a weapon? Create a diversion? Signal for help? Attack? Develop patience? Laugh because it's fucking hysterical? 

It's simple. Humans make it complex. There's a difference between complex and complicated but we won't get into the semantics now.

Metta.

Gin and tonic for breakfast

Greetings,

This isn't about the spoiled girl-child across the street yelling and stamping her feet and bawling her poor little eyes out as her mother tries to sell junk to schoolgirls or yellow gas from bottles to trucks, meteor cycles, broken terrific anxieties and terrorized spoiled childhood raising her hand threatening to strike the girl down, down, down. The girl cowers. Fear is a great motivator.

The woman's mother sits smothered in grief listlessly counting shredded money. Money smelling of petrol. Petrol cash.

No, it's about the Australian tattooed dude on a visa run with his comatose overweight and terribly unhappy illiterate Thai girlfriend, also heavily tattooed with flowing black lines, playing her hand held computer game at breakfast as he drinks a gin and tonic at 7 a.m. They are leaving by bus for a swinging coastal town.

Do you want some breakfast? he asks. She says no. I want to play my game. Do you want a drink to get your day started? No. Have an egg. It will give you protein for energy. No. I want to play my game. Do you have my medicine he said. She gives him pills. He washed them down with G&T. Breakfast of champions.

Metta.