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Entries in manners (2)

Sunday
Apr102011

Die of Shame

Namaste,

In a Bhaktapur, Nepal guesthouse it’s dinner time. Five Chinese aliens appear. Two males and three women. They are in their 20’s. They are armed with laptops, cell phones, and loud discursive language. This is normal.

Noise and confusion and interruptions and arrogant attitudes fit their life style. One girl is dressed like a flapper dancer from the roaring 20’s. Daisy Bell talks with her mouth full of rice. Her red diamond tiara squeezes her frontal lobe into a shucked pea. 

They are lucky to have a passport. Their parents are important Red Party Officials. It’s all about connections. They whined their way out of manners and intelligence in public places. They are the new breed of The Ugly Chinese, the lost, terribly frustrated never satisfied in their exported coddled spoiled youth.

They are the new emperors and empresses of a prosperous, for a minority, rising dynasty. They act like they own the restaurant. They complain about the price of a meal. One girl said in a shrill voice, “Oh, it’s too expensive. I am a poor student.” She is majoring in Stupidity and Callousness at Beijing Normal University. She failed Basic Courtesy 101.

A brat boy chastises the Nepalese waiter about his pronunciation of Menu. The crew cut Mandarin idiot commands the boy to say it again, Menu.

They are living, breathing examples of the spoiled one child political and cultural genocide legacy. It will come back to haunt China. They have the emotional maturity of a 15-year old. They are so busy stuffing their faces and talking over each other all the European guests stare at them. They don’t care.

They act and talk like this at home. A new strain of vociferous Chinese virus has been unleashed on Earth.

Suddenly Flapper Dolly jumped up on the table yelling, Kill the Running Capitalist DogsMaking Money in China is Glorious!

Everyone threw their steel toed reinforced Everest hiking boots at her. She died of Shame. Her friends dragged her body out, selling the boots to pay for her cremation.

Metta.

Monday
Sep282009

Life > Logic

Greetings,

Lover of numbers, mathematics, and logical contradictions. Life is a paradox. We are a metaphor. How's it feel to be a metaphor, contemplating perception and sensation? Are we overwhelmed by the perceptual data flow?

Look around. You'll see, observe many humans completely insane with their perceptual overload. Their hard wired receivers are overloaded with INCOMING data. It's scary, downright frightening. Pure fear.

Zombies and automatons. Willing slaves to their personally created hell on earth. Their want. Their perpetual state of being distracted. It's all they know, this life of distractions. 

I'm having coffee yesterday with a very intelligent friend. We hadn't seen each other for six weeks. She kept pulling her cell out of her pocket. Reading the screen. Texting someone. Out there. I didn't say a word. I stopped talking when she did this. I just observed her behavior. She never said, "Excuse me." 

Must be really important I figured.

Can you imagine how she may have felt if, during our short time together I said, "Excuse me but you are really boring me. I can't stand it. I need to text someone. I need to use my phone to connect with someone who is not here but I really wish they were because you are boring me."

Text me baby. Tell me about your situation. Your sweet distraction. Text me your insecurity and loneliness. 

Speaking of scary, what's scary is seeing all the crazy Ha Noi motorcycle drivers texting while they zoom along narrow crowded streets in heavy traffic. Talk about a logical death wish. 

Text this: Meditate on the complete cessation of your perception. Of your sensation. Poof! You disappear into bliss. No time, no boundaries.

Maybe it's not the answers we need to ask but the questions we need to know. All this.

"If you don’t know much about infinity, for instance, you are invited to check in to “Hilbert’s Hotel” — which, with its infinite number of rooms, can miraculously accommodate additional guests even when it’s completely full."

LOGICOMIX

Written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou. 

Illustrated by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna

Read more...

It all adds up.

Metta.