Viva la Revolución

Have you any idea how grave a mistake it is to mar a young mind? And no, I’m not talking about beating children, or subjecting them to brutal work. I speak of an abuse far more subtle, a slow and lethal poison that seeps through the skull and corrodes the mind, threatening to squash the humanity out of the human heart.
I speak, of course, of the educational system.

As they join the ranks of schools, youths are force-fed an assortment of over-inflated values and priorities which constitute a forlorn and frightening mindset.

Indeed, youths are force-fed, binding them to a chair of eternal conformity. They’re teaching you all you need to know to go to college and get a job and a car and a family, so why would you bother looking for knowledge yourself? School has conveniently prepared a flimsy set of answers to the questions of the world, and bullies us into memorising them all. If we refuse, school sees to it that we are shunned as uncooperative, lazy, and misguided.

As if memorising answers flexed the mind at all. The most anyone could get from witless memorisation is a feeble semblance of self-discipline, which is rendered meaningless anyway as it cannot be applied to anything which has a worthwhile practical use.

—No worthwhile use? But how, if we just said that school will get us a job and a car and a family? Yes, it will. And that’s just fine. But see, the incentive process, for an average school-goer, goes something like this: You’re in school only so you can get good grades and get into college. And you would want to go to college just so you can find a job, and proceed to climb the interminable corporate ladder. And what’s at the end of all this? I dunno. No one really knows. It’s something extremely vague, like, oh, happiness. Or self-realization. Utter bollocks.

Not that I have anything against the white-collar life, or the working class life. What irks me is the neverending toil to a an end that is wholly meaningless. Working relentlessly simply to keep up with a difficult status quo holds no true significance and very little satisfaction. The small, hollow consolations it does offer are obtained at the tolling cost of losing something as dear as the mind’s potential, or the interest to tap it.
Such an existence is glaringly mediocre at best, and I wouldn’t call it worthwhile.

But of course, it is just this existence which our school system so champions, and urges us into. It is, perhaps, like snatching newly-hatched birds from their nests and forcing them to pilot bird-sized hang-gliders to and fro in embarrassingly straight lines, instead of allowing them to learn true flight.—Unnatural, criminal!

And then there’s the teachers, the great and ruthless secret police that holds up this rotten regime. The system is such that it not only allows ignorant people to teach, it calls for them, and they do their job magnificently.
There are some scarce wonders with something good to teach, but those few are, in someone else’s words, like drops of water in the desert. For the most part, entire class hours are reduced to either bravely enduring or dozing off to stupendously incoherent lectures ridden with fallacies and examples that hardly apply. Fascinating subjects are distorted into mechanical and thoughtless penwork. Overbearing counselors coerce you into taking SAT prep and registering on collegeboard.

And as opportunist corporate gluttons make millions by administering rubbish tests and other services, the students must suffer a watered-down parody of education in order to be able to support their businesses.

The system is deteriorated and doddering, severely entangled in faux-bureaucratical rules and regulations. Aptitudes are caricaturised and curiosities are squashed.
The very joys of life are rudely confiscated, one by one, as the system tries to take itself seriously.
And the very epitome and most cherished treasure of mankind—thought, of course—is mercilessly bastardised.

Come now, comrades, the system must be done away with. The time for revolution is nigh.
 

 

With that said, congratulations, graduates— you, who have braved classes and still retain a love for knowledge, are heroes; emerging triumphant against the perversity of the system.

tempus fugit

Time flees mortal hands,
rapidly slipping away;
just like grains of sand.

se escapa el tiempo,
como granos de arena
entre los dedos.

le temps s’envole
doucement entre les doigts
—sables du désert.

Bomb shelter, with no bomb call.

If you bear with me, I wish you to picture in neat colours several images, and make of them what your heart thinks is becoming of the case.

A person bending their knees, and then sprinting, amid a roaring battle-cry, into a massive flying kick, only to crash bluntly against a wall of steel, without making as much as a scratch unto it, whilst sustaining several fractures.

A paper airplane dashing, airborne, with grace and elegance unto an open classroom, only to meet with closed shutters, activated at the time of arrival. The paper is rendered crippled and bent, losing its beauty between two plastic blades.

A hammer raised unto the sky, shining with the afternoon sun, whilst taking careful aim at a nail that awaits the blow. The hammer dives in a swift movement unto the nail, only to bend it into a most weird shape, useless and less rigid than butter on a midsummer day. The wood is most certainly not pierced, and it waits in disappointment, contemplating the epic failure produced thence.

You decided what to make of them? Dumb question, I understand.  I will just elaborate on mine thoughts.

Fresh ideas have so many tints and colours, textures, shapes, fragrances… Upon the beholder’s eyes, some are dark purple, with blotches, oval shaped, and carry this putrefactive smell of a flat’s residues, rotting in the sun; some are perfect circles with an olive-green hue, and smell of roses and of far green countries under a swift sunrise. Splendid, bland, incomplete, or simply dull, as it is, ideas fly upon this world, turbo-sped with rockets.

What happens, then, when an idea collides with a mind that has been closed with heavy locks, dusty and rusty on its hinges, that will not take any visitors, will suffer no guests, will have none of it? There is a huge explosion at the doorstep of the mind, and the idea evaporates with the smouldering blazes that are swept away by the wind. The idea verily might go to waste, unto uncharted skies where no one will ever look upon again…  That is the fate of some great ideas that have flown into closed gates.

What if the idea was positively worthy?! That is terrifying, that a fantastic idea collides against a closed mind and vanishes from this world.

But wait, there is more. The explosion lasted for an instant, less than a simple heartbeat, and the smoke vanishes into thin air with blinding speed. There is nothing… And yet the mind is alert of such by-gone intruder, and immediately flees into a bomb shelter, without previous bomb call. No wail of warning filled the sky, but the mind is already in motion, locked even further, deep in a bunker, dragging what it can into the walls, positively quivering in fear despite never having seen the nonexistent mayhem.

This is mindless ranting, so if you bear with me for a moment, let us wrap this up in a nifty envelope. The mind is to have its gates open, welcoming foreign riders for an ale and at least letting them sit upon the hall table and share their views of the world. Now, it is to have a stead fast determination and some judgement, for when the foreigner draws blade and tips the table in an insulting fashion or something not becoming of a proper guest, it ought to be thrown out by the citadel guards. However, the mind is to listen at least, open its vaults of knowledge and light the beacons, for as annoying, brazen, rude, charming, eloquent, astute, etc. the foreigner may be, there is a bit to learn from its words ere it departs.

Open those gates!! Do not let the idea crash upon the gates! Do not flee, enveloped in panic, when the rider comes hence. You know not for sure what accompanies it. There is no bomb call wailing. 

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The most raucous musical box

The host with a flourish bids everyone welcome
to the gaudy and grandiose banquet alfresco
that is Life when unmasked.
The crackers surrender their colorful prizes
as hanging piñatas hide garish surprises.
The band is cacophony chiming delightful,
the names on the place-cards all parody spelling.
The wine is served lukewarm and sour!

But if still you should want to attempt the endeavor
of deducing some order from turmoil so lively
Alas! Then you leave empty-handed.

the Ides of March

It was in the midst of such a night, so very long ago, that they had conversed in hushed voices in the candlelit halls of the Caesar’s manse. The patches of yellow light flickered meekly, unfolding themselves over the surrounding furnishings but unable to stretch their rays very far. In those hours before dawn, the blackness was heavy and pressed around the two figures, chafing fiendishly at the meager beacons the little candles posed, as they lay timid and melting in their ornate holders.

Calphurnia was troubled. This man– her husband, he was, and no less than Julius Caesar himself– this man was wearing such an impassive face for one faced with so many a sinister omen. Death sneered at his visage, breathed its vile breath upon him. But he was unmoved. Somewhere deep within her, she knew her efforts were futile and he would not be stopped from doing what he pleased. But she still persisted, she still begged him stay.

Had she not been his wife, Calphurnia would have thought him an incurable fool of a man, –what demented arrogance! what arrogant naïveté!– But she understood. He would go out to where he pleased when morrow came. Nefarious omen or no, he would go out carrying his impassive expression of always.

Said she that such recklessness was empty, that there was no merit in his follies.
A million poems can be writ and a myriad ballads sang of heroes and braves, but is a romanticised death worthier than a gamble at life, however bland? She kneeled before him.
Her words did not reach him. They were lost, they were entangled in his pride and dissolved into his solemnity before they could reach his ears.

The heavy stillness, the clarity of mind that the darkness allowed for had erased the frivolities that daylight tends to reveal. For those were Calphurnia’s woes, of course: frivolities. Entirely valid in their own right, of course, but frivolities still.

He dismissed all the warnings in the world, for he knew them to be flimsy and without sense. Death meant nothing to Caesar, and as it breathed down his throat, Caesar still looked at it with the same dignified stoicism, ever unwavering.
He would go out when morrow came.

This be the day of Pi

There once was a man from Nantucket
who took a TI from his pocket.
He wanted some Pie,
he punch’d in SHIFT '∏';
without Pie he went back to Nantucket.

pastel-coloured reverie

Ah, isn’t it lovely how we always seem to sit and stare at things in obstinate defiance, awaiting for epiphanies to somehow reveal their succulent secrets to us? But they always come uninvited anyway, in their own time, so there’s no point in rushing them. The secrets of life are covered inside such an exquisite candy wrapper. We might as well unravel them slowly.
Even when unsatisfying days seem to pile up, gathering in little rows of diagonal marks on calendars, surely the skies, at least, are still beautiful; and if you but look closely, so are the myriad foibles and fallacies embedded in loose, everyday words.

Life is a cake of two equal parts frustration and fun– any other ingredients are merely faint flavourings and colourants.

Each sees a different panorama–or perhaps the same scenery in a different light, but what gives. (Humans are interesting things indeed, look at them ponder universality as mere individuals!)

It would be so wonderful to sidestep everyone’s masks, just brushing them away! And instead, gaze at the same scenery they see, as it is reflected in their own eyes. (Points of view are, after all, the epitome of identity.) If I could be allowed a merit, oh, that would most definitely be it.

Vagrant Villanelle

Sombre walls gloom through the City at Night,
bereft of those dreams that have now long-dried;
their hearts, ponderous, are thick with contrite.

They fought and strove for Life with all their might,
trying to keep hopes that have now long-died;
sombre walls gloom through the City at Night.

Their psyche, eaten away by the sight
of indifference of what would betide;
their hearts, ponderous, are thick with contrite.

What abounds now is Good Will turned to spite,
as Good Will finds no more place to hide.
Sombre walls gloom through the City at Night.

City Life, bitter under the dimmed light,
ate away the hearts and made them subside.
Their hearts, ponderous, are thick with contrite.

Deep into the Night there is no respite
There is only hope for a turning tide.
Sombre walls gloom through the City at Night;
Their hearts, ponderous, are thick with contrite.

Paperboat wayfaring

The sea that is life is rather more viscous than it would seem at first glance. It springs back if pressed at, the viscid consistency is playful. Amorphous and blandly colorful, this mass extends from one end of infinity to the other, and (on the perpendicular axis), from one end of Time to the opposite end. From the surface down, its depth is of such baffling unfathomability that it is usually presumed bottomless. Overhead, scattered stars twinkle in an irregular melody, suspended in a low-hanging sky. The air is powdery, crumbly almost; or rather, it has that quality of being almost solid, yet insubstantial.

To the crew in the paper boat, days pass by in a haze, uncounted and numberless; each day is a solo performer in an interminable and magical parade of little grains of sand, spiraling ever downwards and seeping through. It’s tempting to write, if only a little, about the habitual tempests of fractals and hurricanes of quantum mechanics, the occasional still aeon in doldrums, of seagulls and mirages of warm shores that dissolve back into the ocean, or of the way the open skies boast unfaltering beauty in their volatile semblance. It is an almost instinctive longing– if all this could be written down and kept! Indeed, and Man could have libraries of nothing but delightful stories, and countless archives of long essays analyzing each incident by detail. Surely that would be lovely, except then what remains of life would be lost.

When one doesn’t concern oneself too much about them, memories just put themselves away is some corner of one’s head. They grow ripe and are sweetened with age, and sometimes they seep through into passerby thoughts, which eventually bloom into actions. Every mishap leaves its little sand-grain of a mark, some sort of impression upon us, without which we would be some other, different person, however slightly. So, maybe, Man would be better off living rather than watching himself live. (You know, if it was the afterlife that consisted of endless bookshelves and a myriad of varying interpretations and analyses of one’s life, eternity wouldn’t actually be too bad.)

But of course, no man is quick enough to seize every second of his life. Surely a few will stumble over their own eager feet, while running under their heavy “Carpe Diem!” banner– because a life lived to impress is a futile one, as there is no such audience to our follies. Still others might fall into the cruel delusion of dreaming that they wake in the morning under a fresh, clean sky and set off about their day, while oblivious to the fact that they are still asleep. But perhaps, it is regret over what we miss that makes what we do manage to grasp taste all the more sweet.

Indeed, what would a life be without wanting?

But alas, it would merely be incomplete.

Beauty and pleasure are fleeting things, so it is but all we can do to taste them to their fullest, celebrating their ephemeral character instead of lamenting it. Hedonism is not cynical, on the contrary. Using our hearts to feel and our minds to think are but natural, practical notions. Tell me, can you find anything more worthwhile to do in the interim between birth and death, but to enjoy the excursion?

Lukewarm

Man sat under the radiant sun one of those eternal evenings. He could not help but to feel and admire what was around him. As Zephyr swept the broad plains that lie before his sight, Man felt a burning desire; the craving to be, even though just for an instant—ephemeral as himself—, the mighty wind. The thought of wind flew across his mind evoking thoughts of times long-gone, and even those of times to come. Man imagined the past and the future merging as one in Present. Zephyr had seen the days of yore, and would live to see the death of Father Time.

Man was overwhelmed to think of things so far beyond his reach. Desperate he did cry out in distress; a cry so deep it could have made consciousness itself give a shriek. The wind proved impassible at his screams. To this, Man broke into laughter where he stood—the wind roaring around him, menacing— and thought a rather comforting thought; that, as immutable as the wind was, it was unable to feel. It could run across endless fields and shake forests rooted in ancient grounds, yet it could not take pleasure in it nor appreciate the solemnity of the dignified trees. The wind was on the skin like soft petals, yet it could not feel the tenderness caressing back.

Zephyr, with all its might, could not entertain thought; without thought, unaware of himself, Man could not possibly exist—and what business has man, then, to be the wind if the wind does not think, does not feel? Man’s craving died, gradually decomposing into lukewarm afterthoughts.