Stigmata

Its never too late.

A school friend called me … about four days ago … on the night of the reunion. He had received the news on the WAP … and wanted to say hello. We used to call him AL … after the character … Alexander Mundy … on the TV series … ' It takes a thief.' As I recall … AL used to have a bad stammer … the entire time we knew him. But four days ago … after having migrated to Australia … he displayed no stammer. As I recall … he was laughing the entire time … on the phone.

The reason for AL's stammer … becomes clear to me today … as his tentative nature … when speaking. The rest of us … had no problem simply speaking our minds and passions … on any issue that we shared. On the phone … he reminded me of an excuse … I had given the teacher … who taught us … Basic Electricity … as to why I didn't bring my homework that day. The fact is I hadn't done it … but I relied on a fib … to get away.

I'm surprised he remembered. It reminds me of the anxiety … all of us kids had … about … ' What would mother say?' … in respect of our actions. AL's father had passed on early in his childhood … and he grew up with his mom and brothers. There were no sisters … and I believe AL had stayed close to his mother … as companion and friend. He brought a brand of conservatism in speech … that represented itself as … simply so … and true … but was founded on the practice of the passions as puritanism.

We encounter the same situation in our adult lives today … and its curious to me sometimes … how the practice of puritanism … in all its variety … continues to govern the … individual experience of the world around us. And quite often … it passes for the facts … in issues … that bring a great impact on the lives of the community. Josef Stalin … in years gone by … epitomized the role of the great Khan … in the way he exercised a state administration … founded on a line of puritanism … that served party policy.

On the bus … at a UN meeting some years ago … an East Berlin delegate made the comment … how he was surprised at the way … democratic thought seemed to refer to an individual identity … as if that is entirely correct … and not a social fabrication. I had meant to respond to that … but how does a person explain satisfactorily … what an apple is … to someone who has no experience of one? Instead I smiled … in much the same way … I smiled at AL … for reminding me of the excuses I make.

In the world experience today … I find myself postured in the learned knowledge of the human personality … and that sometimes encounters … the puritanical passion of a world mother culture … which comes close to representing itself as fact. There's no doubt that it responds to my concerns about the facts … that's drawn from the experiences of our daily living … in society. And I've never had reason to doubt … that it'll ever stop doing so. Its a faith we have kept with each other … from my childhood.

It makes for a peculiar sense of shared responsibility … on my part … at what goes on … on a daily basis … in the administration of the world's affairs. The issues that have pre-occupied us … in recent times … such as human rights … WMD … Saddam Hussein … Col. Qaddafi … and terrorists groups … convey a greater sense of reactionary administrative will … than any notion that its administration at all. It raises the crying need … to apply ourselves to knowledge … rather than the greater puritanical will of righteousness.

The diversity of human needs … is very much a hallmark … of the way we bring ourselves to be informed … about the community's needs … worldwide. The application of a puritanical passion … that no doubt loves mankind … but insists that … they all ought to be … more in the image of the Puritan's image … is indeed a reminder of the way mother manages things. Our progress out of the dark ages … into sophism and schools … was surely the initiative to found knowledge.

I think I'm doing my part. This week I spoke to an investor … about joining me for a self help educational product … that would be useful for folks … intent on reviewing and re-learning … their basic attitudes … about self and society. It doesn't teach something new … we already know that … but it'll help us rediscover it again. My background in the academic line persuades me … that there are very few alternatives still available in the world's experience … to help people to re-think their outlook on life. It appears to me that faith in God … as an instrument … lacks its usual persuasion … in these times.

We have to start someplace. Our present conditions … will spawn a future generation … that will have to get worse … before they get better. I know about that. But to exercise our informed sense of the issues … and to make available help … to support a change in attitudes … would be critical. The change we seek as a world community … must address the volition of the individual … and his realization … about doing the right thing. It is what a friend will do for another … when the other … is embroiled in a puritanical discourse … he cannot free himself from.

Its curious what meeting up with one's school friends brings … as drive to affirm … the nature of values and individual responsibility. A friend reminded me that … there's always a game on TV and a bottle of beer. Its what I always used to do … but not this time. It would leave a stigma. I hate to think … I quit on something … because change is slow to take place. Its so that he finds one man … the one who continues to believe him … so that he doesn't have to destroy the world.

Reviews

[patricia]

I will have to read this a few more times, it conjures a thought process I cant articulate without a little time to think. The only thing that comes to mind for me at the moment though, is how outlooks are not job lots and collective mind sets usually come at the nearer the end of growth, although there are those who like the Martha's of this world are out there without having first been home. I realise this review may bear no relevance to what you were trying to say, so will review it again once absorbed more fully.
Thankyou. Enjoyed.

[Dayran]

I think you made a good point about those out there who haven't first been home. It comes with the package of life ... hands on ... and learn as you go. But its nice to get an opportunity to return home ... to find what it all means. Thks for the comment.