As long as I can remember, I rarely felt the cozy sensation of home. If I was happy where I was, it was because I believed temporarily in the borders of my presence, but not because I recognized a belonging, as if I looked at the world and saw in it a reflection of who I was, as if the world was a mirror of my heart. No, I always rather felt an undistinguished notion that I had to leave again where I was now, and perhaps it was this prevention of settling that made me restless, rather than the presumption that I was restless to leave again. But be it as you may, I never decorated any room I occupied for the reason that I was to abandon it again afterall.

You might think that I must have enjoyed travelling therefore, but nothing is less true. I found no comfort in being away from my temporary home, because I knew that I would not find a home anywhere, more than I lacked already. I am a drifter, the wind of life, takes me to the corners of the world, only to be picked up by a new stream flowing in the opposition direction. To go on vacation to a foreign country gave some temporary relieve perhaps, mainly because of the absence of mondaneness, the inertion of understanding a foreign language and this distance caused by a language barrier created a ephemeral intimicay with men that otherwise was not shared and as the weeks passed wore off rather quickly, so that going home again on its turn was a renewed ephemeral pleasure. (more…)

“Cigarettes?!” She claimed gesticulating her fingers in a Victory-symbol to and fro her wrinkled lips.
“No cigarettes!” The Bengali coffee vendor simply responded in morse English to make sure the Hispanic woman who spoke no English understood. He saw me approaching from the entrance of the subway stop.
“Cigarettes no good!” He repeated, now speaking partially to the woman who now hesitatively stepped away from the cart, and me.
“Good point!” I smiled.
“Smoking is no good for women. For men it is okay, but not for women, you know what I mean.”

We live in the Information Age, the age of Globalization, and Western civilization is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Of these labels that are stuck onto our time, by far it is that of the Judeo-Christian tradition that I hate most. The idea that Western civilization is rooted in Judeo-Christian principles is a travesty of which we have seen few since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and since the birth of Christ. But unfortunately, it is a notion that is advocated powerfully by the false prophets that proclaim this so-called Clash of Cultures. These reactionary crypto-nationalists to whome clarity is represented in singular simplicity, and to whom clarity means truth, we find on both sides of the cultural divide, we find them among western nationalists and Islamic radicals, yes, indeed, we find them everywhere!

In the first place this notion is an absurd delusion because it implies a notion that the achievements of Western civilization are subservient to Christian and Jewish religion, in other words that knowledge derives from God, and the truth of the matter is that it is preciely the opposite, that only man is the source of true knowledge. The heightpoints of Western civilization were reached in times when the influence of religion diminished in favor of secular views of the world. It would even be easy to prove, that the level of religious zealousy is reciprocally tied to the level of technological progress and thereby human well-being. An increase in religious conviction leads directly to intolerance, which is the cause for conflict, leading to socio-economic demise. (more…)

Suddenly, like a flash of guilt that rushes through one’s heart, an image so vividly it was not less real than if I was standing in front of the door again, eight years old, I saw the windows of the bakery at the corner of the Kerkstraat (Church Street) and Dorpsstraat (Hamlet’s Street) before my eyes. The white, multiformed tiles that formed the base board of the wall of spiky gray plaster, and the yellow canopies, every now and then if I had collected a dime or quarter before or after school on my way home, as a child I would enter the front door, and peruse the offering of candy that was stored in plastic trays on the left wall of the bakery. Most often, having bought one or two pieces of sour jelly candy or cotton paper candy, we would rush out again and continue our walk to school toward the Martinus church.

Crossing the cobblestone pavement in front of the red brick Roman-Catholic church, built in 1906 in a plain design, I sometimes took a short-cut along the back of the church, walking by the back side of the priest’s home, which garden borders the back of the church, leading me to the back entrance of the senior citizen hospital Saint Maarten, which stood in between the Martinus church and my primary school, the Saint Jozef School. The path leading directly to the school’s court though was blocked by an iron fence, not without symbolic meaning, because as long as I remember this is exactly what a Catholic upbringing is about: it offers you the delight of a certain acclaimed insight, a path of learning as you may, but obstructs you in its course, in obtaining it with the purpose of making you understand that between you and your goals in life stands the Catholic theology. (more…)

I love America, so why then do I hate it so much? The Foundation of America by means of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 was one of the most important events in the history of Modernism, an important step upward in the development of civilization, of human progress. Knowing America from first hand, you will still find the ideals of Freedom all around you in the US like no other country in the world, largely because Americans and the many immigrants from all over the world who move to the US find something of themselves in America, and something of America within themselves, like me, bring a sense of freedom, of personal ambitions and dreams, that together form the larger good of the American Dream. But there is a rim of evil that has settled itself around this space of American Freedom, it is a rim of radical patriottism unifying (read dissolving) individual citizens under one nation, a mist of self-righteousness, a darkness of religious zeal, that is re-shaping the composite formation of the American Dream into a homogenous Myth that is owned by a theocracy of religious federalists that send their armies into the world to conquer and submit all free thinking Americans in the world to the government of their God.

This symbolic birth of Freedom was signed by the leading men of the time during the American Revolution. So who were these Founding Fathers and what was the America representing they founded? America was founded at the heightpoint of the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is it a coincidence that one of the greatest events in the history of modern man took place in an Age of Reason? Well, the greatness of America is setting like the Sun that brought light into the darkness of the world, and instead come the Huns, the hurdles of Religion and they remove the light from our eyes, and they bring down the greatness of America. The Madrasahs of America’s evangelism are fighting a war against the founding principles of America to reform the federal and state governments and judiciary to enforce their moral laws for all and thus declassify the rights of the individual to forcefully conform to their moral laws, going against the moral principles of the Founding Fathers. (more…)

A thought that I repetitively have been struggling with is the question: should I engage in ideological struggles of society? For example, should I engage in the battle of the hearts and minds when it comes to people’s attitudes toward homosexuality? And how about the choice between democratic systems, does the continental system of proprtional representation function better or worse than a winner-take-all system and should I commit to changing the winner-take-all system in New York state to a propertional representation? Without a doubt, the impact of such a change would be dramatic on the whole American system in the broadest sense and not only that, it is also feasable! Or perhaps I should actively fight for raising environmental awareness and help create a wide public support in America for taking radical action to stop global heating. Surely, the value of such action is priceless and the future survival of the planet depends on its outcome. Or perhaps, I should fulheartedly fight the most enlightened battle of the last 500 years, the struggle against the ignorance of religion and advocate the empowerment of the individual reasoning. But should I, I who would be deported if trying to vote in America, I whose greenhouse gas emission lies below the level of 2.5 ton Carbon Dioxide per year, or I whose interest is purely cerebral, I whose talent is certainly not to build social alliances nor who finds pleasure in mankind.

I have strong opinions but without social-economic based interests, ideas are powerless. I do not believe in the conviction of ideas, the power of reasoning is like the power of a breeze on the waves of the ocean. That is, the self-conviction of ideas is undeniable, but also evident. However, the conviction of ideas, however meaningless in a debate, are essential to the emancipation, and thus the liberation and equality, of the individual mind. If any issue that effects society, the mass of mankind, lies close to my heart, it is the issue of empowerment of the mind, education and liberation from the fetters of religious mischief.

But then, I cannot drop the feeling that such engagement is a waste of my efforts. (more…)

I be of persons that have rare illness. It strange illness and doctors say me that it do with genes I have. It explains things in my lives that happen to me. And I find it interesting to see it also in things of others. For instance, people think that I be funny, but other people think I am not from America, but this be not true. The person I marry I met at doctor, it works to clean in hospital. Doctors say it be Dyspraxia, but I do not understand fully. Doctors say it be about genders, numbers and tense, but this means little for me. I understand they say body and mind different, because all Sundays my preacher speaks soul and body different, that there be God and be man, and Jesus dies, but not his soul, his soul is everywhere. Now I am person of God, this is sense to me, tense, time, mankind not knowing, and God is all, so doctors I know speak truth, like preacher, this I know. So I believe doctors know gene that knows God, they say FOXP2, but FOXP2 or God, I think it is all. I am not person of words, or person like doctors or preacher, but I know in my heart that God is true, and thinking I know God, and body dies like flesh rots, but the mind is true and always all.

“So let me start by asking YOU, if YOU have any questions for ME, before I elaborate about myself and use up any of your precious time.”

Now the moment someone opens with a line like that, you just KNOW all they intend to do is talk about themselves. I am tapping my fingers already right from the beginning. Do I despise ‘biz dev’? Yes, so? The pedant tone by which they address the most trifle issues, the hautain tenure by which they talk down to you about issues of the broadest type of common sense, so hold one, hold on… I thought technology was going to eliminate the overhead, the need for direction, the development of technology was going to be bottom up! Well, not if it’s up to the average intention of mediocracy. Now, you say, true, true, I agree, I am an anarchist, I absolutely react very badly to authority, to the force of patronizing steering and to feel the bit being torn left and right, when you really want to go into the opposite direction. That’s all fine, so I can take a few minutes of my time, and listen to someone who’s lost in the black box of middle management, I can bear an hour of absence of substance, roaming in a cloud without essence… no, I can barely.

So, no! No! No! Don’t ask that, don’t throw the dog a bone to chew on for another ten minutes, and why are all eyes covered in this docile drewling, staring at the man’s mouth, people! The emperor wears no clothes. Okay, so the question was… ‘What do you think about …?’ (more…)

The toils of labor become an easy burden when one works long and regular enough to allow one’s body to adjust end one’s mind to forget and indulge in the new affairs of employment. So, when the ruins of the labor movement in our time still standing, grant us a few more days of than the two of sabbat and the seventh day of the week’s end, the first response of the body is to relax it’s muscles, stretch its limbs. The mind, this faithful brother of our body catapults into the free space, like an elastic that was stretched out till breaking point, and flexing it’s new freedom, it knows nothing of the forces that manage its spasmic happiness. On a normal Sunday already, our mind restores the order and looks forward to get ready and cope with another full week of obligation. But not so over Thanksgiving, when the American mind, and among it, me too, are allowed to rest and enjoy an extra Thursday and Friday, in total the luxury of four full days. I have to think of the field slaves of the old south, who were given off the week of Christmas, and to celebrate their freedom from their master, they drank and partied, tranquilizing their minds, softening their pains. Of course, there’s the consumer’s frenzy of Thanksgiving shopping now to replace the extacy and bliss of the slave’s home brewed alcohol, after all, we are civilized middle-class people now, no slaves, and this is America, so we are no subjects of capital like the European labor classes, but we are all aspiring capitalists, so we acquire our share of the American middle-class dream. But on the second day our minds, with nothing to look forward to, unbound by the prospect of obligation, and unable to move freely on its own now the rebounding force of the elastic has lost its flex, I feel restless. I know that tomorrow, or perhaps even tonight already, if I am lucky, I will restore my self, and indulge in the creative force of self again, in learning and being driven by the heart beat of my own flesh, but until then, I reside in the limbo of the day after the last day of work. Oh shameful self, to be such a convincing subject of labors that are not born of my own.

“I am very happy alone,” he said,”I don’t know how to explain it otherwise, than that there’s a certain chemical balance in my brain, which sustains it self and lies close to what is normally known as happiness.”

“But you certainly would need a woman or sexual intercourse of some sort at least?”

“Honestly, making love to a woman provides me with utter bliss, but it is superficial and can hardly give me lasting peace like being alone can. I would even argue that I react very badly to social interaction in general, but that sex – as a form of submission of the other to serve one’s selfish plearsures – is the only exception to it. But it requires a lot of working toward. The sexual affair itself is like a mountain summit, but the climb to reach it is either too long and steep or the mountain itself not worth conquering. But there are moments, of course, where I make an effort and anjoy the moment of accomplishment.”

“You sound so cold and distant when you say so. I wonder if you ever allowed yourself to experience the simple enjoyment of the aesthetics of a discussion, where the unpredictable turn of every course of words that the other sets out on is an enriching contribution to one self. And …” (more…)