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Reaching Infinity excerpt
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Transcript of Reaching Infinity excerpt
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1
B"H
Reaching Infinity
Introduction
Life's like extracting sweet tasting fresh fruit from a walnut and partaking in a natural joy
of life. From the moment of birth, we face with the tribulation of loneliness and concomitant
yearning for graciousness and closeness that had encompassed us the nine-month journey into
this world. The cries of an infant are expressions of craving to return to the state in which
satisfaction was intrinsic to the rhythmic beating of our heart attuned to the surrounding
environment that's organic satisfaction. Thus, the entirety of life is seeking appreciation for
the individuality that beyond our control is dependent on finding pleasure in the eyes of the
forces with whom to be reconciled. This is true of our adaption and performance of tasks that
ensure our survival, and those that bring us into contact with other beings associated to our species.
The same applies to trees; the leaves are dependent on the flow of nutrient and fluids
drawn against the force of gravity that are intrinsic to the soil and that are conducted in the
xylem and phloem to heights and a longevity beyond imagination. What is it that makes a
man more than his physical being, what to be valued more than talents he's developed to
establish his feelings of worth, express his importance, and make his mark on the world; to be
remembered. The funny thing about a person being remembered is that he'll never know if he
will be or not. Just the same, he goes through life imagining how people will cry when he's
gone, how they'll talk about him, and what’s even funnier; how he consoles himself to know
how he'll be missed. Through creative productivity such as writing literature to preserve one's
thought he thinks to achieve immortality; the reach beyond the physiological reality of death
sure to come. This idea is common in people's practice of religious and spiritual mannerisms -
- they can thereby attach themselves to eternity.
As I passed the hurdle of the golden years, I realized that freedom of expression is to be
treasured, no matter what else may be happening to me in life. As I learn to respect ideas that
differ with my own, I'm no longer influenced by espousals of a religious nature not in
accordance with my own beliefs, where I tolerate but not accept. My opinions don't have to be
correct anymore; I can be satisfied to discern forces that are distinguishable within presently
finite parameters, not portend to know will become of me in the future. I can spend my efforts
to communicate by writing and talking, and though may find it difficult to explain the
transformation of thought into spoken words, discover someone important who happens to be
myself. The main topic of my "era" of introspection is a concept I came to term "insane
jealousy," to wit, my repentance. I wring out the character of my past mishaps and hang them
to dry.
One reads a written text and hears the words, thinking the words are somehow audible in
his brain. This is because he or she mutters the words silently as the actions of his or her lips
stimulate the auditory levels of perception within his mind. We can never explain the
molecular structure of sound, though we know its essence is the force of percussion causing
an impact on the space in which it is articulated. When we clap our hands, the air is forced to
collide forcefully with its containing environment, and we hear a reverberation of air
molecules. What within the molecule of air produces a noise? Sound arriving to the brain is a ramification of the memories we attach to the implication of words.
At the specific moment the physical world came into being, the percussion of the sound
that emanated must have been a form of energy. Prior to the first act of creation, there were no
particles with which to collide, so the sound it caused is a noise of nothingness beyond our
comprehension. Therefore, we can only apprehend reality by admission of our ignorance; the
conceptual structure of sound is as intangible as the infinite, and can be believed but not
perceived. All styles of communication such as the nod of one's head, movement of the hand,
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a smile, or the spoken word are expressed as energy in the realm within which it acquires
mentative significance. The mind contemplates meaning based on experience or knowledge
codified within our memories.
By a quick peek at the notion of creating something from nothing, creation ex nihilo, we
may endeavor to understand the preeminence of thought in the realm of human interactions.
According to basic and even sophisticated logic, there could have been no motion of air
currents waves producing sound waves prior to the universe, only ethereal waves; thought, as
we define it, something so intangible it has no physiological characteristics. We can only
conceive of creation if we accept that the act of creation (masculinity) and the receiving
(femininity) environment were formed simultaneously. Elsewhere, I have likened this to the proton and electron of the hydrogen molecule.
Our presumption that the foremost and thus original force of energy emanated from a state
of silence, was an existence of motion such that its bearing created not only air and sound
waves, but yielded light (according to the speed at which energy travels), moisture, and form
as well. "Motion is the universal language until it all returns to the silence." Silence is noise of
nothingness, the receptacle of action; when the force of motion ceases, molecules of energy
no longer vibrate on the space of its containment. Regarding the various accounts about the
transformation of thought into a "big bang," or "spoken words:" Primary Motion, the
containment of its energy, and the entirety of the outcome shall be the heretofore referred to
as One; primary thought (the very first being in the realm of existence). One that its
quintessence originated from silence that we deign to perceive in terms of measurable dimensions of time or space.
Theocrats, and philosophers postulate ideas that are utilized to subjugate and exploit the
masses, but it's a misapprehension to claim that religion is the opiate of the masses. True
religion is intended to allay fear of the unknown, to instill man with what we call faith; that as
long as the universe retains its harmonious state of balance everything is copasetic. The tenets
of this faith are what prevent man from succumbing to his natural instincts. Ants go to their
death by the thousands when trampled underfoot. Is their species less fit for survival than
humankind? The obvious answer is that there are so many of them that the species' survival is
guaranteed by their nature to reproduce, inhabit, and remain intrinsic to the earth; to act purposefully in accord to the design established as the premise for their existence.
When a person thinks poorly of him or herself, every time they'll finds themselves in a
tight situation they'll suspect the worst outcome is going to prevail. Of course, modern society
has endeavored to cause everybody to feel weak and incapable, dependent of the goodness of
those who control power. One therefore should delve in in the contemplation what is his or
her true purpose in life, to seek satisfaction in our being our most functionally best in our
living environment. Was humankind to abandon the basic premise of their role in the
maintenance of our universe the species would become extinct. Our survival is a vacillating
function dependent on our conduct.
This leads us to the issue of what our presence in the world is supposed to accomplish, in
whom we imbue the authority to decide that, and to what extent abuse of the physical world
must be restrained. We may ponder whether the cherished priority called freedom is a virtue
of the design preconceived by One (the Primary Motion) during the act of creation. My idea
of freedom includes sensitivity to every fiber and thread of creation that has been strung into
the makeup of life universal and eternal: birth, growth, interaction, and natural death (not
enjoying pleasure at the expense of the whole). There are laws urging people not to cut a leg
from an animal to satisfy their hunger, and just let it gimp around until they become hungry
again. This ethical premise goes beyond the issue of whether someone claims a right to
ownership of the beast he eats, it has to do with preservation of the whole universe as a
singular unity; certain acts cause an imbalance in nature and are prohibited. Freedom is measured by limitation!
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The essence of freedom is so intricately wound in the existence of beings that one will
attain to lofty wisdom would that he becomes sensitive to his environment. Two leaves will
grow to the opposite sides of the stem, thus offering balance, support, and the security to
enhance development as an inclusive entity. One question troubling the author of this treatise
begs askance if one can extrapolate from an example of freedom intrinsic to the nature of
vegetation to the yearnings of one mentally imbalanced; whose instinct to flourish freely will
hamper the natural growth of other beings? As to divine concepts of creation, the whole
purpose behind them is to give license to the values beyond any comprehension of intellectual
espousal. The effort I am investing is this literary effort is intended to arrive at a personal and independent appreciation of my particular place in the Unified Universe.
Stating my point of would be subject to a quasi-scientific method of eliminating untruths in
order to establish s concise verity. Let's compare the superiority of the Northern Hemisphere
Caucasian species of man, to that of insects within the arthropod phylum. The Northern
Caucasian have maintained a historical subjugation over indigenous populations throughout
Asia, Africa, South America, and Mesopotamia. He has denuded the female sex, perpetuates
crime and greed, social depravity; and propagates ungraciousness towards the needs of our
fellow creatures be they animal, vegetable, or mineral. With no arsenal, a Nile mosquito can
put a man down with a tiny bite. Was humankind to utilize the entire arsenal at our disposal
we would wreak gnarly destruction, but insects would continue to propagate, grow, and die
naturally. Disease, rebellion, war, pollution, depletion of resources, traumatic weather
changes, and social disorder seem adequate indication of grandiose and disastrous imbalances
in nature. We can conclude that humankind is faced with an inferiority complex from birth
until the time of death, and is therefore laden with obligations to assure his survival and
liberty, if not only prove our worth beyond that of insects!
Remarkable Beings
Perhaps humankind is too aware of itself as distinguished in the framework of the whole,
and being so ignorant of the balance in nature we have brought about a situation that could
make our lives on this planet unbearable. The theme of Women's Liberation is an example of
a perplexing contradistinction, especially in light of the Biblical account that depicts female
kind as the temptress who caused male kind to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. The ideas
represented serve as a clear warning that things we desire most are likely to bring about a
calamity if we disregard our propriety in relationship to the same. Heretofore, I shall put to
test my theory that the only perfect knowledge is ignorance. A man walking down the street,
told by a passerby to turn around and run the other way, will be faced with a conflict between
blind obedience and curiosity. Should he rebel against the warning and suffer non-fatal but
severe damages there is a possibility that he'll hold a grudge against the passerby for not
having warned him strongly enough. This compares only in slight measure for the disdain and
mutant disrespect male kind has demonstrated towards the dignity of womanhood. Her
individuality, nay, her humanity has become degraded by the disregard we dare not show
towards insects. The darling Eden family could have existed in the euphoria of a harmonious
paradise, only in so much as they would not partake in fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (not
to engage in pleasure for pleasure's sake).
Shall I not point to the following treatise as a preponderance of my role in the universe; the
primary characteristics of my life in the universe I inhabit? I was an "abuse-aholic," trapped in
the anger and arrogance characteristic of my insecurity complex; this book is my only
recourse to change the old wares for something human. Abusive behavior is inhuman, a
human being is humankind, and kind is human. I typically sought a sense of false security in
the "acceptance" of my body becoming appreciated as worthy in what we called lovemaking
relationships. Teenage male dominance over the prurient molestation of the female body was
a point of arrogant pride. The force of this distortion drives men to subject women to their
every whim, and the social amenities were adjusted to offer approval of this conduct.
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Returning to our example, the historical abuse an alpha male heaps upon his wife, sister,
daughter, and mother; we find womanhood portrayed in museums of trash and decadence. In
the decades of the middle twentieth century, there was a moral prohibition to portray the
nakedness of women, which made it, ipso facto, a manly achievement to acquire pornographic
publications. Nowadays, female kind appears in so many degrading postures: in many public
forums, in order to earn a buck, to advance their careers, to parade their beauty in tempestuous
drama, and allow themselves to become the object of banal pursuits. This subjection to male
kind's caprices is not women's liberation, and neither is sexual emancipation; i.e., the radiance
of freedom that is typical to nature, ergo growth, propagation, and natural death.
I would further suggest that the importance of limitation as it pertains to freedom is the
fundamental of religiosity, as not every desire is given to be satisfied. To obtain something
out of the routine and very expensive one may have to invest labor time to achieve the goal.
Stimulation, awareness, and excitement accompany the scrumptious pleasures we savor in our
five senses, but after a few seconds, the search must begin anew. People want to be thought
knowledgeable, and go to extremes in order to prove they're never mistaken. Social scientists
and archeologists are willing to assert that the Indians of South America migrated from Asia;
using a theory of shifting landmasses to explain how they got there. I debated this issue by
asking whether they can pinpoint the origins of the various species of birds, or trees, the
abundance of color, shape, activity, and location of so many millions of different creatures
that make up our world. Freedom can exist only insofar as balance between motion and
silence. When an individual is not steeped in the pursuit of comfort and luxury, he or she can
enjoy simple pleasures.
Chapter I -- Being Child Becoming Wild I murmur these thoughts within my brain, convinced I'm lucky to have someone with
whom to discuss them. Prostrated two meters beneath Ground One (the face of the earth), I
make a quick scan of the hole I've affectionately come to name, "Rose Cavern." I've dug my
own grave behind my rose trellis on which grows voluptuous vines of jasmine; together they
emit the fragrance that will mask the stink of my rotting bones herein I be buried. Above,
alongside a peach tree, the cactus natural to my sweet home in the Negev desert sprouts new
oval-shaped leaves. The cactus has grown to the height of several meters, and at each different
level, the leaves sprout at specific angles so that leaves at every level will grow to their full
and heavy potential ne'er to collide with the leaves at level beyond. This pattern of liberty and
justice prevails throughout nature.
The philosophical preponderance as whether man is intrinsically good or evil is used to
explain the behavior of those habituated either one way or the other, but I have only to look at
myself to know that neither is true. I perpetuated sadistic manifestations to disrupt people's
inability to ignore me and ultimately developed into a social revolutionary. During my youth,
I fantasized about underground escapades; and culminate my arrival to old age; underground,
lying in my open burial plot. Actually, this should not be alarming at all since throughout
history people have made their homes in caverns. I accomplish much, entrenched here in my
darling "Rose Cavern," surrounded by flowers, spices, grape vines, and other fruit trees, that,
even in the desert grow to beautiful proportions.
These aforementioned sadistic manifestations were characteristic to one aspect of my
fractured personality. I was called Mickey (with reference to the cartoon character) and it hurt
my pride because I had big ears that stuck out, was named Marshall at birth, and though have
monkey ears in my old age am not bothered by them anymore since I'm referred to as Moshe.
These distinctions lend credence to the saying there is much to be said about a name; the
distinction between who one is and what occupies that self is sometimes described with given
names, sometimes with nicknames. Many times people stick a name on someone that is laden
with character defamation, and in contradistinction call them an angel or the like. The
interesting thing about this is that the English language is structured to countenance the three-
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way split in a personality by application of the infinitive, "To Be" in every sentence that is
applicable to one's identity: I am Moshe! I am degraded! I am psychotic! Description and
reflection, inscription and essence, existence and derivation; engravings of the soul etched into the physical presence that requires nominal description.
Sitting there with my back propped up on a dirt mound, posture-designed by scraping and
patting mud pies, I stare at the etchings scratched into walls tunneling beneath Rose Cavern. It
behooves me to explain that the idea for this tunnel developed over the years of my
enrollment in elementary school. I was subjugated to the oppressive cruelty of the "bigger"
kids who liked neither my ear span nor my adamancy to accept their premise of my right to
exist. Alas, in those days, my brother and I used to imagine a magic tunnel that would be
accessible to us on the way to school. We had to walk about a half mile from our home, up the
block, around the corner and the length of another whole block to where the school guard
would cross us over the busy intersection. It was from that point until the school doors and
waiting for the school doors to open that we used to have trouble with the bullies arriving from other neighborhoods.
This then, was my training to traverse the difficult straits through an imaginary tunnel, the
idea being that no harm would befall me therein. Noteworthy to assert here that mental
configuration imbue the mind with a false confidence, and sometimes that's all it takes to
traverse the dangerous passageway that threaten to lay siege upon our well-being. These
memories are inscribed in belief that Rose Cavern can shelter me from the demise certain to
overtake me. Sunrays penetrate into the mouth of the tunnel, and are mystically deflected
through the passageways of the throat; illuminating the depths beyond. The shadows that
follow on the heels of sunshine are so forceful they cause an appearance of lines to arise from the surface and seemingly emanate into thought passageways pulsing about my brain.
I had put them those lines there, scratching with various tools not the least of which was
my fingers, a tool most adapt to labors upon the earth's substances. It's remarkable what
fingers can do; shovel into the ground, chisel delicate lines, shapes, and figures, and polish
even the coarsest surface. Thereby the inner waves of thought within my brain are transmitted
thereby unto the hallowed walls of Rose Cavern. By the time the glare of the sun has receded,
with the day's passing, my lungs have filled with breath of these historical (perhaps hysterical)
impulses mapping the way to secret episodes hidden in the future. As such, I lay here
contemplating how to record all this information so you'll understand what I'm being.
The beams of light and the vibes emanating from my etchings, these exclusive of those and
those inclusive of these, are gallivanting through the opposing sides of my brain. The
engravings on the walls of Rose Cavern picture people pouring gold into underground
streams. Beside them, in the manner of hieroglyphs -- images of people sickened from
substances they ingested, and thereafter becoming well having consumed produce that
absorbed particles of gold. In the dissertation to follow, I shall record the experiences of how I
tunnel to a distant time where nobody is disrespectful to authority; an aberrant form of
harmony has replaced the human character of individuality. Here, now, now here -- nowhere
the Rose Cavern is but a pupil in the eye of my garden. Above an infant swing is clicking
back and forth as the leaves from the peach tree laugh in the rhythmic sweetness that only
succulent fruit can communicate. A radio controlled microphone and Web Camera transmit
my prescience to a computer so you the viewer may participate in the occurrence of my death.
What; me condescend to rot in a field with stinky carcasses stuck in the straight and narrow of the neighboring pits alongside?
To some extent this research will focus on the cultural dereliction, which a part of me I so
abhor. Like a filmmaker, I capture vision from within my brain; filming a mirror image in
slow motion; I'll zoom and quick jerk hither and thither in order to depict the human situation
quite the opposite of what perceive it to be. We are not superior by virtue of intelligence; but
are dependent, destructive, and despised despite the grandiose achievements we accomplish
using our innate capacities of perception, articulation, and manipulation. This has been the
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focus of my progress deeper into the innards of Rose Cavern, at each conjecture leaving the
mark of my having passed this way. A nervous scratch; a furious flustering fingernail forcing
an impression, and these squiggly inscriptions unto gorged stony walls give evidence to the
appearance of unified essence in a universal dimension. Motion is the universal language until
it returns to the silence.
I once scratched and splotched the intricacies of lines representing the blossoms of my
peach tree unto the walls of Rose Cavern, and miraculously sensed the motion of forces
digging from the inter-sensual realm of Native dwellers-ancestors who had immigrated to
these lands with pockets, buckets, and every type of container filled with sprout and seed.
Should one take this book literally, you're invited to join me for a glass of my homemade
wine and delve into abysmal depths absolutely disconnected from anything that could be
described as intelligence. I can dig this; my body lay still, resting against the upper soft palate
that welcomes one into Rose Cavern, ergo my burial plot. The sorry truth about life is that we
are persecuted from the moment of birth, and I'm not talking about the proverbial spanking
the obstetrician gives the newborn. Think about what goes into the occidental obsession with
making the birthing process sterile, as though to optimize healthful circumstances for mother and child.
The thing is; is that formation of early brain cells leads to communicative functions of
language acquisition, the only assurance to our intellectual development as human beings.
Where non-academic language prevails in nature, we find aggressive behavior: presumptuous,
impatient, and greedy conduct amongst children who sometimes never grow out of it. By the
age of two, a child learns to apply motor and reflex actions such as facial expressions and
voice control and at seven conceives of fantasies, but not yet concepts of time. Until puberty,
the brain cells continue their development into specialized functions; such as depicted by the
five senses combined with reasoning power. When toddlers undergo trauma, these cells
develop into a defective mechanism, to the extent they are irreparable, and for an adult to
achieve a minimal normalcy is an endeavor that makes him dependent on the nurturing society.
The issue here is not to counsel mothers how to cuddle the newborn and allow him or her
to adjust to the sounds and sights that'll invade his sensations, before cutting the umbilical
cord. Somewhere in my mind, I'm trying to figure out why my life has been so hectic, what
have been the influence of traumas that make humanity feel lonely and insecure and
concomitantly dependent on those who seek to oppress us. The reality that for each of us,
"me" is not what I really am; it's a concoction devised to control people, abuse them, and
usurp their strength and talents. Each of my distinct identifications (Mickey, Marshall, and
Moshe) have been systematic attempts to adjust to circumstances that prevailed at various
points in my life. I can sketch my first six years of life in my memory and the next ten sets of
approximately six years apiece, and what I see is exactly the same characteristics of
personality that predominated during my youth. The perception mechanisms of the sixty-year-
old were established at the time of my birth and formed by the environment in which I grew until maturation. Vast networks and repressive machinations enslave our bodies and minds.
From the moment Mary took her lamb to school, she was to be deprived of love and
warmth; she was going to have to produce! A child can neither remember nor sense what he
has no real reason to perceive. The ability acquired for storing and drawing upon memory is
proportional to spans of time. When we cannot express thoughts and react to the lack of
human warmth dementia will overtake the rational processes. A child needs to keep close
proximity to something soft in order to preserve the security it knew in the womb. I can
remember being called a crybaby, and even from infancy, my mom got uptight when I cried. I
was shaken around, twisted upside down, and thrown high above the pull of gravity. I
flashback to Anna Mae, a woman hired to babysit; whose calm breathing and humming while
holding me, securely, was the only comfort I needed. Suffice to say the only calm I might
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have known as a toddler was shot, blasted, shattered, crushed, and devastated by the time I reached kindergarten.
The general scheme of human nature is clearly indicative of other systems of collectivity
whereby each species acclimates to those of like genealogy; ants an ant society as do lions
roam with their own kind; and so it is with people whom live amongst those whose external
and internal characteristics are similar to their own. Most nations and cities have legitimate or
implicit class differentiations: racial, socio-economic, and religious. I grew up in the Jewish
neighborhood in the Northwest section of Detroit. The city was divided into industrial and
residential sectors, with a thriving downtown along the Detroit River, a geographical marker
that separates Canada and the United States. The Northern Caucasian people decimated
reddish skin-colored people, and took deep-brown colored skin people from their native
African habitats as slaves to fuel the economic vehicles and mass-production furnaces.
Believe you me, the day approaches when steel and oil will be scarce (we shall overcome).
Woodward Avenue is the main drag from the river all the way north; along which Jewish
people migrated en route to suburbs where they'd escape to reestablish their communities,
with the exception being areas where it was forbidden by law because of anti-Semitism.
On the topic of Judaic liberty
I feel compelled here to explain a tiny verity that being every word I compile is done with
motivation that requires endeavor to face up to characteristics of my personality that often
bring me to wish I was dead. Albeit, I live in a state of deprivation to wit have stripped myself
of pleasure I was wont to pursue a raison d'être, though not bereft of comfort, neigh luxury -
that typifies the Occidental lifestyle. Hand in hand, I encounter those facets of my personality
niched within the shadowy reaches of a materialism bred in America; fried in the grease of its
death economy, and anybody who dared to oppose was degraded as a misfit. You can't sell
guns and tanks if there is no enemy; Russia incited Arabs to war with Israel and America sold
them arms. While we're on the subject, and since I've read this entire book I feel it's my duty
to discuss the Israeli Arab conflict. The Israelis, similar to the Americans and the Russians,
fuel the world's war economy, whereas by means of conflict resolution these peoples finding
themselves along the pathway of peace and justice would be paving eternal bliss on the road into universal freedom.
There are unjust wars fought for colonial gains, and those that arise out of natural or
inevitable circumstances. Every animal and creature in nature is imbued with the instinct for
freedom, to guarantee its survival, if necessary to expand their communities, and to defend
their life and property. People, however, conquer lands, form allies, perpetuate wanton
destruction, and produce miscreants out of the female members of their family, and human
community. Israel is driven to exert military supremacy in a world where even if they killed
everyone they could still be conquered by national insecurity. One may assume the
government in is cahoots with the imperialist weapon's industry. Having been in the heat of
the flame I can tell the reader, I am one well-baked potato. Deep within the pits of oblivion, I
perceive the Judaic tradition a livable tenet.
To elaborate on the Israeli mentality might take the better part of a lifetime and since I've
invested in the effort to do it, so here we go. Firstly, there was the pride of the gentiles that
Christianity and its stepbrother, Islam would act upon a wishful thinking they would
ultimately wipe out any trace of Judaism in the world. In 1973, the ghost of the Jewish Nation
Israel had come to conquer the world, at least insofar as resuming the national characteristics
of a demographic reality. It was a joke against modernity and I became the laughing stock,
hated in the world abroad because I was a Jewish male, and hated in Israel because I was an
American male. This time warp landed me here now- now here, nowhere. I spend a lot of time
now-here.
Couldn't they see from my (hippy) appearance that I had rebelled all those years when the
U.S. waged the war in Viet Nam? Yes, in the 1970's the citizenry of Israel wanted to be
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dissociated from the appalling lack of rectitude concomitant with the image of cruel
militarism, though convinced that banishment of Arab populations would bring peace to
modern Israel. What had I not gone through to get here? My mission, on the micro level was
to restore the family ties shattered by the years of revolutionary reaction to all the benefits of
my nurturing society. I realized this could not be achieved without finishing university and
perhaps associating to my heritage. Applying the double whammy I enrolled at the university,
I had attended in Michigan decades earlier, to do an "independent study," arranged a
scholarship, and flew to Israel. The accounts of the six months I spent here, shall they not be
recorded in my memoir anal?
I needed only an additional four-credit course to matriculate my Bachelor's degree at MSU,
so I also enrolled in a course on Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, making my fete
accompli a quadruple whammy. To elucidate, I had rebelled against the militaristic premise of
research in the college environment, and revolted against the "establishment" such that it
became an issue of accountability not to graduate. Little did I know how pleased established
society would be to know that I'd go through life without a college degree. When I tendered
the credits earned at TAU the registrar flipped-a-wig! Knowing how to "doctor" a theses and
dissertations was an academic skill in which I was trained. Before the end of the school year, I
went to the Western Wailing Wall and concocted an anthropological study consisting of
statistical evidence regarding the way people place their feet in different positions when we
pray. When MSU finally processed credit from the courses, they awarded me a BS in psychology.
I had spent a few months on a kibbutz where I harvested grapefruit and almonds, and
wanting to get some religion into me, had started to attend religious services on the Shabbat.
This infracted work ethic of the kibbutz anti-Judaists' policy since they thought the modern
Israel had to shed its religious traditions. They ejected me and somehow I managed to be
accepted as a volunteer worker on a religious farming community in the south of Israel. There
my good memories have remained; ah yes, many leaves withstand the winters and never
wither. During those six months, I succeeded to nurture warm and friendly relationships with
people whose expectations from life were moderated by the simplicity of common cause.
Fields being muddy in spring bogged me down and I had considered myself above the
dictums of planting melon seed in muck to the height of my ankles, so I flamed out of here as
fast as I had arrived. I was shipped out to the "city of Torah," Bnei Brak, wherein I meandered
my way into a ba'al teshuva yeshiva (Torah study for Jewish people with repentance on their
hearts) that had dormitory facilities. Therein, I insisted on eating wholesome pancakes even
during the heat of preparations for Passover, which brought about my imminent ejection. We
know that brain dead people can experience the mental pleasure of those truly enabled to partake in actual events, which goes to say these things really happened.
Keeping cool, that's the rule! Nevertheless, I had landed up, ascended, into the fissure of
destiny. Really! I enrolled at a yeshiva on Mount Zion where the dorm rooms were carved
into the walls of the Jerusalem hills. I had traded the guitar for a violin; somewhere back my
father had told me that his father played the violin so that was a fast way to get in touch with
my past. It was a manifestation of my becoming more Jewish and Israeli style cultured. I was
so strung out I never took a bow. Not long before his death, I had played the tune of Kol
Nidre to augment his respect of my achievements. I had cut my "hippie" locks, been awarded
a college degree, and was conscripted into the work force as my father's office boy.
Spring is a rare occurrence in Israel and one learns to appreciate the passage of time
without any ability to keep track of it. I shall heretofore apply imaginative capacity to cloak
my thoughts in the garb of fiction. I was like a drug addict going through withdrawal because
the rest of the guys I had bummed around with were reformed hippies and I couldn't pull the
wool over their eyes, so it was either with them, or against them - and I chewed surf. I remain
truly, the loner I have always been, left to my own wares to propagate revolution as a
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principle I refer to a conflict resolution, to which nobody has the patience to attend for reason they are heralded into pursuit of comfort.
I left Israel after six months, the last words I uttered before departure being my promise to
return within ten years later, which I did! To whom was this promise made? A woman
standing next to me at the check-in at the airport expressed concern for the fact I was leaving,
not giving up the comfort of Occidental régime to shoulder the burden of building modern
Israel. The story until this point has eluded to the type of training I received as a product of
occidental modernity. By the time of my second coming to Israel, I was married and a father
of four children. I was a petty crook, into drugs by manner of habituation, a derelict and
abusive husband: and despite it all, ordained as an orthodox rabbi. Learning to fake off
college matriculation was peanuts compared to earning rabbinical ordination, the latter
serving to authenticate my arrival to becoming conclusively a Ba'al Teshuva. Pertinent matters concerning the in-between are soon to be discussed.
Look at the America's Jewish populations who have distanced themselves from tradition;
dress immodestly and purport loyalty to the culture pertinent to legions other than our own:
As though this fascination advances their status in the modern world! They reside in
materialistic facades, not aware that danger lurks from within their habits of self-abusive,
denial of Tradition as it should pertain to their modus operandi. Matrimony has become so
unfashionable that the older generation who culminated nuptial vows and raised families did
so with purposefulness; are unable to communicate to their children why marriage was
sacrosanct, and the result is petrifying. Such unspeakable demographic computations prevail
as calamitous ramifications that throttle progress into a nationalist schemata for the near and
long term future, not only of modern Israel, but also in the lands everywhere where Caucasian populations have ruled.
If that's not bad enough, look at the situation in Israel. Fifty years ago, the Jewish people
came to inhabit that land of Israel, which had been their national homeland some two
thousand years earlier. One should analyze this fact by questioning the right of the United
Nations to reverse the historical process of Christian and Muslim efforts to make Jewish
people an extinct relic like prehistoric creatures. The Arabs of Palestine claim to be rightful
owners of the land and say the Jewish people should make their national refugee in Europe,
Russia, Africa, or New York. I dare say, one should be respectful of exchange of residences in
terms of forbearance of the ideas on may bring to new locations, as said, "When in Rome do as the Romans do," and other epithets such as, Live and let live."
From another point of view, the Rabbis of Europe, before the Holocaust, also said that
Palestine was an unfit location to replant Jewish populations of Europe, though for different
reasons. It also seems likely that if it were a matter of survival they might agree for the
religious communities of present day Israel to relocate to Europe, Russia, Africa, or New
York, as such, if the Arabs keep hitting hard enough they might succeed. This is not
conclusive so perhaps we should question further.
In many cultures of the world, people have become fed up with ancient traditions, and to
their thinking are relics that have become extinct. The Jewish tradition has a staying power
that offers an example to humanity. The influence of Jewish tradition is incorporated in the
New Testament, is imparted by the teachings in the Koran. The unity in creation is also the
basis of far Eastern ideology; at least since the inception of Buddhism in the sixth or fifth
century BCE. All the major religions teach that life and death are part of a cycle of
compassion, disregarding desire, and acceptance of suffering in which a person is simply at
one with his surroundings. Suffering heaped upon the Jewish people drove them to establish a
modern state in Ancient Lands. I'd like to avoid, but shall briefly mention of the politics pertinent to this discussion.
Looking at this issue, we see the ferocious conflict of the Palestinians to believe not, i.e., it
is they who are the indigenous; while the Israelis assert it is their Holy Land. Taking my
assumption that staying power is a person's being at one with his surroundings, we see the
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demographic threat to Israel is the population increases of Arab people amongst whom we are
living in the Middle East. This is, to some degree, because Jewish people won't sacrifice their
quest for selfish acquisitions in order to bring more children into the world. Their
acculturation to immodest and materialistic remnants of Greek culture is their downfall.
Families profess that by limiting the amount of children they bring into the world they procure
enhancement of the material comfort of those children they bear and raise within the
framework of modern society.
The military organization of the Hezbollah or Palestinian fighters can overwhelm tanks,
ships, and jet bombers, not because of their instinct for conquest alike to the ancient Roman
culture, which has no staying power. Religious warfare runs contrary to the underlying unity
of Judaism and Islam, and is but a manifestation of man's projecting his fallibility unto his
own image in order to rid his conscience of its inadequacy. The question is whether a United
Israeli and Palestinian Nation will emerge as a single nation or a divided land drenched in
blood. I am committed to the Return to Zion of Jewish people from anywhere to the Holy
Land, and don't relate to human rights' organization as either leftist or radical, labels that do a
great disservice to the principles of freedom, justice and brotherhood within the hearts and soul of people everywhere.
I appreciate the world's concern with the governance of this nation and think Israel has a
lot to learn about qualitative educational aspirations, equal economic opportunities, and the
principle of voting suffrage. It will require a whole generation of children to be raised by the
shared value of intrinsic human worth of people who are people. The Israelis intrusion into
areas in which the Arab populous would stand eventually to threaten the Jewish plurality in
that region and the state as a whole. A fact seldom recognized by Israeli politicians is that the
declining demographic borders are an ipso facto decrease of their rule over the land
historically sanctified as the Jewish Nation Israel. The present day State of Israel has limited
legal propriety over lands contested by Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan. Alas, the
militaristic Israeli government was pushing an Israeli settlement in Gush Katif, known in the
West as the Gaza Strip. They pushed the people in; they pushed the people out, did the hokey
pokey, and got in a bout. The Israelis will have to reconcile themselves to bipartisan rule; one
man, one vote democratic authority in the lands from Eilat up to the Golan Heights and from
the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea: by everybody who inhabits it!
The substance of these thoughts does not readily convince people that they have to reject
anything that contradicts their materialistic lifestyle. Man's overt tendency leads him to
represses conscionable truth, such as values professed by the wisdom of Torah sages,
wherever it conflicts to his habituation to pleasure. What hath one to say concerning Greek
and Roman academics that gave the world a tradition of relentless attacks against the Jewish
Nation Israel? Who will pay attention the groans of our weeping, the lonely voice within alike
to the garbling of a pigeon, a constant hum vibrating in its gasp for breath of communication
with life? Who can take stock of a world seeped in destructive weaponry, a global crisis
where climatic condition inundate the security of innumerable communities? Where does little
old me settle down in recognition of the prevailing situation as regards the future of the
generations to follow in my footsteps?
Every Circuit Needs Be Grounded
Who, what, where and when questioned the wise old owl. Who is what, when where and
why has this little boy come into the world? It was a world of hidden lies; liberty and justice,
racial equality, and religious freedom were empty epitomes. During the fifth decade of the
20th century, technological apparitions had begun to replace man as a fundamental player in
the cycle of their owners acquiring wealth that heretofore had been paid to laborers.
Everybody felt he or she could be replaced by machinery or destroyed by a raging fanatic
pushing a button, anywhere in the world. The first fatality in the war for minds was "com-you
n'I–cation" between parents and children, between man and wife, worker and employer, and
those who governed and those whom believed they were being served faithfully by our
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elected representatives. As far as most people were concerned, "life goes on," so they took
little heed to the warning signs. I grew up alienated from everything; somehow, the vibes
irritated internal bearings that kept a person on track. Through the march of decades, I've identified most of those parameters.
By the age of thirty-six hours, I was alienated from my mother. I figure it like this; she
grew up in the limelight of Jewish Class Assimilation and didn't know even how to boil water
when she got married; on a stage and in the drama portrayed to a get your kicks in, while you
have the chance. The drama scripted tedious endeavors as boringly mentality, and
responsibility to home and hearth was projected on menial laborers. As such, communication
between parents and their infant or growing toddler was superfluous; they had to be fed,
clothed, and clean up to standard, and that's all there is to it. Jewish Class Assimilation also
adopted the prevailing philosophy to hire help to perform the mundane chores of putting the
babies to sleep, so nursemaids were hired to sing us lullabies. Our Anna Mae's face glistened
like the moon, but she was deeply aware of hidden truths. In the time of her ancestors, people
heard breezes singing when all the jungle creatures to become restless, they learned to
articulate sounds that enabled them to respond calmly to any situation. Something might
move in the late night forest, it's a nocturnal creature and nothing to be wary of, no fear,
certainly no sweat or fret.
I wish I had enough film to shoot scenes and the wild gesticulations of many Northern
Caucasian mothers trying to stop a baby from crying. This pattern of social hysteria was given
over as a tradition that the care professionals proffered to a society no-being human people
who themselves were weaned and raised on hedonist folly. Those who could, hired people
whose history was rooted in the natural harmony of sounds; women of African descent in
whom was imbued a nature to woo their infants to sleep; to bathe, change, and bottle feed
them while humming their hymns. Our Anna raised us on us nursery rhymes about the slavery
to which her ancestors had been unjustly subjected. The words could have meant nothing but
the voice patterns became intrinsic to the development of our spirits, "don't you cry, cause
you's in that mean man's boat: Youh mommy hears your sad song an's gonna make it sweet,
so you just go to sleep. What we gonna do baby, you just sleep little baby, mommy's gonna bake an apple pie."
That's what's called being a soul brother, when memories haunt far into the dark of my
sleep, or I'm uptight trekking down the street; can't forget Anna Mae's love for a minute, it's
cool right now, here and nowhere too, caus' I got soul. I Mickey am Marshall throbbing into
Moshe the imperative "to be." I am being that gives structure to the inner essence, connected
to the any action performed within a framework of time, utilization of the "ing" thing
expression unique in the English language. I move in silence, just action on the physical level
is being described, but when I'm moving the whole globe spins around the sun, and as such
the verb depicting such action becomes continuous. Let's take a brief overview of what is
involved in communicating thoughts. In order for a normal child to develop his capacity to
speak, he needs a healthy auditory system, visual acuity, adequate memory, speech facilities,
and mechanisms within the brain that switch and transfer the flow of thought into a proper
response. Most sensations never arrive to the realm of perception because we filter out all but the pertinent details of our existence.
That some people go beyond viable and the simple may be attributed to man's creative
potential, they tap into a realm beyond the rational and tune into the soul. All energy intrinsic
to the world emanates from a core at the expanse of time and space; it is forever bound to its
source like an electron orbiting around its neutron. This does not postulate either the
destruction or creation of energy, it simply states that energy is a force that travels over the
expense of time but was generated in the original space with which it forever remains
identified. Action of a body emanates from mental forces sending impulses from the brain to
the body, so you've got soul and if you've got brains try to keep it together. How does a blob
of flesh called the brain arrive at cognitive realizations? The physical and cosmic entities in
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the world are fashioned out of the same substances -- the basic elements, wind, light, water, and earth. The universe is energy infused into a form the brain comprehends at the right time!
When linguistic scientists discuss language processing they start with the ability of the
mind to formulate representations. These representations are described in terms of external;
broken down into categories of either linguistic or pictorial, and internal; either prepositional
or analogous, the latter being compared to pictorial. Yet, it is obvious that a picture does not
maintain physical proportions of an image during the mental processing, regardless of
whether it is a sensation of external events, or a perception that is internal in its entirety. The
object we perceive with our five senses takes on a meaning that translates into sound and
other images: letters, and words! Animals express a variation of sound that requires no verbal
representation; their lives are less complicated. Their affinity to nature is more highly attuned
than that of the human species.
Say hey, for Anna Mae's devotion to raise Northern Caucasian children, and all like her
who while working for Northern Caucasians invested mitochondrial soul in the bones of the
offspring of the young ones with whom they had contact. Such deep individuals of African
descent served in the menial capacities that Northern Caucasian mothers and fathers abhorred,
and sowed revolutionary breath and deep secrets of their faith into the flesh and blood of
those for whom they cared. Faith is not a destination it is a heartfelt deposition, it's there just
like the heartbeat. The issue of human language is of particular interest especially to people
who distinguish between the cognitive processes and intelligence. Know that the first sounds
an infant hears are the basis for all later language acquisition. This ability is one of the
strongest forces in nature, the imprint. Imprinting occurs geese and ducks and is essential to
survival of the human species.
That being the case, so I kind of flip out when I think of the hissing and battering,
screaming (not to mention the visuals of my mother being bashed); hysterical ranting like
incessant horn blowing during rush hour. I offer these thoughts here as a contradistinction to
the steady stream of soul sounds that flowed across the span of time that comforted me when
Anna Mae held me to her bosom. Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham, so tell me father
gone and deceased what was going through your mind; how would you like me to think of the
love you emphatically shared through the hateful and perverted manifestations of your
inhumanity towards my brother, sister and I? I would willingly forgive you and if it were
possible, also to forget you but I am what you fashioned in the living of your self-image.
I am inclined to harp the sweet song of the jungle's harmony that imbues ancient African
civilizations with their appreciation of the human role in the wide realm of nature. I mean;
nature with all its ramifications expands beyond the environs of Africa, so it stands to reason
that historical inhabitance of the same inculcated wisdom in the people who would ultimately
transmigrate. Though Northern Caucasian society was bent on enslaving the indigenous
population of the African nations, what they didn't realize is that the traditions of these people
includes the realization; that after all the manipulations, no matter what the Northern
Caucasian society thought was mastery, in the end human nature will be restored. They will
be the masters of their own destiny. This wisdom was passed down from generation to
generation -- to Anna Mae, from her ancestors. She cuddled me to the degree I felt the spirit
she has imparted into my soul.
The basic premise of human existence is that a person can effect any specific reality, which
prevails at any given moment, only insofar as he remains true to an internal identification. Our
will power extends only as far as the will to grasp a perception. This was known to the little
old great-grandmother and transmitted in the soul sounds that she would utter in harmony to
the nature of the fierce jungles of Africa. How could people live amongst tigers and elephants
and believe they were in control of their lives? It was a matter of faith; the beasts are as
intended to be, and one needs to go about life, so what is there to understand? Words are an
expression of sounds that accompany actions learned through imitation, practice, and
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perfection but have little meaning unto their self. Anna Mae told me how her granny felt
plenty bad on that boat, the while tears pouring down her cheeks almost drowned me. Hush
little baby, you're rocking the slave ship; it's just old Anna Mae singing a lullaby, and if that swing takes you high, grab yourself a piece of sky.
If only to climb out of Rose Cavern and run to Anna Mae (AM), but we AM, I is singing
the song I learned of love for life, we be it for you all. The weaving of breath from within the
rhythmic beating of my heart, as sounds reverberating therein make themselves felt upon the
earth beneath; like an ethereal Morse Code impelling words beyond the reaches of eternity. If
you were as smart as an ostrich you could tune into soul faith, if as sensitive as an elephant
you could catch my breeze. What of the gestalt in which this development took shape? By
contrast, we must dare a glance at the physical, cultural, or social accomplishments of man in
the modern age. We have become intellectual perfectionists, idolizing and arrogantly
defending the correctness of mentality, of knowing we are right about our views of things or
events. The important thing is to know how life is found breath of a mantra: Motion is the universal language and it all returns to the silence.
Perfectionist Intellectualism Debased
I've aged considerably during the decade of my descent and deliberate seclusion into a
conception of death that has sprouted from within Rose Cavern. I can see the wobbling
characteristics in my mind's playback, of the imagined film episodes portraying me as a
toddler grasping my plastic baby rattle and manipulating it with my lips and tongue. I was
consigned the very best, and this model had the approval of Dr. Spook. Such multifaceted
levels of sophistication involved in how a rattle arrived to the hands of an infant. The design,
including material, shape, and color were the outcome of studies and consultations on the
highest level of social and physical sciences such as psychology and engineering. In addition,
the marketing techniques were piqued to the finest infinitum, such as pertained to a whole
range of baby products, but that's not even the main point. First, they deprive you of bodily
warmth; and from the moment one's security blanket is grabbed away from him; the modern
Caucasian society dictates gaudy display of consumerism as a way for him to regain an
increment of self-assurance. The consumer economy was based on deceptive strategies to fleece people of their income, money that would have better been invested in a secure future.
Toys were designed into order to maximize the specific quantity and effect of the
stimulation that the object would have on the child's brain. The Greeks had the culture of
sensation; drama and art, the Romans; sport and conquest, and each strived for perfectionist in
the realms that depicted the nationalist ideal. Intellectualism is a realm of striving that has
superseded every other consideration in honky societies in both the occident and the orient.
Up to date parents were encouraged to ensure that their children would have super-ultimate
ability to climb rungs of social mobility, so they bought every educational gadget that
promoted "youthful development." The idea was to train parents to acquiesce to the
nationalist suggestions that promote excellence in the academic arena, the "only" assurance
that could guarantee the security and liberty of their children. Failure, of course was built into
the system, and factories thrive on those who didn't make the grade. It goes without saying
such pursuits were very expensive.
I can depict here the feeling of parents whose children are rejected from the college,
parents of those who flunk out of high school. The issue a hand is to bring to awareness that
certain ideals concerning academic indemnities were not based on the principles of a greater
human society for the largest number of citizens. Calm demeanor is the responsibility of
adulthood, specifically to avoid greedy yearning as one's main occupation in life. Parents who
were enticed by styles and purchases when fashions became outdated should have learned to
communicate to their children as beloved members of a family. Our existential sustenance
depends on the utilization of resources we procure in the world we inhabit. This then is the
character of survival imbued in every species that for whatever reason has been placed in this world. It is important to know our place in the larger scheme of things.
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Is this preponderance not a most difficult truth to absorb into our mentality? Doesn't each
of us have our own, a right to possession? I deign to answer that a system of academic
research called the scientific method is based on the one aspect of truth that remains after
eliminating the untruth. The above-mentioned objectives of commercialism are the strategy
effectuated by Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas (SCRUB) whom; though a small
percent of the world's population, claim the right of ownership over more than 90% of the
world's resources. They had to take the risk of higher education in in order to devise better
and more efficient systems of corruption and persecution. My assertion stands to question
whether those who chased the proffered rewards of the system can get their goose out the pot
of delirious devastation in time to regenerate their intrinsic spiritual aspirations. Are we
inextricably dependent on the SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) system?
At a conjecture of two decades into the 21st century, we wonder if the cumulative abuses of
the ecosystem have shifted the globe from a state of balance to a state of imbalance. We are
face with a calamity of irreconcilable demographic ramifications. The escape from the
melting pot of assimilation is the new era introspection and for many individuals the chosen
path is a return to the roots (teshuva) from which Jewish tradition has been eternally
nourished. Those brave enough to burden himself or herself with personal and national
salvation are in for a surprise. The baggage of cultural taboo is not some baggage he or she
leaves at the train station as he climbs aboard the train of mitzvohs. It is a process of
restructuring one's habituation, culture affiliation; denial of all that he believes to be
scientifically true, and yes, deprivation (in proportion to his level of depravation). This story
is a twenty years journal of weeping and sniffling, and patting my tears dry with the paper on which the ink is cast.
Subterranean Currents
I was about three-years old when a fire-breathing dragon decimated my fragile family
shelter. "Young sister," "older brother" and I were playing and fooling around in our
backyard. The swing arches forward as neighborhood children push young sister gently in
harmony to branches of the pear tree swaying in the summer breeze. Trees, you see, need to
sway in order to strengthen their trunk. Elephants' trunks are not relevant to this discussion,
but it bears mentioning their feet become flat from their stomping them in frustration of
finding no refuge from the Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas. Older brother, a
neighborhood girl, and I were standing in the garage taking turns to break the glass window in
the garage door with a stick that had come to hand. My turn arrived and the honor to break the very tiniest last piece of remaining glass.
Others besides me have remarked that events in the first five years of development form
the character traits the individual carries throughout life, so yes sir; we'll follow out that
theory starting here. This, however, does not contradict that each of us can strive to achieve
anything we set our minds to accomplish. Even people with neurological difficulty or those
wanting to learn a skill they've never studied, don't have to defend to the national character of
doing society's bidding. Every limitation can be surpassed if one channels his strength into
contemporaneous levels of talent. My point here is that I was socially and emotionally
handicapped because of a tragedy, and the way my nurturing society handled it conformed to
the SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) authority to abuse, batter, and
condescend towards everybody, and to lust after wealth obtained through corruption that resulted in ends justifying themselves.
The (Post) trauma (Stress disorder), not the tragedy -- that's the point being made here! My
parents treatment of one another was atrocious, the school authorities at best insensitive, other
children conspicuously obnoxious, and my efforts to dismantle the injustices society has
perpetuated against their own citizenry at best frustrating. As to my personal neurosis
resultant from glass piercing Joanne's eye, the "protectors" reaction to "the accident" was
more distressing than the trauma. This, because of each parent would assert alibis and
castigate blame in order to pin the crime on the other, a child's game of pin the tail on the
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donkey. Dad held mom culpable for not standing guard to prevent the occurrence, mom
claimed he authorized surgery that was the cause of blindness, whereas a different treatment
would have saved the vision in that eye.
What a (laughing to avoid crying) joke, the Jewish people in middle classless modern
society have made of the richness of true and pure faith, wisdom entrusted in the soul of man
instructed as tradition; and I'm not even talking about observing religious strictures. Want a
real laugh, look at the pictures of the counts and established patrons of the monarchial
societies with pomp as the ultimate glory passed on to the offspring of the aristocracy that
maintains social appearances above all, and then figure out how people of natural human
societies (African, Asian, Aborigine, Native American) mange with skin bare attire. I mean,
the genetic coding of one human is the same as any other, and has nothing to do with the
vessels or fashion with which we adore ourselves. My ancestor's originated in Mesopotamia,
were strewn about Western Europe, then Eastern Europe and when things got hot under the
collar, from there emigrated to America.
My paternal grandfather was notorious for trade in semolina he'd ground until one of his
biggest hoists rotted in the warehouses of the Chicago gangsters. His ancestors had traded in
gold so he readily fell into the sewage line of the gangster underworld. Dad would have
married a Canadian had not mom's father ran away from Canada in order to abandon his faith
and family. She was apparently attracted to the lights fantastic that the shores of Lake
Michigan reflected from the beacons the Windy City, reflected in the jazz skills dad pounded
out of the keyboard. They, as did many other Jewish teenagers in the after-roaring twenties
sought to avenge themselves on poverty, did so by stripping their soul of anything worthwhile
to humanity. These historical facts are universal currents of energy that would influence the
generation of progeny in the modern scenario of Jewish inhabitance in the Modern Occident.
Suffice to say that sins of the parents are visited upon the third and fourth generations.
Reconciling himself to the truth was the last thing that came to my father's mind; but I became
a chozair b'teshuva (adherent to the laws of Judaism).
The wind whistled soundlessly as the projectile rocketed into the speck of light hidden in
young sister's pupil. The stick utilized to break the window in the garage door, from where did
it hail? Was it a splinter from a witch's broom, which the puritan yenta threw away before she
was burned at the stake? What forces of gravity destined the stick in my hands to bat a piece
of glass into such a small circle of tissue as an eye? Can man avoid retribution because he
turns an eye when "master" whipped slaves, the hoodlum robbed a bank, or a storeowner or
the sales representative profaned the Sabbath?
While the scalpel was being sterilized, the steam was howling from the train ride that took
mom to distant relatives, part of the scheme pre-meditated by dad so he'd carry through with
the surgery in mom's absence. The shifts of blame covered the history of civilizations buried
under the threat of reopening wounds. I made so many excursions to Canada so many to
Chicago, to unravel confusion buried somewhere in the past, not even knowing where I was
or how I got there, and in the end I drew a blank, I was buried up to my neck in self-hatred.
The force of guilt from an affliction of pain upon a beloved companion can never be forgotten, no matter how many times forgiven.
The patch on Joanne's eye was a badge of my shame that was met with the cruelty of
reality, being accosted by everyone telling me "your sister is cross-eyed." Maybe I wasn't yet
even four years old the day after a picture taken (that portrayed her as a darling toddler who
was never again to enjoy such faultless features), but it wasn't until dad was in the throes of
death that I breathed into his ear the singular word of the true version of the story. Life was a
hot bed of castigations and there was no time for discussions; it was easier for my dad to
blame and persecute my mom, and punish her with the abuses he heaped upon her in the
presence of older brother, younger sister, and I. Confession could never repair the damage, never would have prevented it.
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He used to scream at her, "Fang," and call her a snake and added the effect of a hissing
sound as though it proved his accusation! Even if the next-door neighbors hadn't heard the
shouting, which certainly they did, there were other people aware of what was going on. The
name-calling, the expressions of belligerence, the hate mongering were not isolated
expressions, did not occur in a vacuum. They staged a contest, each who thought they could
degrade the other into a state of humiliation that would signal defeat, admission, and
culpability. A war raged over the heads of family and community that would never abate as long as the combatants survived.
This and many similar tribulations throbbed within the heart of a Jewish child, his family
and community in Northwest Detroit. As stated previously, a punishing accident can be a
tragedy; the trauma levels depend on the way the stress is handled. Neither of my parents
listened to the other because they were too busy arguing, first off as to whom was to blame.
As tension increased when the eye could no longer be saved the dissension on this point was
drown in the habit of alcoholism to which dad became addicted, which led to marital demise; business failure, emotional collapse: and to my childlike thinking, I was suspect!
What a trip, my brain is still harangued by the constant arguments, mom's sobbing, dad's
detached bitterness; the sin became the permanent modality of family life in our home and the
edifice of our role in the eyes of the community. Teenage rebellion against authority runs
parallel to exercising one's physique to fit an image of self. I ran from the torture until I felt I
could no longer hide my disgust with life. On the grandiose level, I rebelled against people
because they chose to ignore despotism and planetary injustice. Underprivileged peoples are
economically enslaved, Jewish people are being assimilated out of existence, and the globe is
inundated by natural catastrophes. My life's effort was to find reprieve from committing existential suicide, to wit people referred, trying to escape from myself.
My life began in the parental environment that preceded it, my father was rude and
arrogant towards my mother; it's not only in the movies I saw men drown their sorrows in
whiskey and become involved in raucous bouts of drunkenness. Violent eruptions at home
were impossible to avoid; name-calling, calumny, and shouting were the backdrops for every motion, emotion, demotion, and continual demolition.
Good old dad had become a Northern Caucasian; dressed, spoke and acted in accordance
with media purported ideas intrinsic to manliness; hoodlums drank, cowboys drank, socialites
drank, and he was a drunken failure. By the time he had made it to "alcoholics anonymous"
mom had filed for a divorce. A year after its being inveighed into law, they were remarried.
He remained "dry" until his dying days, during which time he was a workaholic and in his
spare time a sport-aholic.
A couple of decades later, I booked passage on a mystical train ride that took me away
from the swamp of oblivion. I went to Chicago yeshiva, ostensibly, to revisit a path taken by
my cousins, in the very same environment that nurtured dad's upbringing. One of my fondest
recollections is the breakfast I shared in the home of a second cousin before going for the
interview at the Rabbinical College. Trying to fool the pain that haunted us, I traipsed through
the streets chanting, "Left, right, had a good job and I left. First they hired me, and then they
fired me - had a good job and I left."
The issue of each parent proving him or herself right in the arena of marital conflict knows
no boundaries of shame as the flames of inequity spread to the hearth of the neighbors. It
became an activity such as a sport's event, like boxing or wrestling matches were a spectacle
in the Aryan culture, a heritage of Rome and Greece. The literates of yore have their myths of
the strongest or wisest amongst them pulling a sword out of a rock, while the crowds cheer
until the victor arises. Accounting for my own anxiety was like chasing corn kernels popped
in burning oil, the amusement shared amongst all the neighbors. The patriarch of the neighborhood was sure he'd get the truth out of me.
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I loved to hear him repeat his fable, a drama of someone who treasured a pink ping-pong
ball; and upon his marriage was asked by his wife, "why?" He was almost able to reveal the
secret, but never did, neither to her or their children and nor to their grandchildren. It was only
on his deathbed that he started to tell everybody about it, but he transpired taking the secret
with him to his grave. The idea was to get me to cough up the feeling of guilt I eventually
harbored inside for the length and breadth of fifty years, and everybody knew; it was I, who
poked out Joanne's eye. Only I refused to validate the reality.
I was friends with the "patriarch's" daughter, so he wanted to help, but I dared open my
mouth the whole sewer would back up, so how could I have told him? I saw my father argue
violently with my mother. One time, the issue was whether I should drink glass of milk that
he ended up throwing it in her face. We three heard his drunken rages of degrading her, and
where my mind blacks out when it comes to have actually have seen him beat her, I saw the
bruises. I tried to stop his abusive brawls so many times. A child sees things in extremes, a
monster and a fairy princess, no in-betweens. Someday I would triumph in battle.
Dragons of disharmony parade unhampered within children's minds; wreaking havoc in the
hearts of one whom gleans a sight of puss oozing from its chambers. I was alone in my
inability to battle the inner torment; forced to encounter the threat to my life by any nothing
that spontaneous combustion that would ignite into a confliction at every turn with my
surroundings. I was a prisoner of a man who terrorized his captive wife and appeased her by
setting up a façade of banal luxury that would distract her from the violation of her human
dignity. In this melting pot was prepared the brew of disregard for the human quality of life: greed and cruelty were the fuel and flames of assimilation.
Nobody dared chastise this monster for having caused blindness in the eye of his daughter.
On the other hand, my mom was seemingly being beaten as an outcome of my having not
owed up to my guilt (as per misconstrued perceptual babbling), as per his having held her to
blame. Only someone who has been violent can describe what goes through his mind when he
acts that way, but since he's ashamed that he acted that way he'd rather not talk about it. I
think I can help on that score. The violator is under stress having desired the to-be-violated to
act in a certain way, to say something particular, or offer no resistance to his nuances. At
stake is his self-importance or the loss thereof; complicity becomes compulsion no matter what the cost.
Sticks are good for beating drums and the percussion of this projectile crashing away from
the window frame was destined to reverberate for more generations than those that preceded
its arrival to this trespass in time. The vibrations of it hurtling through space arouse a peculiar
sensitivity in anyone, touched by the horrific waves of concentric energy that were essentially
traumatic ramifications. Eye for an eye the tomatoes grew green and the bigger they became,
the redder they got. When popped forcefully all the gushy pulp comes pouring out, just like
the blood I witnessed pouring out of young sister's eye. It left a trail from the garage unto the
back door of our house. Planting tomatoes alongside the garage was the therapeutic lesson
intended to displace the disturbing memories of the accident. The whistle of the projectile was
a cosmic percussion, a repercussion. A spin off from events that had transpired generations ago.
Examples of the concentric circles that ebbed from the force of "the accident" were
innumerable. The domestic unrest distracted all my energies in efforts to escape the same,
projecting my feeling of inadequacy on hapless targets. The many banal manifestations my
mind fears shot forth lest the darkness of my abysmal guilt feelings swallow me alive. Slimy
memories seeping out of my brain moisten and fertilize the soil of time and spice it for the
weevils therein creeping. Reversion overcomes my instinct to communicate with anyone
fearful they'll perceive the degraded nature that from within my soul causes an overload on
the autistic equalizer. Oh Rose Cavern, there's no place like home, you are my comfort, my
hope, and my only tranquility. As I lay upon the cushion of my darling Rose Cavern I can see
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myself for what I am, to withdraw into me and delve deeper beyond the presence of my being into the essence of my purpose in becoming I am.
I was a microcosm of being subject to the pathos of guilt. Accusations of culpability for an
action by one person or another or by one nation against another has been the manner by
which man has controlled other people, the weapon with which he would fire hatred and
brutality throughout the generations of humankind. As it pertains to my development, on the
individual level, one can picture the youthful boy who had to cower in fear of being
discovered (he obviously identified himself as the perpetrator). Guilt can exist only where
insecurity prevails, an outcome of human dependency on one's society or nurturing
community. Thus, the value of traditional Judaism as it applies the method of inculcating faith
in its adherents, in word and deed even from the moment of birth. This faith expresses itself in
mutual devotion of spirit, comradely action, and direction even if it all leads to an infinite nowhere -- now here!
Virtual percussion of stressful recollections permeated the hearts and memories of the
neighborhood. Anna, about my age, became a twinkle shining in my distraught heart. Behind
each house that was constructed ten houses, row upon row, was a backyard, each separated by
a gate from the neighboring yard. The rambunctious children climbed over them and trampled
flowers back from, and forth to people's homes. At some point, my dad prevailed over the
other homeowners to tear their gates down, thus connecting our yard to all others. It was as
though the effect of the accident dissipated in collective guilt by virtue of association. The
extra-curricular days of my prepubescent years were idyllic for their simplicity.
The image that seemed to prevail over my pubescent consciousness was being a tough-
guy; habituated to abrasive manners, sarcastic responses and offensive remarks, the hoodlum
type. With an end to the 1950's baby boom, and due to declining enrollment during my
elementary schooling, many new pupils transferred into my class. Behavioral adjustments
became the key to popularity. The early training grounds were the nightly prowls through the
neighborhood, together with a small band of boys doing everything we could to be an
annoyance and cause disruption to people settled restively in their homes for the night. During
daylight hours, I instigated a system of cliques based on territorial considerations; children
from different streets were excluded from the group that identified "us."
On my street consisting of the row of houses previously mentioned, I had been an
experienced as a leader of the "Fighting Blue Devils." I had not yet found acceptance amongst
the new group who quickly became fed up with my shenanigans. My expanse into these new
realms only reinforced the walls of the secret chambers into which I had plummeted. I knew
that I couldn't fit in with anyone and there was no one with whom I shared anything of value
to me. I thus experienced consternation and impelled to perpetuate some form of social
manifestations that enabled me to avoid confrontation with my inner ugliness. It never took
long for anybody to hate me. The neighborhood gang outgrew childhood, whereas my guilt
remained an infestation, affliction, and dereliction plaguing my innards.
The Quinns lived across Santa Clara but so did Chana who was Anna's cousin and within
that sphere evolved attempts at conquest, so that whole block became part of us. Then there
were my classmates who were from south of Six Mile Road, not part of "us." When the Board
of Education widened the school district, new terrains were introduced. Babushka had lived
north of Curtis, and now that I could cross Curtis without an accompanying adult, these areas
became a new dominion for expansion beyond my personality confinements. I was an
immediate novelty in new arenas but spurned quickly.
While the projection of my image shined forth, "Super" dad had to make good so we'd
know that no evil could be attributed to him, no matter what abuse he heaped on mom. Every
week, every Sunday morning during the winter, he took the neighborhood gang tobogganing.
One wintry morning, happening together this aura of special reprieve from my feeling like an
outcast: crash the ice broke and big brother went tumbling into the freezing puddle! There
were no more tobogganing Sundays; maybe we were already too big to fit in the car. He also
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organized Little League sports organizations but was relieved of his duties, probably for double dipping into the kitty.
As I involuntary consider at length the explicit conscious memory of the swing set, it has
disappeared, with a swimming pool being placed subliminally in the spot it once occupied.
The pets went in with us and it was too disgusting even to discuss, so the pool was
dismantled. Ultimately, the haunted garage and the backyard became a parking space for my
dad's car. Grass and shrubs were ripped up, the esthetic beauty achieved by neighborly
conformity discombobulated, and most unfortunately, the guy who laid the cement for the
driveway ripped off. That's how SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas)
gyppers pride themselves on getting something for nothing.
People who justify taking everything they can get their hands on; for their lonely selves,
end up standing alone in the thick-walled steel reinforced vault protecting their cherished
values - in a safety box (the capitalist equivalent of a security blanket), where they dare not let
anybody join in their life. I learned to be greedy and to cherish unjust gain as evidence of my
value as a person, in short, a materialist. Like, the story about the pink ping ball nobody knew
what drove me to such extremes. Nobody senses the tears under the painted faces of a clown,
because they laugh so hard until they start crying. That's the only way he can become part of
their lives. The nationalist ideal of intellectual perfectionism allowed for no expressions of
emotion, a person was either cut out for academic excellence or destined to be a blue-collar laborer, a non-entity; straw for consumption by the run of the mill the donkey.
The playback zooms to my youthful development as I do corner turns on my two-wheeler,
leaning far over and exerting noise to imitate the motorcyclists seen on TV. Cultural
acceptance of the people, by the people who make up the constituency of the capitalist
America of the 20th century, translated into a miniscule fraction of the people who acting as
societal power brokers took hold of the reins. They succeeded to manipulate the power with
which they would design, manufacture, advertise, distribute, and profit off all human
endeavor by anybody who benefited from the establishment. The generation was trained to
accept as authoritative the views that were popularized by the media. The strongest, wisest, or
richest amongst each segment set the pace for others in their groupings. By the time I had
reached five years old, I could pull back the reins on my bike (with training wheels), standing
it upwards on the hind wheel and charge stealthily forward to victory for the motherland and a
hearty slice of apple pie.
My kindergarten early morning hours with Mrs. Roll were exercises in the fractured
society's scheme of molding the national character to produce gullible, loyal citizens who
would sacrifice riches and their very life for the well-being of the SCRUB marauders. Each
morning, hand upon heart we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Boy's ultimate development
into soldiers meant they were trained to be obedient and cruel; a verity nurtured in back
waters seeping from the mainstream of repulsive greed, unconscionable ignorance regarding
those whom we despoiled, or provisions for the generations to follow in the future. Actually,
this book is a story of the modern society exploding fireballs of assimilation in a cultural
genocide aimed at families of Jewish origin. Materialism, evolution, destitution, dissolution, disruption, corruption, eruption, and perversion accompany our descent into a melting pot.
The wobbly lens is focused on a little boy arguing he doesn't want to put on his rain boots,
and a generation later forcing his own son to wear those yellow canvas-lined raincoats. If
somebody had a certain style raincoat, everybody had to wear whatever everybody else wore.
Somewhere a style is introduced; it becomes the fad because an actor who's idolized has
purportedly used that brand. How did the actors and sportsman become famed as heroes?
How can people cough up their hard-earned bucks to view them while they degrade their soul
in pursuit of idiocy and immodesty? Such charlatans earned millions and some laundered their
fame to become politicians. Glory and greed were the cultural mores that fashioned my
upbringing, my demise the harbinger to the downfall of SCRUBism. Detachment from
materialism is possible in the framework of Traditional Judaism, at least in my case.
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Chapter II -- Wild Style Riled Let's contemplate the millions of people who may've lived in a communal location, used
the same roads, woke up and invested hours of labor, materiel, and time in banal pursuits such
as those to which they flock into the cultural and sport competition arenas. I'm thinking of
lifestyles mostly in the occident whereby every channel of the multimedia, gimmickry, and
advertising inundate the children of mankind and dupe them to consume idiocy and expend
frivolously, the same materialist greed haunts the whole of humanity. A dog, acting goofy is
animated under the tutelage of a mouse that is so talented there's not a child in America who
would want leaders less charismatic than Mickey. The subliminal commands were meant to
imbue people with a disposition towards racial and religious hatred, sexist greed, and chauvinist lusting after the comforts of the world.
This is not the place to belabor the point, but people employ most of their strength and
talents in specific scripts choreographed by SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust
Barracudas). People used to say they were cogs in machinery, but today we are controlled like
digital sparks that flash across electronic circuitry. This style of life debases the human
character to the extent the masses are programmed to fulfill mechanically; decisions as to how
we live, eat, sleep, dress, work, play, and die. The emotions we experience are like canned
vegetables and expressions such as grief and joy are canned into phrases that make them
delectable. Imagination is scorned as mental illness; independent thought considered a
ludicrous imposition; pursuit of liberty a scandalous disposition, and as such being human has
become an endangered rarity upon the face of the earth.
When I was between the ages of five and ten, I used to play with friends after school and
run around doing nothing until called home for dinner. I had a youthful inclination to make
friends with whom I would share moments, and experience physical recreation. Most people
sustained a relationship with nuclear and extended members of their family; this ideal had a
middle-class designation of being the preferred destiny of human development. Being a
SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) meant enslavement of the
downtrodden, productivity, military service and our childhood games intended to train us to
perpetuate the same crap as perpetuated by the elitist class during those times. Academic
opportunity, job offerings, and mobility were the flames of the dragon that imbued people to
loath settling down and raising a family.
A look close-up view zooms in on us watching the wrestling matches we used to watch on
the tube. My brother and I whiled away the hours gouging at one another's eye, him bending
my arm behind my back, subjecting me to the spit torture (sitting on someone while a spitball
hanged from your mouth) until the opponent surrendered, and vain swearing. We invented
sport games to play when trapped inside the house during rainy days, nary a moment spent in
silent contemplation. The door to our parents' room was the "net,'' for basketball games until
the wall was bedecked with dirt. The time had to be spent doing something entertaining, an imminent distraction to keep us out of trouble; we had no responsibilities!
I was inquisitive sort and during the course of life learned something from the ways dogs
mark out their territory by urinating. When a dude is stressed out, it's probably because he
feels ashamed of something, and if it's never properly discussed it'll start to get him pissed off.
Literally, meaning he'll do something to draw warm currents of attention upon himself; wet
his pants, pee his or her bed and urinate frequently all over the place. I became habituated to
such conduct until it spread to the realm of unconsciousness; I peed in my bed even as a
teenager. I wet my pants because I was the only territory left for me to mark within my
exclusive control. I hated school; the teacher would send me home to change pants. Enuresis
hunted me like the pea under a mattress; being subject to the best treatment non-withstanding:
when the world slept, I asserted imminent domain!
My parents quarrelling polluted the home environment while stains and the stench of urine
on my pants hampered socialization outside the home. Maybe the lack of being hugged drove
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me to be pissed off at my peers, after all, mom came running to attend to my having failed to
keep clean at school. Perhaps warmth that seeped along my flesh was surprisingly comforting.
I remember the merciful grimaces that were proffered as a sacrifice to the psychological view
of expressing empathy to those who endured traumatic stress, and herein is revealed an
important secret of child development. Many of us suffer from emotional problems that
diminish our ability to give and take, to create the pathway that leads us to outgrow infant
care, and move beyond physiological childhood. A spontaneous glance at autism can
elucidate the significance of unconditional love; the only way to relate to such people is by
expecting little; in order to avoid or diminish aggravation, the caregiver must patiently smile with them so they know they're loved.
Taking a closer look at autistic individuals, we may see that their brain development
doesn't shift into the "giving" phase of post infancy; they're stuck in the "take" only disaster of
the human condition. The national unnatural greed of people that take, and won't share is
worse than any form of mature autism. We have to learn their individualized language of
warmth and body contact in order to communicate with them. People in the occident are,
incidentally (not accidentally), ground to "to make the bread" of those who have claimed
possession of the world's resources. Once there, they'll demand illicit privileges, usurp and
hoard our private resources, enslave people, and do other political or economic machinations
intended to guarantee their bogus feelings of power, respect, and security. I was not at all
prepared for adult life; having not being in control of my kidney function or the insecurity that wracked my emotions and whose toll left me in a loner mode for the rest of my life.
This then, is me doing it "my way," telling people to "learn from me.'" I have gleaned from
my research that the human personality is formed by the age the child learns to communicate.
Look at yourself and make a comparison to how you would get your way when you were a
toddler, if it is not similar. From the ages of five to ten, I was thrown in with the beasts that
roam the modern jungle, and thereafter given a little exposure to a watered down version of
religious training. If you think the appellation jungles beasts is a bit harsh, recall for a moment what the social workers and news report about children at the dawn of the 21st century.
A social recluse, I came home from school and watched television. Seeing the thieves pull
off such daring capers was tantamount to sociologic insanity; the messages became engrained
in my personality, and I found a way to act them out. I learned to cheat in school, rob sweets
and treats from the shopping markets, to lie, and abuse people with sadistic expressions of
cruelty. This was part of the chauvinist system of training boys not to falter because of
emotional infirmity, emotions were girls' stuff; boys will be boys, meaning destructive,
insensitive, and selfish. My personality distortion was evident by the time I entered
kindergarten. A child who grows in an intensely stressful environment is most certain going to be a nervous person, meaning over reacting to most stimuli, be they positive or negative.
Whether it's true doesn't matter, it's the security I seek, and when someone hears such a
reply he quickly understands that to pursue the matter would only bring the hare to shameful
defeat in its race against the turtle, we know who wins in the end. I recall my childhood as an
experiential insanity, and the people with whom I associated were trained to see the problem
as me. If I would just strap my bootstraps and walk the straight and narrow everything would
be all right, meaning I had to be refashioned into something I was not. Throughout my adult
life, I identified with popular views labeled "prophecies of Doom." I have girded my loins to
overcome the dragon of disharmony, and battle for universal freedom and survival. The normal people can take life easy.
There are Jewish People who are fanatically loyal to the USA, to whom criticism of
America is like spitting in the plate from which one eats. It's true that religious freedom is
protected in American statues, so it's hard to convince anybody that that a typical Northern
Caucasian is a virulent anti-Judaist who is planning our decimation through a quiet SCRUB
(Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) process of assimilation (silent holocaust); no
mess, no compensation to victims. The SCRUB force us to use our grandparents' tears to
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burnish the evidence, "they're old fashioned," the young generation shan't make life choices based on their opinions, or traditions.
We were taught to be ambitious, successful, and competent members of society. The main
objective being financial security, degrees of success not to be restrained by the burden of law
and order where it hampered upward mobility. The corrupt values of society inculcated within
us the demand to achieve even through dishonest means, but not to be caught; rationalized by
the hypocritical tenet, the richer the better. Students were motivated to graduate and succeed
to greater loftiness of unchaste pleasure; to dismiss every moral propensity, the outcome of which seems to be the demise of society in its entirety.
I would like to measure the severity of my negative reaction to corruption since there's no
doubt my silence could be bought. The issue is whether humankind is imbued with an instinct
to perpetuate goodness or whether we are imminently corruptible. Here too, I must use myself
as a measure of personality factors, some of which are learned and others of which are
genetic. When detectives investigate crimes they present the accused with a list of charges
against him, but when nations press charges against other nations they charge them with
crimes against humanity. Of which am I guilty? When investigators pursue the evidence of
criminal conduct, they start with the question as to whom benefitted, what were the motivating factors.
I can recall the expressions of disappointment when my parents confronted my failures.
We've provided you with everything, given you everything money can buy, sacrificed
ourselves in your behalf! So how could you do this to us? One thing is certain; they wanted
their children to perform within the strictures determined by the Society's Club of Raving
Unjust Barracudas (SCRUB) in order to get ahead. The idea was not just to receive average
grades, those who did would grow up to be a garbage collector and the like. Anything less
than excellence was criticized, why didn't you, next time you better, and so on if you don't'
want to be a street cleaner. The idolization of wealth succumbed to the idol of intellectual perfectionism; children without academic skills were relegated to trash bins.
Children can learn by being forced to act out of complicity to parental demands, and adults
often have to be forced to be productive. Contrarily, there are many lessons we can learn from
nature; ivy growing in my garden reaches to new heights only during the season of its growth,
and only at its natural pace. No attempts on my part will persuade it to grow higher and spread
out faster, so having planted it, I assume the responsibility for its growth; the roots have to
receive water and proper nourishment. I am convinced of the expressed opinion, my praise of
the vegetative development, speaking of its beauty within hearing range of the ivy and so
forth, and perhaps loving vibrations of standing in the proximity thereof can encourage strength and development of every living being.
Children need to be trusted to grow independently, given incrementally increased
responsibility, and praised warmly for what they are and will become. Rattles, bicycles,
cowboy boots, sports equipment, gadgetry, stereos, gimmickry, card games, wild parties; the
bottom line is that we get parental warmth or find a surrogate, regardless of when where what
who or why that may be. The best my parents gave me was no match for the stress and trauma
that accompanied my life, and ipso facto, I remain in dire need of relief from over sensitivity.
For instance, five generations later I still ostracize myself due to shame of childhood
encopresis (elimination disorders) and urinary incontinence. Nobody wanted me around for so
long, it became second nature for me to prevent them the pain of my being present in their
lives.
If this thing is of such personal of nature, how can I offer it as proof to my views of what is
awry in the occidental culture? As concerns "the accident," it was the trauma and not the
tragedy that wrought destruction, so the microcosm serves to portray how the macrocosm
related to perceived rejection; the historical paranoia felt by the Jewish Nation Israel and
particularly the use of collective guilt as a weapon to gain acceptance in the eyes of anti-
Judaists. I can only use myself as a reference to set the framework of what has become of the
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me that is how people see themselves and are in the same situation whether they know it or not.
During that time and in those days I took notice of my father being in bed at all hours of
the day. He had lost his business to drunkenness; unable to face up to his malfeasance blamed
his father-in-law; to whom he refused to speak, his wife; who he battered unconscionably, the
former business partner; who he claimed robbed the register; all this because the shame of
failure was more than he could bear. Mom started a business selling clothes in the small
basement room where the house cleaner had resided years earlier. He destroyed the merchandise and facility as a disproof of his impotency to provide for the family.
Dad's virulent and drunken fits continued several years, well into my teen-age years, and
yes, I think the lines on my face can be read to divulge something about the feelings off a
child seeing his mother consumed by a prehistoric monster. Quite curiously, he was possessed
of a fanatic belief in self-determinism and because of his love for children made great strides
for them to make their world a better place. It was from within this bramble that I became a
warrior of justice particular to the fact I would not slay the dragon, no, I would teach him the
value of using his flames to be creative and kind. The result is that I have known misery as
my lifelong companion. The deep hole in the garden behind the rose trellis is my only solace, Rose Cavern my devoted friend.
Apathy in the modern society is not necessarily indicative of detachment from life. People
hate being manipulated to produce as though nothing but cogs in machinery, and the feeling
that they have no control over their life is most certainly depressing. This perpetual injustice
is deep-rooted in the social milieu of a repressive governing authority; implanted unto the
family relationships between parents and children, and into the civic realms of interaction
between the malingering bureaucrats and the tax-paying citizen. Personality traits such as
submission to domestic abuse are doled out; the police and court system do little to protect the
victim. We were programmed to feel that inter-personal relationships should be the least of
our problems: but, is this not the disease of assimilation, when human is downgraded to
something insufferable?
The fact of good manners and a decent attitude being instituted as paradigms of SCRUB
society is one of the tools of the establishment to keep the masses under control. My
socialization during the years until maturation included speaking respectfully towards adults,
punctuality, and obedience to authority. We donned the masks of civilization to hide the
purposelessness of existence that was evident from the empty expressions on our faces. Our
existence was not felt, nor were we permitted to feel our essence. Bad dreams were a less
harrowing experience than waking reality. Seeing my father enter the same room as mom
became a paranoid scenario that would lay waste emotion; how prevent him from beating my
mother? How could a deprecated infamous raven, rotten extensively within, ever find
companionship in a world without, where social grace was the minimal requirement on which
to base an interaction with a member of the opposite sex?
Liberty and Justice
There are recognizable areas of marital conflict and its adverse influence upon the children
growing up in the environment thereof. The first is the identification of a boy with the father
image, and a girl with the mother image as their own personalities are fashioned. The second
is that they are apt to mistake their own role in the perpetuation of the conflict. The parents
add fuel to the flames by encouraging the children to take sides, often a natural outcome of
supplanting the love of the child for that of the spouse. The thing about spousal abuse,
whether it's against men, women or children, is that the SCRUB ideology holds to the
principle that it's incumbent to first save the women and children from a sinking ship. Since
men are dominant, they can't adequately treat the miscreants of their species.
They arrive at a conclusion, that according to nature the future abides in the survival of
women and children, and as such apply this principle to save them from a sinking ship. The
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issue of how the men deal with their abusive nature remains unsolved. How do we explain the
contradiction? Violence toward one's spouse is tolerated in the SCRUB world, since women
are a commodity doled out as compensation for binding one's soul to the malignant SCRUB
(Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) exploits against humanity. Displays of tender
emotion were relegated to the status of weakness likened to criminality against the species of
mankind, and since everybody had feelings, they were convinced they were insane if they
dared to express them. My withdrawal from society was a drama of habitual faltering, which later became a presumption of correctness.
The violent displays of my father during his spells of drunkenness were catastrophic in my
eyes for reason I considered the secret I was hiding to be the main cause of his blaming my
mother for the object of his wrath. I felt an urgency to defend my mother against his assaults.
Yet, I was no match against the repressive might of the offender. I therefore held myself liable
for cowardice, and at the same time concocted all kinds of schemes to do something about the
oppressive circumstance that encompassed my life. These conditions bred my delusive
inclination to grandeur, a responsibility to take up the cause of the oppressed, to affront
people who demeaned, degraded, and harmed other people. There was, however, a dangerous undercurrent beneath my altruism.
Hooligans like me live with the impression that nobody loves them, but knowing what
banal impulses lurk within my soul I never wanted them close enough to take away the pink
ping-pong ball (the hallowed secret). Being alone is alright if you have split personalities,
perhaps have several of them and can even hold meetings and avoid being lonesome, always
having somebody around to keep you company. The problem was that I was trying too hard
not to be like my father, and had only the example of how he tried to mold me into something
other than I would optimally grow to be. My mother had obviously seen herself as victimized
by it, influenced as she was by the sacrilegious view of how my father saw it. I was not to be
satisfied with cheap imitations like the apathetic concern both expressed towards me, I could
only find solace somewhere far from reality.
Did Ben Franklin not profess liberty as his compatriots annihilated and decimated Indians
to whom they dished out death with a forked tongue? Was the motivation behind his sayings
not to reprove the citizenry in Colonial America? History teaches us that most his wise
sayings never reached the heart and soul of the people whom he addressed. The politicians
always entice us to trust their utilizing the flowery national epithets, but have done this so
long they can no longer hide their corruption. Laws of compulsory education are designed to
convince us that genuine principles are the laws governing our lives, but they are never
instituted. The SCRUB enforce a system to proliferate their schemes of getting rich at the
expense of the poor.
The contradiction is not as invisible as they'd like to think it is, it's just so strictly enforced
that the only way to beat the system is to be more crooked than those who perpetuate it. As
previously stated, the purpose of my writing in the first person is to not autobiographical in
and of itself, except to prove the thesis of my historical premise that I was the fall guy to a
corrupt system. I now recognize in my compulsion to steal things a perverted way to prove
inner worth. Many stories are written about children with a compulsion to shoplift, though
money be readily available to enable their making purchases of the same objects they'll steal.
A quick analysis might offer some insight to this problem. Whereas the shelves of stores
are filled with desirable commodities, and the rip-off artist can think of many techniques to
procure them without paying, the question of propriety hovers. While children grow up, they
receive every object they'll come to possess with neither effort nor expense on their parts.
Needing only one pair of slacks or a single shirt from a store filled with attractive apparel why
not help oneself to what he or she wants. So it's probably a good idea for parents to explain to
children how the money is earned with which the products consumed will be purchased. To
teach by rote until it becomes inscribed in the memory of children that we have to pay for
what we wish to buy.
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Once upon a time, people shopped in the stores close to their homes, and were
recognizable by, and familiar to the shopkeepers. As such, the opening of the Northland
shopping center opened avenues for my wanton pursuits, and I would go there with friends
just to steal things in their presence, to show off my cunning. Color in the absence of light is
black, so in the changing room I would wrap the object around my waist, and explain nothing
to the clerk as I left the store in dignity. Supermarkets displayed objects far from the scrutiny
of clerks who serviced the customers, so it was no problem to swipe many articles and pay for
only one or a few. The integrity clothed the dishonesty. Seller beware, today they have
cameras scouting the aisles!
An integral part of my prepubescence was collecting coins, and I took the most deliberate
and tedious path to success. No businesses in the immediate vicinity of my home catered to
this consumer need, but at the above-mentioned shopping center, there was a coin store. One
could purchase special Coin Folders for pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars -
with slots identified by dates designating the years in which the coin placed therein was
minted. After school, I would go to the neighborhood banks and took home rolls of coins until
I found those dates I needed to complete my collection. Hours upon hours I sorted and
searched the extent of many years until only rare coins like a 1909 "SVDB" Lincoln penny
were the only ones I hadn't found.
The idea of ripping off the coin store held particular interest since the net take was cold
cash. This is where pride and deceit played havoc with my moral inclinations. After all,
sayings such as "all's fair in love and war," and other epithets of capitalist indoctrination had
well established the idea of conquest by any means as the route to a goal, in my case
possessing the only penny my coin collection lacked. It was available at the coin store but the
price was exorbitant. The owner / salesman wasn't aware that I was ripping him off under his
nose, would give me the book of especially expensive coins and turn his attention to cash buyers. Forget about it man; you'll never figure out who took it without paying.
What expense of suffering I paid, not because of the theft per se but as an outcome of
repenting the successful manifestations of my desire to acquire something for nothing. In the
end, I dumped an invaluable coin collection for the face value of the coins, the proceeds of
which bought me a couple lids of grass. For four decades, I have mulled over the illicit
acquisition that fashioned my coin collection into a unique and marvelous accomplishment,
maybe the only thing I ever did that could have been considered successful. Many times
have reflected deeply what foolishness brought me to part with my treasure. In the end, I
simply accepted that as a repentant Jewish individual I could never have delight in the object so tarnished with dishonesty.
Does this relate to Brother Kuhn becoming the leader of the club I organized in the Jewish
Community Center? I had brought together a group of friends and in accordance with official
policy; they took a college student who wanted to do his thing for society by volunteering to
be a group leader. In the end, he turned out to be a great guy who shortly thereafter started
working at the coin store from which I had shoplifted on a regular basis. He penetrated my
thick skin, burrowed into my heart, showing interest in me as a human being, but it turned out
otherwise. I confided in him and thus to help rectify my character, he went to such extents to
bring about a righteous culmination of this life episode. I was hanging on for dear life and he represented the noose in which I was bound to swing.
Searching for causes, I'll take the elevator to the depths where their origins can be mined.
Encrusted in the jags and cracks of my personality I perceive an importance my dad had
attributed to his precious coins, occasional gifts of true and pure silver dollars that his mother
sent us. At first, I stole the precious silver dollars that my father hid in the hollow of the
closet, locked in a combination safety box that I penetrated without leaving evidence of
having intruded. When the depletion of coins was noticed, I concocted an alibi to blame a
child who was the son of a neighbor my father had hated for having been reproached by him
for corrupt mannerisms.
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The one way I knew to get pals to hang around me was getting them to accompany me
after school, taking them to the supermarket, and showing him how I could walk out without
paying for something. The above-mentioned friend loved pistachios so I used to go the
supermarket chain and steal some, but also candy, film, and even watermelons! This behavior
was inculcated in my personality at a tender age; I was drawn magnetically to oppose
authority. Catching the drift is out, man, nobody is going to grab hold of the functional
prescience of insanity in my intellect. Those precious coins were identification with fatherly
love. By the time I grew out of adolescence, I had perpetuated enough grand theft to be
incarcerated for decades.
A Shadow Lurks Behind
The shame of the blame game is that nobody cares about sin and correction; just a process
of trying to prove oneself greater than another, but there are always factors that we fail to
consider. There are many factors that prevail over human consciousness, the most prominent
being fear of the unknown. In that category falls the notion of conscience, punishment, loss,
illness, and death. The Freudian theory has alluded to the name of a mythical being, Thanatos,
to promote an idea of the death wish. Death is loss of control over one's possessions and this
fear applies to every painful experience that could involve loss of life or limb, personal honor,
or interpersonal attachments. Sometimes we just want to get over the materialism of existence
but the survival instinct kicks in and we go on with our lives.
Certain societal influences prevail over our everyday affairs, and there are influences that
may yet come to bear, forces that cannot be anticipated. I'm not talking about walking to a bus
stop or riding on a train and the concomitant fear of criminal offense causing one harm. The
circumstances of institutionalized corruption, my family's and community's reaction to "the
accident," would not have prevailed had my parents adhered to a different life style. The
attitude of people in the neighborhood was to be supportive but could not have been helpful.
The fearful circumstance of feeling oneself hated is unbearable, especially in childhood.
The wide-lens view of the situation will probably lead to the conclusion that teachers in the
elementary school had little to do with the SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust
Barracudas) system of indoctrination, though schools did the job of educating students. I'm
trying to sort out causes from the resulting evil, disentangle its detriment, and learn to apply
what of the good can be of value in efforts to improve the present situation. Loyalty of
citizens to national ideology has magnanimous ramifications. I am striving towards a
universal community in which citizens can apply knowledge and their strengths in efforts to
restore global balance, universal freedom, and a reasonable prospect for the continued
planetary survival.
A preliminary scan of the subjects taught presently in the international arena lends to the
impression that mathematics has become an issue of remembering one's credit card number,
literature a performance of copy and paste functions done while surfing the Internet. Talented
students are conscripted to promote nationalist aspirations of wanton lust and anarchical
exploitation. The judicial, executive, and legislative authorities maintain authority over
distribution of resources; for education, media presentations, national priorities regarding war,
scientific research, technology, and basic rights such as privacy and free speech. The culture
of possessiveness is built on acquiring cruelly anything that someone does not sacrifice
willingly.
I repeat here that the cultural apparitions of the Occident in my child rearing took place,
indoctrinated us to principles marital infidelity, immodest dress fashion, entertainment, and
sport activities were aimed to circumvent forces of value that are essential to community, and
family life, and intended to bring about bondage of our mentality. By the conclusion of my
elementary school years, I was a thief, hooligan, racist, and anti-Judaist. We see, however,
that worldwide movements in the early 21st use that very strength to defeat them. To
persevere, we'd better act cunningly and quickly. The first lesson to understanding the
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weakness of those bent on destruction of any established government is to know origins of their strength.
People of the baby boom generation had labored most of their lives to make a living,
whereas many of their children grew up to be professionals. One disastrous side effect of this
fact is the breakdown of the nuclear family. My siblings and I live at the farthest reaches of
the globe distant from one another, and we have seen one another no more than twice during
the last three decades. It was with this knowledge I set out to make my home in Israel, where
length and breadth of the country is all within reasonable travelling time. What cannot be blamed on the mean man, can be repented only if Jewish people will return to their traditions.
In retrospect, I contemplate the system against which I rebelled. Dealing with the subject at
hand, I'll recall briefly the rocking ship in Mrs. R's kindergarten, wetting my pants and acting
cuckoo though somehow, they gave me a pass to enter the first grade. Graduation from each
grade to the next was a celebration for the teachers who passed me, as on a one to ten rating,
my conduct was extremely reprehensible. Obedience and mature participation in classroom
sessions was a basic requirement of the system, though emotional problems were overlooked
to a degree in someone who achieved high marks in his studies. Motivation to succeed in my
studies redeemed me from the repressive disdain of my parents, so it was the least I could do.
First, we were taught the ABC's, the particularity of the five vowels and their nuances
when used with the consonants. The old school of learning encouraged rote practice, repeating
an instruction until the student committed it to memory. The reason for this system pertains to
the functions of the brain as regards short-term memory and the fact we need to practice,
exercise, and review a matter until it becomes a long-term memory. This enables children to
retain information they can draw from memory quickly and correctly. In my fifties, I created a
learning system for teaching English quickly and correctly, available at: http://www.englishquickly.com/.
The writing skills we were taught included flawless cursive writing learned to perfection
by the age of eight years old. A neat handwriting supported the development of an organized
thought process, and by the age of ten, we took examinations in the various distinctions of
English grammar. No one needed to know that the progressive structure had to be connected
to time. We wrote essays and kept journals well into our college years. We studied the various
formats for letter writing and styles of literature learned by reading the classics.
Other aspects of the English language required instruction that made it simple to use
properly. Not all languages require a subject and a verb in any sentence; and few object to
having an objective of the relative structure. It's not for nothing the woman who taught us
English referred to me as "nutsy cuckoo," I would clown around the whole classroom session.
The "i" or "e after g makes it into a guttural sound, "c" followed by "e" or "i" in all cases
hisses like an "s." Little did any of this matter to me. That could explain why I'll be the only
person who ever reads the literature I produce.
Concentration, attentiveness, practice, and gradual progress and curricular design made it
possible for devoted students to reach the heights of academic intellectual pursuits.
Mathematics, similarly, was a slow climb from integers to computations, and the basics of
numbers were acquired as an entity unto themselves, as were the basics of language
development. Only when students could feel the space and distance that numbers are meant to
represent did they start to use the skills together. By the time we enrolled at university, we had
perfected our skills in non-Euclidian geometry, trigonometry, molecular biology, and some physics.
A toddler will speak of yesterday and be thinking of a year ago, whereas tomorrow can be
any time in the near or distant future. Algebra was taught only when our minds could
conceive of combined dimensions, such as the complex reasoning and cognition of our globe
circulating around the sun in reference to a twenty-four hour span of time, and a plane
travelling in the opposite direct at half that speed. The science classroom was constructed with
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a dome shaped roof and special window blinds so the teacher could dim the lights and
illuminate the positions of stars with equipment specially designed for that purpose, so we
learned to appreciate the feat of Creation.
Connected to that room, was a greenhouse and we learned gardening and agriculture; about
the secrets of nature, such as planting, watering, weeding and a wondrous fragrance that
penetrates a young mind. The higher grades learned about electricity, chemistry, and textbook
biology including dissecting various species according to their place on the
phylogenetic scale. Music appreciation was taught by the teacher sitting at the piano while the
class learned to sing nursery rhymes, the national anthem, and to read music. Our artistic
talents were explored and developed, extensively taught in a specially built classroom that included a kiln.
We lived in the wintry northern climate, and just the same, waited for the school bell to
ring until we were permitted to enter the building. This too was a lesson in climatic variables
and learning to adjust to them. The gymnasium served as the lunchroom with tables that
folded into the wall, and climbing ropes that could be hauled by pulleys up to the ceiling. We
played American sports and spent time in the outdoors, strengthening our bodies, developing
coordination, and if nothing else; learnt the value of teamwork.
Nonetheless, our minds were plugged with multimedia heroes like the Three Stooges,
Mickey Mouse, Little Rascals, and American dream rodeo stars and military conquest. The
teacher in the last classroom by the northern entrance to the "penitentiary" school was a short
man, who was habituated to instill fear in everybody who even glanced at him incorrectly, but
not me! I promised to show the older children how tough I was and came through his entrance
one morning with a wisecrack about him being such a short guy. He ran through the halls in
hot pursuit. Tearing through the crowded hallway and up the stairs, I avoided immediate apprehension.
He was the Jewish man who taught history, I couldn't imagine what went through his head
when a punk like me could act so audacious towards a man who'd been through what he
experienced. I could sense from an early age that the school system was trying to make a
sucker out of me. At the southern entrance to the school building, the teacher named "gun"
was posted, a military relic of sorts, this man could stand on his heels and rock his toes while
he took attendance in front of the class. His main technique of discipline was to instill trepidation into the minds of his students.
He was the gym teacher and in his class, I was willing to do nothing; the class weakling;
wouldn't climb the ropes, couldn't run a straight line, wouldn't do push-ups and couldn't hit a
ball. The only lesson I enjoyed in his class was dancing, but he did his job and taught me to
play sports. No sooner did I learn than I became the school stunt man, and a career of always
standing up to Mister Fear who generally turned out to be as frightening as a helium balloon. I
endeavored constantly to show off to all my classmates that I could get away with murder.
I was sent to the principal's office probably more times than the total sum of all the
children who were enrolled at the same time as me. Mom always came to pick me up, bawling
like the rapids of a turgid river, until exacting vows and promises from me allaying all fear
that it would never happen again. That was cool, and so the habit developed to find many
ways to land myself in the principal's office. As the years passed I knew all about the
management of the principal's office, but I was too hyperactive to sit there, so I expanded into
other extracurricular activities, anything that could distract me from the internal discomfort that putrefied my insides.
Slowly I return to the prescience of this day, I study the hieroglyphic paintings etched on
my Rose Cavern walls, grating my fingertips into the earth and digging-in ultimately etching
the whole story into a recognizable imagery. Herein, I can review the story about being a
fugitive from "the accident"; relive and relieve the pangs of conscience that harangued me
every time someone remarked about Joanne's eye. I had to fight off the bullies that made fun
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and abused my sensitivity in order to upset me during the walk to school. During class time, it
was entertaining for them to get me pissed off, until the teachers sent me to the principal's
office, to wit, exiled to my house.
Degradable Mankind
In a certain sense, it could be a bore to listen to someone go on and on about him or
herself, and I suppose that's why good authors cloak their stories in thrillers or romantic tales.
I try to spice this material with tales that have a scent of suspense or a taste of mystery, but I
prefer to let the facts speak for themselves, and anyway this literacy expedition into myself is
intended to benefit me during the wanton hours of disinvolvment in my old age. Above I
alluded to becoming pissed off, I might define the linguistics of that term as protecting one's
deflated self-image is the way humans mark out their territory; personal and private domains, in the way of dogs.
People escape loneliness through the formation of special relationships such as gangs and
cliques, racial and religious individualism, and romance that we compile and add to the files
saved in a "my significance" folder, unwanted intrusions therein considered security
violations. The more my feelings of having committed a crime against humanity festered
within, the stronger became a pattern of disobedience, just acting out of place to get the
attention I needed. To make a non-starter into a long story has been on and off for a few decades, the labor of which inscribed in these pages.
I knew that my misconduct was reprehensible, I couldn't really blame people for being
disgusted with me, but that made me need their affection, consideration, appreciation all the
more. The nearest escape hatch was to deceive myself into believing that people enjoyed my
shenanigans, thus allowing schizophrenia to ferment as the language with which I
communicated. The fact that I was a good child, meaning I succeeded at the core of human
interrelationships helped endear people to me, or maybe I learned how to please people. The
reader may here guess correctly that the word got out about my having emotional problems
and people pitied me, and as the rooster crows by the fourth grade I felt a modicum of comfort amongst the classmates with whom I attended school, and learned to obey the teachers.
As hinted to previously, socio-economic and quasi-repressive changes came to bear on the
neighborhood. The baby boom of the 1940's and 50's had petered out and the public school
system had to deal with diminished school enrolment and consolidate buildings so that money
could be saved on their maintenance. Population transfer took place on a micro scale, as
school closures cropped up throughout the American cities. My family lived in a typical
Jewish neighborhood, neighbors were Jewish, we had a Jewish community center around the
block, and synagogues were established in locations where attendees could arrive by foot,
since there exists a prohibition to drive on the Sabbath. So extensive the community
development of Jewish people in the major urban areas that when a distant school would
close, new Jewish students came from wealthier neighborhoods and others with deep-brown
colored skin (black Americans), a novelty at the time, enrolled and joined our modern school
community.
All this meant was that my comfort zone was burst open; new "problem kids" competed
for the attention of my staid friends and companions. I was forced to readjust to a new social
atmosphere. There was one newcomer, who was a master of heretofore-unknown avenues of
secular pursuits. He was a rich guy, a natural sportsman, downright gnarly, and could bully
someone without the winch of an eye. Marcus Bullus, encroached upon my social domain,
bullying my friends into despising me, leaving me to befriend nobody but children with whom
nobody else was willing to even talk. I sought refuge in the home economics classroom where girls were taught to use sewing machines and make their own clothes.
There was reason to that madness; the boys had carpentry shop for the last hour of school
before the final bell to go home. By placing myself out of reach of Marcus Bullus I could plan
an escape route to avoid the routine of torture he inflicted upon me when school let out. That
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was not enough in itself but I drew on a line of credit that had made it impossible for him to
overtake me on the mad dart home. I had befriended a boy who had been subjected at their
previous school, to the torment of Marcus Bullus. He would meet me each day at an
appointed spot outside the school and while holding unto his arm he would run so fast that
nobody could catch up with us. His skills as a sportsman went rewarded generously throughout his high school and college years.
This decision cost me participation in the carpentry class, a subject I really enjoyed, as in
this class we were taught how to make simple things out of wood, plastic and metals. The
main instruction was to learn how to use tools like saws, drills, hammers, files, and to care for
them properly. As a compensation, my father bought me an official carpenter's table and
jigsaw that together we installed in the basement of our home. The male children in many
societies are deprived of meaningful social education, become habituated to act cruelly as
though it's part of their nature, are disciplined to do train for security or army jobs, and in rare
instances receive education that is valuable to their controlling society. Most lead their lives from pillar to post doing whatever comes to them.
There were undercurrents of turgid waters roaring beneath the river's pathways that led to
adulthood. The ringleader, mentioned above, who was amongst those who had joined my fifth
grade class had many new ideas that were real attention getters, like smoking cigarettes. He
could talk fast and loud and was a class clown. He even bettered me at that occupation; I
wonder to what abuses he had been subjected during his early youth. As my days were turned
into nightmares, I needed desperately to outrun Marcus Bullus, and spent my school days avoiding his hunting me down in the corridors during passage from one class to another.
Generally speaking, it’s the neglect of parent that allows misconduct to take root in the
behavior patterns of their children. That's true as pertained to my parent but not me as a
parent, so I have what to say on the matter. Nowadays, adults are more detached from their
children and communication between people is downgraded to less interesting than electronic
pursuits to which we devote a lot of time. Violence amongst schoolchildren has become a
serious issue in contemporary society. As a sociological premise, I shall try an anatomical
dissection of violence, much of which is precipitated by cultural prejudice to circumstances,
ideas or objects that each of us pride ourselves to think are better than somebody else's, and
all of which is generated by lack of communication. When children feel lack of control over
their life, they react negatively until provided a means or a system to embellish his or her creative tendencies.
I think it's worthy to venture here an application of the invariance principle to the process
of human interaction, to wit the principle asserts that everything remains in a state of silence
until there is a force exerted to make it move. When a person has suspicions about his self-
worth (insecurity), he easily mistakes peoples' remarks as depredatory. Being involved in a
traumatic incident makes people susceptible to act weirdly because they're scared, people live
in fright of the unknown and will often get the wrong impression about others laughing at them.
Those who laugh at the demise of their fellow are subject to an unconscious mechanism
that elicits a camouflage to their inferiority complex. They wish to disguise the fear that they
too may be tainted by an imperfection that could cause them embarrassment. An individual,
when degraded, may withdraw to a realm of silence, darkness and emotionless, and if the
misconstrued interpretations overpower these individuals their imaginings can become
delusions of paranoia. When behavior is adjudged to be caused by mental illness, it should be addressed and treated.
I'm sure many books have been written about the trauma of a child who had a sibling with
a deformity. First of all, they shared the same genetics and it could have been one as well as
the other, and might affect both dissimilarly. Second of all, the attachment ofa stigma to the
healthy sibling because of his attachment to the less fortunate. Others want to see in the
fellow, a sense of their reflection as a perfected image, and are wont to express hatred towards
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anything less equal to their self-image. A momentary glance at Mickey as an entity detached
from myself, I can focus on me at the age when he was big enough to take "young sister,"
Joanne, to school. The first couple of times things went smoothly, until his friends identified with Mickey with Joanne, the girl who had something wrong with her eye.
Mickey was deformed and defamed by virtue of his association to one of life's
imperfections that it's in the nature of people to castigate. The subject of scorn by his
classmates, and his harboring guilt exasperated his kind intent during the walks to and from
school, which became excursions of her being put down by the bullies who got a thrill out of
torture. To diverge momentarily; the anatomy of torture elicits prickly feelings on one's flesh,
increased heart rate, mystery, challenge, and the grandeur of having someone plead for mercy.
Mickey sought to come up with excuses and refused his mother's request, one morning, to
wait for her; he lied about having to get to school early. Using the invariance principle, we see
the start of a vicious circle. I became paranoid of coming to school and started to picture the
ground opening under the sidewalk and forming an underground pathway of mental escape,
the imaginary tunnel that allowed Mickey to burrow his way, unnoticed, unto the school
entrance.
The walk from one point to another was four city blocks, the first two of which I managed
because the children whom traversed them were familiar neighbors. After the school crossing
at Meyers and Santa Maria roads, the "other" schoolchildren were also making their way to
the school building, and it was simply more to my liking not to have to deal with them. The
escape route in the underground tunnel was effective in so much as I had discussed with older
brother and Joanne and I made it real enough to believe in, while we walked together. The
idea was to keep moving as though we were not visible. Sometime, the air of confidence is a better protection than flight or fright.
I don't suppose the reader is at the liberty enjoyed by the author, that being to have written
this book over the expanse of three decades, and having edited it in spurts, opening, and
working on it and then leaving it for days and weeks over months and years. The whole
scenario is burdensome in that it reawakens the trauma of Mickey blaming himself for poking
out young sister's eye. He passed on feeling bad about himself projecting untowardly attitudes
to Joanne; she threatened, more by his gut reaction to ostracism than walking alone to school.
Unfortunately, this vicious circle was multiplied by the number of conversations in the school
with students who addressed their curious inquiry to ascertain a simple fact, to cause neither
pain nor harm. It's one of the ways people learn about unusual things; which to acknowledge
instead of deny, would have been adequate.
In those days and in the SCRUB culture, wisdom was a rare commodity. Years later, when
Mickey discussed his feelings with a wise peer he suggested for him to prepare a rote answer
to aversive poking of somebody else's nose into his business; something that would relay
information to fend off further insult. The only form of psychotherapy available to Mickey
was provided by Saul, the nurse's husband, who told him the story about the pink ping-pong
ball. I turned to venting my wrath on Patience (the neighborhood girl who stood in the garage
together with older brother and me during the accident). I raked her over the coals; abusing
her, frightening her, scandalizing her, until the day she submitted to my tortures (and let me
degrade her by touching her hidden parts), after which I could no longer hunt her down.
Pity on my young soul so sorrowfully soured surreptitiously. The main thrust of physical
abuse and mental friction occurred during my interaction with Marcus Bullus, the class bully.
He didn't come to school by the same route, but he could arouse fear in the linoleum on the
floor, so there was no hiding from his harassment. He had the pick of the pack on whom to
peck. He would walk up to someone sitting on a workbench in the carpentry shop that would
slap on the back of his head, saying, "Cop his head," to wit the teachers turned a blind eye. I
imitated him in order to convince him that we were on the same sides, but it was a plan
destined to backfire. The implication that it's better to be a bully than to be bullied in the end
taught me nothing of human value.
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I've been burdened with feelings of guilt after fifty-five years of dragging myself
unnecessarily through emotional consternation. If we subject ourselves to even a minimal
introspection, we'll quickly realize that it is when we are insulted, our gut reaction is to
degrade those who disparage our self-esteem. To this applies the saying you only hurt the
ones who love you, and contrarily one should strengthen his love towards those who hurt him.
Why does the negative comment cause pain, if not because I want to feel loved and respected?
By trying to appreciate the value of the rebuke, one may release themselves from untowardly feelings and adopt an attitude of forgiveness.
Such lessons were cultivated in the dark places of the modern mind. Northern Caucasians
persecute all peoples everywhere; gain, and maintain control over resources valuable to
materialistic exploits enabled by this socialization process. The young Marcus Bullus was the
prince of the alley cigarettes, and one who wanted to be cool would smoke with him, and be
his guinea pig to prove the greatness of his wrestling moves and holds. The most feared of
football opponents, he planned to hack me down by charging the quarterback right where I
was defending the line during one of our American football scrimmages. The strength and
talents of the masses are squelched under the sadistic wrath of the SCRUB (Society's
Community of Unjust Barracudas). My dad taught me the technique of somersaulting my feet
into his neck, which on this occasion I maneuvered successfully, and after that failure to penetrate the front line Bullus never attacked me again.
Children whose fathers were connected to power; wealth, or influence became targets;
bullies are driven by jealousy, greed, and glory seeking, but mostly the sensation of wielding
power over their helpless victims. I was the fox in the ritual hunt each day after school. I got
permission to finish my school day in the Home Economics Class instead of being dismissed
from where the while the class bully, Marcus Bullus, was dismissed from another door.
Another truly athletic individual (who eventually became a doctor on a sports scholarship)
was also despised by the aforementioned classmate. He would catch up to me after school,
grab hold of my hand and off we alighted into the blue yonder. I sped swiftly home, and
rarely ventured outside before dusk. It didn't occur to me to await Joanne; can only imagine
her fears coming home.
Linguists assert that phonological behavior is guided by the fact that people try to
communicate the most possible information with the least possible effort. I claim that a
perfect harmony exists between the celestial beings and the elements of the earth, and they are
upset through the misguided actions of man. Motion is the universal language until it returns
to the silence. When things get out of hilt, mankind is reminded how insignificant he really is.
The secret lies in the fact of nothingness and the obviously motionless absolute void, which
preceded existence.
I had accosted and had been abusing Patience, hoping to hear her confess to the crime I
had perpetuated when the glass flew into Joanne's eye. Upon extracting a false confession, I
would have presumably scandalized her until enough people would believe the lie, and
thereby convince me of its verity. The pain I caused her with nary a momentary consideration
was going to have long-range repercussions. The explanations as to why I heaped abuse on
her didn't hold up against the long-suffering she endured, never needing to explain anything.
The alienation from former friends, running home, walking the halls in fear of being attacked;
such terrible feelings that Patience had suffered, were being returned upon my head. I had
only myself to blame for my problems but I was wont to figure out who I am.
Focusing the microscope to take a closer look, we can see that castigating blame on
someone is a strategy used to win the egoist contest of thinking oneself perfect, or at least
giving someone else that impression. As the saying goes, one lie leads to another until one's
guilt is less of a concern of the pathetic trap of delusion from which he may never escape.
Woe to me, Patience, as if by thinking to pin a crime on you, I would free myself from guilt.
The pink ping-pong ball was a chunk of time that had been in exile from the harmonious unity
that wanders detached from a deep gravity within the universe.
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It's amazing how much energy I put into tormenting you. If nobody could figure out who
was making false accusations, it's only because they dared not to incur the wrath of my insane
and sadistic reactions. I was chasing phantoms in order to project my self-abasement into a
vessel that produced inane results; scandalizing an innocent bystander. Had my mother
cuddled me instead of sending me off to watch TV shows, had my father shown me a little
empathy I'd never have devised macho-minded scenarios to afflict you. My admission is my
apology, my writing, review and editing thereof a form of sacrificial prayer begging forgiveness.
The swill of sadistic insanity drew me into the pipes leading from the toilet straight into the
sewer. The idea of my escaping insecurity by manipulating the female gender into emotional
flights of fantasy became habitual exploitation. With the pass of childhood and years of
haranguing one young female associate, teenage years replaced them in a more nasty form of
virulence with which I spewed forth, with Babushka as my target. Impossible to imagine she'll
forgive me! Not her, not Patience; none of the women I abused as security blankets! It has
been revealed to me, in fact, Babushka didn't live past the age of 48; she's been gone to eternal
rest the last two decades.
Manliness Dispelled
The military industrial complex, the universities and government have funded scientific
laboratories; the suppliers of good and resources have sought to convince people of the
imminent threat to their survival, the fear of terrorism has been abused to promote the
SCRUB cause. This is not a bully's dilemma of needing to exercise control over people, we
are discussing crimes against humanity. We need further to understand that these devious
ends are achieved by coordination of the advertisement media, news reporting, and
entertainment industry, amongst innumerable agencies unbeknown. The international sales of
weaponry and electronic devices designed to exert control over humanity are not justifiable as
if developed to muster defense systems against a wicked enemy. The teachers in the
government schools raise the citizenry as players in this field as though loyal to principles of
ethical governance, but are as culpable as the corrupt politicians who legislate the wars.
Are we to believe that violence has gotten out of hand, and an end to it would elevate the
human species to a realm of interaction much to be cherished for all time? Police are trained
to shoot dead any suicidal maniac who pulls a knife on an innocent bystander. Perhaps greed
and cruelty could be explained as a genetic foul up that causes a specific person to live
sadistically, but if so, one should be able to discern that characteristic in an infant so born. We
might assume that male children have a propensity to aggressiveness more than females, but
we see women in the modern culture involved in the behavior that once typified only men. I
don't think girls are born to be soft and kind, whereas boys not, but boys are specifically
trained in areas their physiology is trained such that they can excel despite having to endure harsh treatment.
For a male child growing up in the modern society it was forbidden to express emotions
and certainly not to falter because of emotional difficulties. Occidental children are raised on
a curriculum that encourages ambition, and success. Competent members of a society that
professes the corrupt idea: it is not being caught, which counts; based on the hypocritical
principle, the richer the better. Students were motivated to graduate and succeed to greater
loftiness of unchaste pleasure, and the outcome seems to be the demise of society.
There SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) authorities exploited science
to the perpetuate ideas that fascinate us, thus becoming more true than the faith inculcated by
religious verities. I mean, you could save a life with an endocrine produced in giraffe horns,
or freeze a cell from an endangered species that will be revived five hundred years hence.
They kept our minds busy with our development into brainy and brawny individuals,
programmed to be productive. The teachers were properly motivated to teach what was
required by the school system that employed them. I happened to grow up in an urban district where resources were allocated to give students a good education.
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That is, until the neighborhood changed and downgraded to discriminatory education
typical of neighborhoods in which de facto segregation prevailed. Somebody who had
merciful feelings towards an abused friend and would question the gestalt of discriminating
against certain people because of their race or creed, or somebody didn't fit the straight and
narrow would be brutally punished for adhering to the notion of liberty and justice for all.
Children can be raised by the ideal to be peace loving yet participants in a culture that
represses those unfortunate to grow up in the Third World.
The idea of cheating was unacceptable, but the rich kids paid well for someone to let them
copy their answers on the tests and give them the answers on the homework assignments.
School administrators turn a blind eye to falsifying the results of examinations that are a basis
for government funding of their educational programs. The fellow with a built-in pool and
another with a motor cart had friends. All kinds of weird things were proliferated as the real
purpose of existence, as we were taught to demand excitement and luxury while
manufacturers and service providers got richer and the poorer more desperate.
History digressed into the art of revamping textbooks to a specified point of view;
hypocrisy hailed as the appropriate way to measure distribution of resources. Man's ability to
organize occurrences and bring about anticipated results, has enabled him to destroy anything.
Perhaps such manipulations are conditioned by past experiences regardless of rhyme or
reason, and the neurological makeup of our brains boils down to the same chemicals that
makeup all the substance of nature. That being the case we have to revamp the entire
institution of education according to a value system that can account for the unique presence
of human beings in a world so intrinsically balanced it might be better off without our
presence upon the face of the earth.
Man struts about boasting of his ability to bring about cellular division, even combine
chemicals into a living substance, and implant semen within an egg inside his laboratory.
Billions of dollars are spent on fashioning a clump of metal into a rocket ship sent beyond the
exosphere, money that can be invested in the creative development of the entire population of
children around the globe. Propagation of the species is a talent at which bugs excel more than
mankind and nobody remarks how intelligent they are. Intelligence intrinsic to chemicals and
every element of nature imbues them with a role in the realm of creation. Perhaps we should treat the air, water, sun, and earth more respectably.
I observed ants working towards a specific end and nobody seemed to be bothered by
somebody else's bumping into him. Men act in their own interests and the slightest intrusion
on their private space can trigger an atomic explosion. It must be they are fearful of something
that we prefer won't be discovered. Men act like roosters in the presence of their female
counterparts but thoroughly disgustingly have dehumanized them, they are less concerned
about their individuality than cats. We claim to so honor and treasure the nature of
personalized relationships to a member of the species we mortify as a habit of habituated
degradation.
The only thing this has to do with ego and libido is the extent of pleasure man wishes to
conquer and destruction he will bring about until he achieves it. The challenge is overcoming
something that seems unconquerable, the pleasure but a fleeting instant. There are certainly
ways to sublimate this instinct in creative and productive expressions and yet there are less
cultural inclinations to promote them. The idea is to give man something to do so he can keep
his mind off his feeling of insecurity. There is a lifestyle to be valued such that a person
reaches old age he or she can create tokens (constructive projects) of his lovingkindness that outlive his or her mortality.
Chapter III- Circling Rapidly Around the Core
The fetus is borne into existence from within a state of independence, inclusive of the
surrounding environment. So too, we are a singular unity with the radiance coming forth from
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the sun, the sounds of leaves rustling in trees and the warmth of companionship enjoyed when
we stay close to our loved ones. I remember strolling along the beach and seeing an infant
chase the seabirds with an overwhelming burst of glee as they took off to avoid his pursuit.
It's an example of how I acted as a youngster, but not towards geese, toward members of the
feminine disposition. I can sorely recall how the better part of my energies was dissipated on
manifestations of hatred in my relationships to women. This deleterious nature was ingrained
in my character.
Very little of my behavior can be explained in terms the meaning of life or its essence,
except from a negative point of view. Perhaps this above-mentioned conduct is a Freudian
Oedipal dilemma, and a projection of blame to confront the weakness of my mother in light of
being haplessly attacked and brutalized. As boys, we were impelled to cultivate farcical
notions of why our female counterparts should be mistreated, as though it were a natural
outcome of our manly instincts. We were raised thinking that we can pass through life in
pursuit of enjoying every moment to the maximum, though it may be painful to the female gender.
This assertion by the author is intended to tweak the thoughts of the reader; perhaps we
should raise some pertinent questions. Did women historically tolerate the abuses of men
because of dependence on them for economic stability, sociological compatibility, and a
recognized acceptability? Are culture and science not concocting ideas to strip womanhood of
the unique capacity of bearing children? Will poly-glamorous relationships of three or more
also be included in the rights and responsibilities of those involved in homo-sapiens parental
relationships? Does the relationship of partners for the purpose of shared pleasure require
their having lawful status as a marital couple, or could they acquire children for a hobby or like some people who raise pets?
I could approach these questions using the scientific method but my conclusions would be
ludicrous, in light of the fact that the future is yet to see. I can only endeavor to measure the
influence that historic developments have had on the changing roles of intra-gender
interaction and interrelationships. Again, I am not a person who troubles to do empirical
research by nature so I'll make my point by depicting the past as I lived it. I was inculcated to
disrespect girls as members of the weaker sex from the start of the process of my
socialization. We made comparisons of their supposed inability to do anything as well as men,
other than those roles to which they had been historically subjected. Verbal abuse was
employed to subjugate their will to that of men. Nobody likes to listen to detractive criticism
of his or her appreciable goodness.
Included in the category of verbal abuse were multitudinous appellations attributable to
physiological distinctions typical to women. Pinching them on their buttocks, grabbing their
breasts, and enticing them to romantic encounters though offensive from a moral viewpoint. It
bears mentioning that the arrogant cannot see themselves as lacking for anything;
differentiation is seen as an insult that must be avenged. Skin coloration distinguished people
from the African continent, so the Northern Caucasian projected his inferiority on deep brown
skinned, ergo, Negroid individuals. The woman's distinctions caused the male gender
apprehension that he was a being of less worth than womankind, and he warred to disprove
the reality of his perceptions. There are no proofs of any intellectual or ethical deprivation particular to womanhood.
In a normal journal of literary endeavors, the expletive delete words would bring the point
home, but the reader will have to think of his or her own experiences with wanton
mannerisms utilized in verbal reference to women of the female gender. Suffice to say that
many "dirty words," relate to the norm of physiological processes to which are bodies are
subject, copulation, defecation, menstruation, in so much that body functions are decried as
vulgar. The thing that seems most obvious in the modern era is that women don't need men to
protect them, are no longer dependent, and could figuratively clone a cell or purchase sperm
in order to bear and raise children without men. These generalizations just go to say that man
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truly is inferior in the important features of womanly capability above mentioned. Most
cultures adhere to the claim that the bigger fall harder, the way to defeat them is using their
own power against them.
We may state here, women's empowerment and gender superiority is a predetermined
outcome of denigrating their uniqueness as those amongst the mammalian species who bear
children. The fierce opposition to this point has been institutionalized by SCRUB (Society's
Community of Unjust Barracudas); that which they forbade, obstacles they erected, and the
grandiose range of manipulations they market as though intended to enhance the general well-
being of society. We were taught to exert boldness and assert coldness as regards taking
advantage of "misfits," forgiving anybody who will prey upon them, and etcetera. Boys are
spoken to in harsh tones and handled in a demeanor during infancy that will toughen them as
they adapt cruel mannerisms.
Sex roles are modified by the way people respond to infants, girls are spoken to gently and
boys roughly. I've lived in a society where I garnered the impression that the boys were being
raised to serve as the straw in the military machinery, the girls to serve their biological
cravings. Toddlers grab things ways from one another, but boys are allowed to express
themselves aggressively and get what they want. Womankind is taught to back off, jump
back, and back down. Women who failed to resign themselves to that status were aberrations;
a tomboy, outcasts in the eyes of their peer group, and thus became helpless targets of scorn.
We chased after the girls during recess in the school playground; embarrassing them by
exposing what they wore under their skirt. The very design of their apparel was intended to
draw attention to what could be revealed be peeking into their blouses and gawking between
their legs.
The way people film or otherwise deprecate the female gender in pornographic exhibitions
is the most appalling debasement of the male gender's humanity. The secular culture of the
occident is based on pleasure seeking, not the case in underprivileged nations where all one's
talent and strength is devoted to basic tenet of survival. Work ethics, and family values have
little persuasion over the goings on of people fattened by wealth they've obtained by
disparagement of the same. People of moral fabric as pertains to the importance of family
could not have perpetuated wanton destruction of the African societies plundered so they'd
have slaves to do their labor. This would be redundant except that that it comes to elucidate
that the iniquity of pillaging the female gender for the momentary pleasure was part and
parcel to the arrogance of negating the humanity of the girls by the mistreatment we heaped
upon them.
By a systematic procedure girls were indoctrinated to "enjoy the inevitable," to become
willing participants in the course of affairs that could wreak social destruction on the personal
level, for instance becoming pregnant after an imbibing intoxication. At the age of maturity,
we had organized weekend dance parties that devolved into spin the bottle exhilaration. The
only involvement of a parent in the events taking place with us at these parties would be an
"as though" inspection too come down the basement to check up on us. The payoff was too
big to resist and we were hooked to kissing parties. Parents encouraged children to join
together in festive celebrations wherein both genders participated, and nowadays the
dormitories on the college campuses offer mixed facilities.
Rhythmic Rocking As pertains to me; the epitome of a lonely Jewish child in a society that treated me as
culpable in the murder of their deity, my brain being anyway over-circuited in an inferiority
complex. Affliction to the same disease as plagued the Northern Caucasian; ergo, to escape
internal discomfort by chasing after idle pursuits, offered no escape to anything of redeeming
value. The thing we were trained to do, the notion of heterosexualism to which we subscribed,
even at a youthful age, was for a boy to have a girlfriend. Even at a pre-maturity age I fostered
an interpersonal heterosexual relationship with the girl who lived down the street, and came to
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the dance parties I would organize on Friday nights. I remember the spot on the floor where I
danced the "bee-bop" with my dream lover, with my first girlfriend. These things were all
categorized so they would fit nicely on the shelves of our mental apparatus.
Older brother stole away the affective light from bright star, and I wandered haplessly into
bitterness of being unloved for many years, though I tried to supplant the requisite by
affiliating my attentions to the available another. It was during the school relocation project,
previously mentioned, that brought an influx of students to our school facility. I raised my
eyes unto the beauteous creation that entered the art room that day of her inception into my
class. She was to become the obsession that would permeate my emotion from the moment
when she joined our class for the first time.
My mental being clearly damaged from the days of my early youth now had an object and
direction to which I could affix my human yearnings, as this blessing descended unto my life.
Amongst the many new students were admitted to our class, a girl just my height. The
pervading aspect of my personality was to escape the insecurity that hounded me, not being
appreciated for a being to whom anyone would chose to befriend. Nothing can erase my
memory of the teacher assigning her seating place, and I even remember stealing a glance at
another dude to figure out whether he set eyes on her, satisfied with the fact he didn't. My
desperate insecurity drove me to assume she'd let me express my inclination to establish with
her, a child romance that meant the world to me.
I was afflicted by post trauma from the accident, and lived in present trauma of a violent
and drunken father. I was a bed wetter, irritable, deceptive, derogatory, and invariably peer-
secuted by friends and foes alike. I thought only of seeing her on my walks to school, calling
her upon my arrival home, and sending her notes during the class session, disregarding the
teacher's punishing grimaces. They must have known back then that to disrupt someone from
fiddling, who's at best hyperactive - would only result in greater disruptions. The moments
reprieve from my secret romance allowed me to concentrate on my studies. After school, I
often invited myself over to visit, more often strolled around her abode hoping to catch a
glimpse of her. She was reticent to reciprocate to my profuse affectations; yes, she was as aristocratic as a real princess.
Regarding the people who have emotions and act according to their whims, there are those
willing to jump in and usurp those emotions for their personal gratification, to sell
merchandise and offer services that cater to those affections. The culture of affection and
romance concocts celebrations such as events that commemorate Mother's Day, and a
February holiday that commends a regiment of normative behavior such as buying expensive
presents for girlfriends. There is some value to the expression of concern and appreciation,
but that runs short of making a business out of inculcating guilt feelings into people who don't
expend valuable resources on the acquisition of gifts.
SCRUB selfishly and cruelly divert the world's resources according to their whims,
utilizing their academic prowess to dissipate consumer illusion; wreaking vengeance for
domestic offenses against the officialdom. Their cultural malice was screened in the movie
house and on television such that people became habituated to a consumer style of life, from
their first step until the grave. Something like college education was of value, but moral
aptitude a disruption of democratic liberty. People were made to feel ashamed of belief in the
mystical or spiritual traditions. The religious school was considered a hurdle on the road to
assimilation; attendance therein became a token expression of doing something to appease
those who felt Jewish Tradition was to be valued.
I shall casually peruse the question of whether Hebrew School was a factor in my being
ostracized in the secular society. On the one hand, the youngster who got Bar Mitzvahed had
to know Hebrew, and could not spent his afternoons or Sabbath mornings on the sports field,
so was made fun of by his school buddies. This eight year-old Jewish child will be scorned
(for the next five years) by his classmates for being a sissy or something worse because he
goes to Hebrew School, so he develops a full-blown resentment of anything to do with
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religion. Furthermore, religion is forbidden to influence governmental decisions, so the status
quo demands rejection of religious principles. Is it, that the Jewish people are doing this to
themselves, or are they being manipulated by an unseen enemy?
On the other hand, his Bar Mitzvah studies culminated in a high style celebration that was
dinner/ dance party, at which a few old time Jewish melodies were played. Few of us would
even endeavor to disguise our participation therein as motivated by anything other than
materialism. The payoff for obedience to the somewhat religious rite of transfer from
childhood into adolescence, that took place in a somewhat of religious institution, with
somewhat of a religious decorum - was that each person who attends the celebration brings a
monetary gift for the Bar Mitzvah boy. Here too, the code of "get what you can and give
nothing in return" seemed to apply. There was "nothing of lasting value" to be gained
concerning prevailing views of the modern Jewish people.
Preparations for a Bar Mitzvah required five years of study, and instruction consisted of
knowing how to read Hebrew using a singsong rhythm in order to read a specific portion
according to the Shabbat readings recited weekly in the synagogue. I had actually enjoyed
classes, but if I "brought home" tidbits of information I had learned; they were discarded like
the beans Jack got in trade for the cow (that grew into the beanstalk). Religious education was
a non-starter, the tradition of Judaism reduced to a pittance of symbolic demonstrations. I was
not into cheap imitations of religion and quasi-religious phylacteries (tefilin) that had no meaning to a Jewish individual raised in a society that despised morality.
In most cases, the synagogue performance occurs during the week of the young man's
thirteenth birthday, but not for me! My father had been hired to a new position and his
employer required of him to be at work the Shabbat my Bar Mitzvah had been scheduled in
accordance with the date of my thirteenth birthday. The seed was planted deep in my
unconscious: I would avenge myself his working that Shabbat. I did nothing to prepare for my
role, owing to the fact an alternate date was a cheap imitation, flubbed the whole show
attended by friends and relatives, and paid no more attention to Judaism for approximately
another decade. All I can tell the reader is the great disappointment of my maternal
grandmother, which registered way up there on the Richter scale. I was unable to read the
Torah portion, and not even the simple prayer that was chanted by singsong as simple as singing the tune taught for learning the ABC's.
Renegade Running
A brief interlude where I seemingly concluded my discussion of Babushka should not be
apprehended as such. Even fifty years later when shopping for a hat, I wanted something to
remind me of her. She had knitted me a wool hat with a pom-pom and I cherished her giving
me a gift for what seems now, like eons upon eons. After her breaking up with me I would
lose control and that's just what the SCRUB authoritarians prey on, gobbling emotion like
monsters; they swallow whole-beings in a pulsating swig. Have the flowers gone into
oblivion, how long is this tension going to abide within me; can't it be neutralized by
magnetic erasers (like punching the delete key on the computer)? I tumbled down the hill into
a malignant culture that encourages promiscuous freedom, and my pom-pom hat had come tumbling after me.
Societies have established mores and taboo with regard to sexual behavior, like adultery,
premarital sex, voyeurism, pornography and especially as concerns abuse of minors. Freud
and Jung brought the Oedipus complex into play by asserting that male children harbor sexual
desires towards their mothers, and aggressive instincts to harm their fathers. Freud theorized
that all instincts are either Eros or Thanatos. From my viewpoint, mothers share more warmth
that is sentimental with children, so there is a natural tendency to seek connectivity to the
body of our mothers, but infants and toddlers do not have the brain development to express
sexual tendencies. The human body, by nature a homoeothermic creature craves affection.
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There is much to be said about an ability to imprint unique to a mother's body, which contains all the facilities to carry the fetus, and provide nourishment to the newborn.
The role of the unconscious in psychoanalytic theory can be disputed in the space of two or
three paragraphs, not including a theory of psychotherapeutic treatment. Let's start with
physics, Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation states that masses (all physical objects)
attract one another, and where a father may want to cuddle his son there are sociological
explanations (mistaken as Oedipal complex) as to why he does the opposite, whereas his
daughters he will cuddle. When two objects make contact, they produce friction, and an
exchange of heat results. Again, because were mammals, we have blood vessels close to the
surface of your skin, and there are specific areas of the human body that are heat zones. Heat is the lifeline of the continued existence of mammals, and birds.
The life processes all involve the death (Freud's Thanatos) of cells, and the regeneration
(Freud's Eros) of cellular material, as hair turns white but continues to grow in the elderly. It
is known that warmth is a catalyst of molecular growth whereas cold retards it. The human
fetus and particularly brain material of children grows a cell at a time, but our neural
apparatus does not reach full maturity until at least the mid-20s. A true social scientist must
distinguish what the psychoanalyst theory regards as sexual impulses, from what we can
appreciate as healthy tactile sensations. Human contact is an important modality for the
facilitation of growth; gravity and friction together have a qualitative status tantamount to an innate drive, like the need for nourishment.
As to aggressive behavior, it can be found as commonly in girls as seen in boys during the
stages of development. The normal retinue of educators processes the children's behavior in
order to modify such inclinations; in boys, it's acceptable because they'll be eventually
preened to fight wars against trained soldiers. Part of this conditioning teaches those children
to resist the authoritative control over their life and limb, to engage confront and attack an
"enemy" that assumes control of resources they wish to possess, and this is what
psychoanalysts mistake for an attempt of sons to wrest control away from their fathers. Many
fathers even wrestle with their sons in helping train them to do battle. The instincts are but chemical impulses guiding the being to the best possibility of survival.
This preponderance brings to mind the issue of infatuation, when the psychological
moorings of the brain direct us to achieve satisfaction. The manufacturers of pleasure
commandeer and utilize subliminal techniques to excite these basic inclinations amongst
people. For instance, cigarette and cosmetic manufacturers employ a legion of psychologists
and advertising experts to entice the consumer to spend money on objects that are thought to
promote, and/or satisfy the libidinal desires prevalent in one's personality. An example is the
epitome of youthful heterosexual interaction wherein the physical attractiveness of men is
portrayed as brawny, well groomed, brave, and rambunctious.
The query arises as to the physiology of sensual encounters and though I may only later
bring evidence to my theory, I shall surely assert that impulses should be trained and control
maintained, not to give license to whatever seems pleasurable to do. I did so many weird
things in order to be popular amongst the girls. I would get a special style of pants seen on the
teenage dance shows viewed on the television. They styles, of course, changed frequently so
that the apparel industry would have constant and profitable sources of income. One time,
baggy slacks, another season the thing was having cuffs, and yet another time the end of the legs so tapered there had to be slats in order to get one's foot through them.
The same applied to the music industry, there were listings each week of the top ten music
groups. The foot attire industry no exception; specific shoes were considered "in" only long
enough for the style to catch on and then the new style became popular. I can recall certain
groups of boys that wore pointed shoes, then there were the penny loafers, and for the frats,
saddle shoes. At one point, wing tips were the in thing. In terms of what was considered
fashionable, the male gender had to expend resources to entertain his date. As we matured, we
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became licensed to drive cars, so we were expected take to a date to a movie, and afterwards a
meal, or treat at a restaurant. The next to ultimate was the New Year's Eve date, the ultimate
being a high-school prom.
More so and so much more, as pertained to women's attire! The influence of conspicuous
consumption had been designed by artists of the human emotions and somebody who
wouldn't follow suit was treated as weird and left in a dump of overwhelming dejection and
depression. A teenage girl from a simple family would come excitedly home to tell her mom
that the football star invited her to be his date to the prom. The mother responds, happily,
expressing her willingness to sew her daughter the best dress of all the girls in the graduating
class. The exasperated daughter claims she'd be mortified to attend the prom in such a "rag."
She is socialized to value only the reality that other girls will wear the best that money can
buy.
Because of my raging insecurity, I was a disturbed child who was able to perceive his well-
being in a narrowly defined comfort zone. If I couldn't get my way, I refused to play. Here the
camera zooms in from within the chambers of 11 year-old Mickey standing along the wall in
the gym class; the curricular activity of the day was dance instruction, and I wait hysterically
for the opportunity to hold Babushka close. She, of course, was not limited to my range of
perceptions, so I stood there, tortured to near death if someone else touched her. This youthful
identification with a member of the opposite sex was built on detrimental fantasy, based on
avoidance of the dejection and depression that awaited someone who faced frustration in the
pleasure principle.
With the advent of puberty, Mickey upgraded his heterosexual sensations to include
physical connotations of touching the unique aspects of the female constitution. The reader
might wonder at the lack emotional arousal in these descriptions, but I'm describing the
process of socialization, not the actions or participation of parties therein. The peer pressure
amongst boys urged us to touch the more sensitive areas beneath the clothing and
concomitantly we went to movies where more interactions that were promiscuous, were
screened. Magazines and articles in journals encouraged promiscuity and anybody who was
unable to conform was dejected, rejected, complicated, emasculated, and en route to
heterosexual malfeasance and depravity.
The sages of Israel have touched upon the aspect of the sexual desires typical to human
character, depicted as capable to drive a man out of the world (unless kept under lock and
key). The delusion resultant from desire denied can bring a person to behave in such an
obnoxious manner as to become reprehensive to even him or herself for the rest of eternity.
This condition exactly describes the degradation of the assimilated Jewish people who have
no obligation to anything but the bask in the pleasure they seek from life. Hardly aware of the
subliminal enticements that drew them to this conjecture, my point here is to expose the
situation for what it is. I portray Mickey as the microcosm of Jewish assimilation into the
melting pot of oblivion.
The process of socializing heterosexual connection between youthful partners was chiseled
into their personality by masters of the mind and sculptors of the soul, mentality merchants
who taught the professionals how to market their wares. A young boy identified with his
girlfriend, and she to him, as though without each other life had no value, life itself nothing
more than a monotonous redundancy. In the traditional, nay; basic human society, the life of a
youthful member of the family consists of his role amongst his siblings, the involvement of
parents in his development, and communication between him the members of his extended
family. The SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) stripped our souls of any
such "old-fashioned" identification and we became the slaves of desire, glory seeking, and greed.
This accomplished, the youngsters were indoctrinated to emulate the patterns of behavior
that were going to make them the most vulnerable consumers of waste and filth known
throughout the history of mankind. Worthless gadgets and social pursuits that lead to
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impurity, infidelity, incompetence, incongruity, insurrection, and dereliction. As I started to
say the process was gradual (subliminal advertising), and thus could be neither comprehended
nor apprehended. Girls were to submit to nuances that were performed on them as though
unspecified limits would guarantee their remaining chaste in the eyes of the their peers. When
it became clear that nobody was able to offer such guarantees, ideas of chastity were scorned heretofore and presently. I think this is called throwing caution to the wind.
The dress codes of the Northern Caucasian societies were intended to bare or emphasize
the hidden parts of men or women in such a way that they were linked to cultural
embellishments. These cultural facades included the levels of permissibility of contact
between the sexes, and as previously hinted to; promiscuity became imbued in the character
of the citizens of the SCRUB society. The dance steps of the aristocrats seemingly minimized
contact, but the attire and jewelry wore by women were intended to draw attention to their
breasts, which as such became tokens of sexual arousal. That is absolutely a relative
qualification since women in Africa never cover their upper torso, and this did not cause them to become subject to attacks by any man who would witness their nakedness.
The merchants of pleasure could utilize viral impressions of the tokens of sexuality such as
bombshell to badass in reference to attractive females. As known to culture merchants, this
type of slang makes it easier to usurp the banal instincts of the consumer. It bears repeating
here that the insecurity of the human circumstance drives him to find any exterior object on
which to project his loneliness. Without being able to think of Babushka as somehow close to
me, the world was an abysmal meaninglessness that I would never escape. Stillness fills the
mind of the desperately lonely to the extent any movement or sound by the object of their
desire aggravates them to increase their excitement. Imagine my trepidation at the dance
parties when the choice was given to the girls to select a dance-partner; and as the melody
filtered into my brain I scrutinized her graceful movements and clenched my mind to hope, if only this once, she would pick me.
Why should a ten-year-old boy be clenching his mind in hope of anything? We're not
talking about oppressed children who don't have enough food to satisfy their hunger, nor are
we discussing area of the world where bombs are falling on peoples' heads, such that children
live under traumatic stress to the extent it becomes difficult to inhale a breath of life. Mickey,
as a youngster was unable to face the possibility of rejection by a girl Babushka, upon whom
he had set his affections. As a teenager, he would force himself, unconscionably on any
member of the female gender who he had succeeded to woo into a private sexual encounter.
The maturing Mickey was socialized to envision security only in the idyllic heterosexual community of inviolable commitment.
The reader is being alerted to a point regarding the emotions of the child, mother, and
father; their acculturalization to values adhered to by those who claim membership in a
particular society. They are the grease in a process of building an economic society based of
graduated aberrations inflicted by the SCRUB upon the Occidental human, impositions that
reduce us to economic enslavement. This building process is ingrained into the minds of the
citizens according to the system of compulsory education imposed by law upon everyone
whose loyalty to a patriarchic society can thereby be molded by propaganda. For instance, the
bankers of whom the commoner lives in fear of their repossessing his home, movie stars,
sport heroes and such, who have comfortable lifestyles and inhabit abodes that the cost of
running is greater than the amounts spent in the budgets of entire cities.
Institutional Ineptitude Do people ever really grow up, what does it mean to act like an adult? For reason of
prejudices against entire species, such as racial hatred, religious persecution, and the like's
people kill one another all the livelong day. Here again we can say the origin of these
malevolent attitudes is fear of the unknown. I've heard of people who can offer interpretation
of future events by rolling bones, by numerical calculations, seeing the groundhog on a
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certain day of the year. People believe that objects made of metal and stone can ward off evil
happenstances, sacrifices of animals, specific arrangements of the limbs and organs thereof,
and words recited in verbal incantation can heal illnesses and bring cure to wounds. Of
course, such behavior by children at play would be considered deranged, yet there are people
who are afraid of their own shadow and will do anything to seek protection from ailments unbeknown.
As such, people adhere to cultural affectations, doing things that secure their place in
society; almost everything we do has a basis in our finding acceptability amongst the people
with whom we associate. This might even be a necessary part of existence owning to the fact
that the only threat we can't live with is fear of the unknown, but worse yet is facing it alone.
As stated by Jewish scholars, "man was not created to live alone," meaning that insecurity is a
given in the premise of the human situation, also evident in the entire realm of creation. A
brief glance at how we humans overcome loneliness. I dare say marriage and a family setting
is an idyllic recommendation.
Here we see the two interactive factors at play in the Occidental society in the mid-20th
century in which my personality matured. Unspoken mores decreed that little boys were
inadequate until they had a little girl, "they could call their own." I recall adults addressing
toddlers maybe two or three years old, while at play in the comfort of their home, "is that your
girl or boyfriend?", and saying to one another, "maybe they're right for one another," that the
relationship will develop into a marital bond. People are tormented by the thought somebody
could grow up without bonding to their soul mate. The idea of a marital bond and other
factors involved in perpetuating the essential composition of the families and community are
believed to be imbued in the very act of creation; imbued but not necessarily abused.
This emotion of loneliness was exploited in order to create the need for a specific way to
overcome it, an example being the gender discrimination in the kinds of toys with which boys
or girls play. Boys got soldier and other security forces type dolls, fireman trucks, erector sets,
and science games, to name a few. Girls dressed fashion queens and the most famous of all
came with its natural mate. A certain catlike figurine is painted on dolls, school bags, gloves,
raincoats and as pertains to this example, the creature represented doesn't even have a mouth.
Capitalist society can sanction several giant firms operating in the present toys and games-
market, maybe several stores in the same shopping mall, acres of nothing to do with real life
filled with consumer goods.
We can offer witness to parents concluding marriage relationships they'll establish at the
birth of their infant children, though in most of these scenarios the children don't play mommy
and daddy during their youthful development. What undercurrent in the human disposition
drives this urge for companionship? We see, on the one hand that monks, hermits, zealots, and
even the homeless seem to thrive without a disposition to human warmth. On the other hand,
there is reason to assume that security is directly related to human warmth -- love and
appreciation, and therefore a relationship that preserves this relationship in the flesh and
mentality of the species. Me, the Mickey of our storyline, for instance, the expression of a
warm contact with another human being was a life support that without I would've agonized intolerably.
Romantic attraction triggers a chemical reaction in the brain that we relate to immediate
gratification, and instills an unconquerable desire in the individual that allows them to protract
commitment to satisfy a need for affection from those loved in that way. Babushka gave me a
feeling that I was never to let anybody even attempt to express towards me. It goes without
saying that I couldn't live with the idea somebody else would assert a prerogative to share her
affection, a behavior chalked up to the competitive spirit between men. This, however, in the
personality of one subject to fits of jealousy can result in the feeling of dejection that make a
warrior out of him. I had never experienced a feeling of being appreciated until encountering
her. During many classroom sessions, I could concentrate on nothing unless I was in the
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process of getting her to exchange notes with me. If this, however, was only a matter of psychological dependency, perhaps I would be embarrassed to write about it.
It would be redundant to say these attitudes are sown in the minds of the body public, but
not a waste to say that these tyrannical exertions were aimed to dissemble religious morality,
often made fertile by the profit motive. The permeation of these ideas into the life of Jewish
communities was intended to corrupt the people who'd for generations, abided by the tenets of
Torah values. Infidelity, homosexuality, increased divorce rates, single parents, mental and
physical abuse, living together before marriage, a premarital pregnancy are all factors in the
declining birth rates and disappearance of Jewish communities. I have termed raging
assimilation as a silent holocaust. It for sure is having a disastrous demographic effect on the extinction of the Caucasian race of men.
Concomitant with these weird views, the Mickey emotions are being placed under the
microscope to see whether they are infected by a contagious virus that presents a real danger
to the Jewish People. What parameters are indicative of the insane jealousy that was bred by
heterosexual interaction amongst the youth? On an occasion when I had the merit of being her
dancing partner, somebody played a record about a girl leaving someone for a different
boyfriend. It was a spark with enough force to ignite a deluded stupor in my inferiority
complex, and I plunged deep into paranoia of heretofore-unknown animosities towards one
with whom I had detected that she had been dancing to that tune. I thus assumed that he was
trying to win her affections away from me. A fight was scheduled after school, as though such
chivalrous conduct that would prove the level of my devotions (the stupidity of my emotions).
"My best" friend showed up to the appointed place after school, where it had been decided
by Marcus Bullus the contesters would battle for their recompense. In a royal display, and to
intensify the drama, Babushka stooped to attend the event. I was the weaker of the two
contestants but had an older brother who had been wrestling with me since time eternity and
had learned how to get my legs around his stomach, apply an unbearable scissors hold. That
was the long and short of my winning strategy. Marcus Bullus decided to the referee the
debacle, and just when my friend was on the verge of surrender, the bully dude declared my
scissors hold illegal and separated us. I was furious, went home in tears, and found my
drunken father moping around because he had lost his business. He did however; share with me a tidbit of wisdom, "it's the strong man who can walk away from a fight."
Sociological circumstances that followed proved the worthlessness of my valiant arrogance
as once again my security was shredded into strips of emotional duress. It was exactly at that
time, the city government again imposed regulations on our already restructured class; certain
students, Babushka amongst them, would be allowed to go to summer classes and put up a
grade. My mother forbid me to do so because, "anyway" I was immature for my age, and so I
was amongst those who remained behind. Also during those days, and at that time, we had a
drama class in the auditorium and the teacher very empathetic towards me, so I would sit
beside Babushka and rattle her brains about her staying behind with me. She asked the teacher
for permission to change her seat and upon being refused; got up, walked out of the classroom
claiming she felt ill and would go tell the principal to have her mother come to pick her up.
This obliterated me; I had stayed behind while Babushka graduated to high school and a
truly more gallant boyfriend that had the maturity to satisfy her social inclinations. He was the
child of professionals, and I the progeny of the working class, so Babushka got a good deal.
SCRUB culture had impaired my vision; I could only see her gain as my loss! I never spoke
to her again, and she saw me only once thereafter, as far as I know. Yet, my whole life has
been a longing for a security that can only be achieved after tremendous accomplishments
will realign the ethereal content of the universe to exist harmoniously amongst the vibrancy
within my being, on the continuum of all energy expressed since time immemorial and unto
the infinite force that shall become the future.
I felt diminished to less than the importance of a fly or a cockroach, left inadequate to face
the upheaval caused by a major social earthquake in our school system. I strived to restore my
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pubescent manliness by going beyond the constriction of emotional worthlessness. I found
myself in a situation of self-hatred, the notion of ethical characteristics useless, on a
determined path to strike out at the world. Well, like the saying there are other fish in the sea,
I contemplated other possibilities, craved no less the combining of my forces to the
appreciative valuation of a female counterpart. The lens focuses on the child, Mickey, as I
digressed into a comic book, Archie, wooing his newly targeted object of affection with a
beautiful flower. Asked if she liked the fragrance she found therein a friendship ring (I had
ripped off) that I had placed inside the petals. When Veronica occasioned to ask me from
where I got the money to buy it I gleefully told her, and it was the last time she spoke to me.
Babushka, who excelled at academic achievement, had progressed in life, had enrolled in
the best technical high school in Motown. I certainly was not up to that standard of
institutionalized education, but only a year later I enrolled in that school, driven by absolute
obsession to recover my loss. The studies were difficult and required the utmost discipline of
intellectual, uncompromising determination on my part. I enrolled in the biochemistry
curriculum, thus convincing my parents to agree, "He'll grow to be a doctor." Just anything
not to be faced with frustrations of the affectations that were my only sense of humanity.
Anything just to rinse my vision a glance of Babushka, which anyway rarely occurred. The
system must have worked against me.
Universal forces, that stream silently until attaching themselves to structural formation and
contextual motion, destined my endeavors to futility. Succinctly stated, it was not meant to be.
I neither reconnected with Babushka nor became a doctor. Fate had a different idea; being that
I had a dramatic inclination, so the school selected me for a starring role in the annual play. I
don't know if Babushka even attended but it was just a dramatization of incompetence to exist
unless she sensed my presence in her life. Those long days I shoveled hot lava into the
volcanoes ticking akin to a time bomb planted in the disruptive nature of my personality.
We never exchanged another word; my insecurity was a bottomless pit into the abyss of an
inferiority complex, and I grabbed unto nothing as I pummeled downwards. With the end of
each school day and then late again at night, I would call on the phone and hang up after
making threatening remarks to scare Babushka's father into making her come back to me.
When I finally got my driver's license, I'd drive by her house and squeal the tires in an act of
malicious depravity, thereafter sneaking around the alley to try to catch a glimpse of her. I
yearned for a flashback of being seated around the glass table on which they ate in her
kitchen. My last visit to their home was to "pay my respects," as I was told to say by my
mother (who didn't know I had driven her father to his early grave). I wasn't even allowed into the house to offer my condolences, and perhaps rightfully not. Yes, most rightfully not.
The juices that oozed through the neural passages within my brain are those that infect the
thinking people who conclude they're unwanted, such as worthless psychotic murderers,
demented dangerous monsters, in short, a freak. I hurt, and caused pain as though by hurting
someone else it could lessen my pain; it would lessen the loneliness of the stark and abusive
reality. The world is round, so any energy that is projected away from someone goes on and
on until it comes closer and finally catches up the person who expressed it in the first place.
Bad energy approaches from the other side of the natural circumstances, gaining speed and
forces of wave like currents bouncing off the shore and returning upon their source. A
universal balance demands that every act, thought, or word of harm will meet up with just
retribution.
Baby, it's so cold in here and only your heartbeat warms my soul. Why can only third
person singular verbs get an "s?" Third world people, however, express soul thought by use
the third person slang; I's been dreaming of dancing with you. Thus have I gleaned, society
enabled a preteen boy to infuse a dependency on frivolity into the unscrupulous conduct he
developed into a mode of vicious attack against the privacy and liberty of a very human
family. Divide and conquer, in the realm of lost alone loneliness he'll grasp a hold of
delusions that have nothing to do with actual feeling towards a girl, intended to supplant the
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idea that he's been rejected by one. We's all third world people until we can feel accepted
socially, and this because the soul pirates embargoed our brains, mauled our hearts and raped
our souls.
I and you "be," but he, she or it "bes," would have been the only normal way to conjugate
the infinitive "to be." The speech pattern, dress standards, table manners and work ethics, and
their codes of misconduct are aberrations designed to restrain the uneducated from reaping the
benefits they generate from every corner of the globe. I shall explain what this presumably
incoherent digression into linguistics supposed to teach the reader a veritable instruction. The
theme of this literary effort states motion is the universal language and it all return to the
silence. We'll often find the partner of a discussion diverging from the topic at hand; one would best keep silent in such circumstances.
Shall I tell you how Mickey felt when convincing Babsuhka to climb with him into the
wash bin down her basement? The wash bin was a symbol of traumatic repercussions in my
life, while Babushka's closeness had established a neurotic association to a sub-zero
temperament that fulminated in my personality. The first experience I had in a washbasin was
when I held the water pipe that was sweating like a pig, as I endeavored to reconnect the light
socket that had somehow been shaken from its holding. It was probably a strategy my father
had devised in order to bring disaster upon my mother. She would go to fix it in order to have
light when she used the washbasin.
That's exactly what I tried to do; my right hand connected to the voltage and with my left
hanged unto the moist water pipe, electrocution as an indivisibly as in the "Preamble." My
mom was upset about not being able to use the light when she did laundry. "I seen my duty
and I done it." I suffered her pain as though my own and this mission was a way of proving
my love and concern. It seemed a simple mechanical task to repair the light buy pushing the
socket back in place. One could say I invented a new form of electric shock therapy; I was
unified to the circuitry of 110 volts for at least a minute, the time it took my mother to discern my screaming was a real expression of danger, and descend the stairway into the basement.
Heat in water pipes, on cold days, causes the collection of water molecules to its external
surface, and is was to this surface that I held while 110 volts were carousing through my
body. My mom rescued me by grabbing a hold of me and yanking me away with all her
strength, for the love of life. It was from that point on that an association to hugging in the
washbasin became a refuge from the echoes of insanity. We did many things as children that
once the body had matured to adult physiological dimension were no longer possible, but the pathology of being hugged in a washbasin remained imbedded in my character.
As the diversity in cultural pursuits and the human body itself became a bore, perversity
ascended to whatever heights the mind could aspire. Birth control changed the heterosexual
relations of the sexes into a happenstance of fleeting associations, while mind-altering drugs
changed aspects of intellectualism into capabilities that extended beyond the realm of a
healthy mind (and left many people mentally crippled in asylums). Society was a playground
of ensuing experiences where on might be drawn to doing something weirder than could be
imagined; anywhere or anytime throughout the globe and even in outer space; what should
somebody do that would hold his interest?
There exists a form of closure that encompasses a soul, not conditional upon his or her
willingness. At least five decades, I was aggrandizing about Babushka; according to my
grandiose or paranoiac delusionary scenarios of how to adjust to her absence from my life.
The new worldwide web has made it possible to traverse bridges between the past and present
through digital communication. On the day that would have commemorated he 64th birthday I
made phone contact with her only sibling, a sister who ran a business out of Chicago. A sad
commentary on this treatise is that a rare untreatable form of leukemia had removed the life forces from the soul of my endeared Babushka, may she find comfort.
Chapter IV - For Love or Money
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We are living in an unbelievable world where the dimensions of time and space no longer
have the same meaning they used to have. Fifty years ago, if someone would tell me he could
show me the whole world at the snap of his fingers I would have laughed at him, but today,
one click on the keyboard or the electronic mouse and I can communicate with everybody,
anywhere at the same time by publishing something on the WEB. Political power is no longer
determined by the movement of troops and military capability to deter an onslaught by an
enemy. When we look at recent history, we can see how quickly international power can shift
from one place to another, like sands flying across the desert; burying past civilizations
beneath.
Knowledge of the human needs and the combinations involved between the individual and
society can be manipulated by people who have experience in psychology, graphics, and other
computer applications that can be programmed to spread awareness in the far reaches of the
world. People can concoct new mores and taboos and inspire masses to improve their legal
and social status by convincing them that their significance goes beyond the law, place, and
even the survival of an individual. By definition, something greater than everything is infinite,
what is holy must be considered obligatory or forbidden, not dependent on logical
contemplation. The expertise to spread such awareness will determine the future of human
civilization upon the earth.
The human condition is one of dependency for the satisfaction of basic needs, the
outgrowth of which causes humankind to become social creatures. We use sophisticated
systems of language and paralanguage to communicate, beneath which, are emotional
processes that facilitate or complicate our realms of interaction. A person can become
offended when somebody to whom he's speaking makes the slightest grimace that can be
interpreted negatively. Fear of rejection or being ostracized, translates as a threat to one's very
survival, and may be felt as pain and even mental torture. A typical reaction would be to speak derogatively to someone who criticizes or scorns our opinions.
Escape mechanisms allow the mind to delve into a fractured reality, the one unconquerable
and very frustrating, and the other based on fantasy that will make real conditions of life
easier to accept. My avenues of escape were an intricate milieu of behavior patterns that
allowed me to out maneuver the truth buried within me. I didn't feel justified to succeed or to
act as if everything within my emotional character is all right, so I developed a pattern of anti-
social behaviors to get attention. As the turtle crawls forth determinedly, I scampered about
from one social setting to another, none of which could either tolerate, or help me to resolve
the conflicts my personality. I set myself on a course of ever-expanding pursuit into areas beyond the plain of moral compunction.
Where it's long past the time that psychotherapy could be of retroactive avail, there is a
point to scrutinize the interrelations that promoted these untowardly outcomes. Social factors
are calculated in legal proceedings, for instance a plea of insanity. Judges and juries are want
to consider the conditions of upbringing that factor into the behavior of a suspected criminal
on trial before them. The most deleterious dynamic in a child going awry is the home front,
and in my case, my dad lost the quality of discernment that distinguishes humanity from other
beasts. Drunkenness drains an individual of regret for doing wrong; normal inhibitions don't
restrain the drunken individual from causing harm. True be it, the desire for proscribed atrocity hovers over conscionable restraint.
Dear dad was wont to blame my mom for their financial hardships, duh; was it not clear
that his corrupt business dealings brought about his failure as a businessman and brought
financial collapse to our family. My maternal grandfather gave him his first start in the
women's apparel industry, so the derivative of illogical contemplation would project blame
for the failure to whomever helped him to establish himself in that field. He impelled us to
hate him, and by association demonstrated his vicious techniques of punishing mom in the
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presence of her children. We learned well to hate him too, and in the end, we were besieged by hatred.
Cannibals eat people only to satisfy their hunger whereas civilized man is habituated to
wars, glory mongering, conquest of land and buildings being identified by the title he deems
these objects should called, and in his path leaves a trail of death rotting in the cities and fields
where he has trespassed. These malicious instincts epitomize the intelligence that
distinguishes man from the lower beasts. If the truth must be told, his communicative ability,
mating behavior, and erect posture are much less adaptable to survival than all other animal species. Man's destructive tendency is much worse than cannibalism.
Is the ability of logical deduction so unique to humankind, is it not manifested every time a
cat prepares to attack its prey? Humanity is motivated according to instincts commensurate
with the unique dexterity that allows him to make fine manual distinctions, but he lacks
auditory and olfactory skills that distinguish the elephant and the canine species. He is
attracted and repulsed by forces in nature, just like every other creature in the universe, but his
ability to discern peculiarities enables him to connect disperse elements and organize them into a unity.
The same force that unites the mineral, vegetable, and other animals into a functional
disposition are able to contain everything that exists within that singular equilibrium, but man
is included only through sophisticated efforts, he's so strange it's as though he has no natural
habitat. If he feels dejected, he will cause wanton destruction just to entertain himself. When
his honor is impugned, he becomes vengefully violent, the result being that people are
crippled, self-sustaining societies become dependent on external support, and a terrible imbalance comes about at the core of universal equilibrium.
From birth man is dependent on others and yet he deludes himself with the notion he can
achieve independence, so he sets out to control other forces of nature as though to prove he's
achieved superiority. This is but folly, fantasy, and fallacy proved by the fact even someone
who will remain incapable to function, or is temporarily crippled, as much as he suffers a
feeling of dejection, he may be the most loved creature in the world. It might said, however,
that the soul of that individual is so invaluable that it cannot be contained in the physical limitation of its body.
Most people are drawn into this never-ending race of chasing after their personal
independence, and are suckered into the capitalistic system of hoarding money, pursuing
electronic distractions, traveling great distance on weird encounters and living entirely in the
realms of physicality. Like them, my dad set his eyes to the haughty diversions from life's true
bearing, and sought to instill the same values within his children. How is it put, too much of a
good thing is no good? I have gone to the extreme of impoverishment just not to be anything like him.
When we were still very young, he took us to the bank and deposited large sums into our
personal accounts with solemn explanations how the money was hallowed for our future and
nobody could ever touch it without our signatures, ad infinitum. The alcohol gurgled into his
throat, his business down the tubes, and as I best recall the scenario, he took me to the bank
teller and elicited my signature to withdraw the funds, against my protests. This experience
taught me that my early dependency on material possessions would have to be empowered by
forceful methods. It's a shame that significance was attached to materialist possessions, such
as numerals inscribed in a small booklet.
My garden is open to the creatures that roam the neighborhood. The Chelsea cat acts as
though I accept her presence in my garden. She cozies upon the compost heap as though I
have nothing to say about her presence here. This reminds how I've acted catlike in so many
life situations. For instance, the time my dad took me fishing on the St. Clair, a small lake that
empties into the Detroit River. Besides the dock, stood the giant tortoise shell, next to which
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stood a statue of an Indian; and besides them a barbarian parading the musket with which he killed them.
I wandered off and crawled into the tortoise shell. I woke up to the sound of the hysterical
search and orders to bring the dragnet that would be used to search the lake. I crawled out of
the turtle shell unnoticed, and waded out to shallow waters so the saviors would not vent their
anguish at having been involved in such folly. I remember everybody laughing at me when I
came out of the turtle shell. I never revealed to anyone that I had seen inscriptions and
drawings on the inner side of the tortoise shell. I understood the message as intended for me
personally, so I took it to heart. Of course, there is meaning to this superrealism, yet to
become apparent in passages that follow.
This fishing trip was supposed to be a relaxing moment for me, perhaps open up, and get
things off my chest, but dad took little sister with us because she cried as he was pulling out
of driveway the nice gentile built us. I had thought there would be moments of reprieve from
her impinging upon my guilt complex. Being obstinate the whole time, I was dragged unto the
boat, given a fishing rod, and just told to hang on tightly if I caught a fish. That's when I
snagged a perch with the hook in its eye, and I was taken aghast. That perch wreaked
vengeance on the discombobulated memory of the accident, and from that day forward I was allergic to fish.
Even though I have allergic reactions to cat's hair, I let Chelsea hang around because I
know that nature manages to communicate to everyone in the way natural to her species. Just
as long as she wouldn't invade my private domain by scattering her hairs all over the place, I
let her find refuge on my compost heap. I am imbued with dexterity between the thumb and
forefinger that enables me to kill her in a single squeeze of the trigger, or rid myself of her by
pouring on her a pail of water. Would that serve any purpose whatsoever? I do declare the
reward for my kindness was seeing her bring forth litter after litter in the security of my
garden, and the many times my grandchildren enjoyed this feat of nature.
Another factor of my youth that sticks traumatically to my bones is the fact that during my
youth I was in the habit of following around my older brother. When I was old enough to
understand things, he told that would he want me for his shadow he would summon me to be
near to him. Stars were shooting off within the parietal lobe of my brain (the inner vision of
the mind that sees what it wants despite reality). My idea of self-importance visualized him as
the artistic canvas within my soul. Nobody could lay a rap on him, and I was thought cool just
to be near him of whom I was no use.
This description of the parietal lobe having to do with the inner vision brings to mind the
distinctions of our human mind delineated in Freudian psychology, those being the Id, Ego,
and Superego. The id concocts the desires in a way that gives them precedence over any other
bearing of the being, demanding instant gratification without restraint of mores or taboos. The
ego needs a format, a system of socialization that establish the order of precedence by terms
of which we achieve satisfaction. The superego is a tradition of acculturation imposed upon
individuals by their nurturing society. Presumably, these demarcations were fuzzy in my
personality because I did a lot of unacceptable things during my life span, and more yet to
restore balance to the universe.
Coarse and Persistent
As to having made girls of the female species into sex objects, we have to consider the
possibility of mental imbalance, abusive comportment emanates from emotional disturbance.
Not however, as women-libbers depict the circumstances as chauvinist abuse. Sexism may be
what motivates police officers to overlook wife abuse; but violence is part of the cycle of the
powerless; the aggressive conquerors have accompanied humanity since our inception upon
the face of the earth. A problem that seems to have no cure gains tacit complicity of anybody
who is aware of it. Many people get wound up during tense episodes and hurt the one they
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love most. Only weak humans violently seek to defend their honor, and it's only the insults from their important others that cause them mental anguish.
The fact that men hurt their wives has become a deep-seated problem in the culture of
impulsiveness, impatience, arrogance, greed, and ignorance. It's part of the mind-set to seek
gratification for whatever you want as quickly as you can, and at the least expense of human
resourcefulness. One might comment to the violator that his acts will inevitably cost him, in
that the to-be-violated will lose respect and experience attenuation of her ability to share the
good feelings that it's possible to enjoy together with him. Being hit is certainly not one of them! The problem can be ameliorated if attitudinal change is achieved.
I might be wrong, but the idea of violence towards children is accepted in the norms of
society as means to punish wrongdoing; but, spanking too, is an act of violence. I am not
going to compare the thinking of a man who strikes his wife to his treating her like a child, at
issue here is the societal attitude that each of us place our selfish interests before the liberty,
or even existence of anything or anyone that might prevent, or delays our personal satisfaction
at any given moment. Corrective instruction does not include jails, though they are called
correctional institutions. Correction means exemplifying the proper response to trying
circumstances, that being multi-directional verbal communication.
The abusive nature of people, society, and governments includes their willingness to do
away with anything or anybody that stands in their way, but it is impossible to see how this
could apply to domestic violence. My question is what should go through the mind of a man
so he'll restrain from beating his wife. When he resorts to physical abuse, he has presumably
determined the right way for her to act, or is intent on punishing her for non-compliance.
Obviously, the intense flow of adrenalin stimulates arousal throughout his body, so his first
proving ground is to see whether he can command even his smallest finger to respond to his
will. By taking minimal control of himself, he can preclude the adrenalin flow from removing
his conscious apprehension of his situation.
People think that brutality on their part will make others deliberate our demands; an
employer threatens to fire a worker, a teacher threatens to send a student to the principal,
friends scandalize one another, and parents get angry with their children. I was traumatized by
beatings dad inflicted on mom. I was not the target of his scandalous or violent outbursts, but
even as an innocent bystander the pain accompanied me through life, and brought more of the
same into the lives of his grandchildren. That definitely was not what my dad had wanted to
be the change in circumstances over which he prevailed by means of violent attacks on the mother his child venerate.
Men deflate absolutely any respect they may hold for oneself, and feel terrible
embarrassment even result of deluded themselves that every knows they are a wife beater.
They know the ramifications are traumatic for their children, feared punishment would they
be apprehended by "the law," and lead a life that is destructive of everything humanity values.
Everybody strives to achieve mutual respect with their important others even when they act
contrarily; our thinking process is molded by the society in which our personality has
matured. Pain and fear of the loss of respect, the feeling no one could appreciate us if they
were aware of what heinous travesty we commit, exists in the universe; for reason, that
humanity is meant to react by making amends abuses inflicted upon the universe. There is
more to creation than meets the eye.
A child carries not only the genes of his ancestors but the neural inscription coded therein.
A dude triggers a bank heist twitching his finger in a revolver to rattle people's brains until
everybody gives up their possessions. At that very moment, neural transmitters in his finger
send impulses to the brain, wherein various compilations establish a presence in the memory;
an electro-genetic system that with repetition attains a force of ascendancy over previously
established emotional and intellectual mental configurations. This substantiates the religious
tradition that sins of the fathers will be visited on their descendants.
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As habit forms into brain tissue, it impels the DNA to reproduce like proteins that develop
in the musculature that thereafter needs expression and perpetuity. Even if this seems
inexplicable with regard to the argument, nature or nurture, there remains a contemplation of
action become habituated. The putrid impulse that triggered all these developments is passed
on to the muscle of a toddler who gets involved in a chain reaction that involves destruction of
a window, and a wild childhood of destructive inclinations. For decades, he's been desperately
hoping to repair the force from the original sin, which emanated fitfully into an accident
caused by a glass projectile entering an eye. The blame could lay generations prior to birth of
the toddler.
Windows, sticks, trips to Chicago, eyes, violent anger, and hapless bickering. I have
grappled with thee, but none of them ever seemed willing to relinquish their strangle hold on
my emotions. I was the dummy mom always took with her to gram and gramps so I could
listen to her weep the whole way home. Within me, rage wars of blameworthiness. Neither
contemplated by others nor resolved within me; running hysterically until I outran myself,
continuing to do so until I became the man from the Rose Cavern. If you get to close, thorns
will prick your flesh.
There is reason to this mad discussion, and that is, determining whether the wretchedness
through which I lived is personal, or whether societal factors bring these forces to prevail on a
wider scale. Within me; this insatiate urge to be held, a frantic proclivity to human warmth,
translates into always finding myself in the middle of arguments. On one occasion, I even
tried to put a stop to the mutual nipping taking place amongst a pack of dogs. Nourishment
was less important to me than human warmth. As my childhood yielded to early adolescence,
I turned to female companionship as the medium in which to satisfy my touch compulsion. Northern Caucasian female beings are consumer reps of beauty products and fashion styles.
Back to Go, Now to Know
A portion of the Canadian southern border swoops into the Lake Ontario, which separates
Detroit (sounded as a nasal silent, "Detrwah") and Windsor. The Indians controlled the pure
waters of the Detroit River, and gleaned sustenance from its abundant rainbow trout until the
French conquerors imposed their rule over Canadian lands. Alike to how American colonials
threw the English tea in the ocean, we have distinguished the final "t" in a way typical to the
occidental culture. Trite, it is not, that nothing lives in the Detroit River.
A long some time ago, a person could smuggle firecrackers through the Windsor Tunnel
without facing interrogation. Likewise, you could come tripping across the Ambassador
Bridge right into down-Detroit, adequate to state you'd been to visit relatives in Canada.
Nowadays they have electronic sensors to smell out gaseous emissions, voice sensors to hear
the conversation of those approaching the border, and video projections to reveal emotion, maybe brain waves, and contrary eye movements.
In this city, people don't cut grass they mow it down. It should be called the "Mow town,"
but is called Motown because it has a connection to the motorcar industry, the modern system
of slavery. When the "burn baby burn" brothers take it over, they're going to crank out
machinery to restore ecological balance to nature, dredge the riverbanks of all the pollutants,
liberate dwellers from the shantytowns, and pay compensation to Africa in the way of medical
equipment, farm machinery, scientific exploration, and technology.
Forty years on, and I'm still trying to defuse the stress of my youth; years oppressed
depressed suppressed repressed and impressed with tears that keep pressing, that though
sound archaic turned out to be religious Judaic. What, me worry? You can take a Jewish man
from Motown but there ain't no way to take the Motown out of him. A dude from Michigan
can proudly claim to be a "Michiganer," a place where people will be because they are.
Michiganer in Yiddish translate, "nut case." It's possible to add that Judaic origins cannot be
extricated from within the soul of a Jewish person.
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Impoverished local folk learned, some quickly and some slowly, how exactly the wheels
that kept the Motown spinning were greased. They idea was to keep us stupid enough to trust
in their democratic freedoms while we were stripped of any hope to achieve human
respectability. It became digity (dig it, conjugated as a compound adjective) for Jewish people
to go upward; nobility-like mobile, live it up, are you up for it, keep your chin up; even if you
fall, get back up! They moved in and we skirted out, helter-skelter in every direction, at the
expense of solidarity within the community.
The mother Forder's (another name for SCRUB) knew that in unity lied the danger
inherent of mowing them out of city hall, like grass shooting through the blades right into the
catcher attached at the rear-end. Their present day strategy is to go against the Semitic
brothers of Islam, and through the agency of an anti-spy authority eventually nationalize life's
materiel, leaving the people without resources or anything comparable to government for, by,
and of the people. They usually operate according to a divide and conquer strategy. They
always proliferate an ideal that the proletariat will swallow hook, line, and sinker.
Wherever Jewish people flourished, the city planners popped over and suddenly started
laying cement roads and structures smack in the middle of their dis(com)unity. As such,
Jewish people dispersed into a yet thinner dispersion; divide and conquer. The mother
Forder's laws were niggardly towards any organization, you know catch the tiger by its tail,
keep authority over the distribution of means of sustenance, kill or be killed, citizens and
foreigners alike treated as the enemy. Synagogues were out and movie theaters in, property in
and savings out, charity out and gambling in. They got the gold bricks, banks and the Brinks, publishing houses, university research departments, and government offices.
They conquered us in our own backyards and sent us away to the insecure locations where
our emotional dependency prevailed over our concern for tradition or our future. I caught on
to their gig with the revival of the Jewish Nation Israel on the map of modern history, no
longer am resistant to change and firmly believe we Jewish people can someday be respect
what we've become. Groupings of people need a story to bind them, populations need a form
of territorial determinism, and so who ever controls the flow of information is in charge of the
multitude. Defeat allows no surrender because the enemy will forever reject me. Though the
stock market collapse or the housing industry implode, and the Jewish people held liable
while the Christians of America decide to clean house, we can gravitate upwards to make the
holy land a light unto the nations. At least, this was a belief unto which I could hang.
The purpose of this litany, to what is it leading? Awareness of self, includes the soul within
and the surrounding environment, be it the political climate as it has an effect on value and
purpose in our lives. One should be wary when the nations lose their pride and start to hate
themselves; but Jewish people seem to remain aloft of the conflagration. Maybe I merited this
knitted thinking cap because I helped my great grandmother unravel the yarn of my balled up
emotions; taunt me with visions, but I'll keep my head together! A spark of heroism ignites
the Jewish Nation Israel, thus inscriptions like those that I saw from within the tortoise shell back by the Indian camp; a message that existed before the time it was inscribed to be.
Stagnating in its death throes, the pitiable Detroit River lets out to a ganglion of modernist
apparitions of entangled metal and cement, and those tangles can crush a lone man, so we
have to get it together. Let's start along the Motown highway; we all know how you get down.
That's slang for doing something cool, for relief from insufferable heat, as the molecular
system uses fever to attack intruders, so being cool is finding relief. What was cool to people
in Africa, and likewise the Jewish People prior to their Americanization was adherence to the
tenets of family structure, national solidarity of people and the freedom of the human soul to
apply its strengths and talents towards creative productivity. These values are being demeaned as scornful pursuits.
When I used to think about Motown, olfactory memories aroused sensations of the foot-
long (ground pig with roasted chili beans) dog we'd eat late nights in a downtown restaurant.
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The perfume of wealth at the suburban end of Woodward Avenue prevented the cries of
poverty from penetrating the cognitive eye of those who lived there. "Burn baby burn" shouts
of frustration were replaced by "power to the people" demands for self-determination, by the
Afro-Americans who had become the majority in the Motown electoral process. It’s almost a
realization of a prophecy about the meek seeing people whose ancestors were uprooted from
their Africa in order to serve as slaves now asserting authority and governmental control of
the vital arteries and ancient trade routes connecting the urban centers of America to one
another.
It was during my summer break the night when I went tripping over reminiscences of the
foot-long smothered in chili sauce, cruising down Woodward Avenue looking for some
depths of memory into which one plunges when lonely for his past. As if by circumstance, so
into paranoia, I sat down next to a cop that was my buddy in elementary school, who I called
"big G little g." We started rapping about a renaissance in downtown Detroit, the Motor
Town, notorious for soul music. The percussion of down deep life is the rhythm and echoes of
the jungle creatures in the peacefulness of their natural habitat, and as such the pulse of the
earth's harmony. At the time of this editing (2016), an Afro-American has assumed the
Presidency of the USA.
Rolling Over in Rose Cavern
Habituation to pleasure brings humankind to deny responsibility, and to my great sorrow,
this platitude motivated my conduct throughout my development years. Like, I can think of at
least a decade when I cared about nothing, lived nowhere in particular, and did nothing but
enjoy life. Convinced that my microcosm was culturally engineered, one has to check me out
in order to understand the SCRUB blueprint for the Northern Caucasian. The gestalt of their
existence is prefabricated: for example the location of their home and the way furnished have
significance as cultural trophies; sensory experiences that stimulate the pleasure senses within
the human brain but have no functional value. Worse yet, vital resources are being depleted in
order to sustain this farcical dysfunction of being human. Why should a painting sell for
millions of dollars, and what vale do metallic bullions offer to humanity?
The Northern Caucasian had established his presence in locations that have demographic
significance and historical importance in the human inhabitance in, and surrounding the
metropolitan areas. I mean, wars between the French and English were fought over Detroit as
the most important focus of control over the Five Lakes and the northern border of the United
States. Demographic circumstances have resulted in a change of the population now
inhabiting the inner cities around America. The Northern Caucasian has packed out for
suburbia. These downtown areas have this numinous aura of being dangerous places to go
unless you’re a soul brother. As for suburbia, it has produced an irreversible and
insurmountable dilemma of property becoming a liability rather than an asset. At the time of
this writing (2007) the banking and housing industry were in a state of collapse.
Perhaps it's a good idea to reflect shortly on the history of the Civil War and its aftermath;
apartheid, segregation, discriminatory educational systems, and de facto economic inequality.
We can expect to hear the vicious barking of the honkies at the northern extreme of
Woodward Avenue when the banks try to reclaim the homes and their properties for failure to
pay the mortgage, and how they'll holler about how unfair it is. As the situation worsens, they
may have to sell themselves into slavery so the SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust
Barracudas) will provide them with food, shelter, clothing, education, and medical services.
This form of economy is known as nationalization of individual account holdings.
People chase anti-paranoia by surging boldly into hysterical mannerisms that refuse to be
bound by the force of time. They run away from presumed guilt for being what one is;
abandon everything held of traditional value. Don't cop out man; just keep your head together.
If anybody thinks the WASP-honky will stop running us down because of what happened in
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the past, we should be ready when you learn it's the other way around. This too, is evident
from the twenty-first century remarks about the USA being a nation for the Aryan believer in
Christian macerations. Balaam proliferated their "soap" in the times of Moses; and from the carcasses of decimated Jewish souls, soap has been made.
As if I care when someone derides me for being insane, threatens to drive me out of his or
her life, or act cruelly towards, and debase me. We all have moments of wild fits, yet healthy
people can return to mental equilibrium. They laugh deridingly, openly mocking and
ridiculing who or whom they'll refuse to see in themselves. It frightens us to enjoy the
freedom of laughter because if we laugh, we are treated as though insane, and since we're not
sure if we can regain control of our minds, we hold it in and get ulcers. There can be
turbulence during flight, but one doesn't necessarily bail out, we buckle down for the
meantime. Tremendous heat and pressure form carbon deposits into diamonds.
The emotional and irrational tales of life are not possible to measure intellectually, so
happy people should feel free to be what we are. Laughter is healthy but scourging laughter is
murder. The scorching embers of Auschwitz have not cooled, it's best to keep distance. The
heat is utilized by Anti-Judaists to concoct their witch's brew of annihilation in the melting
pot of assimilation, and gaseous content causes perversity in the minds of you know who. If
you can't ignore a real threat, are you paranoiac because you're afraid that doing something
about it will make it worse? Sometimes establishing the person in a silent presence is enough.
No brother, and far from the truth sister, there is no being downright digity in the eyes of
those who venerate sex, swearing, cursing, murder, drugs, and violence. Here I am, wriggling
my pom-pom while I cast forth my voice, with the gadget that radios my soul into the
universal control devise, thinking to myself I pulled out a plum. I tell you they cloak their lust
in the cloth of religious espousals but they'll be reckoning for the suffering they've caused.
The thing is they can't find me because I know where time happens as the entity we refer to as
I who am. The horse upon whose bare back I'm riding is dangling over the abyss, and has a rope around his neck, and I who am destined to pay the fare.
I am educated, and my soul knows well its humanity, so my mind cannot be deceived by
their epithets of veiled greed. I ain't in the mood to lower myself into their abysmal
covetousness, so as long I paddle the air my stead keeps forward further faster. Maybe
someday I'll take a trip along Motown riverside, which is going to be cleaned up enough to go
in for the chill once upon the next summer night I'm cruising behind the civic center
downtown of Woodward Avenue. This thought brings cheer to the walls of my self-imposed
insurrection that I've been etching unto the walls of my very darling Rose Cavern. I can get
away from everything on my mind, herein, even if in a flash of evil impulse I'll lower the boom knowing there's an escape as digity as dig it can be.
Maybe the reader will presume I got these brains in my state college, but the wise will
realize that the best academic environment is the school of hard knocks. If the SCRUB want
to threaten with a holocaust, I'm upping the stakes to a pan Mesopotamic-Afro-Asian
revolution against greedy materialism (GM) and hedonism. Anyway, I've had my fill of the
party-school idea of going to college to attend football games, drinking beer, and cheer. Here
we get a close up view of the facade with which the occidental elite society is disguised, at
least as concerns the impudent wimps (myself included) whose idea was to live free of any
commitments to love or respect anyone or anything. People from lands where Buddhism is
practiced, try to conceive of themselves as a harmonious unit in the totality of the world; their
concern with life being to do good; leave the world with a feeling of goodness towards them.
In the Thicket
Propped above Rose Cavern, the lens of the wobbly camera zooms in at my fingers
fidgeting the pom-pom upon the knitted hat I've drawn my head into, rolling it up on the sides
just as I used to. This pom-knitted hat serves as the cushion under my brain, rattled by the
torment of concern for being human in a society of aberrant corruption, self-destruction, and
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conflict lacking resolution. It's not the wool or form, but the kindness Babushka knew to show
me by knitting it, though no one else seemed to respect me as a human being. By comparison,
the true nature that became evident in my character is nothing less than obscene; yes, I am repentant.
Certain priorities in the realm of existence arise to our awareness during different phases of
our lives. From an aspect of a securing a relationship with a life partner dictates personal
security I had to relinquish banal pursuits of hedonist pleasure with women, give up the
connection to a society of people into drugs, no longer joke or talk about things, dress
differently, and be addressed by a different name. Nearing the age of sixty, secluded at my
station in Rose Cavern, I can establish contact with whom and where I be me - past, present, or future, and perhaps someday again observe the creation of new stars in the stratosphere.
Motion is the universal language and it all returns to silence. My presence in Rose Cavern
is a relaxation of the actions in which I sought to bring about changes, first in the secular
society and thereafter in the counter culture, and finally in religious society. Rose Garden is
the second stop on the way out of Detroit, the distance between them as unfathomable as a
quantum string the scientists are popularizing as the force that holds the universe together, and
can yet be traversed in the wink of an eye. From the depths within Rose Cavern my mind
tuned in to a changed awareness; a current connecting the vibrations from the foot of one
passerby to the sounds caused by the voice of another.
The secular strata of modern society has specialized education for its sapiens (those
possessed of subjective minds with objective bodies) including rules of etiquette, and the
social graces of acceptable conduct befitting their station in life. This silent minority of the
population manipulate the consciousness of the class of sapiens whom are dependent on those
from the empowered class. The overwhelming majority of sapiens are lowest on the
education, profession, and income strata. In a desperate struggle for the basic necessities of
survival we kill one another, sell drugs, and act like animals; this inevitability makes us more
dependent of the ruling class to administer our affairs. Institutions, law and its enforcement,
media, and misinformation are the tools of their empowerment.
This book will churn like streams of words mocking my mind, as they dramatize my
feelings of insecurity in all their extensive complexity. Thus, I make this futile exercise of
introspection available to the reader, who by now, probably thinks I have wandered away
from my stroll on Woodward Avenue. I was just explaining how to find one's way from there
to Rose Cavern. You can't get there by taxiing down the runway; things are not the way they
once were, we need not pursue a specific destination. Besides, someone could easily burst a
gasket upon coming to the realization that Gregory, once a beat-cop, who sat around in foot dog restaurant, was a descendant of one the chief of one of Africa's noblest families.
Once impulse of thought is transmitted to the voice mechanism of the brain, it stimulates
the lungs to pressure waves of air through the vocal chords. The sounds emitted are
transmitted as percussions received in the auditory mechanism of one within hearing distance
of the same. The sound waves stimulate the mental processes of the one to whom I directed
my voice, and when the thought in his brain is the same as it had been in my mind, then we
communicated. A wave of my hand causes percussion in the air, which a creature even blind
to detail may want to reach for, due to the grasp reflex. In this sense, motion and sound as
well as sight, smells, et cetera that pulsate between our sensory ranges become united through the processes of reception or resistance.
The similarity of developmental outcomes amongst a specific group is caused by the
prevalence of the restricted range of sensory causes. These schemata are predetermined like
finding an arrow in the bull's eye and claiming that it was shot there a good archer. However,
over stimulation of the sort where governments use guilt trips to subdue people into obedience
can cause a backlash, such as wanting to escape the societal norm by doing things wrong on
purpose. My methods included accosting people verbally, physically, being an annoyance,
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and much worse; seeking to avoid the insecurity that ravaged my inner being. This then is the scenario that leads to the abuse of heroin. That too is a SCRUB implant into the inner city.
"Deprecation of Independence," humanity works all the live weeklong year to endear
getting returns from the revenue service thinking they got something for nothing in the refund.
They drive in a mechanic vehicle, work on an electronic device, or employ their physical
attributes in some mechanical capacity until the clock informs them to play it in reverse. I had
an aversion to work so I demeaned my personality to a status of wanting something without
the effort invested into a proper means of procurement. I once impersonated a police officer and took a picture of Frank Sinatra, and later on, together with Diana Ross.
It was winter vacation from school, and some of my teenage friends and I were in Florida
to pass time. We spent time dragging around the streets and sitting in hotel lobbies playing
poker. As a teenager, I spent weekend nights at parties, trying to bee-bop in banal pursuits
such as screened in Hollywood. The TVs hosted dance shows, dance parties, and the like.
Sundays, a group of friends went skiing in winter; played football in the fall, tennis in the
summer, and baseball in the spring; movies, pool halls, and heterosexual involvements, not what you'd call productive members of society.
If people are convinced that life's purpose is enjoying anything they can get their hands on,
it behooves them to query why they aspire to social respectability; ergo, it's all in their
imagination. In that realm, however, there is no pressure to conform to what someone may or
may not expect from me. One simply needs to think about someone trying to figure out what I
may expect of them, and not how they view me, and as such enjoy what one likes to do, be,
think, and feel. If you can dig it, we are truly inferior to any other species of beings on the
face of the earth, and our tendency gravitate to be identified as part of a group is operative
against the intrinsic insecurity embedded in our species.
A lot of us wiggle out of others expectations towards us by forcing those who impose them
to have to put up with our refusal until they feel no longer obliged to do anything in our
behalf. Since the deception we live is healthier than having to deal with the true circumstances
prevailing in the world, why try to be normal? Why should I try to reverse the effects of
global heating when I can seclude myself in the calm cool of Rose Cavern until I die there?
One element of expectation is frustration; so where the anticipated payoff is less than the loss
might sustain by an investment of effort, one can remain calm and be satisfied with what he's got.
Using logical deduction you can see that valley stripped of "v" becomes a language
complexity, as typified by people who learn a second language. Alley; foreign languages
speakers are apt to translate alley according to its common usage. An English teacher in China
teaches that a bowling alley is not the definition of a blind alley, and that's why people down
in the valley people can remain forever out of mind and not only out of sight. The word alley
to wit the author makes reference, describes an unpaved strip that lay behind the backs' of the houses, row on row, set up that way so trash engineers had egress to garbage cans kept there.
To understand that it was considered unaesthetic to leave garbage where it would be seen,
a woman had to learn about Dr. Spook who chopped down trees of historical wisdom planted
by Jewish mothers who for generations had kept cool in their shade, ergo shelter of their
traditional homes. One shot of that diabolical vaccine and children could be transported in a
metallic vehicle whose aim was to liberate their children from parental responsibility, whose
destination was exclusive fabrication. It was the double-o that threw them off, they didn't
know why bother to cook and what a fool who thought to annihilate our traditions, until many
of us married just for the gooey pleasures of banality. Nowadays banality suffices.
A Pointless Line
I seem to repeat frequently that there is a justification to my writing this treatise, but I'm
truly only certain that it's a way to bide my time. The thrust of this literary journey to describe
the emptiness of reason behind the existence of human beings, herein I've endeavored to
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demonstrate we have neither reasoning capacity nor are we superior. Thought is but an
allusion to communication that is the common language of every being within the realm of
creation. We may therefore conclude that death is the only threat that humanity has
considered a diminution of their right to plunder and pleasure. Someone playing on those
fears can lure most anybody to whatever direction is determined to be beneficial to the usurpers. Disloyalty to nationalist or fanatic ideals is thought a crime against humanity.
Death is the first rule in the SCRUB game, so they confuse us and dupe us to spend money
on frivolities before we can no longer enjoy them. Of course, the notion of pleasure is
cultivated as a consumer objective. The second rule is that we have only to accomplish what
we desire without regard for the preservation of the globe or others that we inhabit. The third
rule is playing unknown fear against the ignorance of someone who would prefer not to
suffer, and players trap one another in nationalist, anti-terrorist, patriotic passivity trips, obedience and obeisance, and they'll string us along forever and a day.
Infants process information, so do animals. Does intelligence define the fact they a person
processes knowledge, and therefore we honor those to whom we refer as intellects. History
has shown that people who could read and write were set up as an elite core (priests and the
royalty) to manage the affairs of the multitudes. Thus, we see that the capacity to process
information has to do with the organization and distribution of resources; according to the
functional ability of each individual, he would contribute his or her taxation payments to the general well-being of the whole. How did people achieve this supposed collective unity?
If we were to take an overview of the activities of people, the patterns of residential
environments, transportation networks, public facilities such as street lighting and traffic
regulation we can make a few observations as to the organizational capabilities of humankind.
When this overview is filmed at high speeds, it presents a remarkable impression that people
and their technology are fueled as though electronic sparks running along pathways that were
established as the circuit board upon which people are programmed to allow their activity as
living entities. Diversion from the path means destruction, like darting out of a traffic lane in
the middle of rush hour traffic.
This teaches us that knowledge without shamefulness is dangerous; one traveling at ninety
kilometers an hour cannot pass the car in front of him when it endangers his life or that of
others. This knowledge can be instilled in the individual by a number of distinct procedures
for processing information, the quickest and most effective being fear. Based upon fear; the
logic of cause and effect can be implanted into the thinking mind, such that the person is kept
under control. This is referred to as intelligence, but this form of information processing is
present throughout nature. A wild cat reacts most quickly and effectively to ward off the threat of anyone approaching.
I must confess these conclusions are based on two observations. The first being that the
advances of mankind throughout the generations; those high risers, cement covered roadways,
pollution emitting factories, electronic and mechanical pursuits are all the cause of idle waste
of the earth's resources, and have endangered the harmonious continuation of the earth.
Secondly, one may see that most species in nature assume a restive posture of doing nothing
until needs of survival, such as hunger, being under attack, and perhaps certain forms of
companionship prevail and elicit specific undertakings in order to satisfy the needs.
Immediately upon fulfillment, the restive posture is resumed and maintained.
Unfortunately, those who have been historically ordained as masters of the masses have
usurped the appropriate nature of existence with techniques to maul our mental processes with
compulsory education, their aim being to train us to make them rich. They make us afraid of
our shadow and blame us for not adhering to the straight and narrow if we have divergent
views. They take an innocent malleable child and try to squeeze him through a mold. They
certainly don't honor the idea of people being considered: "endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
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The message here is quite succinct: Rebellion is inevitable where conflict resolution is not imminent!
I'm solely into soul music; it jives inside my blood and drowns the creak of my bones.
Like, an eighty-year-old dude walking into the most plush office center, if he has soul, it
doesn't matter if hundreds of people are hanging around. If there are Motown sounds coming
down from somewhere, he'll start dancing, or at least bopping along. The same thing happens
when the dude plays music in the privacy of his home. It's a way of transforming bad vibes
into copasetic harmony. Bopping, on the physiological plane is turning one's heel up and to
the side, and then it spinning on the ball of his foot. Bee-bopping is when one thereafter
simultaneously raises the ball of his or her foot into the flex position and repeating the motion.
This is what people mean when they say a guy or gal has to be on the ball of his or her
foot, the feeling is probably similar to a dude taking an outside shot at the hoop and putting it
through with a swish. For a sister, it might be like cooking some new edibles and finding that
it comes out tasting exactly as she wants, and is consumed down to the last morsel. The thing
is; a soul can be alive only if it's connected, so it's unfortunate that most of the dead people
living in this world don't connect to their ancestors. Nor do they consider what the future
holds for them.
Back to this theory of how Society's Club of Raving Unjust Barracudas (Northern
Caucasian) dupes so many people into working for a pittance while they'll earn humungous
profits utilizing resources they've plundered forcefully. Not only have they assumed
ownership over the resources they exploit away from a natural habitat, but also those in that
habitat who cultivated and protected the same are deprived of the benefits. They've become so
habituated to their trying to ignore the cries of the underprivileged they can't hear the bomb
about to implode from within their soul. I wanted to tell you, but you screamed me into silence. A schizophrenic is untouched by normative expressions that impugn guilt.
At issue is to know that insane people can harbor love, and they can be right about what
they say, but maybe they've stressed out from their society. There's no denying that
humankind has features that distinguish us from trees, but lakes are distinguished from dogs.
That doesn't make them into the Lake Superior. To clarify this preponderance, I ponder why
conformity was expected from me. I must delve into the mystery of the spoken language, is it
not herein that one's greatness is supposedly most recognizable as a member of the human species?
Take for instance the prohibition to split infinitives, people of whom it is said they have a
split personality; because, say they believe that religious ethics are an intrinsic requirement to
the successful government of people who have faith. Take for example a child who is told that
every singular verb in the third person receives an "s" at the end; as he learns to do that
because it's becomes natural to say I be, you be, and she "bes," in the past always to use
"beed," and the future will be. A societal procedure coerces parents to subject their children to
education that is meant to exclude people from the norm. The idea of compulsory education is
to habituate people to do what they are told.
Intelligence has little to do with emotional (quotient) security; this precious commodity is a
state of mind. A veritable treasure of gold hidden within a soul willing to come together, not
only over me, inside you. Being happy is no fun alone, being old is no fun by your lonesome,
being insane or physically handicapped is no fun for anyone. Even if we need to be alone, it
can be unsettling. I couldn't stand the Northern Caucasian rules because they were intended in
order to dismiss people as misfits, in order to "justify" how they'll "conscionably" mistreat
them. Rules of law are the weapons in the wrong hands.
Let's look at the various verb structures, the simple, progressive continuous, and the perfect
complete, not to mention the passive tense. Do we need to romance anyone when share with
him information about what I did, whether what I was doing happened at a certain time, if I
had done it consistently, or if it was done without any disposition of energy on the part of the
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subject? Simplified rules could enable comprehension with less dispersion of energy. When
people live under the oppression of slavery and discrimination they're not going to develop
their understanding of language to the extent of people who get a decent education. Culturally defined testing is certainly not a test of intelligence.
Does wealth bring people security? Not the trite false security, which serves only as a
requiem to a meaningless life. Is capitalist ownership a means of derisive diversion? The
downtrodden are in the rat race, so I'm running just like everybody else. If it's a race war, I'm
out. I'd just as soon rot within Rose Cavern staring at antediluvian inscriptions I copied from
the inner chamber of the tortoise shell. I've done nothing of value, relentlessly, while days
stretch into half the moon's journey around its axis. While I'm still beating death at its own game, I'd like to tell you about it, I thus hope to finish editing this literary creation.
One sees, however, that the rules can be bent to include people impoverished by natural
causes; in fact such cases are becoming the majority. The side effect of chemical pollution on
diminished capabilities of the natural brain functions, scientific discovery that makes it
possible to replace the inner workings of the body and mind, moving nature faster than is
remotely possible, and etcetera, this higher intelligence results in global dysfunction. The
Kantian image of a perfect being mandates decimation of imperfection. In certain regions of
the world, girls are sacrificed because of cultural ramifications about male ascendancy. The
SCRUB societies perpetuate genocide as an aspect of ethnic cleansing wherein they'll
eliminate groups of millions who they consider defective, or whom refuse to adhere to any
ideology other than their own traditional views of ethical mysticism.
All I really want to do is offer comfort and companionship to someone who cares enough
to understand me. You'll get your head back together, dude, I encourage myself, except for
the pressure throbbing within the temporal lobe of my brain. Though I shall forget not and
remember that I can't escape myself, the most sophisticated knowledge is the game played to
scoff at the pretense of sanity. The most fashionable elite aristocrat would like; at the wave of
his hand, or the slightest grimace, and even a look of his eyes to communicate his thoughts
without the utterance of a verbal sound, have faith he or she communicate companionship!
I can't number the thousands of times I've thrust forth in an effort to puncture time
encompassed by a bubble of paranoia. The dive into subterranean water can hurt my ears;
only creatures of the depth are sensitized to sound that is seemingly absent. Is it not because a
turtle plays therein, and is certainly not motionless? Where there is movement the vibrations
create percussion, but it's the rhythm of peace, only people call it silence. I thus learned a
lesson in the of life's challenges, not to go for it all at once; stay shallow until I increase my
tolerance for depth. Motion is the universal language and it all returns to the silence.
Don't be taken aback by neurological disturbance or seemingly unnatural adjustment to
social pressure in the maniacal blunderings rampant in our living environment. The very
precious secret to be revealed is, that, if there's a sink full of dishes to be washed, meat frying
to a crisp while the electronic mail box is full of viral trash; nothing will sort itself out;
intelligence is to no avail. One must rouse the simplest of motion, a movement of his baby
finger and the servants are sent ever so loftily to perform chores to restore calm. Life is but
motion, gravity, and silence. We can establish harmony with forces of existence upon which we avail ourselves purposefully.
Every action is an exertion potential energy and becomes kinetic in silence. There is no
need to think about this because I'm searching for the pathways that lead through my youth,
and these intellectual quips only are meant to serve as road signs to restore my confidence that
my regression is headed in the right direction. Waveforms or patterns of energy communicate
far more than words. All matters matter. Words are useless for beings that can't express
themselves adequately using nuances and body language. Humankind is the only species not competent to express themselves in real time, we are beings of the past, or future.
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Nobody laughs at me in Rose Cavern; I've tired of dragging my head through the steel mill,
and it's enough for me to lay restive, adorned in the Pom-hat that Babushka knitted especially
for me. Hey man, they think they can restructure our brains. It's not intelligence, which
distinguishes mankind; multimedia awareness has extinguished ubiquitous control over the
world's resources. I wade backwards through the muck of the "have-nots" while my head is
gyros' coping, and my soul spiraling in a wild spin through time space. I'm trying to focus but
my memory is wobbling too much. Maybe there is such a thing as past life, unbeknown to me.
Now it becomes clear how the modern child progress from a human infancy towards
becoming a digital configuration on the main board of electronic techno-industrial society.
The most precious memory that a child retains is that of being carried and fed within the
womb, next to the source of warmth and the rhythmic song of creation, ergo the heartbeat.
The reality of the soul's inhabitance in the body is a situation that creates the need for bodily
contact between members of our species; facilitated by the warm caresses, sitting in close
proximity, exercise, and singing and dancing with our companions as we bravely encounter and endure the stresses of life.
Man's situation is the least secure of all the elements in creation, though his brain is
capacitated in a particular way that enables him great consternation coupled with a dexterity
and unique perceptive endowment. When the ledger is balanced, we come out much more
barbaric on the phylogenic level than any other creature. Man's destructive propensity goes
hand in hand with an insecurity complex. This behavior manifests itself in trying to achieve
immediacy in his mastery over the entire world. The only way truly to fulfill our mission is to
engage our strengths and talents in combination with those of the other species in an effort to
sustain the globe at its optimal level of pure functionality!
Chapter V: I Was Graduated Me
To author a book requires of me the imperative to follow some kind of chronological
progression. My teenage years can best be characterized by my eagerness to stretch my
muscles; to prove to myself that I was independent, could do what I wanted, flay disrespect
for authority, and get away with anything. I was always too active to subscribe to any
authority that demanded obedience and conformity; I think I'm what they call today "hyper."
When I went to college, my insecurity and destructive tendencies accompanied me. Had I
pursued my druthers I would have enrolled at the state college in downtown Detroit. Had I
listened to my better discernment, I would have enrolled at to the college with the best academic environment. I enrolled in what was said to be a "beer college."
Cooked in the melting pot of annihilation the college that seemed most attractive was the
party-school. As I screen the playback of my mind's recollection, the reader can get a
simulated review of the external facade with which the SCRUB distract themselves from
pangs of their consciences, and wild things done to avoid cognition of the desperate loneliness
and fear that haunts them. SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas), for the
information of "Third" World citizens of the disheveled universe, are people to whom I've
referred as Northern Caucasian, and by others as Illuminati (in the California groves planning
the escapades that increase their share of the world's resources). Their fables of evolution and
natural selection are weaved into the fabric of the obligatory education they impose on the
masses as part of the process of getting people to acquiesce to maltreatment.
There are those who suggest the science of the mind as formulated in the studies of Freud,
ergo awareness of the unconscious impulses, has led to the exploitation of the masses. This
assertion ignores mankind's historical abusive of the weak, and the fact that all the writings of
religious traditions warn against unethical inclinations of the spirit. A bizarre combination of
events took place in the twentieth century, one being the transfers of Occidental human
populations from agrarian communities into urban societies. In these circumstances, people no
longer had parents or family to guide or support them, poverty and illness were rampant;
greed and violence ruled. It was impossible to act conscionable toward masses of people, and
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apathy towards one fellow was the only defense with which one could guard his life and possessions.
What developed into enlightened despotism as characterized the Presidency of Hoover in
the 1920's, is an economic outcome of a few moneyed people having sway over masses that
had nobody to protect them. By forming coalitions amongst themselves; buying one another’s
products, investment in production and manufacture, advertising, services and control of the
media (radio, newspapers, and written publications) the SCRUB simply saw fit to engineer
consent of, by, and for the masses concentrated in close proximity; to take control of people’s
minds. It’s a very ponderable entity, to whither the mind of the urban dweller will stray, but to
think he’ll achieve the independence of responsibility for his thoughts and behavior is flight of fancy.
It just so happens, I’m one of the birds in the flock of those winging those skies. I recall
my flight from the folly of my high school gradations, dragging at high speeds towards
college town, an opportunity my parents had been singularly motivated to see that their
children would achieve. The second hand smoke from a joint was a ring around the neck of
the most sophisticated "sub"(urban)-Detroiters who resisted the draft and put the nix on
greedy and aggressive SCRUB mannerism. The centrifugal swirl of electrons and antigravity
intra-pulses rambling around my brain, and disestablishment anti- authoritarianism vibes spun
me to grandiose astral loftiness and heights a great distance above socio-economic conscription to authority.
In a world where anarchy rules, there are no strange occurrences, and that a certain group
may strive to gain dictatorial authority over the entire planet might even seem feasible. People
who fear being found out for what they can claim no rightful possession want to deflate
awareness of the situation. In order to understand things to which one has not become
accustomed, one must have an indelible impression of the truth inscribed within his
conscience. The trick is to accept a realm of the impression where motion is measurable and
as such, I can relate to it, but when non-extant I am silence. Now, we might say that each truth
applies to its own setting and we'll continue to go in circles around a world in which anarchy rules.
I have a basic concern for humanity and the creatures of the world, it sometimes is so
painful that I can't imagine how to endure another minute, but that is the stratagem of the
Northern Caucasian, who pressure intellectuals to self-repress into death. When faced with a
problem of such enormity that one feels helpless, the best way to overcome it is by
dramatizing the slightest expression of resistance of feeling overcome and perform an action
of the smallest dimension that might be helpful. Writing this book is at least an expression: "To be, I am." It's a way of leaving a mark on eternity that gives me a feeling I've been here.
I rebelled against the system because I could no longer stomach SCRUB evil thrills of
sucking out all the resources from the earth; mineral, vegetation, animal, and human life, until
nothing remained. They are masters of the consumer madness in a game called World
Calamity in which multitudes face death and extinction, complicated stipulations,
bureaucratic manipulation, defecation, and faulty inconsideration. At least I wouldn't be a
player; at best, I'd defeat them at their own game. I was relieved to learn that there's no fire
under the frying pan. Sometimes I am fearful of vengeful actions to squelch my iterations but
then I soar bravely like an eagle to avenues of flight never previously witnessed by humanity.
My mind is attuned to sunshine thundering through the stratosphere. I mean, a guy who
grew up in mow the town down (Motown) was nourished on the rock beat rolling his mind
until it was as sharp as a needle being stuck on the record in those old time phonographs. I
gravitated so intensely towards soul warmth, and therefore pursued radical intellectualism;
anti-demagogic movements, spiritual pathways such as Zen Buddhism, and to cultural
affectations of Africa or the Far East. I went on to bigger enterprises such as running an East
Lansing organization to raise money for the Biafran children with distended bellies. I accomplished local fame and traded it in for defeat in a "Rebellious 70's" mayoral contest.
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The Illuminati SCRUB (Society's Community of Unjust Barracudas) degraded all
expressions that criticized war policies of the government by the people, and our persistence
to prevent injustice towards Asian people was labeled revolutionary. They made strenuous
efforts to find college professors to claim that students demonstrating against the war were
insane adherents to political communism. Our communities in America have been swamped
by the floods and torrential storms resultant from materialism pummeling the home life and
causing havoc in our basic emotions. People's external manifestations are so adapted to
dramatic repressions their personage exists within servitude. My own liberal views frighten
me to think of the luxuries I enjoy such as water that flows from the faucets of my dwelling.
The SCRUB sowed virulent hatred into the general society, an arrogant, aggressive, and
abusive attitude towards their counter-culture children, and all foreign populations, be they
Mesopotamia, African, or Asiatic. Their folk were brought up to die for the chance to get their
coats covered with brass medallions; wagging and drooling for a chance to own an
obsolescence facade they had been duped into consuming. The Northern Caucasian SCRUB
usurped the Muslim population by divesting the Ottoman Empire of its authority and pitting
one Mesopotamian ruler against the other while the Occident pumped gas into their guzzlers.
Nowadays, the Arab republics are driven to impose Islamic rule over the Occident, with the
political rulers of Asian countries as their silent partners.
Mining My Mind
My self-imposed exile in Rose Cavern prevents my doing much to rectify any of the issues
I'll address here, but anybody else is welcome to try. I am haunted by memories of my history
of mental instability, not frightened, but more comfortable with an autistic seclusion than a
direct association to humanity. I prefer to talk to my plants and see, touch, or smell the
essence of what they represent, never to debase anyone. The beauty and fragrance from the
petals of roses and peach tree flowers float upon my levels of desensitizing from the self-
degradation that accompanied me through my youth.
The road that led to Rose Cavern is covered with the stumbling blocks I encountered as the
failure on the road to confront the establishment, leading directly to my ultimate withdrawal
therefrom. It might be of interest to the reader if I offer a view of my initiation to college life.
I attended class in my chosen field of interest, that being mathematics, but quickly noticed
that I could pass the examinations without attending lectures. The result, contempt for the
academic persuasion, free time as attendance not required, boredom and happenstance
involvements, and finally a disposition to idleness. I got around the rules requiring first year students to live in a dormitory, and within a year moved into a fraternity house.
The flashback being filmed here depicts me sitting on a roof of a porch that jutted out from
a fraternity house in which I once resided. As mentioned earlier on, I went to a party school so
I could develop my hedonistic tastes, and had set up residence in the fraternity whose
dormitory was this dilapidated building with the aforementioned roof. I had swallowed a pill
of counter culture remedies, and was tripping in the playground of my mind effected by mind-
altering chemicals.
My elder brother was a respected member of the fraternity, and in his senior year when I
started my sophomore year. He too, lived in the frat house, so I relied heavily on him for a
sense of security. No matter where the hallucinations would transport me, I could pretty much
land on my feet as long as my brother was somewhere to be found. I just needed to know
there was somebody around who cared enough about me to let the experience pass. When he
graduated and left that university for marriage and a place in graduate school, all which
remained of his shadow ("and what could be the use of him is more than I can see") were the shooting stars that traversed my parietal lobe.
A friend sitting on the "Frat Jetty" was trying to convince me he was not my brother but at
the age of sixty years old, I can confuse my twenty-year-old son with my brother; reality is
subject to personality delineations. Under the influence of hallucinogens, time is not
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measurable and facial characteristics altered according to the brain warp within the mind. It
was here the passersby's took on the form of letters, and I realized every motion in the world
is a form of secret commiseration with the universe at large. There were those who walked in
the shape of the "f," moving their heads forward and with each stride planting their feet and
then starting over, and those whose motion was constant and flowing like an "s."
I have a great deal of experience with these images since I would later etch the patterns
onto the walls of Rose Cavern. I remembered the faces as those which I had seen from
beneath the bath waters when I opened my eyes to the reality that I was about to put an end to
my life by drowning. Seeing them walk by the Frat Jetty I got the impression they were
laughing at me, which they probably were since I was stoned out of my brain. To preserve my
sanity, I would flash to the inscriptions inside of the tortoise shell, and remembered the statue
of the Indian man that stood guard on the shores of Lake Saint Clair. My vision from Roof
Jetty was an articulation of a face becoming a soul; as the people passed beyond the realm of
my vision only the force of their prescience remained. Thus was clarified my philosophy of
life: Motion Is the Universal Language until It All Returns to Silence; pursuit of sanity is a
waste of time.
Presenting Our Progenitor
There existed this influence in the Jewish society of the modern era, that being that Jewish
people did not want to be identified as such. The whys and wherefore having been previously
discoursed are not at issue here. What does it mean for someone to distance himself from
Jewish tradition? It comes out to be more than not adhering to the strictures of Judaism; it
implies being not Jewish. A person can logically justify his or her decision to drive during
Shabbos, but there remains the ignorance of the proscription, the mitzvah goes unfilled and
the transgression give primacy. Hereto, we are not judging, only describing, defining, and deriving clarifications.
On the maternal side of my family there were many brothers of my grandfather who grew
up together and then raised their families to follow the Laws of Moses. These aunts, uncles,
second cousins, and second cousins once removed were adherents of a frumh Jewish lifestyle,
and kept up the ideas of the way their grandfather (Zadie) had believed about Shabbos,
kashrus, and family purity. They were culturally ostracized by the rest of the family for being
archaic and out of step with the reality of the modern world. Notions of the Judaic authority
from Eastern Europe were under assault from deleterious effects of assimilation, both in
America and Israel. In fact, the founders of the Modern Jewish State detested and despised the role of tradition as pertained to the government of the nation.
On the paternal side of my father was a first generation offspring of people who fled
Europe as a matter of survival. His mother, siblings, cousins and uncles, grandchildren and
parents rode the surf in the Northern Caucasian tides and gave us only an ephemeral cognition
of Jewish origins. Family and community, history and longing for the day of redemption
meant nothing, and variably meant nothing to me; people were strangers in my life unless
they fit into the scheme getting the most out of the one life I had. And of course, that was of
no enduring value to me. They lived far away and any connectivity with them weakened by
distance between them and I.
I have invested no less than twenty years to figure out the force of vectors prevailing upon
my personality and I shall keep the effort alive until I come up with some facts. I explored
traditions in various cultures around the world, and came to a conclusion that all evidence is
disputable. I ended researching my own maturation process, that of a youngster within the
heterosexual framework, growing up in the capitalistic system, and discriminated against by
virtue of my heritage only so much as I adhered to it. Some of these vectors worked in
subliminal parameters, hardly distinguishable. Naturally, rebellion against the Establishment include increasing the proximity to my Jewish heritage.
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As previously hinted to, the notions of feminism had yet to prevail over the thinking of the
Occidental man, abuses of the female femininity was the game plan of heterosexual
interactions. The culture of sexism was an outgrowth of the caveman mentality, and who's to
say the caveman shouldn't have clubbed his wife into submission? The idea portrayed is that
man conquers the female by forceful means and abuses her for his selfish gratification. This
supposed nature of the species, at the early stage of evolution, gains scientific credence, which
in the modern world is known as brainwashing. This manifestation was usurped in every dark
corner and nowadays in the light of the public thoroughfare. Sexual abuse is the harbinger of
nuclear dissolution.
What notions of capitalism can give evidence of the damage to the life and well-being of
the individual? Alcoholism is profitable to those who sell intoxicating beverage; drug
addiction creates a mechanism for the oppression of the underprivileged; profiteering by
pharmaceutical companies where disease is employed as a political weapon; violence and sex
tolls of multimedia racketeering, while every manner of interpersonal aggression, deception,
and corruption are proffered as assertive libertarianism. These ideas are built by disparaging
emotional truths that a person knows from within his spirit; influential people promoted the
Freudian awareness as the threat of unconscious that they would channel into the national
process of production and cosmopolitan consumerism. The superego was ejected out of hand.
These assumptions did not hold up to the test of time because the generation to follow
repudiated their very existence as human beings, as a people bereft of a history or an eye to
the future. Those who had been conscripted to ruthlessness of destroying life and military
exploitations came to the realization that their participation had been unconscionable. One
need only take a cursory vies at the war machinations of the US in Viet Nam, and the hippie
movement that sprout forth like shoots of bamboo reaching heavenwards. This has to do with
the natural fact that only investment of spirit and growth of life can result in feeling of self-
worth. Napalm bombing of cultivated land and civilizations can only bring negative
repercussions to those who were involved in those activities, as is said until they repent.
Fortunately, I had the discretion not to enlist, and became ipso facto a member of the counter
culture.
Now what do you think happened with the establishment entrepreneurs, were they to take
the disruption of capitalist profiteering sitting around poolside's in their leisure chairs? They
reacted fiercely with the power of the law; imposed all affectations of general society upon us;
policies of discrimination were adopted based on attire, intellectual affiliation, and as
pertained to housing. As we withdrew from society, a schema of private interrelationships
liberated by birth control medication came into play, hailed under the title of free love.
Though we were nothings, satisfied just to exist, basic needs for social acceptance and survival influenced my behavior.
I smoked so much grass, swallowed so many mind-altering substances, drank so much
alcohol, patronized so many different women, and wandered homelessly for so many years
that little of my humanity remained intact. From the purview of hindsight, ideological
assertions that aimed for change in the world brought me to the brink of inhuman oblivion.
Yes, I had a savings account and somehow relied on the merciful disposition of my
progenitors and nurturing society to tolerate the insurrection, which they more or less did -
hoping it was just a passing phase. Despite my loyalty to the counter culture, I pressed forth to
earn a baccalaureate from the university against which I had demonstrated and that I considered a lackey of chauvinist repression.
Those who jumped the wheel of running to keep up with the rat race just sat it out alone,
depressed, insecure and thusly targets of anti-oblivion pushers. So how does this translate on a
personal level? Once upon a beam of summer moonlight, during an acid trip, I was at a rock
concert in the northeast. The terrain was hilly like a ski resort, and there was a small body of
water at the heel of the valley. Delusion of grandeur overcame my thinking process into
thinking I was Moses of the Sinai Mountain. In a princely manner, with a sweater draped like
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a royal cloak around my shoulders, I conducted a stroll through the crowds. As I approached,
they made way for me to flow through them as though I was possessed of spiritual greatness. I
kept circulating around, attracted like bugs to where there were lights. I think I was suffering from insomnia, and walked around to avoid the fear of unconscious dream states.
On an earlier acid (Lysergic acid diethylamide) trip back during my college years, having
had become bored sitting by myself; though people usually trip together, not me, I was not
mellow enough to remain still long enough for the chemical to run turbulence and steady its
course. I got on a bus seemingly filled with Afro-American women, at least that's whom my
mind perceived. As I passed through the aisle to stand by the back door, I saw this girl,
Claudette, with whom I had cultivated (I was mad about) an interpersonal relationship. Sitting
amongst the Black American women her white features were glaring out from across the aisle,
and I was freaking and in desperate need to see a familiar face. When I started acting weird
(thinking she might get up if I went to sit next to her); scared of rejection I got off the bus, and
where did I end up? Probably at Arthur's, this really mellow Afro-dude, and he succeeded to bring me down.
I had met Arthur in the nook and cranny where people as he and I were want to be hanging
around. How exactly I befriended him I can't recall, but I typically found Black people to be
people who by keeping their stuff together could project warmth and calm. It seems that no
matter when I decided to pop in on him, I always found him in his dorm room. I guess that
schizophrenia of someone tripping on acid is a relative form of hysteria that can best be
treated by holding up an aura of tranquility. In the inner city where most Black Americans are
seen to reside there must be a propensity of hysterical circumstances and one must simply
learn not to be riled by them. I experienced the same quietude in my childhood relationship to prince G, who was appointed Chief of the Police on his way to the world presidency.
This is another account of when I was tripping on mind-altering substance. The escapade
was more like a jump into a four hundred meter trench than from the frying pan into a fire. I
treated myself to a psychoactive substance. I kept asking myself what could be the connection
between foot and sound, this word starts with "fo," that word with "so." What does that
matter? All matters matter. If we switch the "f" and the "s," we get soot and found. The letters
"f" and "s" are just a curve away from occupying the exact dimensions of space and to an
acidhead that signals paramount significance until adequately explained, as pertains to signals
from air borne creatures hovering above. Experience with these vibes lead me to believe that
the sound of letters are waves of communications passing through time. Their qualitative
force is distinguishable so they can appear as different letters. They come from one point
affixed in space, from a time gone past, and still another having to do with the future, both in
my mind and in my heart.
I made the four hundred meter jump riding bareback on my trusted steed. Saddled in my
bucket seat stallion of modernity (a white Ford Mustang), I had taken the reins of my steering
wheel into my left hand, and in the right I grasped unto the stick shift. Frat jetty I had left
behind in a cloud spinning off screeching rubber. I was off to take a trip through the Midwest,
packing a small vial in my holster. I swallowed the first measure of the map that lay ahead,
and by the time I had reached the horizon, the land was hidden by snow. By then, I had
descended into a discombobulated incapacity.
I was familiar with high-speed highway travel to the extent I could turn on the radio or
open a window to prevent sleep from overtaking me. However, listening to the radio was
impossible because the voices being transmitted were as if people I had known in my past
were trying to exert an influence within my ultra-sensitive mind. Switching stations on the
radio, I found that the disk jockey was addressing me personally, and I could recognize the voice as that of my uncle's, a sophisticated psychiatrist who couldn't stomach me.
Every time I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw two faces and they were exactly alike
except that one was an old man and the other was a teenager. They bade me turn off the radio
and exit from the expressway, so I rode into town with the setting of the sun. I was a star in a
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high school play that had something to do with Gary, Indiana and found myself five years
cruising into town. In those days, it was possible to approach strangers and ask for a place to
sleep, i.e., crash for the night. I found a place to crash and the hosts just left me to my own druthers, so I decided a warm bath might defuse the electric frenzy howling in my head.
Before I knew it, I was submerging myself face up and eyes open, and caught myself a
moment before death drowning therein, galloping towards a deeper slumber than I had
contemplated. I dressed and quickly snuck away from myself, but there was no place left to
go, because I would encompass any place I could be. I mounted my trust steed and quickly
determined that driving my trusty stag was no longer a viable option. I decided to park the car
at the end of a cul-de-sac, on the snow covered front yard of someone's suburban home.
Somehow, I had the fortitude of mind to stick the Pandora's vial under the snow and note
where I hid it.
The police arrived to the scene and I convinced them I had suffered an asthma attack that
had rendered me incapable to drive. I was thinking about the jetty dude, whom whenever I
had felt alone on the Frat jetty came and sat there with me. He identified with me because we
grew up in the same city, and was like me in so many ways. It was almost impossible to come
down from those heights without someone to validate my presence. Shortly thereafter, I was
in the emergency room of a hospital, being told I'm not suffering any of the symptoms of
asthmatic complications. The gig was up but I was suicidal, fifty yards from the goal line, fourth and seven to go, left with no choice but to punt.
The attention of the nurse was diverted by an orderly on the same shift, and when she
came back to the treatment room, I was holding a scissors as if threatening to inflict damage
upon genitals. The fallibility of the human mind demands of us to share every life experience,
my conscience was troubled over the issue of masturbation, a topic I had discussed with my
psychiatrist uncle. People want to be loved for what they are, not for what someone or a
collective force such as society intends them to become. I was hastily incarcerated in the mental ward, but forbidden to leave when the drug wore off. I had done myself in!
I managed somehow to contact my father, and through strenuous efforts of his psychiatrist
brother; the uncle whose voice I heard on the radio, I flew over a cuckoo's nest. I rounded up
my mustang from the towing service, retraced my path to the snow covered front lawn where
I retrieved the vial, and rode out of town. Guess who accompanied me on the journey back to
the Frat jetty, forms of the letter "f" casting the shadow of the letter "s" in my rearview mirror.
Inside my mind, I saw myself as a young man sitting on a rooftop, and finally an elderly
gentleman lying shamelessly in my Rose Cavern. I was looking at a mirror image refracted in
a time warp.
Thump, I'm Stuck In the Exit from An Abyss
Is freaking out on a college campus not about as far as someone can distance himself from
Har Sinai (Jewish tradition)? It is from this perspective that my analysis of my brain's insane
mechanisms can find data to compute. This pattern of existence was not an inevitability, nor is
it a given that anybody faced with high-tension scenarios like mine is going to be forced to
share his sorrow alone. I find it necessary to repeat here, as I have found it necessary to repeat
elsewhere and must repeat repeatedly until I convince myself what a fool I am for thinking I
was traumatized because Babushka dropped me like a crumpled homework lesson that was
debilitated before it was thrown in the trash bin. The social need of a life partner dictates
personal security, but the lack thereof can be dealt with by an appropriate demeanor.
People who protested political oppression and murder; connivance of moneymaking
schemes manufactured by the Northern Caucasian, traded their avaricious pursuits, wealth,
and social status for the goal of supposed self-actualization. Propaganda techniques were just
as effective against the counter culture as they were against the masses. Hundreds of
thousands attended rock concerts, and participated in anti-war demonstrations where they
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slept and lived together in the sparsest of circumstances. This was the illusion of warmth, people seeking human warmth found it in the Peace Movement.
I hitchhiked to, and promulgated demonstrations at the Ivy League schools including Yale
and Harvard University, was arrested in the Oval in Washington D.C., incarcerated in East
Lansing, and again for having made a one-man protest at an International Convention in Saint
Louis. Louis didn't meet me there but my saintly grandfather sprung me loose, it turns out that
his mother-in-law had family there. I did the hokey pokey, turned my self out of sight- out of
mind! He died from the shock of seeing me in jail, but managed to instill in me a belief in my
importance to the Jewish Nation Israel. Death can wreak havoc on the mind. The slightest
word we said to the departed, or didn't do in response to his behest shake up our brain like the perception of colored glass chips prancing through the eyepiece of a kaleidoscope.
At one of the demonstrations in D.C., I refused to enter the courtyard of the Justice
Department like the rest of the demonstrators who gathered in DC to protest the war in Viet
Nam back in 1970. I stood outside the gate holding a candle and encouraging each passerby
with the greeting; "smile, it keeps me warm." Like a salmon, I have swum upstream against
the tide of greed and inequity that to my thinking is unconscionable. I do as much as I can to
repent scenes of untowardly behavior I perpetuated during my youth, having strayed haplessly
into cultural dereliction. Since I'm not a writer, I have endeavored to break my ideas into a
story form and record them in individual sections pertaining to various aspects of my life.
I searched from within and without for the human aspect of remonstrating against the
assembly line mentality of going about business as usual while American soldiers were
perpetuating an incorrigible travesty of international proportions. The sanitary workers at the
University of Michigan went on strike, so I published and distributed my flier: "People are
People," calling on the student populous to demonstrate against the imperialists' abuses
against the university staff. I addressed meeting held by Afro-Americans and supplicated
them to go on strike out of solidarity with the Vietnamese. While distributing a leaflet,
Babushka, of my childhood fantasy accepted one into her hand as she walked past me. I had
imbedded myself in her memory in contrast to the former impressions I had made on her, and could leave my past behind. My voice was silenced, but the strike took place.
The idea was to unite workers, students, bourgeois, dark and Indian, foreign, and
Caucasian people throughout the United States to demand an end to military research on
college campuses, at the expense to the taxpayers who lived in slums, citizens plagued by
inadequate health care, discriminatory education or inequitable distribution of goods and
services. The time I was interred for participating in the DC protest, I tried to organize a
hunger strike. Tender meat like me was raped ferociously in the DC lock-up, so I threatened
I'd turn a broom into a snake if they will not end my imprisonment! I just kept myself as crazy
as could be in order not to be co-opted into the established patterns of existence.
Threats of prisoners molesting me sexually intensified with every passing minute. My only
reprieve from collapse into deranged confusion, was to use a large empty tin can that I
pounded like Indians used drums to communicate while I sat hanging my feet out the bars of a
window; thus, sending messages to forces influenced by the sound of my incessant pounding.
Summoned to a court hearing, and freed five days after my arrest, I can recall seeing the
Princess of the Sunshine (Rebecca) while the hearings were taking place; and still her
memory beckons to me. The Northern Caucasian is not inclined to give up easily, but we'd done our best to protract the struggle.
This princess was a high school student when I ran my campaign for mayor of East
Lansing, Michigan. She was particularly close with a boyfriend and they were a royal couple
of teenage products of a college town. I had first met them when I organized and presided
over an organization called, "Operation Outrage." Young idealistic teenagers expend great
energy for causes they feel promote the ideals to which they adhere, so I was a college guy
who made these things happen. The newspapers all over the world reported the story of a man
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named, only - Mickey, who ran barefoot for the City Hall. The newspaper butted in too much and represented the exact oppression I campaigned against, so I quit the race.
After all the exasperations, I turned my eye inward into the pit of abysmal emptiness. The
only salvation seemed to be religious Judaism and repentance for having been born, or least
for the multiplicity of criminal insults I had perpetuated against loved ones, humanity at large,
and myself. Thirty years later, an adherent to Judaic values, I concentrate my mannerisms to
emulate social practices of the ultra-orthodox whose religious life surprisingly offers security
and freedom. Repeatedly I circled the earth this way and that always ending up within the tumult that consisted of myself. Five decades later, I no longer feel that way about myself.
Chapter VI: Identify Within Yourself
Sometimes I sneak out of Rose Cavern for a timely jump and run barefoot through the
grass and under the peach tree in the hope I can get a little reprieve from efforts to elucidate
the mental meanderings of my brain. It quite often occurs that by the time I get to the
computer I've lost track of my thoughts. Fortunately, I can don my pom-pom and for the
moment, get my head screwed in place. It was made especially for me by the one girl whose
affection I cherished, whose name translates to a headscarf, from the family of hat. A hat can
have many ramifications, h-a-t: as it appears in the words: what, hatchet, chat, that, emphatic
hate, hatched, shatter and mad hatter. This fetish is not always reliable in distracting me from the point at hand but serve to take my mind off a subject preferable not to think about.
She had become my girlfriend when trauma was strung like a cobra around my neck
strangling the life out of me. She emulated a dignity that I had encountered in grandfathers
brothers, which they inherited from my Alta Zadie (great grandfather), as the story has it. In
those days, young girls grew up to become ladies who maintained an aura of respectability
about them. There was a certain way about the image she portrayed, feelings so valuable they
remain forever perceptible in perceptible realms of sight, sound, smell, and touch. Perhaps that needs an explanation, which I shall forthwith offer without hesitation.
A babushka is the old world head covering women wore as an expression of modesty. Just
like a dreidel spins, veers from its course, falls, and then its picked up and spun around,
sometimes the only way to get to the future is by reliving the past until one has had his full of
it. With the knitted Pom-hat on my head, I could spin like a gyroscope that wiggles in
harmony to the universal gravity. It could protect my brains from the seepage of serenity I absorb from the air currents tunneling through the passageways of Rose Cavern.
Thrashing about the chambers wherein the flashbacks are replayed in my brain, I've
learned to control the speed and direction of my memories. I can connect to what I was more
than fifty years ago and from within my Rose Cavern, click off memories on my radio-
propelled typewriter. Is the brain is not a time machine, sort of a perpetual calendar that
allows one to travel back to when an ancestor existed; a person who's being sometime in the
morrow turned out to be me. I look to the present and contemplate whether it ever really is. If you think about it, it has been or will be, but not now.
What's this sight, being filmed in my mind's eye? A great grandfather of mine sails by the
Liberty lady of the New York harbor on his way to the windy Chicago, where things are
untouchable. It's been fifty years (and at the time of this editing more like sixty) since I started
elementary school, and a few score more back, to when my great grandfather arrived to the
shores of Lake Michigan. The story that he came from Europe doesn't jive with the fact he
mined gold in South Africa, but there's a lot of stuff that has degraded into the compost of
days only slightly less long ago than too distant to forget about trying to dig up. True be it,
there's no one to ask anymore, the history of my family is buried in forgetfulness.
The wobbling camera jolts my memory to when I was but a veritable youngster and spent
my summer vacation in Chicago in order to get to know my grandparents, work in their
jewelry store, meet my first cousins, and to give my parents a vacation from me! The
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foolishness of coveting something that I could pilfer drew me to the cash register even under
the watchful eye of my grandmother. Delusion seems to be excessive in my personality, and a
purloin tendency is quite emphatic, as I've previously explained. Desire is the phantom of reason; one must do his best to restrain it.
People would warn me not to bring calamity upon my own head, urge upon me
psychotherapy, and I remain yours truly, trying to figure myself out, hanging ten in the virtual
catacomb of Rose Cavern. A wobble here a wobble there, and I hear a thump on the roof of
my tool shack; the cats think they'll get into my garbage by attacking from the fence above.
They are so adaptive perhaps I should be jealous. Can I survive on garbage? Is the intelligence
of mankind to be lauded for having brought wanton destruction upon nature? Glorious is the feline nature, though I have no affection towards cats.
Peruse the Pursuit
There are rare moments of true friendship, at least for specific procedures that life assigns
to a pair or more of companions. Chump and his reverberation, clicking clack motor vehicles
trammeling our lives forward. Ticking clock, we race around entangled coagulated junctions,
and with lap dupe electronics, are commiserating with inner state of the unconscious. The
dude from the Jetty Roof has dropped in on the cavern man of the never promised him a Rose
Garden, on his way to partake in a lunch break in the nether world. They believe in strings of
parallel dimensions and I say such theories hold about as much substance as the yarn my great
grandmother wound into a ball, so everything's cool. Right on brother, do cliché phrases!
I can dig it is a slang expression that certainly refers to something deep. I mean one has to
dig only if he intends reaching something beneath the surface. Thus, the expression, "dig it,"
means penetrating life challenges, but what comes out of it? Like learn to swimming
underwater "is really cool" if "you can get into it." Fetch a rubber brick from the bottom of a
pool, dive for pearls, or dig your grave while committing existential suicide, that's digity deep, bro. It: Being, time measured by motion through a quantity of space!
The cavern man has detached himself from those who ostracize him, and in insanity
perseveres. What a shame "dig-it" didn't get adapted to a verb form, like facsimile changes to
I faxed, or it was faxed. Maybe we never dug anything enough for it to appear in the adjective
form of "digity" -- a guy would strive to be digity cool, everything he did could become a
digity experience as perceived in the mind of with whomever it was that he was digging
something. The point being that linguistic expressions pave the way to harmonious interrelationships, and van be made up as the situation demands.
This journey through the intellectual labyrinth of an avowed mental case can be read by
anyone who views the inscriptions in Rose Cavern, at its depth, the secret entrance into a
troubled mind. Whether the discussion with a friend on the Frat jetty took place, or was a
figment of my imagination, the impression remains part of my virtual personage. Where a
person is attenuated by the dimensions that occupy the space, on the continuum of time, but
don't refer to anything physical; motion is the universal language, and it all returns to the silence. This thought was gleaned seeing people enter and pass through fields of perception.
Inscribed Black on White
In the northern portion of the Western Hemisphere, a mitten-shaped territory of land is
surrounded by five Great Lakes. The eastern border of the state looks like the thumb shape of
the mitten. I used to play hooky from school and spend an occasional morning in the hollowed
out shell of my turtle friend. The workers cast a blind eye to my presence there, and as time
passed, I learned to use Morse code, and by reflecting sunrays off a mirror communicated
with the sailors out on the harbor. They were always jovial when they docked at the pier.
This lullaby ended in a bad dream when there was an SOS and as a result of my alert
reaction, a tug boat was sent to bring in a ship, which otherwise would have sunk. The news
and TV all carried the story but my homecoming was less than a parade, and I was suspended
from school for one whole day. What I gained most from the visits was that I had established
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an international mirror pal who sent me messages from Canada across the Detroit River. The last word he ever told me was he said he'd be moving away to a new place of residence.
Michigan is divided into two peninsulas and the northern most connects by bridge to
Minnesota at the snout of its eastern border. A snout, because this land mass is similar in
shape to a jackrabbit hopping through Lake Superior. It's unfathomable how Indians survived
the fierce winters living in tepees but this land was their natural habitat. Late at night, souls of
Indians twinkle in the celestial horizons while the cool melody of its wind dances with their
spirits.
How do I know that's the case? I drove through there one wintry night on the way from
East Lansing to where my college buddy lived in Duluth. Each snowflake was as big as a fist
and they kept pounding at the windshield. I joked about bears having the intelligence to
hibernate through the winter, and the next second we were in a ditch. Around the bend, we
found a gas station that was attended by an Indian to whom I addressed the plea for help.
Chuck and I were hippy like longhaired "freaks," but everything was upside down and
even Indians wore their haircut short. He didn't budge, because he was on duty, but he
glanced heavenward, and as I followed the positioning of his eyes I saw the star formation of
the bear I think is called Orion, the significance of which is very important in Indian folklore.
On our own now, I told my friend it would take a bear to get us back on the road, and I
remembered the chains I had purchased for just such emergencies. I can barely recall
wrapping the chains around the tire but we did get the car out of the ditch and continued to continue.
I've raised the question as to how far the culture of materialism can distance a Jewish
individual from Tradition. My visit to Duluth took place during the winter break and for my
friend and his family the visit home was a moment of holiday celebration sprinkled with
intense endearment. I, however, was tripping though hadn't swallowed a drop of acid. The
decorated tree spread forth into an Aladdin's land, where people have multi-faceted auras
around their bodies. Some of the lights are so fantastic; accompanied by musical tweet and
twitters. I was stricken by such remorse for having misplaced my soul into this aversive
environment, and for sure, I felt like a scraggly mutt. I was so paranoid that I desperately summoned salvation in the form of a plane ticket out of there that my father agreed to arrange.
The lens, wobbling haphazardly, zooms in on Rose Cavern and there I am contemplating
the reason I've experienced this flashback. I sense the intensity of these perceptions, but I
force the energy of my thoughts to imagine a flower blooming on the peach tree above my
head. Yes, breath of relaxation and it bears a fruit, maturing patiently and joining the
hundreds of others in the process of becoming converted into a preserves. In the next run of
frames, I see my body standing at the gravesite where my Zadie (paternal grandfather) was
being buried. The Yiddish word for grandfather is Zadie, and for grandmother, Bubbie; their
parents our "alta zadie," and "alta bubbie," but in English we refer to them as great grandparents.
Another spirit was buried at that funeral, the dude who ran for mayor of East Lansing and
graduated Michigan State University, named Mickey! He was a political revolutionary that up
and disappeared, so he'll serve as the main character in the story to follow, but distinguished
in a different literary genre. Now, let me introduce my Zadie whose name in Yiddish was
Zalman. We were thirteen grandchildren and referred to him as "Z'Z" for Zadie Zalman. Even
his friends called him "Z'Z" because his last name was Zinger. I stood in great trepidation at
his gravesite. During his last months, I had opened my mind to his dissertations because I
hoped to encounter there a vision of my true source. My soul yearned for the wisdom of his countenance, the acumen of years that ripens in the elderly.
Chapter VII: Just Tell Me
Many people think their honor is dependent on altering the facts of a situation to fit their
concept of what they want to be true. Those of us who find it strenuous to think for ourselves
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adapt to societal apparitions that allow us to exist as distractions from our true bearing in
reality. People are manipulated by corporate coercion, media subversion, and government
perversion and conscripted into an institutional structure by which we define our personal
reality just as the powers to be have pre-ordained it would be. Yet, man claims his intelligence
distinguishes us from animals
What, I'm not like that? Listen up to what became of me the day after the family concluded
the week of mourner's consolation. I was by then a student in a Hebrew Studies Midrasha
(college) and assumed the role of leading the prayer services and saying the mourner's
kaddish. Ho, har; he and I were off to the adventure suggested by my Z'Z, without a word
from me to ask where he was taking me. This would not be so strange if it were a
hallucination, but with a man who had recently died, so either I'll find the way up from this
abyss or be swept into the realm from which none escape. Any person who can smell an odor
in his dreams should be able to fly above the stratospheric heights of an airlines jet. Just the
same, Zadie Zalman presented me an airline ticket on which was recorded the name, Mickey Moshe, and told me to keep a hold of it.
Some people assert that death is about going into the grave, never to return, but rarely
consider that life is a camouflage, and death is reality. We hang unto to the deceased with an
emotional attachment, like me, because I was afraid Zadie was hankering to punish me for
stealing the money from his cash drawer in the jewelry store when I had visited to Chicago
and accompanied my grandmother to work at the jewelry store. We keep them so alive that
we become what they are to us. In this circumstance, however, I was thinking I've raised the wrath of dead Zadie. No, it was not only a guilty conscience, perhaps no more than illusion.
Usually, people traveling on the airlines check-in their baggage and board the plane only
after an excruciating, rigorous, and infuriating frustrating procedure. Check it out man, Zadie
can manage his way through the airport bureaucracy like a river going over hunks of rock and
tree stumps. I tuned in to his humming, only later to learn that this was an ancient spiritual
mantra, "Yedid nefesh..." I bopped along in rhythmic time to the beat as we meandered along
the boarding dock, and streamed forth into our designated seats. Get this man, I'm spacing out on a transatlantic flight to parts unknown in a reality poignant for its impossibility to be true.
I rap my fingers on the window, look around me at other passengers, press my fingers to
my forehead in consternation, and when I cast a peek-a-boo glance at him, see Zadie squint an
eyelid as though still in a state of slumber. No need to explain, the plan is for me to
accompany him on a journey back to our origins and get an idea about our ancestors. Yeah
sure, anything you want Zadie, that'd be great; yeah, we can trip together wherever you want
to take me. It's important that I not get panicky, just stay mellow. This is a trip I'm eager to continue, and if I act up, they'll remove me from the flight.
I remember being told Zadie played violin, and so it was, as I stared out the window I did a
finger retinue as if practicing a piano. Lo and behold, I heard the piece coming out of the air
vents. I was stressed out by the enduring silence, so muttered quietly how the clouds look like
little angels sweeping the skies to clear the route for our passageway. I should be able to read
into the meaning of my heart's frantic pumping, after all, motion is the universal language. My
mind flashes to the scene where Zadie Zalman was laid to rest and still the jet surges forward.
I was somehow serene with respect to these memories, thinking either I've kicked into a
trace effect of psilocybin, or I might have died and underworld demonic forces have dragged
me into the Alley of Oblivion. The Alley of Oblivion exists in a time warp; it's the narrow
passageway between schizophrenia and sheer madness. Irrational emotion is the epitome of
lowliness, where a person feels so alone that he's convinced nobody can reach him, and like a
man about to drown starts thrashing out; he succumbs to erratic motion. Irrational emotion
divided into erratic motion explains the intellectual quotient of the inhuman modern sapiens.
The question arises as to whether an exclusive societal façade of mansions, jewels,
wardrobe, and authoritarianism provides inner satisfaction in life. Let's see, in native cultures
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objects are valued for their functional ability in the process of survival, people form societies
because all humans are too weak and ignorant to survive on an independent basis, but like in
the animal kingdom these people live in harmony with nature. Modern people seek to possess
time as a quantity and are drawn to hoard material substance, like taking pictures on a
vacation or at a wedding instead of living the moment while it's happening. The pictures are needed to stimulate perceptions because the heart is empty of treasured feelings.
The Alley of Oblivion ends in Oblivialand, the world of mansions, office complexes,
paved roads, space exploration, elected officials who entertain themselves at the expense of
taxpayers, universities of strategic war, and the proliferation of fashionable junk and
prefabricated edibles. Masses of people are threatened by disease, hunger, and slavery, while
the global stability of the earth is becoming increasingly endangered. Thus depicted, the world
my father left me, and I would give anything to avoid the thoughts of what I've perceived will
become the fate of the planet, but for now, this flight is high above it all. Thus clarified
moments in time following my presence at the gravesite of Zadie Zalman.
I mean, to me it's clear, so allow me to explain. My Zadie came from a long line of
authentic Jewish scholars, who studied the world (and all it contains) with an eye to improve
and perfect it. In Eastern Europe, Torah scholarship was a highly respected tradition, which
included renowned people who traveled from town to town and spoke in public forums,
sometimes in the town square and sometimes in a house of worship. In my youth, I had been a
gnarly upstart that would laugh when Zadie started telling me about the "times back when."
Everybody called me Mickey because I was a pipsqueak, except the wise neighbor I've
previously mentioned, who called me by a title, "The Micker." Such superlatives are added to
nouns in order to implore a recognition. Zadie ZZ called me Moshe, the Hebrew equivalent of Moses.
He tolerated me though I made fun of him, no, he invested his soul me because of his love
for Judaism; he presaged that I was the only hope that he had that the tradition would live on
in any of his offspring. I am neither in the cemetery, nor interred in Rose Cavern, so I ask why
not enjoy this flight of fantasy. ZZ (Zadie Zalman) has picked Mr. Moshe to accompany him
on an astral traverse of time and space. ZZ swerved his eyes and his glance locked into mine;
hurricane time and I'm spinning at 8.2 negative degrees on the electro-human magnetic scale.
Very briefly, the electric energy coiled around the human soul creates electromagnetic
impulses. ZZ and Mr. Moshe are connected to a flow of eternity and I'm paddling upstream.
Impulses surging in my body pass through the neurons in my brain and stimulate
associations embedded in the life forms my ancestors passed on to me. This is a little off the
subject but scientists have this idea about tracing the electromagnetic currents in genetic
material back to the point of their conjecture on earth prior to this world's inception, just
joking! The point is that ZZ and I are communicating by humagnetism (electromagnetic
telepathy), vibes in the slang. I had to answer his eyes and mustered an affirmative thought on
the matter. Yeah I'm buckled in, rip ready and raring to go.
The non-reply was right on, cool, copasetic. On this flight, I can feel free to think whatever
I want to say. Grinning by gently curling the right side of his upper lip, he gives me to believe
we're exactly where we're supposed to be at this very moment, right on schedule, no
turbulence, uptight out of sight. I don't know whether he bought my soul for the debt that I
owe to the jewelry store and apologized for any animosity he may harbor towards me.
Thinking about my friends and family down there, I glance through the window at Detroit and
see a lonely dude pitching stones on the river! It all returns to the silence.
I have to get a grip on myself; maybe this is the best time to parachute to safety. No way
man, this can't be happening! Okay bro, maybe Zadie is cool, yeah he's right, and people
achieve a feeling of connection by speaking humagnetism from the depths of their heart. He's
answering everything I say in compassionate tones, even jokes as he tells me that life is a
grain of salt. A glimmer in my eyes gave away my great efforts to restrain a smile; our lives
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are like a granules being shaken from a saltshaker passing through a small hole of time. Zadie Zalman has some digity sayings.
A deceased man and I are taking a flight in saltshaker en route to an imaginary destination
with a crew and passengers that, like my Zadie and I, are miniscule cubicles of substance
hurtling through the expanse of eternity. As I got excited, I was drawn to him, I wanted it to
be like old times when I ran to him and he lifted me above his head and then hugged me; I
placed my hand on the arm rest and resumed twitching my fingers as though striking piano
keys. I was starting to get into this flight. Theorists assert that facial gestures and nuance
make up a large percent of what we communicate; nonverbal language is a form of
humagnetism. Energy waves influence the language receptors of those to whom addressed.
Zadie Zalman suggested we talk quietly, or if I wanted, I may stroll around a bit and chose
if I preferred to switch places and sit next to someone else. Oh yeah, Mr. Moshe is supposed
to make this flight next to an unfamiliar ghost! I lay a rap on him about the downfall of
modernity; people don't have any way to unwind, they're always grinding energy and shooting
off sparks that repulse one another, so at least I know what I'm up against seated next to him. I have learned to seclude myself, find silence to be a loyal companion.
Bemused with my vibes Zadie Zalman responded that he too, used to be a loner by nature.
Matriculating the University of Hard Knocks, more than thirty years ago, he has purported a
certain philosophy about life. He had secret service training to thwart the conspiratorial forces
amongst the Arab economy-greasers that want to establish Islamic control over the resources
and the heritage of the entire world. This conversation sounded like echoes within my mind
and I steadily came to the unavoidable conclusion that this is not a death trip. I may yet have some purpose to fulfill concerning the Jewish Nation Israel.
What's Going On
I was frightened and curled my feet under me with my head cozy to ZZ"s shoulder. I
questioned how anybody could bring destruction to the world or significant parts thereof, such
as people, animal and plant life, or the very earth and think only of the luxury and power that
accrues to them. Is violence and self-affliction indicative of the intelligence considered a
particular distinction of being human? The marauding troopers have long deceived man into
thinking it is they, who have the last say.
We dwell in the damp darkness of a prison from which there is little chance of escape.
People hurry to work and neurotically and laboriously pursue cultural agendas aimed to
deprive them of their inherent right to a secure existence. Negative contortions are published
in with the aim to degrade and abuse our humanity, scandalize other people as depraved, and
sway our thinking so we'll crowd into fashion camps while laughing hysterically as we are led to a life of apathy and abandonment.
Writing words that have meaning is not as sophisticated as it seems. Bees have a code of
communication that is preserved from generation to generation, how to locate pollen, gobble
it up without swallowing it, and build infrastructures from nobody's beeswax but their own. If
somebody else comes to benefit they don't find it to their disliking, they just go on producing
and procreating as they have since time eternity. I think their level of intelligence is more to
be praised than that of humankind, it seems evident that we have gone astray from our true
purpose as human beings. Those who have pure instincts to promote increased likelihood of a
harmonious future for the earth and its inhabitants should stay as busy as the bee to do it now.
What can Mr. Moshe do while stuck on a jet flight through the valley of death? I knew that
clouds are formed by accumulation of water but I had never contemplated all the elements
that have to go into cloud formation. I asked Zadie whether electrical storms come from rain
clouds, or whether rain clouds develop because of electrical currents in the atmosphere. This
intellectual carousing seemed the best way to find out whether there was some kind of escape
hatch from such altitudes to wit, I was quite unfamiliar. Rapping was one sure way to come
down from trips, and Zadie knew how to get down.
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Zadie Zalman confidently replied that Hashem (G-d) brings the rains and lightning, and
added that I'm looking at clouds formed by aerographic precipitation, which meant that we
were approaching a mountain range. Then he continues and says he was not brought up
religious, but he always thought one of his sons would say kaddish (the mourner's prayer)
over him, which he verily appreciates that I did. I acted a little weird, as though afraid there
could be a storm; hey, this situation was not connected to anything I had known until now, so
I rattled a little about I here am, or perhaps not myself to be. That's a misquote from Shakespeare.
He starts telling me the Jewish Nation Israel is our ancestral home. Israel is big in the eyes
of the Jewish people but hardly imaginable in the eyes of the world. I thought about how
elephants go somewhere to die, and that made me paranoid. The hush of air from the
ventilator gusted above the silence as live waves from the ocean caress the sands along the
beach; it must be the sound of the jet flying in some kind of time warp. We're right over the
ocean, you know. Don't you think you should fasten your seatbelt? Zadie Zalman pushed a
bag of pretzels towards me, but I was in the mood for something sweet, and maybe I could
have done with something to plug my ears, but I ate the pretzels.
The only thing I disliked more than being shut up in any place for long periods was being
forced to wait in long lines. For whatever reason, the dimensions of this trip were beyond
definition, so I got to thinking about how cool this would be if I ever get to tell someone about
it. Zadie Zalman caught me dangling my legs from where I positioned my knees on the back
of the seat in front of me and suggested I put them down. At that moment, I saw in him a
dignity to which I wish I could like to aspire. He always took notice of any discomfort that he
might cause to another being, his aspiration in life, humility.
I knew very well how to comply with nothing, obey no one, do the opposite of what told;
especially when I was jittery and wanted to draw attention to myself, so I retort that this flight
is worse than a horror movie because the crew and all the passengers are ghosts. He inched
his facial muscles a little to the left and sent a quickie ray of eye light right into my pupils,
that's all. This could have been the first time in my life somebody relied on me to act correctly
of my own volition. It was like panhandling for loose change; I theorized that a quantum of
humagnetism would be useful to tip off the pilot if he needed to make an emergency landing.
I resumed my fetal curl and started fidgeting with the seatbelt, snapping it closed and
reopening it in order to produce a rhythmic click. I could sense that I was losing my grips on
the Micker identification that had made little sense so far. A feeling of remorse came over me,
but then it wasn't sensed as a feeling of sadness; I must be coming down; it's my role in the
movie being screened inside of my brain. ZZ and Mr. Moshe are award-winning actors in the new world premiere, no electronic media and alike to a live drama. I can dig it.
Finally, I notice my breathing is calm; the not to be has become a reality or reality will
become to be only as I accept it as true. This very idea now pervades my thinking and if the
whole world is a stage, I might do well to seize this opportunity and play my role in the script
ZZ is writing. I achieved a new sense of confidence in his demeanor an my mind seemed
elevated to almost new level of consciousness about what I am meant to be, who I'm going to
become, and a positive feeling about the human experience in general.
As Zadie Zalman set his weary neck to the headrest, his forehead revealed depth of
character I had never bothered to notice when he was alive. Zadie started talking about a
young man faced with certain difficulties in life. Like viewing a home movie, I imagined the
scene of neighborhood where I grew up, neighborhood children, the fallen acorns from the
tree in our front yard, and yards behind our houses. I shed a tear of longing to feel part of a
community just the way things were before they paved a highway in the middle of our
neighborhood.
We were a group of youngsters from ten families living on the same street, going to the
same elementary school, and unconcerned with the pressures of life. Each of us had their
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special nature. I was like a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, a rose hidden within a
bundle of thorns; had acclimated to a defense mechanism that kept people distant from
anything of value I might have had to offer. Was I the only one who had absorbed traumatic
impulses? It seems that the most popular amongst us were those whose parents responded
properly, in most circumstances, and as a matter of habit maintained their equanimity. I was not numbered among those lucky few.
What's Above the Crest of the Rainbow
High above the Astral Ocean, Zadie Zalman and I are hurtling forward towards a Judaic
ideal and here I am surfing high above clouds filled by lightning striking out harmoniously in
rhythmic coexistence with the pitter-patter of the rain. I was shaken out of my wits, yet
somehow mustered courage to make the best out of this situation. ZZ anticipated this
predicament; he shows me his shofar (ram's horn), so small that it fits in the palm of his hand.
At his command, it starts spinning remarkably like a gyroscope producing sound of its own power.
This was not something you'd see anywhere else in the world. It successfully took my
mind off the thunderstorm; it is a point of interest that will never leave my awareness
sensitivity consciousness. This shofar was something deep from the same subterranean
ethereal domain from which this whole drama was emerging. Right on ZZ, could you let me
let me have it, for a minute; I'll return it immediately; I just want to see it for a second. Would
I deny myself the joy of a fantasy that seemed capable to surmount all logical conclusion, or
be transformed by a humagnetism penetrating the mysterious object, if I so much as touch it?
I could either hang ten in the shallows, or paddle out to the waves. I wasn't exactly gawking but this shofar defied the laws of gravity.
ZZ knew everything about where I had been, about the Detroit River, the tortoise shell on
the shore of Lake Huron, the Frat jetty, and even Rose Cavern, yet to be. This object
demonstrated itself able to warp space and went miraculously through the air, from the tip of
ZZ's thumb to that of the next, and then he laid it on me. List ten, Mr. Moshe, he tells me,
count to ten every time you want to interrupt me, just listen with your ears wide open and
mouth closed gently shut quiet! Okay I utter soundlessly, the language of the mind is the soul of intercommunication; get the details right for once.
I lay my feet into a yoga posture while both sides of my heart just pour into Zadie's eyes. I
was out of here, and everything came together: education, induction, instruction, production
and dysfunction, the present never more to resent. To be in the simultaneously in the first
person and not at all contained within physical parameters, is a conjugation of being from the
infinitive, "to be," because life and death are indistinguishable; movement has direction only
as a formless implicit of silence. There is no to be in the present, as proven by study of the Hebrew language, humagnetism is our life force and Hashem (G-d) its source.
I figure like this, before my Zadie was old and ailing, we used to get together as often as
possible. Sometimes I had breakfast with him, often would work in the family store, and then
there were the Sundays when the extended nuclear family gathered in his home for dinner. I
was generally not up to visits of a close personal nature, but there were factors that prevailed.
I had sort of brought about his death, and wanted more than anything else I'd ever cared about
to understand what made Zadie tick, and to catch his drift. I had merited being around him in
this flight pattern, and spent a lot of time just staring at him. I'm glad I did because that's why
I'm here with him now, compelled to tell the story I don't believe myself.
Somewhere Around the Corner
You know how children love to exaggerate; for adults to accuse them of lying is a harsh
judgment. Maybe their neural development hasn't reached the stage whereby truth can be
discerned. When a child asserts his ability to do the impossible and tries to convince another
child that he has accomplished his goal, there is simply a less than accurate communication
being expressed. I can't do justice to the moments of that flight with Zadie, but I'm certainly
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going to try, and I don't care if nobody believes it. Strap yourself down in one of the seats
across the aisle and you'll see what a great storyteller a Zadie can be to anybody believes he's
their grandfather.
Zadie's again humming as he did when we went through the airport, "nafshi holas
ahavasacha, my soul pines by reason of its love for You." I knew something is about to occur,
when the jet is already swerving around this mountain range. The summit is encompassed by
a forest and streams, at the foot of the mountain lays an urban settlement. "There it is," I heard
him say the name; but I don't remember the name by which he called it. Anyway, there's the
same village in which he was born and where his great grandfather had lived. No need to look
out the window, the few buildings are blanketed in heavy rain clouds. He had the foresight to admonish me to bring appropriate attire, and I'm not afraid of the rain.
This is a once upon a time incident; there was a village, hidden in the forest of Eastern
Europe, inhabited strictly by Jewish people, and so it had been for close to a thousand years.
Houses constructed of wood were arranged to ensure the privacy of each resident and
supremacy given to the location of the synagogue towards which each entranceway opened.
All Jewish life, inclusive, was centered around the synagogue. Life was like a tunnel of time
and the centrifugal center was the closet in which the Torah scroll was housed, the Aron
Kodesh, the doors of which opened in the direction of Jerusalem towards which the Jewish
People have an ancient yearning.
Zadie Zalman loved to tell stories about Europe before the terrible misfortune that befell
the Jewish people. His idea of the Holocaust was that it was incumbent upon us it know what
preceded and what the value of the Judaic tradition that we should endeavor to reinstate in our
Jewish communities. He neither wished to profit from the monetary compensations to
survivors, nor let those who caused the suffering revel in their memories. The tradition has preserved as long as His story - history - overlaps the present and continues into the future.
He told me many times that I was his favorite grandson because I was given the Hebrew
name Moshe after his father. Even more so, because I used to show an intense concern to
express sensitivity towards him. I didn't just ask him bluffer questions, "How are you," and
not even listen to the answer. I concerned myself to know of what would be of interest to him
to discuss, and participated in the conversation when he told me. His stories kept memories
alive, and through me were to become his connection to eternity. Since we've become friends,
the entanglement of our souls in a purposeful and mutual commitment has to be honored. The
plane swoops down and as I strain my eyes, I see the hustle and bustle of people sloshing hither and tither through the muddy byways.
Boys are dressed in knickers and many children barefoot. The men are wearing baggy and
simple clothes, pants that drag on the sloppy pathways that lead through the town. Laden with
burdens on their back or being carried at their sides, the women's heads are modestly covered
by babushkas, their apparel typical of the underprivileged; everybody seems attired in
formless and colorless clothes. Hats were made by sewing a visor on a piece of cloth, the
means of transportation horse and carriage, handcarts, and the sole of the passersby's feet.
The beautiful carriage around which are gathered a group of dignitaries in suits and top
hats, is guarded by Russian soldiers. Zadie explains that they are on assignment to protect the
officials who are sent to announce the commencement of work on train tracks and the
building of a railroad station near their village. The Jewish population of Kiev would react
adversely to this pronouncement, and sought to involve all the neighboring communities in
this predicament, sending letters by horseback a distance of about fifty kilometers back and
forth. Indigenous legions from those parts caused the imposition of booze, immorality, and incessant dangers to our people.
The environment looked completely different from anything I've ever seen. Men to men,
and women to women approached one another cordially with arms outstretched to greet one
another, with a handshake, a hug, and an exchange of a few cordial words. Not only was the
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life style different because of external factors, but the Yiddish language that people used to communicate had a different soul, the language of interdependence and mutual respect.
When a man interacted with his fellow, they spoke cautiously out of concern not to hurt
someone's feelings; the railway station is a good example. The message carried like a brush
fire, one could almost hear snapping that becomes audible when fresh moist twigs crackle in
the flames. There were suggestions, suspicions, repudiation, and urgings to acquiesce, or
contrarily find ways to oppose government demands. People remained courteous; a singular
decision would bind them all and every opinion was valued and listened to patiently. Of course, it was the rabbinic Beth Din of that would render the final decision.
No one doubted that hard times lay ahead, and since refusal was a distinct possibility, in
which event people were assured of government reprisals, nobody dared engender hard
feelings between the Jewish people themselves. The children were already preparing their
strategy to deceive and defeat the Russian peasants who would be incited to enact pogroms
against them. Zadie commented that children were wont to apologize for being hungry when
they asked his mother if she could give them something to eat, food was scarce.
Neither did he forget his manners if there was no answer in the affirmative; subsistence
was a rare commodity whereas illness was widespread. People needed to grow wheat, harvest
grind, knead, and bake it; bread was their staff of life because it fills the stomach with nutrient
that sustains us. In order to grow wheat, fields had to be plowed and tilled with oxen. Selfish
considerations were an outrage and short lived back then. If there were a moment in the day that one could rest from his labors, he would attend a Talmud lesson in the Beit haMidrash.
The nearest village was many kilometers away and not only was there no such thing as a
bakery, and getting the wheat to the mill by the river a burdensome trip, but there was no
other assurance that one could eat during the blizzards and cold of the long Russian winters.
Either the community produced enough grain to store for the long winters or people starved.
From this point of view, and other economic considerations there was a positive side to the
idea of trains but social factors associated with the same caused a great deal of consternation.
With hindsight, we can see that modernity is not equal to prosperity where it concerns the
Jewish People.
There were so many labors to be performed and from what I understood, even children had
a role in the sustenance of the family as a unit. From the age a child could hold a pail he or
she was sent to bring water from the well, or to spread grain before the fowl. The question is;
how were the boys and girls supposed to get an education if they were involved in so many
chores? Zadie's glasses rested under the bridge of his nose and the eyes above looked at me
with an inquiring glance. Didn't you come for your two-month break from school to work in
my store during the summer, he reminded me? But it's not the same, there was no such thing as a secular education in those times in such places, only the school of hard knocks.
Things were different back then. Because the Jewish people lived in their own
communities, they had little contact with the gentile world, spoke their own language
(Yiddish), maintained their own legal (religious courts) and educational systems (Talmud
Torah for the privileged), and maintained a special communications network, called, "the
Magid" (storyteller). The Magid was a person gifted with eloquent speech, but even more so,
had sterling qualities of spiritual wisdom and commitment to Judaic tradition. As such, he
traveled from town to town and took up his position on the soapbox, arousing the people to
labor faithfully to keep the ways of Torah and to love Hashem (G-d).
In the historic settlements of the Jewish people in Europe, everybody was responsible for
the continued survival of our communities. There were no modern conveniences; not even
plumbing or electricity, everything was done by hand labor and there were few minutes in any
given day when little girls were not occupied, and none of them ever went to school. Their
training all had to do with domestic chores! At some point in time, the situation made it
possible to introduce a network of Beit Yaakov schools and until this very day, girls get an
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outstanding education that enables them to acquire the status of professionals in all secular fields of endeavor while sustaining their ultra-orthodox character.
Wow, I thought, no schools! I took notice how ZZ gently rocks his upper body and head,
deep in contemplation. Things were very different than they are today. People had to trudge
along great distances over the river and through the woods. Yes, even to bring water in
buckets, but the water of rivers was clean enough to drink. We lived in a small town that had
no business places, no post office, and no banks. Families traded things, and whoever had
more, contributed to the well-being of those with less. Jewish people were subject to hate
crimes and knew their survival as a race depended on their interminable independence and
unity.
Today if people want to buy something they call the storeowner while traveling on a bus
and expect their order to be home when they arrive there. They're hyper about their
expectations and the slightest mishap is perceived as somebody's evil intention to cause them
pain. Impatience and arrogance rule the spirits of modern sapiens and destructive tendencies
are the result. People communicate very little because they are not connected physically on any significant plane of existence. The way we speak is erratic and disconcerted.
I dared say to Zadie Z that I didn't like elementary school because children fight from the
minute they alight on the crowded busses until the last child gets home. I was asthmatic and
by nature tried to be gentle and giving, and preferred not to cast my lot amongst the bullies.
Even when we were on school grounds, the bullies didn't let up, but the bus driver had to pay
attention to the road, and there upon they had their heyday. I didn't exactly like hard work,
yet, I yearned for the life Zadie had had as a child. It gives one the feeling of human worth.
As I looked at the ZZ's face, it seemed as though the wrinkles on his forehead blended into
strands of his long white beard. That's cool, I uttered within the reeling chambers of my head,
so now I see him as "father time." I wondered what he thought about me, and I started to think
about the Frat jetty, the deteriorated state to which I had succumbed. I more or less
understood where this flight was taking me.
Apples alongside the Tree Trunk
Zadie loved to talk about his own father (my Alta Zadie), and as he speaks about my great-
grandfather the words are expressed in tones that sound like an orchestra being conducted by
a maestro. The Alta Zadie (great-grandfather) was The Magid of renown throughout Southern
Poland and there was an occasion a Sultan from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey, today) came to
seek his advice. In the entourage, were male and female slaves numbering in the tens and
twenties. Tall and heavyset dark colored men stood there gawking at the locals. Their journey
was extremely difficult and their numbers were rapidly reduced by plague and illness, few returned to Turkey alive.
There were carriages and the imperial carriage was plated with gold trimmings, and had a
curtain of velvet that was colored a deep scarlet. Above the horseman road on a wooden
bench that was polished to such a shine it reflected the rays of the sun. There were covered
wagons that transported foodstuffs, others that carried the water supplies. Aboard one of the
horse drawn wagons was a bathtub made out of shiny brass, about the size of the local
mikvah. The story goes that he threatened to kill Zadie's father because he wouldn't partake of
the meals. He averted the decree reminding the sultan that, he too, wouldn't eat meat that
didn't meet the kashrut standards imposed upon the followers of Islam.
Nobody in our village had ever seen a Muslim before and this visit included such a large
number of people that their continued presence in town was scaring everybody out their wits.
Children were running helter-skelter, women cowering behind potbelly stoves in their
kitchens, and the men folk preparing a line of defense to ward off an attack the best they
would be able. They were cutting branches from tree to form spears, welding iron balls to
attach to truncheons, and sharpening blades for attack knives. The Sultan approached and
requested a meeting with the Magid Moshe. As a confirmation of the peaceful nature of his
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visit, he presented Alta Zadie with a precious treasure, said to have been the shofar with which Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho.
ZZ chuckled as he thought about the welcome of this ornately bedecked Sultan into our
courtyard and hearth; we were very poor, raised our own chickens, and had piles of lumber
stacked inside the house to keep us warm in winter. Even three year olds lugged kindling to
add to the log pile; if children didn't help, Zadie Zalman told me, there would be cold winters
to pay for it. If the harvest would be sparse, the weak would die from hunger. Children helped
to sow seed in the spring and harvest crops in the fall. Everybody really understood the festivals of Pesach, Shavuos, and Sukkos in relation to the agricultural cycles of nature.
My Alta Zadie, continued ZZ, didn't have money to send my brother or me to a religious
teacher (melamed); only very special children received the likes of a religious education in the
village cheder. Each Thursday night, the melamed (teacher) came to our home and taught us
all the Torah we had enough time to learn. We had such fear of him we remembered every
word he taught us for the rest of our lifetime. It also helped to learn in a singsong that was
custom from the very start of learning the Hebrew alphabet. In those times, there were things that had value beyond the scope of human recognition, learning Torah was one of them.
Zadie Zalman's lips tensed as though intending to say something but upon second thought,
kept the words within his mind. It seemed to me, that all he could do was to breathe short
gasps of air, and it was only with quivering lips he finally forced himself to tell me about an
incident. The incident under discussion was the moment my Alta Zadie was forced to make a
reckoning that would change the course of history, for sure, as far as concerned out family!
Only in me could he share this sorrow because it was in I in whom the comfort was invested.
The Alta Zadie was not just a father, he was a man of stature, and just standing at his side
gave one a feeling of security. He was as straight as the trunk of a giant oak and it would've
taken ten men to spread their arms around his breadth. The very shade of his spreading
branches provided a shelter for anybody in his proximity: everybody felt that way in his
presence! It was very difficult for ZZ to describe what my Alta Zadie had gone through, but
that's the reason we were here, so on with the story. Woe to grandchildren that live for the
moment, without knowing their family's past how can they picture their future.
The home in which my Alta Zadie had raised Zadie Zalman (ZZ) was bordered by a turgid
river that had water clean and pure enough to host a multitude of fish, perch, salmon, trout,
bass, and other species which could be sold to the gentiles. It was even possible to catch fish
in the winter by cutting through the ice. Not to mention the fun and games children could play
sliding about with no fear of the ice cracking beneath their feet. In addition, it was fed by
strong currents and therefore provided a very productive enterprise, the community flourmill.
Our family was the proprietor of the mill but in was owned by the community, and its intrinsic value was its purposefulness.
Between the mill, and the family dwelling sat the various store fronts that amounted more
or less to a bunch of tables spread into an open market. Off to the distance stood the majestic
synagogue that had been standing since its inception four generations earlier when built by the
Zadie of his Zadie's Zadie, and his seven brothers: at their own expense! Every plank and
fiber of its being had personal and communal significance, besides the fact it was the only
House of Worship amongst the neighboring villages, and served the congregation as the "court house," and as the "Town Hall."
I didn't know Zadie Zalman came from a big family and asked him how many brothers and
sisters he had had. He informed me for the first time in my life that my great aunt was his twin
sister. She tended the goat and helped the Alta-Bubbie (great-grandmother) churn butter and
make cheese they had prepared from its milk. Many of his older brothers died from the
horrible illness, but life went on despite hardship. In my possession is the letter written by
Alta Zadie archiving the death of his sons, may Hashem have pity. Medical treatment in those times was very sparse and the life expectancy was quite short, about 50 years of age.
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His younger brothers and sisters, who as mentioned gathered eggs, fetched water, fed the
chickens, and gathered twigs, generally kept out of sight and from under foot. Great
grandmother mother would take chickens to a ritual slaughterer (shochet) once a week, and
only then pluck the feathers and salt them. Even the skin was deep fried in schmaltz and
served as a delicacy, called gribenes. When the girls were old enough they helped in the
household duties and care of younger siblings, there was no other instruction and to my
thinking, it is, an unfortunate by-product of modernity that this education is considered antiquated. There is artistic value to creating one's own individualized food consumption.
Zadie also told me they had large fields and a weak old horse, which used to take the crops
into town on the market days. Zadie Zalman reminisces over the fact that from the age of nine
he drove the wagon to marketplace, and there delivered the harvests to an uncle who sold the
ground flour. As I listened to my Zadie, I thought about times I had accompanied my dad to
work, and switched off with him driving long distances between towns. I'd rather not
remember anything about it because he hated everything associated with his work as a traveling salesman. The one thing I benefited was to get an education about life's secrets.
I wanted to impress the Zadie Z so I said something about having liked to attend
synagogue before I was Bar Mitzvah (passed the rite of transfer from childhood to
adolencesnce). I learned in the Mishna (one of the books of the legal codes of Judaism), about
people traveling to the center of town where they would hear the Megillah of Esther for
Purim. I asked him if he remembered me talking about it when he delivered a speech for my
Bar Mitzvah. That's it exactly, my Zadie answered excitedly; you have a good head on your shoulders. It's not by chance we are together on this journey.
I told ZZ that I went one Purim to hear the Megillah. What a raucous we made with our
groggers and shenanagins. In reality, we weren't at all religious but my father felt he wanted
to preserve something of traditions in the way he raised my brother, sister and I. One might
say I was expected survive the exile from Egypt, surviving on matzoh crumbs. We also lit
candles on Chanuka, but the idea of Shabbat was foreign to us. Zadie Zalman wove this saga
well beyond the scope of my imaginative comprehension, and my interest was piqued by the story about the horse Zadie use to drive to marketplace. I have a fetish about horses.
The Horse from the Days Back When
I must have dozed off during the extensive flight, and as I awoke, I sensed again the
"Jericho" shofar (that during the flight had produced a tingling in my hand), and had the
feeling it was making noise imperceptible to my ears, as though the high pitch of a whistle
audible only to dogs. This was a sign; get ready 'cause here comes Zadie Zalman to let the cat
out of the bag. No more insubordinatin' to take account of what it is that he wants me to
know. Besides, according to my estimation the advanced culture of gentiles in the Occident
will have soon done away with Jewish People; co-opted into oblivion unless something is
done to reverse the assimilation.
Something Zadie Z was telling me about a horse; he smirked when he said that, but quickly
tried to cover it up. I had to understand why the smile, so he told me to hold on to my horses.
Yeah, then I wanted to know about the horse that used to drive his wagon to market. He
abjured and reminded me not to let go of the reins until I would understand the theory he was
about to postulate. Culture shock, though it be a pictorial or verbal manifestation, can elicit a
negative reaction and seriously dope the individual who then becomes forced to disguise the
truth from ever-penetrating one's consciousness.
In the Medieval times (and those preceding), populations were divided by caste systems.
There were those who ruled (aristocrats, priests and warriors), and the peasantry which was
further divided into sectors like rungs up and down the socio-economic ladder. Education was
doled out as a privilege, only religious figures, and government officials learned to read and
write, mostly in Latin. The ruling classes enforced obedience with the threat of severe punishment inflicted on anybody who dared stray from the societal standards.
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The Jewish People are not accidentally referred to as the people of the book, many six-
year-olds, and most teenagers knew how to read and write. Not surprisingly, they were
detested for this, especially by the people who could do them the most harm. The
aforementioned priests and kings conspired to denude Jewish people of their religious
practices, to assimilate them in the melting pot found at the end of the rainbow; or enslave them, as did the Egyptians, or destroy them as the Persians had attempted.
The most disastrous result was that Jewish individuals contemplated renegade,
communities lost the ability to bind every thread into a singular fabric, and many strands of
the historical unity were loosened asunder. The outcome as worse anti-Jewish hatred, as
witnessed in the twentieth century Germany, and is presently visible to the discerning eye.
The ripple effect of Jewish people living in general society was exacerbated by the
introduction of ideas that had been heretofore beyond the reach of common people; reading,
writing, arithmetic, human rights, labor forces, political movements, and revolution. As the
masses had become educated, they threatened the prevailing economic order; the moneyed elite sought to usurp their budding knowledge by castigating blame on Jewry.
All the kings' horses and all the kings' men, the cloisters of the priestly and similar patrons
of aristocracy realized that their dominion was giving way to public awareness. Coercive
violations of human rights were responded to forcefully by the masses. Resources were
distributed selectively to quell uprisings, the Humpty Dumpty encasement was shattered and
people learned crafts, professions, and acquired wealth. Jewish philosophy contends that
ethical behavior is an individual responsibility, and with it, goes rights of the individual. We
were blamed for the audacity of the general people to demand their fair share of the world's
resources. A good example is Sigmund Freud who was blamed for sexual promiscuity.
The money-lords used cultural apparitions such as quasi-violent sports, and vulgar
entertainment to deceive people into thinking they were socially sophisticated. Part of this
knowledge war was to separate religion and state, meaning dictators can cloak their heinous
intents beneath the vestments of democracy, but lawfully act like wolves devouring anyone
that demands freedom. Compulsory education, election propaganda, nowadays the threat of a terrorist entity, are all planned out to further reliance on the authorities to make our decisions
The cracks in their skulls allow information to seep out to the wider public. The tobacco,
pharmaceutical, oil, and auto production industries, and sales of weaponry are the way
corporations make profit at our expense. They sway masses to allow them to perpetuate
atrocities, not only at the expense of the public, but also by placing us in debt to the tone of
trillions of dollars. To whom, most likely our alleged enemies, nations who eventually will
come knocking at our door to collect what's due to them, a threat we must avoid, "at all costs."
Critics and dissidents are cruelly repressed for incompliance to demands of the government
officials. Jewish individuals and whole communities were tortured as an example of what
people will be subjected to if they disobey the laws of society. Another example is scenarios
is the witch trials that historians claim were manipulated in order to deprive spinsters of their
property holdings. The stoic grubbers (moneyed elite) pay scientists to invent horrendous
devises to control the food chain, distribution of health, and levels of personal comfort. In
other words, we, the people have become the target; our security threatened by those employed to protect us, diseases are sown amongst us so we'll depend on them for cures.
It is a sad truth that assimilation has had a devastating effect on the Jewish people.
Amongst our numbers are those whom aid the stoic anti-Jewish grubbers. Many are
convinced that by selling out their loyalty to Traditional Israel, the unenlightened as to the
true worth of Torah and mitzvohs, they promote the well-being of society in general. We can't
feel the wool as its being pulled over our eyes. Regarding the power brokers who promise that
no harm will come to the Jewish Nation Israel, let them take a soul count amongst the
generation of "boomers," and cure the riddled loneliness of their disloyalty to anything
Jewish. By absolving ourselves of our significance, we deny the future of our existence.
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The twentieth century offspring of Jewish ancestors are losing the battle for survival;
unaware of the tragic effect assimilation has. The modern Jewish people rarely see the inside
of a synagogue and if they do; it's an institution, with which they don't identify personally.
They pay no dues to the maintenance of a synagogue and see no reason to participate in the
activities therein. Like modern sapiens in all the realms of modernity they seek pleasure for
pleasures sake, can't see what benefit comes to them from their adherence to religious
strictures. Yet, we are being force fed intermarriage, delays and entire lack of nuptial grace,
diminished propagation, broken homes, and emotional instability. The only thing important to
them is the material security to which they have become addicted, Hashem to their relief!
To political lies, they have become accustomed, as though the stench of annihilation to
them an enticing perfume. The Rabbinical leadership of the ninetieth century foresaw all this,
but the movie house, ski resorts; upward mobility in all its forms stole the occidental people's
hearts away from the main things in life. People don't congregate that much in the pursuit of
holiness, and if they are together for some ceremonial function the participate as individuals,
strangers one to the other. The individual is by nature weak and insecure and that's the main
objective targeted by the processes of assimilation, keep the individual weak and dependent.
The Foundations Remain Standing
Back in the old times, our family was a collective of simple people, and a simple life style.
A community consisted of a small synagogue, mutual commitments of time and resources
invested by the community in its maintenance, and mutual help to promote the welfare the
families who surrounded it. It the times, back when it was my Alta Zadie's responsibility to
head the community council, he saw it only as his noble privilege. There was no such thing as
a homeless Jewish wayfarer in our community; our synagogue could easily accommodate
them with accommodations to ensure their safe passage through town.
No one concerned themselves with urban development, changes occurred only very
infrequently. When discussions, like that about the railway station took place, they were
attended by everybody, and all sides of the issue were clarified. No matter what decision
would be concluded by the town's folk, a detailed question would be formulated and
messengers sent to our saintly Rabbi. He was the scion of ancestors whose sagacious ways
and study of Torah had been held in esteem by all the Jewish people in and surrounding ours,
and the neighboring communities. With such responsibility, there comes direct heavenly aid.
That meeting had taken place like about a hundred years prior to my flight itinerary with
Zadie Z. People have the impression that time flies, meaning the present will quickly become
the future. On this flight through a time warp, I can allow myself no such liberty, it has taken
many generations to arrive at the present, but I'm still not sure if I'm here at all. I sense more
than a feeling of empathy for Zadie's family, I mean he's dead and I'm his living continuance: I'm truly and really alive in the sensual realization of my perceptions!
I picture the eight-year-old Alta Zadie driving the horse to market place and can't take my
thoughts anywhere but besides him in the driver seat. I grew up with an obsessive admiration
of horses; somewhere along the line, I earned a medal for my performance in a riding contest.
This flight through time is not only turning out to be the most memorable experience of my
life, it is the inception of everything concerned with my being alive. The ride together with
my Zadie in a horse driven wagon, opened my eyes to the fact that a horse can have a specific purpose for which it has been created, no less than humankind can.
It surprises ZZ to hear me voice my thinking in that way, because it accords with one of
the basic tenets of Judaism. As individuals, we are ninety percent sensitivity to our place in
the larger scheme of things; commanded to relate to every element of creation as having its
intrinsic importance. His story about the horse, an old nag though it was; still it was a vital
part of his family's survival. That fact, connected directly to my personal fascination about
horses, had deeper meaning than appeared on the surface. The old grey mare is a tractor, pick-up truck, and a recreation and transportation vehicle; she'd been imbued with purpose.
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I wanted to know if people in the family would take her for rides, or if it's like the horse,
"Fury," that I read about in a book, which did very special things to help a small boy get out
of difficult situations. The words came out of my mouth and I acknowledged that the horse of
my youthful pursuits involved me in the fiction that increased my feeling of self-worth, but
that places me in a sorry situation of wanting still to fulfill that ideal. Nowadays, people take their children horseback riding as a form of psychotherapy.
Maybe on this trip with Zadie I will arrive to a new awareness about my love for horses,
but certainly, I am developing a consciousness that each particle of creation has a purpose, in
a realm mutually exclusive of pleasure for pleasure's sake. This trip was quite mysterious but
less astonishing than hallucinatory encounters I had experienced using mind altering
substances. The degree to which I felt that there was turbulence along the trajectory of the
flight, it was manifested as an imaginary transformation in neural passageways of my mind;
what I saw is Zadie's hands shaking the reins as waggoneers do in order to urge the horse to
continue the trek forward, like in the modern colloquially, "Keep on trekking."
A Reflection in the Mirror
I was able to connect to my Zadie's past, him being a progeny of the renowned Magid who
had befriended an Ottoman Sultan that had once visited our village. ZZ saw the sultan when
but a toddler. With trepidations, he excitedly told me about the turban of the finest silk and
most enchanting colors. The material of which it was fashioned round about to create an
amazing design, intended to accentuate the enormous and beauteous jewel that shined forth an
almost blinding radiance. ZZ had been driving the horse and wagon on the same dirt road
upon which the sultan made his appearance into the village. To imagine riding next to Zadie Z
was nearly beyond the realm of imaginative creativity! His voice can barely be heard, and like
the bow of a violist, his words reach delicately to the depth of my soul.
He was again humming the nigun tune ("and the world will achieve universal happiness"),
that I had heard as though a form of mumbling when we embarked on the flight. Now,
however, I could hear the whistle of the leaves as the wind caresses the trees, the hush of the
grass as the creeping bugs hop around, and the gush from birds flapping their wings. These
were the sounds from his youth, and they offered a sense of security on his voyage throughout
his long life, like the tones of the lullaby that comforts us in our darkest hour. It is natural to
sing, to emulate the sound of the wide expanse that surrounds us. Humming is the way our soul maintains harmony within the patterns of breath intrinsic to our feelings of security.
I didn't dare ask how it turned out that I would accompany ZZ on this excursion, seeing
that we could end up being faced with the approach of a Ukrainian winter. Snow might cause
displeasure if we'll be here when winter begins, but of course, time is not a factor in the mind
of Zadie Z. Even this jet seems to have met with some inclement weather. But who knows
anymore whether I shall awaken from this mysterious journey into my subconscious. If I'm
here, there must be a reason why Zadie brought me, and anyway, it's a new experience for me
to ride a wagon pulled by a horse. What advantage can accrue to me from being overwrought
and uptight?
I didn't need Zadie Z to explain the significance of his having hauled something by horse
and carriage on market days. After all, the very moment of the sultan's appearance has
remained the folklore of my Zadie's existence until he could pass along the saga to a third
generation. And not only that, but it turns out that simultaneously with these events,
something greater than even that was taking place. The results from the town meeting, that
were sent to our saintly Rabbi for clarification as what to do about plans by the government to
expropriate land for the railroad, had created quite a stir in the court of the Admor.
The message sent by the community leaders had arrived to the great Chassidic Admor, the
revered and pious Rebbe, who through his prayers could persuade Hashem to make miracles
take place. The messenger had returned, out of breath, having run hurriedly as fast as his feet
could carry him, with no moment to rest, hardly a stop to catch his breath. An auspicious was
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approaching, the Rebbe's reply was that he would come and talk to us in person. He, of
course, would speak at a gathering, which would take place in our synagogue, an unbelievable
turn of events. And all this, while the sultan camped with his troops in the tent camp they had, in accordance with Alta Zadie's request, erected outside the village.
This was going to be a very special day as the Rebbe's appearance was a very special
occasion in all the surrounding towns and villages. So it was the Alta Zadie sent ZZ to bring
as many vital supplies he could load on the family wagon. There was little indication of the
snowstorm to come, no weather bulletins; it was possible, but it didn't seem likely. Zadie told
me to take the reins and they felt like silk ribbons in my hands. We traveled along the
riverbank, on the dirt road that yielded willingly to the haste of the horse's maneuvering.
Maybe the horse knew about an impending snowstorm. Being directly dependent on nature,
the animal species are sensitive to delicate fluctuations in the weather.
ZZ told me the tale of when he was a child, about how difficult it is for people and even
animals, to walk in deep snow. In a typical snowstorm, snow can pile up to heights of over a
meter or two. People sometimes have to lift their legs out of the snowdrift by pulling them
with their arms, and you, for sure, can't just stroll through it. As this also applies to the horse,
but in addition, he's got this wagon strapped to his back. I never heard a horse complain,
maybe animals used to this kind of weather, I don't know. It was a surprise to Zadie to be
stuck outside in this kind of weather, but as it's said, there's a purpose for everything under
heaven. People were very much in contact with the elements, the different seasons and so on,
so usually this meant never being caught in a snowstorm.
The storekeeper in the neighboring town filled the order, and when the supplies were
loaded, we started out for the trip home, not knowing that the Admor had passed this way a
couple hours earlier. He was a very humble man and had set out, on foot, in our direction with
implicit faith that someone traveling in his direction would offer him a ride; unwilling to
impose his honor on someone to take him free of charge. The blizzard no one had anticipated covered the ground within minutes, and the cold froze the mud before it turned into slush.
Zadie Zalman was no less serene than the countryside covered in snow, but the threat of
death engulfed him in the nucleus of ferocious winds made visibility infeasible. I was
shivering in my timbers. The only hope was the horse being able to trudge around the last turn
through the forest and stay on the path that led to our home. We were going to have to rely on
its sense of survival. It seemed obvious there was not another living soul traveling during such
a blizzard, and certainly not in the direction that the Admor was walking!
Nobody would have dreamed that the great Admor had left the town on foot, and only
Hashem knew that he had been effectively trapped under a blanket of freezing snow. The
horse was so exhausted it rendered my heart to see him plow forward; the only thing that
could help would be to set boards on the snow in front of the wheels. This was the common
practice when traveling the winter roads in Eastern Europe. We were stuck on a narrow path on which the snow is piled so thick it seems insurmountable.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, ZZ studies the surroundings and contemplates
whether to unhitch the horse. If there were the two strong adults, they would set the boards so
the wheels will hold to the road until they'd make it home. The only thing for me to do was
empathize so deeply that I would materialize in the realm of awareness conscious sensitivity,
to act as if I am the physical being who being there with Zadie Zalman can participate in the
salvation that won't come about unless I'm part of the story.
I glance in the direction of a roadside tree and notice what could have easily been mistaken
as a human figurine, formed by snow and winds. There is little hope for us to survive because
the horse couldn't pull the cart without someone to place boards in front of the wheels while
somebody else holds the reins, and we were both youngsters, comparatively weaklings! I start
up a conversation with the "mystery snowman" that looks like a person holding the Book of
Psalms. Maybe he can offer some advice; maybe talking aloud to myself will help me gather
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my senses. Zadie Zalman is humming one of the Rebbe's nigunim that the Chassidim sang in the synagogue.
I notice what I think is movement in the snowy configuration. The other hand, not
stretched forth as though holding a book, gesticulates the way people summon someone to
come to their aid; or trying to imbue a sense of patience, a modicum of respect, and perchance
the feeling of trust in someone whose attention he wants desperately to attract. The horse
seems aghast in that it snorts and lets out an explosive whiny that demands attention. A glob
of snow fell from the imagined hand of the snow figurine, as it actually moved the slightest
perceptible motion. The next thing, I'm yelling at the "mystery snowman, you're a true to life
person!" Impossible for ZZ to let go of the reins for even a second, I take upon myself to jump from the cart and frantically trudge over there. Now my astral travel has met its destiny.
Like an avalanche from the peak of towering mountain, the snow bursts away and reveals
the body of a live human being. Hysterically, I scream to the person to that he should hurry
aboard the wagon. Zadie Z couldn't stop the cart for a minute because if it lost the momentum
then starting afresh would be impossible. What possibly can I do? I closed my eyes and
prayed feverishly. Immediately thereafter, a living figure was dancing and trancing about in
the middle of the snow-covered forest - as he transcends into the horse drawn cart.
While this jet flight on which I've accompanied my Zadie is easing its way through the
expanse of heaven, I feel Zadie's eyes set into mine. As his eyelids gently lower, the sunshine
settles into the horizon and an overwhelming ecstasy glows forth upon his face. I would have
become feverish if I thought the trip had ended here, but I mustered courage to wait silently.
A whispered tone; we're saved said Zadie as he asks the wayfarer to hold the reins. I would
have preferred to comfort him by lighting a fire and preparing a glass of tea for him to drink,
but if we live, there'll be time for that too.
No sooner, did the reins rest on the Admor's hands then the horse gave a tremendous
harrumph and we two youngsters hastily heaved the wooden boards to the ground, exactly
word for word the way ZZ instructed me. I alighted and place boards on the snow, in front of
the wheels, running back, retrieving and replacing them, slow but sure, homeward bound.
Instinctively, we hear the mysterious driver start singing ecstatically, the "Forest Niggun."
Zadie was fighting for his life but joins in the tune the revered Admor had composed two
generations earlier. The horse "Old Mare" knows we're in a race for life and moves quickly.
As I look around to connect with whom is sitting at the helm with reins in hand; dizziness
overcomes me, I am utterly spellbound. Much of the snow had melted or had been shaken off
his clothes, and as uninitiated as I was to Judaism, I recognized the Admor immediately, and
whisper this into the ear of ZZ. He begs profusely that the Rebbe forgive him for requiring
him to take part in menial labor. To wit: the Admor asks shall we go astray in this blizzard or shall we, together with the horse, all do whatever we can to get to our destination.
The Admor (Rebbe, shlit'a), too, is elated and starts heaping his thanks upon the two of us
and specifically offers praise to Hashem, and for good measure adds that he most certainly
forgives ZZ. We are saving his life, and he ours. As he sings, my heart and soul pour forth the
niggun, as though I too had been raised in those times there in the back woods of Ukraine.
Then I remember this lullaby from when my father used to sing it putting me to bed. Trees
rustle, as the winds seem to harmonize with us. Upon our faces arise smiles; infrared warmth
spreads from the hairs on my head to the fingernails on my toes. Thus reads the saga of "Our
Rebbe, My Zadie, and the Horse."
What's Coming Down
While seeing all these experiences through Zadie's eyes, I identified with him so much that
our personalities merged into one. Had the Micker (me) ever have imagined this flight could
take place; I might have spent a lot more time visiting him in Chicago. It's neither as though
I'm tripping, nor as if this is all happening in a dream state. Without my presence at that point
in the history of the universe I would not be here at the moment, so I start paying attention to
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the way my zadie walks, his facial expressions, and every nuance of speech so I'll keep his memory fresh within me for the rest of my life.
As the jet flight peruses the skies in a forward progress to its destination, Zadie Zalman
continues the narrative remarking firstly of his father's and Alta Bubbe's happiness upon his
miraculous return. The reader shall hear the conversation as it was spoken to me, my empathy
perked as if I was really accompanying Zadie Zalman, and if not exactly true, it's more real
than fiction. Convictions arouse in my soul to do something special with my life, especially
now that Zadie is part of my self-image. The storyline continues with his head hovering back
on the seat cushion and the utterances of his voice floating like the clouds passing alongside
the jet, me spellbound and completely attentive.
The elation of the Zinger family was exceeded only by the exhilaration of people, whom
despite the cold, had gathered in the Beit haChassidim to hear the Rebbe speak. Many of them
had urged my great grandmother to let them into their home (for all the best reasons) to greet
the Admor immediately, but she had barred the door behind the Admor and zadie. She knew
there would be plenty fanfare, but only after she had had the fitting opportunity to offer her
hospitality. Tea never again tasted like that she served to the Rebbe and little ole Zalman
Zinger, as he joined the Admor beside the fireplace in our alta heim (long past home).
Calamity is part of the Jewish tradition and the politics of the railway station alike to many
situations that come up in life. Urban restructuring has long been a weapon against the
residents of various locations that are strengthened by their proximity. Issues addressed by the
ultra-religious (charedi) Jewish people were typically dealt with by gathering in the
synagogue. The long-term effects of this issue would affect Jewish people throughout the Pale
of the Settlement, and the far-sightedness of the Rebbe would give us imminent perspective of
how to deal with it.
The issues at hand required lengthy dissertation by our Rabbonim in order to prepare our
communities for the strategy against calamity: Correcting the erroneous way we observe
Torah and mitzvohs. This approach is applicable when someone takes ill, for instance if an
outstanding member of the religious community is in dire medical straits, the entire
congregation gathers for prayer services after which select Tehilim (psalms) are recited.
Individuals take ill, members of the family and close associate say the pages of Tehilim 119
corresponding to the letters of the name for whom we beseech Hashem to send a speedy and complete recovery.
The present dilemma was so serious, the Admor felt he had to be here to direct us further.
All the villagers and those from neighboring towns were here in the centuries old house of
worship. Seated amongst youngsters on the floor, Zadie Zalman look intently at his father
standing in front of where the Torah scrolls are kept in the Aron haKodesh. He noticed the
woman's gallery and sensed it was filled to capacity. Those who were not in attendance were
either too old or infirm, or little girls babysitting infants. There was a hushed whisper of a
very serious nature. Nobody had an inkling about what the Rebbe would decree. All we
valued in life hanged in the balance of what we would be told to do by the Admor.
Any decision that would be reached was most certainly a crucial point in the history of our
community. People joined together in the synagogue and begin the recitation of Psalms
(Tehilim) in prayer for deliverance. Alta Zadie, ZZ's father, had been saying Tehilim non-stop
in hope that he would again see his eldest son alive. His mistaken impression of the weather
conditions were greeted with attacks on his competence as a community leader. With our
arrival, however, it was clear that the mission had been preordained in heaven; all that
Hashem does is for the good. Each Jewish individual is considered a precious addition to the congregation; the merits of the supplicants influence the expected deliverance.
Alta Zadie is standing in front of the congregation while the Rebbe, shlit 'a was seated next
to the Aron Kodesh. Zadie reveres the Rebbe whom he envisioned as a giant tree whose trunk
leads straight upward to the heights of a mountaintop, whose branches spread from one end of
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the world to the next. The hushed discussions sound like fearsome winds rustling through the
forest. He couldn't help but notice the men with a chain dangling from a vest pocket, from
which they impatiently slid out their golden timepiece, as if to verify the correct time. The Rebbe let everybody prepare; each to his own, until all the gathered had heard him out.
We commenced, as usual, with the Evening prayer services, after which there were
speeches by Torah scholars about the importance of teshuva (repentance). Followed by the
Admor (Rebbe) who stretched his trembling hands towards heaven, and turned to request that
Alta Zadie lead the selichot (behest for forgiveness) prayers recited at critical gatherings of
this sort. The Rebbe's prayers were chanted with the force of a hurricane spinning in whatever
direction would clear the path of any obstacle that could stand in the way of his beloved
Chassidim's survival. The tones of sorrow alarmed us, aroused our fear, and the aggravated
the worst of anybody's anticipation of a beastly terror about to befall us.
The fact a person like an Admor can be sensitive to events yet to come, though not able to
describe them in specific detail is not what people call a lucky guess, it's actually similar to a
scientific assumption based on things he's told or questions so many want him to answer.
Prophecy is sometimes a special intelligence where one extrapolates from past events and
thereby predicts what yet to come. The Admor's singular concern is blazing the path that
would provide the way to escape any evil consequence that could come of the railway station
that will most likely be constructed.
All the time the Rebbe was standing with us, a blissful ecstasy filled the hearts and
chambers of the souls and even the walls and everything contained within the space of this
ancient synagogue. Zadie's mind was wandering to the sight of the Admor sitting in the
carriage while the horse trudges through the snow, how the horse gracefully placed her feet on
the boards. If not for her, this meeting would not be taking place. He was witness to a historic battle between the Old Mare against the Iron Horse. Now the battle was in full swing.
Zadie set glance on Alta Zadie standing by the velvet parochet, which covers the Aron
haKodesh, his head as though supported by his leaning against it. The motions of his hands
and fingers upward and again to the side as though inscribing a message or sketching a map.
Does he think we will be going away from here? Old Mare, what will be with my loyal friend,
she, the trusty steed that saved my life. Old Mare has earned her place in history; but she'll
never have strength to pull a wagon anywhere anymore. If they plan to put her down, Zadie Z convinces himself that he'll run away with her.
Lots of people have idiosyncrasies about animals, or house pets, so they destroy their
spirit by incarcerating them in zoos, safaris, aquariums, and circuses; animal prisons. That
people say they learn about nature is a deception for their cruelty. If people owned a dog it
wasn't so it could learn to perform tricks, it was to express its loyalty to its master by barking
if any threat were to invade the private domain of our dwellings. Cats were maintained based
on the quantity of rodents they captured and devoured. But Old Mare saved his life, and that of the Admor, her is due some kind of special recognition.
Things were different back then; things are so different from the way they were eventually
to become even still a long time ago. Do people in the modern era infuse themselves with
such respect for the lives of their neighbors, let alone the materials of which the synagogues
are built or decorated? Our contributions to our House of Worship; of time and energy, our
strengths and talents, our faith and devotion; it is this lifestyle that gives vibrancy to each
individual in the Jewish community. Our giving of ourselves is the heart and soul that makes
community life tenable. This is the significance of synagogues through the exile of the Jewish
Nation Israel.
The author can appreciate my Alta Zadie Moshe from a perspective of morality that is a
rare quality inculcated through the study of Torah, but the more I see; my vision becomes his
sight, his hearing becomes me listening, and even if I think for myself, he knows everything
going through my mind. Not only that, he has lived personally this saga about the Admor,
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Zadie Zalman, and Old Mare. He has kept the story alive in order to heighten my awareness of the stupid things I had gone through, during my youthful days, with regard to horses.
Of course, this introspection clarified what was behind the spiritual mystery flight on
which I accompanied ZZ. Even supposing that he and I were two independent entities, our
spiritual essence was coordinated to the extent I felt prescience and purposefulness of being
alongside him in the alta shteibel. I sensed the touch of the Admor's fingers on the parochet
(aron drapes) and the delicate touch of congregants on the wood of their armrests, as though
rubbing the love for this place into their memories. People demonstrated such empathy, unity and humility that it was breathtaking to see, the very air exuded an eternal harmony.
As prayers reach their conclusion, the Rebbe starts humming the "Forest Niggun." His
body rocked with impassioned gesticulations, like the light from a candle. Alta uncle, Yaakov,
to whom ZZ would take the crops for sale in the marketplace, stood by the men with the
golden watches. They were somewhat sullen, neither a smile nor a chuckle graced their
demeanor. Out of nowhere, the elderly cobbler approaches close to where they Rebbe stood.
With a ram's horn titled towards the Rebbe so he could hear better. The Admor encouraged him to produce sounds that would heighten people's realization that we faced a serious crisis.
Having done so, his fingers are now tapping on the railing around the bima (the elevated
platform), then he starts singing, and bopping his feet to the resumption of the "Forest
Niggun." The Rebbe takes his hands to dance with him, and the sleepy lion shakes her head
and roars: The blacksmith held each of his apprentices on one arm and danced around the
whole row of benches! The fisherman put each of his twins on one of his shoulders and
shrieks in joyous laughter. Within an instant, the house of worship was enwrapped in the aura
of song and dance that would have to last in the memory, the whole lifetime of those who
experienced it. I am sitting there in a transcendent illusion bound by faith and happiness.
What Goes Around Returns
By way of expressing appreciation towards Zadie Zalman, but wanting to spare him
embarrassment, the Rebbe asked ZZ to join him on the bima. The Admor actually placed his
hand on his head, and blessed him that he'll have a grandson deserving to share namesake of
Alta Zadie, the original Moshe Zinger. Yours truly, the author of this book goes by the name,
Moshe. The fierce undercurrents than ran beneath the troubled waters of those days in Eastern
Europe, would in due time become apparent to all. The anti-Jewish hatred in the nations
where our people had dwelled, ran deeper than the best of reasoning would comprehend, and caused our settlements, as had been intended, to become uninhabitable.
The village clown ran to the bima (the raised platform), and half-drunken, crazily
screamed, somewhat in a prophetic tenor, something about the departure of the last train out
of town. The Admor approached the clown and the world was silent and motionless, you
could have heard a pin drop. As the emotional contagion intensified, however, it was
transformed into a volcanic outpouring of resignation beyond hope. The tears and sighing of
the Rebbe stream forth incessantly and at that desperate moment, the Rebbe, upon his departure, comments that he's enjoyed visiting in this synagogue but will not likely return.
The Admor's visit was not intended to be a jubilant occasion and the atmosphere in this
precious synagogue quickly became downright somber. Alta Zadie had been accused of
wanting to prevent the train in order to retain his prominence, but those who uttered calumny
could now only wish that would be the case. Like people castigate a news reporter about evil
tidings, as though those who pronounce then are to blame, Zadie Z was apprehensive that
people would blame him because he had brought the Rebbe to our village. Under normal conditions, a visit such as this would have been a cause célèbre with amazing fanfare.
Alta Zadie was never selfish about any of his personal attributes or possessions. People
were agitated because he would not voice an opinion in favor of the railway station, they
knew why they wanted it to be built, and projected their ill intentions on him. Their interest
was to earn money, buy clothes, and have luxuries that serve as a means to ephemeral
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pleasures. They were known to have flattered government officials whenever possible, but
they were religious as far as traditional practices. The 100% integrity of Jewish community
life is hard to come by, and can be recalled to memory only once, as far back as Har Sinai.
The Rebbe, shlit'a, had succinctly stated that no one in this community would suffer
regardless of whether or not there would be a railway station. How could that be unless people
packed out and this was the exact notion that nobody wanted to believe. Plans were to be
initiated in due haste, while there was hope they would come to fruition, and it was still
possible to make profitable business transactions. This speech was intended to give the
impression that the Admor was encouraging support for the government. What it really meant
was that the Jewish people would be stripped of their civil rights to own property.
Thoughts of material benefits are significant only in as much as they ensure survival of the
Jewish Nation Israel. Facial expressions and directed glances at specific individuals had
allowed the Rebbe to articulate his stated view as though a humble opinion, and as a tactic to
avoid causing alarm. Secondly, government officials would stay calm, if, and when
everybody would follow his decision. Many cars are connected to a locomotive engine, and
much time often passes before the caboose is seen. Freedom would have to take a back seat to
survival on our next journey into golus (exile).
The Admor had told the people gathered how he had nearly frozen to death; the fact he had
been saved is very symbolic of the matter he had brought to their attention. He later told my
Alta Zadie that he wanted our family to be amongst the very first to follow his implied
instructions. The secluded country style might yield to urban dismay in the Occident or the
lands called Palestine, but the situation could be worse. He reiterated the importance of the
Yidden (Jewish People) to continue the generations until Messiah (moshiach tzedkeynu)
arrives and we rebuild the Great Synagogue (Beis haMikdash)!
That's what life is all about, believing someday there will be a force that will overcome evil
in the world, influencing the selfish so they will be no longer greedy. Tending to affairs of
spirit so the crops will yield harvest, and the individual will live in divine harmony to the
united whole, to the One that is the universe and everything it contains. Maybe the imagined
perception of the Moshiach is given anthropomorphic characteristic just like the scriptures
speaks of the hand of Hashem. Suffering is inherent to human existence in a physical world;
every cultural affiliation believes in a moshiach that is due to appear and rescue their society.
The Rebbe had concentrated mostly on the theme that Jewish People should never feel
comfortable in golus. He also mentioned the good name that the Alta Zadie's community had
made in the eyes of Yidden throughout the world. It was imperative and should be obvious to
all, how willingly we would give up the staid comforts to which we've become habituated, in
order to live in the times of the moshiach. The message was that no matter where the Jewish people (Yidden) live, everybody should be prepare to leave on a moment's notice.
Nobody wanted to hear what the Admor had to say and yet everyone knew the truth. After
his speech, the Admor returned to Alta Zadie's home while all the other people stood around
and discussed what they had heard. Zadie Z wanted to hurry home but the younger children
wanted him to explain how he was even able to get the horse to make the trip. They
complained their horses refused to go out of their barns, and that most of their parents' weren't
even able to dig through the snow in order to feed them.
What was ZZ supposed to tell them, did they have to delay him with this obvious answer?
He blurted out simultaneously with his departure homeward bound that Hashem knew the
Admor was going to need his help, and that of Old Mare! The snows, the journey to town, and
the very fact somebody was chosen for this divine purpose are all examples of Divine
providence (hashgacha proties). Having said that, he turned towards the stables where Old Mare barn is kept, instead of back to our house.
ZZ sat beside the horse and told her what an honor it was that the Admor had mentioned
her efforts as though she were an angel sent by Hashem to save his life. Zadie Z got fidgety
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when she let out a hoarse snort, and almost felt a sense of remorse about the whole mission.
Yes, but the Rebbe had given his special blessing that Zadie Z will have a grandson by the
name Moshe, a person who will grow up to treasure his heritage and the love exemplified by
Alta Zadie, a man who loved and was beloved by all. Is there anything more essential in the
training, which is inculcated into the minds of yiddishe kinder. That certainly would suffice.
We Also Eat Bitter Herbs
The Admor had left it to the townspeople to arrive at the right conclusions, and discussions
went this and that way, hardly a moment of respite. Tradition has it that our community was
amongst the first settlements of Jewish people in the Pale of Settlement, parts of Poland and
White Russia, many generations even before the Rambam was in Spain. In 17th century,
Jewish people dressed and lived just as their ancestors had dressed and lived in the 10th
century. The symbiotic relationship between these communities and the gentile rulers, had
however, been disrupted by revolutions by Polish or Russian peasants. Dissension from
within became more prevalent when ideological divisions spouted, for example with the
inception of Chassidus. Jewish individuals scorn one another; goyim parade the self-hatred.
Deep-rooted causes uprooted and extensively weakened the traditional behavior in the way
Jewish people responded to rabbinical authority. Similar to the discontent, which evolved in
ancient times, a confliction with ritual asceticism motivated many common people to turn a
form of religious exaltation above strict adherence to Talmudic knowledge. The Chassidim
adopted a unique style of apparel, including an oriental kaftan, white undershirt, and knee
breeches that had a resemblance to the High Priest's dress in the Bible. The trousers never
touched the floor, shoes had no buckles or laces, and the sash divided lower from the upper body parts -- all measures of holiness.
The Jewish religious rationalists were strictly critical of notions that could be construed as
pantheism, or the outwardly pious appearance, which was so different from that of the gentile
culture. Alta Zadie was a devout follower of a Chassidic Admor, but he doubted the goyim or
the Misnagedim (those Jewish scholars who opposed new developments in the lifestyle of
Jewish communities) would bring harm upon them. He argued that Chassidim honored
rabbinical legal systems based on the Ten Commandments, and after all, we had lived
peaceably amongst the goyim for almost a thousand years. Why would things change so
drastically?
The question had hardly passed through his lips when my zadie came hurtling through the
door, a loud disturbance close on his heels. The teenage ruffians had wandered drunkenly
along the road leading into our quiet obscured village. At their head, the mayor's son picked
up a stick to chase after the elderly cobbler who was on his way home. During the ruckus, the
child fell into the slush, so the gang verbally accosted people for beating the boy up and
knocking him down. ZZ saw the shock on my father's face and apologized to him, profusely,
for barging in like that.
Alta Zadie grimaced but mustered a smile, and in determining that the cobbler was not
badly hurt, offered praise to Hashem, eyes turned upwards and head bowed to indicate faithful
concurrence with the Rebbe's view of the situation. The Rebbe had alerted our townsfolk to
this possibility, referring to the lost glory of Jewish people who had been exiled from Spain
during the Inquisitions, Hashem yerachaim. It is a wise thing for the Yidden of Eastern
Europe to prepare to leave for other parts of the world. The best my family could hope for was
to get out and find a safe haven in which to start afresh their life.
There was talk of Israel (then called Palestine), Western Europe, or America. The
problems of resettling in Israel had to do with severe economic conditions, and worse yet, the
political systems, which were controlled by anti- Judaists. The tides of assimilation had
brought strange waters to the shores of Jewish settlements; religious families were threatened
by the implications. To a certain degree this consternation had a mysterious consequence of
creating a common denominator between the otherwise infracted camp of the charedi Jewish
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Rabbonim. The Misnagedim and the Chassidim were in the same boat. People should have taken it as a sign, but arguments between them have continued until the present.
We were people of the forest and fields, agricultural in disposition, and the idea of
crowded cities seemed implausible. This decision was not one at which to arrive hastily, as
Zadie Z tells me while the flight on which we're embarking and I dare say, the world since
time immemorial, circle round about the sun. I am invisible, and Micker no longer certain that
I exist. Perhaps I have blended so thoroughly into ZZ's personality I have nullified that fact I
was ever born into existence. Am I truly overhearing the discussion between Alta Zadie and the congregation of citizens who resided a hundred years ago in distant lands?
ZZ consulted Old Mare, to her he could open his heart, still pondering how is she going to
manage with all this? Could Eretz Yisroel (Israel) really be so bad, and if so, wouldn't we find
ourselves amongst the likes of the same gentile people like those from Eastern Europe, if we
go to America? Is there something political, economic, or sociological so harsh that Jewish
people and the rabbinic leaders cannot overcome if they really set their hearts to it? I would
have thought that everybody would jump the bandwagon to Israel. Haven't our people yearned for a Return to Zion since time immemorial?
What can be learned from the series of events, the episode in the woods, the appearance of
the Rebbe in the synagogue? This discussion about leaving here as though it's like going on a
vacation? Poor Old Mare and the fame I enjoy amongst the children far and wide, all for
naught? There must be a connection. Zadie Zalman had been mature enough to think for
himself and understand the deeper meaning of standing there when the bullies attacked the
elderly cobbler; this had been hinted to by presence of, and warnings of the Admor!
It was a rare occasion for the Admor to have visited in someone's home, and yet there he
was seated in the front room, deeply immersed in a religious discussion with Alta Zadie. ZZ,
had of course, learned to sit quietly amongst the adults, so his presence was generally
welcomed. Yes, Zadie Zalman communicates as if by ethereal transference of energy, his
thoughts about his Mr. Moshe, "my favorite and most righteous grandchild." The mind of
Jewish men is like an old wine because they learn Torah day and night all their life, he would
often say. This rare treasure is like a fountain of youth to the elderly. My great grandfather
(my namesake) was a special man, very astute in his Torah learning, just like the generations
that preceded him.
ZZ and his family would not emigrate to Eretz Yisroel; his uncle was dispatched to see if
things could work out for our family in America. This was the family decision, and there
nothing more to be said about it! The community structure was not an immediate issue, only
upon our own plot of land could we do what it's taken generations to accomplish. Obviously,
there would be sparse populations of Jewish people in Northern America. I heard this and
could now see the tip of the iceberg. Our Rebbe knew we could be responsible only for
ourselves, and hoped we would pave the way for others, but group efforts were out of the question.
The stories of what had happened to mitzvah observant families in New York were very
frightening. Assimilation was decimating American Jewry; life there is a parable to a child
from a well-to-do family who's gotten herself pregnant out of wedlock, and then threw the
fetus into a garbage pail instead of performing a Bris Meilah on him. If the Rabbonim had
taken all of us to Eretz Yisroel, how could anyone or anything prevailed over us, but to go one
by one we'd be easy targets in the grist mill of secular authorities that pursued a government
having nothing to do with Halacha (Torah legal ethics). I just couldn't figure it out. It's been a
long tiring day and the right thing to do is to retire for the night.
The morning had arrived when the snows had melted, and the Admor made clear his
intentions to return to his "Chassidic court." Zadie Zalman again blurted out that he wanted to
drive him. Alta Zadie thought it was inappropriate, but the Rebbe would hear nothing of an
official driver; Old Mare was his angel of deliverance, and he insisted that I quickly organize
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the horse and wagon. Only time would prove the wisdom of his decision. I was ecstatic when
I went out to the barn, until I looked at Old Mare's mournful eyes, weakened from years of
exertion. She, however, would not fail us on this holy mission.
I have fond recollections of Old Mare and I can only guess the horse was created to serve
in such a lofty capacity. During our journey to town, the Admor explained to me that G-d
(Hashem) made two covenants (brisim) with our forefather, Abraham (Avrohom Aveinu).
Biblical accounts discuss the circumcision rite (bris) of every Jewish male. The other
covenant (bris) was made by Hashem in order to instruct Avrohom Aveinu to imbue in his children the courage to withstand their exile in a land ruled by a wicked Pharaoh.
What is happening in Europe has been the history of the Jewish people. The unfaltering
emmunah (faithfulness to Hashem) in which we believe, and are practicing until this day,
Avrohom Aveinu passed on to his son Isaac (Yitzhak), and Yitzhak Aveinu to Jacob (Yaakov
Aveinu). His son Joseph (Yosef) kept the faith alive until Moshe Rebeynu brought us to Har
Sinai and we became the Jewish Nation Israel. The rest of the journey to the capitol city of
Eastern Europe of the journey was talk interspersed with the Rebbe's favorite nigunim (tunes), and the patter of the horse's hooves as she danced along the road.
When we arrived to town, he invited me to a cup of tea, and proceeded to buy a loaf of
bread and a small quantity of salt. With the blessings he bestowed upon me, he also told me to
divide the bread and salt amongst the members of our family and tell them to keep it in their
pockets until arriving to our destination. Having returned to the village the horse passed away,
and after we buried it, the family was making hurried arrangements to set up home in yet
another exile. The great uncle had sent a missive informing us of how to get to our new home, to wit we replied with information concerning our itinerary.
With Hashem's help, my uncle and another close relative had managed to start a farm
business in Canada, and we set out join them immediately. Obedient by nature, Alta Zadie
required no more than that to arrange for our departure, hoping that others would follow in his
lead. It was enough to pack "our raw dough over the shoulder," and leave without even a
glance to what we were leaving behind. The Admor had arranged to go to Israel but would
first bring the message to as many other communities as time would allow. Hear my children, the voice of the shofar; sharp and so shrill, to leave this land Hashem doth will.
Things might have been different back then, but human nature has changed little. In the era
described by Zadie Zalman, people had lived in poverty and adhered to customs that provided
them with security and perpetuity in the ultra-Chassidic life style. Many of their descendants
assume the same identification, though clothing styles have changed; the apparel no longer
connects men to the ancient customs of the Cohanim (Priestly tribe). Higher education and
learning a profession is considered a virtue. There is a troubling drawback to the Occidental exile, selfish individualism in the worldview of most Jewish people.
The other side of the picture is bleak, and actually austere. As people become more
isolated, the idea of setting up a home in a community of like-minded people with similar
aspirations is not only an elusive ideal, it is a near impossibility. Over a half-century separates
the mystery flight with ZZ from the home and community in which he developed, and the
environment in which his soul was nurtured. Only after death, it was clear to him that he
benefited nothing from the compromises he made with tradition. It must have required immense efforts for him to reach out and inform me of this vital message.
A ponder full of noodles was cooking in my brain. Did my zadie expect me to carry on the
tradition he had let fall the wayside the length of decades in which he did not reconcile
himself to the family ultra-orthodox lifestyle? Was he laden with guilt that he was trying to
stick unto me? Think as you will from philosophical standpoint, Mr. Moshe, you can't let
yourself end up stuck in this jet, like a page being read in a history book. There must be a way
to collect experiential data, perhaps to arrive at the truth, at least to give it the old college try. Your life lays ahead, what a shame to waste it. Was that not the point of the whole experience.
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An Exile Impossible To Endure
During my flight of fantasy with Zadie Zalman Zinger I kind of took a liking to having
been crowned, Mr. Moshe. Buckled up and sitting somewhat comfortably, I'm no longer
bothered if this flight would never end, when suddenly the jet started diving like a dolphin and
lurked upward in the opposite direction. This was a source of trepidation; a tremendous
aircraft turning on a millimeter of space and in a millisecond, acting like that microbe that
through a process of natural selection would be splitting into two by instantaneous molecular
division. Not to worry, Moshe is bound to stumble upon a new path into his story (history).
On the other hand, I was not so cool with a blatant contradiction in the way Zadie Zalman
turned me on to a tradition that he received, that had been preserved intact for hundreds of
generations, and cast into a melting pot of modernity. Then I considered the established
reality of my existence, too old to live in the home of my parents, and without any form or
structure to my existence. Home was still my mother's house and she identified with life by
identification with a form and structure best referred to as neurotic social climbing. Anything
that somebody else may think was a reflection on her, as though she had no mind of her own.
Where was I and what had become of me? The seemingly waking realization is that I had
been in a state of delirium, I mean; hadn't this happened to Alice in land of wonderment, was
Zadie Zalman a wizard from a parallel land warp? The question arose as to how the
importance of matters he discussed with me could be studied analytically. I mean, how does a
dude converse with heaven if he can't understand the message being transmitted to his
consciousness? The tried and proved system of my identification as Mr. Moshe is filled with
new, incalculable experiential data, perhaps provable as a verifiable reality.
I could make a rational decision to become religious, to study the source of mitzvoh
performance, to learn Torah and practice the customs of those who observe its tenets. If it
works out, good. Does Zadie think that's possible? I can only bring myself to ask him if I'm
really serious, but these ups and downs and twisting around have left me dizzy, no, downright
nauseous, and in a tizzy. I felt a tremendous upheaval within me and was compelled to
regurgitate, not physiologically, but all the stupid things I ever did or thought, and especially
feelings that I can't live with anymore, I can't live if living is with me.
Running down the runway as fast as I can, I'm covered with sweat and dehydrated. I ran
further than the extremes of awareness conscious sensitivity, as if as to outrun the pull of a
black hole. I'm in the shell of the giant tortoise; no, I'm sinking under the Rose Cavern as the
ground opens beneath me. Bolting across the stretch of barren cement with lightning speed,
running faster than the speed of light I could connect to thought waves of time gone by. I 'm
know-where, and Zadie is know-it-all, but I'm not convinced it's true. And I can just imagine
what will be the reaction of my mother if I should awaken within her private domain.
As my speed decreases, I'm swaying slowly and cooing as if possessed by a pigeon-brain;
wings stretched to catch any wind current that furthers its progress. I'm ascending the
driveway at my parents' house, is anybody home? The garage door opens and a woman
approaches her automobile, and stares in my direction to confirm who it is she's looking at. I
walk through the door she's left open upon her frantic return to get my father. I drag myself to
my old room and lay my weary head to rest. I see the hazy image of my father (abba) and
pretend to have succumbed to a deep slumber.
I vaguely hear my mother (eima) emphatically explain to my father (abba) that if I act
crazy, she'll have me commited to a mental asylum. In the blink of an eyelid, I have again
traversed a space warp from the flight that had taken a dolphin leap to an aquarium in which
I'm supposed to jump through the hoop, and chirp so somebody'll throw me a fish. Did his
plane crash, no there was no jet flight and I'm crashing from the hallucinogen, so better do something quickly to get a hold of myself, or I'll wake up in no man's land.
The debate had now turned to whether they could convey to me what the newspapers had
reported about the story of his departure from this world. My parents had thought they could
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leave me at the cemetery to bid him ado, and that I could have made it home on my own
recognizance. Apparently, I had fainted and remained prostrate on the freshly dug burial site,
seeing that I was covered in dirt when I arrived home. Oh yeah, mother is beside herself,
everybody is going to know anyway and how will they ever live it down. The newspapers felt
it was their duty to report how moved a certain grandson had been.
I did the only thing I was able to give them and started crying, but I would do nothing
more until I've purged myself of the drugs, alcohol, and any other poison polluting my
circulatory system. No return to the frat house or retinue of college matriculation. Maybe I
had created a scene; they're saying the police will be here as soon as I'm conscious. The
Houdini within me shall escape and I'll get on with my life; you can do it, man.
I raised my arm an increment and grunted as similarly I could to the sound of Old Mare
snorting and whinnying. Yes, I'm feeling my oats but I ain't cutting no deals with the coppers,
that's for sure! Zadie's smile, I can do it, and my father (abba) starts his profuse apologies,
promising how things will be different from now on. I give him a thumb shake indicative I
holding my own, cooping a moot consciousness. He informs me that he must call the doctor, and thereafter the police may wish to have another talk with me. He's cool. I'm copasetic.
When the physician came, mom (eima) starts probing, expecting to get something out of
me, reminding me that only a day has passed since I've been released from the mental asylum.
I would have sufficed with a squeeze of her hand, and made a failed attempt to have her hug
me, but was ejected into a sleepy tiredness. For a few days, I ate miniscule morsels, "you eat
like a bird," and went jogging in the nighttime (abba in tow like a bodyguard). To avoid
confrontation, I drank whatever eima brought me, just as long as there were no solid
substances in the broth. After three days, I ate soup broth with cooked carrots, celery, green
peppers, garlic, onion, parsley, and the liquid from the soup, just not the chicken.
The police investigation had to do with suspected possession of dangerous substances,
came to nothing quickly, and they left the speechless Mr. Moshe to rot in his own stew. Eima
raised the issue of psychiatric help but abba kept her at bay the while I started to go out in the
mornings, and return to home base; having said neither a word to anyone, nor causing a stir
anywhere except in the neighborhood shul. There I sat and remained for the duration of the
morning religious services, bothering no one. The men seemed happy by my presence in their
midst.
They were elderly, for the most part and during the first week spoke to me as much as to
say, that Saturday is a special prayer day called Shabbos, services will be followed by a
Kiddush; a light treat of wine, a spread of cakes, crackers, salads and fish bits (herring and
lox), and a pleasant social atmosphere. Eima was adamant about me wanting to observe
Shabbos and strictures of kashrus, claiming I would be wearing religious apparel and sporting
payohs (forelocks) within no time at all. She too, apparently, understood something about
religion having grown up in Zadie Zalman's home.
How is it that eima never even as much as alluded to the stories of her grandfather, my
Alta Zadie? Throughout the entirety of my youth, the only thing I had been told about Europe
was that people were starving there and I shouldn't waste food, so we were supposed to finish
everything on our plates. Now, encouraged by the force of a great miracle, I have the
gumption to demand the facts. Eima (mother) is obstinate in her effort to prevent my yearning
for authentic Judaism, lest it cause a revolution in the family's style of life. I took this matter
to heart, and started to formulate plans to beat it out of their house, and rearrange my life!
Consequently, their behavior increased my determination to catch up on the awareness to
which I had become privy during the travel itinerary back to once upon a time. Where then,
shall this journey with Zadie reach its destination? Like a toddler digging for gold in his
backyard sandbox, I understand there is more to this game than meets the eye. A quantum
nugget of information; like tossing a coin in a charity box, eima proclaims that her
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grandfather was a very religious man, and as a result his wife had to support their family. Nobody would marry me unless I made something of myself, earned a good living.
There must be a map to the hidden treasure in the saga of the Admor, my Zadie and Old
Mare. I must now negotiate my presence here and plot my future existence. It seems weird to
realize that I'm alive, I can hardly fathom what death is anymore, but there is some secret to
the functioning of the human mind that can be of value to mankind if I'll only discover what it
is. Query, did Alta Zadie live in a village as I so clearly saw in my mind's eye, I can't even ask
anybody! She couldn't believe how stupid I could be mentioning something about a horse, and I'll never know if Old Mare truly saved an Admor? Oy vay!
To say my abba was disappointed with me is an understatement, so eager was he that I
make magna cum laude in mathematics. It's quite obvious that wherever I search within my
nuclear family, little vestige remains of the tradition that has anything to do with Judaism. I
would have to challenge abba with facts and demand that he deny or affirm them. Maybe I
can find something out about the Admor, yet my detective work will have to be very discreet.
The one thing I learned in college was to do academic research, and now my curiosity is perking like a pot of coffee. The men at the synagogue might have answers.
My mother substantiated only one fact, that I was named after Alta Zadie Moshe, claiming
my father is the one who should be telling me the haunting secret about our family heritage.
Aha, I'm on to something. Then it all started! I woke up in the middle of the night dreaming
about a horse being dangled by a rope over an abyss, a bottomless pit. I wanted to wake my
abba but didn't. This issue was not going to be settled in the span of one night. The next
morning I would don tefillin, as the elderly men from the synagogue were encouraging me.
In the meantime, every time I approached my abba all he had to say was that I should
graduate college. It had sunk in that I was not in charge of my fate anymore, and now I have
to pick up the pieces where I left off. I needed to matriculate one course in order to graduate
college, and when I was finally in possession of my diploma, I was glad that I did. The way I
did so was an odyssey of sorts, reported in Chapter I. Instead of just lazing around during the
summer days, I spent time at the local synagogue, studying Torah subjects with a little
rabbinical guidance, and here a there, participating in Shabbat services.
Can't say this made abba to happy, he warned that I couldn't observe Shabbos if I wanted
to get a job, and so it wasn't the diploma after all. No, the diploma was a key to get work other
than being a garbage collector, but I answered I'd like to become a jet pilot and that ended the
discussion for the meantime. Anyway, my becoming religious was at best long shot and a
considerable distance from drug abuse, so he went along with it for the time being. I learned to pray in front of the (tzibur) congregation and said the mourner's prayer for Zadie.
On one occasion, my abba had joined the congregation after I had already gone to the bima
to lead the services, and upon their conclusion, I turned to see his face beaming with pride. He
even joked about it saying he should have given me at least a smattering of a religious
education. He disclosed the fact that his brother had enrolled in a yeshiva (strictly religious
system of education for boys after the age of Bar Mitzvah). His reticence to discuss religion
had faded away; perhaps yearnings in his soul had reawakened. The gentlemen I had befriended let him know that got a lot of pleasure teaching me Torah.
With lines of communication reopened and my predicament leveling out, I turned out to be
of some use to him in his business. He employed me in his work place and sometimes I told
him over the lessons in the Talmud I had been learning in "yeshiva," at the synagogue. I
played squash with him at the Jewish Sports Center, and we batted the ball around on the
tennis court in his condominium complex. I managed my own purchases and meal
preparations so I could maintain at least a minimum adherence to kashrut standards (eating kosher). I re-grew up and shortly thereafter moved out of my parents' home.
I remained employed as an office assistant in my dad's schmata (women's apparel)
business. There were the exhibitions to show his line of dresses to potential buyers and during
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lulls in business activity, we talked together. I felt enough at home with abba to ask if Zadie
Zalman's story had something to do with reality and if it did, why was it me, to whom he had
revealed it. It was as though the horse in my dreams had come to get me out of a disastrous
situation, just like the Old Mare had done for my Zadie. Abba was wont to discuss anything
having to do with horses.
There was more to this story than I could imagine, but people don't control their dreams
and this horse dangling over an abyss with a rope around its neck just kept waking me up. I
was learning that dreams (visions and prophecy) are an intrinsic part of the Judaic tradition,
like Joseph and the sheaves, and Jacob ascending the ladder before him. My abba, the amateur
psychologist, came one night to counsel me shortly before it was time to go to sleep. He
started telling that there's purpose in what the impressions of Zadie Z had left upon me, as
evident form the improvement in my situation. This perked my interest even more.
It's so nice of abba to puts in an effort to create the atmosphere of calm and even if he only
intends to humor me. So then he lays this trip on me how proud he is with regard to my giving
up the libertarian culture of abysmal meaninglessness. Not bad, that's the abyss over which
the horse is dangled, but what's the rope around his neck? ZZ, his father-in-law, had told him
about a diary in which he had preserved the saga of the Admor, Alta Zadie, and Old Mare. The search was on for the hidden treasure, notwithstanding it was within my soul.
I had paid my dues as an office boy so took a winter vacation at a ski resort in the
Laurentian Mountains, at the invitation of a cousin from Montreal. While in the city, I met
with his father, Great Uncle Eliezer. At seventy-five years old, he was still gainfully
employed as a tailor. He had not only participated in many discussions with his father, Alta
Zadie Moshe, but had read his diary when a young man about my age. I paid careful attention
to each word Great Uncle relates. Alta Zadie Moshe Zinger had told him about the family's immigration from Eastern Europe to Canada.
This was almost a true-to-life reenacting of the jet flight with Zadie Zalman, I couldn't
believe my good fortune. Uncle Eliezer hade kept Shabbos, Family Purity and Kashrus
throughout the extent of his life, and renowned for his Torah scholarship. The residual of two
traumatic memories stuck in his brain like sugar from a sweet wine that brings about
hangovers. Both occurred on the ship that had brought our family to America. Zadie Zalman
and he had seen Jewish men throw their tefilin (phylacteries) into the ocean, as though to forsake tradition as if of no further value to them.
It caused him such infuriation he wanted to jump in and retrieve the tefilin. He brought the
matter to the captain, whom he had tried to persuade to turn back. The heartache was so
difficult to bear he went to hide himself in a boiler room, and while he slept so soundly, he
shipmate had locked. The ensuing arguments led to no positive results, and there was no
return to the distance waves left behind the ship's wake. For the remainder of the journey, Alta
Zadie blew his shofar, the ram's horn that was an heirloom in the hands of a Sultan for at least 36 generations. Zadie Zalman had been presumed overboard until the docking of the vessel.
The crew had so much as lowered a life raft into the Atlantic, as a gesture to appease
people so distraught. If the child was meant to live, so Hashem can ensure his safe voyage to
the nearby shoe of New York City. The passengers, all refugees from persecution, could think
only of their safe arrival, and here, in plain view, the Statue of Liberty beckoned. Death was a
frequent visitor to Jewish communities of yore, and despite fatalities, life still went on. Zadie's
family kept their tefilin, and held on to their religious faith that their child still lived.
One in a million was the odds on ZZ being found alive. Whereas a situation like this could
have crushed a non-believer, not my Alta Zadie. There was a blessing from the Admor, which
had yet to reach fulfillment. Motion is the universal language and it all returns to the silence.
He realized he was not aboard a sailboat in which an experienced sailor could make a flying
jive, but with hundreds of people crammed aboard a gigantic cargo ship. Time had not allowed a thorough search in every nook and cranny prior to the ship arriving to port.
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As per their orders from the captain, the ship's crew tended to closing down the ship's
operations, and, of matter of course permitted no one to remain on-board. That's when the
panic really started. It was a long a tedious process of unloading the cargo, tidying up the
equipment and of course closing down the machinery in the boiler room. In the meantime,
Alta Zadie and seven Zinger brothers had done their best to get the authorities riled up; until it
was explained to them, they would be refused immigration if they didn't quiet down. They
realized the virtue of such advice and formed a human gate in order to inspect everybody who debarked.
Certain memories are etched unto a person's soul, like the piece of bread and the salt the
Admor had given each family member to place in his pocket. No matter how hungry he
became, my Zadie refused to eat it. The shipmates, upon entering the boiler room found Zadie
Zalman clutching unto the piece of stale bread. They ridiculed him as though he were stupid
for not eating it while it was still fresh, took it away, and threw in the water. This traumatized
Zadie forever; he lost his last token of his living through the epic of the Admor, Alta Zadie, and Old Mare.
The wall of Zinger men and all those present became a hall of celebrations with people
dancing enthusiastically as Zadie Zalman came ashore. Forced into the throngs of refugees the
family hastened to get through the congestion and into the immigration line. ZZ saw people
kiss the ground but like his father was not favorably impressed by their incursion into this
modern world of Ellis Island and its environs. Legends have it that he threw up, but Great
Uncle thinks he probably spit as an expression of his anger for having the Admor's token of
remembrance taken away from him. Alta Zadie and his tribe were stubborn in their disdain for
America.
The great uncle was there to greet the family, and take them by train as quickly as the
wheels could spin their way out of New York, and thereafter to Canada. A train brought about
the family's exile from our cherished community, and it's still clacking along its tracks taking
the family further into exile. Things back then were very different than they are today. Cars
had been invented only some twenty years earlier, and only very rich people owned them.
One thoroughfare in New York had more people and stores than an entire district in Eastern
Europe. Pandemonium reigned in the crowded streets, covered by pushcarts and horse drawn carriages.
When they arrived in Canada, great uncle took them in a big wagon with strong young
horses to their spacious home. A sort of laughter from Great Uncle Eliezer as he relates how
Zadie Zalman requested to, and was allowed to hold the reins. In light of Zadie's upsetting
experience, it was the consensus opinion that this would calm him down. They went to a farm
located on the outskirts of town where they could supposedly live the same way they had been
living, but there was neither a synagogue or Rabbi, nor a melamed to teach Torah.
My Zadie started to work just like other boys at his age, and shortly after their arrival was
given a job cutting material for a tailor who worked in the center of town. This might sound
like an especially difficult task for a nine-year-old, but one must look at things in perspective.
There were no child labor laws, and children that lived in agricultural communities were
incorporated in the cycle of life just like adults. The family considered themselves fortunate to find an additional source of income, and Zadie Zalman learned a lot about the work of a tailor.
In the sweatshops of the early 20th century, working conditions were difficult, hygiene was
unheard of, and the pay was lousy. ZZ listened to the complaints and the misconceptions of
workers who spoke of the streets in the USA being paved with gold. His parents were not
aware that he was hiding a good portion of his earnings. ZZ was the youngest of his brothers,
at nine years of age very impressionable, and apparently, the absence of religious education
(or systematic education whatsoever) made enough room in his head for it to fill up with all kinds of absurdities. America, after all, was a day's journey and the fare quite reasonable.
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His boss in the tailor shop took a liking to him, and gave my Zadie a great deal of special
treatment. By the time of his Bar Mitzvah, Zadie had saved a tidy sum of money. Alta Zadie
and Alta-Bubbie had no idea that Jewish men could try to persuade a child to do wild things
that would have been inconceivable in the old family settings of Eastern Europe. The workers
from the sweatshop plotted to send ZZ to a businessman in America, convincing Zadie that he
would make a fortune if he would go to work in the United States. At the age of thirteen,
having become a man - he set out on his own, and he was married before he returned to visit.
They also had forewarned him; payohs and using tefilin could result in early death since
the Jewish people across the river would look down on him for observing mitzvahs. One
could say that my Zadie was determined to succeed in his mission, but was too young to
realize the cost would be the Judaic values, which have assured the survival of our Jewish
Nation Israel. The day after a modest Bar Mitzvah celebration, ZZ rode the train to Windsor, Ontario and payed a boat driver to take him across the border into America.
In a very slow, deep, and maudlin voice, Great Uncle declares that Zadie threw his tefilin
into the Detroit River. I remember my uncle gasping for breath as he told me these things; his
lips were so terse that his cheeks welled up. I had never seen such pain in the grimace upon
the face of anyone, and suddenly the story of the pink ping pong ball flashed across the screen
of my memory. He wasn't able to explain how ZZ could have thrown his tefilin in the river. I
answered then and there, I'd start to don tefilin myself. This was a great moment for Uncle Eliezer, to see salvation creep into being as the morning's first rays of sun disperse darkness.
Unbeknown to even himself, abba had suffered a silent stroke causes by an aneurism in the
brain, and never spoke again. Zadie Zalman had returned from the dead. Great Uncle had
shared an invaluable portion of his life for some reason or principle that, on the level of
quantum mechanics, included and was included within the entire universe, by which I am now
identified. I had frivolously exhausted my youth, acting like a class clown thinking people
will recognize this as my human worth. I did nothing to further the interests of my college
project, Political Intellectualism Ecology; life had been for me nothing but a kaleidoscope of
stars swirling against the night sky.
After winter vacation, Abba and I were together for a brief moment in time and never
more. I had worked with him, traveled with him all over the state, and was now doing his job
in the downtown convention hall (alongside the Detroit River), where I would display his
dress line to potential buyers. The circuit is closed; the Detroit River is connected to the lakes
that empty into the Atlantic and circulate from there to our windmill in Eastern Europe. My
family's flight into exile, ad infinitum until I flipped out along the shore where the tortoise
shell was on display, next to the Indian statue. Our goose is being cooked in the melting pot of
assimilation! My jet trip with Zadie has reversed the process and there's hope for the future.
Thus the completion of the first half of this literary creation, the 2nd half now undergoing an artistic editing. Hold on to your hats!