Reflections on a Desert Island

— To Whoever Found the Bottle

What better conditions for reflecting on life than on a desert island where nothing besides life remains with you? As nothing is more yours than your life, this alone deserves reflection. Conclusions, decisions start and end with this. Will you give yourself a medal or a yellow card?

Born among millions, entering the parade ranks, hardly noticing it. When you realize you are surrounded by others like you, the game of life starts; you’re no longer the centre of the universe. You’re pushed and … Read More

Rational Thought, Intuition

“Maybe people with the discipline to think more rationally are not as drawn to (the high-IQ) societies as the intellectual eccentrics seem to be.”

Editor of “Oath Journal”

In my opinion, rational thought and the imagination/intuition are not good bedfellows. So, what one wins in rationality may be lost in creativity. Rational thought, disciplinarian as it is, rejects a priori what cannot be explained rationally. Each discoverer, pioneer of new thought, had to overcome at one stage, the fear of the ridiculous.

Everybody probably knows the apparently true anecdote about … Read More

Afghanistan — East is East…

East is East and West is West
and Never the Twain Shall Meet (5/24)
If Canadians believed Kipling they wouldn’t parade to celebrate the glory of the Canadian Army in Afghanistan. What kind of business drives them into Central Asia anyway? Immigrants come from East to West mostly to westernize. Are Westerners going East to ‘Easternize’? The USA follows an imperial policy that’s as old as the world. Canada, even as an ally, doesn’t have to loyally follow in all its steps. Do gooders should seek and act where they … Read More

Musing about Evolution

~Evolution: suffering that didn’t kill.

~In evolution there is no progress but adaptation.

~First, words appeared to describe events. Then words became events themselves. Each thing that comes to serve other goals becomes a goal in itself. Is this evolution?

~Evolution: art of adapting to a hell of the non-adapted.

~Evolution sculpts masterpieces in the living flesh of perishable creature.

~The path of evolution is as covered with corpses as the way of revolution.

…synchronicity

….< >…

There are basically two kinds of synchronicity: one not accepted by everybody, the second one seemingly proven in labs. The first, accepted by Jung, links synchronicity to premonition. The second one, apparently observed in laboratories, then physical, may represent manifestation of a quantum leap through distance. Apparently when an animal learns something in one laboratory it may be transmitted to other animals at the other end of the world. How can a tendency jump through space? Where/what is the bridge? Why does ‘simili similibus’ attract? As for karma, … Read More

With or Without God

If I’ve already written about this subject in one way or another — sorry — “Vagabond” becomes too big to keep track of every chink.

The young German Pastor killed by the Nazis, Bonhoeffer I think, said: “With or without God, we live without God.” Why is this obvious?

Usually we are situated between what we do and what happens to us. What we do involves our know-how rather than philosophy, while what happens to us can be wrapped in mystery open to all interpretations, including God. In daily life, … Read More

In Memoriam

Two texts came to my memory, far distant from each other in time and demography, still united by their magical beauty. First I quote “Testament” by oustanding Polish poet Konstanty Idelfons Galczynski:

“When my little heart one day cracks
Remember me sometimes nicely
That there was such a guy from the Moon

My pen to the Vistula
My ashes to the four winds
My heart to the postal box” (for communication)

The second one is an inscription from a Viking’s gravestone in a style strangely “cool” and modern:

“He is … Read More

Who, What and for Whom?

In the parking lot I overheard some interview on NPR radio. What stayed in my memory were the words: “This is a global war … not a matter of giving a little more water to the Palestinian farmers.”
Who has to give what and for whom? As if the world were somebody’s colonial property to distribute or give away, water, blood, air, life, death … Who was this ghoul from the eighteenth century who woke up just now, and uses lingo from another epoch?

Open Bouquet issue 94 July August … Read More