For all those years gone by
I can’t just look back and
say, “They’re gone away,”
For all that time, I lived
Liked, hoped, cried, laughed
With five faces of a fool;
Still dreams I dreamt before
Are beckoning me smiling
Under a diaphanous veil
Of luminescent moonlight.
Hollow cheeks
Sunken eyes
The #gaunt poet
He may look,
Passion fills
His heart with
Paramount excitement,
Truth quenches
His mind with
Imperturbable reason
In his Palace of Soul
Stone by stone
Prisoners of Reality
Against the minions
Jared Diamond’s Upheaval analyzes why a nation is how it is now. Of course, culture plays a role in changing the ethos of each new zeitgeist. Still, it is not so much a differentiating element as a distinguishing factor to characterize a national character. Instead, it is a mindset of individuals, including the governing elites in the nation, that determine the success and stagnation of the nation’s progress.
Of all nations’ approaches to and results of political and sociological revolutions, the most successful example is Japan’s Meiji Restoration in the 19th century and democratization in the aftermath of WWII, both of which are one-of-a-kind upheavals yielding to outstanding progress. Japan’s confrontation with the West might have blown their isolated cultural prestige. However, rather than coiling in fear of the changes, Japan sprang back with new attitudes adapted from Europe’s and the U.S.’s technological development and cultural legacy to survive the new zeitgeist as the time’s juggernaut.
On the other hand, the United States today needs change because it is highly polarized by political affiliations, ideological inclinations, and racial stratifications. The U.S. seems to have lurched in the above marsh when it should focus on the constructive, substantial, and realistic aspects of political agenda and social movements. For example, Americans tend more to ideas than facts that collectively affect individual needs, such as universal healthcare, a better educational system, employment opportunities, housing assistance, welfare programs, and workers’ rights. It s because American politicians aim to mobilize an army of people, aka constituents, to win their ideological war for occupying more congressional seats. In fact, American exceptionalism, that America is the best of all other countries in the world, averts the eyes from the lessons from other countries simply because they are beneath.
Diamond is a polymath well versed in science, literature, philosophy, geography, psychology, and sociology. He talks about his family, students, and friends from other countries. He is no stranger to their cultures with the knowledge of the languages and cultural cues, which entitles him to an appellation of “a citizen of the world.” This book reads persuasive and perspicacious, among other books on similar subjects. Maybe I am biased, but if the man whose assessment of nations strikes my chord, then I can’t help it.
The wandering
Rainmaker
A stranger
To her power
Invokes ever
A benevolent rain
Of inspirations
On an arid terrain
Of imaginations
That are blocked
In the Acheronian
Wilderness barren
Of wordlessness.
Step by step
Side by side
Left and right
Near and far
One mind more
One world more
A band of hearts
Marches together
In parades poised
Honoring Humanity
Along Life Route
Into Avenue of Hope.
People living upstairs
With the power of means
To let you live or die
De facto or de jure
Have their sovereign parlance
A sign of class consciousness
That goes by saying thus:
“No offense. It’s just personal.
For work is work, and that’s that,”
As if it were a recitation
Of indemnifying themselves
From injuring the other’s soul
And absolving them of the offense
They have committed willingly.
People living downstairs
With the need for means
To live and not die
Physically and mentally
Have their sovereign credos
A sign of universal humanness
That bellows from within thus:
“No offense? It’s personal,
For I am not mechanical
Without sense and reason.
What is it, then, addressing me?
Is it nothing but a talking head?”
Such is an echo from the valley
Of the injured soul, weeping inside
Forcing to remind the values of stoicism
That works not for everyone’s soul.
Masters of slaves, transcendent of time
Slaves of masters, regardless of race
In different costumes, in changing scenery
Have kept their footings in their places
According to lots assigned by Wheel of Fortune;
Some say luck ensues from efforts and geniuses,
And many believe it so as though to numb the pains
From the ills of society, the reality at face value.
Nevertheless, work is personal in the guise
Of the professional that which even Adam Smith
The father of the Wealth of Nations affirmed
In the selfish human ego distilled in work;
“Nothing is personal” is, therefore, a fallacy
A res ipsa loquitur of illogical defense
Of offense on the hangers-on by the upper hands
Although they may refuse to agree with me
In the security of their infallible power to decide
The livelihood of those in need of their mercy.
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