It is Hard... to Kick Against the Goads...

At times are think words are useless... At times I “outgrow” the blog... At times I debate within me...whether “ the pen is mightier than the sword...” At times I rather have a glass of wine than sit at the laptop to write... At times, I remember that "It is hard ... to kick against the goads..." and I almost give up !

But also at times I reminisce my teaching days... and sort of get new energy... and at times tragic acts of stupidity which world leaders demonstrate make me think... and when I read that in some part of the world a person is imprisoned or killed because of the "pen"... I realize that I have to continue again... and prolong The Myth of Sisyphus...
At times nothing matters... I remember my friend Ross, the chaplain at my last teaching post, and his archive of personal writings... which I have never seen... and of course, never read... At times I remember a more famous colleague of mine... who also wrote things... published one of his novels... He published only 50 copies... and numbered them... signed 30 of the copies and gave them his "intellectually inclined" friends... The book was titled The City... I asked him; "Why only fifty..."
"I am not in the business to educate..." was his response... "You are the educator... I am the author of my pain and my insights ... my experience is for me... and I do not like voyeurs... and I am not going to striptease my soul for anyone... my friends are about 30 and I know that about 20 are interested in my writing and thoughts..." My friend hated the apparatchiks and the funny bureaucrats... the Big Brothers... He had a special name for them; "Stupidity without borders..."

Police in Bangladesh on Thursday, April 7, identified the victim of a gruesome slaying in the capital as a 27-year-old student and secular blogger, making him the latest person to be killed in the South Asian nation allegedly for criticizing fundamentalist Islam... The victim is Nazimuddin Samad, 27, who was attending law school in the evenings at state-run Jagannath University. In his online writings, including on his Facebook wall, Samad criticized religious extremism. On his profile page, under religious views, he wrote: “I have no religion.”  He had a globalized vision of humanity... and rejected Organized religion... and was a Masters student in Law...  This is Nazimuddin Samad... and the photo is from his Facebook page... The Islamist attackers chanted "Allahu Akbar" as they hacked him to death...

Ross, the chaplain at my last teaching post, always reminded me that each of us are duty bound to do our best to alleviate the stupidity of the funny leaders... and "forced" me to do my best.

While I was following today's events on the TV a reporter asked a surrogate of one of the U.S. Presidential candidates... "You admitted that there are better people than the candidate you support..." The reporter was so proud of his trap... and wanted to create a controversy for cheap news gossip... and higher ratings...

"There are better people in everything..." The surrogate replied.

"There are better surgeons than me and I am sure there are better reporters than you... There are better people in all jobs and in anything..." 

I was happy for the answer... Trapping people just to create controversy and increase ratings on the part of the reporter is very much like the greed and chasing profit of the funny leaders.

Ross would have loved and be proud of the answers the wise surrogate handled the trap... The reporter looked stupid on his show... 

...................

If there are controversial situations... We do not hack the adversary... as they are used to do in Islamic-Jihadist Sharia Law... as it is consistently done in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries like Bangladesh and Iraq and Syria where the Islamic-Jihadists have occupied...

If there are controversies we open up a dialogue and talk with each other... like the funny reporter and the wise surrogate of the presidential candidate did...

....................

Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword after all... Maybe Ross was correct all along by insisting that he write... albeit for himself... or like my friend who just published 50 copies of his book...