68.The World of Flowing Changes

Reality has been lately approaching so close to the world of illusions that my glimpses of the unreal have become almost unreadable. What can be more unreal than a descendant of black slaves from Kenya becoming the 44^th President of the most powerful country in the world? What could be more paradoxical than a nation, whose founding Fathers declared that “all men are equal”, built its power and wealth on the blood, sweat and suffering of millions of slaves and then chose a true American mulatto as its Leader? And how very simple and yet penetrating to the very core of human longings were  his electioneering slogans “Hope -Change -Yes, we can!” It was not an illusion that millions of people all over the world , black and white, yellow and brown, listened avidly to his inauguration speech. They believe in their heart of hearts that -Yes! We can change the world if such is our belief, based on true longing. But even that reality was giving me a glimpse of something  out of this world. A weird introduction to this changing world was the suddenness with which the deceptively solid and safe world of finance started to disintegrate before my eyes. Banks became overnight a symbol of greed, recklessness and instability. Governments all over the globe started pouring money into that black hole where it simply disappeared without leaving a trace. The soothing words of the media and spin-doctors sounded more hollow than ever. Their masters couldn’t accept the truth staring them in the face: that their cosy, but unreal world came crashing down and it would never rise again in the same shape or form. All material forms have a built-in obsolescence and they have to perish, because you cannot pour “new wine of change into old bottles”. They could not withstand the powerful  fermentation process of change.  What next? There will be many changes in our complacent acceptance of everything that has been blocking the growth of human mind and spirit for much too long. The new world order is still too misty in outline to allow me a clear glimpse of what is to come. But I believe that millions of people are waking up and repeating to themselves the Obama slogans: Hope –Change-YES! WE CAN DO IT! Just be patient and go with the world of flowing changes. There will be no revolution. There will be only a Transformation.

67.That Many-Splendoured Thing

Love is a many-splendoured thing:
Once on a high and windy hill,
In the morning mist, two lovers kissed,
And the world stood still.
Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to sing.
Yes, true love’s a many-splendoured thing! (Matt Monroe)

That old song is actually a musical and poetical description of

chemical reactions caused by C₄₃H₆₆N₁₂O₁₂S₂ , known to scientists as oxytocin and to us,ignorant lot, as a “cuddle drug”, “liquid trust” and even a “glue of social bonding” without which we would be lonesome rogue-elephants or worse. Well, don’t take my word for it because no lesser authority than BBC Science programme has recently published the final word on defining that many-splendoured thing, given by a learned American professor of neuroscience. Love, he said, is…” just a series of chemical events.” Quite so, but it would be helpful to know which species of love are we talking about. Because there are as many “loves” as there are “lovers”. For example, those prairie voles which have led the learned academic to his conclusions have a lot of volish hormones in their bodies, but I have never been a vole, so how could I know what sweet words pass between them when they are bonding? The problem with some scientists is that they use a sylogizm “my aunt has two legs and a goose has two legs; therefore, a goose is also my aunt”. Another scientist from Oxford Univ. Future of Humanity Institute is more sceptical about love=spray of oxytocin plus a few other bits”. “We shouldn’t think that this perspective on its own provides a full understanding of what love is. “There are also evolutionary, psychological, sociological, phenomenological (a philosophical approach and method of qualitative research) and humanistic perspectives that offer important insights.” Quite so. But the lure of a sensational headline in all media is irrestible to some academics. I am not going out today to buy a sprayer of “cuddle drug”. But in the threatening financial tsunami, banks could spray their customers with that vital “trust hormone”. Some researchers suggests that when peeople are given a whiff of oxytocin they are “more generous and trusting in tasks that involve sharing money with strangers.” Sometimes I wonder if  my wallet might have been occasionally sprayed by some friends with that misty many-splendoured stuff.  Unfortunately, it is odourless. 

66. Unreal Visions of Sweet Home

Unreality begins at home. Home itself is unreal. I have always imagined Homeland with a capital H as a place where everybody has his home. We mistake space divided into rectangles and filled with things as our home. It is just another illusion, because if I move tomorrow to another set of rectangles in a different part of the world, somoe body else will move into my old home and call it his home. Spaces are filled with invisible time and equally invisible passers-by. The former is tidal and brings memories which are not my own. They belong to those who had lived in these rectangles before me. The pedestrians who pass through my spaces are humans-in-spirit. The could be described as pilgrims in search of their holy places. Some find them soon after their physical death. Others may follow deceptive trails of scintillating promises and find only a locked gate. Outside the spatial illusion called home is another fata morgana called the Outside World. At the present time it is a very cold world. London where my unreal home is located is unused to sub-zero temperatures, night after night. They create further illusions.

This morning I saw a polar bear in the back gardens. I threw him a piece of bread which made him turn into a white pidgeon. It may have been a dove. Or even the Holy Ghost. Last night the Three Magi sung carols outside my castle, which once belonged to good King Wenceslas. Everyday unreality is like this. A panorama of shifting fantasies, interwoven with bits of something that could be recognized as familiar outlines of the world perceived with my five senses.