Writing Process

Strange Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzGF50nCgi0

Description

I crossed the rusted gate, took the incense, and stepped into the monastery, leaving behind me the bustling street of street-vendors and smell of barbecue.  

I ambled along the cobblestone path, bathed in shattered sunshine from the leaves of the evergreens. Along the path I passed the brick-red temple with carved Oriental roof, a statue of the Buddha smiling mysteriously in the white smoke of incense, and a monk in a grey cloak holding a book. I greeted the temple, the Buddha statue, and the monk in white smoke.

I stopped in front of it. 

Behind the wood and smoke it stood alone, with its dark wooden doors shut. I opened the door, stepped into the doorway, walked downstair to a chamber. It’s the place where visitors are shunned, voices flow silently, and the loved dead are buried and stored. It’s where my grandmother stayed. She smiled in the picture, black and white. She smiled at me there eternally. I kneeled down in front of her, bent down my head until it touched the ground with both of my hands lying on the ground. I stayed still, kneeling silently, heart beating loudly, murmuring faintly. I kneeled down three times and stayed, staring at her silent smile.

I rose up, left behind me the temple, the Buddha, the monk, and the silent smile in black and white. I left her there. 

I returned to the bustling street.

Characterization: Margaret Thatcher

April 8^th, 2013

I was lying in bed at the Ritz. Another stroke had left me with a splitting headache. My sight was blurred and my breathing was labored. “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” But I knew disease is arbitrary. However, by no means had I lost. I was still alive.

It is a long time that I lived, too long for a politician, and too long for a woman. A politician always gets reproached and scorned when she has stayed in the prime minister’s office for too long and done too much. “I've got a woman's ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it,” I always told myself.  It was my job to do the work, but no one’s job to agree with me. “It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbor; life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.” 

I’d done so much work: the economy, the enemies of democracy, the Falklands war; and though I had done so much, much remained to be done. But I had to leave. I planned my work and executed my plans, but I would soon be unable. I loved arguments, and I loved debate; I would soon have no one with whom to argue. Denis and Reagan had both left me, and my girls would never return. It was clearly my time to go.  

May the sun never set on the British Empire. 

Proverb

Κόρακας κοράκου μάτι δε βγάζει. 

(Hawks will not pick out Hawk's eyes.)

As a insightful observation of nature that homogeneous birds do not fight one another, the apothegm from Greek Solomon merits attention, for it also refers to homo sapiens by implying that one’s friends and families ought to be his primary source of support. A beneficiary who maintains a tightly knitted social network or a victim who suffers from a fragmented family or fratricidal conflicts may give the words to lecture people about the importance of kin ties. Interestingly, this aphorism appears to be against traditional western individualism by advocating collectivism, which is featured in eastern culture, where individuals are mostly subjective to group direction and subjugate to group interests. Nevertheless, nobody wants to stay in a community of recrimination, where people plot against each other, believe in no one, and cudgel their brains to profit from others. Such community will extort a member’s energy, inundate his life with suspicion, and drag him into quagmire of loneliness and exhaustion. For example, in late 18th century, the cold-blooded prince of Indian Mughal Empire eliminated dozens of his brothers by poison, intrigue, and assassinations. With only servile admirers or bitter antagonists around him, he was eventually overthrown due to domestic conflicts. Consequently, the empire collapsed into revolts and beldams. Individualism has caused the downfall of many societies; however, collectivism has also proven to be detrimental in other cultures (e.g. developing countries in Asia). Conflicts between individualism and collectivism remains unsolved even given the former views.

The Tale: The eagle rider

  In the ancient kingdom there was a man called Azure who was the bravest and swiftest eagle rider of the kingdom. 

  On his adventure, he encountered the sky bandits who were chasing after a bird; it was an eagle he never saw. He repelled the bandits. The bird fled away, so fast that he could merely catch a sight of its snowy tail. He was fascinated by the eagle and swore to conquer one himself. 

  He visited an old mage and asked about the bird; the mage said it was the legendary eagle of the Dragonhawk, the swiftest bird in the world living on the forbidden peaks; they lived so high that nobody ever found them.

  Obsessed with the eagle, he traded with the warlock and turned himself into an eagle. He was told he could only won loyalty of a hawk by taking its white feather on the tail. 

  He found the Dragonhawks on the peak; they approved of his staying; yet no hawk flew with him——he was just different. He often appreciated the birds alone on the peak. A month later, Dragonhawks had their festival; all hawks flew to the sky and changed their tail feather in the moonshine. He tried to catch up but failed. He was left behind, appreciating the hawks alone.

  The eagle troops of the kingdom appeared. They carried bows and arrows on battle eagles; they shot at the Dragonhawks. One of the arrows hit Azure. He fell down. No troop cared about an ordinary eagle nor did any Dragonhawk. He ended his life in azure sky.

Stony