THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE - #228

THE CURMUDGEON CHRONICLE ©

AN IRREVERENT VIEW


Time Line: January 3, 2008
Date Line: Flemington New Jersey

I have been offered a Mantra for 2008, to wit: “The Mountains are high and the Emperor is far away”. A mantra is a sound repeated continually to awaken a spiritual connection between oneself and the unknowable. Usually the mantra is a single word, chanted in furtherance of religious observance.

I learned (at my Mother’s Knee and other low joints) never to refuse a present if it doesn’t have teeth, carburetors, or an insatiable appetite for anything. Absent any nuances of context, the quotation means: “When you are hidden from sight and authority is absent, any conduct is possible.” The meaning leads me to the unfortunate but necessary decision to decline this gift.

Even if less cynicism and more poetry were possible, the language used makes the sentence a suitable by-word for criminals and revolutionaries. Knowing the source of the offer, I cannot believe that the gift of a criminal’s slogan was intended.

In consequence, I tried to imagine other circumstances in which the sentence would have been spoken. Perhaps it was whispered by an ardent swain to his beloved, confirming that her father was sound asleep and anyway, he couldn’t see them hidden in the haystack. Maybe it was said by a scholar who discovered the Earth is round and told his disciples that truth is protected by Nature’s mountain walls and human authority cannot deny Nature’s laws…. and so forth, ad infinitum.

However poetic one’s imagination may wax, life’s realities compel the interpretation: If no one can see you, and you are far from the reach of authority, do your damnedest because there will be no penalty.

That may be the way mankind acts, but hopefully, not in the coming year.

You can see what such a mantra engenders in the every day conduct of those around us. Thieves and killers stalk streets where humans live. Enterprises hide behind rules they bought and live in Tax Havens out of the sight of authority. Elected and appointed officials surrounded by barricades of red tape and regulations hold citizens hostage for the benefit of Interests that promise wealth to subverted officials who do their bidding, while authority is impotent.

There are alternative Mantra possibilities:

There is the tried and true, “OM” of the Buddhist, which means nothing, thereby promising everything
There is the ever present “OUCH” of the beleaguered which means nothing but is spontaneous
There is the”WHA” of the bewildered, which is less than nothing since it doesn’t “t”, and
The “NEVER AGAIN” of US citizens which is meaningful only if voting machines leave a paper trail.

Whatever your selection, remember that a Mantra is only as good as the spiritual; awakening it brings about.

OM. OUCH and WHA? … NEVER AGAIN!

Howard Stamer