Sunday, December 17, 2006
**************************************************
When speaking with an older and wiser person, assume you are wrong. When speaking with an infallible person, assume he is wrong.
*
Little mistakes we don’t mind admitting. But when it comes to big ones, we like to believe smart nations don’t make them. Which may suggest that in little things we are willing to be objective; in big things we prefer to follow the dictates of our vanity.
*
Never ceases to amaze me — the stupidity of self-assessed smart people.
*
I don’t diminish Armenians; I only describe the many ways in which they diminish themselves.
*
When I was young and foolish I too said many things that I now regret; and if someone had warned me I would have ignored him, the way I am ignored today by our dupes.
*
Tolstoy: “The higher I rise in the eyes of the world, the lower I sink in my own.” The opposite is also true: the lower we sink in the eyes of the world, the louder we bray and brag.
*
One of our editors once called me to complain that some people didn’t like my kind of writing. Who? I wanted to know. He mentioned the name of a benefactor’s flunkey. Shortly thereafter the editor stopped publishing me. The flunkey must have made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. As the old saying has it: “Parai veren duduyu chalar” (freely translated, “He who pays the piper selects the tune”).
*
People are educated to recognize and question the propaganda of other nations, never their own. Why should we be an exception? – you may well ask. Too late. Now that the cat is out of the bag, can you really believe everything you have been told?
#
Monday, December 18, 2006
*********************************************
ALL IS VANITY
***********************************
When I first read ECCLESIASTES, I immediately assumed all that talk of vanity referred to others, not to me. I wonder how many readers of the Good Book make the same mistake. To read and understand simple sentences is one thing; to apply what you read to ourselves is something entirely different, perhaps because it takes a different set of faculties, among them the ability to perceive the many strategies we adopt to deceive ourselves into thinking we are better than we really are.
*
Nothing comes more naturally to an Armenian than to hate Turks and to criticize fellow Armenians; and when I say to criticize what I really mean is to engage in verbal slaughter.
*
I have heard Armenians, who treat minor disagreements with fellow Armenians as provocations to engage in verbal slaughter, say that they don’t hate Turks, they only love justice.
*
Why is it that we are outraged when we realize others may be as bad as we are?
*
Far better men than myself have dedicated their lives to writing hoping what they say will make a difference. It hasn’t! Why do I go one? The only plausible answer must be, self-deception. If only deceiving others were as easy as deceiving ourselves.
*
Self-deception is such a common aberration that it is not at all unusual to meet a self-assessed and civilized man who speaks like a barbarian.
*
People who don’t understand themselves and the consequences and implications of their actions and thoughts expect to be understood in a favorable light. Speaking for myself: I never felt so misunderstood as when I was understood.
#
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
*******************************************
Everything that is negative in our collective existence is based on fact; everything positive is based on hope.
*
If there is a constant in our political leadership is its mediocrity. If you hear someone say leader A is better than leader B, remember the old Muslim saying: “If you hear a mountain has moved, believe it. If you hear a man has changed, believe it not.”
*
Is there a single Armenian boss or bishop in whose hands you would be willing to trust the future of your child? And yet, when it comes to the destiny of the nation, we repeat the mantra “It will take two or three generations…”
*
One reason baby Tarzan survived in the jungle is that he had apes as parents and role models.
*
If an Armenian hasn’t hated you, you don’t know what hatred is. An Armenian hates with the accumulated venom of six centuries – seven, if you count the Soviet era – of brutal oppression. Compared to Armenian hatred, all other forms of hatred might as well be expressions of affection.
*
Armenians and Turks share the same illusion: trust in the official version of their past. Perhaps because their past is so unbearable that it would shatter their self-esteem if it were presented to them objectively. Turks see themselves not as victimizers but as heroes, and Armenians see themselves less as victims and more as martyrs.
*
Concerned friends tell me it’s a waste of time writing for Armenians. They may be right. But if I were to write for odars I would use only my brain. When I write for Armenians, I use my brains as well as gut.
*
To encourage others to give generously, fund-raisers publish periodic press releases with headlines announcing the amount of dollars collected. What they don’t tell you is how much of it ended in the wrong pockets.
#
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
*********************************************
Body language is to the spoken word what style is to writing. Words may lie but style does not. I have yet to read a single decent line written by a hoodlum.
*
We all make mistakes, yes, certainly. But what if we are not equipped to do the right thing, and our worst mistakes are made when we think god is one our side?
*
Whenever I think of making a reference to myself in my writings, the first thought that crosses my mind is: Why should anyone give a damn about what a nobody who lives in the middle of nowhere thinks? After which I switch my focus on reality.
*
If you must speak of yourself, speak of your weaknesses. Let others speak of your strengths, assuming you have any.
*
I write to confess my megalomania and the doubletalk of sermonizers and speechifiers.
#