Sunday, January 20, 2013 *************************************** LIFE AND LITERATURE ********************************** Sartre is right. Literature saves no one. As a boy I entertained messianic ambitions. I know now that I cannot even make a discernible contribution to its salvation. * All I have been doing so far is drop a tiny pebble – or is it a feather – in the ocean of our millennial literature. * Compared to the sum total of my predecessors – from Khorenatsi to Naregatsi and from Abovian to Zarian – I am nothing. If they made no difference, can I ever hope to do any better? * Why do I go on writing? The only answer I can come up with is, to kill time and in the process to make a handful of friends who see things as I do. * The human body consists of billions of tiny particles working in harmony. There is life after death provided we don’t identify life as consciousness. * How much of “me” is in the cosmos? Or rather, how much of the cosmos is within me? Everything except my consciousness. If asleep I keep only a fraction of my subconscious (namely, the part that dreams) dead I keep nothing or the same degree of awareness before I was born. * Eternity exists but not as “I” but as something entirely different. How different? We will have the answer to that question only after we die. # Wednesday, January 23, 2013 ****************************************** PARANOIA ********************** For repeating what far better men than myself have said in their effort to solve our problems I am described as a pro-Turkish enemy. * They say nations have the leadership they deserve. No one deserves our leaders except perhaps Turks. * Propaganda is the opium of the people. * Where the dominant mindset is shaped by propaganda, there can be no progress, only gradual decline. * What a book one could write titled: ARMENIANS: SLAVES, VICTIMS, DUPES. * To be infatuated with one’s own prejudices is like compounding a felony. * The history of our literature is clear on this point: We don’t hate those who deceive us, only those who try to enlighten us. # Tuesday, January 22, 2013 ****************************************** REFLECTIONS **************************** There is nothing wrong in saying you were wrong. It means you are willing to move in the right direction. * An unspoken Armenian motto: “If you cannot reason, make a noise.” * A verbal avalanche is not always a valid counter-argument. * Depth and a facility with words are mutually exclusive concepts. * In our environment the more arguments you win the more enemies you make – enemies who will call you pro-Turkish because they cannot think of a worst insult. * We owe all wars and massacres to the propaganda of the 1%. # Wednesday, January 23, 2013 ************************************ AS I SEE IT ************************ If I believe in the absence of God I must also believe in His presence elsewhere. * In an environment where belief in propaganda is the norm, criticism of propaganda will be seen as a capital offense. * When I said I had been a dupe most of my life, a reader demanded: “How do you know you are not one today?” I don’t, and the moment you help me unmask my deceiver I may have a better chance to see the light. * The true atheist is not he who denies His existence but he who speaks in His name. * Dupes come in all sizes and shapes. In the latest issue of PARIS-MATCH I read the following headline: “Even Steve Jobs, creator of Apple, was victimized by a medical charlatan.” * You can recognize a charlatan by the fact that he proceeds from a position of infallibility. #