[Sihanoukville, 11/6/23] I died last night and woke up this morning in Sihanoukville. Since there’s no trace of any god, saint, angel or cherub, this must be hell. The good news is, it’s not all that bad. Though hot enough, there is a sea breeze, so it’s possible for your average sinner to wander around a bit without dropping from a heat stroke or dehydration. Be careful, though, of slippery patches. Horrible drainage is a hellish feature. It’s a miracle I didn’t just fall again.
The suggestion that this too shall pass is always welcome, Linh. We too shall not pass this way again. Best to look at the scenery while we have the chance and look for the good in this life. The outer hellscape is certainly the predominant feature right now in the West. Your roots in the East will stand you in good stead for our remaining days. Journey on!
The problem of being an expat is that you risk emptying even more your own country while being a nuisance or a foreigner on the new one. Of course I agree that life in the current U.S., Australia or Britain is far from healthy. On the other hand, when whites (who are no longer having children) leave, they empty even more the country to multiculturalism, and by escaping to other countries with a different ethnic majority, the same expats help to multiculturalize and westernize those places too. Turning them into the same thing they're running away from, really. I don't really know what is best. I'd escape too, but to where?
This is why if I go anywhere else to end my days, likely, it will only be when I've found a place where my presence will be a boon in some way to those I'd see as firstly my hosts. Before hopefully becoming accepted
I was out yesterday gathering seed stocks off this summer's basil. Two months ago when the basil was full of flowers, there was a crowd of honeybees out there every day doing their thing. God willing I will plant this year's seed next spring and restart the process anew.
I think you're living the way humans are meant to live. We're meant to be stewards tending to life instead of being obsessed with consuming it or blowing it up.
If this is how humans were meant to live then we are truly fucked. Yesterday, before I went out to gather my seed, I heard the low rumble and stopped. We are parked here not far from what was Vandenberg Air Force Base, rechristened Vandenberg Space Force Base by President Trump. Interesting history, they dumped a pile of money into the base in the 70's and early 80's to shoot the space shuttle out of Vandenberg but the project was scrapped when the Challenger failed. Nowadays they shoot commercial rockets but also maintain Minuteman silos, supposedly for readiness testing. A crew and their rocket - sans warhead - are lifted from a silo somewhere in the midwest and dumped into a hole on the base. A Minuteman makes a low rumble on its way out but is gone so fast you wonder what you really heard. And these days that low rumble could be bad news indeed.
Thankfully yesterday's rumble built to a house shaking crescendo and that was good news - the windows rattling violently, pets scared out of their wits. Yes, thankfully it was one of Elon's rockets scattering another couple-three dozen low earth satellites out there for humanity. Someone made a joke that as Elon's low earth satellites start dropping out of the sky there will be a non-zero probability you will be killed by one of Elon's satellite fragments while sitting at your computer arguing with Twitter about your ban from the platform. Anyway, yesterday we got it going both ways: the roaring launch and a huge sonic boom 5 minutes later when the first-stage booster returns to the launch site. It is truly surprising we all - people, pets, and God's wild creatures - don't go insane.
We don't see those insects very often, some bees and butterflies in season. What we see all the time are Lantern flies crawling around and flying off like winged beetles if you try to stomp them. It's a hideous infestation, like an OT plague.
my dad - who was born in canada, made a career in the u.s. army and went various places in europe and asia, would have liked to go to australia but he never made it even though he lived to age 96
i was born in the states and i have canadian citizenship by descent and used to think i might expatriate myself to the great multicultural north, but it doesn't seem practical now - circumstances change
billie jean king, famous lesbian tennis player, said "when you're young you think you're important, but as you get older you realize you are only a speck"
kate bush revised one of her songs so that the chorus goes
we used to say - ah hell we're young
but now we know that life is sweet and so is love
the gospel reading for yesterday's roman catholic mass was about the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom to show up - the wise virgins brought enough oil for their lamps, the foolish virgins didn't - since they had to go to the marketplace to buy oil [it's open at night? i guess it could be] they ended up being locked out of the wedding - the wise virgins wouldn't lend them any oil - one homily on the topic stated that the oil stand for "virtue", which cannot be passed from one person to another
jesus said he taught in parables to make sure that only some people understood him - those who got it got it, and those who didn't get it just didn't get it
i wrote the following in my 20s or 30s - maybe i quoted it here before:
zen, 6th century
a special transmission outside the scriptures
no reliance on words or letters
direct pointing to the soul of man
seeing into the nature of self and the attainment of buddhahood
volkswagen, 20th century
a standard transmission underneath the chassis
strong reliance on gasoline
goes where you point it
seeing out through the windshield and the attainment of buddhahood
i wrote this when i had a volkswagen - now i have a mazda, assembled in hiroshima [although i am no foreign car snob - in between i have had a ford and a chevy]
Why the adjective 'lesbian', why the need to advertise someone's sexual preference... that belongs to identity politics.., for in context it's useless information otherwise.
Good news Linh excited for your return. I appreciate the line in the essay about your host not having long conversations because there is no one around worth having one with. It's like that these days, so I end up having vicarious interactions through the digital channels and their memes.
The suggestion that this too shall pass is always welcome, Linh. We too shall not pass this way again. Best to look at the scenery while we have the chance and look for the good in this life. The outer hellscape is certainly the predominant feature right now in the West. Your roots in the East will stand you in good stead for our remaining days. Journey on!
The problem of being an expat is that you risk emptying even more your own country while being a nuisance or a foreigner on the new one. Of course I agree that life in the current U.S., Australia or Britain is far from healthy. On the other hand, when whites (who are no longer having children) leave, they empty even more the country to multiculturalism, and by escaping to other countries with a different ethnic majority, the same expats help to multiculturalize and westernize those places too. Turning them into the same thing they're running away from, really. I don't really know what is best. I'd escape too, but to where?
It is a really sad state of affairs that so many white people don't seem to feel at home anywhere in the world these days.
A couple of articles I've read in just the last couple of days related to this topic:
A piece about an anti-white "art" show currently on at the Vancouver Art Gallery:
https://www.eurocanadians.ca/2023/11/conceptions-of-white-exhibit-at-vancouver-art-gallery
A piece about white male heroin addicts in Baltimore:
https://craignelsen.substack.com/p/a-toxic-baltimore-brew
This is why if I go anywhere else to end my days, likely, it will only be when I've found a place where my presence will be a boon in some way to those I'd see as firstly my hosts. Before hopefully becoming accepted
Basically, the overblown mobility in our modern world works cultural chaos and decline, and that works two ways.
Interesting observation!
"When did you last see a butterfly, ladybug, grasshopper or bee?"
I saw a butterfly, grasshopper, and bee a couple days ago raking leaves. What a great reminder to appreciate the little things.
But those skeletons of buildings are just wild. Humanity is seriously lost and confused.
I was out yesterday gathering seed stocks off this summer's basil. Two months ago when the basil was full of flowers, there was a crowd of honeybees out there every day doing their thing. God willing I will plant this year's seed next spring and restart the process anew.
I think you're living the way humans are meant to live. We're meant to be stewards tending to life instead of being obsessed with consuming it or blowing it up.
If this is how humans were meant to live then we are truly fucked. Yesterday, before I went out to gather my seed, I heard the low rumble and stopped. We are parked here not far from what was Vandenberg Air Force Base, rechristened Vandenberg Space Force Base by President Trump. Interesting history, they dumped a pile of money into the base in the 70's and early 80's to shoot the space shuttle out of Vandenberg but the project was scrapped when the Challenger failed. Nowadays they shoot commercial rockets but also maintain Minuteman silos, supposedly for readiness testing. A crew and their rocket - sans warhead - are lifted from a silo somewhere in the midwest and dumped into a hole on the base. A Minuteman makes a low rumble on its way out but is gone so fast you wonder what you really heard. And these days that low rumble could be bad news indeed.
Thankfully yesterday's rumble built to a house shaking crescendo and that was good news - the windows rattling violently, pets scared out of their wits. Yes, thankfully it was one of Elon's rockets scattering another couple-three dozen low earth satellites out there for humanity. Someone made a joke that as Elon's low earth satellites start dropping out of the sky there will be a non-zero probability you will be killed by one of Elon's satellite fragments while sitting at your computer arguing with Twitter about your ban from the platform. Anyway, yesterday we got it going both ways: the roaring launch and a huge sonic boom 5 minutes later when the first-stage booster returns to the launch site. It is truly surprising we all - people, pets, and God's wild creatures - don't go insane.
We don't see those insects very often, some bees and butterflies in season. What we see all the time are Lantern flies crawling around and flying off like winged beetles if you try to stomp them. It's a hideous infestation, like an OT plague.
Here's to old friends.
Here's to Nate.
Thanks, Linh. Bet you will be happy to be back in Viet Nam! Great to see your face!
my dad - who was born in canada, made a career in the u.s. army and went various places in europe and asia, would have liked to go to australia but he never made it even though he lived to age 96
i was born in the states and i have canadian citizenship by descent and used to think i might expatriate myself to the great multicultural north, but it doesn't seem practical now - circumstances change
billie jean king, famous lesbian tennis player, said "when you're young you think you're important, but as you get older you realize you are only a speck"
kate bush revised one of her songs so that the chorus goes
we used to say - ah hell we're young
but now we know that life is sweet and so is love
the gospel reading for yesterday's roman catholic mass was about the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom to show up - the wise virgins brought enough oil for their lamps, the foolish virgins didn't - since they had to go to the marketplace to buy oil [it's open at night? i guess it could be] they ended up being locked out of the wedding - the wise virgins wouldn't lend them any oil - one homily on the topic stated that the oil stand for "virtue", which cannot be passed from one person to another
jesus said he taught in parables to make sure that only some people understood him - those who got it got it, and those who didn't get it just didn't get it
i wrote the following in my 20s or 30s - maybe i quoted it here before:
zen, 6th century
a special transmission outside the scriptures
no reliance on words or letters
direct pointing to the soul of man
seeing into the nature of self and the attainment of buddhahood
volkswagen, 20th century
a standard transmission underneath the chassis
strong reliance on gasoline
goes where you point it
seeing out through the windshield and the attainment of buddhahood
i wrote this when i had a volkswagen - now i have a mazda, assembled in hiroshima [although i am no foreign car snob - in between i have had a ford and a chevy]
Why the adjective 'lesbian', why the need to advertise someone's sexual preference... that belongs to identity politics.., for in context it's useless information otherwise.
why the need to complain about what i chose to write?
Good news Linh excited for your return. I appreciate the line in the essay about your host not having long conversations because there is no one around worth having one with. It's like that these days, so I end up having vicarious interactions through the digital channels and their memes.
you got your visa vietnames, this is what your life was tended towards, congratulations, stay there and enjoy it for ever.
g.
one day I will travel to these places on a motor bike