Understanding is bilateral and it only makes sense to see through different perspectives to locate the crux.
We all long for peace, but we battle for dominance in resources and military power. That's as easily understandable as survival instinct (philanthropy clearly out of the picture). Don't even condemn the politicians as everyone has their own games to play, whether it's on a tiny or giant chess board. In either case you don't want checkmate. I might just throw it aside in frustration as the complex world loses me but I think it's best to continue to educate myself on the various OS the world's running on.
And if there's any message I'd like to bring into a discussion, that will be see as far as you can. Surface above troubled water.
Excerpts from 'Notes from a small island' by Bill Bryson, a travel journal on an interesting island named Britain.
(Chapter 7, page 81) "Throughout this trip, I would have moments of quiet panic at the thought of ever leaving this snug and homey little isle. It was a melancholy business really, this little trip of mine, a bit like wandering through a much-loved home for the last time. The fat is, I liked it here. I liked it very much. It took only a friendly gesture from a shopkeeper, or a seat by the fire in a country pub, or a view like this to set me thinking that I was making a serious, deeply misguided mistake.
Which is why, if you were one of those cliff-top strollers in Bournemouth that mild evening, you may have seen a middle-aged American wandering past in a self-absorbed manner and muttering,'Think of endless winter months of rain. Think of VAT at 17.5 percent. Think of loading your car to overflowing with rubbish on a Saturday and driving to the dump only to find that it is shut. Think of the strange, unshakable fondness of BBC1 for Cagney and Lacey repeats. Think of...'"
(Chapter 10, page 106) "Indulge me for a moment, if you will. Drum on the top of your head with the fingers of both hands and see how long it takes before either it gets seriously on your nerves or everyone in the vicinity is staring at you. In either case, you will find that you are happy to stop it. Now imagine those drumming fingers are raindrops endlessly beating on your hood and that there's nothing you can do about it, and moreover that your glasses are two circles of steamy uselessness, that you are slipping around on a rain-slickened path a single mis-step from a long fall to a rocky beach - a fall that would reduce you to little more than a smear on a piece of rock, like jam on bread. I imagined the headline - AMERICAN WRITER DIES IN FALL; WAS LEAVING COUNTRY ANYWAY - and plodded on, squinting Magoo-like, with feelings of foreboding."
***
To break away from the magnetic, radiative force of my laptop screen, I forced myself to take a book to a nearby Taiwanese cafe and sat through one and a half hour in late night, trying to read. You have to see the picture yourself: I was surrounded by noisy packets of lovey dovey HK couples and among the sea of romance, there I was making a spectacular attraction by appearing as a book flipping geek who let out bouts of laughters. I wasn't particularly aware of my obtrusivenesses until the guy at next table gestured to his girlfriend to look in my direction. What is there to look at? Haven't you seen a book before? I made a mental note to stay till closing time, out of sheer misloveydoveyanthropic outburst and rebellious stubbornness. I did achieve a great amount of reading, 'seldom seen amount' in months in fact, but eventually decided to go back on my words and pull out when more people flushed in and took my spare chair away. All right, take the table. I'm leaving for good and I swear not to come back for my next night reading session.
Above was my transient thought which made a U-turn and came back middle of nervewhere.
