Still in Poznan
The reason why I don't write as often as before is the scarcity of internet cafes in Poznan. It seems so many people own computers that internet places are not necessary. The closest internet place to my home is rather far away... usually I write late in the evening (in general my brain works best - when it comes to any creative work - between 8-12 pm) and it's too late then to walk to the internet place.
I have been spending mornings and early afternoons with my father and late afternoons and evenings with my mother. My father drives me around the city and shows me new buildings, new stores and various projects; with my mom I visit the nearby forest together with Buffo and Max where we meet other doggies and observe them play. In the morning I visit Cafe Krolewska with my dad for the morning tea and paper reading. The political life really sucs and the election of the president is very tough... the candidates are unsuitable to rule a country, even the one which seems to many to be a perfect candidate for president... I visited with my father the grounds of a palace of the Raczynski Family located 20 km away from Poznan, in Rogalin, and on the tumb of Edward Raczynski this line is written: "Don't waste liberty!" Edward Raczynski died in 1993 at the age of 102. Before the WWII he was the Polish ambassador in a few countries and later, after the war, he was the president of Poland in emigration in London since Poles didn't accept the communist government installed after the WWII and didn't acknowledge the communist party leaders as presidents. I think Raczynski could forsee that, as my father points out, the people who are in power now are not patriots (in the good sense of the world) and their main concern is not the welfare of the people of the country they govern but their own... It amazes me, time and time again, how corrupt the local and federal governments are. I understand that this is also due to the habits formed during the 50 years of communism where it would not be possible to survive without being corrupt... but the system has changed and one would hope that the habits would change as well... It is a very complex problem, like all political and economic systems everywhere... Poland in some way resembles Chile: Chile is doing great economically - I read everywhere how great the economy is doing, how strong the currency is, how it is #1 in South America, etc., etc. - yet the worst slums I saw in South America, and so many of them, I saw in Chile. In Poland all the statistics and the papers are full of admiration for the Polish economy and at the same time millions of kids go to school hungry as other statistics say. I understand that everything takes time and the transformation of the system takes time for the new system to work yet I have a feeling that parts of Poland are left alone to themselves and there are no programs for those who lost their jobs due to transformation and don't know what to do with themselves, like the farmers who worked for the collective farms called PGR and who all got fired after the PGR got closed. People such as them are just totally lost in the new system and the new system doesn't do anything to familiarize them with the system. What really gets to me is how the rich expose their wealth. It reminds me of stories I heard about the Russians who got reach overnight and drink shampaigne out of the bottle on the French Riviera. It's not that bad in Poland but I think what this country needs is modesty. Every year a few papers publish "the list of 100 richest Poles" together with the information on how they got "their first million" and most of them got it by illegal ways and are not even ashamed of that... What also gets to me is that the most favorized candidate for president is just a little smoother version of George W. Bush and nobody seems to notice that... Globalization of certain ideas is branching out to the entire planet.
Looking at the parts of the world I travelled through it seems things are not getting into good direction, good for Mother Earth and all the beings who inhabit it. I feel that the rules governing societies got so complicated that not many people understand them or know how they are all connected and what the result of this connection is. The book I read in Guatemala "Sweet waist of America" precisely talked about that. The author wanted to understand who was at fault and who had good intentions in the civil wars of Central America. Even the people with good intentions, such as Che Guevarra and Subcomendante Marcos, eventually become criminals by being the cause of death of people whose fate they wanted originally to improve. He pointed out that all the revolutionaries who wanted the people to raise and defend themselves where intellectuals, raised in rich or relatively rich families, people with certain ideals who wanted the entire world to listen to them, who thought they new the remedy for the injustice of the world... but it seems the remedy which involves arms and hate doesn't work. Maybe the only revolution which works is bloodless revolution (such as that of Gandhi and the Solidarity movement) and even with that it is not certain that the old corrupt system is not going to be replaced by a new corrupt system... What the author of the book says is that the true heroes are those who revolutionize themselves and by their own decent and compassionate life help those who are in their own environment. The silent heroes are the true heroes, he says.
This brings me to two books I have just read. One is Karen Horney's book "Neurotic Personality of Our Time" and I found it interesting that Karen Horney shares my view on the basis of evil which she believes comes from fear which is, according to her, connected to progress and civilization. The second book is Gary Zukav's "The Seat of the Soul" and it corresponds with the idea of the "missing link" or with the idea that man is still evolving and (if he doesn't blow up the earth earlier) it's possible that he will evolve into a higher being, driven not by fear and instincts of survival but by compassion and awareness toward achieving harmony with all living and non-living beings. I like his idea of a man who will perceive the world not by five senses but by more senses, which he rarely is aware of now, and see the world in a multi-dimensional manner. I can see what he means. Have you ever seen a three-dimensional movie? Before you put on the special glasses the movie is flat, when you put them on the picture is very different.... It is a comforting idea that man is evolving, that maybe all the conflicts, suffering and wars he has brought on himself and the fellow beings was a stage he had to go through and eventually he will learn his lessons and the lessons will bring him to non-violent behaviour and respect for life and the universe.
When I think of all this and the idea of non-violence, other senses, and multi-dimensionality, I think of the jungle of Ecuador and I also think of Tibet. I am going to visit my friend Marcin and his wife Dorotka and their little son Karmelek next week. They live in Warsaw. I will spent time with them and also visit the Chinese embassy and ask for the permit to visit Tibet. If I get it, maybe I will first go there. I am still thinking and waiting for a precise plan. I never want to force anything so I will wait and if the precise idea doesn't come, I will just get the train ticket to the fork in the road just behind the Chinese border and will wait there for enlightment where to go exactly...
Marcin will help me post some of the pictures from Poland on the blog. I decided that the rest of them will have to wait for being posted because it requires a lot of work and it's hard to do without my own computer. But soon there will be some pictures of Poland, family, friends and dogs. Dear friends, I miss you all, dearly. I have to say it again that I miss you but you are always with me and your energy pushes me forward to unknown lands. Please keep in touch. I am sending warmest hugs to all.....
I have been spending mornings and early afternoons with my father and late afternoons and evenings with my mother. My father drives me around the city and shows me new buildings, new stores and various projects; with my mom I visit the nearby forest together with Buffo and Max where we meet other doggies and observe them play. In the morning I visit Cafe Krolewska with my dad for the morning tea and paper reading. The political life really sucs and the election of the president is very tough... the candidates are unsuitable to rule a country, even the one which seems to many to be a perfect candidate for president... I visited with my father the grounds of a palace of the Raczynski Family located 20 km away from Poznan, in Rogalin, and on the tumb of Edward Raczynski this line is written: "Don't waste liberty!" Edward Raczynski died in 1993 at the age of 102. Before the WWII he was the Polish ambassador in a few countries and later, after the war, he was the president of Poland in emigration in London since Poles didn't accept the communist government installed after the WWII and didn't acknowledge the communist party leaders as presidents. I think Raczynski could forsee that, as my father points out, the people who are in power now are not patriots (in the good sense of the world) and their main concern is not the welfare of the people of the country they govern but their own... It amazes me, time and time again, how corrupt the local and federal governments are. I understand that this is also due to the habits formed during the 50 years of communism where it would not be possible to survive without being corrupt... but the system has changed and one would hope that the habits would change as well... It is a very complex problem, like all political and economic systems everywhere... Poland in some way resembles Chile: Chile is doing great economically - I read everywhere how great the economy is doing, how strong the currency is, how it is #1 in South America, etc., etc. - yet the worst slums I saw in South America, and so many of them, I saw in Chile. In Poland all the statistics and the papers are full of admiration for the Polish economy and at the same time millions of kids go to school hungry as other statistics say. I understand that everything takes time and the transformation of the system takes time for the new system to work yet I have a feeling that parts of Poland are left alone to themselves and there are no programs for those who lost their jobs due to transformation and don't know what to do with themselves, like the farmers who worked for the collective farms called PGR and who all got fired after the PGR got closed. People such as them are just totally lost in the new system and the new system doesn't do anything to familiarize them with the system. What really gets to me is how the rich expose their wealth. It reminds me of stories I heard about the Russians who got reach overnight and drink shampaigne out of the bottle on the French Riviera. It's not that bad in Poland but I think what this country needs is modesty. Every year a few papers publish "the list of 100 richest Poles" together with the information on how they got "their first million" and most of them got it by illegal ways and are not even ashamed of that... What also gets to me is that the most favorized candidate for president is just a little smoother version of George W. Bush and nobody seems to notice that... Globalization of certain ideas is branching out to the entire planet.
Looking at the parts of the world I travelled through it seems things are not getting into good direction, good for Mother Earth and all the beings who inhabit it. I feel that the rules governing societies got so complicated that not many people understand them or know how they are all connected and what the result of this connection is. The book I read in Guatemala "Sweet waist of America" precisely talked about that. The author wanted to understand who was at fault and who had good intentions in the civil wars of Central America. Even the people with good intentions, such as Che Guevarra and Subcomendante Marcos, eventually become criminals by being the cause of death of people whose fate they wanted originally to improve. He pointed out that all the revolutionaries who wanted the people to raise and defend themselves where intellectuals, raised in rich or relatively rich families, people with certain ideals who wanted the entire world to listen to them, who thought they new the remedy for the injustice of the world... but it seems the remedy which involves arms and hate doesn't work. Maybe the only revolution which works is bloodless revolution (such as that of Gandhi and the Solidarity movement) and even with that it is not certain that the old corrupt system is not going to be replaced by a new corrupt system... What the author of the book says is that the true heroes are those who revolutionize themselves and by their own decent and compassionate life help those who are in their own environment. The silent heroes are the true heroes, he says.
This brings me to two books I have just read. One is Karen Horney's book "Neurotic Personality of Our Time" and I found it interesting that Karen Horney shares my view on the basis of evil which she believes comes from fear which is, according to her, connected to progress and civilization. The second book is Gary Zukav's "The Seat of the Soul" and it corresponds with the idea of the "missing link" or with the idea that man is still evolving and (if he doesn't blow up the earth earlier) it's possible that he will evolve into a higher being, driven not by fear and instincts of survival but by compassion and awareness toward achieving harmony with all living and non-living beings. I like his idea of a man who will perceive the world not by five senses but by more senses, which he rarely is aware of now, and see the world in a multi-dimensional manner. I can see what he means. Have you ever seen a three-dimensional movie? Before you put on the special glasses the movie is flat, when you put them on the picture is very different.... It is a comforting idea that man is evolving, that maybe all the conflicts, suffering and wars he has brought on himself and the fellow beings was a stage he had to go through and eventually he will learn his lessons and the lessons will bring him to non-violent behaviour and respect for life and the universe.
When I think of all this and the idea of non-violence, other senses, and multi-dimensionality, I think of the jungle of Ecuador and I also think of Tibet. I am going to visit my friend Marcin and his wife Dorotka and their little son Karmelek next week. They live in Warsaw. I will spent time with them and also visit the Chinese embassy and ask for the permit to visit Tibet. If I get it, maybe I will first go there. I am still thinking and waiting for a precise plan. I never want to force anything so I will wait and if the precise idea doesn't come, I will just get the train ticket to the fork in the road just behind the Chinese border and will wait there for enlightment where to go exactly...
Marcin will help me post some of the pictures from Poland on the blog. I decided that the rest of them will have to wait for being posted because it requires a lot of work and it's hard to do without my own computer. But soon there will be some pictures of Poland, family, friends and dogs. Dear friends, I miss you all, dearly. I have to say it again that I miss you but you are always with me and your energy pushes me forward to unknown lands. Please keep in touch. I am sending warmest hugs to all.....
posted by Asia Kabat at 4:02 AM
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