Saturday 19 June 2004

Pic of the day: Screenshot from the anime Boys Be.... Kyoichi loses not only his calm but his rice bowl when he hears his sister compliment Chiharu's breasts. That's life for a teen, I guess. But even later in life, those of us who don't get any can still get a little excitement - or at least amusement - from

The neighbor's wife

Well, not my next-door neighbors, but definitely in the neighborhood. The road passes right by. Now I wouldn't think twice ... OK, perhaps ... anyway, it is when it happens AGAIN that my synchronicity sense is tingling. I am passing on my way to the shop, and she is gardening by the roadside, or indeed with her feet in the road. The feet, however, are the least of my worries. Somehow it just so happens that when I pass, she is standing with her head low and her butt in the air, in my general direction. In my specific direction, actually, so it would seem to me. And an absolutely awesome butt at that, a butt to be proud of, a masterpiece by any measure. Stunning. Luckily, my saving throw against stun succeeds, so I am not left helpless in the middle of the road.

Even so, I don't take the other road. The road where sometimes another of the neighborhood wives interprets "property rights" as it being right and proper to tan her breasts on the lawn in front of their home. Actually my breast avoidance skill is trained to such a high level that the risk of stun would probably be even lower that way, but ... well, it is summer. In Scandinavia. I am probably lucky as it is.

***

In the Bible we are told not to covet our neighbor's wife (as well as a list of other private property). I haven't reflected much about what it means to covet; in Norwegian the word for desire is used, I don't think we have a separate word. The overly verbose fantasy writer Stephen Donaldson has one of his characters, a Giant (the most verbose of his races) make a crucial distinction between wanting something and coveting it, in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the unbeliever. Due to the extreme length of the books, I simply cannot take the time to find the actual passage, but the gist of it is: When you covet something, you know that it is not for you to have but this does not in the least reduce your longing to possess it.

I think I still did not really understand until I had watched most of the animated series Koi Kaze. The poor main character fell in love with his younger sister before he knew that she was such, and has spent some episodes now coveting her. I am not entirely sure whether to sympathize with him, wish him dead, or both of the above at the same time. I remember we had billy-goats back home on the farm. They were chained with a metal chain around their neck. When the goats were in heat, the poor males could smell it but they could do nothing about their chains. They would struggle as much as they could without actually choking. For that matter, the females were not really better off, but it was a brief thing for them. The males were like that the whole season. I imagine they and this perverse brother could exchange looks of pure understanding.

I, however, don't live that intensely. The world is not quite so substantial to me. Like the Necromancer class in Dark Age of Camelot, which only fight through their zombie servants while they themselves hover invisible and untouchable ... so I also seem to have an extra layer between me and the world. Even if all the neighborhood wives came out and danced naked in the road, I would still be essentially the same person and I would still go buy my yogurt.

That is not to say that the zombie ... er, body, does not have its vital functions. Hardly at any time is this as noticeable as in the summer. I guess I get 10-20 spam mails each day of the particular type "The only solution to penis enlargement", but I don't have to open them now to know that they only offer MORE penis enlargement. That doesn't seem like a solution to me. I am sure if I had a wife, she would have a different opinion. OK, actually I am not sure she would. But supposedly. Anyway, I don't have a wife. The neighbors have. But then again they also pay the price for it, in reduced freedom and increased stress. I can't say I envy them. Hopefully they don't envy me either, well at least most of the time.

***

Why does God let bad temptations happen to good people? Actually he doesn't. Temptations arise naturally from our lack of enlightenment. Most of us don't feel, when we see a cute little kitten, a desire to drag it after our bike or douse it with flammable liquid and set it on fire. But some people are so darkened that they take pleasure from such things. In the same way, the enlightened man does not wish to yell at people who drive too fast or too slow or cut in the line. (It may be good for society to use violence from time to time, but it is hardly ever a good idea for your individual enlightenment.) In the same way, most men feel no desire or attraction toward a corpse, no matter how attractive that human was in life. There is a limit that you do not cross. The enlightened person has limits that go elsewhere, so his life may seem easier. But none of us are gods, to the best of my knowledge, and the truth is that we all have our personal frontier. And on that frontier, whether it is here or there, is our battle. It is the same for us all.

And so I walk on, my pace unchanged this time. I do not turn my head, even though I have done that before. Even my mind's eye barely flickers this time. So perhaps the frontier has moved. The neighbors and their wives will never know. (Well, unless they read the Chaos Node.) There will be new battles a few hours from now. There will always be struggle until we cease to desire life itself, as the Buddha pointed out. And the truth is, if I could live forever I would, even with the daily battle between light and darkness. But I cannot. Like the neighbor's wife, immortality is not for me, and there is no help in longing for it and tormenting myself like the poor goats in chains. It is better to go buy yogurt.