Monstaville Book II. Chapter 23

23

“Justice can proceed with wisdom. Revenge cannot.”

- Ken Carey (The Third Millennium, p.118).

“At mainstream school. Children sniffed out his vulnerability and hounded him down. What would he say to those bullies now? ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover. Live and let live. Autistic people have the same rights as anyone else. To deny them those rights is the ultimate sin. I don’t believe in revenge.’ We have to learn to forgive. Anyway, I know I’ve done well enough to set them a maths problem,’ he says, breaking into a huge grin. ‘I can hold my own now.’” - From an interview by Genevieve Fox with Marc Fleisher regarding living with Asperger Syndrome, Evening Standard. His first book is called Survival Strategies for People with Autism Spectrum (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, U.K., 2005).

“Marc Fleisher's new self-help guide for autistic teenagers and adults will help readers improve their quality of life and overcome many everyday challenges, be it through the acquisition of independent living skills, developing a more varied and fulfilling social life, or mastering a course in higher education and broadening one's opportunities for the future. Marc Fleisher speaks from firsthand experience about the coping strategies he himself has had to learn - often the hard way.” (www.f84.blogspot.com/2008/04/survival-strategies-for-people-on.html).

SUMO (Shut Up, Move On). The straight talking guide to creating and enjoying a brilliant life by Paul McGee (Capstone Publishing Limited, West Sussex, U.K., 2006).

p.22. Even if you are a genuine victim, ultimately you need to learn how to become a survivor.

p.26. But what if I do believe I have been unfairly treated or discriminated against? Are you suggesting I simply ‘get over it’ and stop making a fuss? Absolutely and categorically not. The key is not to remain helpless. You may have been a ‘victim’ but you must see yourself as a survivor. You must assert yourself when necessary and do all you can to challenge inappropriate actions by an individual or organisation.

                The message from this chapter is that some people, consciously or unconsciously, habitually wear the Victim T-shirt. In doing so, they abdicate responsibility for their lives. Removing the T-shirt is an indication that no matter what life has given us so far or will give us in the future, we take control of our response. If you want your life to get better, you’ll never be able to achieve it until you remove your T-shirt. Change does not happen when circumstances improve; change happens when you decide to improve your circumstances.

p.31-32. William James, one of the pioneers of modern psychology, said ‘You change your life by changing your attitude.’ Quite simply, when you think differently, you feel differently, behave differently and ultimately achieve different results...You get a different result and outcome because you changed how you thought about the situation.

p.33. The most important message you receive as you grow up is the one that influences how you see yourself. Messages that affirm you for who you are, as opposed to for what you do, will help you develop a healthy sense of personal identity. Equally, a bombardment of messages that remind you of your inadequacies and failings will help sow the seeds of low self-esteem.

p.67. You are not a robot who can turn your emotions on and off at the flick of a switch. In order to move on, you need at times to acknowledge the emotions you are feeling.

p.157. Hope is not a strategy.

Like the sperm that is successful in the long run: it is going somewhere while others attack it. They live for power in a temporal world, now, and are going nowhere. So it all balances in the end. You leave them behind - like the hare and the tortoise - and cross the finishing line of self-awareness and completed identity. They appear powerful in the short-term but you win the game in the end by achieving your goals.

 The Revelation of Ramala (Neville Spearman, Jersey, 1978), p.124-125.

...over many lives, Man has been deceived by falsehoods he has built up within himself, within his soul, a protection against the speech of his fellow-men. Throughout his evolution unevolved Man has communicated through the means of speech. During higher phases of consciousness, when the Earth was more evolved, speech was not used, but for most of the time Man has communicated through speech and, as such, much of the wickedness and evil of Man has come through his mouth. So Man has an inbuilt resistance to speech but he cannot resist, his soul cannot deny, Truth when he sees it. If he sees Truth with his eyes his soul sees it, and there can be no denial. One deed is worth a thousand words.

                If you really intend to walk the path, pay particular attention to your deeds. Every time you are going to do something get into the habit of thinking most carefully about it first, especially when it affects your fellow-men, so that your actions, when you perform them, are the result of careful judgement and not quick personality decisions. Man remembers you more by your actions than by your words.

                So many of the basic principles of life in your World today are wrong that you will find yourselves in conflict with them in almost every aspect of life. You will eat differently. You will drink differently. You will live differently. You will behave differently. You will think differently. You will feel differently. In all these ways you will become different from your fellow-men. It is therefore very easy to create conflict and to antagonise people. What you must ensure, however, is that people do not antagonise you. Your actions, if they are correct, will produce different responses in people according to their soul evolution. If a man recognises the Truth in you sometimes it will annoy his personality, and he will dislike you for it. That you will have to accept. It is the reason why you are here. Eventually, as he continually sees the example before him, that man will change.

                What you yourselves must guard against is that you do not become antagonistic towards your less-evolved fellow-men. If you see a man kill, if you see a man steal, if you see a man tell falsehoods, even if you see a man trying to destroy the Truth which you have established, you must not feel antagonistic towards him and create evil thoughts because of what he is doing. This is a most difficult lesson to learn. Remember that you are the evolved ones, and the first duty of evolved souls is that they are here to be of service to their less evolved brothers and that, with the power of their evolved thought, they can easily create a greater force for evil.

                So be tolerant of your less evolved brothers who do not think and feel like you. It is, for many of them, merely that they are the products of the Age, of the falsehoods that have been taught and passed down from generation to generation. Remember the difficulties that you yourselves have experienced in changing your ways of life and in expanding your own consciousness. You, perhaps, may have had a more favourable environment and received greater help than your less evolved brothers, and therefore you are in a position to help them.

“Start the day with a great attitude. Fix it before you get out of bed and remind yourself of it throughout the day. Attitude is EVERYTHING.” - Gary Bate (from ‘7 Principles of higher conscious living,’ 2012, www.whatstress.com).

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” - Elisabeth Kubler Ross (Transitions).

In the Disney film, Bambi (1942), the rabbit named Thumper, as Wikipedia notes, “took it upon himself to teach the fawn various tricks, notably that of speech. He succeeded in teaching Bambi a few words, notably ‘bird’ and ‘flower’ which Bambi accidentally used to name a young skunk. Thumper tried to correct Bambi but the skunk said, ‘That's alright. He can call me Flower if he wants to. I don't mind.’ The three animals go on to become friends and this encounter provides another moral lesson in the virtues of tolerance and an easy disposition.”

Remember, Be Here, Now by Baba Ram Dass (a.k.a. Dr. Richard Alpert; Hanuman Foundation, Santa Fe, NM., U.K., 1971).

“Suffering is great. It’s like straightening-by-fire. It’s purifying. It’s good. This trip requires total suffering but it’s got to be suffering that’s no suffering. You’ve got to be the whole suffering trip but: You can’t be the guy who is suffering.”

“Am I he who is being pained? NO! That’s the thing. Once you know that then pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and shame, are all the same. They’re all just happening.”

“You’re standing on a bridge watching yourself go by.”

“You are it

It’s really just another cop-out to be searching for the guru. He’s your fingernail. Just bite your fingernail and you’re eating him alive. When you know how to listen, everybody is the guru. Speaking to you. It’s right here...always.

Here and now

I keep doing this because I don’t think people thoroughly grok the fact that here is where it all is. After you finish the whole thing and you’ve vibrated your spine for years and done your pranayam and meditated for years and years and sat in a cave and ants have eaten your arms and legs, here you are...you’re right here again...and what your mind is you were here all the time and it’s such a cosmic joke it’s so funny your struggling to get HERE.”

Monstaville Book II. Chapter 22

22

“He who angers you conquers you.”

- Elizabeth Kenny.

The Art of War by Sunzi.

“Evaluate, then attack. Wars are won by strategy, not brute force.”

From the Introduction of The Art of War: The Denma Translation by Sun Tzu (translation, essays and commentary by the Denma Translation Group, Shambhala, MA., U.S., 2001, www.suchns.com/about2.html).

"About 2,300 years ago in what is now north China, a lineage of military leaders put their collective wisdom into written form for the first time. Their text was to shape the strategic thinking of all East Asia. It offered a radically new perspective on conflict, whereby one might attain victory without going to battle. Though in the West their text is called The Art of War, in China it is still known as the Sun Tzu, named for the patriarch of their lineage [the great general and military strategist in 6^th century China]...The text shows how to conquer without aggression, whether our conflict is large or small, personal or national…The wisdom of this book is a profound human knowledge, something to which every one of us has access. It does not belong to any proprietary group, Chinese or Western. It shows a way of working with conflict that is sane, kindly and effective. Though the Sun Tzu offers models of behaviour, it does not suggest we copy them. Instead, it invites us to enter its teachings fully. When we do so, we find we come naturally to the same insights that are contained within its text. The Sun Tzu begins with the understanding that conflict is an integral part of human life. It is within us and all around us. Sometimes we can skilfully sidestep it, but at other times we must join with it directly. Many of us have seen the destructive power of aggression, whether on a personal level or in the disasters of armed conflict. We know as well the limitations of most political and personal responses to that aggression. How can we work with it in a more profound and effective way? The Sun Tzu recommends that our response to conflict start from knowledge, of ourselves and of the other...

Self-knowledge in the Sun Tzu includes awareness of the full condition of our forces, but it begins with something far more intimate: knowledge of our own minds. People come to this knowledge in many ways. The contemplative practices offer one means of insight. More basic than any particular practice, though, is the openness of mind to which it leads. This openness can be present in all our activities. We find ourselves there when we experience a sudden moment of beauty. It is the unformed, creative source of the performing and plastic arts. Athletes know it as ‘the zone,’ and lovers do not even name it. It is where they are most at home and their actions most effective.
                Why, though, would anyone wary of aggression’s destructive force study a text about conflict? As the Sun Tzu says, it is essential to know ourselves, to know our own minds. But we also live in a world where aggression cannot be avoided. We must know the other in order to skilfully engage him or her. It was necessary, therefore, to learn to work directly with the conflict in our environment, not ignore it, submerge it, give up on it or try to deny its existence. However profound our individual wisdom, it will not survive in the world unless it is joined with some kind of power. Recognising this seems especially important at the present time, when the consequences of human action can be so thoroughly devastating. This text, then, shows how we could work with conflict both within and outside ourselves."

Quotations taken from Wikipedia.

    * If ten times the enemy's strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, divide them; if equal, be able to fight them; if fewer, be able to evade them; if weaker, be able to avoid them.

    * Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

    * The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting.

    * What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.

    * The more you read and learn, the less your adversary will know.

    * Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.

    * A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.

    * Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

    * All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

[Alternatively: “All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him”].

    * If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

    * He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.

    * He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.

    * Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

    * O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands.

    * Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

    * Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

    * When the enemy is at ease, be able to weary him; when well fed, to starve him; when at rest, to make him move. Appear at places to which he must hasten; move swiftly where he does not expect you.

    * Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible. Thus he is master of his enemy's fate.

    * To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.

    * Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions.

    * Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.

    * One defends when his strength is inadequate, he attacks when it is abundant.

    * Being unconquerable lies with yourself; being conquerable lies with your enemy.

‘Sun Tse Bing Fa. An ancient Chinese text by Sun Tzu, commonly known as The Art of War’ (www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?SunTseBingFa).

An ancient Chinese text not so much about fighting wars, but getting your way without having to fight wars. It is really about social manipulation, and tends to go against many parts of western idealism. However, one can argue that if you don't follow the principles, then you will be victimised by those who do. One can also say that social wars are the better alternative over physical ones. It may be the reason why some Asian cultures are sometimes characterised as ‘peaceful but manipulative.’ However, its approach can be found in marketing departments and boardrooms in the west also. It seems the west is simply ashamed to document such rules of conduct in a larger sense despite it being common practice, but in Asian culture it is often seen as mere survival.

                It should perhaps be required reading by anyone entering the real world after college. But no college would put it on their list because its content often does not fit western ideals.

“Chance favours the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur.

“Life often resembles a battlefield - you must fight for what you desire. We all want to win but only a few are victors and even fewer can sustain their success. To win you do not need great force as long as you possess the secret of well thought-out strategy.” - Chao-Hsiu Chen (The Chinese Art of Winning. Strategems for Success, Connections Book Publishing Limited, London, U.K., 2002, p.11).

Master Po (Keye Luke): Fear is the enemy, trust is the armour.

Young Caine (Radames Pera): But not knowing what will happen, am I not wise to be afraid?

Master Po: He who conquers himself is the greatest warrior. Do what must be done with a docile heart.

Young Caine: Master. How can I know if this is possible for me?

Master Po: Listen for the colour of the sky. Look for the sound of the hummingbirds wings. Search the air for the perfume of ice, on a hot summer’s day. If you have found these things, you will know.

                - Kung Fu (Season 1, Episode 4, ‘An Eye For An Eye,’ 1973).

Master Kan (Philip Ahn): The best charioteers do not push ahead. The best fighters do not make displays of anger. The wisest antagonist is he who wins without engaging in battle.

Young Caine (Radames Pera): But Master, is this not a contradiction? To train the body thus, yet shun anger in battle.

Master Kan: This is the power of not contending. It is how the weak overcome the strong.

                - Kung Fu (Season 1, Episode 7, ‘Nine Lives,’ 1973).

Master Kan (Philip Ahn): Perceive the way of nature and no force of man can harm you. Do not meet a wave head on: avoid it. You do not have to stop force: it is easier to redirect it. Learn more ways to preserve rather than destroy. Avoid rather than check. Check rather than hurt. Hurt rather than maim. Maim rather than kill. For all life is precious nor can any be replaced.

                - Kung Fu (pilot film, 1972).

"Do not conquer the world with force, force only causes resistance. Years of misery follow a great victory." – Laozi.

Master Kan (Philip Ahn): Weakness prevails over strength. Gentleness conquers. Become the calm and restful breeze that tames the violent sea.

                - Kung Fu (Season 1, Episode 1, ‘King of the Mountain,’ 1972).

 

A warrior is unafraid to be humble.

A warrior is willing to fight with one hand and love with the other.

A warrior never breathes a word unless it comes from the heart.

A warrior must follow their heart and vision.

A warrior never chases their adversary because an adversary requires resistance.

A warrior never creates the situation but deals with the situation as it presents itself.

A warrior never asks, ‘Have I done enough for one day?’

A warrior strives for the top by helping someone else reach it.

A warrior knows peace and is willing to give their life to achieve it for others.

A warrior knows how to find love in any moment because they have learned to love themselves.

A warrior is not afraid to laugh at their own mistakes

A warrior never stops but knows when to let go.

A warrior will go with the flow and celebrate the moment.

Knowing the power of their touch use it wisely.

- QuietBuck (posted on YouTube in December 2007).

“Whoever angers you controls you. When you don´t deal with anger in a timely manner, it turns into other negative emotions like resentment, bitterness, hate. Take action to stop the cycle before the roots are so deep they are almost impossible to destroy.”(www.christian.lifetips.com/cat/56602/anger-the-good-bad-and-ugly).

“To be the ‘impeccable warrior’ means having a willingness, vigilance, persistence and commitment to self-examination and self-discipline. No matter how lofty our spiritual perception, on the Earth plane there is continuous learning and growth. People and situations are mirrors, showing us where healing is needed…Enlightenment is about awakening to the wisdom inherent within us, and that includes learning how to live with our linear, imperfect human selves from the perspective of our non-linear, perfect spiritual selves. It is about having love and compassion for ALL parts of the self, no matter how clumsy or messy they might appear. Parts of self that appear to be out of balance are, as A Course In Miracles aptly states, asking for love and acceptance.” – Sal Rachele (‘The Pursuit of Perfection, www.salrachele.com).

“I'm not going to lie down and let trouble walk over me.” - Ellen Glasgow (www.quotelady.com/subjects/strength.html).  

“An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.” - William M. Thackeray.

“People who do not know how to laugh are always pompous and self-conceited.” - William M. Thackeray.

“A good laugh is sunshine in the house.” - William M. Thackeray.

Monstaville Book II. Chapter 21

21

‘They pray to God and when He doesn’t answer they turn to the Devil.’

“When God assigns a particular lot to a person, this does not preclude him from exercising consent, desire and free will. But when God sends suffering, the spiritually weak react by fleeing from God; the lovers of God react by moving closer to Him. In battle all fear death, but the cowards choose to retreat while the brave charge toward the enemy. Fear carries the courageous forward, but the weak-spirited die in themselves. Suffering and fear are touchstones: they distinguish the brave from the cowards.” - Rumi, Masnavi IV: 2914-20 (Rumi: A Spiritual Treasury, compiled by Juliet Mabey, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, U.K., 2000).

“A coward dies a thousand times. A brave man dies only once.” (Arab maxim).

Pigsy is trying to make me feel bad - as bad as he does.

Pigsy: Your problems are your problems. They are nothing to do with me. Stop taking them out on other people. ‘What goes around comes around.’

Hardcore chat with Tom, the club doorman.

If Pigsy enters your flat - which could be his next step - you could use a stick: keep a baseball bat near your door. Hit him on the head; batter him. Then you explain that you were in fear for your life and it would be OK in court. If you go to court for fighting, says Tom, never say you do martial arts. They can then say it was premeditated, that you knew what you were doing and had a choice: you did not have to hurt your attacker badly. Surely everyone has a right to defend themselves though? Or what is the point of learning a martial art? Apart from the confidence to deal with situations more effectively and hopefully avoid violence. I mean, unless you really hurt or injure him, he is likely to persist and you risk coming off worse.

‘If you live by the sword, you die by the sword’: that is, if you take a weapon with you, you might be harmed by that or a similar weapon, provoking another’s use of one to combat you. Tom says he was threatened by someone using a knife once whilst working as a doorman and he warned the guy that he would be stabbed by his own knife accidentally in a struggle. And that’s exactly what happened. Tom slowly backed further and further away, leading him into the club for extra space whilst trying to dissuade him from doing something he would regret, and then stood his ground, giving the man his final warnings. When he thought, ‘Right, I’m going to take control of this situation, he swung the guy around using a technique he had learned and the knife ended up lodged in his face! (He taught armed combat in the army!).

Tom says the best martial art to learn is the one they use in the Israeli army (called krav maga which, according to Tom, is expensive to learn). It is designed to deal with all the basic combat situations one is likely to encounter (especially against people wielding guns and knives). It is very practical and effective.

A former soldier whom I knew for a while suggested that, should one find oneself under threat outside, it could be very effective to shout very loudly, ‘Put the knife away!’ in order to draw attention from other people in the area.

In a physical situation with Pigsy, phone the police ASAP. If you can, phone them when it is happening! (Or as soon afterwards as possible so that he can be caught). If he has a knife, they may send a weapons unit because they are keen to deal with weapons assaults skilfully. They take it very seriously. He could go down for 5 years. It is a very serious offence. Even just threatening you with a knife; even just pointing a finger and calling someone names is a mild offence with a penalty. Breaking anything, such as a nose, or a laceration is considered GBH. If caught, if you had him arrested for using a knife, or for having it, you need to emphasise that you were in fear for your life. You can get a restraining order on him so that, if he even just makes a noise, you can call the police and they will come round to see him.

“Fear not, your enemies shoot their invisible arrows upon you only as long as the Lord allows. But when their time comes, ye shall be free of all evil.” - Old Testament.

“‘Love conquers all, and is the only weapon that ye need.’” - St. Francis (The Shining Brother by Laurence Temple, Psychic Press, London, U.K., 1941, p.101).

“Done is an ignoble deed

By another - so you get angry.

Aren’t you just like him?

Who wants to copy the very same act?

If, wishing to provoke you,

Another acts aggressively,

By allowing anger to spring up,

Why do that which he would have you do?

If you are angry, maybe or maybe not

You make the other man suffer;

But even here and now to yourself

You inflict the pain that anger brings.”

- from Positive Response. How to meet evil with good by Acharya Buddharakkhita (A Buddhist Publication Society booklet, Sri Lanka, 1987, p.34).

Regarding the prospect of using violence (which has never been my intention), someone suggested that I get his legs and throw him onto the floor where I can attack or threaten him. An Irish friend said I should tie some cord across the stairs so he trips and falls down, then deny that I put it there, just to show him that he is in as much potential danger as I am living here, and give him a lesson he will remember. I mentioned that he might see the cord and not fall for it and the guy said, ‘So what? You still didn’t put it there and don’t know anything about it.’

“Success is the best revenge.” (French proverb).

“Living well is the best form of revenge.” - George Herbert, Clergyman (1593 - 1633).

“The best revenge is not to be like that.” - Marcus Aurelius (Meditations: 6.6, translated by Gregory Hays, p.69).

“The noblest way to avenge yourself is not to become as they are.” (An alternative translation of the above perhaps). Don’t become like the wrong-doer.

“There is almost no reason in the world to fight. But there is every reason in the world to know how to fight: It gives one Mark Twain’s ‘confidence of a Christian with four aces.’” - Robert W. Smith (Chinese Boxing, p.12).

Pigsy, you need to grow up and take responsibility for your own shit instead of trying to dump it on other people, and trying to accuse them of the behaviour you fear, the behaviour to which your own weakness and lack of self-discipline can easily lead, and which you also enjoy. It’s your shit. Deal with it. Your problems are your own, not mine or anyone else’s.

“Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.” - USC Professor Leo Buscaglia.
 
The Merchant of Venice (film adaptation directed by Michael Radford, 2004). Extract from comments by Beth Accomando, 28 January 2005, www.blogs.kpbs.org/index.php/movies/comments/the_merchant_of_venice).

Michael Radford: What is so wonderful is that Shylock has every right to be angry about what happens to him, he’s a man of great dignity, that’s how we play him, but he goes too far. (:37)

Portia (Lynn Collins): Then must the Jew must be merciful.

This is when Portia, now promised in marriage to Basanio, arrives at court in the guise of a young male judge. She advises Shylock on the quality of mercy.

Portia: It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven upon a place beneath. It is twice blessed, it blesseth him who gives and him who takes.

But Shylock, blinded by revenge (for a different affront), chooses not to be merciful.”

Shylock turns to the law to exact his revenge in the name of justice, but justice, when it involves the human heart, is tempered with mercy, not blind and ruthless vengeance.

"There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness." - Han Suyi (Chinese author).

You are a fool to target me. Just because I am financially in such a weak position that I am forced to live in a run-down part of London, it does not mean that I belong here or that I accept the low quality of life that others here do. It does not mean I have such low self-esteem or even that I am lacking in confidence. It means that I am a struggling but hard-working artist who is learning certain lessons cut off from society. It also means that my experiences and observations here will become part of my ‘art,’ for artists transform and release their pain into products that others may use. And artists are at the heart of any society; hence, they often endure the hardest lessons that a society faces. My will and intelligence make me less vulnerable than I might appear. I am a ‘victim’ of capitalism and the widening fissure in society as global corporations are pitted against the common people more than anything. We are all waiting for the return of strong and enlightened government, not just in national, but in international terms.

“One must endure without losing tenderness.” - Ernesto Che Guevara.

Self-defence Against Fresh Fruit.

Colonel (Graham Chapman): Get some discipline into those chaps, Sergeant Major!

Sergeant (John Cleese): [shouting throughout]: Right sir! Good evening, class.

All [mumbling]: Good evening.

Sergeant: Where's all the others, then?

All: They're not here.

Sergeant: I can see that. What's the matter with them?

All: Dunno.

Self-defence student (Graham Chapman): Perhaps they've got flu.

Sergeant: Huh! Flu, eh? They should eat more fresh fruit. Ha. Right. Now, self-defence. Tonight I shall be carrying on from where we got to last week when I was showing you how to defend yourselves against anyone who attacks you with armed with a piece of fresh fruit.

[Grumbles from all]

Self-defence student (Michael Palin): Oh, you promised you wouldn't do fruit this week.

Sergeant: What do you mean?

Self-defence student (Terry Jones): We've done fruit the last nine weeks.

Sergeant: What's wrong with fruit? You think you know it all, eh?

Self-defence student (Michael Palin): Can't we do something else?

Self-defence student (Eric Idle): [Welsh] Like someone who attacks you with a pointed stick?

Sergeant: Pointed stick? Oh, oh, oh. We want to learn how to defend ourselves against pointed sticks, do we? Getting all high and mighty, eh?  Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh? Well I'll tell you something my lad. When you're walking home tonight and some great homicidal maniac comes after you with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me!

- Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different (directed by Ian MacNaughton, 1972).