Mythos & Kallos · Part 07-08
Mythos & Kallos · Part 7
After B finished speaking, a voice rose in objection — yet it came neither from A nor from C.
D: I am afraid I cannot agree with what you have just said. Your words carry considerable prejudice and error.
B turned, and seeing D clad in the full vestments of a traditional cleric, instinctively crossed both arms, the posture markedly defensive.
B: I had not expected to encounter your kind even in so remote a place. Have your missionary footprints now extended to this sparsely peopled little town? Going abroad dressed like that — do you not find it inconvenient?
D: As one of our people, when you travel abroad, you ought not blacken our traditions before friends of foreign nations.
B: Ha — I do not blacken tradition; I merely speak certain facts that everyone knows, though not everyone will utter them aloud.
A and C stood to the side, distinctly sensing the thick smell of gunpowder and the evident hostility between these two compatriots.
D: How much do you truly understand of our traditions? And how much do you understand of these so-called "facts"? Very likely, all that you have encountered are but distorted, one-sided words!
B: The same words I return to you. There is no need for such agitation. If anything in my earlier remarks was improper, you may point it out directly. These two foreign friends believe in the Gods just as you do, and I, an atheist, stand outnumbered. Give thanks to the Gods — is this not the perfect opportunity for you to denounce, to your heart's content, this impious atheist?
D: I have no intention of attacking you, my kinsman. I merely believe the path you have chosen is mistaken, and I bear a responsibility to clarify before our foreign friends: our religious tradition is not so wretched as you have described.
B: Were this ancient times, one such as I would surely have been physically annihilated by your kind; and according to your doctrine, my soul would sink forever into Hell — is that not so?
D: The truth is not entirely so; the threads of history are far more complex than you imagine.
B: Reverend cleric, you say "not entirely so" — does that not amount to admitting that such a possibility indeed existed, and that it was no small one? If one searches the histories, in ages past my kind would have counted as a species of heretic — and the most detestable species at that.
D: You forever interpret history through the eyes of the oppressed, yet you overlook that our religious tradition has also borne the roles of protector, enlightener, and guide.
B: You, enlighteners? Then pray tell, what have you enlightened, what have you taught? Taught people that every religious creed is truth? Taught people that the conduct of clerics is beyond question? Taught our people to submit for a thousand, ten thousand years to those so-called sacred laws, permitting not the slightest reform? If your teachings were truly as correct and infallible as you claim, how could our people have endured so much suffering? Or will you now add the line: that all of this was the Gods' testing and trial of mortals?
D shook his head.
D: There is too much negative emotion in you — far removed from the rationality you profess.
B: The same to you.
D: You were raised in a religious school. According to your own observation, were all those cleric-teachers of yours truly fossilized reactionaries who oppressed their students day after day? You and I both know the truth is otherwise.
B: Just as you say, those teachers of my past, though somewhat old-fashioned, were mostly not wicked men. Yet that which truly oppresses is not any particular person, but the dogma that imprisons the thought of my people, and those strata who exploit the name of sacred thought for their own gain. The power of an ideology is not something an individual can resist, and the interests of a class will not waver for any individual's likes or dislikes. People often believe themselves to be following correct thought and performing righteous deeds, while in reality committing wrongs — this is no rarity in the history of my people.
D: You who so negate tradition and worship the modern — how can you be certain that the thought you now profess is correct?
B: Indeed, I cannot be certain. But I will think, question, and adjust my views as far as I am able. Unlike the immutability of religious dogma, my worldview permits self-correction. I experiment, I observe, I improve — this is the very core of the scientific spirit. I act rationally according to observable facts, rather than entrusting my will to nebulous ancient myths. Traditional religion retreats step by step before rational modern science — is this not clear proof of its want of validity?
D: Modern science is not omnipotent, and the modern rationality you exalt has its own limits. You believe you have penetrated to a deeper layer of the world's truth, but very likely you are only a blind man groping at the elephant — having touched the tip of the iceberg, you mistake it for the whole. Scientism (Scientism) is self-consistent and valid only within particular domains and bounds; yet people cannot find all of life's answers from science alone. In recent years religious currents have risen anew — why? This is a fact you cannot deny; the energy of religion is not so simple as you imagine.
B: For a cleric such as yourself, this must be a gladdening development? What appears to you as revival appears to me as regression. I must confess, I underestimated the power of ignorance, underestimated people's craving for superstition — I had not imagined the market for psychological and spiritual consolation to be so vast. But these remain, in the end, mere superstitions — castles in the air built upon unverifiable myths. They are as dream-bubbles and phantom shadows, as a mirage over the sea; they cannot withstand rigorous scrutiny, and in the end they shall not withstand the test of time.
D: You regard it as superstition, but for countless souls among my people, it is a truly existing wellspring of meaning! Can science tell you the origin and purpose of life? Can science answer what the meaning of life is? Can science explain where man goes after death? Science cannot truly guide a person in building the core of a worldview! People grow lost, people feel hollow — people need a direction for their lives! And these, science cannot provide!
B: Science indeed cannot answer these questions you raise, and I likewise hold these questions of existential meaning to be of the utmost importance. Yet I absolutely do not believe these questions must be answered by Gods, or resolved by some "prophet." The world abounds with religions, each with its own mythic tales differing from the rest; I might as well choose one at random to believe in, and then proclaim that I have grasped "the meaning of life" — but what meaning would that have? I would rather observe and listen with my own eyes and ears than blindly trust ancient myths handed down after countless revisions.
D: This is precisely the calamity brought by the superstition of modernity (modernity)! You accuse our traditional religion of imprisoning people's minds — are you not likewise imprisoned by the modernity you profess? You scorn myth, yet modernity (modernity) itself may be but another man-made myth (myth). If you look back carefully upon history, you will find that the course of scientific development was likewise filled with many devout believers; history is far richer and more varied than your simplistic "historiography of modern progress" would have it.
B: Ha! You are right — perhaps I have indeed been imprisoned by the faith of modernity, but I would rather be imprisoned by things that can be verified, that can be repeatedly tested. That which can be ascertained is far superior to a mirage over the sea.
D: You do not understand — it is precisely the superstition of modernity that has wrought the spiritual nihilism of our age; it is blind obedience to modernity that has dissolved the moral foundations of humankind. You see only the liberating face of modernity, yet you fail to perceive the profound crisis it has brought upon our people.
B: So long as we keep our feet upon solid ground, we can walk step by step toward a better future — and such is the progress of civilization. In the course of civilization there will inevitably be missteps and windings of this kind or that, causing people in their defeats to look backward, searching among ancient things that have long lost their worth; but in the end, today shall surely surpass yesterday, and the modern shall surely surpass the ancient. If your kind could lay down that past you take such pride in, perhaps you might the sooner welcome a brighter future.
D: Is the modern truly better than the past? When you speak these words, you speak as though you yourself were a true prophet — but do you truly understand what you are saying? You need only look around you to discover the universal decay of morals: people grow ever more selfish, neglecting their duty to the community; people no longer keep their promises, drifting carelessly through life; people have lost reverence for the Gods, their eyes filled only with money, chasing only power and visible profit; people live dissolute lives, lustful and lecherous, unclean in conduct. People have lost the simplicity and honesty of ancient times — they have become cunning, become unscrupulous, knowing neither honor nor shame, knowing only calculation.
B remained silent, arms still crossed.
D: Look at this present world: everywhere the money-worshipping capitalism and consumerism; everywhere the cold industrialization and standardization; look upward, and there looms the bureaucratic apparatus like a monster; and adorning all around it — the scientism that reduces all meaning to atoms and numbers, the entertainment-driven and shallow mass politics, the culture without depth, and the cheap modern intellectuals peddling newly coined jargon. Where, then, lies the meaning of life? Man grows ever more like a machine, and man's worth falls even below that of the lifeless machine. You believe yourselves to be pursuing progress, but that is only an illusion — you are merely chasing a fashion named "modernity." The pallid mediocrity of the modern can only be fought with pleasures as fleeting as narcotics, and the struggle is doomed to futility. You have created a deformed monster, and to its ignorant life you have offered up everything.
B: This refrain I have heard countless times in my homeland — there is nothing new in it. Your kind forever nurses unverifiable, beautiful fantasies about antiquity, believing that whatever is ancient, whatever is traditional, is beautiful. If antiquity were truly as lovely as you say, the average lifespan of the ancients would not have been so brief. You forever project your sweet dreams of antiquity onto the interpretation of history — but was the cruelty of antiquity somehow absent? You say the ancients were simple and pure, yet the ancients slaughtered infants and razed cities without the slightest mercy. Deeds that would mark one absolutely as a war criminal in modern society were in ancient times heroic exploits praised by all. Is this the "ancient morality" that you archaizing clerics wish to promote?
B waved a hand and continued:
B: You say modern man has sunk to the depths of moral decay — but is your clerical class not decayed as well? One need not even cite modern examples: you, who know the scriptures and the laws so thoroughly, know well how much the scriptures themselves record of this. Were the ancient priests, clerics, kings, and nobles described in those scriptures not greedy for wealth and lustful for flesh? Did they all truly fear the Gods? If you hold that believing in religion and revering the Gods preserves one from moral decay, then you are refuting the very scriptures you believe in! "Antiquity was a Golden Age" is merely another myth. The modern may not be as perfect as we imagine, but its progress far surpasses the ancient! I truly cannot comprehend those who at every turn advocate restoration of the old — do they truly know what they are resurrecting? Return to several centuries ago and all shall be well? Ha! How adorably naive!
D: My kinsman, you too have read the scriptures thoroughly, yet you twist their meaning for the sake of your position. The clerics may have decayed in morals, but this differs in essence from the catastrophic decay brought by unbelief in the Gods.
B: What difference is there between the two? I truly cannot see it.
D: The positions of God and man have been inverted! The consequences of this run far deeper than you imagine!
B: Ha — that is assuredly a good thing.
D: You do not understand! Child, you understand nothing at all! God must be placed first! Man must stand after God! This is the greatest difference of all! This inversion is far graver than the moral decay of certain clerics!
B: What madness! When I need food, do I not seek out one who can cook for me, rather than pray to the Gods to provide? When I thirst for knowledge, do I not consult a teacher, rather than pray to the Gods for revelation? If the Gods could truly answer every human need, why has my people suffered crushing defeats again and again through the long river of history, and met calamity upon calamity? Oh — you will say these were God's punishments upon man, and that man must go on believing in God!
B spoke with a tone of revulsion.
B: No — we do not need God, nor do we need God's help; we need only man. It is man who has helped man, and only man can help man; let the Gods dwell at ease in their celestial realm and never descend — that is the finest order for this world! From ancient times until now, it is humanity itself that has walked step by step from the Stone Age to this day; even if once we needed Gods to provide solace for the soul, today there is no longer any such need! Humanity can forge its own path, and civilization shall only advance ever further!
D: To me, this is the greatest madness of all. You do not understand at all what you are saying! You will destroy the very foundations of your own civilization — you may even bring extinction upon humankind. Have wars, each more terrible than the last, not made you reflect? Has technology's advance — to where humanity can erase hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives with a single bomb — not made you tremble? Is the age truly progressing? Or is it regressing? Why, with technology so advanced, do the poor remain so numerous, and hunger remain unabolished? Why can technology not halt hatred — why can the advanced modern thought you so praise not restrain the ever-growing madness of politics? Do you not reflect? If modernity were truly as lovely as a fairy tale, why, after all this development, do so many still live in a Hell upon earth?
B: We do reflect — but we do not need God to instruct us in our reflection. Man will always have his private desires, but we do not need a God whose private desires are infinite!
D: You who profess faith in science — if your very premise is mistaken, how can you arrive at correct conclusions? If the Gods truly exist, all your assumptions collapse into a laughingstock.
B: If the Gods truly exist, then prove it to me! Where is God? Tell me — where is God! I cannot see, cannot touch, cannot hear. Behold — you can prove nothing, yet you demand that people believe blindly. Ha — is this not the greatest joke under Heaven?
D: You forever believe that humanity can solve everything, that by human reason alone all difficulties can be overcome; that given enough time, you will create a civilization like Utopia. No — I tell you, it is not so. No matter how far technology develops, no matter to what version your so-called modern political thought is updated, no matter what unimaginable forms the pursuit of modernity may take — the beautiful world-Utopia you envision shall never arrive!
B: We do not need an absolutely perfect future; we ask only for a relatively better tomorrow. The present may not yet be beautiful enough, but the future shall surely find its way to realization. In the past, hunger claimed countless lives; today, fewer and fewer die of hunger. In the past, most people could not read; today, illiteracy declines year by year, and education spreads ever wider. Civilization is progressing in solid substance — you cannot deny these things!
D: Before that relatively beautiful future of yours arrives, I fear you had first better pray that humanity does not destroy itself. Do you not hold that humanity is universally rational? How then could humanity bring about its own annihilation?
B drew a deep breath.
B: I hold that one of the roots of hatred between peoples is religion itself.
D: What prejudice is this!
B: It is not prejudice, but the most veritable fact. You believe the religious tradition of our people to be the most correct — do you not?
D: Of course I do, and I take pride in it. You ought not reject your own tradition; without it there would be no us, and without it there would be no you.
B: You believe our religious tradition to be the most correct, while our enemy nation likewise believes their religious tradition to be the most correct — is this not the very fountainhead of hatred?
D: Not all peoples have received the favor of the true God.
B: You mean that we have received the true God's favor, and our enemies have not? If you hold this, then I may equally claim that it is in fact our enemies who have received the true God's favor — for behold, how crushingly were we defeated in the last war? How utter was our defeat.
D: Absurd beyond measure! Sheer raving! I can scarcely believe such venomous words issue from the mouth of my own kinsman! Do you understand at all what you are saying?
B: Ha — this you cannot accept? Since the true God stands on the enemy's side, why not have our whole nation convert to the enemy's faith? Perhaps in the next war we might win back a city or two?
D: Such impiety toward the Gods! Atheism has poisoned you to the marrow! Truly beyond salvation!
B: I deeply love the culture of this land of mine — but I do not love those Gods of my culture who exist only in mythic tales! I love only the human beings I can see! Does that make me beyond salvation? It is you who are beyond salvation!
D: You do not understand! You truly do not understand! You do not comprehend the true wellspring of a civilization's culture!
A and C noticed that D was struggling to suppress a rising fury.
D: I deeply apologize for losing my composure before friends of foreign nations. I assure you both: our cultural tradition is by no means so wretched as this. I hope that one day you may visit our country, and see for yourselves how warm and hospitable are those regions not yet corroded by modernity (modernity).
B: Enough! Perhaps you and I are both a joke. How chaotic the politics of our nation is — any clear-eyed visitor sees it at a glance upon setting foot on our soil; there is no need to speak these surface pleasantries to our foreign friends. You say I do not know the true wellspring of a civilization's culture. I grant that in the past, our prophets, our priests, our nobles bore the responsibility of cultural transmission — but the true fountainhead of a civilization's culture can only be all the people of that civilization! The prophets are gone! The priests are gone! The nobles are gone! You clerics, in the future, will be no different from secular scholars. And when that day comes, the culture of our civilization will still be handed down. Objectively speaking, you shall pass away in the end, and the great wheel of history shall roll on.
B: Perhaps even now you can still sway certain politicians and tilt the currents of the age — but that shall not save you. Life should not hold only God; life should not exist only for God — this is the beautiful future longed for by many, myself among them. The beauty of your imagining we do not need; you may be laboring most earnestly at what you believe to be right, but history shall prove you wrong — and I hope you will accept this fact sooner rather than later.
Having spoken these words in high agitation, B drew a deep breath and turned to A and C.
B: My apologies — I must take my leave first. I shall remain in this town a while longer; we shall speak again when occasion allows.
After B departed, A and C noticed a deep desolation upon D's face, and heard D murmuring softly.
D: Why is it that the children simply do not understand? They will destroy themselves; without God, they will destroy themselves. The children do not believe. Teacher, I do not understand — I have tried my utmost to remain patient; Teacher, I wish to do all within my power, yet no matter what, I cannot do it well. The children never understand; the children believe only in themselves. O God, what am I to do? Why is the world of men so filled with false hopes? Why is the mortal realm so filled with inescapable calamities? O God, my God…
This desolation was profoundly unfamiliar to C — never in C's own country had C beheld a cleric so sorrowful.
Mythos & Kallos · Part 8 · Tyrant α
Several days after that unpleasant quarrel, B once again encountered A in the tavern of the little town.
A was seated in a dim corner of the bar. When B caught sight of A, A was lifting a glass, sipping lightly at a cocktail that seemed monotonous from afar, yet up close revealed itself richly colored and layered.
Though A was drinking alone, A was not without company; beside A slumped a person deep in drunken sleep.
B: Hey, what are you doing here? Is this your friend? May I sit here?
A: Oh, my friend, how glad I am to see you again — please, be seated. I imagine that when my companion awakens, my companion too shall be delighted that a new partner in discussion has joined us.
B: I imagine your discussion must have been dreadfully tedious, for your friend to prefer drinking into oblivion rather than continuing. Was it those classic strange questions of yours that killed the conversation?
A: By the Gods above, I can assure you my companion did not find conversing with me a boring affair. Though for most of the time I merely listened, offering nothing of insight, my companion was clearly delighted at having performed beyond the ordinary in the arts of debate tonight. That spiritual satisfaction kept my friend from putting down the cup — and the result is what you now behold.
B: What were you debating?
A: In truth, our earlier exchange can scarcely be called a debate, for I could raise no objection, nor could I assemble any effective argument. I remained the beleaguered defender, barely holding the line; and just as my friend was about to seize the decisive victory, perhaps Heaven took pity on ignorant and helpless me — the God of Sleep (Ὕπνος = Hypnos) descended and delivered me.
B: The color of that drink in your hand is truly strange — it does not look appetizing at all. And you still have not said what you were debating. Perhaps, during this intermission, I might offer you some counsel and stratagem?
A: My drunken friend proposed a thesis tonight — the thesis was that "the tyrant (τύραννος = tyrant) is beautiful" — and my friend declared that I would be unable to refute it.
B: How could a tyrant possibly be beautiful? Would refuting that thesis not be the easiest of things? But what I would rather ask is this: does your friend truly believe this thesis? Does your friend come from a country under a tyrant's dictatorship?
A: Oh, from my limited experience, I believe this friend does not in fact hold the view that "the tyrant is beautiful." Yet my friend is practicing a certain art (τέχνη = techne) that seems to me quite terrifying; this terrifying art (τέχνη = techne) can make the unreasonable appear reasonable, and likewise make the reasonable appear unreasonable. This friend of mine can argue a proposition from the affirmative side or the negative side; but whether affirming or negating, my friend must always emerge the victor — and I, alas, have become the sparring dummy.
B: Haha, your friend is truly amusing. Though I do not believe such an art truly exists in this world — for truth cannot be concealed — I suspect our conversation will prove most interesting. And now I feel somewhat disinclined to help you, for to prove that "the tyrant is beautiful" might indeed be a fascinating thought experiment.
A: Heavens, how could you? Have you no compassion? No thought of aiding the weak? Do you truly believe that "the tyrant (τύραννος = tyrant) is beautiful"?
B: Of course I do not believe the tyrant is beautiful — my faith lies in modern science, constitutionalism, and democracy. This was merely my small revenge for those strange questions of yours from before. Yet on the other hand, I have indeed been pondering how one might prove this thesis that "the tyrant is beautiful"; after all, everyone in this world abhors tyrants — whoever they may be, all regard the tyrant as a mortal enemy. I am curious: in theory this debate is plainly one you should more easily win — why then were you so utterly defenseless before your friend?
A: Oh, my friend is far more widely learned than I; even with my innate advantage in this war, it could not level the gulf between us. Amid the clash of attack and defense, my mind stood empty; I could only struggle to recall a myth (μῦθος = myth) I had mostly forgotten, yet I could not fashion it into effective speech.
B: Haha, you truly are a lover of myths. Then why did you not speak aloud the myth you could remember, and thereby refute your friend?
A: Because I discovered, to my horror, that the myth (μῦθος = myth) I remembered would not only fail to help me withstand my friend's assault, but would instead cause me to collapse from within and complete my own destruction. This truly filled me with despair.
B: I am most curious what this myth of yours actually is.
A: Oh, my friend, I can recount to you the myth as I remember it, but I beg you not to tell this myth to my drunken friend, for I do not yet wish to surrender. I wish to win the final Victory (Νίκη = Nike = Victory) in this war; even if the Hope (Ἐλπίς = Elpis = Hope) of Victory (Νίκη = Nike = Victory) is so faint, yet since the God of Sleep (Ὕπνος = Hypnos) has already turned His gaze upon this war, a mortal — however despairing — must display mortal defiance before the Gods.
B: Your manner of speech is exceedingly strange. I promise you this: I shall not tell your friend what you tell me.
And so A recounted to B a myth concerning the tyrant (τύραννος = tyrant).
Long, long ago, a person searching through old archives found, in a dust-laden records room, a file concerning an old man who had gone mad in his final years. The documents, stacked together, were remarkably thick, covered with annotations in the handwriting of many different people; these annotations were so numerous and so tangled that the archive-searcher was seized by a feeling of having nowhere to begin.
After a period of sorting and disentangling, the archive-searcher came to understand, from the various fragments, the life of this deranged old man, and compiled it into a set of notes, adding it to that mountain of archives already swollen beyond measure.
The deranged old man had once held high office — a core figure of a regime. He could have passed peacefully toward life's end amid splendor, wealth, and a house full of children and grandchildren; yet for certain reasons, in his late years he defected alone from his own country, fleeing to an enemy nation to seek asylum.
Even though he had once stood at the core of power, grasping the levers of the machinery of state, he could not take his family with him; this he could not accomplish.
After his defection, his family suffered immense calamity on account of his treason: some died, some went mad, some lived lives worse than death.
The old man had known, before his defection, that these consequences would inevitably follow, but in his despair he believed he had no other choice. His purpose was one alone: to overthrow the regime he had once served in loyalty. He himself, of course, could not accomplish this single-handedly; he could only place his hopes in the enemy regime to fulfill his wish. The enemy of one's enemy may not be a friend — but is at least the enemy of one's enemy.
He believed he had a righteous cause, yet he could not suppress the profound guilt he bore toward his family, his students, and his friends.
He knew he had ruined the wife who had accompanied him through so many years. Before departing, he breathed not half a word to her; he kept his secret from the one closest to him and most trusted, for he did not know whether his home lay under some more hidden surveillance.
He knew he had ruined those children of his who had been destined to share the fruits of the established order; he knew he had ruined his grandchildren, not yet grown. His descendants, even if they did not die, would sink to the political bottom of society.
He knew he had ruined his students: ruined those students overflowing with talent, ruined those students whose hearts still held naive ideals, ruined those students who, in a society starved of trust, had still been willing to trust him.
He knew he had ruined the friends bound to him by affection — whether allies of interest or intimates of the heart.
He knew he had ruined many others besides, but he did not know their names; he knew only that those nameless people had been misled by him, deceived by him.
This remorse, like a tsunami, tormented him without ceasing, and in his solitary dwelling the old man's mind grew ever more unstable.
The government sheltering the old man therefore decided that — beyond the routine surveillance-protection and medical personnel — under the pretext of assisting the old man in writing his autobiography, an additional person would be assigned specifically to converse with him. The government's analysts judged that this might ease the old man's mental affliction.
This task could only be undertaken by one whose political loyalty was beyond question.
Yet no one was willing to take the assignment. The work carried no political significance whatsoever, and no one wished to face, day and night, a mentally unsound defector-official whose symbolic political value far exceeded his actual worth.
And so, a person who had chosen the losing side in an internal political struggle was assigned to carry out this meaningless task.
This unlucky soul's codename in the archives was R005.
On the very night R005 learned of the new assignment, R005 sank into a still deeper depression, unable to sleep even after taking medication.
Yes — R005, who had picked the losing faction, likewise suffered from severe mental illness, and had long been under psychiatric treatment.
A friend of R005, likewise politically marginalized for backing the wrong side, upon hearing of this, said in jest: such things are truly fitting for our country — the mentally ill treating the mentally ill, the mentally ill managing the mentally ill, the mentally ill ruling the mentally ill. No novel could ever imagine a plot of reality that so transcends mundane logic; politicians are the true artists.
R005 wrote in the notes that R005 had once seen this old man on television. But truthfully, when meeting the real man face to face, R005 could recognize him as the same person only by his outline. The old man before R005 bore not the slightest trace of a high official of weighty power; he seemed rather a terminal cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy — the corrupting flesh sliding inevitably toward life's end, able only, in extreme agony and utter helplessness, to delay the coming of Death (Θάνατος = Thanatos).
R005 recorded: in all fairness, those cynical old men in the park looked a hundred times better than he did.
Scattered about the old man's room were scraps of paper covered in chaotic scrawls. R005 could not discern what logic this well-educated old man was trying to express in that heap of fragments; what R005 saw was only boundless madness.
R005 told the friend: this is what a true madman's room looks like — compared with this, I am still quite normal, quite healthy.
When R005 met the old man, the television in his room was playing some childish children's cartoons; the old man's mind was plainly not on the screen — perhaps he merely wished for some sound in the room.
Old Man: Hello — might you be the one who is to help me write my autobiography?
R005: Yes, sir. I am honored to take part in this work; we are fortunate to glimpse the history you have witnessed.
Old Man: Thank you. My sinful life holds little worth telling. The government wishes me to write an autobiography of myself, and I am boundlessly grateful — yet I do not know where to begin. My mind is flooded with remorse. I persist in living rather than taking my own life because I hope to see the day that regime collapses. Though I know this will not happen within my remaining years, still I harbor this hope — it is the sole reason by which I persuade myself to go on living. Perhaps if I live one more day, I might yet see it? I know I deceive myself — but what if, by some small chance, such a miracle truly occurs?
R005: Sir, the miracle will come. Life always holds hope.
Old Man: Miracle… I do not believe in miracles… but I hope the miracle comes…
Then, suddenly, the old man burst into uncontrollable weeping.
Old Man: Miracle?! Miracle?! Will a miracle truly come?! Teacher deceived me! Teacher deceived me!
R005 was instantly at a loss, utterly unable to comprehend why the old man, conversing calmly one moment, had emotionally collapsed the next.
R005 tried to do something, and steeling all nerve, asked: What teacher? Sir, who is this teacher you speak of?
Old Man: The painter! The painter! The painter who passed by my home! I do not know Teacher's name… he was a painter… when I was still small, he taught me some things, and I called him Teacher. He told me… that miracles exist.
R005: What miracle?
Old Man: He said he had once been a very, very bad man, and had now become not so bad — and that this was a miracle. He deceived me — miracles do not exist!
The old man's emotions spiraled wholly out of control, and the conversation could proceed no further.
Subsequent analysis concluded that the word "miracle" was the key trigger of the old man's emotional reaction, and it was recommended that R005 henceforth avoid raising any concept related to "miracle." Since the old man was fluent in many languages, the government's analysts even conducted, specifically for each language the old man knew, a certain etymological tracing of the word "miracle."
The analysts advised R005 to memorize these etymological connections, which might prove useful in future conversations.
Gazing at the dense etymological materials in hand — thick as a page of magic spells — R005 felt only a crawling of the scalp.
Only at that moment did R005 remember that this old man — emotionally shattered, weeping like a six-year-old child — had once been a core figure of the enemy nation's educational system and propaganda apparatus; that this old man's education exceeded that of most members of the team; that he himself had once been the teacher of countless people, with countless students under his instruction.
And that the old man had survived to this day proved, too, that he possessed a singular discernment in worldly affairs and political alignment — otherwise he would long ago have been eliminated in the many political purges.
R005 thought: this truly is an absurd world.
At this point, B, listening to A speak, could not help but interrupt.
B: Wait — this is not a myth, surely?
A: Why do you say so? My friend, this is a myth (μῦθος = myth).
B: This is a story, not a myth. Its content is far too modern — utterly incongruous with the word "myth"; and besides, there are no Gods in this story. A story without Gods cannot be called a myth.
A: Ah, my friend, I think there is a certain reason in what you say. But this myth contains the concept of "miracle (θαῦμα)" — might it perhaps just barely count as a myth (μῦθος = myth)?
B: "Once a very bad man, now become not so bad — this is a miracle" — this counts as a miracle? A miracle must be an awe visible to the naked eye — the moving of mountains and overturning of seas, the changing of heaven and remaking of earth — beyond the reach of human power, surpassing imagination. That is what is called a "miracle."
A appeared deeply troubled, deeply torn.
B: Never mind. If you insist on naming this story a "myth," then let it be as you wish. For my part, I hold that the concepts of "modern", "story" and "myth" require a certain demarcation; they must not blur into one another — there must be clear boundaries between them.
A: Why so?
B: It unsettles me, and it makes me uncomfortable.
A: I had not thought this would offend you, my friend.
B: It is nothing. Pray continue with this "myth", friend.
Only after many sessions with the old man did R005 laboriously piece together the figure of the "Painter-Teacher" of whom the old man spoke.
Yet the old man's narrations contained contradictions between earlier and later tellings, and the reality of this "Painter-Teacher" could not be verified. The old man's psychological state cast doubt on whether he could lucidly maintain the boundary between the real and the illusory; the "Painter-Teacher" was very possibly nothing but a product woven of the old man's chaotic memories and imaginings.
Even so, R005 continued — soothing the old man to steady his emotions on the one hand, while on the other recording, fragment by fragment, the old man's portrait of the "Painter-Teacher."
R005 complained to the friend: why does my psychiatrist do nothing but prescribe pills? R005 felt more like a practicing psychotherapist than the licensed psychologists — and yet R005 was in fact a patient who had to take medication on schedule. What a mad world this truly is.
R005's friend replied: perhaps your psychiatrist is also taking the very pills they prescribe.
In the old man's "memories," when he was ten, or eleven, or perhaps twelve years old, a stranger (ξένος = xenos = stranger) came to the little town where his family lived; the stranger seemed to be a painter who traveled and sketched as he went.
The old man felt that the stranger's paintings were in truth nothing remarkable, but the stories he told were captivating. And so the children of the town would gather from time to time around the painter, delighting to hear his tales.
One day, the old man (then still a child) saw the painter painting beside a small stream.
Old Man (Child): What are you painting?
Painter: I am painting the spirals in the water.
Old Man (Child): It's not pretty.
Painter: I do not think it is pretty either.
Old Man (Child): If it's not pretty, why do you still paint it?
Painter: I am still learning.
Old Man (Child): How many years have you been learning to paint?
Painter: A good many years now.
Old Man (Child), giggling: You're so stupid — learning for years and still haven't learned it.
Painter: Indeed, I have no particular gift for painting.
Old Man (Child): Then why do you still paint?
Painter: One must always be learning — even the things one is not skilled at, no? And you? Child, what are you good at?
Old Man (Child): Mathematics. The teachers at school all say I calculate very fast — that I have a real gift for mathematics.
Painter: How impressive. So do you wish to become a mathematician when you grow up?
Old Man (Child): I don't know.
Painter: Have you no dream?
Old Man (Child): Dream?
Painter: Yes, a dream. Or, to put it another way: is there some question you have kept pondering ever since you were very small?
Old Man (Child): No, not really. Do you have one?
Painter: Me? I do. Ever since I was small, I have wanted to know what a miracle (θαῦμα = thauma = miracle, wonder, marvel) is.
Old Man (Child): That's so silly — miracles don't exist at all!
Painter: Why?
Old Man (Child): The teacher at school said so.
Painter: And what else did the teacher at school say?
Old Man (Child): Teacher said we should study science and engineering well, and then…
Painter: And then what?
Old Man (Child): And then drive out the foreigners who bully us!
Painter: Your teacher is very bold indeed.
Old Man (Child): Are you afraid of the foreigners too?
Painter: Our nation has perished, and foreigners whose language and culture differ from ours now rule over us — yes, I too am afraid.
Old Man (Child): Right? Our teacher says the same.
Painter: So your dream is to become a mathematician or scientist, and then drive out the foreigners?
Old Man (Child): I don't know — maybe. Though I calculate fast, I don't seem all that interested in mathematics.
Painter: Oh? Then what question does interest you?
Old Man (Child): One day, our teacher showed us some photographs and said this man was a famous tyrant (τύραννος = tyrant) in history, and told us not to imitate him — that we must be good people.
Painter: And then?
Old Man (Child): But… when I looked at that picture, I thought the tyrant looked very handsome — not like a bad man at all.
Painter: Is that so?
Old Man (Child): And then I thought: every person was once a baby, and teacher says babies are all innocent and pure. So I wondered — how does an innocent, pure person become a tyrant, a bad man? I asked teacher this question, and teacher said: if you learn bad things you become a bad person, and looking handsome does not mean he or she is good.
Painter: Oh?
Old Man (Child): Teacher gave me an answer, but from time to time I still can't help wondering: why does a baby become a tyrant?
Painter: A most interesting question indeed.
Old Man (Child): And you? Have you found your miracle?
Painter: Heh heh — I have found it.
Old Man (Child): I don't believe you.
Painter: Why do you not believe me?
Old Man (Child): Teacher says there are no miracles in this world — only science and human effort. The true miracle is science.
Painter: Is that so.
Old Man (Child): So you should stop believing in miracles!
Painter: But I truly have found a miracle.
Old Man (Child): I don't believe you. What did you find?
Painter: I was once a very, very bad man, and now I have become not so bad — this is a miracle.
Old Man (Child): Liar! That's not a miracle!
Painter: But this is a miracle.
Old Man (Child): That's not a miracle. I don't believe you.
Painter: I am not deceiving you — I do not deceive children.
Old Man (Child): Then prove it to me.
Painter: Think of it this way: do you not find little babies terribly noisy? They only cry — cry, then eat, eat, then sleep, and wake to cry again.
Old Man (Child): Yes, little babies are very annoying.
Painter: And then, slowly, the little baby becomes less annoying — no longer merely crying all day, but responding to its parents. From knowing only itself, to knowing that there are others in the world, knowing how to answer others, engaging in ever more meaningful exchange with those beyond itself.
Old Man (Child): Mm.
Painter: Do you play with children a few years old? Do you find them very annoying?
Old Man (Child): Yes, children a few years old are also very annoying.
Painter: But not as annoying as little babies?
Old Man (Child): Not that annoying, I suppose — but I still won't play with them; they're stupid.
Painter: This is the miracle, child!
Old Man (Child): That's just normal growing up. You're lying.
Painter: Oh, child — perhaps one day you will discover that I have not deceived you. That a human being grows — this fact in itself is a miracle (θαῦμα). That a person grows is a thing of wonder; and that which awakens wonder is a miracle (θαῦμα).
Old Man (Child): You really aren't lying to me?
Painter: I truly am not lying to you.
Old Man (Child): I'll go back and ask teacher.
Painter: You trust your teacher very much.
Old Man (Child): Teacher is very good to us — they even gives us snacks.
Painter: How lovely.
Old Man (Child): Then let me ask you: does a person keep growing forever?
Painter: Oh, that is by no means certain.
Old Man (Child): What happens to a person who does not grow?
Painter: Perhaps you might imagine it thus: a child of several years who still, like a little baby, cries then eats, eats then sleeps, sleeps then wakes, and wakes only to eat again?
Old Man (Child): How frightening — does such a thing really happen?
Painter: Oh, it is quite common.
Old Man (Child): You're lying — I've never seen it.
Painter: I am not deceiving you.
Old Man (Child): Are there really such people in this world? Are they sick with some disease?
Painter: There are, child. They suffer from a disease of wishing to freeze Time (Χρόνος = Chronos = Time); they hope thereby to substitute it for Eternity (Αἰών = Aion = Eternality), and to live out their days in a paradise where one never grows up, until life's very end.
Old Man (Child): Does such a disease really exist?
Painter: It truly does.
Old Man (Child): Is this disease hard to cure?
Painter: I am not sure myself. Would you like to become a doctor?
Old Man (Child): Teacher says becoming a doctor is very hard.
Painter: Being a doctor is very dangerous work — the doctor may well be infected by the patient; it takes a measure of courage (ἀνδρεία = andreia = bravery) to be equal to it.
Old Man (Child): Can't the doctor just be careful?
Painter: Oh, or you might imagine a situation such as this: the patient is very beautiful to behold, and — like all who gaze upon beautiful things — the doctor cannot resist reaching out to touch the diseased patient; and thus the doctor stands in danger of infection.
Old Man (Child): Is that sort of thing common?
Painter: Very common indeed.
Old Man (Child): How terrifying — I don't want to be a doctor anymore.
Painter: Then what do you want to be?
Old Man (Child): I don't know. Do you have any suggestions? What do you think I should be?
Painter: Child, you and I have something in common. Perhaps you could come and learn this work that I am doing?
Old Man (Child): A painter?
Painter: I am not a painter.
Old Man (Child): Huh? You're not a painter — then what are you?
Painter: I am one who pursues miracles (θαῦμα = thauma).
Old Man (Child): Does pursuing miracles count as a job?
Painter: I suppose so? I am not certain myself.
Old Man (Child): Does this job have a name?
Painter: Oh — I seem to recall a saying, though sadly I have forgotten its source. The saying goes roughly thus: people discovered the traces of miracle (θαῦμα) within myth (μῦθος = myth); people marveled in wonder at the miracle (θαῦμα), and so people became lovers of myth (μῦθος = myth); and the lovers of myth are forever in pursuit of the miracle (θαῦμα).
Old Man (Child): Doesn't sound like much.
Painter: I think so too.