Coming In From The Cold

Spies ... and ... double agents

In the 1963 book ' The spy who came in from the cold ' by John Le'Carre … a British spy behind the lines created by the cold war … finds himself grappling with issues of virtue … loyalty … ethics and most of all … in being honest to himself. He finds himself in an intrigue … which is so incredibly devious in the experience of a double agent … that he eventually comes to the edge of reality itself … or that which resembles reality … in the times.

I had occasion recently … to visit with my memory of the book … when I met an American gentleman … somewhat young at 35 years of age … but who filled me with an incredible curiosity about his own state of mind. The fact that we met on Planet Romeo … compounded the sense of the personal in the relations … and brought out in stark exposure … the deeply profound and hidden … in the nature of the man.

He had sent me a note to say that he liked what I had said on my profile. I had simply stated that I was there to understand myself and the world I live in. So I replied and we had been chatting about a bunch of things over the last one month. He was doing the usual ' playful turncoat ' … or double agent … typical of Americans … in the way they deny that they care … and the way they express their savvy about issues.

Among other things … I referred to my own views about the importance of settling down with a wife … raising kids … and then perhaps … roam the south forties … in search of game. He had informed me that he had lost both his parents and family … in an auto accident … and thereafter had taken over from the father's construction business. And then suddenly … without warning … he had blurted out that he found me a true friend … in fact the actual term he used was an ' eternal friend.'

Two days later … he told me he had US$ 1.3 mil. stashed away in his closet … in an illegal deal on a government project … and could I help him … channel the money here in this country … into some investments? The situation caused me to reel in my mind … but as I paused to wonder on the authenticity of the events I had come to … I realized that in a same sex relation … our lives are like a mirror … reflecting ourselves clearly in what we dearly hoped was praiseworthy … in a friend. A little of the double agent … I guess … in all of us.

It called into intense scrutiny … my own ' playful turncoat ' in my personality … and how I had always thought its all right to do that. But despite the fact that we find ourselves to be our own worst enemy … we are bonded … to our experience of ourselves … in a wickedly contorted sort of way … to overcome our born experience of love … abiding and unmitigated for all humanity. It is the great play of creation … with our willful and knowing participation … in its mesh of relations.

However in coming back … we realize that we have gone too far … and the trust is lost with our experience of the innocence that we were born with. We are left with a gap … in our own relations with our self … to deal with and manage. Such a gap is durable … and despite our expressions of optimism … will not budge or bend to persuasion. Le'Carre's British spy attempts to return … but is killed climbing the Berlin wall. In other similar experiences … we find that man … brings himself to bear the cross … before he is let in.

But in most instances … I figure we are asked to go back out into the world … to find that holy grail that would heal life and limb … and restore the leaves back to their branch. I used to work for a British multinational company … in which the staff would rumor about English managers … leaving money lying around … to test the honesty of staff. These days … we pause to think about the ethics we encounter in society … and perhaps create the view that … pragmatism has substituted for plain ethics in life. And there are many who'll declare that its the Americans … who are at the forefront of such changes.

I informed my young American friend that I wasn't prepared to help him with the money. I advised him to come to a settlement himself on the issue … or risk being on the wrong side of common sense in life. He continued to try to persuade me … but I insisted that my mind was made up. A person cannot heal all the wrongs in the world … but when confronted with one … at a time and place that is suitable … he can at least manage that.