Peking Duck

I wanna do that

I suppose the politically correct word is … Beijing Duck … but it isn't quite what an individual expectation would have formed … in his predilection. They hang these by the neck … in a glass compartment … and display it … to folks on the street. As a child I used to pass these restaurants … … and wondered about the … hum of whispers … I got from my guts. I guess I might have wanted to satisfy that some day.

We do that all the time. As a child … led by the curiosity of a puppy … and the ministerings of a wolf … we come face to face … with the sights and sounds … of the world around us. It administers to us … a sense of relation … that's compartmentalized … as childhood musings … that ignores all nature of the practical … and dives into … a list of possibilities. For instance … I heard about the first man to climb Mt. Everest … experienced an awe about the event … and got into a bother … about whether I'll have to do that some day.

' Lint in the umbilical ' … is what we call that these days … and toss the entire chain of thought aside. Certainly … what we brought to these musings were infantile in content … but the substance of the experience … is a part of mind … and that creates a second opportunity … for us to view its relation to our personality … and improve upon it. To do that … we come into the engagement of the child within … and learn of his ways of perceiving. That includes a view of … what's best of all possible worlds … a simple demand that says ' Why can't I have what I want ' … and the anxiety as to whether we can cope with that.

It is a little more than what we can reasonably chew. Its the realm of the forefathers … expansive in scope and ambition … it hints of relations with the Gods … and it sets special pre-requisites … for gaining access to it. Its substance of experience … are the senses … stored as the logos … and brings itself to the perceiver … as creation. The perceiver is to it … its self conscious … and the chronicler of its activities … like a witness. The experience resembles the Buddha … sitting in calm contemplation.

Its like the sensation … of an eye trying to see itself. As Zen says … ' we don't know how to take the next step … but just then … it settles down and is like normal.' How did it do that? … There are many explanations possible … but the event feels like … the individual has split his personality … and is thereby viewing the other.  However in time … the gap widens … and soon as Zen says … ' in a split-hair's difference … heaven and earth are set apart.'

Its a peculiar situation … in which the individual feels himself … a son of heaven … relating to the experience of the world. The intensity of the experience has since been managed … after WWII … the Korean war … and Vietnam. In its wake … it creates the impression … of a growing gap … between heaven and earth. But the condition is obviously not confined to the Oriental experience. In other parts of the world … the issue of personality and identity … continues to influence … events.

In returning to the child's original view … the individual discovers … that there are many … who have raised the perception of the child … into adult levels … and transposed itself on the world. In that it encounters … the dissenting views of others … in a world arena … who are prepared to exercise their wills … to correct … the exaggerations in other experiences. Its the proverbial … trial by combat … of medieval times … when two knights cross swords … and leave the outcome to the will of God.

I had Peking duck … in a restaurant in Arcadia … Los Angeles. It was tangy … but mixed well with the crispy texture of the skin … and the soy sauce. It hit the spot in my mind … but contradicted the boyhood love of exaggeration in my passions. Had I been carrying an expected flavor this long … only to realize that … its a curio … that was simply … there? I have since been avoiding duck.

Like the child's views about the Everest climber … I wonder about the positions of responsibility … in the world. I'll never make it. Too much uncertainties … confusion … and associated ties … that are difficult to overcome. Here in WC … among poets … who are semblances of world personalities … we practice … the convergence of views … and take note of the gaps … that remain.

In WC … we are the beneficiaries … of the experiences of world management … by the leaders of the past. As the generation after WWII … we have a new perspective on the issues … that is aimed at avoiding such conflicts from before. On the example set by others … I've even quit the macho male thing … combined with my female half … in favor of a gentler … solution creating view of things. It is certainly a matter of choices … we have made in these times.

In relation to my own ' son of heaven ' … I provide the choice of death … rather than assert his brand of view about … the right thing. His death is a gain to his split-twin … and hence is not death but a resurrection. I've brought to his assurance … that his death … would therefore not mean an extinction of the specie. On the contrary … we have grown quite capable … of surviving … without the constant need for assurance by the herd. And that gives me comfort.