Wayang Kulit

Stories about Life

Its a drama … staged with cardboard models … a light source … and screen .. that tells the story of … the Ramayana … and ancient epic. It continues to be popular among the inhabitants of Indonesia … while in Malaysia … the practice is discouraged as archaic. Its entertainment … in the rural experiences … teaches a doctrine of faith … trust … and love … while it cultivates the passions … into a manner of conduct about life. But as man may be discovering in these times … the story board … is a critical part of our experience as humans … and is the basis of mind.

The Malaysian government's policy of restricting the practice … is not a new practice in human society. All over the world … the place of story in our lives … has been discarded … in favor of the practice of of physical reality … the way the man … relates to his environment with his senses … and applies the needs of his will … to determine his personal experience of life. Its the new story of life … lived as an individual … on the virtues of selfishness … that claims to our new understanding of … ' its true if its true to me.'

Long the basis of the passions … our stories over the ages … whether its about Hercules the mighty … Eric the King … or Vasudeva the teacher … has held our imagination … regarding the imagery of life … that we participated in … as individuals in society. But today … we have moved away from such an experience of phenomenon … claiming in many ways … that it is naïve … gratification based … and often cultivates a vain self contempt … for actual achievement in life … the scientist … the professional natures … and a view founded on facts.

In Shakespeare's … Othello … the story begins with the character Iago … on a drinking session in town … and riots in the streets in the middle of the night … as if to say … ' Wake up! Wake up! You dolts … do you know where your daughters are in this night? They are making the cuckold of their fathers … by their philandering with men … behind your backs. Awake ... for you have lost half your soul.' In making such a suggestion … Shakespeare … illustrated the division man came to have with … the simple faith of stories … and finding out the facts yourself. It couldn't have taken place in a more volatile place … than the sexual nature of trust and faith of the family.

But at no time … has the divide between the two been more severe and testy … than today. I suspect it has its origins in the early pilgrims to America … who fought religious persecution … the rule of Kings … and the false promises of government. In the founding of America … the principles of self determination … and individual rights... rose in such a stormy surge … that it may have dealt the death blow to stories … as the basis of life's passions and instead raised the specter of pure reason as substitute.

The philosopher … Hegel … writing in the early 1800s … pointed to the fall of faith and the deification of reason in man. But we find in the phenomenon of life stories … and its relation to reason … a manner of will … that allocated the life stories as the attribute of women … and the mind of reason as the identity of men. In the estrangement between … the qualities of stories and reason … it tore apart the relations between man and woman … and imposed on the relationship … a taboo as regards the way … reason applied itself in blind faith to the stories and vice versa.

It emboldened the women in society … to express their attitude of passion based righteousness … as truths of life … and drove the men into the isolated mountains … for a greater thrust of their will … into the matter of reason. We encounter this in society today … and wonder about the nature of the conflict … and the hostility it engenders … about heart and mind … love and reason. It has even brought about a greater implication globally … with mind based faith … that caters to the passion of the pagan … that divides the world … into political lines of leadership between right and the wrong … that has caused our current experience … of loss of heart in many matters … with the rule of the technocrat … founded on facts and scientific data.

It certainly must be a case of the greatest amusement … among the pagan led people … to view the mind's reason of the world's leadership … descend into same sex relations … and the orgy of the hedonist that is promoted in the media .. as normal. These were the very mindless passions of the pagan … that the mind of man … attempted to refine and to guide … in previous times. It points back at the issue of … what is mind … and what are the passions … and it brings a new light to bear upon the relations of man and woman … in society.

I think it surprises many women to hear the suggestion … that their lives are the living drama of the fantasies of men … and their bodies … speech … and manner … feeds that unmindful stage of their presence … into the lives of men … like chicken soup in a spoon. No doubt the legend of ISIS … wife of Osiris … in Egyptian times … held the fascination of life in early civilization … in the mind of the man Osiris. So powerful was the impact of … of her role as female in his life … that the forces that governed mind … split his personality … in the tentative birth of reason … to drive his attention to the world … away from her defining presence of the man's psyche.

This is the key in our social engagements … that we continue to apply ourselves to and to perfect in our understanding. Its hasn't been that long ago … when our institutionalized faith and political governance … persecuted those members of society … that continued to perpetuate the legend of stories … and diverted their views to the bodies and yoni of women as evil … and of being manipulated by the devil. These were the men who had hoped to replace such vagaries of the passions … with something more stable … with mind. They founded political and economic theories … and would today embargo those who practice anything different.

Certainly the story of the world today … is written in blood and tears … in some cases. The daily press … is authored by the bards of doom … and we are forced to leave their readership … in favor of our authorship of hope and redemption … in stories of the new man. I met the lady of the stories … my psyche refers to as … Mother Nesha … or the mother of affection. I think she's the equivalent of Mother Goose … and the muses. Its her insistence that life should be governed by a manner of stories … in accentuating the life of the woman … beauty … raising children … and the drama of preserving the family experience.

She was the one who inspired the lives of the early bards like … Hesiod and the Vasudeva … who wrote stories of heroes and adventure … that was not entirely irrelevant to the lives of the times. It served as a good … line of thought for society to emulate … including the development of … society's break from the stories into the reasoning mind. Hercules himself was such an individual … who subsequently inspired law and order in our lives. The Vasudeva … founded the basis of the human condition and promoted its cause. What's wrong with stories?

To borrow a well used adage … we shouldn't throw away the baby with the bath water. Nor should we storm heaven to capture the goodness of life. We need to apply ourselves with a refined touch at the subtlety of the passion and reason … and discover its own natural relation … that has governed life since creation. The man's instrument is no doubt … his rationality and the woman … her affection for all. We need to match knowledge with the infinitesimal scope of the passions … in its love of everything. Its quite a task that faces us … in this age … of the artistic sky.