Amor Fati

A day or two in the life.

The author in his study.

I’m coming out of a funk and my readers may benefit. Much of it has arisen from the recent departure of my best friend to the hinterlands of Nevada. His absence has forced me to reinflate my social life. But the past week has been chockablock with setbacks of all sorts, some from my own personal health, some from that of family members, some from matters of work. This past weekend I went fly fishing and the fish were too small to chomp down on the tiniest hook. Small fry.

Nevertheless, I was engaged in pursuits that I think are close to the bone of my humanity. Just within inches of my bait I watched them squiggle hungrily toward it as I made figure eights in the water. I was in control of a fruitless situation but I could anticipate greater action. It was a small consolation. It’s called fishing, not catching. Yet I caught the thrill of the chase.

I have been watching AI narrated videos of a sort never seen, where 4k drone cameras take me to quaint European towns and UNESCO World Heritage Sites that are offer ‘breathless’ and ‘otherworldly’ views. I experienced ‘diverse ancient cultures’ and all of the other kinds of marketing twaddle aimed at affluent pensioners. Still, I feel as if I want to live in Morocco or visit the great African lakes or walk the cobbles of Vilnius.

“Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Learn about its history, culture, architecture, and Jewish heritage from Britannica's editors.”

There’s something an AI will never say.

I suffered the burden of my social engagements and learned something marvelous. The first is that one of my favorite restaurants, Genghis Cohen, on Fairfax Avenue is still that good, and two plates are truly enough for two. So I had a doggy bag of walnut shrimp and red bbq ribs in the traditional foil. The marvel was yet to come, for JoDavi was performing at The Mint. And here I am an old man realizing for the first time that there is the kind of music I never play at home that I absolutely love when performed live.

Turning Japanese
Simmering in the back of my mind is this book, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, written in 1946 as a work of anthropology. The author reaches out to understand what it means to be Japanese, and so was part of the military’s work to understand the mind of our adversary.

All I can say, which in one way I expected to say all along, is that the scholarship and insight born of the necessities of war and peace have delivered what I expected the Humanities to be all about in the first place. What a wretched substitute we have in contemporary ‘scholasticism’.

You may prompt your LLM with the following, but I guarantee it will not be sufficient.

• Explain the Japanese concept of ‘on’.

• Elaborate on ‘kimu’

• And ‘chu’

Eleven words in three questions. I have learned something new about myself, adding a dimension to my original fascination with feudal Japan in 1990. Kimu is how I have always oriented myself to my own family obligations, especially with regard to the fact that I have three children where most in my class strata have fewer, or none. Where that makes the difference in their professional dedication and personal adventure, I have the crushing obligation for which I am grateful. I daresay JD Vance understands and cat ladies do not.

I am that kind of Japanese and now I know. Concscientiousness is my most extreme psychological trait, followed closely by a deadpan sensibility. The author Ruth Benedict has given me circles to navigate away and apart from the Western Canon. And still I imagine myself a gentleman officer in Colditz, conspiring a way to escape, deprived as I am from all of the worldy entitlements I am denied by being captured in this war for the soul of the Occident. But am I really there? Is this imagination even useful any longer?

Next up on the reading list is Mythos by Stephen Fry.

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The Watches of Espionage
I’m on a mission to get real. Realer than real. Hyperreal. So I am falling in love with hard men past and present, real and mythological. I am romancing the evidence of struggle. So in addition to the hyperreal fictions of David Ignatius, I am remembering Steve ‘Vile Rat’ Smith who died in Bengazi. It is with such a loving gaze that I turn to Nicholas Ferrell, a watch collector and former NSC staffer.

The Monday Media Diet with Nicholas Ferrell

I suffer from my chu. I bear it with something other than pride, something other than resentment, but something not far from both. One simply decides to resign with amor fati and share the scars. It’s not coming to Netflix.