Current affairs, personal opinions - The Elephants' Tusks

The Elephants' Tusks was based on:

1) The warring in the middle east. And how a way of supremacy of the religion is exemplified by the tolerance of the people. I have many thoughts about tolerance and it being an underrated virtue.
Maybe the westernised world would emphasis a lot about go-getting and not getting yourself bullied, and very individualistic ideals. But tolerance would bring about graciousness. I personally think believe that instead of campaigns promoting graciousness and Stomp being the society's not-so-secret police, they promote tolerance instead, then we'll all be more gracious. It's not gracious to kaopei about others not being gracious. But when one tolerates another ungraciousness, as opposed to being self-righteous, then one would be inclined not to act in the same way. and... so on. Anyway, that's another theory for another time.

The warring in the middle east. I wanted to write a story where in an alternate world, there's peace in the middle east.

2) And that even if there's peace, there will be disorder again. Peace and disorder, will play and interject each other. The rise and fall of civilisations. blah blah. it's something that will continue to happen, whether obama or mccain become president. Current affairs - are current and not perpetual. Learning it to have conversations at the water cooler is like watching korean drama to have conversations about korean drama. Or joining facebook, to talk about what's happening on facebook. That's what I always feel about current affairs, and will be pekchek when people ask me to brush up on my current affairs, because it really doesn't interest me what, except juicy details like, why mccain go and choose palin - which is as entertaining to wonder about as watching Yes Man by jim carrey.

Anyway, whether the snail/slugs die out or not, it's a passing matter, in the very macrospect. Like how the wiping out of an ant hill is very trivial, when we're kids on an ant massacre. Or it could be very big deal - to an ant.

3) Read a story from zhuang zi, on nations being on snail's antennae, which I quote, violating copyright laws, from here:

(King) Yung of Wei made a treaty with the marquis Thien Mâu (of Khî), which the latter violated. The king was enraged, and intended to send a man to assassinate him...

Hui-tsze...introduced to the king Tâi Tsin-zan, who said, 'There is the creature called a snail; does your majesty know it?' 'I do.' 'On the left horn of the snail there is a kingdom which is called Provocation, and on the right horn another which is called Stupidity. These two kingdoms are continually striving about their territories and fighting. The corpses that lie on the ground amount to several myriads. The army of one may be defeated and put to flight, but in fifteen days it will return.' The king said, 'Pooh! that is empty talk!' The other rejoined, 'Your servant begs to show your majesty its real significance. When your majesty thinks of space-- east, west, north, and south, above and beneath-- can you set any limit to it?' 'It is illimitable,' said the king; and his visitor went on, 'Your majesty knows how to let your mind thus travel through the illimitable, and yet (as compared with this) does it not seem insignificant whether the kingdoms that communicate one with another exist or not?' The king replies, 'It does so;' and Tâi Tsin-zan said, finally, 'Among those kingdoms, stretching one after another, there is this Wei; in Wei there is this (city of) Liang; and in Liang there is your majesty. Can you make any distinction between yourself, and (the king of that kingdom of) Stupidity?' To this the king answered, 'There is no distinction,' and his visitor went out, while the king remained disconcerted and seemed to have lost himself.

I thought about saying that that slug/snails are peace-loving because their antennae housed warring nations. but the story just didnt' turn out liek that.

Now, talking about the elephants tusks doesn't seem that original as compared to a snail's antennae right? I think about changing the elephants back to snails and snails to somethign else, but the story won't flow anymore. The snails don't have trunks. and they won't need to feed each other. so... i suppose my story took a different direction already.

4) Watched man in black on tv again, and the idea of universes being as small as a marble on a cat's collar made me feel that there can be universes with elephants and little animals living on them, and so on. Where is the world of little elephants? maybe in the dirt in my toe nail.
Relevant to the big-small thing as in point 2.

Happy new year to all~.