Tony's stash of textual information

under Chatham House Rules, the goings-on may be revealed, but not the identity of individuals, nor their respective affliations.

This morning was such a hustle-and-bustle. I thought I was going to be late. The train had taken longer than usual to arrive – it was normal for this part of the woods, but I had forgotten. (I realise now: how blessed I am, to live in a more efficient, and more timely, region.)

Every conference has an important facility that one must hunt down: the toilet, which one is obliged, by social contract, to rush desperately towards (no matter whether it is heavily stained, or sparking-clean – no matter whether it is smelly with excrement, or fragrant with essential-oil diffusers). And I can't forget the toilet, at the conference venue, just now: the assault, on my ears, of male farts; the sting, on my eyes, of yellow urine, the emotional weight of intermittent groans of pleasure-mixed-with-pain – these were men in expensive-looking suits.

Women – with long hair that were painstakingly thrown into curls – were making love to certain passing-by men, with their eyes. But these women were only masturbating, because those men communicated no reciprocal flame-of-desire burning in their loins. Nor, sadly, would those men ever remember these ardent women, many changes of the moon later. (These women have been shedding blood at every moon-change, in an incessant biological reminder that their very own reproductive eggs have been meeting with a stark absence of potent sperm and pungent semen).

In a world where every Yes actually means No – and where every “I'll talk to you later” means “You'll never ever see me again, if I can help it” – maybe the most honest thing in the world is a (heterosexual) woman's shameless look of lust and attraction towards a handsome young man.

And yet: another decade, another coming-of-age ritual, another handsome young man that surfaces in society. Another year, another conference, another merry-go-round. Is there anything new under the sun?

And these women and men are growing old, even as we speak in this pocket of stillness. Dead skin-flake by dead skin-flake, stray hair by stray hair, these creatures of fragile flesh, and brittle bones, are falling apart – crumbling, decaying. Who is to say that the Egyptians – who had built the magnificent pyramids – did not dine in more opulence in their ballrooms, did not have more kinky exchanges in their bedrooms?

Somewhere out there, even now, in a tropical rainforest, a frog is having sex with another frog. And, at the same time, in a porcine farm, a young male swine is grinding his genitals against the unprotesting flesh of a certain older female pig, which had given birth to him (excruciatingly so), not too many full-moons ago.

A fly is dying after giving birth to a brood of younger flies, who, in turn, are eager and ready to lay their eggs in the rotting flesh of yet another scarred survivor of a nuclear bomb.

This is Nature – the strange, breathtaking, horrible beauty of this planet, ever being crushed under the weight of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and Category-5 typhoons.

As the Qoheleth says in the Holy Bible:

I said to myself, “As for the sons of men, God tests them so that they may see for themselves that they are but beasts.” For the fates of both men and beasts are the same: As one dies, so dies the other—they all have the same breath. Man has no advantage over the animals, since everything is futile. All go to one place; all come from dust, and all return to dust.

Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and the spirit of the animal descends into the earth? I have seen that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work, because that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will come after him?

(source: Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, verses 18 to 22, Berean Bible).

What remains for me to do? To enjoy the happiness that God Almighty has granted to me, as my inheritance. I am filled with emotions of peace, shalom and gratefulness, which is impossibly beyond the imagination of my younger self, whether that was a ten-years-ago version of me, or a twenty-years-ago version.

Don't worry, younger me. The world may be messed up, but I have Almighty God who helps me regulate my emotions – He is a sure and steadfast anchor for my soul. An anchor of unfailing hope. Thanks be to King Jesus Christ, who remains alive and active even today, 2024 years after his birth (he was born in the region that we modern people call the Middle East).

And he will remain alive and active, two million years into the future. I have faith in His immortality. Amen.