Eerie encounters and conversations inspire me

Why is it that some societies rise up against their tyrannical governments (Iran) while other nations are either unable, unwilling or supporting their regimes (Russia)? What happened in Iranian history that didn’t happen in Russian history to cause this divergence in thinking?

I like conversations and questions that surprise me, unnerve me, challenge me. These three factors are a rich source of inspiration. If you only ask comfortable questions and discuss cliche concepts, you’ll stay in your boring bubble.

I like precise wording and can talk about anything as long as it’s leading to a clear conclusion.

I’m not a fan of people who throw words around but discuss nothing of substance.

One of the most precise thinkers I came across was a Jewish woman from NYC. I met her around ten years ago. She could go from discussing the universe to taxes in a snap. The gift of easily switching between the practical and the esoteric is hard to find. Most people, it seems, are either militant-atheist-materialistic, rigidly religious, or dreamers detached from reality.

A mind that effortlessly marries the practical and the esoteric, seeing an endless spectrum of possibility between the material, the rigidly religious and hopelessly idealistic, is pretty rare.

She was a journalist and, during our chat, she asked me about the plan of Poland and Nazi Germany to join forces against the Soviet Union. I said that, indeed, there were such plans and it would have changed the course of the Second World War and the course of history. Just like me, she was a fan of the multiverse, i.e. endless realities exist concurrently with our own. She had an exact idea of what happened in that other reality. Always on the lookout for writing inspiration, I told her to paint the alternate history picture for me.

She said that the allies waited for Germany and Poland to defeat Russia first and then attacked the two nations – which, after huge losses, resulted in allied victory. In that other world, Russia, Germany and Poland shared a fate somewhat similar to Germany in our reality, but even more punitive.

Warsaw was divided into American, British, French and Swedish sectors and Moscow got an additional Chinese sector. A Swedish sector in Warsaw? Now, all these sectors would sure make official languages of Poland complicated. Apparently, our Polish custom of visiting graves in November was way less popular than Halloween in that other reality. Makes sense.

Allied-occupied nations, she added, would no longer be allowed to drink alcohol, barring special occasions.

France? Sure. Why not. We mention Napoleon in our anthem.

Now, with Sweden, that’s adding insult to injury, but as the woman rightly pointed out, Sweden was indeed responsible for a huge invasion of Poland (when Poland was an empire, one might argue, even conquering Moscow in 1610 for two years, explains why Russians aren’t our fans) in mid-17th century (the Deluge). Her knowledge of Polish history was impressive. Pretty rare for a foreigner. Bravo.

The international supervision of the three defeated nations is going to end around 2050. She was trying to provoke me but I just smiled and told her that her alternate reality scenario is still better than her idea of waving a magic wand with God’s approval, and turning Poland into a nation of Girl Scouts in pencil skirt uniforms and stilettos. She laughed and said, ”Why not both?” Guess we’d be as organized as the Germans, though I’d rather not see Poland flooded by cookie orders from across the world. My interlocutor mentioned a highly speculative idea that we cross over to another universe upon death. Well, now I know which universe to avoid, in case there’s a nuclear war and I find myself testing that theory.

Poland would no longer be the Christ of Nations, but the Scout of Nations.

That would indeed be God having a sardonic sense of humor.

I can imagine all the pickup artists posing as international exchange students, the self-proclaimed chick magnets, heading for Europe. At least Russia was put in her place, so that’s a bonus. A bitter-sweet bonus, given the context, but still. When someone tries to provoke you, they expect you to lash out. Maybe to record you, maybe just because they have a sadistic streak. When you react differently, unexpectedly, you throw them off their game. I’m grateful for her ideas. I’ve put them in my novel. The novel is the perfect place to immortalize my encounters of the kooky kind.

I knew a guy who was the master of projection.

Accusing others of what he, himself, was doing. He kept telling me not to contact certain people because they are (insert a litany of insults). Well, me being me, I did the exact opposite and contacted them, knowing that he was going to find out, eventually. They showed me exactly who he was. When accusing others of being thieves and so on – he was actually talking about himself. I got a Facebook message from him at 12:30 a.m. He was trying to guilt-trip and gaslight me. When he knew that the truth was out, and I was immune to his charms and harms, he blocked me, and sent his flying monkeys (refers to people who carry out the work of a psychopath, narcissist, generally speaking – an abusive person, and it comes from The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch of the West puts flying monkeys under her spell) to hurl abuse at me. The monkeys blocked me right after hurling abuse, of course. I also got anonymous messages but – given my background in linguistics – I recognized the writing style and wrote the name of the person. Silence. Gotcha. You’ve gotta be really smart to know how to convincingly change your writing style and most people aren’t that smart.  Can think of a few, maybe more, people like that in your life, huh? Well, there you go. My unsolicited advice? Run if you can. Cut contact. They aren’t going to change.

I was in a group investigating the unexplained. Yes, the paranormal. We treated it like a crime scene investigation. In an investigation, assumptions kill. Out of many cases and people who contacted us, only one case stood out. A detective talked to us (behind closed doors) about an allegedly haunted police station near Warsaw. The station where anti-communist resistance had been tortured in the 1950s by some sadist. The detective didn’t believe in hauntings, but he couldn’t brush off the experiences of his friend who also happened to be a seasoned police officer. The detective found him shivering in the corner with a shotgun pointing at a staircase.

Sadly, the police officer with the shotgun was unwilling to come forward, even anonymously. Understandable. Was it all an elaborate hoax? I don’t believe so. Police detectives don’t have time to tell wild stories to total strangers.

Don’t throw pearls before swine (how poetic). Know who’s ready for an enlightening exchange and who’s a small-talker and a gossiper stuck in a little mind. Judgmental, you say? So be it. We make snap judgments all the time. Your intuition isn’t always going to be right, but, over time, you’re going to get better and better at sensing who’s ready for a deep conversation and who’s only good for celebrity gossip.

Now, some of the blog writers have voiced their concerns at several – mainly U.S. – newspapers mourning, subtly supporting, even openly praising – terrorists and other shady types (no-longer-with-us Russian propagandists among them). Hey, what else is new? Can’t remember which big U.S. newspaper, but it referred to the eliminated ISIS leader as an austere religious scholar. Are you surprised by their nonsense? Me? No, Sir. I sure am not.