Japan again. Japan is everything Iran isn't. Out of the way for one thing. Hard to get to, so that it requires considerable effort to conquer. And for what? What would you get beside an obedient population? Contrast it with that bridge of a land flowing with enough dinosaur juice to power a war machine, or make plastics to insulate electrons to light up a city from space, or tiny wires to string machines together to think. No, isolation is key. To be left alone. To walk up to eighty eight shrines through shore and mist, rope and stairs that took four hundred years to cut through granite by meditating hands, all the while screwing willing maidens with no hangups whatsoever, supple and white, yet coarse too like the shell of crabs. Time was a friend then instead of a foe that is bound to prop up somewhere, having heard bedtime stories of the riches to be had, waiting until the old king finally and reluctantly leaves the kingdom to an inexperienced spoiled heir, just because the women, underneath their cloudy hazel eyes, are just as cunning as the men in the games of competition. A nation might be proud enough not to bend the knee, or maybe just lucky, or unlucky, for pride is a sin that sinks unsinkable battleships, forces a bullet in the bunker, does horrible things to weaker neighbours, only to finally prove once for all that defeat can be a kind of deliverance from the tyranny of unrealistic expectations. And so the festivals are joyful. They celebrate survival. They make sense. No one weeps for the dead since there is no life without death, not enough room.

Jam25