merely "American"?

reflecting on an American...
"American" and individuality of person, in thought, word and deed, also in an era of history when "equality" is spread(ing) to all aspects of law, people, society, ideas, culture,...cannot but make a kind of common person(ality), which is determined by having been born (cf. natio-) in some particular family, neighborhood, socio-economic position, town/city, state, region, culture, education...in the USA which are all basically passive elements of one's personality, rather than one's active individuality being developed to surpass one's mere "nationality".
even as an idea this seems rarely present

facades people live by

not only the brazen self-righteous lies of the world 'hero' Lance Armstrong...or the widespread, years-long match fixing in European football revealed just days ago, but today's reports from sport-proud Australia of widespread, systematic drug use in sports...
the facades people live by and cheer for...
"what a least of work is man"

Goethe < > Nihilists

to discern contrasting limitations and mentalities in "Western man", it is revealing to compare Goethe and his ideas of post-mortem continuance to Nietzsche-influenced "nihilist" philosophers, for whom there is even neither a post-mortem, nor a pre-natal, void.

mis-timed

being in their mornings, most of my young friends here cannot understand my reflections on the day.

excellent!

here now few to no standards of excellence for the passive -- except material comforts with financial success.
the USSR, for better and for worse, enforced ideas of excellence in most all areas of human being.

cool, man

being cool as a way to hide their real lives from themselves

Polyglot, Historophile Cathy from the Netherlands

still looking for the Cathy 'of the Netherlands', a solicitor on sabbatical during 2012, who was in Beijing in July 2012 studying Chinese.
Talked in the Bookworm bookshop in Beijing.

RIP Russian Soul?

fill in the blanks...

RIP

"Russian Soul"

(possibly fictitious personality)

Born: ______

Died: ______

Russian soul in Mo$cow?

in prison in Omsk Dostoyevsky came to discover Christianity among even the prison's murderers.
can one still find some special aspect of "Russian soul" in the post-Soviet youth in the malls and cafes of Mo$cow?

lost

if man has no other home than this world, then it is truly lost.