On random mixing of letters and addressed envelopes

Four years ago, remembering an incident from the year 1993, I wrote down the following question: ‘If letters and addressed envelopes were mixed at random would the world convulse with confusion or be blinded forever by a divine illumination?’ I came across this question by chance when searching for something else and acknowledged once again that some of the more poignant lessons are taught when we are not ready with notebook, pencil, eye and ear.

Perhaps it is chance, or perhaps a configuration of elements and resultant processes provoked by being in tune with or having submitted, consciously or unconsciously to the natural order of things.

The incident referred to had to do with letters. Two of them. Addressed to two females. One had to do with something misnamed as ‘love’. There was nothing mistaken about the sentiments in the other, not in terms of what had come before or what was there in the here and now. The details are not remembered. They were duly inserted in two envelopes, correctly addressed. They were given to a third female, a colleague, who promised to post them.

Mischievous individual

The following day she reported that she had been travelling in a crowded bus and had stuck a couple of books she was carrying in the gap between the glass of the widow and a bar.

She had forgotten to retrieve it as she got off the bus. The letters, she said apologetically, were in one of the books. I ought to have cried but I laughed.

Some kind person could have posted the letters (didn’t happen). If it fell into the hands of a mischievous individual or even a wicked one, he/she could have switched the letters (didn’t happen). ‘What if someone did that?’ I was asked. ‘The truth would be out sooner,’ I smiled. As it happened, it took a further four months for relevant issues to ‘come out’ and be duly resolved and today, almost two decades later I don’t believe too many people are unhappy about the outcome. That’s personal stuff. Boring. Let’s get to the question at hand, namely, ‘if letters and addressed envelopes were mixed at random would the world convulse with confusion or be blinded forever by a divine illumination?’

Corporate giants

Someone’s been careless about correspondence. That’s what WikiLeaks appears to be. Yes, ‘appears’ is a deliberate insert here. It is not apparent that the leaks have always been carefully ‘minded’, filtered if you will.

Persons in the New York Times and others with strong connections to corporate giants are thick as thieves with the WikiLeaks bosses. So there’s letter-mixing and there’s envelope-mixing and there’s a vast difference between randomness and deliberation.

Of course WikiLeaks has embarrassed people. Patricia Butenis for example. On the other hand, she is small fry as far as global capital interests are concerned. People don’t matter; profits and the sustainable development of profit-flowing channels do. Governments don’t count; corporations do. The letter-switching business therefore is very cute. It is not mischievous. It appears to be evil. Astute and evil. That’s potent folks.

WikiLeaks has enough to titillate those who would love to see the empire trip and fall flat on its face. Well, the empire, so to speak, has tripped and is struggling, not on account of WikiLeaks but its own errors.

Empire as in the unholy alliance of rogue states led by the USA that is. China has that empire by its short hairs. The Empire that is engaged in resource extraction and exploitation of labour has not skipped a beat though.

Empire

WikiLeaks has not harmed either empire. It has in fact helped public opinion gravitate towards the US position with respect to Iran. At the end of the day it is Israel that is salivating and not Mr Working Class or Ms Anti-Colonial. The day WikiLeaks starts shuffling corporate correspondence and shows us cables relating to the Bush years (both Bushes, by the way), we might say ‘thanks, Julian (Assange)’, but until then let’s reserve judgment.

The key word in the question, then, is ‘random’. It is the non-randomness of correspondence-leaks that is worrisome. I am not sure if random mixing would necessarily be good or bad in terms of outcome, but I would err in favour of truth, for I believe that convulsions are generated by both truth and falsehood but that the world can do with a bolt of illumination now and then.

And this is not just about political intrigue, but about all things at all levels, of intimacy and otherwise. It is good to deal with things as they are instead of shoving them under the proverbial carpet. Makes for sore knees (after the inevitable tripping).

It is the hardest thing, though. We are a timid lot, us humans are. As my friend Udayasiri Wickramaratne puts it, we are terrified that we might tell the truth by accident (boruwata hari aththak kiyavei kiyala bayai), scared that we might do the right thing by mistake (veradilaa hari, hari deyak kerei kiyala bayai). We choose to live with and feed our ghosts and the world trips along in its hideousness, which we dress up and powder so we can inhabit Make-Believe. It’s a lie, though.

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