"I am really confused Ali"

"Who is this woman interviewing this white bearded guy, but with no turban?"

"How come she is not wearing that thing on her head to speak to this Islamic fanatic?"

Huh? What? Impossible.

"No seriously, Ali"

Play that tape again. Oh, ha ha. It's my old class mate from elementary school. CNN is so pro Mullah, even this pro-Mullah outlet has written on it.

"What! You went to school with this guy?"

No, that lady. It's Christiane Amanpour. She was at the British School in Iran with me in the same elementary class. I remember going to her Birthday parties.

"Na, you are being silly"
"You got me again. I thought I would find people who you would know nothing about and you say you are almost related to a top CNN reporter".
"But I believe you."

Really why do you believe me so quickly?

"Because you both speak with that posh English accent."

Yup. I don't sound as dumb as you eh?

But seriously, his dad worked for my dad, and they used to visit us in our home, in Kharg Island, during the Spring Equinox Knowrooz Festivals. Those were the days. Wow.

"So what is she doing, talking to this wacko, and not asking him, why they are killing people by the dozens in Iran?"

"She is really famous you know Ali. I know she was at school with you, and it does not mean a lot to you, but she has her own show on CNN. She was all pissed off about Elephants in Africa."

I know, I put posts on her Facebook page, saying that Iranians are more in trouble than the Africans, and she ignored me.

It all goes, hand in hand, with what I have been raging on about all the time:

You can't be free if others are not.

Recently, we had the Stanford Students, get together with another Iranian making it big in the US. He is Omid Kordestani, who rambled on how he has experienced, "The American Dream" as they say.

"Yeah, you sound so morally correct, with that, "You are not free if other are not". Have you sold any bumper stickers?"

Lol. Very funny. But seriously, have any of these big guns in the US, like Amanpour and Kordestani, ever slept well at night, thinking that they could all get together, and inspire Iranians outside Iran to bring freedom to Iran?

"No Ali. They are not big mouths like you."
"They are afraid to look stupid like you."
"Have you tried getting them together?"

The last time I went to a Royalist meeting, I was like a Bull in a China shop. I literally blew up. But then they all got seriously worked up. Feelings came out. They all thanked me at the end.

There is then, a huge amount of pent up emotion, just yearning to get out. I am not the only one. I just have a more direct relationship with it, as an Astrologer. It is like being plugged into this ancient source I called Ahuramazdan. It reaches across all space and time. I have to put the Ahuramazdan view here. It has been suffering longer that all of them. Also, it was my own freeking' ancestors, who screwed up and brought back Islam, after the Mongols wiped it off the map in Iran. 

"Yeah I fell asleep twice, on that lecture, on your version on the origins of Shia, with the abduction of Shah Ismail and then that wacko Al-Hili, converting everyone to Sufism. Madness, how Shah Abbas committed genocide converting everyone to Shia. It's nuts."

But somehow the arts and poetry remained after all that. The other monarchs, in the family, in the Qajar Dynasties were more secular. And of course the Pahlavis, went all the way with Cyrus the Great, forgetting about Ahuramazdans. It is weird to see a Shi'ite King like the late Shah embrace Cyrus, but not know one tiny bit about the Zend Avesta, or the Ahuramazdans, that built those empires. Read all those books made for the 2500 anniversary, and not one talks about the workers and craftsmen. It is all about the King or Emperor did this and that. That is why the left wing politicians think that all Kings did nothing. If you told them about the Ahuramazdan attitude and inspiration behind it, it would be different.

"Ali, you are drifting into another place. Come back to Earth."

"So all of this produces questions that do not produce nice answers."

"What are, the rich and Famous Iranians outside Iran, doing to save Iran?"

"What do, the rich and famous Iranians outside Iran, do to get inspired?"

"Who the hell are we to judge them?"

I think the last one I have answered. We all have a moral duty to not be alone in our freedom. The Amanpour's and Kordestani's of this world, cannot be free when their kin are not. No argument there.

"Okay with you there."

"So what now?"

"These questions remain."

"What are, the rich and famous Iranians outside Iran, doing to save Iran?"

"What do, the rich and famous Iranians outside Iran, do to get inspired?"

That is the hard part. There needs to be an inspirational way to change Iran. To say it is for money, will not cut it. Those big guns outside Iran, will not help Iran to make more money.

"So what is going to inspire the rich and famous to save Iran?"

I can only speak for myself. I was born into a rich and famous family, way before any of them. When you grow up; knowing that your granddad's house, is the Shah's Palace; that your ancestors are Kings, but you are nothing; or stuck in a top notch British and US educational establishments; it really annoys you. You yearn to go back, and build your country. Then, bang out of nowhere, some dick head, with a turban and a Trojan horse, turns your whole heritage upside down. That is tough.

"So what do folks like you do?"

In my case I was lucky, it was a blessing in disguise, I actually met someone I would not have met, if none of that happened. The astrology was perfect and the children were perfect. The Astral Dimension was working. I had detached myself beyond the material existence to get a better perspective. Love saved me. I call it an Ahuramazda intervention. I was surely saved.

"Is this part of what you call "Harchi Pish Ayad, Khosh Ayad, simple attitude, you taught me when I was a kid?"
"Is that right?"
"Do as much as you can, and then trust Ahuramazda?"

Yes, ancient Ahuramazdans, had very simple almost trivial attitudes, that defy space and time, and "What ever happens, does so for a Good reason", is one of those. You do not read it in pompous literature like Hafez and Molana. This is DIY, can do practical attitude. Their art was so powerful and meaningful it lasted forever. Look at the tomb of Cyrus the Great. It is basic. It outlasts all. Above all it is Iranian. They produced an art that is loved always, but not out of fear, as in religion.

"So you are telling me, that the Iranians abroad, like you, wanted to get back and add to all that Iranian culture. But the Ayatollahs and US are stopping you?"

Pretty much. I am sure that all the other Iranians, stuck in US and EU, have the same wall to climb. They are not warriors, and they are all very independent. Most have had their parents suffer from the politics, and cannot be bothered to smash those Ayatollahs, with new politics anymore.

"But they can build a new Iran abroad, and present that to the world as an alternative."

Funnily enough, I think, now that Trump has made all these top notch Iranian-Americans, feel like second class citizens, because they have been put in the box as fanatical Muslims, then they will try to form a brand of Iranians that the foreigners can accept. Let me explain. 

When the Iranians were escaping Iran in the early 80's, the Jewish Iranians mixed with the world Jews, and got their protection. When the Christian Iranians escaped, they got the Armenian and other Christian people's help. That left the secular Iranians like Amanpour and Kordestani, who did not care and were able to get on in US as ordinary US immigrants. But then Trump comes along, and they got mixed up with Muslims. Suddenly they got banned from travel.

What these secular Iranians never considered, was much like the same way the secular Iranians in Iran were, in the time of the last Shah. I remember telling folks at Princeton, that there is a spiritual vacuum in Iran, now that the diaspora does not approve of Ayatollahs. I saw it in my own father. I once asked him, "What do you believe?" and as an Engineer, he did not have views. He knew Hafez and all the ancient poetry perfectly, but ask him whether he prayed, he said, "No". And he didn't have to, until Khomeini came. But he was grappling for a religious system.

The question of faith and inspiration, is what is at the root of all this. My argument is clear. Money, materialism, needs the immaterial to flourish. This is the polarity we have. As an Ahuramazdan, we see everything as a polarity. The material, immaterial polarity in Iranians is clear. The Achaemenid architecture inspires us to build according to that art. It believed in the Ahuramazdan principles of heaven is in Iran, and no where else. Their concepts of that ideal have remained. The other religion polarities do not apply to Iranians. Iranians do not have heaven and hell in the Ahuramazdan system like Abrahamian religions. Everything is in "The Now". Ahuramazdans are Existentialists. You do good, and you get good, now. It is a bit like, "What goes around, comes around."

"Wow, Ali, that was a long one to digest."

"So in short, you are saying that all that stuff motivated you to do good for Iran."

Pretty much. I feel I need to bring Iran back based on that Ahuramazdan root. What makes this principle work, is that it is not based on being anti-Islam, or being political. It is the ancient culture. It as genuine as the answer to the best question of all.

"What is the best question of all, for all Iranians, Ali?"

It is, "Why do you like Ghormeh Sabzi?"

"And the answer is ..."

Because I am an Iranian.

"As usual, childishly simple, but timelessly true."

"You graciously remain an idiot"

Thanks.