Day #38

I just had a weird the-future-is-now moment. While waiting for the internet to load, specifically my blog editor, just now, I was worried that the words in my head would be forgotten because dear GOD, how can one type or otherwise exhibit their thoughts without the INTERNET-WEBS,

So, I will use that as an excuse to pop the cork on another bottle of wine. Why not.

Day #38 in paradise.


We moved here 38 days ago. We found a pretty cool apartment, with nice neighbors and an avocado tree or two. Thinking is hard when the neighbors play loud music. All day.

Alrighty / therefore / so, here we go, this is my community service: I will translate law so that everyone can understand not only the letter of it, but the spirit as well.


Today's translation is inspired by the rapscalions next door:
...
B.  It is determined that certain noise levels and vibration are detrimental ("Clubby siren and bass music sucks and, if too loud, also effects") to the public health ("the way people feel physically."), welfare ("You are violating their space by making loud noises in it and that is aggressive") and safety ("and how much of that wouldn't piss someone off.") and contrary to public interest, and therefore the board of supervisors of the county does ordain and declare that creating, maintaining, causing or allowing to be created, caused or maintained any noise or vibration in a manner ("So, be warned: if you make loud, stupid noise") prohibited by or not in conformity with the provisions of this chapter is a public nuisance("you are pissing a lot of people off") and shall be punishable as such ("and the state will make you pay money for being a dick."). (Ord. 11778 § 2 (Art. 2 § 201), 1978: Ord. 11773 § 2 (Art. 2 § 201), 1978.)
...

Political agreements

We aren’t being truthful with ourselves.  We’re blaming our government for the problems we perceive in the world – the wars, the warming, the lack of resources, the tension and hate – like Frankenstein blaming his monster for the destruction he caused.

A government is an agreement.  Idealistically, we are in an agreement with ‘officials’ or ‘politicians’ to run the show for us.  Please, we say, make decisions in the best interests of mankind and of Americans.  We will pay you to be experts – tax us, take our money and place it where it is needed most.  Help make policies to keep us healthy and safe.  And comfortable.

And we all know how that goes.  Power corrupts and those put in charge don’t act in the best interests of mankind.  Or so we think.

Actually, these politicians are doing exactly what we want them to do.  As evidenced by our massive, massive consumption and greed, we are not willing to change our lifestyles and change what we need.  We are not willing to live without electricity or easy food.  We are not willing to give up extensive travel, air conditioning, cars, cheap products – this is our heritage, is it not?  We are the Gods of the Earth and we cannot be contained!  Our lust cannot be contained!  We should not be contained as it is our right to travel freely, eat what we want and do what we please.  Just make sure I am comfortable – anything less is uncivilized!

So, why should we expect our politicians to be our moral compasses?  If we demand a lifestyle that, at the very least, requires so damn much of the Earth’s resources, why shouldn’t we go to war for that demand?  Why shouldn’t we have 1000+ military bases all over the world to ensure our domination?  Why shouldn’t we turn a blind eye to labour practices that ensure cheap consumer goods?  Why should we wait until we can create safe, non-destructive energy to have luxury?  Why should we wait to take our places as Earth-kings?  Why shouldn’t we demand that all resources (shale oil, arctic oil, water) be made available to satiate our immediate lust, to the point of our own destruction?

We don’t really care about the future or other people or the fact that we’re all dying and taking the world with us.  If we did care our actions would reflect it.  If we estimate the reasonable, tangible consequences of our individual actions, multiply that by 7 billion and the resulting figure still kills the world - why do we act so?  Because someone else in the schoolyard is doing it?  Has a bigger toy?  Makes us feel unimportant?

We don’t really care.  If we did, we’d spend some time considering real change, beyond (or in spite of) politicians and policies.  The world is dying and it’s our fault.

Desk Jockey Shit Hole

So, here's my 300-word essay on the desk jockey shit hole.

What's less human than the hell of an air-conditioned, sanitized room where you're paid to sit still and move and talk and feel minimally while bright information is forced in your face in the most efficient (read: least fun) way possible?  In fact, the more boring it seems, the better!  

Not much is less human.  Not much feels less human.

Why is it considered wrong to want to satisfy your body and mind in the course of daily living?  Culture tells me that, unless I sit behind the same desk at the same fucking time every fucking day, doing something that bored the shit out of me while watching the sun course through the sky in a filter of UV-deflective glass, I will not be able to live a decent life.  I will not be able to afford health insurance, dental work, decent food or a good place to live.  Why not?

How would I like to live, then?  At the rate I'm "figuring it out", I may never know know, but I do know that there are certain ways that I don't want to live.  I don't want to sit on my ass all day - it doesn't feel good and it's so fucking boring.  I mean, what's the point of it?  You sit, you can't even think meaningful or interesting thoughts, you sit upright in the same place for 8 hours each day, move your fingertips and virtually move things around but what are you doing?  You're literally a cog in a very unforgiving machine.  Your body and your mind rot so that someone else can sit around and think?  Is that true?  Does it matter?  Does it matter why you're rotting?  - whether there's a cultural excuse for the loss of your freedom?  What did you do?  What did I do?

Don't be in a desk jockey shit hole.  It will kill you while you breathe - and dying is no way to live.

Narrative #34, This One's For You, Jess.

Feelings feelings, feelings.

What is life?  Feeling the importance of every moment?  Realizing the most fun thing you could possibly do and then do that a lot?  Depriving yourself of the fun things?  What is the meaning of it - is it fun to think about?

Why do I love doing this stuff so much?  Love like I love music and all things that are awesome.  I don't know that I want to entertain people, it's more like I want people to adore me.  Damn, that felt good to get out there.

That's it.  That's everything.  I want everyone, everywhere to affirm my existence.  That's depraved.  It's like I'm everyone's bitch!  How did that happen?  How did this happen?


Well, what then is me to admire?  What am I?  And who?  Am I the way I look?  Am I what I say, and to whom?  Maybe a set of lenses, or TVs, looking around?  Some sort of robot, taking notes and keeping logs?  Scary.

What about thinking, then?  What the shit does that mean?  How do you think?  What is thinking - is it the voice-over narrative of everything?  Is it more, that's unexplained in words?  And when I'm sitting here, "thinking", I mostly feel insane because I can't concentrate on anything and then at some point I find that I'm thinking about sex and I feel a little guilty because I was trying to think of something serious.

The shower is a great place to think, by the way.  And a great place to have sex.  Which makes it an even better place to think.  Win-fucking-win.  Have sex in the shower, ladies and gentlemen - GOOD NIGHT!

Global Embracement, Age of Empires style

We know this is false, we've seen it before.

We're not in other countries to promote 'democracy' the ideal, we're there fighting to sustain 'democracy' the way of life for some.

And that means America is King.  It's true, it's disgusting.  Since WWII and the fear of another Depression, we've "embraced" a global economy.

Let's explain it in terms of a successful Age of Empires campaign.  If you haven't played this game before, it's pretty much played like you'd think from the title.  You build up an empire as a certain race of people and then either fight people to total annihilation or create treaties with them.  One way to guarantee your future empire-awesomeness is to spread out on the limited map early.  Get miners to mineral sites, loggers to forests and barracks anywhere you can.  This way, you ensure that you have the most wealth and therefore strength, even when it means encroaching on some other race's natural resources.  That is how you win quickly.

This is how America works.  Want to interfere in Latin American markets without being afraid of native populations revolting against American corporations stealing their shit?  NAFTA.  Want to start a war over oil in a country struggling to combat its own internal conflicts?  Weapons of mass destruction.  Want to spruce up the ol' economy, line the pockets of your politicians and give jobs to your contractor friends? Reinvigorate the idea of American Supremacy and go fight in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan.  Want to reneg on the American contract of life, liberty and property because it threatens your economic status?  Domestic terrorism.

All so we can feel better about the size of our dicks.

Living with dignity

Often the argument for medical euthanasia is to let the dying die with dignity.  Well, why the hell don't we demand to live with dignity?

We are living under a government that is nothing more than a few rich, mostly white men who use the influence of their global corporations to write laws to benefit them and not us.

What is freedom if not the right to choose how to live, without affecting the freedom of others?

What are these laws that humiliate us?  Who voted for them?  We have people in government declaring themselves important and capable that are no more than criminals who lie, steal and further corrupt.

And what do we do when the money we pay goes to corrupt institutions?

Essentially, we have no choice.  We pay money for war and internal corruption and greater police presence and NOT for education and NOT for helping the poor and NOT for helping the sick because it is a crime not to.  We are arrested, beaten and oppressed for gathering in protest.  We are now legally strip searched for any reason.  We are tracked on our phones without warrant or reason.

So, we live day-to-day, trying to carve out a 'respectable' existence for ourselves and our families, with no time to care about the community, to help one another, to resist our oppressors.  We're locked into student loan debt (which is the only way most of us can get educations), mortgage debt (much of it illegal, most of it unfair), paying taxes we disagree with, paying bailouts that do nothing but continue to bolster fraudulent activities and pay bonuses to those responsible for our loss of our houses.

Where is dignity?  What is dignity?  How can we live with dignity?

Insurgo, insurgi, insurrectum.

Humor is truth, truth is humor

I don't know what thoughts I'd have to share with the world right now - I feel paralyzed, just paralyzed.  What can I do?  I feel small and weak.  I feel like I'm fighting a tide, inside and out.  Sometimes I wonder if the situation will improve much - either from without or within.  I desperately hope so, but I don't know how to be a catalyst and I don't have the faintest idea why not.

The government is a plague of petty men, who upon declaring themselves 'important', set to control more and more.  They cannot be separate from the laws if they benefit from those laws.  And if they are not separate from those laws, they should not be trusted to make them.  But what's the solution?  Stupid little ruler wannabes.  You think if you abstract the issue enough, the people will not realize that the burden is still on their shoulders?

We are not helpless.

Other people's shit.

It's not a matter of not growing up.

It's not a matter of not being responsible.

It's a matter of waking up one morning and realizing that you've got to deal with other people's shit, as well as your own that's the problem.  Because other people are assholes, you have to spend your life fighting and stressing.

Insurgo.

Insurgo, insurgi, insurrectum.

You did everything right.  You worked hard, abstained from most "bad" things, paid your taxes, got a degree - maybe even 2 or 3! - and yet it feels like you're being punished.

Those who taught us are afraid to admit that they don't know either; it would make their lives worthless if the people who told you to live this way were not lying to themselves.

This life is already meaningless enough.  Why else do we have to constantly train ourselves with media and movies and ads so that we understand the importance of correct behavior - like being in the right social circle, agreeing with the crowd (and sticking up for your bros (!), not necessarily your values.  BROS!!!), deference to wastes of human tradition (because God totally wants us to live like spoiled little shits) and the longing (L-O-N-G-I-N-G) to be a princess and finally realize how special and undervalued you really are!

Insurgo, insurgi, insurrectum.

But you're doing everything right.  You exercise, you date, you buy things to support the economy, you eat organic food, you vote.  The goodness of mankind will ensure that the most likable, best candidate for the job will win and make the rules for 4 years!  He'll (or she!  Of course someday it'll happen!  Mankind is essentially good and fair, right?!!) make sure to defend the average person's interests and, if we don't like what he or the other elected officials are doing, we can completely change it, uniting as people and picking an even better guy (or gal!)!

0 for 2 - none of those people give a shit what any average person anywhere thinks.  They understand that a few very rich individuals control most of the choices This Great Nation makes, including wars, the education system, the organic food lie, the growing income gap...and the only reason that he or she even got to be a candidate is because they've made some very steep promises - not to you or I - but to these very wealthy people.  It's like a horribly disgusting scene from a movie where the good-looking protagonist is forced to do the evil bidding of some overweight, ugly, pimply, fat slob who only wants to be more powerful.  A la Baron Harkonnen (A.K.A. the floating fat man).

Insurgo, insurgi, insurrectum.

You'll continue to do everything right, because you don't know what else to do.

Insurgo, insurgi, insurrectum.

You'll work for a good company, you'll have children, you'll visit the commercial theme parks for fun, you'll temper your drinking, you'll set a good example, you'll blame something else when more of the ground water becomes contaminated, you'll throw dinner parties and cook something fancy, you'll blame the OTHER guy for sending us to war again, you'll pay back your student loans, you'll blame the populace for being too lazy, you'll watch "your" shows - even if you don't like them - so you can gchat your office pals about it and have a good laugh, you'll complain all the way to the grave because of how bad things are - how bad people are letting things get, not like when you were young and everything was great because people cared, like you.

INSURGO - INSURGI - INSURRECTUM.
  RISE UP  -   REBEL   -      REVOLT.

i never signed a social contract

Are we saying that things need to change before we decide to join your society?

Where's the incentive for staying within a group of people who we consider assholes?

Changing to do, ramblingly

I don't know what to do.  I've...never really had this problem in this way before.

Things that I thought I wanted no longer seem as important.  I feel like I'm in kind of a free fall where time has stopped but I have not.  I feel like I am watching everything around me happening in slow motion.  I feel a strange sense of detachment, but not *quite* apathy.

What is this mood?  What is this lack of zeal to DO?

I'm not worried about failing; I'm not worried about putting effort forward with no result.

I'm worried that I don't know where to put my efforts, I guess.  But I don't want to sit on my brains and indecisions, either.

Maybe I haven't come to terms with myself.  Like...I thought I knew what I wanted and what was best/logical/desirable/natural, but it doesn't seem so best/logical/desirable/natural now.

You know the drill: Get a good education, get a job you can have fun doing, find a mate, mate it up, make some family members, think about stuff, be a good person in your community, chillax and enjoy the beauty of life.

But.  BUT.  But.  There are many problems with this.

First, I've always felt skeptical of this formula for basic reasons, even before this recent mental weirdness - there's an inherent lack of community (family units do not count as community), it's kind of boring-sounding and there's not a lot of room in this societal structure to do something else and seem 'successful.'

Maybe more importantly to this recent mental weirdness, however, are the large facts that I've recently (allowed myself to) become aware of.  Our way of life is selfish to other humans, to other life and to the earth itself.  This pattern of existence is too complacent and allows for mad amounts of corruption by those who are even MORE bored by it.  It's not satisfying or progressive to a lot of people.  We treat ourselves and everything around us like ignorant shit.  Truth.

I feel like I've been looking for a long time for a mentor, or a leader, or someone who could help me in this journey.  Someone with all of the answers.  I've looked to parents, teachers, peers, mates, friends, religions, institutions, educations, philosophies, whatever.

And maybe this approach was fundamentally flawed, although I'd like to say that I've been learning the whole time.  I guess I'm starting to wake up a little more and realize my own mind.  Or understanding that the answers that I look for lie more in my own experiences than in others'.

And what of these experiences?  How does a person know which experiences to seek?  Which opportunities to embrace and which to reject?

What to do?? What not to do???

Missing the point

I think I am sometimes. I wonder..

Time passes and I'm not sure I'm getting it. I'm not sure where to look. It's both incredibly inspiring and incredibly depressing to think of how much no one really knows about what's happening. I guess it makes sense - if we had a significant amount of mentorship in these times, we wouldn't be in these times.

Like a lot of people I encounter, it's difficult and frustrating to know exactly what to do, day-to-day. To be blunt, if one wants to have no further impact on the world, one needs only to end their life. And that's not an option for (I hope) most of us!

So, how do we strike this balance?

On one side: we need to aggressively change our individual and collective actions to save the world and to preserve human rights. We are running out of resources, we are massively polluting the world, we are increasing global temperatures with disastrous impacts, we're killing people in the Middle East for oil, we're letting people die in Africa for lack of oil and we're trying our damnedest to hide in a world of make-believe while all this happens.

On the other side: we need to remember what it means to be human. We need to make sure we're having fun (or what's the point?), we need to remember that we're all capable of poor judgement and we need to forgive each other and ourselves for the irresponsible things we've done. Compassion and understanding are not best when rushed.

How do we balance these things? How do we love and yet condemn? How do we make changes that will require sacrifices from all of us? How do we consider these human transgressions daily without hate, malice or depression?

What can we do? What more can I do than protest and tell everyone I know to be more aware? Am I lazy? Do I remain unsure and convince myself that I cannot do more because of fear?

Possibly..