le réfugié - stolen from a Sacramento porch 1994 - please pray for the souls of those who would so such a thing . .
My gift, lesson, treasure . . here on this material plane seems to be an easy familiarity with the pernicious distraction of anger in all of its guises - fear, aggression, disdain . . what’s not always clear is whose is whose. For example, when I say “all billionaires are putzes” which dynamic is fulfilled: “the human barometer” as my friend Winston describes me, or the anger magnet I feel like - using a different expression, which came first; the chicken or the egg? It has become achingly clear that expecting “noblesse oblige” from the Porcine Billionaire's Club feasting on today’s world is a recipe for planetary suicide and everybody knows suicidal ideation is dead. Nearly as painful is the certain knowledge that anger in any form is not only futile, but costly, distracting, regressive, etc. So where the fuck is all this rage coming from? Could there be a correlation between excess carbon and excess anger, as though the death throes of animals dying for eons is released as carbon emissions wafting a seething ever-present anger into all levels of our personal and public lives, ? I don’t know . . .
In a "Wartime Prayer," Paul Simon has sung of his want to "cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through. ." Renouncing rage is a good place to begin, yet by accepting the principle of pacifism as an eternal truth, what then of the legitimate outrage sparked by matters of deadly serious neglect to an exploding human population - climate destruction, fresh water contamination or ocean marine life collapse: all debacles increasingly “managed” with the public relations flick of a wrist, or worse martial law? My blood boils just contemplating the scope of stupidity which has brought us to this point in history, and I am an old lion - not the firebrand of my youth. At the beginning of the month I was bitten by an insect which became a necrotizing wound. The 10 day-old welt is beginning to close with the aid of mesquite honey; my 2 year-old-expired-warranty dryer doesn’t dry because it blew an “overheat” diode (my own fault) - the repairman received $60 for the diagnosis (again deficiency in my own knowledge base). It is difficult to know whether i’m angry, frightened or frustrated; or whether my consternation has currency compared to the misery of any war-ravaged child in Gaza or the world; or any African-American living in Ferguson, MO. Herein lies the rub - if I am not able to find a way to be at peace with my own tribulations - it is a certainty, I will have nothing to contribute to Gaza, Ferguson or the world.
According to one of sensai Lao Tzu’s observations, “Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.” By this definition, we are awash in strong people who regardless of station or wherewithal have no real real power. It is all i can do to stifle my own petty irritations much less be of service to others or find stable footing when anger - cultural or domestic - is the Lingua Franca used today for quashing fear. My heroes have always been militant pacifists, and the extremity of what is about to befall our species makes the choice of one’s heroes more vital possibly affecting the survival of our species. Deep inside of myself I weep to know how sad that is, yet am warmed to my core by knowing how deep in our species’ is the historical struggle to provide compassion to each other in times of need. Jesus overturned the capitalist’s carts in the market place and also declared “vengeance is mine” according to lore. He is a hero of mine because his ideas could not be bought - people know chicanery whether it is Mohammadian, Christian, or Church of the Holy Grufyti. What always rings true is what brings you back to what you seek - simple kindness, for with the exception of our planet’s uniquely murderous socio-paths (the “1%” - 3% of the population consigned to the darkest regions of human existence - a life without feeling) the 7 billion others of us are seeking mostly some small kindness - that or get laid, which may be the same thing - I don’t know . . “get laid” (third-person singular simple present gets laid, present participle “getting laid”, simple past got laid, past participle gotten laid) - now we’re all unsure.
War is no longer an option and how to staunch the hemorrhaging of the human spirit at a time when our specie’s very breath is imperiled is more than a nostalgic counter-cultural “mirroring” exercise; I mean to applaud you and your undiscovered capacity for “rising” to the occasion. Dr. M.L.King has said “those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war; but weren’t we talking about ire (sounds like tire) anger, rage, fury, righteous indignation - an unfunny subject, prevalent, but not that funny? Nor is “fighting fire with fire” a good option - not when so many faucets today provide water that burns? Retaliation has always been weak from what I’ve seen - a process which included separating broadcast fictions of “manly” exploits by knights, cowboys and GI Joes from the rough and tumble business of day-to-day give-and-take that has characterized human interaction throughout the nearly 25,000 years of recorded history. Today’s media narrative cannot allow you to know this incongruous fact about human relations, and dredges up repeatedly the foundation of whys and wherefores for how we are doomed to kill or be killed; that same media apparatus is so much in control of what you hear or see, it is not inconceivable some corporate flunky or his/her NSA stooge may be deciding whether this essay will be shown to you or not.
Give and take requires a camaraderie that is being broken up into smaller and smaller clusters, gangs, or as they say in Mother Russia, soviets. We, our nation, our planet, our species have been divided and are conquered. The rage this battlefield reality invokes in me is complete and will endure as an existential flavor long after my decomposition into the elements or newly formed molecules for some future/passed purpose in this not-void of our shared emptiness. What I will not cede is the valence of that rage which I believe is a function of what humor, love and compassion I can attract to my anatomy through the food, activity or thought I’m privileged to consume or engage in by design or circumstance. While this discussion may sound like bullshit or gibberish, and it may be, it gives me pleasure which I prefer to anger, any surplus of which I’ve been unable to purge through will or wisdom will be hunted like the dirty dog it is by my lesser self so that my greater self may transmute that vile bile into a path toward kindness which I need and know you seek as well.
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