“Make it simple, not simpler” - Albert Einstein. It would seem Dr. Einstein wasn’t just smart, but prescient. Today people are waiting with abated breath for iPhone 7 - the 7th version of an appliance allegedly here to make our lives simpler. It would seem that Apple Inc. is the only one living more simply by running from paying their fair share of taxes - taxes plundered from the commonweal - taxes that were used to fund the original research and development of this Albatross around our necks, or more accurately, the +/- 5v shackle affixed to our wrists - soon to be implanted in our brains. If you think i’m kidding, read from Ray Kurzweil - chief engineer at Google. Recently I read that Australia has already begun injecting subdural chips for the sole purpose of authenticating your existence. Many youth today will not be astonished by these developments; myself it is difficult to fathom the astonishing pace of pacification for an entire planet by a handful of monsters. It seems so simple, yet if that is true, the polar opposite must also be true. For example, wars use to be fought for a broad spectrum of reasons - scarcity of resources, ideological differences, even things as banal as succession to the throne. Today, the only reason wars are fought is that it is extremely profitable to a handful of animals, i’m unwilling to attribute something so noble as human qualities to those who would winnow the population for fun and profit. Am i making it too simple? The reverse of this unfortunate predicament would be to set those same ciphers who currently declare themselves “masters of the universe” at each others throats. At least this way we may willingly submit to the victor. If all which humanity has become is “spoils to the victor,” why not let these faceless cowards duke it out to their demise; this way we may be assured that the leader we are following is at least willing to fight for our allegiance -
a circumstance that is not going to happen; i don’t know what is going to happen. I do know the only power i possess is over myself, and when in the company of a beautiful woman or a bottle of whiskey - even that self-discipline is in doubt. But all is not lost, for i have humor, or at best the conceit of humor. Mark Twain has said, “against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” What if it were that simple? For example, has anyone quantified the number of tyrants who abrogated their power at the mere mention of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” What good is all this world class technology if no one keeps records of such important facts if not to ectify the dearth of legitimate leadership at the the dawn of the Anthropocene (man new) Epoch. The current epoch Holocene (whole new) lasted from the time of the last Ice Age, 11,700 years. The good news is we are no longer in an Ice Age which then covered all the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S. in permafrost; the bad news is this may become the shortest-lived epoch of all - the Nekrosanthropocene (dead man new). Say i’m hysterical; we have more carbon in the atmosphere of our planet than we’ve had in the past 800,000 - 15,000,000 years. For those keeping track that is longer than we the homo sapiens (saps for short) have lived on the planet. We’d have had better data, but since the 1970’s the fossil fuel industry knew from its own scientists that carbon emissions would have an impact on world climate; this heinous treachery was only announced within the past year. Robert Brulle a professor at Drexel University published the only study i could find on the “corporate controlled” internet for money spent on climate change denial: 2003 - 2010, $558 million. This is only the money that could be tracked, but because our leaders at all levels of government have betrayed their public office for private gain, the largest monies spent subsidizing our own doom is untraceable, and getting more untraceable by the minute - not very funny is it?
I think it’s hilarious - here we sit yoked to the greatest research device ever used by haters to poison the human race against itself, and we’re posting photos of cats, nice cats - but cats nonetheless. There are children pulling in more money than you will ever make in your lifetime, because they know how to better monetize your keystrokes than you do - not laughing? Try this - Alexander The Great defeated Darius III, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire - the largest empire ever known to rule our world @ 44% of the world’s population or 50 million out of 112 million people alive in 480 BC. Today there is one billionaire alive for every 3,867,403.31 people on the planet - any of you “wannabe big-shots” want to whip it out and go toe-to-toe with those odds. Just askin’ - still not laughing? A ballpark estimate for the total cost of salary for just the United States “legislative branch” and staff has been estimated at $171,000,000 - for the numerically challenged that reads as one hundred seventy one million and some odd dollars. By contrast, money paid to those same civil servants living on your dime accepted $3,900,000,000 in “lobby” money, or again for the numerically challenged three billion nine hundred million dollars - still not laughing. I can’t help you. I begin to understand through these exertions what Dr. Einstein may have meant by “make it simple, but not simpler”. Simplify for the ruling class began as one sage professor posited when the newly empowered capitalista had an excess of product no one wanted - soap for example. Previously human beings rinsed with water/vinegar/salt and made good, so the ever perspicacious merchant class convinced us soap was the remedy to our filth; lo and behold, we have inundated our waters with the very solvent we buy to save us from our dirt. Tired of waiting for the transit - poof we’ll transport you for a song - the automobile song (sorry kind reader, but the agents of our doom will not allow me to post “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” without cost to you).
“I am comfortable with chaos, I’m not sure chaos is comfortable with me” - Bob Dylan. I sit in Uruguay frightened, not from the Uruguayans who i find have heart and core values preserved g_d knows how from much bullshit in the world, but i promised an essay on simplicity and i cannot be much more simple than that; i could become simpler but would rather not. Ours is not a time of leisure, but like the false promise of making life simpler by using an Apple iPhone 7 - i’d be lying to you were i to suggest anything but diligent effort in service of your more heartfelt ambitions would be of any use to you at this time in our history for no other reason than to leave your own concept of how to survive. We, none of us know what will be read from this chaos that we muddle through with our plaitive cries for understanding. If nothing i say or write ever helps another cogent creature on our world to perpetuate itself as a viable rhizome; i am doing my best. Is this simplicity? No, it is a complex of burdens i have chosen, full of complexity not of my making. How can i cook this melange into a nutritional fare worthy of our human history - i’m not sure. I don’t buy much: unprepared food, threads that run bare, flowers for what i cannot resist and tokens for what i can. I apply myself, searching for anything of value outside of myself; my own interests seem paltry compared to the suffering i’ve learned to peer into. It is my nature to help, but we’ve almost allowed ourselves the delusion that someone else’s aid is dirty - how the fuck did that ever happen?
As a kid my most vivid memories are from working together with my homies - even if it was only how to throw rocks at our enemies - more often, it was fixing the chain on a bicycle or figuring out which way the tin foil on the antenna made the TV channel clear. Yet, here i sit decades later trying to explain what was then only an existential pimple - that shrill scream notifying all within earshot to “duck under our desks and tuck our heads between our knees” in anticipation of what would later be euphemistically described as “anonymous incineration,” but now has become, and remains, a swelling chancre of fear foisted on an entire planet for no other reason than the same egocentric ambitions which plagued the world when Alexander conquered Darius III nearly 2,500 years ago. Let me put it to you differently - as dumb as you think humans were then - you’d be 10x as dense. I mean no offense, but rather than respecting your capacity to exceed the expectations of your rulers, you spend your pennies on Laker Jerseys, paying Uber to improve the rulers ability to track your ever move, or mortgage your time to own a building that proves you are Queen/King of your castle. You are not free if you live to die in the service of a rich man’s margin. Having said that - there is a lot in that margin the rich man cannot account for - courage, love, honor, loyalty - all those things the media hooks you with but never delivers. The only place anyone has ever found those qualities are in the day-to-day relationships which 99% of the world develops out of love and concern. You think i’m kidding - when was the last time your sports hero came to you in your despair and said, “I know she broke your heart, but she did it for your own good.” - that is a question . . ? . . anyone . .
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complexity - the sonnet
Complexity as a sonnet stops here,
how could it go further, where would it go?
Sonnets by nature mostly persevere,
for to develop word-thoughts, one is slow,
. . . especially ideas of any use.
What in this dying world helps the other?
That concept itself is pretty damn loose.
Still, we’re in a sonnet - going further.
Does it matter where we end - up, or down?
Fucking questions - can’t we make it simple?
Love is close, so why do i always drown?
Maybe battleships are not so good to pull?
Yet they say what is of use ain’t easy
Life’s hard, works fun, sometimes even cheesy.
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