The word essay in French means “tried”, and so like its originator Michel de Montaigne - i do, i did and i will continue, because the alternative is surrender which i am also trying to accomplish. Fucking paradoxes - are they our friends¿ The capitalists resolved this paradox by trademarking “just do it” - a convenient slight of hand designed to weaken consumer restraint and encourage the delusion that if you pay outrageous sums for the white man’s moccasin assembled on the backs of wage slaves earning less in a day than what you spend on coffee before lunch. The workers suffer far from the bucolic venues you train your delusion of accomplishment, or more accurately feed your dopamine addiction. Don’t misunderstand, i loved running, but regardless of my affection for that exercise or addiction to dopamine, the realities of decay, unequal leg length and surgical intrusion have cornered my aged constitution into a reality learning curve; i’ve resorted to “adapt and improvise” under the guise of surrender. Nor was the discipline necessary to run 20 miles a week entirely in vain, now i write, sweating and whining the entire distance until I lay my head down at night and sleep the sleep of exhaustion. Running and essays have much in common; both have a beginning and end; each provides nourishment to the spirit; and during each activity one can begin to see things unrecognized prior to the effort - limits, broken-limits, understanding, and/or ignorance (most especially one’s own).
I chose not to title this essay, because i’m disillusioned regarding persuasion and its usefulness in improving the world (read saving humanity from certain doom). I read this morning that coral reefs provide half the oxygen in the atmosphere of our planet, and that the coral reefs on our planet are expected to expire by 2050 due to the increasing warmth of oceans - the “Great Barrier Reef” the largest living thing on earth and nursery to one quarter of the planet’s marine life is dying, if not dead already. With or without a title, how do you share information like that and not want to be persuasive¿ I am deep in the process of resolving issues of my own mortality, which for a stonecutter can be quite complicated, for example a brother (who is now facing cancer) asked me once if i carved stone in an effort to become immortal - like the rung bell, that question has never ceased to resonate. My resolution is that if i’m not immortal now what future time could possible contain more than all that i am right here, right now. It may not be a perfect solution, but how did we come by the deluded fantasy of any manner of perfection¿ Could it be the shrill drumbeat of deficiency blaring from every media portal and attached to every screen we consider on this “information superhighway” that demands we consider our existence as incomplete until we . . . buy, read, click, go - do . etc . etc . etc
Last night while sharpening a knife i noticed where a previous sharpener had created a dip at the junction of the outward curve and the inward curve. I understand this from fashioning stone and the complexities of joining convex and concave surfaces which can easily result in an unwanted line. From school i remembered a hated, but highly respected professor extolling the virtues of the “S curve” as it pertained to art and it occurred to me how many other places depend on this conscious balance of natural beauty which can be butchered by the inattentive hand of man, so i posted in the badlands of fb “isolation and distribution want equilibrium for perceptronium” with an s-curve street sign and an article from Wikipedia describing the s-curve. None of this explained my point that in today’s world the outward curve of “isolation” has nearly become a complete circle - money, lifestyle, information, love - so many things, while the inner curve of “distribution” has become a nearly flat line with very little of what is needed getting to so many who have such great need. I have grave reservations about the wizards of technology and their commitment to a level playing field, but must accept that my shorthand symbology is lost to most with or without zucky’s help picking what my friends see, or googol goosing the blogger numbers and obscuring from me information about who looks at what, simultaneously feeding the surveillance industry custom forms itemizing when i shit and how much.
This is where it gets dicey, do i now accept that what i think about the correlation between a thoughtfully sharpened knife edge and our impending extinction is just too bizarre for public consumption, even if in my heart of hearts i believe it to be marginally useful, if for no other reason than one lonely lost soul who might feel cared for by a perfect stranger¿ What if i’m providing public service entertainment for those hoards of snoops now employed to watch over a dangerous population waking to the destruction of their world; and what if the logic of what i say disguised as self-centered blather from a disaffected expatriate encourages one member from the conformity cocoon to flap his/her existential wings only to find the sky is the only thing to which they are chained - (thank you sheriff Dillon). The sad fact remains, persuasion is a weak tool for the weak minded, and the only real use this writing effort is good for is to reflect to myself the deficiencies of my reasoning and perhaps nurture the personal delusion of contribution to the greater good at a point in our history where “greater” is about to become exceptionally reduced. All the channels we now enjoy for entertainment and communication are about to be choked off through deliberate malfeasance, coordinated sabotage, and greed. What will be left is the giant screen from Orwell’s “1984” repeating over and over again - “war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”
So while i continue to adjust to an existential transition into the unknown, i will continue to share my efforts to understand what can’t be understood, because it is there that the soul of our growth resides. If we are to survive as something more than drones for the ruling class and fodder for their consumer massacre, it will be from individuals choosing difficult discussions about painful subjects with others who don’t want to hear - fucking paradox; is it an irony that paradox is my only friend¿ - “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” - Sun Tzu; “only your friends can hurt you, your enemies can’t get that close” - A. Nonymous. It doesn’t matter much, it’s certainly not worth going to war over. I have satisfied myself in this struggle with a problem that has no answer - how to save humanity from itself. Am i a better person for it¿ I’m a far better person than if i had spent the same amount of time scrolling fb making zucky richer; i’m a little closer to death and feel better about it; nor is it outside the realm of possibility that the one person reading this expository nightmare might look up perceptronium; be struck dumb by the logic contained in that word and then devote the balance of his/her life isolating its meaning and distributing her/his findings over an alternet designed by loving hearts to propagate meaning into a meaningless world.
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a sonnet
Iambic pentameter is our friend
and if it is good enough for Shakespeare
any friend of his, is mine to the end,
an end i’d have later than earlier.
Not so much because this place is so great,
but because frying pan into the fire’s true;
though change is how the bard would exclamate,
that and doses of existential pooh.
Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes
besides that, why change horses in midstream?
where is it written that prior forms will maim,
or good taste is what consensus will deem¿
if i’m having fun minding my own business
what’s your concern if i mock you or ISIS.
jts 051517
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved ·
∞
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