It is past noon on the 22 October 2018; i sit in a new room for the 1st time since July 2017. I like it very much, though there was much consternation in the run up to the act. Odd that given how many new residences i’ve enjoyed in my long life; one might expect a normalcy of sorts for the process, yet it feels almost the inverse - that somehow a new setting reflects poorly on me as a human being. Some of that certainly is from socialization, and partly from having 3 siblings, none of which has lived in their respective domiciles less than 20 years - a combined total likely closer to 100 years than 75, but shit changes regardless of any effort to prevent it. For example, just now the AI-pseudo intellect of apple’s RTF text editor chastised my use of a comma in front my last “than” until i added a number behind it. That is more sophisticated than i’d have expected from a bloated, sloppy app from one of the world’s top five richest companies - like i said, shit changes. In the case of my new habitation, i am glad i rolled with the unknown. There is a large enclosed garden just down the slope from my ample patio. I have high ceilings and even a second bed in my loft, though how i’d ever manage to sleep in two beds eludes me. Just now i received a refrigerator from my enigmatically kindly Duena, so all that remains is is to register with the authorities of my new habitation - a not unique requirement to life in our modern world. Yet here i sit writing as i would had i never moved, for it is Monday and that is what i have deemed normal for Mondays, when i’m of a mind. One thing seems fairly clear, moving homes is no guarantee of new thinking or new stories - perhaps incrementally. The transition from my former abode was fraught with the anxiety, and existential angst. I remain unclear about how much was of my making, if any - a blissfully ignorant thought, however impossible. Aside from the emergent misalliance that is provoked when loyalties are rent asunder; there was a provocative claim to money not honorably gained. I hesitate to say someone stole money, because that is such sad echo to put out into an already sad enough world, but i am struggling to relinquish what i believe is a just claim to monies i left on deposit.
That there is a ruling elite positioning themselves to plunder money i paid into social security could certainly color my sense of umbrage at an egregious misrepresentation of facts in record. This personal controversy is contrasted against a very real learned certainty that to quibble over filthy lucre is a self-inflicted impediment to a free and clear future - go figure. Which part of the equation is actually new, the fact that greed impacts honest dealings, and has from the time of the first purloined sirloin, or that abandoning a quagmire to those who believe gain at any cost is a valid enterprise? What i seek is not so much justice, as the fruits of correct ambition using the trusty lens of the written word to tease insights from the abyss of my despair. Ha, fucking despair, who’s got time for that shit. I’m surrounded by enough honest labor to challenge the exploits of old. Where do i find in the days of yore keys to valid human effort that yields wisdom and guidance for all who seek it? That sounds like an innocuous enough desire - help others to help others. That is assuming it is true what Albert Einstein said “The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than rule.” It is an irony for me that i’m doing no favors for the people i thought to be friends by leaving them in a quagmire of greed, yet to take the steps necessary to separate them from ill-gotten gains would require measures that would surely leave them further removed from peace than they are now i’d imagine - fucking paradoxes, someone aught to get a gun as if there were a target for ambiguity. Or is it a function of the unknown that the only help one can expect is to face wholly and honestly failures, or miscalculations in PC terms, and to apply whatever learned adaptations fit in each new circumstance? I don’t know. I’m not even sure any longer i wish to be influenced by previous convictions when looking out over the horizon of possible eventualities.
For example, where i dwell is an ideal location for intensive permaculture experimentation, yet i am not owner, or even tenured guest and i am stating opinions as though they were facts - those who have known me over time would not be surprised. I just don’t have gas in the tank to fight any battles up a hill, nor am i any authority on permaculture. However the underpinnings of logic which permaculture, as i understand it, are based on - doing the most with the least effort; listening carefully to what the landscape does of its own accord and simply help it to excel. But what if it is not just the landscape one needs to read; what if it’s the whole history of the property that must be taken into to consideration, including the personalities, ambitions and complexities of the those who call this home where i am now in the process of transplanting myself¿ I just don’t know. Nor am i sure what is new about this circumstance vs my previous aside from the obvious - it is rural and not city; there is much space with nary a soul passing my window or a hint of any neighbor near or far. Am i the same person i was when i moved into my previous domicile? Is the concept of anything new a hoax; is it a fiction that we are able to alter our perceptions and behaviors to illicit new outcomes. As i remember from school, this question has been all the rage during certain religious epics - nature vs nurture, itself a variation of predestination vs free will. This recent assault on my wherewithal is not the first time in my life someone has taken advantage of my good nature, and yet i cling to cheerful optimism as pragmatically efficient the same as my father did, and likely his father before him, though i know little about my grandfathers, either one. I do know that payback is a motherfucker; karma’s a bitch - then you die.
So what is to be gained by seeking solutions to our kind’s perennial faults - greed, hatred and delusion, amongst others too many to count? Will it provide me long-lived habitation like that of my siblings? Would the right blend of interpersonal savior faire with business acumen allow me a strife-free existence free from betrayal and deceit¿ How does one devise such a blend of skills if that were true¿ Is it even possible to imagine something altogether new which when practiced produces peace and harmony - maybe “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? I try to apply logic to my life, such as pissing in a jug instead of flushing gallons each time i pass water - I cannot alter the waste and avarice being applied to the world’s water supply, but i can damn sure restrict the number of times i flush water down the drain - regardless of any offense my eccentricity give to conventional thinking. I am the anti-consumer and find little worth in shopping, but that is not a new behavior is what used to be called frugal - formerly a trait of character, but now consigned to the very unhip quip of “cheap.” I remember portable phones when the first came out some time during my second marriage; i also remember the young married mother who owned when she bolted for Las Vegas leaving the long suffering, but very patient father tending the two daughters, his own business and the household - while the portable phone was of no help in explaining the abandonment. Eventually there was reconciliation, but that was due more to the husband’s tenacity than any enhance communication option the gadget provided. For myself, during the collapse of my last marriage that we both had phones only enhanced the irreconcilable estrangement when her phone would not be answered for days on end - hardly an inducement to maintain such a shackle - she or it.
As i age and my once mighty productive output ebbs to a trickle like my pee, i measure the suitability of any domicile by how easily i am able to work; this partly explains why i had stayed in the company of people who would eventually betray their supposed friendship for a paltry sum. So including the installation of a refrigerator; as well as a jaunt to the local vegetable stand, i have managed a 5 paragraphs on an unwieldy topic of parsing whether there is any such thing as “new,” or we are all just delusional and feasting on the same hash, just with different fixings. I have learned something i never realized before, though the word could almost be called my personal motto - unwieldly is not unwieldly - it is “unwieldy”. Does confronting wrong thinking count as something new? If so that really calls into question my rock solid faith in the old french proverb, “plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes.” I can speak for no one but myself, but for wrong thinking, i’m what might be described as a target-rich environment. Nor can i attribute any particular condition where my proclivity for wrong thinking crosses over to “less” wrong thinking, or even becomes right thinking, as though there were such a thing. I had thought about the home i was just sort of chased out of in much the high esteem i perceive my current lodgings. What has changed from my previous happy circumstance? Was it me or them or both? Would i want to prevent such change even if i could¿ Am i really in a new circumstance, or am i a different person in the same circumstance - just a different location? I can’t say just now, because i don’t know - i only hope that this new circumstance was as much fun as the last - because why not¿
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old - the sonnet
i used to think “old as dirt” was funny
now i am not so indestructible-
no news to the sad whimpers in my knee
which one - is based on g-d’s good timetable
Old’s still funny, mostly if you ain’t dead.
today, this escapes any discussion-
replaced with a feeble manufactured dread
lacking nothing, except some compassion.
Purchase-price for the eternal of young
includes your memory of those things past-
value, honor, what it means to belong,
and understanding you will come in last
ya’all win - anymore i could give a fuck
i’ll welcome my next breath as just good luck.
jts 10/22/2018
http://josephtstevens.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserv
∞
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