friend - an essay / foe · the sonnet

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” - Muhammad Ali

I have friends i’ve never met; i don’t know how that happened, but it is as certain as i sit and write. Nor am i compelled to track them down with my gratitude; it may be they are friends for that reason alone. I don’t know. I owe much more than gratitude to those i am lucky enough to include as friends. My life has been made better from their care, sometimes even the lack thereof. It may be the completeness i have found in friendship i find most helpful - they know your bullshit, and it’s okay. I’ve often struggled with that limitation of my own character, as though one can eviscerate the unpalatable from one’s world and thereby from one’s self. My better friends have reminded me of the compassion i had lost to resentment, fury, pain and the thousands of other irritations coerced from humans through betrayal, indifference or any manifestation of the delusion that one has no choice. I’ve heard “a friend is a gift you give yourself”, as well as “a friend is someone who divides the grief and doubles the joy”. There are millions of homilies about friendship one can read when trying to fathom “what happened to all my friends?” In the highly socialized California suburbs of my youth, school was every bit as Balkanized as anything found in the Serbo-Croatian wars of the early 90’s. The major distinction being there were few people of color to cleanse, so not unlike “Lord of the Flies,” cliques formed and set upon each other with a similar fervor found on that island. Depending on one’s perspective, this time in my life happily corresponded with the kaleidoscope 60’s counter-culture epoch of hippiedom. From our parents viewpoint, it could not have been easy to hear their progeny mutter sneeringly under their breath “kill everyone over 30.” The upside would have to be that for an instant in time “a brotherhood of man” became nearly visible - a speck in time that unraveled with drug deals gone bad and the ravages of substances killing off your brethren. It didn’t seem to help much that about the same time broads got sick of the brotherhood bullshit and with good reason raised the noble flag of “sisterhood” - itself subject to the pitfalls of any nobility.

But man i had some good friends, male/female - animal, mineral and spiritual. I will never forget the look in my father’s eyes when Jimmy B______, a wanderer passing through from New York city hoisted himself up to the roof of our crashpad and backflipped 12 feet to ground - continuing his conversation with my father as though nothing had happened. Pop had been a gymnast in school and his expression was one of profound regard - a feeling i’ve often had considering my closer friends. There was a magic about that time which manifested unexpected synergy. For example in the same humungous backflipped yard where the crazy amongst us had walked on coals too drunk or too faithful to care, 12 of us and a frisbee stood in a circle crisscrossing the disc, when somehow the circle began to revolve and for an inexplicable period of time the circle held and spun as fast as 12 powerful youth could run. Through the haze of time - i’ve nearly convinced myself the frisbee never fell; if it did, it wasn’t often or for long .  .  .  I am sure that élan is the same adrenalin found by the “masters of scribble” scaling freeway overpasses to leave a mark on today’s world. However, camaraderie is at risk in our present time due to the atomization of our social fabric. This may be a result the “great migration” on the information superhighway into virtual reality - if you are not found on the screen - who are you? My take on that question is not born of computer queries, but is a visceral sense, informed from direct human exchange. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for youth of today to evaluate a person from a list imposed, not by human standards, but from the clickbait standards of any social network attempting to command the traffic necessary to secure more and greater advertising revenue. Yet, just like the old French adage, “plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes. With friends’ lists numbering 1,000’s, for one to know who one’s friends are is even more important now then ever. Sister Rosetta Tharpe sang, “don’t take everyone to be your friend,” but is nearly drowned out by the zeal to find recognition for one’s self-worth in the badlands of the internet. Truth however remains the same, one cannot be a friend to anyone until one finds friendship within oneself, for once that happens - any friend found becomes serendipity, and any friend lost becomes one more lesson on the importance of patience.

Much like the confusion of 60’s California as an adolescent, today’s “terrorists-under-every-bed” fury blurs human traditions to a point where they become nearly unrecognizable - loyalty betrayed by the temptations of large stacks of money in close proximity to large piles of drugs, or integrity lost to instant musical fame and fortune. But this tempering of human values is not new to our kind; Aaron Swartz would have been a hero in any period of human history of which i’m aware. It is heartening to believe that this quality of selflessness can be found in the friends i now have and those i’ve yet to meet. I have always been improved by friendship - be that from disappointment in my own character, or vice versa. The scope of a friendship is often defined by hard times - the rigors of life, or as Cliff S______ liked to say, “it ain’t all cake and ice cream;” Yes, as a matter of fact, i did break my hand hitting a wall after he came onto my first wife, albeit prior to our marriage; why do you ask? In all fairness to him, and consistent with the complexity of friendship - that was one of the more important lessons in my life; i no longer hit walls, friends maybe - but never walls. The chimera of internetedness twists complexities of our human differences into a shape more resembling the process of normalizing a database, than the reality that was Cliff and his dodgy values. Loyalty is dicey and partially why for me this topic of friendship holds such fascination - what is it to be loyal? What role does that elusive concept have to our kind? Just as personal gain then tempted any “brother with the dope”, today’s basing a faceless billion dollar plus business on brand loyalty and predictable keyboard behavior is insane, but includes entertainment only a Googol could provide by mutating “do no evil” into “do know evil.” 

It may be the desire for too many friends is a threat as similar as greed and temptation are to one’s intrinsic value - even more so than anything found in hippie myths? I don’t know. What then of the partition which Larry G_____ sagely observed as between friend and acquaintance - the same Larry who replied when asked “how do you have so many friend?” he replied, “i have a table saw.” If we are to limit the number of human beings we call “friend” to those who are most complete in their acceptance of our attributes, good and bad - what of the multitude of humanity seeking the closeness of society that is part of our nature after tens of thousands of years sitting at home fires recounting stories of our ancestors’ loves and battles over love? A friend is rare, but friendly people are not. It is a recent innovation of the ruling class to so effectively divide us, one from the other on such superficial grounds as race, occupation, education or even gender? The irony to me is how we have been so thoroughly divided while simultaneously being yoked to the most fake aspect of our rulers - their money. I choose a friend based on the sincere consistency of their behavior - good or bad. All i can gather from those who lead, is the consistency of their demand that i absolve myself of choice - conservative/liberal, one is pretty much the same as the other. A good friend may have a different opinion from my own but will attempt to raise my consciousness rather than command obedience. I am not that good a friend, for my opinions have become sacred cows which in my despair i cling to not much differently than a hungry baby at an empty tit. But i am lucky, for i have somehow managed to pick friends, and acquaintances, wiser than myself. It used to be i would pick friends more popular than i perceived myself to be. Perhaps i thought popularity was contagious. At some point the cost of loyalty to such superficiality became greater than the cost of self-respect. Part of the odyssey of befriending oneself includes a thorough inventory of oneself, or what Leonard Cohen has described as a “bitter searching of the heart.” Initially my self catalogue was comprised almost exclusively of positive traits - residue from a pernicious denial of self-loathing. Predictably, fair-weather friends fell to the march of time with fewer and fewer available to commiserate my innocence.

Turns out, after i stopped bullshitting myself, i was the one holding others to a higher standard than i applied to myself - not very friendly. “Every man’s conscience is vile and depraved. You cannot depend on it to be your guide, when it’s you who must keep it satisfied.” - Bob Dylan. It has been said that books are the closest of friends and the best of counselors; i would have to add music to that adage. Early on my sister gave me C.G. Jung’s “Man and his symbols” which discusses at length a darkness that i was long unable to comprehend, for in my friendless state, all i could see around me was happiness and the fraternity of man. I resented deeply that i alone seemed subject to betrayal, disappointment and broken promises - this after having toed the unrealistic line defined by my list of superior traits. G_d in her wisdom teaches with an infinite patience, which in my case was really necessary. “So you want to carve beautiful statues in order to have people love you? Okay, but know this - with your two dimensional vision that’s gonna be kind of hard.” Try as i might, she was right - it is damn near impossible to make a three dimensional object when all you can see is a flat surface. Who was i gonna whine to about that? She told me the truth; i ignored what i knew in my own heart. There was nobody to blame, but myself; nor was there anyone to forgive, but myself. How could i do that, i hadn’t done anything wrong? Nor was g_d done with me; how many other imperfections were there? If my sacrosanct edifice of raison d’être was no more than an unsatisfied emotional hunger used to include and exclude people from my life, what then? Too late, there’s no getting some horses back inside once that fucking barn door is closed. I had no one left to befriend but myself whether i could or couldn’t carve statues brilliantly, love enormously, fear unrelentingly or hate with disregard to my own wellbeing. I still don’t know who the friends are out there i’ve yet to find; but i’m pretty sure, i’m not the only person on the planet with broken dreams, unresolved fury or a love that just won’t quit. 

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foe · the sonnet

Who is friend who is foe, i want to know?

Who doesn’t - does it matter anymore?

I consider those who’d see me dead - foe;

and those friend - who find within more amor.

Bin Laden didn’t want to see me dead;

that would be one on a nuclear trigger,

or they who would take gold, and pay with lead.

It is not Islam that poisons water.

Nor did Jesus kill and go to heaven.

Hard as fuck it is to know - it’s my fault,

i who pray and like my bread unleavened.

Who could possibly see truth in a vault?

The sad truth is my only enemy

on earth causing my greatest harm, is me.

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                       

jts 8/9/2016

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞

suffering - an essay / happiness · the sonnet

The Oxford English Dictionary defines suffering as “the state of undergoing pain, distress or hardship.” Not sure if i understand why, but listening to Roy Orbison sing “Sweet Dreams Baby” causes me to suffer - a sweet suffering but like watching a chick crack out of its shell, or a child’s awe for fire, before the burn you know is coming. There is a painful vitality that comes from the cauldron of feeling our body’s senses provide. My stepfather described this depth of feeling as anguish when listening to certain symphonies. I’d confused similar feelings about music with some drugs, which oddly stifle such vividness - sort of. Daniel Odier in “Tantric Quest” likens the use of substance in service of heightened awareness as prompts, which after having prodded the persistence of certainty out of the path, becomes an impediment to clarity. What is useful in life’s quest for clarity is the deeper awareness with which Buddha peered into existence then described “life is suffering”. The capacity to endure the discomfort of great beauty, is no less important than that of great anguish, while the willingness to dwell in either enriches understanding of both. “Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.” - R.D. Lang. Is that to say seeking grief will make us happier - a logic leading to the fatuous argument that more death will preserve peace. Like a parent wanting a child to be unafraid of the harmful capacity of fire, short of putting the child’s hand into the fire, it is not possible to assume for that child the inevitable lesson which only fire may teach. Nobody can know what is fire for another, but we are all responsible for helping others with their lessons. While pain is a very useful tool to understand suffering, kindness seems the better prescription for healing. Buddhist faith holds the root cause of suffering as the three poisons: greed, hatred and delusion. Greed and hatred are not really such poisons, more like bad companions on an already too long journey - i’d just as soon leave them off at the next stop; but delusion, how do you lose something which by its definition “nonexistent”? Is that the foundation for the discipline of meditation - to see clearly into the abyss?

What then is the point of meditation, affirmation, or any form of compassionate existence if the net gain is deeper grief? “Yeah, i’ll take a side order of heartbreak with my poverty please.” .  . What if that’s all there is, greater portions of decay, disease and death, broken only by firestorms searing your wretched hovel. What of it? Squirming won’t digest our ample repast of shit anymore than beating the snot out of an aggressor will render you safe, for there are always more and greater dangers. Lao Tzu - “If you rejoice in victory, than you delight in killing; that is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.” To prevail apparently is no path out, to vanquish every wrong, bad habit or even Bin Laden believer, by Lao’s logic, results in occasion for grieving. What has rejoicing the “free world’s” victory in the last two world wars bought us: only profits for the “military industrial complex,” while bringing us closer to armageddon than when John saw Nikita’s bet and raised him an “anonymous incineration.” Is it possible to be at peace with suffering; where’s the harm if Trump wants bromance with Putin - what business is that of mine. Is there an achievable state where the pigs won’t take back the farm? What if we missed it and George Orwell was the messiah - 1984; year of the rapture - same year i met my 2nd wife? What is enough? William Blake - “enough, or too much.” Clearly we have too much plastic, there are whales washing up on shore with so much plastic in their stomachs they starved to death, yet 8% of the fossil fuel pumped from the ground is diverted into the manufacture of “new” plastic; fame - do you hunger for fame? Open your screen and find how many keystrokes have acknowledged your unique contribution to the world; now do it again, and again, and again.  .  . Is your stomach empty? The amount of food worldwide lost or wasted every year is equivalent to half the world’s cereal crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010); or are you without a home? In the United States the richest most powerful nation on the planet, there are 18,600,000 vacant homes: enough for every homeless person in this the last bastion of democracy to have 6 homes. Why is it in the midst of so much abundance, so many suffer hardship? I don’t know, i’d like to know; but i don’t.

I hate not knowing, sort of. Knowing is like calisthenics just before your warm back touches the cold floor first thing in the morning; it’s jarring, but you understand it’s good for you. Hatred not so much - the best thing said about hatred is when it’s gone; like that skanky 1st flu of the season, never sure exactly when it lifted, but thank g_d it’s gone. I wish it were that simple - i know how to hate, it’s a weakness i’m not proud of, not the sort of infirmity that comes from aging which you can’t do shit about, but the sort of frailty one encounters in  others that is so scary you shrink from them only to hear that obnoxious voice inside snickering - maybe not at first, but afterwords while searching for justification as you try to process the hurt look in their eyes. You might be the sort that needs no justification, because the hatred you feel toward yourself is so deafening, you can barely distinguish another for the fear and shame of seeing yourself reflected in their eyes. Mahatma Gandhi said, “You think it’s hatred, it’s not - it’s fear.” Is it possible with fear as the only growth industry the yahoos in charge seem capable of growing - hatred is our lot - a lingering sickness you can’t shake 6 months later, or a resentment hardened into that lump in your gut which fat gloms onto and then grows geometrically? I am not afraid of you - what are you gonna do, kill me? I’m 62 fucking years old; that’d be a waste of good ammo which you’ll need more of when i’m gone. Nelson Mandela said something very interesting after 27 years of confinement when the South African regime released him from that imprisonment of his body, but not of his mind. “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” I feel a bitterness that haunts my steps when trying to comprehend how the same hatred which attempted to break this man and deprive the world of a voice for freedom continues to lead, seemingly unchallenged, using cowardice, connivery and what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described as “willful stupidity” as their only arsenal. This haunting is of my own creation and possesses a certain warmth for me, not unlike the feeling one gets when finding out just how weak a schoolyard bully can be - but that was then, this is now.

Now - even the bullies are running scared, because bullying has captured the imagination of our “higher angels.” You know the ones - the sanctimonious amongst us, myself most especially. I am not fond of those who rely on advantage to make their case - be it anarchistic capitalism or the thug talking shit loud enough for his closeby homies to hear. Fair Dinkum is an Aussie expression meaning equal exchange, or in the vernacular of these holidays from our shared humanity - “do unto others before they do unto you.” I do not, quoting Leonard Cohen “pretend to understand at all.” The way the Aussies explain this transaction makes perfect sense - when you fuck around, you get fucked-up, or words to that effect. How is it with all this aged wisdom and historic precedent favoring, please pardon the pun - liberality - is our world at such a loss to accept the very real possibility we have cut off our noses to spite our faces. Why such denial about what is clear to even one as obtuse as myself (don’t believe me? ask any one of my three wives - dense as fencepost). In the past 80 years we humans have lost 93% of the variety in our food seeds. Chew on that for a moment; then gag it down with this little “info” morsel, or what our valiant writers in the news refer to as byte in a shot glass: the same people responsible for that willful stupidity are feverishly developing the “terminator seed,” (single generation plant - devoid of the capacity to regenerate itself). These same titans of commerce, using no small measure of taxpayer subsidies, are as we speak, inundating the world with its own labor saving liquid - “Glyphosate.” The hitch with this 21st century DDT is it has now been conclusively linked to autism in children, actual persons which are our police forces are shooting at will. Autism is a disorder within the growing, not shrinking spectrum of behaviors deemed abnormal. I find this infliction of pain and suffering by our leaders as delusional, not crazy that they would be so audacious as to believe a handful could steal 90 pennies out of every dollar earned on the planet, but insane that we as human beings would allow it to happen - then try to blame some other body - that is goofy.

I could suffer about this idea until the cows come home and change nothing; so i write - i draw, sometimes i even get to paint and carve stone - writing is suffering enough for now. If things get real bad, and i need more travail i can always drink too much whiskey - that’ll fix everything . . . until the next day. However, our kind may not have that next day with which to wake up to its “Oil Hangover.” The fossil fuel whores (my apologies to sex workers everywhere) are desecrating what, for all we know, may be of the last sacred sites in our world which attest allegiance of our kind to its inherent nature - Water. Is it irony this engineering sacrilege is being done for the “greater good,” but in reality solely and exclusively for pelf, lucre, jack, moolah, money - the only actuall holy grail at the pinnacle of our civilization. I suffer to think that the most pristine, clear and unequivocal fantasy ever imagined by our species has become so blindingly bright in fakery that its very lack of meaning is entirely lost to 99.999% of the population - a population that is so great in its suffering and denial that it feels no recourse but to blame a handful of human ciphers amoral enough to achieve its plunder and then charge us to watch it do so. There is no blame, them or us. We had a good run - got some nice threads, drove some fine ass machines and kissed lots of pretty woman. How much more do you want from any world, this or the next ever-after? I’m hedging my bets as a devout christian, islamist hebrew, zoroastrianized, renegade buddhist bornagain pagan, so even with all that spiritual feeling having my back, i find it a necessary comfort within this vale of tears to at least quell what vestiges of fear i can find through “bitter searching of the heart” and to enjoy a little of all this wonder while passing through. 

“When you think you’re screwed, remember we’re all on a big wet ball floating in the dark” - A. Nonymous     

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happiness / the sonnet

Happiness may follow like a shadow

in the absence of any suffering-

Greed, hatred and delusion make grief grow.

Why are these planted by they who’d be king?

Yet, we be farmers - the crops are our own.

I don’t grow grief, but seen fields of that shit.

I dig weed - and love, when i see it’s grown-

once infantile - then juice looking to fit.

Light may illuminate much - what’s behind 

in that darkened corner beyond the bright rays?

Is what blocks our view, demons in our mind?

Could pain be desire from earlier days?

what would “enough,” feel like - not being afraid?

Is joy as simple as making a child’s braid?

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 6/9/2016

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved 

∞

compassion · an essay / indifference - the sonnet

What is it to compassionate (sounds like fate)? One definition includes the fashionable pejorative of conflating care with feeling superior when attempting to alleviate the suffering of another. How have we ever gotten to a place in our quest for self awareness to qualify “good” compassion and “bad” compassion? Pema Chodron has observed this disparity and counsels, “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” Because of my own darkness i experience conflict with this distinction, for no other reason than if one is to gain the capacity for care, it must begin wherever that person is in the arc; if all you can muster is pity because you are unable to perceive the vast insignificance of the entire human race, why should that prevent you from making an effort to comfort another? It seems we have been 2nd guessing ourselves for so long we’ve grown gun-shy about what i believe is a reflexive human instinct. When I read that quote, i imagine the wounded as being more evolved mostly because my sense is there is no healing until one takes it upon themselves to be well. I love Ms Chodron and feel compassion for her courage to pursue the relationship of pain to peace. Sitting here daring to write about something so lacking planet-wide that we are assaulted wth photos and videos depicting untold suffering without any apparent means to control, much less understand the causes of such pain. We’ve allowed ourselves to become numb and given our natural inclination to help into the often doctrinaire purview of “professionals.” I believe Ms Chodron is also saying - to be really good at compassion, one must see deeply into one’s own self, but that holds true for every aspect of our lives. Truth be told, without Ms Chodron’s kind encouragement, i’d never have attempted something so fraught with peril as advocating for care; if you are hearing darkness, it is mine - not the honest efforts of so many puzzling with the same dilemma.

How does one develop a capacity for concern about others when daily we must turn away from the ravages of a dying race or be consumed by its magnitude? I don’t know, for many years i pursued a state of selflessness because the greed and egotism demanded by the ruling class was such an affront to logic and decency that i fought with the only thing at my disposal - my existence. While there is much to be gained by disappearing into the fabric of humanity as to be no more than a thread in the vast tapestry of our kind, i found if my thread was weak, it contributed more to the rending of the whole by forces natural and deliberate. My good fortune is to have been born of creative people and i discovered my life was best served by following their superior example. The helplessness i felt for conditions of others was countered by that necessary empathy used to conceive. I found relief in trying to understand other’s difficulties and to then share my perception - be that from the expression in a face, turn of a wrist or articulation of the real torment that evil manifests. This process has not been straightforward by any means, and informed all too often by my own wellspring of rage. It seemed though, that until i was able to find kindness for myself any effort to contribute to another’s peace was diluted or missed entirely. What makes the equation so complex is the very effective insinuation by our merchant class equating objects with feelings, and to then correlate those feelings into self-worth. You were born worthy - there is no middle ground. “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong in the world” - Paul Farmer; however difficult Mr. Trump makes that argument very to defend. A famous person on fb once commented quietly that the billionaires may be the ones that need the compassion. At that time, as with all good lessons, i could barely wrap my head around the concept, except for the nagging discomfort of its truth. Yet the deeper you go into the pathology of power it becomes more and more clear that those wielding, what is by all accounts, the world’s power are deeply troubled souls. By my reckoning, those same ciphers demonstrate a remarkable level of weakness as opposed to power. The delusion that any one person can change another is of the most suspect concepts we have ever allowed to take root in what C.G. Jung calls “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious.”

You who read this will only take away those beliefs you’ve arrived at through your own efforts and reflection; everything in this essay that is recognizable to you will be from your own learning rather than any assertion i make. How can it be otherwise? My resistance to the idea that our rulers are all powerful, is from my own internal struggle with worth, not from the reality that anyone so oblivious to their own frailty that they would attempt to define their lives almost entirely from trappings and regalia. I learned about this chimera of appearance in the cauldron of the largest courthouse west of the Mississippi which was served by many - from high to low. Within that melange, assumption had no place, be that judge, clerk or the accused. Outwardly there is no question of roles, but the greater reality of who was powerful and why could not be taken at face value - not when your livelihood depended on clarity about who was doing who with whose help. Ironically the weakest of the lot needed the most help - without a social construct to support their rulings judges seemed the most fragile, while those couriers transporting the mountain of legalese on bicycles held great leverage and exercised it assiduously to their personal gain. Sadly awareness of their inherent nobility was wholly lost through the seduction of stupidity which the ruling class uses on susceptible demographics like that blunt force object of a weak man to coerce the much stronger woman. It was the realization that not one thing i could ever say would convince the couriers of their worth that eventually became resignation to the reality that i am incapable of altering anyone. However, to say that i was unaffected by the experience would be untrue; i am profoundly changed by all i saw, but from the pain that knowing only through their own efforts could they be lifted. Previous to these events, my own worth was tightly linked to my identity as a Social Justice Warrior (SJW), an acronym i’ve only just learned exists. There is no war except for the truth that can only be found within the heart of each human being. 

Does this knowledge absolve me from my belief that service to others is the only viable occupation left to our species, no. If anything it forces me deeper into my own limitations - either those of my own design, or ones overlaid by the well-intentioned to whom we all owe so much. Whether self-knowledge results in a greater awareness for the suffering of others, or deeper compassion for how to aid another’s healing doesn’t matter much; more likely there is not one without the other. However, at the root of self-awareness is to know we are our own worst enemy. “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” - Pema Chodron. Without gentleness, this growth cannot be accomplished. Honesty will come like the cactus flower that knows not it grows amidst thorns, or a piano that has fallen 3 floors, it will land regardless of your desires. Gentleness is more elusive. One can be uncommonly tender an object, yet hideously cruel to one’s self. I’ve had shirts, i’d take better care of than my teeth? Why is that? There is a threat that comes from seeing into one’s behavior, for to know the reason one is unkind to oneself is to accept unkindness from others. Conversely, to see clearly one’s faults and to possess them means you are free from the judgement of others. It must be the same for shame, guilt or love. I don’t really know anymore, but i find the minute i feel repulsed from anyone - the disquiet is my own. Life is too short to live outside of one’s own peace, or more importantly to not seek ways for others to enjoy their own peace. True generosity is finding ways to give what you seek for yourself.

We are entering into a period of crisis for our species, the false premise which declares personal gain the engine of our economy has resulted in the poisoning of our water - a compound which occupies 70% or more of our anatomy. Our food supply has been adulterated for no greater gain than to deprive millions of employment, and to increase the wealth of those too rich to spend what they have in the course of their lifetimes - that is insane. I don’t make these statements to alarm you - you already know the truth in your hearts. You can see it in the glow of your child’s face while they scroll on their toy computers - the vacant stare that was not there as their eyes began to focus and the world’s wonder was reflected in their expressions. We must, as Leonard Cohen has sung, conduct a “bitter searching of the heart.” Without a willingness to know, or return to the instinctive kindness one can still see in every playground on the planet, our motivations will shortly be uploaded from corporate servers into chips implanted within our brains containing news no different than the false promise that labor saving devices would free us all from drudgery, but in fact separated us from the very rhythms of our hearts. What is hard is not our enemy, what is easy must be considered for who? When a man was caught breaking into another’s home, the “Code of Hammurabi dictated that the offender would be buried within the wall of that home. Those who would steal from you your very worth, must be made similarly accountable. It is not the black man who has caused the breakdown of our social fabric, but anyone seeking life’s fulfillment at the expense of all others. When you buy a shirt for $20 that a mother of 12 was paid 60 pennies to produce - you are not being honest with yourself; it is not a fair exchange, anymore than when you spend a 1/2 a month in wages to buy an electronic shackle fashioned as a convenience, and another half month’s wages to access “your” internet. The corporate shill sponsoring this “knowledge revolution” only cares about your keystrokes, and will do anything to make you press that button - anything that is except be honest.

“Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.” - Lao Tzu

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indifference / the sonnet

Who would drag indifference from a child?

To what end blunt outrage of injustice?

Is our doom better managed when we’re mild,

or more easily led without compass?

It’s hard to care when you don’t see it done,

like feelings from a disembodied screen-

near impossible with an army of one,

whose supply lines have gotten awful lean.

Who’s singing “if you can’t beat, ‘em join ‘em”-

them or us? Why are they called “them” - who’s “us”?

Does it matter anymore whose emblem

is on it; there’a cliff; we are in the bus.

row, row, row your boat doesn’t really fit

sounds a lot to me like, who gives a shit?

patience - an essay / recklessness · the sonnet

There was a time in my life that i could not contain myself waiting for summertime, yet as the vacations piled up i began to understand how little i appreciated from such freedom. It was not just the reality that for an instant from each year there was time entirely my own, but the resulting confusion afterward with so little in hand to reassure myself it was not a dream - one might even say it'd been an initial confrontation with socialization. The root for patience is from Latin patiens - to suffer. I’m not sure which i learned more from: having freedom, or losing it. Lao Tzu says, “Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Unfortunately this is rarely taught in elementary school, nor - apparently to our leaders today. If nothing is lacking, why do you resist the time it takes to read this; i would have to believe my words are too big, or i am using your most precious resource - time? Our world, and those "driving the bus" are using every tool at their disposal to deprive you of your patience - your ability to wait. Why is that? I’d like to say i have an answer - i don’t, but the question is more a part of why i have more confidence in Lao Tzu than Jamie Dimon. I often wonder about the behavior of those antagonizing peace on our planet - not the “so called” terrorists, but the thugs at all levels of leadership. For example, “austerity” seems to be a fashionable let-us-help-you-help-yourselves lie passing for wisdom from the captains of industry. On the surface it seems like a practical idea; i’m austere - living on lentils, potatoes and tomatoes so i can explore ideas like patience with anyone who might be curious. Where’s the harm. For one, i haven’t hijacked your life with debt or murdered your children in service of racial separation; i worked 47 some odd years years to buy back my summertime - so fond was my love, and long my patience. Two: i don’t demand you follow my example unlike those inciting you to kill so they may “earn” money from death and oil. Three: i don’t care what you do, when or where; unlike those who have yoked you to a handset they mine like diggers of gold for every word you speak, write when, where and to who. (note to the NSA spooks reading - get a life.)

You have patience, otherwise you’d not have gotten this far into an obscure essay on an uninteresting virtue: “Patience - A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue” - Ambrose Bierce, or maybe you are in some kind of despair; you are not alone. I see much suffering and despair - an aspect for my struggle to understand patience, but not how you might think. I understand patience mostly through my lack of it to achieve those things i want that which cannot be gained without it - peace, love or a future for our species. I have no patience for those who bombard you with messages, subtle or otherwise about your pernicious "lack" of that commodity which they so very much want to help you gain. A passing irony might be that i could accomplish more with patience toward these haters who are hurting our existence with their greed, but it could also just be g_d; she likes to laugh; i know i do. What would i do differently with patience toward the haters - stop buying what i don’t need, check - give up my phone, check - educate, agitate, organize, check - love Trump .  .  . working on it, but that fuck makes it so hard. Hillary, i just feel sorry for her - like somewhere she heard Bob Dylan singing “they will crush you with wealth and power, Every waking moment you could crack,” and like Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” it is haunting every feature of her existence. Can you imagine what it must be like to be so close to history, only to find your ambition cost you every decent instinct you may have ever possessed - “Wife of Faustus.” In my heart i believe she lacks patience, where Trump never had a chance to become human. There are many amongst us horribly disfigured from a lack of humanity in the most important early years. It is this psychic brutality which our (civilization) exploits ruthlessly, and for which i strenuously object. Patience is our friend; those using your hard-earned pennies to convince you that without a phone the world will pass you by - not so much.

If anything letting the world pass by before you step into the maelstrom may be very informative, even healing. What if it's not knowledge that is streaming across the screen, but some molten form of language devoid of meaning. When i was released from my classroom just at the moment of summertime, the exhilaration lasted a very short time soon to be replaced by a certain knowledge that summer would end; the game was unchanged, for my impatience to fill every nook and cranny of my life without shoes or homework became the driving force occupying my imagination, or if you will, i began to wait for school with the same fervor i had waited for summer - unconsciously but with no less vitality. How many life events might fit this dichotomy: graduation, a job, marriage/divorce, retirement - death? Even the act of writing . . . Lucky thing this paradox may also be true for understanding; for example as painful as dissolution of any kind may be, awareness is often the direct result of disappointment, profound or otherwise - without the prospect of school in the fall, i may have never grown such fondness for freedom. Never having lost a love, i may never have learned the beauty of woman. Few things that do not require patience have much merit, or as our wiser ancestors might say - “easy come, easy go.” It is for this reason i listen when someone says, “if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not.” The difficulty is that we’ve been coerced to believe what the fashionable like to say “it’s all good.” What is often lost in translation is that pain felt by whoever first coined this unfortunate urban myth now used to excuse the decay of decency which results from the illusion that having more describes success. I am successful, not from what i have, but for what i choose to do . .

.  . or not do. For many decades, my understanding of life was informed by the process of shaping stone. I erroneously believed myself defined by this skill, an ability which is ironically most active when in the absence of skill. To truly cut rock, one must listen fully to the stone and not to any personal conceit about what’s best for it. Some will cry “new age” fluff, though they’ve never struggled to yield form from what is only partially whole. The conceit that one might understand their medium from a shard of material pried from the bowels of mother earth, is nearly as bad as those visions capable of demanding mountains of rock be excavated for a bad copy of the “Venus de Milo.” The men and women responsible for the creation of the Venus are as far removed from my delusion of stonecutter as those scripting your internet traps are from Hedy Lamarr. The families fortunate enough to live in the culture responsible for creation of Venus de Milo were wholly invested in every aspect of its creation, from the quarry to its installation, and i don’t mean at the Louvre. “Best Working Practice” was dictated by the limitations of technology. Today we do not enjoy the patience which every participant in that creation understood, most especially those on the hoist, or their cousin whose fingers had been lost to a runaway load. We may never understand that connection to our work; yet there are intrepid souls amongst us who refuse themselves to the remote drone death conceived of and made manifest by the same cowards without the backbone enough to march into your fictive castle and shake you down at gunpoint - rather send their legal proxy, or seduce you with a bought-and-paid for media. Internet freedom is rapidly dissolving into a bait-and-switch swindle born in times when cons had to look into the eyes of their marks. 

This minor technological glitch will shortly be resolved while you chat with your virtual loved one, for those oh so helpful souls curious about how to help you resolve the difficulties of modern existence will be able to match your expression with their database and provide you with the appropriate advertising of exactly what to buy that you lack in your expression - be patient - it is coming. It may even be in the new iPhone 7, why don’t you go out and buy it and find out if i’m lying to you like every other voice lunging out of the aether - patient or not, you’ll never know. How could you, what would it matter? For example, what if the haters were doing their very best and i was no more than a recalcitrant schoolboy anxious for summertime, and rather than obstinately ignore good advice to apply myself in every way possible to enrich myself using my unique perspective and thereby enrich the economy and all of mankind - would my perspective remain unique? Do you feel patient yet - yeah, me neither, for patience is nothing one can possess - the trials do not end, only our ability to adapt. Patience is only a tool without which we are played for fools by all those without patience. Whyselst would anyone be in such a hurry to amass such unrealistic strength that does nothing to effect an outcome no one can ever understand? While the fantasy of adhering to a strategy i have little faith in may be fun to pass the time, what use is there in an uncertain future so full of promise and threat. There is much brilliance available to our kind - for the asking. But much like my own preoccupation with being released from the learning cocoon - release is best seeing from that side which one views “things.”

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recklessness / the sonnet

“Recklessness” is a sonnet with whiskey,

reading or writing - either is a loss.

One’s a guess from missing the other’s key,

abandon has made much more from such dross.

Without misery there’s no reckoning;

despair will make us all impetuous,

or learn more from the birth of suffering?

I don’t know, but things i’ve done have made chaos.

The question seems to be whether that helps?

Is a state without form of any worth?

Either’s like wisdom from a pack of whelps.

Proof would be in the pudding, or its dearth.

One cannot know until that line is crossed

between what is real and all that’s embossed.

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                        I

jts 1/9/2016

http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com 

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞

simplicity / complexity - the sonnet

“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.