the day after - an essay / the day before · the sonnet

This morning i woke at 4:00 am and i was afraid to look at my computer. The 2016 U.S. election had taken place the day before; i was in Uruguay, and i did not vote. For those with the need, you are welcome to blame me. My candidate was shouldered aside by a more canny, well-oiled political machine, but by this time my disillusionment was so complete her contrived strut to coronation rang hollow and was of little interest to me - in many ways repulsive. Now it is 5:41 pm and i am fatigued to the nether regions of my soul - that my flight back to my native land commences in less than 48 hours seems a minor inconvenience. So when the internet went down, i came to you to cry .  . actually my weeping took place in the pre-dawn hours just after overcoming my fear of news from an inanimate device actuated by +/- 5v impulses directed through scripting from a corporate keyboard which also heralded the dawn of a new age. Thankfully my tears came in quiet consolation with a kind woman i’ve never met, but greatly admire - thank you Zucky - you “empty suit”, you. In the intervening time between then and now, i persisted - weakly but with resolve. My exercise and mediation have brought some perspective, clean sheets and comfort. I am packed and dangling like a booger from an old man’s nose. But hazy from fatigue and a too early glass of wine with my friend the Shaman organ builder .  .  .  Now four days later - the hotel where i elected to spend the preceding night and from which i’d requested a wakeup call at 4:00 am failed - and the fault is mine; that i missed checkin by 5 minutes is small consolation for the cost of a replacement ticket. My reason to travel is largely to spend moments more with my 88 year old fading ma - and that is a decent motivation worthy of the replacement ticket. It has been said if you believe you’ve reached enlightenment, spend a week with your family. I couldn’t even make it out of Uruguay, before i felt flooded by the fury of failed family. It is difficult to frame my reasons without becoming sanctimonious and self-righteous - a multigenerational trait from way back.

Having secured an exit ticket, i had to request the change from my stalwart ride out of the airport prior to my arrival. My next email was to a brother staying in our mother’s home explaining the change so’s that they would not be concerned i had not arrived in the late evening as planned, and then began the 20 hour vigil. Toward the 12 hour mark when i went to check the flight out from, i discovered - the procuring agent, had not yet processed the ticket, nor had i heard from my brother. Ironically the capitalist machinery was asses-and-elbows helping me through chat, but not word one from my brother. My ride graciously shifted his schedule, so i knew if i could get to Los Angeles, i’d be able to get to ma. In the age of cellular phones, not owning one poses serious challenge, the land line having grown quiescent much like the Red Car rails of L.A. lie unused. All civil process are now expected to possess the yoke of wireless. Unable to call directly, my email request was my only accessible channel to apprise others of my change. I began scouring fb, email and others for anyone i could contact lest the brother in the company of my mother had no intention of reviewing emails - who’d want to when on vacation? I myself delete 95% of everything i receive, which given the election budget this cycle bought a lot of email. My dilemma was principally one of communication, for once the plane boarded there would be no way to apprise my mother and brother of this change - long story short, the same kind person driving me from the airport was able to make contact - the brother had received the email and simply neglected to apprise me. I’ve made much progress in de-socializing from the indoctrination of a human dynamic built on contention and self aggrandizement made manifest in the election of the newest “leader of the free world.” I seek different ways to perceive myself, however, all my self-discipline and good intention evaporated into a swamp of smarmy mental retribution, both real and imagined. I could feel my own soul at war with itself fleeing from the quagmire of hate that was once my family.

There is no place to flee, or more accurately i cannot change anyone but myself - there is nothing i can say to this brother that will ever inspire him to appreciate how little i had asked for and how much rancor i struggle to attenuate, nor will he ever know how grateful i am to him for his timely lesson. The night i began this essay just after the election, i woke to a dream of Leonard Cohen pointing his finger at my throat, and me yelling at him for betraying my good will. I tried mightily to understand how or what an image of this human hero might signify in my psychic life. My first take was that i was using my dream to chide myself for not having fought valiantly with my better nature to pursue this essay to the bitter end that very night, or it could have been residue from an incident weeks earlier where my deeply troubled vecino may have been actually calling out for help by attempting to throttle my neck for the egregious act of requesting quiet. I do know that in about 6 hours, if my ticket is cleared in time, i will board a flight back to a nation in turmoil and a brother who may feel justified for not acknowledging a simple request because my initial email used his snail mail name “Jimmy”, rather than the one he lives as; i just don’t know. I know today has been as much of “a day after” as anything the American abortion of its democratic heritage could be, but in an airport populated with other lives, the human beings i’ve encountered have been unfailing courteous, even somewhat helpful to my plight; that the girl on the helpline applied herself as much to my call for help as my own blood would not; through the prism correct existence, i owe each the same measure of recognition and good will - that is a lesson which seems to elude me far too easily for me to comfortably acknowledge.

Facts: ma has no call for concern about my late arrival. Whatever motivates another to be indifferent to a simple request is none of my concern. My obligation is to be as decent and mindful as my temperament allows, to utilize that lesson for any improvement i might achieve. And while it is true, i can change no one or force anyone to do anything, i’m under no obligation to encourage or participate in continued degradation of core human principles of simplicity, patience or compassion. If this provokes the profiteers of mindless plastic exploitation of our planet’s brilliant capacity for environmental stasis - so be it. That i refuse to hate another, even the haters, is my business not subject to interpretation - hate is weak, i’d rather be strong, a quality ma demanded from me, but which i believe partly frightens her about me. But here is the magic of my ma, i don’t believe it was my brute strength that caused her concern, but the inflexibleness which i resort to when backed into a corner. I have always perceived her persistent correction as a critique, where in retrospect i’m beginning to suspect she’d have preferred me to possess a broader repertoire of response to almost anything other than my goto self-righteous faith in “to best of my knowledge.” This recent election has drawn in high relief the limits of pundits of all stripes, while my own foray into self awareness draws clearly the limits of certainty, most especially my own. So what comes next (thumb to index finger circling the nose) - Australian for “fuck knows”? As much as i resist, at times i still imagine myself to have a roll to play describing this increasingly confusing reality called life.

There are, as one sage friend apprised, “barbarians through the gates;” Does this fiction obligate me to alter my own trajectory in favor of some common cause, violent, non-violent, doctrinaire or just anarchistic? I’ve never been much impressed by the actions of many in concert, but remain paradoxically amazed, astonished and inspired by the wide spectrum of magnificence manifest from seemingly unrelated individual acts of human accomplishment - who will ever forget the brass testicles of he-who-faced-down-a-caravan-of-tanks in Tiananmen Square? Is our very existence pegged to a single heart multiplied by 7 billion; is that any less practical than the ruling class objective for yoking 7 billion into a single income stream using only a +/-5v shackle to the wrist; or then frightening the same into believing they are independent free thinkers lacking only that one entrepreneurial discovery which separates peasants from the loftiest of CEO’s - even President of ’The Free World’. I am tired now, more tired than when i began this essay, but i feel better. Our leaders have demonstrated they are not; so how can one fiction, however venal and lacking in basic human empathy be all that dangerous. What i am hearing is a uniform repudiation of the hatred and mean spirited attacks inspired by fear mongering which catapulted the king of empty suits into the world’s imagination. My sense is even stronger today than when this occurred 4 days ago, as bad as things seem - logic of the real world dictates an equal and opposite force of kindness, love and decency waiting for the dawn of a new day.   

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

the day before - the sonnet

there has never been a time in my life

when death was not hanging in the balance

though the atom bomb was made to end strife,

our world will die at the point of this lance

just our luck, warriors took their courage

with them when they were no longer needed

leaving battles fought over your suffrage

by tyrants wielding danger unheeded

laugh if you must - i fear it’s all echo

of a day when some things were still funny

we now must find joy from blow after blow

while so hot we pray it was less sunny

i've lived in a time when spring meant something

more than seasons of a world now burning

 (˚ ㄥ _˚)                       

jts 17/11/2016

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

∞

lessons - an essay / a student · the sonnet

My parents both made a living as teachers at one point or another - a happenstance that has made my existence infinitely richer; more so had i been a better student. Even today, at the ripe old age of 62, i still have trouble recognizing lessons; especially in the target rich confusion which defines our modern epoch. The reasons for this difficulty with seeing what there is to learn, are entirely my own - i’ve gotten that far, but i still have difficulty understanding this lack of clarity as irony or metaphor; i can hear my dead father’s voice just now - “either/or is a specious argument”; more likely, he’d have taken the Socratic path and simply asked “what if it is neither, and just plain old synchronicity?” Clearly, i come by an ironic prejudice honestly, but the seductive siren call to metaphor is my “Achilles Heel,” actually more of an Hephaestus gimp - the haunting ache of sciatica is just icing on the cake. Jalaluddin Rumi “The cure for pain, is in the pain.” Without getting into the morbid details, suffice it to say my 5 year sciatic torment has only been resolved by patiently and gently tearing internal fascia to accommodate a post surgical skeletal configuration gone bad - (kids, don’t try this at home). Having watched my mother remove stitches from the extraction of a sting ray barb i had found in the bay of Guaymas at age 7 gave me confidence in the old saw “doctor heal thyself.” Yet is this self care not consistent with all of human history prior to the rise of medical presumption born of Louis Pasteur’s discovery of the role of bacteria to infection? Healing and learning go hand and hand; however, just as everyone is not born to teach even though we each carry lessons with us to others - knowingly or unknowingly, so too we as a species have been blessed by healers, nor am i advocating on behalf of the medical industry which has sided itself with the profiteers gouging humanity into the dark ages. I’m addressing those souls who from whatever grace left to our kind bring warmth and awareness as their armament and love as their product. They are often outside any tradition, and likely as not would never lay claim to special gifts - a good indication that they are not adherents to the acquisitive free-for-all that defines the plundering of our commonwealth.  

It is not as though we are lacking evidence or resources adequate to a better understanding about those responsible for this world plundering. Never in our shared history have we been more capable of surmounting language barriers, cultural barriers even obfuscation by the faceless cowards responsible for so much havoc, yet here we sit, minutes on the “Doomsday Clock” away from nuclear anonymous incineration along with a 12 foot rise in ocean levels hot on its heels, and we are absorbed by the buffoonery of leaders who have demonstrated their disinterest in our welfare. If we don’t don’t demand better from our leaders, our existence will be short. What if they are not our leaders, what if our leaders are those amongst us who care and are not caught up in the shared fiction of civilization? Socialization hasn’t done all that much for me - i learned as much watching my father die from an inoperable hip fracture as anything i’d ever learned in school. He showed courage; he demonstrated compassion though his pain was tangible enough to touch. Watching my mother confront her mortality has taught me more about grace and self-awareness than any psychiatrist attempting to reformat my particular brand of crazy. If anything, i’ve learned more from avoiding the effects of government than i ever benefitted from stop lights or government’s “war on everything.” How is it even possible that war is considered as a solution today? Who do i go to for an answer to that question? Murder ceased to be an option for me once i understood everyone dies; how could i waste the effort for something naturally occurring? What i don’t understand is how little i understand about understanding. From what i’ve read, one’s ideas about something have little bearing on the act of being, yet mindfulness is somehow the key - is that what is meant by paradox? What of possessions - were did this attachment to objects develop? Were we born slapping away the mother’s tit to get a hold of the flickering screen on a telephone? Early on, i realized there was no other thing more important to me than owning my own time, yet with death as my next great adventure even that possession is rapidly receding into the horizon. 

It’s been said “time is money;” what i don’t understand is how the oligarchs have convinced my compatriots to sell theirs so cheaply, and so what if you have more money than Croesus and you are lost in your own skin. Of the many benefits of being born to educated parents, high on the list would be learning about Nikos Kazantzakis before i was out high school — if you don’t read, there is a movie starring Anthony Quinn called “Zorba the Greek.” As a young post WWII adolescent wandering into the shared hallucination that became the 1960’s, this story chases to the core the shared hallucination of our internet age; we are all alone, a reality which does not absolve us of the very real need to try and understand what we are isolated from and to learn as deeply as possible what autonomy means. Today, my internet is down, it has been for two days. Fortunately, i had weened myself from my phone months ago, so as an older person born to reading, when the fiction of human contact was yanked from my screen, i did what any normal person would do - i began reading milk cartons - kidding, sort of. What i carry with me in travel is Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching, with a forward by Carl Jung. What i discovered within 10 pages is as though new age rigamarole is more than echoes of bad acid trips; drug deals gone haywire, or homilies on impatience and poor choices. Is is possible that we’ve been lied to again - that the internet is not here to save us, but to delude us into believing we are something other than 7 billion individuals, each with rights and responsibilities to live as freely and completely as possible without causing harm to each other. That is a hard lesson to swallow when there are so many shouting that the path to freedom is only possible at the cost of another person’s freedom. Until we as a species fully understand that success is not one’s to own, but one’s to give in service, we are doomed. I could be wrong ask anyone who has told me what i must do, or can’t say. 

Having worked some years in the engineering field, i learned the 1st Law of Engineering for any important project is to identify the problem; the 2nd Law states - “10% of the work is done in 90% of the time and 90% of the work is done in 10% of the time,” and the 3rd Law - “the last thing to get fixed on any project, is blame”. In today’s world of problems, we are living in the midst of what The Military Industrial Complex designates as “a target rich environment”. Another pertinent expression is “long pole in the tent” meaning, what is the long lead item? In our world, that would be SURVIVAL OF THE SPECIES - some people will survive, many won’t. Who are those that will survive and why? The rich believe that their bunkers and hordes of cash will suffice; i’m thinking that sort of narrow vision is what has gotten us into this mess. It describes a lack of understanding or interest in the physics of the natural world - the interdependence which water flowing from the mountain snow pack to the ocean knows by the behavior what is logical, but which man’s arrogance believes otherwise - that somehow massive damming and diversion of this essential component can accommodate its poisoning ad nauseam which the excessively wealthy fossil fuel industry then pours on the dying embers of our kind - our life blood. Sort of like the thug who believes he can punk everyone in the neighborhood, but the supplier. What exactly does it mean to survive, when as individuals we’ve barely reached the threshold of self knowledge? In one of the quotes from the forward to the I Ching, Carl Jung elaborated on the paradox of this point, “I of course am thoroughly convinced of the value of self-knowledge, but is there any use in recommending such insight, when the wisest of men throughout the ages have preached the need of it without success?” One of our presidential candidates has stated “i could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and i wouldn’t lose any voters.” Thankfully this assertion was never put to the test, yet since this declaration on January 24, 2016 with an average of 1,000 gun deaths per month in the United States, 9,000 people have died; what does that tell you about the level of self-awareness in my nation? that the big “D” is the most self-aware man on the planet? G_d help us all.

“Is there a lesson here” you might ask? Don’t run for president if you are a self-aware, narcissistic sexual predator without a keen sense of when and what not to say? The fact of his eventual death is hardly the long pole in the tent; we’re all gonna die. However, do you really want your unborn generations facing the world he intends to leave by gutting all environmental research, and stacking the already weighted tax coder further in favor of the largely inherited wealth of the ruling class? Please remember, his children were raised under his influence in so far as an emotional cipher is capable of raising children, and do also remember these same offsprings will have more money than the budget of 5 western states; by the time this essay is published later today, that number of states will have become 6. How is one to cultivate a culture of concern for others in this swamp of conceit we call civilization? How is it possible, when as Carl Jung so clearly pointed out, people know what to do - know thyself - but choose not to? I’m at a loss but write because it pleases me to not have surrendered; in writing, i have no one to answer to for my flawed thinking but my own happy fingers. I may never know whether this conceit is of any service to anyone but those who benefit from scratching their heads as i wander in and out of my hermit’s cell checking my pot of beans. Caring has not abandoned me while my predilection for shared hallucination continues to haunt my steps and inform my confusion until, as has just happened, the opiate that is the internet blinks on and assuages my solitude with pretty pictures of empty homilies and defanged rancor across the pixels of my despair - feels like a slogan for which Master Leonard Cohen has sagely counseled against in writing - clearly a lesson i’ve yet to learn. But where is our “Tower of Song”? where is the nexus of our resistance to the unctuous arrogance of corporate stupidity - when will the population of earth learn lessons which are seemingly known only by those valiant Human Beings fighting for our WATER and our survival @ Standing Rock? 

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

a student

Why do some people learn and not others?

Why are some lessons clear and some opaque?

Why do some lessons repeat for lovers,

and some have one shot to get past the ache?

Why is it so hard to share what you’ve learned?

Why do some lessons come with a teacher?

Why is some wisdom just from what you’ve earned,

and some found by sitting in a beach chair?

Can one pick and choose what one wants to learn?

Can one grow understanding like a plant?

Can one forget what was learned from a burn

or like weight - carried to doom by an ant?

I can’t answer any of these questions

but will chase their answers to their bastions.

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                   

jts 11/6/2016

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

∞

the drawing - an essay / poetry in the dark · the sonnet

Last night i was screamed at by an Argentinian in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was so beside himself that he placed his hands on my throat screaming “pinche puta” - I had knocked on his door asking him to turn down his television sound - he is not a bad guy, but I now have trouble considering him anything but foe - my defect, not his. The blowback of this unfortunate event is that I am no longer seeking immigration to this nation of determined individuals; i do not feel welcomed - my problem. What I face from my decision, is returning in shame to my own country and those in my family who are barely able to acknowledge my existence, much less sympathize with my confusion for having yet again angered someone. In solidarity with self-care I sought consolation from one of my friends here; I went seeking compassion, but learned instead that his estranged father had died days earlier. In the process of trying to understand what he was facing, I learned that his loyalty to dying family, was sorely taxed after visit with a fellow émigré, dying horribly disfigured from a burn accident. I’m at a loss as to how to comfort someone I know only by instinct, much less understand. My friend is brilliant, sensitive and besotted; he says from wine; my sense is it is from grief - a deep profound unresolved ancient hurt. It is his bravery and generosity of spirit which attracted me to him as friend, and for my own dearth of compassion prevents me from plumbing my own misery such that I might understand his. So I reach out to you, the countless many facing tragedies and pain seeking ways to relieve your own suffering, or for the luckiest of you, the suffering of others. You are not alone, nor do I believe this essay to be the end of our shared misery, after all we are on the “information super highway to hell.” I feel barely able, as Bob Dylan described, “grind my life out steady and sure,” so how would i deflect the shame my people would make of my return to a land I had once been willing to give my life for, but now will only feel loyalty to The Water Protector heroes of Standing Rock. The country of my youth no longer exists, much like the family of my memory. But this essay is about a drawing which does exist; it does so because I created it. It is not computer generated, but drawn freehand from a photo on a computer. Nor did I take the photo; it had been retrieved and drawn with permission from someone else’s story line - a story line I’d like to have become a part of, but must instead accept as the limit of an unrequited love - the drawing mostly a bookend to an internet-fueled fantasy.

Is the act of drawing enough? Can determined creativity supplant the rapidly evolving reality that interpersonal skills, so desperately necessary for the survival of our species, are being undermined by a narrow spectrum of self reference such that I could delude myself into believing a woman might understand my heart from drawings found on a computer, or that a neighbor might think it his right to place his hands on my person for asking him to turn down his noise? I don’t have any answers; guessing has become so convoluted by unknowns and distortions, I’m barely able to discern the pale outlines of my own being - much less know how I might, in a foreign nation, comfort an émigré from a different culture who I imagine is in denial about grief. I am imagining, or projecting my own suffering, but with concern. That effort to understand is for me the charm of drawing the human portrait, particularly women. It is as though in order to accurately depict the nuance in a woman’s face, I must find feelings within myself which understand, or correspond to what I see; I do not seek congruence which would presume knowledge about another that is impossible to know without intimate communication. As much as I seek that level of communication, it is rare for me; nor am I sure why. I do know that to clearly see someone other than myself is among the keys to compassion of which there is precious little left in the supercharged assertions of our mighty leaders hell-bent for the destruction of our planet. If I am able, through patience and determination, to process ever closer to the expression and demeanor of relative strangers; I may grow to see myself as one with all - to become more than an aging artist facing his demise, but one in solidarity with resistance to the completely unnecessary extinction of his kind. Pema Chodron says to face the pain of existential emptiness. I feel this condition of solitude is prevalent in our current material culture - to find a way to embrace and hold “just a second longer” the grief that consumes our lives is a welcome ability

I don’t understand entirely why, but drawing and writing give me happiness - a feeling of belonging that I’ve yet to find in any material object, social construct or spiritual adherence. It is the absence of self i am drawn to, the absorption found in consciousness outside of the shrill “I” which haunts so much of our physical existence - “I” don’t understand, “I” love you, Can “I” help you? - the seemingly endless ego one instinctively knows - just like a bad friend - means you no good. Is it possible to sever ties with that self-serving little puke, or would we become emotional eunuchs without the sea-anchor of love in a love-hungry world? The drawing i’ve just finished, or think i’ve finished and about which i’m attempting to describe, is not my first visit to this subject. It is not possible to describe why her features seem to me a universe, indecipherable, but obvious in her majesty. My previous efforts were hampered more by ego, and its incessant scrutiny. But with enough distance, and despair, it became possible to be merely the point of the pencil seeking an appropriate place to better describe beauty. Is that how all wholesome activity manifests - the instant where potential and awareness join in service of depicting a beauty we all intrinsically feel, or at least those not subsumed by delusions of permanence - the fiction that enough gold will buy you, or your bloodline, any spot other than the one foretold by your birth into this mortal merry go round. When i finally understood that no matter how lovingly, or accurately i depicted the face of my obsession, our fates would be forever divergent, i was freed from romantic delusion, or more accurately - my ambition was transfigured, and i became a witness to others for the simple joy of beauty - if it is possible for beauty to be understood any more than love.

If we don’t find a way back to a deep and abiding appreciation for both love and beauty free of the coerced commercialization which corporate consumer pandering has foisted on our lesser appetites, we shall be removed from existence by our own emptiness and greed. I find this tragically sad, for we are born in wonder, with an innate capacity for love, and easy appreciation for beauty, both traits we possess in abundance. Am i recommending all who read this take up pencil and paper and become absorbed by some expression which cannot be found by any other voice? I would say not, unless you’re crazy, or determined or both. Will it help you? Meditation and prayer are likely more suitable vehicles for personal growth, especially if you find comfort in the company of hordes. Our world knows, like a dying person, “something” is about to change very drastically; but once again the profiteers are one step ahead, so rather than serve the worker on the line giving her/his all in mind-numbing contribution to a system never intended for benefit to anyone but the owners, our spiritual leaders are charging prohibitive prices for services rendered and opening boutique yoga centers in Bali, training corporate executives in mindfulness, and cavorting with celebrities driven by some delusion if they pray hard enough, their narcissistic quest for pelf will be construed as offerings by whatever omniscient entity sent to sweep up the remnants of humanity. Then again, i may be just another hater venting my spleen rather than doing the hard work necessary to remain open-hearted; i don’t know. I know that by writing of my fears and concerns with some hope of creating a cogent thread of love, there is a chance what i say may be of some service to someone. Prose, like a bad drawing, readily shows flaws at a glance, so a reader will know whether what i say has personal correspondence and is of value, or gibberish. It matters not to me, for it is in the act of creating without attachment to an outcome in which i find salvation. 

Michelangelo had said of carving “every stone has a statue inside of it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it; ” Lao Tzu - “To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day.” I have seen “The Dying Slave” by Michelangelo, and clearly he was a very wise man; he was wise to see the relationship of death to slavery and express it such that anyone could ponder the meaning of freedom, perhaps to see it as more than a jingo for football half-time spectacles paid for with your tax dollar. Freedom for Michelangelo, i imagine, came from the discipline of creativity. Carving is a reductive process. However, the act of drawing, painting and writing are born of a “Tabula Rasa” - blank slate. I’m not sure which is the more challenging, having done both. It may be i’ll never understand Lao Tzu, or be wise, which may have been his intention. However, i am fascinated by the creative process of accretion which somehow miraculously coalesces into a character or a train of thought recognizable and made whole out of aether. Lao Tzu also said “Do you have the patience to wait ’til your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving ’till the right action arises by itself?” Writing and drawing provide me a platform on which to wait patiently for “my mud to clear”. It is not uncommon for me to pick up a particular pencil to make a particular mark, only to find it was not at all the right color or even the mark i wanted. By this example, a final drawing might be considered clear water; in which case i am learning to be patient and to not make lines simply from a desire to move forward, but waiting for the right action. Writing is very similar in so far as the next thought can only be written once the previously developed logic dictates further meaning - if that makes sense. For example there was a time i relied on outlines for both processes, drawing as well as writing. I needed the security of some sense of foresight about the work. I imagine it is residue from a socialization which advocates optimum outcome leading to success. Is it the same with life? If by acting from a predetermined vision - a structure within which we restrict our innate curiosity and awareness, are we not robbing ourselves of the freedom and joy found from simply being in the moment?

+-+-+-

poetry in the dark · the sonnet

"I'm writing now without electricity", 

and not, for that had newly returned;

t'was fun lacking accessibility-

writing with the same light Shakespeare burn'ed- 

A separate syllable for each "ed"

Is not the only anachronism.

For a blink in time, i felt not-dead,

but still yoked to 'existentialism'.

The day waned with a glimmer unreal;

All electronic toys back online,

Minus the joy of sharing the real deal-

Supplanted by the computer's toy whine.

I feel better about where we're going,

dwelling that instant in quiet feeling.

jts 110616

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

∞

truth - an essay / lies · the sonnet

If i knew what truth was, i’d never be writing about it. So why use your precious time, or my heartache and confusion to pursue an impossibility? Without greater effort toward truth than found in today’s media, we may perish - not die in the sense of losing our puny lives, but perish as a species. Your resistance to that remark may be the clearest indication of its accuracy, not dissimilar to the look of lost love in a dear one’s eyes. Your heart knows the truth, but your hopes and dreams resist with all the power of desire. I cannot change another’s feelings, anymore than i can alter our collective fate. So i’m faced with the choice of continuing on my way using love as best i know how, or finding some justification within myself or for the other. (psychiatric jargon - rationalizing). While infinitely more useful to seek one’s own responsibility in the decay of a relationship, it is also more painful - who wants more pain, right? What if truth is not found in right or wrong - but simply the ability to see clearly and accept what is evident? For example if the capitalists are successful for no other reason than a clear vision of people’s weaknesses; what if all the oppression in the world is from humanity’s fear of freedom - not the sort of freedom found in a mobs’s ability to dominate, but the freedom that comes from learning to hear one’s self and then honor another’s hopes and desires as though they were one’s own? From a purely practical position, it makes more sense to expect good will from others, especially when anyone who has ever pursued a cherished dream would know there are enough internal doubts and demons with which to contend without piling on any fantasy of ill will from others; however, it is not practical to live one’s life preying on others and to than expect anything but a “reality sandwich” for lunch. The question gets back to what happens once the “look of love” is gone? If in that event i choose to become “right,” all the faults, reservations and quirks overlooked in the other while in love, become ample reasons to dethrone the “object of affection” (don’t get your knickers in a twist ladies - it is a euphemism) However, the truth about my euphemism is that it reflects reservations about my own indoctrination regarding women on pedestals rather than any lack of solidarity with any oppressed life form. That the accurate dialectics of enlightened feminist theory kicked over my lemonade stand in the process of my education, didn’t help, but what if she wasn’t wrong for extinguishing her “look of love”?

Right and wrong, don’t seem to be much help when searching for a way to recognize truth. What is of use? Are the clerics correct about an eternal nature defined by truth? I watched a computer animation of what it may look like when in about 4 billion years our galaxy, the Milky Way, collides with the Andromeda galaxy. The fact that an intelligence apparatus for an unnamed superpower republic in severe decay has foisted a “flat earth” hoax on hordes of undereducated frightened patriots who have surrounded themselves with proxy penises in the guise of ample armament makes it difficult to convey the enormity of such a collision. My first assumption watching this animation was of a molten cauldron of collapsed worlds, an assumption that turns out to be wrong. Our sun, because of its distance from our nearest counterpart Alpha Centauri and gaps in our part of the galaxy, we'll likely go unscathed - go figure. Truth, if it exists must be nearly as unfathomable, but no less unyielding in its reality; so how are we to visualize truth, and for why? Is the process, if there is a process as with the galaxy animation, a patient painstaking analysis of what is known using whatever accurate instruments we may have at our disposal? What if truth is more aligned with what the clerics assert - a timeless spiritual force shepherding us to a celestial afterlife worthy of killing and dying for? Of what use are our senses in pursuit of a spiritual reality, if we can more easily blame another for a loss of love than we would ourselves? I don’t know - I know the more i seek foundation in the heart of another for my own love the weaker my love is - what if g_d is no different. What if she, like the atoms within a scientist studying atoms at Cern, are simply g_d looking at herself? Rumi said, “you are not a drop in the ocean, but the ocean in a drop.” Is it truth that i’m simply passing time until my next drink and that writing cuts through the tangle of solitude better than the sick feeling of searching for a community that is made up of other lost souls waiting for a drink? Or have i looked out over the horizon as best my scared scarred heart is able and am resorting with my best effort to help anyone with similar questions? Just as plastic has no analog on our planet, neither do the social networks posing as community. All the social gatherings i’ve ever encountered good and bad, fall into similar cliques as you might find within internet “groups,” with a singular distinction; regardless of cultural tradition, if there is a “shot caller” at the gathering - everyone knows who he, or she is. This renown is recognizable by dress, attendants, or just the flow of sycophants to the seat-of-power - in the virtual community people converse with each other through the “filter” of that seat-of-power, not around it as has been the habit of human clusters. 

The obscuring of that filter has neutered our ability to pick and chose our conversations much less define their content. The insult of surveillance is simply an additional indication of the salacious despair of our technical lords and ladies. What else could describe a utility which when unleashed rather than enhancing human understanding has isolated us more and more from each other without rendering any deeper truths than saccharin memebytes made palatable by the delusion anyone will be changed by what anyone else posts. It remains plumage and coquetry, with another important distinction - we’re losing the capacity to feel, or more accurately losing the capacity to feel nuance. On the internet, it is not unusual to be chatting one minute and staring into aether the next. I am guilty and understand the complex demands of life. Take for example our fictional gathering and its “shot-caller,” were i chatting with someone one minute and found the next minute that same person knee deep in adulation with the shot-caller - that is good information about my companion's priorities. There is no similar gauge on the internet, if anything, the drive for anonymity and encryption only drives a further wedge into the personal responsibility necessary for integrity. Our deteriorating social fabric will not be made whole by hiding from each other, and i have no idea how to repair it. I know i do not want a corporate server sponsoring an avatar of myself - however well-intentioned. It is difficult enough making myself clear without wading through a minefield of algorithms. In the actual world, truth can often be found in what is not said, but with the deluge that is the data stream one begins to feel, if one doesn’t see evrything, something important might be missed. Could we have gotten any further from Frost’s “A Road Less Traveled” if we had burned his books in former Nazi Germany, soon to be Nazi USA?

Leonard Cohen - “I don’t give a damn about the truth, Baby except for the naked truth.” Is there any other truth than that which resides within our hearts. This morning i posted a video which seemed to correspond to my concept of the dangers of group-think, or more accurately the dangers of not thinking. On further research, i discovered the poster was affiliated with “Info Wars” - a site i consider divisive and self-serving. It is the re-telling of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” i aim at rather than being a tailor for the next monarch. The assertion and counter-assertion which embroils the oh-so-well-modulated internet is counterproductive. No reply i will ever make to a Trump supporter will dislodge that person from their conviction, for until that human decides there is no threat from without, s/he will never be able to see the demons consuming them from within. Noam Chomsky - “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” If our spectrum gets any narrower, we will be sipping our future through a straw. I do not subscribe to violence of any kind: mental, physical or spiritual; so how, as an avowed defender of the species, am i to dislodge armies, when googol barely allows 40 people to read my words; if you think googol is neutral, ask Bernie Sanders about that? The amazing lens which digital technology was supposed to have provided humanity is nothing more than a microscope hired-gun sold to the highest bidder to scrutinize the amoeba we have become to the ruling class. If we do not seize the technology and point that same lens back up the food chain to know the truth about our enemies, we will have allowed our existence to expire within a petri dish where we will have been experimented on, spliced into and made plump androids to be served up at the next new religious holiday celebrating NASDQ’s recovery; “I say it, so it must be so” - Bob Dylan.

Is there even such a thing as truth? The man i was 5 years ago doesn’t exist: 4 years, 3 years 2 seconds ago .  .  . I know damn sure i won’t survive to see our kind needlessly extinguished - so why bother? It is because of the magnificence of our world reflected through the beauty of our efforts. I have stood in front of a Cezanne painting transfixed in wonder at how he could have gotten so deeply into the essence of something, not just the color and light, but the actual “plink” of a ceramic cup or pitiless boredom of his wife - that to me is magic; i have felt similar wonder with Shakespeare’s awareness of the human heart, or Edith Piaf’s vocalization of pain. What might have happened with 7 billion human beings pursuing their capacity for such love to its fullest? I was raised in post-WW11 California; there was no San Diego freeway and one could still smell the dirt from dug fields that had not been depleted of its nutrients by the mongrels of our doom - Monsanto. Here’s a fact: all of the world’s food is grown in 2 inches (5.1 cm) - 8 inches (20 cm) of topsoil. Since 1974 1.8 million tons in the U.S., and 9.4 million tons have been sprayed worldwide - enough for 1/2 pound of glyphosate for every acre (.4 hectare) of arable land on the planet. Monsanto was recently bought by Bayer for $66 billion dollars. Glyphosate has been identified as a likely carcinogen, AND it doesn’t work - it only makes for bigger weeds. These are facts, and our president has signed an indemnity for our agent's of doom from prosecution - so if you get cancer from eating; brother that’s on you. Plastic - don’t even get me started on plastic.  .  . I have a few years left to me unless i’m assassinated for my beliefs. With that time i mean to cultivate love in my heart and peace around me. I will do this by writing, drawing maybe even carving some stone, not because i have anything important to share, but because it makes me feel good. It may be that all of our rational Western Civilization is as fake as this year’s American election; i cannot change that; what i can change is my feeling about it, so rather than be afraid, or saddened or any of the other inducements used to make me buy things i don’t need, i will use my time to develop my work such that someone i will never know, might feel something; it is all i have to give, and it will have to be enough.

Post Script - The entire body of work from Joseph T Stevens’ identified as “stone carvings” are subject to this caveat into perpetuity : owner or ownership entity will not have financial ties greater than 50% of their net worth contained in whole or in part within any financial instrument subject to, or controlled by the richest .01% (HNWI) of the planet’s financial apparatus.*

* I D K, how do you spell " h u b r i s " ?

+-+-+-+-+- 

lies - the sonnet

Good lies are sweet; the best lies are sweeter.

“I need you” was too sweet for my three wives.

Should i’ve said “i love you, make me better”?

I miss them - hope them well in their new lives.

The conceit they’d improve me was my own

Born of a faith my love was not enough.

True too, all they could see was what i’d shown-

A hurt boy hiding self-hate by being tough.

Did i lie to them by needing someone?

Yes and no - it was my self with the need

for a love i had sought from anyone,

but mostly found we all share the same greed.

i love you now without expectation,

for truth is not the heart’s limitation

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                        

jts 15/9/2016

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

∞

war · an essay / peace - the sonnet

war · an essay -

Today is 11 September 2016; fifteen years ago, mayhem rained death down on nearly 3,000 human spirits in New York City - regardless of purpose, or cowardly origin - nothing will ever change the fact, chew on that for a while .  .  .

It sickens me to think what might have happened had the mayhem stopped right then; some reading are shouting 'fuckin-A-right', slamming their fists against the sky; i know, because i was then howling with blood lust - i must have spent 1 full month from my short life absorbed by the aftermath of this tragedy shooting a computer pop-up Bin Laden dead - a month i will never get back. This loss of mine is a paltry sum compared to the 4-5 million human beings slaughtered in retribution for the 2,996 lives lost that sad day - for the math challenged that is a nearly 1,666... fold increase in carnage. Without knowing a living soul who has suffered such agony as leaping from a burning building to their death, i would venture a guess few from that horrid day would wish the same for any other human being - much less a 1,666 others - for any reason, ever. At the same time i indulged my own bloodthirsty vengeance repeatedly destroying that CIA dupe, Bin Laden. Our planet was nearly universal in its condemnation of the carnage, most especially our muslim brothers and sisters whose sphincters were likely clutching from an unconscious visceral awareness of what would happen next - what would and did happen. Not one human life lost in New York City has been resurrected, and the human suffering has only increased exponentially. Why is this? To what end are we gorging ourselves on the delusion that more murder will end murder? Who has benefited from the derailment from all of humanity’s better service? Do you think one family affected by 9/11 wouldn’t happily trade every one of those 4,500,000+ human beings slaughtered since that day for just 10 minutes more with a lost, loved one? That is a question. .  . I know i’d happily return any of those lives taken for the month out of my life I wasted killing my Osama Bin Laden avatar, over and over .  . there is no answer, but if you listen to your heart, you know what you would do.

What is this curtain that has fallen over the hearts of our kind? Some will say, what curtain - “as long as man has existed, so has war”. This isn’t exactly true; for 100s of thousands of years we morbidly fragile creatures clustered together developing cooperative practices which allowed us to prevail over much more powerful antagonists - wild boars, kangaroos, drought etc. Even after a skirmish with other humanoids, there was no percentage in pursuing, much less, decimating any marauding band. “Get the fuck out of my face” seemed to suffice for much longer in human history than “death to the infidels,” has, or ever will. We don’t have that much history left to us, it would seem, by those same shadowy characters profiting from our continued self-slaughter. Who are these mooks making book on our deaths? I’d have never made a good soldier taking orders from somebody hiding in a bunker, but that’s just me. It is in large part why i question this zeal that we consider anyone an enemy, let alone, everyone. When i am asked to hate on another person, especially someone i know not, i listen very carefully. After too long, whatever camaraderie used to seize my allegiance becomes overshadowed by the petitioner’s personal agenda. Sometimes i have to listen for a long time - hatred is pernicious like that, tarry, gooey and slow to boil. But once it gets on you, it is a hard thing to scrape off - just like the commander with medals of valor and glint in his eye. Eventually the tarnish fades and the glint becomes flinty, usually around the time i ask my first question. Somehow there’s a relationship between obedience and compliance that muddies the waters between friend and foe. Alexander the Great was a leader of men; while it is true he killed with barely restrained ardor, friend and foe alike. It was he, Alexander who first established the convention of shaving - this because he saw his men being pulled by their beards into the sword point. But Alexander was different than those who’ve amassed the entirety of our world’s wealth hiding behind puppets on a string representing the will of we the people - an important distinction, for today’s Alexanders could give a shit whose sword point you get pulled into - theirs or by your own hand.

Much 'hay, moolah, profit, baksheesh, filthy lucre has been made on how proficient we’ve become at death; how we are able to protect ourselves in the pitch of battle, or according to General George Patton - “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” - the same general who slapped two PTSD patients in WWII Sicily, calling them “cowards.” The Wikipedia reading gets more interesting when psychiatry - hand maiden to the war machine, same breed as the consultants in Guantanamo giving torture expertise - began to understand if men were not removed at the early stages of PTSD, they were lost to the “theater of war” for longer periods, or entirely. It’s not so much that the “chicken hawks” in charge give a shit about warriors, but more a staffing question. It takes more time to train a soldier than give that soldier relief from the rigors of war - a relief i’d be willing to bet large sums of money is parsed down to the nano second, not unlike the $24 aspirin you might find in any emergency room throughout the U.S. You begin to see how difficult it would be for me in a military circumstance; it would be difficult to take orders from someone who cannot see exactly who the enemy is. Bruce Lee says to become one with the enemy, but that is from a deeply Taoist tradition which abhors war; Bruce Lee also said, ”It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.” Those marketing the drones are neither compassionate nor just - just greedy. The act of killing is oozing from the hatred of our leaders demanding what Richard Nixon proudly proclaimed, “Peace with Honor.” There is no honor found in war, or in killing. This is why Lao Tzu advocated approaching victory the way one might attend a funeral. If we haven’t become numb to death we will soon have occasion, for the amoral amongst us have declared war on life - they are winning.

Or more accurately, 'we' are losing. Anyone who has an infant, or child in their care knows exactly how much more dangerous our world has become since those same parents were young. I may not be soldier material, but i shall not be vanquished - not by greed, hatred or delusion - not willingly. My enemy is anything that pales the beauty of a happy woman, or the luster of boulders in a mountain stream. Children’s laughter is the most precious sound on our planet, yet we are allowing that blessing to be cultivated by the same 'digital screen' tearing them from us and we from one another. Just as the gore of death is filtered through a remote screen, so too have we become unplugged from the gut feel necessary to fully understand death and what it means to kill another. Ted Nugent, aside - the abnormal psychology of someone hiding his penis behind an arsenal is not my idea of killing, i’m far more inclined to learn the killing language of the indigenous people wherein permission and gratitude are the central alter from which life taken, as opposed to the blood lust of one raised in a Walmart - yes the same of Walton fame and “fortune.” That i’m not soldier material does not mean i’m not full with warrior blood - any human alive possesses this quality of character just by arriving this far down the human chain. It is a modern conceit to obscure the very real difficulty of life behind a cavalcade of convenience; which as it happens only really aids a handful of people while the balance of humanity is left footing the bill. It is that sort of stupidity against which i apply my cunning and fading strength as a warrior scholar. I do not oppose war, i oppose death, destruction and dishonesty. For these reasons, i ally myself with any who oppose cruelty, conniving and coercion. I have comrades; we are not alone and with patience, decency of spirit will prevail, because these qualities of the human spirit have fought the hardest to get this far in the gene pool. The myth of might is a charade of appearance - like the brashness of those most afraid. This is clearly seen in the faceless exploits of those who have poisoned our world and stolen our time without the backbone to take credit.

The first objective of war is to survive, but contrary to General Patton’s tactical error - another’s death is a weak objective. In the killing of one, you are only sewing the seeds of your own destruction, or that of your family. That is fact; nor is it possible to winnow the opposition into manageable proportions. Once you have committed your resources to destruction, you have absented efforts from the more powerful outcomes gained by learning, training and personal application - more facts. Any army based on death and destruction will never be a match for one born of concern for the greater good and welfare of all. The experts, those hired and told what to say, knowingly or unknowingly, by our corporate overlords are feasting on your quiescence. The whores of media enjoy a rich existence of prestige, and celebrity because you have allowed them this stature - they serve at your pleasure. The instant humanity turns a deaf ear to the fiction that we are at war with anything but our own ignorance - war will end. I’ve hated, deliberately and with a burning fervor to my own great detriment - as with my lost month assassinating into oblivion the digital avatar of Osama Bin Laden; i will never recapture that time. I’d like to say i am wiser for it, but that would be a lie just like believing these words come from a place of peace. I am not at peace - i war with every fiber of my being that which wants to surrender and relinquish any second of this life not devoted to helping my family, my friends even my enemies to survive the next 1,000 years. Enlightened self-interest is our friend - to believe the death of another by my hand or by my silence cannot be enlightened, for it runs counter to our instinct to survive. Not one of you reading this doubts the adage of “do unto others, as you’d have done to you,” those that scoff by saying “do unto others, before they do unto you,” are either afraid or sociopathic. We were not born afraid, we were born roaring, and those who care not for others have already lost the war for meaning - their heart voided with possessions and a trail of havoc neither of which will ever be enough. While the warrior scholars legion to which i aspire will have won the war when and if one person reading this finds something of use, for “to the victor goes the spoils.”    

+-+-+-+-+- 

peace - the sonnet ·

“Tuesday Afternoon” use to give me peace

Until i learned that it was just in song;

Castles don't come without a long term lease.

'Forever' helps me know how time is long.

I’d just as soon bring along a good friend-

A peaceful one - one 'you’d' spend a day with.

I’ve comrades - all warriors i’d defend.

Blood was never let from peace to spilleth.

And to my brothers, by this news chagrined

Blame me not, it is nothing personal.

I will go elsewhere, even though i’ve sinned, 

Without vanquished souls as collateral?

What if our planet is part of heaven

and all who've been 'offed, were angel brethren?

jts 13/09/2016

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞