nuyier - the essay / olyier - the sonnet

I have learned more about myself in the past week than the past 10 years - sort of; i kind of hate to see the year go. And you greedy reader want me to go into the salacious details, ad nauseam - perhaps later. The passing of years in days gone by was represented by the grim reaper pulling calendars off the wall, now it is just one more consumer event in a full schedule of holy days used by the ruling class to separate you from your hard earned scratch. However the piper is playing and the fresh and new has become one more harried challenge to get through each day, week - year. Why is that? How can something as open and liberating as an open vista become so entangled and arduous? We are not necessarily a stupid species yet we have become so caught up in the drama scrolling across our screens we seem to believe it is real rather than virtual. The pile of shit some sad human left outside my window xmas morning was very real - as was the anxiety of daring do matron thousands of miles from her stolid roots when confronted by another sad little human exposing his too small phallus to her the afternoon of nuyier’s eve. This is our world and it is only going to get . . . help me, what’s the word i’m looking for¿ . . weirder . Yeah that’s it’s going to get a whole lot weirder before we land. Like my past week, perhaps as our trembling souls awaken to the rapidly onrushing future, we may find our learning curve telescoping - not the felonious fake knowledge supposedly found at the end of click bait, but the sort of simple fact - it doesn’t really matter much where the shit came from, somebody’s gonna have to pick it up. This is a daunting hope, when contrasted with the young quote of Steve Miller chief sycophant in this administration’s inner sanctum (giving a whole new twist to the roots of sanctum) - “why shouldn’t i leave trash on the ground if want, when there are immigrants that are paid to be custodians” or words to that effect.

We do not enjoy the margin of safety necessary to support such weakness, for there is no other description for anyone who believes the person sitting next to them wherever they be, is not as equal and valuable as they perceive themselves to be. Nor is that faith an easily acquired conviction. Myself, i have much trouble with crowds of any size having once been pincered off my feet against a grating by a mob emulating a foaming shorebreak at the Wedge in Newport Beach. This unfortunate coincided with dawning reservations about the value of all things counter-cultural. Months later people were murdered at another rolling stones event and the cherry was popped - so to speak. But just like Mr. Carlin said “bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.” There is no outside agency that can provide a peace for you, yet “only a life lived for others is worthwhile” - Albert Einstein; again the fucking paradox. If we are not all striving for something to look back upon with pleasure what then of this new day of the new year. Master Dylan had said “for me the future is already a thing of the past,” and while his detractors will condemn this plagiarism of so much ancient wisdom - fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke. If we don’t find humor outside of social networks soon, we will become like the office joke about workers confounding the new hire. Having been there so long the employees had numbered all the jokes to save time, but when the new hire stood up shouting “9” the entire room was silent rather than the gales of laughter enjoyed by other number tellers. The new hire sheepishly inquired of the same kindly comrade who had explained the scheme about what had gone wrong. The OG gently told his new friend “i guess some people can tell a joke and some can’t. Oscar Wilde had said “If you tell people the truth, make them laugh - otherwise they will kill you.

We are not being killed, we are being winnowed like cattle. Our objectives have become so invaluable to the ruling class that simple sustenance has become a petition. This is wrong, it is upside down and everybody knows it. I don’t have the answer, which is a great relief for i have a genetic flaw that dictates if i know of something that might help another, i must share it. This inclination is often misconstrued as some kind of command for reasons that still elude me, but for which i am slowly gaining some insight. People take a great deal of pride when they have an new idea. However, this warm feeling may stem from foregone times when cooperation was a common practice and this manner of help was an expected ambition. Today with the emphasis on concurrence, we seem to have lost the capacity for incorporating differences (talk about your taking back the meaning of words). Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong? Some obscene percentage of the stock market is owned by the Highest Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), but has the concept corporation been hijacked by a pack of jackals just like the internet was perverted by handful of greedy pencil-neck-geeks. What if rather than elections for office we as a planet simply incorporate and throw our resources into the grandfather of all corporations - Planet Earth Inc. It’s not as crazy as it sounds; the devil is in the details. I would nominate Bernie Sanders as CEO, and Arundhati Roy as CFO. The bylaws would have to be carefully considered with financial penalties for excess and stupidity as demonstrated by modern executive standards. Then again rather than subsidizing a bunch of middle management parasites as congress and local municipalities have become, we could park our gazillions offshore and pay no taxes. We could then franchise the shit out of Planet Inc., opening bike shops worldwide with free daycare side by side sort of like taco bell and pizza hut - except feeding poison to the population we would be helping each other. Are you beginning to see the logic¿ If not, i understand - i get that a lot .  .

My beef is not with the mook who dared display his dinky winky to the sad old woman upstairs doing her best with what she’s got left to her - it is the disrespect to the community where i live - people who have accepted my faltering language and odd demeanor. I am learning, while it may not be much, just to care about others is enough to the relieve some of my own suffering from fucking paradoxes; i think my case is terminal, but i won’t know for sure until i’m gone. This year is past as has my father and friends, yet here i sit perpetuating their memory - courage or cowardice - matters not. I can tell you they would not want to be exalted - remembered, but not exalted. If a year in time was to be personified, can you imagine the collective wisdom of 7 billion souls aggrandizing their importance and demanding exaltation? yeah me either. The people i’ve met and spent times with are generally kind and confused which only really manifests in a common ambition for keeping others in the dark. I am guilty myself having become so deluded as to think i can anticipate what another might feel if i say this or that to theme and so live my humble version of Leonard Cohen’s “secret life.” I know vain people who seem to feel that no matter how much assurance and encouragement i give to them - i never really seem to see them well enough; guess i’ll just keep trying. It is difficult though when my own pride is so repugnant to me that it numbers amongst the most dangerous of my vices; am not certain, but i’m pretty sure i couldn’t plea for my life if i had to. However, last night i watched Anthony Quinn outfox his German captors using just such a ploy. The “Guns of Navarone” is a not an over-the-top indoctrination film about all the positive things war does for us. I used to envy my parents the clarity of WWII, mostly in regret that the quagmire of Vietnam was less of a war than preview of the oil companies at Standing Rock. Sitting here now writing ties my stomach in knots knowing how stupid i can be - quite a harsh take on a little useful self awareness.

Now multiply my benign confusion by 7 billion likely much smarter people - i’m liking your corporation idea more and more. Time however is less of a resource than current lifestyles permit. But then again, if owning your own corporation with 7 billion other human beings means that you once again own your own time - how wrong could that be? Albert Einstein - “Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror or force, whether it arises under a fascist government or communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.” This statement did not come from a batshit crazy climate sellout, it was an observation out of the mind of Albert, the same mind which gave us E=mc2. A seemingly simple equations which has also enabled the ruling class to wield anonymous incineration over the heads of all mankind. To be fair, Albert’s heart was in the right place by also telling us to be, and do our best. Based on the inanity i found myself wading through day and night when i owned a phone - i’d say we’re in deep shit. Why are we not using the computer technology available to us to analyze and delineate clearly all the ways we are being screwed and to then coordinate and cooperate with all cogent creatures on the planet opposed to such oppression? - lacking any answer to that question, i’d say we’re still in deep shit. But, hell we got a nuyier to become new and improved as well as a number of timely consumer holy days soon, don’t forget the rapture right around the corner. I’m grateful for the past year, for the people i’ve tried to love, and then messed up; for the people i cannot love, but keep trying to and for all the happiness i see in others while knowing of their hardships and defeats - people who remain brave enough to care - and not. “I used to care, but things have changed.” - Bob Dylan. That is an enigma; we live in the hay days of enigma - never in human history have we been so close to success and yet so certainly doomed. It is not my place to say what’s going to happen, and am pretty sure Leonard Cohen was right “There is not decent place to stand in a massacre, but if a woman takes your hand, go and be with her” and until that happens, I will be hunting Lao Tzu’s - “three greatest treasures: simplicity, patience and compassion”

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nuyier - the sonnet

what is so damn new about this nuyier

what if it weren’t years we pay attention,

but lifetimes of other people’s good cheer

without fucking competition.

i won all last year losing all i had

the less i own, the more i do - “How so”¿

you might ask - “simply, it is not so bad”

“You are poor, what could you possibly know”?

“Enough to write this down” I might reply

“Big deal” - says you. Says i, “you would be right”

“Fuck you” she might think “Right again, no lie”

hell the, year’s young, plenty of time to fight . . .

lets just pitch woo until we learn the game

‘cause lady, the screen i’m seeing you on’s lame.

jts 01/01/2018

http://stoneartist.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved 

hapy xmas - the essay / not hapy xmas - the sonnet

Last xmas i spent the holy day in a hotel room in San Francisco; last night i enjoyed a wonderful meal in the home of a loving family doing their best to remain a loving family. This morning when i arrived at my volunteer station, i spent minutes searching my backpack for my computer that was sitting on the desk in front of me; and found the charger for the broken computer i had given as a gift the night before; then opened my laptop to find the email saying i would be early to the volunteer position - unposted. Confusion is our friend, but only if you can enjoy it. I do wonder how at this time in our planet’s history how we could have let simple generosity be hijacked by a handful of parasites? (a not terribly generous remark in itself - much less xmas day). Nor do i have answers for how to effectively organize against organized hatred, yet it occurs to me my own need to be organized might very well be residue from the same socialization that leaves me in dread at the prospect of not having given something to all i love, while at the same time, has me wielding gifts like the hammer of justice - bestowing the best to favorites and lumps of cool to others. It’s odd how the dissonance of this particular day mimics my own conflicts. Are we so well trained that one day of the year is understood as a “day of generosity” while all other days we tolerate supposed leaders looting the commonwealth in the name of fiscal responsibility, to provide generosity to the already rich¿ I am not always comfortable with confusion, but am getting more comfortable with asking confusing questions. For example, how do you stop violence without fighting fire with fire. I know for myself when i feel insulted, i retreat to a distance where i begin to feel fortified - a very aggressive burden when one is struggling to remain open and loving. Just as all roads lead to Rome, so too the path seems to keep returning to self - one cannot be loving and open with others until one is willing to be so with oneself. What thwn is the role of honoring one’s reservations/fantasies about others, or the role of rectitude as regards frank and candid exchanges? I don’t know, but i mean to find out - come hell or high water - both of which seem not too far off.

If happiness can be described as the absence of “greed, hatred and delusion” what is it to scour one’s soul of these ever present attributes¿ I’d be lying through my teeth to suggest that the specter of suspicion was not my go-to partner when my computer was not where i first looked, with greed and hatred hot on it’s heels. His holiness the Dalai Lama says the mind is a remarkably pliant and powerful asset when tended to by correct hygiene - what Thich Nhat Han describes as “mindfulness,” and i’m beginning to believe them both. Of all the things i could be doing, trying to aid a fellow artist in multiplexing his business/work hours is a privilege while simultaneously searching for ways to unite with the handful of humans (according to the highly suspect statistics of googol inc.) who read my gibberish, and because it is loving, does not make it less gibberisish. I read a comment this morning about our current chief executive, Mr. M.T. Suit which in effect said we have never before had a human who was less cogent and clear in his thinking, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. I mean if you can get elected to the highest office in the land, what’s to say i cannot express my opposition to an insane world without losing my life? So what is it to have a hapy xmas? I remember one year riding a skateboard that i had desperately wanted - talk about your pleasures of life, yet another year i was presented a girl’s bike - never mind that it had brand now butterfly handlebars and the oh-so-important banana seat - i was crestfallen. My parents were very ahead of their time and immune to the petulant disappointments of youth - perhaps the best gift i’ve ever received. However, this lesson in no way resembles the current sacking of the ship of state by stooges of the corporate state. My parents loved me and demonstrated nobly what it is to do your best with little, while the only apt description of today’s leadership is bald faced greed grown from a root of hatred buried deep in a soil of fear.

I understand fear, it is not my friend, yet the only way to stifle its incessant wail is a warm embrace. And while love certainly can soothe its whimper, its hunger is bottomless - consuming all and wanting more. My dumb luck is having owned a girl’s bike once in my life has taught me some compassion, which with the right perspective is as insatiable as any appetite i’ve ever witnessed in my hungry life. It’s like fun - once you’ve tasted fun, everything else is just bland. It is these paradoxes of life i believe will be our salvation, for there will come a time when the barriers and restraints used to maintain a pliant population will no longer suffice for control and the natural pace of the human heart will undertake the challenge of living and loving rather than Leonard Cohen’s cautionary “having and getting” that defines ambition for so much of our world. When people open their eyes with love and compassion to the overwhelming grief of the ruling class and its vacuous avarice, and rather than emulate the trappings of power begin to fashion a lifestyles based on generosity and openness we will once again unite in sister and brotherhood. There is no overcoming something that is without power, be that pain, or hate or loneliness. Once the light of interest takes fire in one’s heart, it will illuminate and its energy source will last forever. However if that interest is in the service of domination, it will be exhausted by the first free heart it encounters, one can imprison a body but never control a heart. So the ruling class is going after your appetite, believing you to be as empty and vain as they. What they do not understand is from your suffering you have learned things about life they have no equations for.  Just like programming a computer to create art, the only way for AI to create is to emulate what it is shown, there is no formula for original thinking - it is a uniquely living quality. The reason seeds are able to evolve is from their suffering, what doesn’t work will wither and die, while what is successful will thrive and multiply - even be hapy. Show me a hapy computer companion and i’ll show you a fake-as-fuck programmer who was given a lot of money to satisfy a sad-as-fuck financier.

Money and gifts are not what will nurture human kind; we are the result of generations of struggle - not built of the soft life the ruling class is attempting to con us into buying. From this struggle we have codified in our genes the capacity to distinguish the real from the unreal, it is why delusion is one of the 3 chains of suffering, without clarity in your heart you will be fooled by the first huckster, tiger, snake, dark night that comes down the pike. Yet once you have embraced the real fact that you are a temporary aberration of a permanent flux it only makes sense to enjoy yourself by helping others to find happiness. Can you imagine the tangled logic used by doctors to make people sick so they will buy drugs that make those same  rich doctors richer¿ How many layers of denial have gone into the fantasy that you can win a war, or that the object of any education is to find an answer¿ Talk about your dead-ends, it only stands to reason any system which uses questions to reduce the number of questions generated is self-defeating. What about a holiday that is based on giving presents that only deflect the pain of not having enough love in your heart to believe that someone would love you without receiving a gift from you. We have convinced ourselves that it is possible to buy happiness - that is sad, but only if you believe it. I do, but i’m unlearning it as quickly as i can type. If it can’t be bought, what then. I cooked turkey thighs in ceramic pots and scared myself half to death in the process, only to be exacerbated by the flames that erupted from sputtering grease. Yet the look of confused pleasure on the face of hungry people eating the results was for me almost as hapy as writing this now to the ghost reader googol hides from me, or me from them. It does not matter, for i do not express myself for googol’s magic metrics, but for my own growth and understanding.

It is the same for art that i create. Last night i spoke with a dear old man recovering from a surgical wound that i have had personal experience with. What he said troubled me such that i dreamt of an avatar from my past. When i asked the kindly old man “what do you want to do?” he replied “i don’t have to do anything, why do something that someone pays me to do and then criticizes what i do¿” - a point i well understand, but the hurdle i could not get past or through to, depending on one’s orientation “what do you want to do¿” It was almost inconceivable to this otherwise very sage man that he was the root of his own power. That it was enough to search his own heart for an occupation, and that a worthy objective of his own design was more valuable than reaching a state of disuse. Truly, it may very well be my own myopic task-oriented indoctrination speaking and that his own canny sense of peace is my lesson to learn rather than some arrogant supposition of cultural superiority on my part. But he will have to go some ways to convince me that hacking my way out of confusion using words as my only weapon could be surpassed by any bought-and-paid-for pasture of high clover. Still, i need to learn more about the words he gave to me, otherwise why converse if it is not to better understand another¿ Am i any happier than last xmas in San Francisco¿ I don’t know that i live to be hapy or that hapy circumstance animates my choices? I do know that i take a great deal more pleasure in finding ways to help others find happiness than focusing on my own. There has been more than enough Peggy Lee’s “is that all there is” in my life to accept happiness when it arrives and to not despair when it is called elsewhere, rather to enjoy the more consistent conviction that if i can relive one person’s suffering that is a worthy objective of my precious moments left alive.

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not hapy xmas - the sonnet

Has there ever been a not sad xmas?

For g_d’s sake t’was the birth of a doomed man

for which the richest church on earth says mass

but for any respite, the poor they ban.

Does a gift celebrate nobility¿

or just enable the money lenders? 

Would a doomed man be hapy now or flee¿

he fled once, leaving only his tears.

What if he’s still here waiting for our love

to grow worthy of his noble ideas?

Might he object the slaughter of his dove

by yanking the plug of their medias¿

too soon to know if he might’ve succeeded,

but we all know how his love’s been treated 

jts 12/25/2017

http://stoneartist.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved 

will - an essay / acceptance - the sonnet

I was fired today (sort of - let go, asked to come back if .  .  .) from my volunteer position - nor was it the first time someone has told me that i don’t help. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with my willfulness. I don’t perceive impediments clearly and so become insensitive when my focus becomes willful. It is a character defect which falls into the category of paradox. I read this morning the indigenous people of Chiapas are being hounded into the forest by armed thugs - it is impossible to not object to such senseless violence toward other human beings, yet i may have just now called down the heat to my own, too close, orbit. Fuck ‘em - they is running dogs for the same thugs who have superheated our atmosphere just to own fast cars that gets them laid, or laughed at, depending on the sophistication of the lady. 

C.G. Jung - “Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking.”

I am finishing a drawing i’ve worked on for 4+ months; it would be a much different drawing, had i stopped at any number of times my flagging will had dictated. It is difficult to know when there is nothing more the work can yield, but i am finding my orientation toward my product does not fit many paradigms. The difficulty is in how to understand willfulness as it relates to the process of creation. When my schedule changed this morning, my assignment did not. I write once a week, and find, like most things, when you do something enough - shit happens. Structured time was recommended too me early on, and has been a boon to making shit happen. It is the yield, that puzzles me. Many of my brethren chose to have the work pay the freight - a choice i find fraught with conflicts of interest. I chafe at the inclination of patrons to believe they have any role in my creative process, and my hope is that if anyone ever buys what i have made, it will be because it contributes to what they understand about their world. My sense of the art market is that it is off the rails like most other commodifiable intangibles. The indigenous people of Chiapas are not understood as tangible parts of the economic paradigm and so like forested acres impeding the infinite growth model of modern economics, they are mowed down.

My concern about calling down the heat is a valid one during these days of eviscerating liberty - but is well worth any risk, for what’s one more extirpated malcontent. But before i’m spit out like so much grit, would someone please explain to me how the willfulness of a handful of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) became avatars for the human spirit seemingly through no more than ad fodder, while multitudes of humans are condemned for believing in the sanctity of our living world and its values developed over millenniums of human development. Jung believed in an archetype human state, once referring to our generations as rhizome:

C.G. Jung - “… Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux.  What we see is the blossom which passes. The rhizome remains” 

I believe human will very much resembles this notion, while philosophers have commandeered the model rhizome to assist the overworked, undereducated drone programmers formulating pathways for the ever enlarging computer framework which the more creative of the digital empresarios have deemed “artificial intelligence” - why not, fake intelligence - we got make believe everything else. The trouble being, is to whose will does this intelligence apply itself. I know for certain zucky has never given a fair ear to what i would like to see on fb, rather his conceit is what he thinks he can fathom from my clicks with which to compile some proximity of my intent - bullshit. The first thing i was taught about computer science is to find out what the user wants, but this was in the days before your keystrokes had been commodified. The rhizome of our world that is currently being nurtured is not predicated on the will of humanity, but the will those HNWI who can pay for what the computer apparatus is told to do. 

I am far enough along in my failures to understand some of the lessons which led me to begin doubting the worth of will, most especially the flawed concept of will over another human being. It is enough of a struggle just to attempt my own self-control to the degree i cause no harm to anyone, most especially myself as the ever apt D.E. Tuppins of Detroit remarked “after me, you come first.” Yet without will, i would not attempt this sharing with you. Yes, i hope to learn through the writing process more about will than i did when i began; and yes it is necessary to accept there is much about will, that i do not understand, so how am i to share with you what i don’t know myself¿

Lao Tzu - “People usually fail when they are on the verge of success. So give as much care to the end as to the beginning. Then there will be no failure. 

This value of perseverance Lao Tzu articulated so well has been misconstrued, and i would doubt seriously if it has found its way into any algorithmic wisdom. My sense of the drawing i now struggle with about when to stop, resembles more Lao Tzu’s admonition than any economic insight. Put differently, the best work is accomplished when it is only the pencil point and the paper surface, minus the ego interlocutor. Ego asks questions like “will they like it, will it sell, is it worthy etc., etc., etc.” When i feel present with what she was looking at such that i can begin to try and understand what she might have felt, it then becomes the beginning of the drawing and i am only concerned with a better understanding of my feeling about the person and place, not whether i can do it, but how can i do it?

Nor is the willfulness involved in writing much different; i sometimes have a vague idea about what to write, and then veer from anything that smacks of telling another what to think. It’s a method of leashing the internal editor while letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak. My issue with systems which do not account for the human in a respectful and considerate fashion exactly mirror my own struggles with will; i will move heaven and earth to learn self-control, but will wage eternal and protracted warfare with anyone who wishes to tell me what i must do - fucking paradoxes - can’t live with ‘em, and you can’t shoot ‘em. It is also for this reason war is an anathema to me, like not giving a shit whether you understand words i use or not - war is not my problem, yet my only problem. As long as humans are conned into believing that the chum you are in the foxhole with dodging incoming rounds is any less valuable to you than the person lodging incoming at you - we as a species are doomed. What is sad, is how close we are to crossing the threshold toward a mutual awareness of our common enemies - greed, hatred and delusion as well as those who would advance these self defeating values as helpful for our collective future. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower “… we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influences, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

This was a the last republican to balance the budget and the supreme allied commander at the end of WWII, a willful man who was also black. At the time the Nazi economic model presented a threat to the emerging democratic paradigm. With 20/20 hindsight it is clear we quit that war just before success otherwise we might have been better positioned to survive the corporate putsch we are now facing. The problem is that our enemy is no longer the other guy, i have no problem with people being wealthy; i object when that silly ambition becomes justification for destroying my world. Mr. M.T. Suit is threatening to do just that, and i’m not even black, muslim, korean, indian or gay. The people who have conceived the treadmill on which our world is exhausting itself have no concept of personal will, otherwise they would have curtailed their avarice long ago. While those who side with humanity have been convinced if they could only be rich, and selfish and able to control others - existence would be a delight. 

I have found my peace, and sadly it more closely resembles war, except the struggle lies within my own heart. I will myself away from hate, from greed and i demand clarity from my purpose. I cannot know what another person is facing, whether they are more worthy of survival than i, or even whether they want my seat in the lifeboat, but i know that no one gets out a alive and i would rather my last feelings on earth be from the warmth of helping another, rather than that scabrous unrelenting fear of who else is gonna try and take my seat. We are a capable people, but only in so far as our personal ambition meshes with a grander design - one in which the openness of youth is honored with a learning environment that respects their hunger for personal growth and is not a foil to obscure some more sinister purpose of indoctrination into a consumer maze ending in addiction to objects that leech the very joy of life from the sinews of their soul - one where families are not torn apart by poverty or greed by ill-conceived social systems meant only to keep them serviceable as cogs in a factory - one in which the aged and infirm are helped in anyway that relieves the suffering inherent to such states.

Michel de Montaigne - “Of all the virtues life confers on us, contempt of death is one of the greatest. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty. He who has learned to die has forgot to serve”

There is an irony that the promise of everlasting life held dear by the waring factions of our world has never, to anyone’s certain knowledge, justified the taking of one life over another. Even if it were true that the right adherence to the right idea would guarantee a seat in the life raft of “ever after”, who is to say that the person you just whacked wasn’t g_d’s own child - it’s happened before, and from my experience - what happens once, happens twice and so on and so forth; or better yet, your theoretically appalling violence just split a demon into two demons - each twice as venomous as the original - talk about your conundrums. Creating art or writing does not deliver me from strife, rather it helps me to understand the limits of my own will, for no matter how clearly i may perceive a beautiful thing, i have learned that any effort however determined will fall short of depiction; and however logical an idea may seem to me when attempting to formulate a way to express that idea clearly enough to be easily shared - it all sounds like gibberish until long after the fact when the panic of expression has folded its way back into the dull suffering we are all searching to control - somehow, some way. My will may not have been entirely beaten into submission yet, but it certainly is more mindful of what it nurtures and what don’t, for if you ain’t loving - you ain’t payin’ attention - good luck to us all - invest your assets wisely.

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acceptance - the sonnet

acceptance is never just happenstance,

by definition it’s a decision

always the right one, and never by chance

though times it results in devastation.

is Mr. M.T. Suit the one leading?

i don’t know where he’s going - we won’t meet

mostly because i do not serve a king-

that he’s a rich fool, just makes it more sweet.

i accept the miracle of what’s next

having no idea what that’ll be is fun;

pretty sure it won’t be found in a text,

might be from the business end of a gun

i won’t pull that trigger, it’s the wrong end-

our future will be made by how we blend.

jts 12/11/2017

http://josephtstevens.blogspot.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved 

you are nothing - an essay / . .. ··· and everything · the sonnet

The expression “you are nothing” could be understood as a harsh condemnation of all for which you believe about yourself, yet according to the scientists in our midst, our universe is comprised of 99% dark matter - a substance which they are at a loss to describe. Having suckled at your mother’s tit such information may be more than unwelcome, but if your have been bombed day and night for the better part of your life, this idea may not seem quite so foreign. The conceit that our world, our homes or even our ideas are at the center of the universe is easily forgiven when contrasted with the enormous distance between each of us or between the object of our desires and our satisfaction. I have sought refuge from the isolation of my own skin by attempting to understand what another might feel; my hope of course is to find something in common. However, regardless of how much i have found in common with others, i have yet to meet someone who is content with being nothing. This is not to say my ambition in life is to become nothing, but rather to understand more fully the implications of being what i am - nothing. Many reading that statement might be motivated to correct such a heretical self opinion, but i would have to wonder why. I can appreciate the despair of emptiness but am more curious what it must be like to feel kinship with dark matter. Clearly the leaders of the planet have good reason to keep the mass of humanity apart, but that hasn’t stopped many to seek common cause if only for our mutual survival, but what does that mean - survival? What makes capitalism so attractive to the lazy amongst is its plug and play aspect, 'find what others hunger for, then corner the market' - you’re set for life. The razor’s edge which the capitalists walk, however means they must somehow convince you they care about what you hunger for, that or convince you they know better than you what you are hungry for - which is currently the sorry state of our economy.

A pretty amazing feat for a planet comprised of 96% dark matter, but when you think about it 96% of what is bought can hardly be explained - sort of like we are buying nothing for everything. Maybe the capitalists are not as dumb as they appear from a distance. They damn sure have a lot of nothing, and clearly want more. What i’m not so sure about is spending the better part of my life struggling to acquire something that i don’t understand. I like the idea of being happy, and choose to do so at every turn. Writing for example - the process can be quite disconcerting, but to go back and read something you felt deeply enough about to take the time and formulate what you hope is a cogent discussion which others might understand - that can be quite nice, most especially if it makes sense when reading through the lens of time. Lao Tzu says to be content with what you have and the whole world belongs to you. That is an enormous prospect, certainly much greater if you subscribe to the expanding universe model of our world as opposed to the various beliefs based on end-of-life concepts mostly favoring the preservation of self. I distrust any state of mind feverishly clung to, but rarely enjoyed, put differently “insanity doesn’t run in my family, it sort saunters.” So what is it about nothingness that feels at once compelling as though swimming in it, but simultaneously repugnant enough to provoke Blaise Pascal’s remark “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Is there such a thing as boredom, part of the charm of human indoctrination is having convinced the multitudes that quietude is really the sin of sloth. I dam sure have a hard time doing nothing, but i have never claimed any recovery from my very special indoctrination. I’m not sure i’d even want, what would i do without all my petty grievances and petulant slights to nurture like some metaphysical elixir delivering me from - something better.

What’s to say that this instant in time isn’t the apex of the expansion for our universe and each passing second of our existence is only leverage keeping the whole scheme of things from collapsing back into one of the multitude of black holes, with each subsequent black hole collapsing into its predominate neighbor until there is nothing left to happen but another big bang. Like i said, insanity doesn’t run in my family, it just sort of saunters. Is our purpose such an exalted state fraught with meaning and design that we must evaluate ours against that of others, like little boys comparing their penises with others when they think no one is looking, or women tearing each other apart believing success will yield the best man DNA or whatever other comparisons we make that generate insatiable hungers rendering us vulnerable to influence. What is influence, besides social gravity, does this answer how we have become immeshed in the lives of leaders whose only pedigree is defined by the numbers of otherwise thinking human beings clinging to that orbit? What i don’t understand is the dissonance of isolation, as though it is a physical threat to others to be alone. I like people; they are fascinating and amusing. But like hard liquor too much of a good thing can be stupefying. The difficult part of human relations for me is to know what is helpful, this could be a blindspot from my own confusion or an inherent flaw in our human capacity to identify and express clearly what we need - i don’t know. Bob Dylan has sung “ya’ try and help someone sometimes and end up making things a thousand times worse” - and damn if that ain’t true - ask anyone of my last three wives. Is there a secret to knowing what is helpful, or is it like tying shoelaces, you can only succeed after x number of tries? I was lucky, i had Heidi there to teach me, so i really wasn’t looking at my shoelaces, but she was smart too, not just good looking; so when she caught on i was back on my own - see what happens when you try and take advantage of a good thing.

Being nothing is not such a bad thing, certainly not bad enough to convince a planet to destroy itself if you do not possess that quality. One of my greatest anxieties today is centered around a storage unit. The only items of any real concern are statues i scraped out of stone believing that act would create something when i still believed there was a there there, but Gertrude was right - “there is no there.” Is my life’s work nothing? This is an existential cul-de-sac i’d have rather not walked down, but while we’re here - what of it. I have a brother who once asked me once “Why stone carvings, do you want to be immortal?” A question like that is why i never really feel alone. In his absence i have gravitated to others who have also posed questions that are impossible to answer. I admire that capacity to pose good questions - enough so to emulate. However, if i have been successful, please don’t mention it - t’was nothing .  .  . For my money, our world is far too full of answers; questions yield a much better Return On Investment (ROI) than any of the marketplace miracles with which the wizards of wall street are ransacking the planet - besides questions are more fun, and we all like to have fun. Take for example what if next time you were about to reply to some hateful post using all the bile you have been hoarding because who the fuck wants to be a hater - and instead of mimicking the rancid invective so much the rage today, you were to just ask why? Children know the wisdom of this question, that is until it is beat out of them by the fear of not knowing the answer, but until that happens can there possibly be any answer more correct than a question¿ Does if follow that to know nothing is a worthy ambition? Ask me when i have figured out how to get there, if there is any there there.

What would our world look like if instead of striving to become somebody, we became nothing - i read today that our environment will be uninhabitable by 2100. That is a grievous thought if only for the galling stupidity that is bringing that about, yet it may present perfect conditions for us to consider what it might be like to be nothing. There was also available on the “information super cul-de-sac” an article on Perceptronium, a supposed new element that is comprised of our consciousness. Is that even possible¿ If that were true would questions be the dark matter within that lattice? just askin’. How much further along might we have gotten had we simply accepted our deaths as the indigenous people do - a deeply moving experience that is part of the great cycle, rather than our tedious conceit that with the right combination of certainty and persuasion we can all be around just like we are now forever - eew. “if you are the dealer, i’m out of the game” - Leonard Cohen. The charm of being nothing is one never has far to go to get home, sort of like Dorothy clicking her heels “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home". I laugh, but only because i’m not entirely prepared to live as the real heroes of our epoch do - homeless. It causes me consternation to not have a door to lock on all the somebody’s in our world who seem fascinated by the possibility of establishing that certainty with anyone within earshot everywhere they go. Nor am i prepared to extinguish my own infernal flame within my soul that prompted me to fantasize in stone about an immortality which all but a blood relative have been too timid to ask me about - but i’m getting closer. Here’s an irony that i cannot or will not parse aside from this exercise in exorcism of personal demons, i am compelled to help people believe themselves well in every meaning of the word, it pains me to know of anyone who believes themselves less than the most exalted and conceited amongst us - our leaders. Am i externalizing an inner conflict or reading correctly that being nothing is a little like being a working class hero - something to be? i don’t know the answer, and don’t care . .  . 

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.  .. ··· and everything - the sonnet

". . . not a drop in the ocean; the ocean

in a drop” - Rumi - paraphrased for this

sonnet - i do not have to, but i can -

remembering the universe can’t miss.

so why all the turmoil about the end

when near as we know there’s no stop, no start.

sort of like chicken and the egg, we tend

to believe all we see - which ain’t too smart.

unable to perceive from much distance

we pretty much guess at what’s past our nose.

were you deaf, would you be able to dance¿

good then - though it made you not, you’re a rose.

you are that flower, that mountain - the sea

whether you flourish or perish - just be

(˚ ㄥ _˚)                    

jts 12/5/2017

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

∞

closed - the essay / open · a sonnet

A little while ago my mind closed itself off from the word “hernia”; i was then sharing a drawing with the proprietor of a gallery where i volunteer. I also wanted to frame the print as a gift for an 80 year old man who'd just had hernia surgery. The drawing is of a French maiden standing at a shore in Thailand. She is quite frank and open in her pose which for me while creating the drawing served to wick away much somatic injury from life. Picasso had said about art that when properly understood, it could 'cure a toothache'. My reason for gifting the allure of this particular scene to my old friend, it've served as a balm to, as Leonard said, where the old man 'use to play'. Various impediments from that day ran counter to any quiet success of my mission. I see no purpose in listing the insults; rather i thank you for attempting to understand my struggle to remain open. For too long a time after having suffered one manner of defeat after another, be it physical assault from injury or psychic wound, i have withdrawn. While a very practical strategy for attending one’s own healing process, if the calamities are too frequent or without end, there comes a point where one is no longer seeking sanctuary, but has simply closed. I am at the point in which my creative self wants to articulate, so here i sit pouring my guts out as honestly as i know. The irony being my astonishment with the quality of leadership mankind now enjoys, and that my only audience may very well be the spooks sifting through all of our public profiles attempting to barricading friend from foe, or in the vernacular, whether or not we have been properly compartmentalized. For people if you ain’t radicalized by now in this time of monumental stupidity, cupidity and culpability you might get someone to take your pulse; you may already be dead and nobody texted you to say as much. What does it take to live openly in a world that seemingly does not care for each other¿ Thich Nhat Hanh, in his weakened condition, made the effort with loving care for a post on fb to caution about this digital contraption which ostensibly is in our lives to facilitate closer communication but has since become little more than a bivalve straw which by  which the ruling class either sucks your brains out, or fills your consciousness with whatever fashion sauce all the rage in the ai kitchens of silicon valley/madison ave/langley virginia or moscow russia - wherever the precipitous center of balance rests for our top-heavy about-to-topple bubble of civilization. Small wonder i feel closed.

When i was still full of piss and vinegar, communication was the highlight of any day. To engage in a searching conversation about all the events accelerating through our lives was a blood sport. People then had not been so easily divided, at least that is how it appeared through the myopia of youth. I sit and think now how terrifying it must have been to an aging population to hear disheveled youth shouting “kill everyone over thirty.” So even the mythical memory of some idyllic time of love and tolerance is fraught with deceit and fakeness - is there nothing sacred, or is everything sacred and we are just too closed-minded to accept such simple logic¿ I can say from my own experience that shutting oneself off has consequences, nor do i have any clue about how to remain open against all odds. I understand that aggression is an empty victory. There is no power or force that will not pollute the spirit by its application. The only battle i have found worth the fight is that one which transforms one's own self. It doesn’t matter to me much that closeted in some darkened chamber, trolls might be siting scratching their heads attempting to equate what i write with radicalism; what matters to me, is that i might have just hurt their feelings calling them pencilneckgeek trolls. I believe the Dalai Lama - "If you can't help, at least do no harm." Buddha was right "life is suffering,” however, closing oneself to suffering does no more than close oneself off to all things - with numbness as the defining vision of one’s life. Thanks, no. To my mind there is little difference between the blur that characterizes today’s media stampede and the numbness which comes from just the right combination, which for myself consists of two meals, 6 cigarettes and dos caballos of Mezcal. At another time in my life, i had begrudged myself the latter indulgence, but realized i was killing myself as surely with an obnoxious sanctimony i’d still like to kick to the curb, but still hangs on like some kind of glyphosate hangover. How does one even do good anymore. Unless someone actually says to you “will you do this for me?” every other gesture of kindness is pure fiction, a fantasy of compassion that one overlays on others and is based most often in one’s own imagination - that’s fucking nuts. One could always goose the process and ask, “can i help¿” But even the most innocent frontal assault is as often as not, not well received, i know, i’ve tried. Is that what it is to remain open - simply wait for occasions where one is asked for help, or not even asked but demanded, “help me, i have no legs and you do.” Is this what the Dali Lama means by being of service, were that the case he could maybe get more bang for his buck washing everybody’s feet - especially given the nexus between mosquitoes, death and dirty feet. Delusion is one of the three poisons, along with greed and hatred. I find without a persistent consideration of one's own self awareness the world’s actions and reactions take on an overwhelming claim for attention. Whereas when i am mindful of what i do and why, the world itself becomes more clear and what is of service makes more sense. . .

. . . as well as what path to take, for the idea that we are acting out some predestination is an anathema to me. What i have difficulty reconciling is the scratch that wants an assuring itch - perhaps the same itch that prompted Mr. Einstein to quip “god does not play dice with the universe.” Pop, rest his soul, would mutter to himself when encountering one or another of my interminable questions about life, “there is no one way.” I did not realize how much an affect his good advice would have on me until just now sitting here searching for ways to understand the natures of open and closed. Maybe the crutch i employ characterizing my behavior as closed is one of those delusions one must embrace if one gives a rat’s ass about self awareness. The challenge gets to be, am i a drop in the ocean, or the ocean in a drop as Rumi conjured? That same information derived by the quest to know oneself could be understood to mean all we now know to be the universe. If that were true it would be nearly inconceivable to be anything but humbled by breath itself. Talk about your delusions, the human conceit that it is even possible to not be connected to every other human, living organism or even the physical plane we all seem so morbidly afraid of reverting to. Today i had no idea what i was going to write while simultaneously absorbed by penny ante conceits, but now feel relieved to have retrieved a perspective one can never really escape from. This is because i had thrown myself into a circumstance where i must write, based on a promise i had made to my father. I miss the confidence i felt toward him as a human being - warts and all. We fought, hammer and tong, tooth and nail - i said to him things for which i would feel great shame had he been a stranger. How can that be? Because he knew his truth, he was invulnerable, and as his son my expression is an outcropping of that self awareness. He would no more blot out, or curtail our mutual influence on each other than he could give up a limb. 

He was a searingly honest man and compelled that same candor from me. If that is openness, then lucky me, if that is vulgar narcissism - i’ll thank you for your good opinion, and your bad opinion as well. But honesty without compassion is just cruel and there’s no sport in that. I have no ambition to be feared - an accomplishment which i consider personal growth. I was alone at an early age and that is as close to prison as i’d care to get, but it is also true that the only bars you need to be afraid of are the ones on your own mind. Just like my hyper vigilance is a two edged sword that aids mindfulness, but impedes awareness when viewed through the prism of criteria. If you haven’t independently come to the conclusion that the other guy’s welfare is in your best interest, then there is not fuck all i can say that will dissuade you from your poverty. Half of the land i hail from is shackled by not understanding this precept “the wellbeing of each of us is interconnected with the other.” At this crucial point in history, half of my countrymen are joined at the hip to a fog of greed which has robbed them of their souls, if not their pocketbooks. I do not know how to alter that fact, and i am open to suggestions. All i can figure at this point, is to be the best human being i know how - warts and all. Unfortunately for the salacious amongst you, those youthful exploits of wild monkey sex and blood soaked vanquished lands are not what i consider worth sharing; be not disappointed - most of those misbegotten adventures turned out badly - some from my own incompetence, but most because there was no good foundation of purpose - satisfying the maw of public opinion is a long road to nowhere. Once i began to ask what makes me happy, much of my life has simplified, nor do any results matter much, because there is no one i must please, except that part of myself with whom i’ve managed to wedge open sufficiently to be 

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open - a sonnet

each one of us is hiding from something

or so the story goes - hence encryption.

but why, from whom for what? i have a thang',

so what, i’ll die - what’s left - putrefaction.

two taboos in one quatrain - 'open heart',

a third taboo, i’m on a roll - stop me

before you find out i am an old fart

and dismiss my singing for being off key.

what if there is really no place to hide,

and what we are hiding from is ourselves¿

wouldn’t it be better to just abide

and live with those demons - like they were elves?

before we can ever know another

let’s search our caverns for our own flower

jts 11/27/2017

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

prohibited from AI sampling in any form

reprinted with permission; all rights reserved

∞