compassion · an essay / indifference - the sonnet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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indifference / the sonnet

Who would drag indifference from a child?

To what end blunt outrage of injustice?

Is our doom better managed when we’re mild,

or more easily led without compass?

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

like feelings from a disembodied screen-

near impossible with an army of one,

whose supply lines have gotten awful lean.

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

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

Does it matter anymore whose emblem

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

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

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

patience / recklessness - the sonnet

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

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

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

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

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

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recklessness / the sonnet

“Recklessness” is a sonnet with whiskey,

reading or writing - either is a loss.

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

yet abandon has made much from such dross.

Without misery there’s no reckoning;

despair will make us all impetuous,

or knowledge from the birth of suffering?

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

The question seems to be whether that helps?

Is a state without form of any worth?

Either’s like wisdom from a pack of whelps.

Proof would be in the pudding, or its dearth.

One cannot know until that line is crossed

between what is real and all what’s embossed.

simplicity / complexity - the sonnet

“Make it simple, not simpler” - Albert Einstein. It would seem Dr. Einstein wasn’t just smart, but prescient. Today people are waiting with abated breath for iPhone 7 - the 7th version of an appliance allegedly here to make our lives simpler. It would seem that Apple Inc. is the only one living more simply by running from paying their fair share of taxes - taxes plundered from the commonweal - taxes that were used to fund the original research and development of this Albatross around our necks, or more accurately, the +/- 5v shackle affixed to our wrists - soon to be implanted in our brains. If you think i’m kidding, read from Ray Kurzweil - chief engineer at Google. Recently I read that Australia has already begun injecting subdural chips for the sole purpose of authenticating your existence. Many youth today will not be astonished by these developments; myself it is difficult to fathom the astonishing pace of pacification for an entire planet by a handful of monsters. It seems so simple, yet if that is true, the polar opposite must also be true. For example, wars use to be fought for a broad spectrum of reasons - scarcity of resources, ideological differences, even things as banal as succession to the throne. Today, the only reason wars are fought is that it is extremely profitable to a handful of animals, i’m unwilling to attribute something so noble as human qualities to those who would winnow the population for fun and profit. Am i making it too simple? The reverse of this unfortunate predicament would be to set those same ciphers who currently declare themselves “masters of the universe” at each others throats. At least this way we may willingly submit to the victor. If all which humanity has become is “spoils to the victor,” why not let these faceless cowards duke it out to their demise; this way we may be assured that the leader we are following is at least willing to fight for our allegiance - 

a circumstance that is not going to happen; i don’t know what is going to happen. I do know the only power i possess is over myself, and when in the company of a beautiful woman or a bottle of whiskey - even that self-discipline is in doubt. But all is not lost, for i have humor, or at best the conceit of humor. Mark Twain has said, “against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” What if it were that simple? For example, has anyone quantified the number of tyrants who abrogated their power at the mere mention of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” What good is all this world class technology if no one keeps records of such important facts if not to ectify the dearth of legitimate leadership at the the dawn of the Anthropocene (man new) Epoch. The current epoch Holocene (whole new) lasted from the time of the last Ice Age, 11,700 years. The good news is we are no longer in an Ice Age which then covered all the Midwest and Northeast of the U.S. in permafrost; the bad news is this may become the shortest-lived epoch of all - the Nekrosanthropocene (dead man new). Say i’m hysterical; we have more carbon in the atmosphere of our planet than we’ve had in the past 800,000 - 15,000,000 years. For those keeping track that is longer than we the homo sapiens (saps for short) have lived on the planet. We’d have had better data, but since the 1970’s the fossil fuel industry knew from its own scientists that carbon emissions would have an impact on world climate; this heinous treachery was only announced within the past year. Robert Brulle a professor at Drexel University published the only study i could find on the “corporate controlled” internet for money spent on climate change denial: 2003 - 2010, $558 million. This is only the money that could be tracked, but because our leaders at all levels of government have betrayed their public office for private gain, the largest monies spent subsidizing our own doom is untraceable, and getting more untraceable by the minute - not very funny is it? 

I think it’s hilarious - here we sit yoked to the greatest research device ever used by haters to poison the human race against itself, and we’re posting photos of cats, nice cats - but cats nonetheless. There are children pulling in more money than you will ever make in your lifetime, because they know how to better monetize your keystrokes than you do - not laughing? Try this - Alexander The Great defeated Darius III, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire - the largest empire ever known to rule our world @ 44% of the world’s population or 50 million out of 112 million people alive in 480 BC. Today there is one billionaire alive for every 3,867,403.31 people on the planet - any of you “wannabe big-shots” want to whip it out and go toe-to-toe with those odds. Just askin’ - still not laughing? A ballpark estimate for the total cost of salary for just the United States “legislative branch” and staff has been estimated at $171,000,000 - for the numerically challenged that reads as one hundred seventy one million and some odd dollars. By contrast, money paid to those same civil servants living on your dime accepted $3,900,000,000 in “lobby” money, or again for the numerically challenged three billion nine hundred million dollars - still not laughing. I can’t help you. I begin to understand through these exertions what Dr. Einstein may have meant by “make it simple, but not simpler”. Simplify for the ruling class began as one sage professor posited when the newly empowered capitalista had an excess of product no one wanted - soap for example. Previously human beings rinsed with water/vinegar/salt and made good, so the ever perspicacious merchant class convinced us soap was the remedy to our filth; lo and behold, we have inundated our waters with the very solvent we buy to save us from our dirt. Tired of waiting for the transit - poof we’ll transport you for a song - the automobile song (sorry kind reader, but the agents of our doom will not allow me to post “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” without cost to you).

“I am comfortable with chaos, I’m not sure chaos is comfortable with me” - Bob Dylan. I sit in Uruguay frightened, not from the Uruguayans who i find have heart and core values preserved g_d knows how from much bullshit in the world, but i promised an essay on simplicity and i cannot be much more simple than that; i could become simpler but would rather not. Ours is not a time of leisure, but like the false promise of making life simpler by using an Apple iPhone 7 - i’d be lying to you were i to suggest anything but diligent effort in service of your more heartfelt ambitions would be of any use to you at this time in our history for no other reason than to leave your own concept of how to survive. We, none of us know what will be read from this chaos that we muddle through with our plaitive cries for understanding. If nothing i say or write ever helps another cogent creature on our world to perpetuate itself as a viable rhizome; i am doing my best. Is this simplicity? No, it is a complex of burdens i have chosen, full of complexity not of my making. How can i cook this melange into a nutritional fare worthy of our human history - i’m not sure. I don’t buy much: unprepared food, threads that run bare, flowers for what i cannot resist and tokens for what i can. I apply myself, searching for anything of value outside of myself; my own interests seem paltry compared to the suffering i’ve learned to peer into. It is my nature to help, but we’ve almost allowed ourselves the delusion that someone else’s aid is dirty - how the fuck did that ever happen? 

As a kid my most vivid memories are from working together with my homies - even if it was only how to throw rocks at our enemies - more often, it was fixing the chain on a bicycle or figuring out which way the tin foil on the antenna made the TV channel clear. Yet, here i sit decades later trying to explain what was then only an existential pimple - that shrill scream notifying all within earshot to “duck under our desks and tuck our heads between our knees” in anticipation of what would later be euphemistically described as “anonymous incineration,” but now has become, and remains, a swelling chancre of fear foisted on an entire planet for no other reason than the same egocentric ambitions which plagued the world when Alexander conquered Darius III nearly 2,500 years ago. Let me put it to you differently - as dumb as you think humans were then - you’d be 10x as dense. I mean no offense, but rather than respecting your capacity to exceed the expectations of your rulers, you spend your pennies on Laker Jerseys, paying Uber to improve the rulers ability to track your ever move, or mortgage your time to own a building that proves you are Queen/King of your castle. You are not free if you live to die in the service of a rich man’s margin. Having said that - there is a lot in that margin the rich man cannot account for - courage, love, honor, loyalty - all those things the media hooks you with but never delivers. The only place anyone has ever found those qualities are in the day-to-day relationships which 99% of the world develops out of love and concern. You think i’m kidding - when was the last time your sports hero came to you in your despair and said, “I know she broke your heart, but she did it for your own good.” - that is a question .  . ? .  . anyone .  .  

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complexity - the sonnet

Complexity as a sonnet stops here,

how could it go further, where would it go?

Sonnets by nature mostly persevere,

for to develop word-thoughts, one is slow,

. . . especially ideas of any use.

What in this dying world helps the other?

That concept itself is pretty damn loose.

Still, we’re in a sonnet - going further.

Does it matter where we end - up, or down?

Fucking questions - can’t we make it simple?

Love is close, so why do i always drown?

Maybe battleships are not so good to pull?

Yet they say what is of use ain’t easy

Life’s hard, works fun, sometimes even cheesy. 

time / present - the sonnet

“Time is a construct” - Lao Tzu - at 62, for me a fairly substantial construct, but construct it is; elstwhys “how can we” as Sir Stephen Hawking has asked, “look backward in time, but not into the future?” By all accounts time has not always been with us, at least not our part of existence. It is the eternal from which we are comprised based on what “we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind” - Albert Einstein. At the instant of expansion from the initial singularity - time, space, energy and mass are considered to have become manifest. Regardless of your faith regarding then, now or afterlife, we can only be that from which we came. We are not out of time, but time itself - a condition from which the chattering monkeys of our mind demand attention away from the eternal present. If we are no more than time itself sprung from the root of all, what could possibly compensate us for our very nature, time - the caress of a loving other, a small Mediterranean island or life eternal? This being an irony itself when logic suggests that time is the only thing we actually possess? No small irony we have become possessed by the only thing we have in abundance. How can we as a passing awareness in a universe of indifference become worthy of this precious commodity, or if you will - capital, though i prefer Bob Dylan’s expression, “time is an ocean that ends at the shore”? It has been suggested our oceans will be dead in 40 years, but then the same nameless authorities suggest by that time there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish - perhaps we will have done our progenitors a favor by killing off the womb of life.

I write with my time, and i draw, paint, carve and seek the fragrance of woman; beans are good, but no substitute for the sweet scent of love, or tangible feel of work. Nor am i sure which is better for me - i like both. What i don’t understand, as yet, is the in-between - not that t’aint, but that which is not work or love - moment minus purpose? This curiosity seems to hold for me the same fascination as “dark matter” does for physicists. Time that is not assigned, be it spiritual or venal confuses me. My day for death will come. I used to dread that day, because death gives no indication of purpose or unknowns for time - my most loyal companion. Other conceits of my life have given way - strength, belonging, even my most noble quest - purpose quail at the sight of death; but waiting for meaning about time minus purpose eludes me. Who or what ascribes meaning to the “dark matter” - particles, wavelength - gravitational or otherwise? Does it even matter what path this unexplained curiosity courses? If it didn’t, i wouldn’t write about it, would i? To what end though? There is no comment i can make or concept to develop that will affect the outcome of my existence - the gods may choose to curse me with great wealth, may even grace my work with a model/companion, but nothing will alter the passage of time. What if that consciousness from the “initial singularity” thought the same. Stop laughing; if we have consciousness, how is it not possible that all which is fallout from the “big bang” could be dissimilar? Logic is our friend.

We of time, contrary to what i may have conjectured, have little time to us - Stephen Hawking, seemingly the only one amongst us with balls, says our future lay elsewhere - extraterrestrial. I’m of the mind, if we couldn’t or wouldn’t make our case here with what was available to us here, how the fuck are we going to lodge elsewhere? Or perhaps more significantly - should we? My aged nails grow thick, does that function entitle me to another shot back into the “initial singularity” where time is of no consequence? Our species is barely able to defend its inherent composition - water, from adulteration by a handful of pencil-neck geeks in pretty threads. Funny we have more time than water, but i don’t hear anyone laughing. The thieves of our life’s moments currently enjoy a vast absence from responsibility for their cupidity - “currently” and “vast” being the operative expressions. However, reality is little concerned with corporate flimflam; far less than what media chatter depicts. Leonard Cohen, i believe was closer when he suggested “there’s a mighty judgement coming”, but I don’t know when. That you have taken time from your busy schedule to look at these words gives me hope. Not the sort one feels from new love, but the sort that makes the transition into the great beyond more welcome. I do not dread losing my ability to contemplate such things as time, but rue the thought of having been distracted from loving concern for all others by a handful of ciphers whose concept of existence is predicated on avarice, so much so they have taken from you your most precious resource - time - and have yet to gain one millisecond for themselves; nor shall they. How can the lords of our world be so deluded as to think there is profit from stealing what we barely understand much less possess? 

Some will use their time to counter uncomfortable notions espoused herein, for which i apologize - use your time more wisely. Others will find residence and expend their resources to accomplish dreamt for ends - bless you. The reality for each is to her/his own good office; i have chosen to spend mine as fruitfully as i know how - the most interesting result of which is having no idea of your response - nor much care? For many years i have cared what others think, not just about writing - my work - my appearance, my demeanor - my being. Early on one critic compared my writing to, “throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.” At that time, i resented her, but now find welcome for anyone willing to show me error in my thinking - time is short; ignorance long. Truth be told, i am a little like spaghetti tossed against a well; my last wife and i even decorated the wall over our stove in the loft with much tossed spaghetti; it was as good a way as any to spend our time together, much better than Leonard Cohen’s “getting and having,” which ultimately sealed the fate of our marriage. I currently sit with a wad of marijuana under my cheek - last of the beer poured into a flagon .  . and now magically it is the next day. Leonard Cohen’s “Future” is playing, but i’m thinking about Bob Dylan - . . “for me the future is already a thing of the past .  . “ . Lao Tzu allegedly said “if you are living in the past, you are depressed; if you are living in the future, you are anxious; if you are happy, you are living in the present.” For many years, i’ve used this homily as a prompt to remain in my skin and be aware of all i can with senses available to that mortal coil. However, it turns out while researching Lao Tzu’s quote, i learned Lao Tzu never said such a thing, or at least according to the author who relied on Wikipedia for his sources. Is this fictional quote at odds with the logic of remaining in the present?

Is the present now any different than the instant of expansion from the initial singularity - “The Big Bang” if you will? What a hoot that would be for all the afterlifers to find themselves in the mayhem of that moment? I try to be compassionate, but sometimes .  .  . Back to whether this “now” is any different than the “now” before time existed - what’s the harm in envisioning our beings as powerful as that state of existence which contained all that comprises our expanding universe? I have seen where ole’ “brass balls” himself - Sir Stephen Hawking has suasively argued of emissions from a black hole. Bear in mind the escape velocity of a black hole is greater than the speed of light - note: researching just now, i’ve learned that in Cern they have discovered motion greater than the “Cosmic Constant” - light, which had been considered the fastest motion in the universe .  . So i guess ole’ Brass Balls Hawking really knows his stuff .  . There is a man who has better reason than most to fully appreciate how precious time is. What can we learn from his joy for life? His willingness to face down sacred cows - forgive me Dr. Einstein, anybody who could make Marilyn Monroe laugh is aces in my book; i wish you and Marilyng could have spent more time together. I’d have liked to have seen her as an old blossom someplace other than my mind’s eye. Thank you kind reader, i’d be lying to you were i to suggest parsing time with you has been easy - it has not been, for i am now older than i was when i started, happier, but older. Perhaps getting old is truly a blessing. Imagine for a moment that we are only in the beginning chapters of our book of history, and that when Sir Stephen Hawking finally understood time travel - his first destination was to Marilyn’s side that sad night. It is possible that if Dr. Einstein could make Marilyn laugh, Sir “brass balls” Hawking may have already given Ms. Monroe immortality, and ipso facto my theory of g_d as woman will finally become understood.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” - William Shakespeare

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present / the sonnet

Does my head hurt because i essayed time?

Better i it, than it should assay me,

for there is little life if you just mime

what you imagine the world wants to see.

Where’s that spark Commander Cohen describes?

Is it found on the mountain of slow moving

time Bob sings about with beautiful vibes,

or does it just spring from an act of giving.

What is this speck in time we all cling to,

some for so long its atoms have dispersed?

If history’s a story - and false too,

what of the future, and dreams of being 1st?

What is wrong with breathing in and out, in

and out? Where would you go if this ain’t heaven? 

delusion / clarity: (this ought to be good) - the sonnet

Last night it rained hard, and i kept myself awake nearly the entire night for concern about an open window in my just-rented new lodging. It is a considerable distance from where i slept, and i without transport except the public kind imagined the very worst sort of things including water running in sheets down the wall into the sitting room of my new landlord - and, yes, my umbrella was amongst those things left in my new lodging; so today was spent getting drenched on my mission to rectify an oversight. Last night was more like Pema Chodron’s quote “you are the sky, everything else is just the weather”, or Mark Twain’s observation, “ I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” If only delusion were so inconvenient as this. The capacity for fictive faith is so deeply ingrained in our species it has been identified as one of the “3 chains of suffering in Buddhist cosmology - greed, hatred and delusion." A young woman of high intellect recently asserted to me with certainty “there are no facts;” if that is so, i choose to follow master Bertrand Russell’s admonishment and utilize only the facts when making any decision of a material nature - this in a world where one of the more progressive social networks minds.com includes highly scientific assertions the earth is in fact “flat.” As a creative spirit i assume the prerogative of poetic license and of the facts i’m aware of is Bob Dylan’s quote “I love women, and she loves men,” but then i may be deluded - a fact you will need to determine for yourself.

The human condition is predicated on death, and of birth. Everything of any use to use to us as a species has been developed from this existential reality - people are here, then gone; people who’ve never been here, appear. That is a  magnificent fact - how magnificent; will depend entirely on how we approach the next 100 years of our specie’s finite reality. “Reality”, now there’s a word that needs be included in any discussion of delusion - or as they say in my corner of the world “fucking reality.” Part of that reality is the fact my father, not quite on his deathbed, but close enough for government work, made me promise i would never stop writing - that you are reading this now gives legs to that fact - however delusional what i write may be - a fact that cannot be ignored - considered, but not ignored. What then is the heart of delusion? How can we as cogent creatures parse this phantasmagoria of images and assertions where each perspective adds a new wrinkle to the equation - real vs unreal? For a decade i did not smoke or drink - now i do both, +/- months. During that hiatus either of these two “plagues” on the human condition was an anathema to me - i was the zealot’s zealot and we all know there is no zealot like a reformed zealot. How and what has changed that reality? 

I began drinking the week i left the nation of Nepal after 3 months of - tutoring within the strictures of the “volunteer economy.” I could say that it was from witnessing the installation of “boutique viewing abodes” for the rich and famous in a nation recently devastated by massive tectonic activity - further oppressed by a more powerful neighbor to the South in the guise of undue influence over a sovereign nation’s constitutional will; i could say it was from being thwarted in love by some of the world’s most beautiful women, or i could say it was a personal choice for which i alone am responsible - the latter assertion being the more plausible and honest. Why to smoke? that is a more thorny question, for as an infant i was hospitalized for two weeks at year one and deprived of family visits - conventional wisdom of the time. So complex is this existential conundrum for me, as an adolescent i gave to my mother a lighter with the sacred oath to smoke no more, “it’s easy to quit smoking, i’ve done it hundreds of times.” - Mark Twain. Now i sit with these self-inflicted afflictions - wheezing and befuddled but content - how can that be reality?

The rain continues and the closest “squeeze” to me is flitting about like some sparrow raptor hybrid - i have warm food - one empty bottle of beer and one nearly empty whiskey bottle at my beck and call - enough tobacco to make through to morning coffee. Is this reality or the unanswerable chain of greed from the 3 aforementioned poisons? When does want become greed? Where does the corpus of our learning intersect wisdom? I could wait for my young friend the sparrow to resolve her absence in my favor; i could break open the spare bottle of beer; i could importune the legions of patient women turning a deaf ear to my physical longings - all of this is reality. So what exactly constitutes delusion? I have an ache in my hip very near an actual break in my father’s frame; i’ve often wondered if the mind and its faculties are so powerful that i engaged my fictive faith in solidarity and condemned myself to a delusional pain in service of something i could not stop - my sire’s suffering? I know this, sitting here breathing that his command, i not stop writing was an act of love on his part - fact. I know that my dame his former wife has forgiven me all my transgressions - fact - reluctant or otherwise; if there is any lack in her forgiveness, it would be from a genuine conviction that I could have done better - lucky me.

How many hope from others that there is an expectation of having a good heart? Have we gotten so far afield that to believe others might be cheering us on is delusional? Is it real to think our value to others is solely from what we can provide them rather than the simple joy of sharing air? I am delusional believing otherwise, and i am okay with that. It would be more delusion on my part to look elsewhere for that which only i can define: how much, when, where and why. It is also delusional for me to believe that desires which are my own are the result of some agency outside my own awareness. No one is more willing to attend each an every desire you possess than yourself - right or wrong. That is a fact which no amount of advertising or situational ethics can obviate. I don’t particularly care if you like what write; what i care about is whether what i have said helps you arrive at a place of clarity which no other person, conviction or faith may circumvent - fact

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clarity: (this ought to be good) - the sonnet

A full bottle to the better i got, 

just took less fervor than that joy drunks know ... 

where their fun always ends with what is not

i find it helpful to keep something in tow.

What lens sheds light to the core of this world?

i drink, i dream of the one too alone

to find a place within any fold,

searching for fire in which all can be shown.

One bottle empty - my body absent 

the mind asserting its fake clarity-

that real thing not found in the firmament

but in the heart of one’s own charity.

seek your counsel - the seat of your own worth

there is no truer sound found on this earth.

freedom - an essay / slavish · the sonnet

r . i . p . Moses of late @ Whitley and Hollywood Blvd . blessings .  . into the great beyond  . ·*

Q: what is the opposite of freedom?

A: insta-answer: per googol · either "do no evil" or "do know evil", your call

“According to the Collins Thesaurus, the most likely antonym for freedom is “slavery.” However because the word ‘freedom’ has a complex and nuanced meaning, concepts like “dependence” or “limitation” may also be considered its opposite”

I’m leery of beginning any discussion with a definition - for example the next sentence in this essay was to begin with the word “elstwhy” as in "erstwhile", but unable to locate in any search - any · ; nor would i ever emulate William F. Buckley who once declared in the preface of a Webster's dictionary, and i paraphrase “if you want to know the meaning of a word, ask me” - i don’t know? how do you spell "h u b r i s" ? Is it too much to ask that the language we use be a little more pliant in service of understanding, or at the very least, accessible, meaning pliant for everyone, not just the landed gentry?

“Strike Three” you’re . . . , for within three 'sort of' paragraphs on an essay about freedom, i am stymied by a lack of legitimate foundation for simple appropriate word usage. Small wonder our youth are in revolt when what we present as a language framework is incohesive - strike 4 ? Apple’s much vaunted RTF schema for writers everywhere just disallowed the word “incohesive,” with glaring little red dots underlying my word selection - WTF · (like FTS, but different)

How do we get to freedom from here? With every fiber of my corporal being i struggle to be free: of greed, hatred and delusion. I seek happiness - the absence of greed, hatred and delusion. Yet here i sit tethered to a delusion that you, the reader, seek the same - the delusion is mine, not yours. How is this freedom? A man i recently met in the company of my “sainted” mother answered when asked, how does one atone for my people’s behavior toward Black Africans? his reply, “I do what i enjoy and want to do more of that.” Can freedom be that simple? G_d, the female, i conceive you to be, please “make it so.” 

This may be the shortest essay i’ve ever attempted; an irony being 'that'  freedom is/was, the word i'd 'essay'? Ma - bless her stars - has a yen to extirpate the word “that” from my vocabulary, is that her freedom, or my lack of 'individuation'?

I’ve just eaten a world-class sourdough bread sandwich in a non-European country with cacao tinged frijoles and am washing it down with a whiskey, lemon, turmeric, cayenne and beer concoction  - is that freedom . ? . i don't know, but it's fun to ask.

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slavery might become demonic if .  .  . 

slavery is demonic - or they lied -

with "what, when, where, why, how" disparity.

Believe me not; ask the kings and queens who died

whispering, dear g_d “I want to be free.”

Quaint i know, talking smack like we don't got

all those 'rights' right at the end of our wrist?

Can’t help feeling a lot like some robot

spinning threads between fine, thick greedy grist.

Silly me seeing power not possible:

when all you can reflect is what you see.

We are dying; eminently reflectable;

not by what i say, but from what we be.

What fun to know, there is no more to find

than some small question in back of my mind.

jts 26/8/2016

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

all rights reserved 

∞

discipline · an essay / 'going down the road' - the sonnet

I sat in ma’s dining room after she had been taken to have a basil carcinoma excised from her cheek; anxious for her comfort and unwelcome to her side by the eldest sibling and his anxiety, which my fantasy tells me is his need for me to be guilty so he can justify his rancor. I am not innocent - he has cause, as is the case with all estrangement - a condition requiring active participation from all involved. My complex demands constant mindfulness if i am to extricate myself from a destructive family pattern where no one is served - especially not our mother. He 'ghosted' me, after escorting her to and from her procedure. Her overflowing pill dispenser ever populated with another expensive medication the medical industry uses to keep the dying from death. 'The crux of that biscuit' being her anti-anxiety fix which she began and ended each day, and the only medication she'd plunder at will when the need for rest was too great; historical self-discipline informed her what dosage was needed to rest. Pop had a slightly more spartan approach to discipline. He rarely resorted to corporal punishment to enforce his existential notions, I remember one occasion when quite young when his response to my claim of having vacuumed my room was to place his hand over mine on the vacuum handle and vigorously maneuver to every corner under my desk, then the entire room. Later in life I was to learn this direct method of instruction had been a long standing practice of the very practical Balinese tradition. What I took away from his intense focus was a deep appreciation for anything related to cutting corners - a now defunct antiquated value pertaining to thoroughness and pride in one’s work which the ruling class has upended with shoddy product - the only plausible outcome of today’s anarchistic capitalist monopoly.

I write about discipline out of great respect for those values imparted to me by my father which allows me to now sit in Montevideo, Uruguay persisting in an activity greater than my own comfort - writing. Dorthy Parker — “I hate writing, but love having written.” While in California, I watched some Television and was amazed by the amount of content compared to when I was young, yet, like the products for sale as a result of today’s mass production - volume does not translate to higher quality. If anything the bloodless nature of capitalism has resulted in its singular most pertinent innovation - “planned obsolescence”. For the uninitiated, this expression acknowledges that those responsible for taking your money and providing you product deliberately create defects in their products that force you then to replace those products in a predictable pattern. It is for this reason the computer you upgraded to requires replacement. “Tech experts generally agree a computer should last anywhere between three to five years before needing to be replaced” — Matt Koble. While some may exhort the discipline applied by this twisted ethos is what “builds” the economy by expanding the consumer base; i say bullshit. It is a lack of discipline that has subverted the exchange of value between the consumer and his/her erstwhile providers. The greed of our corporate overlords is the antipathy of discipline and now manifests as the greatest seizure of assets in the past 200 years - a demonstrated lack of restraint. If anything it is the patience, even the survival of humanity which is being put to the test. Fracking is poisoning the water table, throwing dice with the proliferation of genetically modified seed stock is enhancing the capacity of our nutritional products to transport the corporate poison Glyphosate into our planet’s life cycle. 8% of fossil fuel continues to be diverted into the production of “new” plastic when by 2050 it is expected there will be more plastic in the oceans than there are fish. These defects in the much lauded form of provisioning our species - capitalism - is not from discipline, but from unbridled greed.

I understand greed, mostly in a fashion similar to how Leonard Cohen sings of in “We were locked in this kitchen, I took to religion, And I wondered how long she would stay, I needed so much To have nothing to touch, I’ve always been greedy that way.” Somehow the intangible is what my interior hungers for - to make a cogent thought understandable in written form, or the turn of a lady’s cheek expressive as a creative facsimile. Even my vices are of a more impermanent nature, not for any alteration of inherent awareness. but as something of a prod to shake off corrosive socialization that numbs natural freedom for which our consciousness is capable. It has confused me from the time I first learned of Dionysius, and his offspring Bacchus how large parts of our history are full with elixirs and substance whose sole purpose is to jolt the unexamined presumption of normal anything. Einstein had said “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” It is my belief that Dr. Einstein was not describing any state of bliss to which zealots of all stripes aspire - be it “70 virgins”, “Rapture” or even “Nirvana,” rather those miracles he described are, or are not found from a close study of our world. This activity requires a strict discipline, for we are asked on a daily basis to aver our sight from scabrous aspects of current existence, contrary to any happy depiction of commodities guaranteed to satisfy a hunger never present at birth and which has only become insatiable from  relentless exposure to a false insinuation that whatever you possess is inadequate, be it peace, product or appearance.

Lao Tzu — “Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” I have read this kindness repeatedly for nearly 50 years, and still find it difficult to fathom. For example, how does one reconcile this concept with violence, hatred, cruelty, greed oppression, etc. . . .? Is is not natural to resist all that is not in service of the greater good? Yet I am finding from actively opposing ills of our world as best I could understand at the time, few if anyone has ever welcomed or wished to consider alternatives. It is a growing conviction of mine that any effort to persuade, dissuade or convince another of anything is futile, yet to keep my mouth shut in the face of obvious stupidity, especially willful stupidity, requires every ounce of discipline i’ve ever gained. There is hope, i pray for the survival of our kind because we have worth. We are not the pale echo of ourselves shown in the ever present self-serving advertisement; there are heroes who daily exert themselves unselfishly loving, and learning to love, the impossible - that hideous grotesque caricature of our once beatific existence. The most powerful affect ever known to our kind is love, nothing of any comparable force has ever accomplished as much, especially not hate. Yet where hate is so easily accessible for a variety of reasons, not the least of which would be the fear which our leaders foist on us in supporting the delusion that sells mechanized death as anything but more death; love has illuminated the fact that peace is our inherent nature, compassion our most noble instinct and happiness our highest aspiration. Nor do i feel compelled to persuade anyone of this truth; it is enough for me to feel it; i’d be lying through my teeth to suggest to you, i’ve arrived at this conclusion through anything but assiduous discipline - regardless of any dictionary definition.

It has been the absence of will which has brought me closer to my objectives than any delusional belief that discipline is best understood by an act of willfulness. If anything, forcing that which is not into existence has resulted in defeat after defeat, while patiently waiting to see what unfolds of its own volition has always yielded the deepest love, the finest expression and the clearest images. Carl Jung has stated “Where love rules there is no will to power, where power rules, there love is lacking. The one is a the shadow of the other,” or put differently by Jimi Hendrix - “When the power of love overcomes the love of power - the world will know peace.” Google (the god of all meaning} defines discipline as “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience,” yet behavioral science is unequivocal that intermittent positive reinforcement is far and away the more successful method for behavior modification. That the practice of wearing a hair shirt for “mortification of the flesh” has been part of Western tradition is no coincidence, we have been, and are being, punished by unscrupulous spiritual leaders based on their ignorance, not ours. We continue to retrieve baby ducks from sewer drains and exalt the miraculous accomplishments of the limbless amongst us; it is our nature to act with compassion which TAFKAP (may he r . i . p .) so sagely observed as verb, not the adjective which the clerics have subverted into the same language used to murder with effectiveness such that those earning from our slaughter are the sole beneficiaries of humanity’s patience. My objective is to transform that which is intolerable in my existence into a recognizable form that may help others to not feel alone; this ambition comes from a discipline learned within the bosom of my family; i am grateful. Dr. M.L. King Jr. - a scholar warrior of fore observed, “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.” I am incapable of altering my family or its concept of me, yet freedom and “on-the-hand-guidance” from loving parts of that same family sustain and encouraged me to learn ways to organize for peace, regardless of any limits my upbringing may have presented. Are we any different than that rhizome which Carl Jung used to describe us the family of [wo]men?

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'going down the road' - the sonnet 

“going down the road” pop often replied

after a broken hip laid him down hard;

his irony survived, for he had died

with well chosen words like any good bard.

I wonder if he found life is a dead end,

or the road we travel is interstellar?

I will not know until i reach that bend,

or g_d answers the question i’d asked her:

“if i live well and peer into the void

with love in my heart; kindness in my soul

and resist all calls to become android,

may i pass beyond with peace as my goal?”

i’m in no hurry to get where i go

to learn what it is no human can know.

jts 20/8/2016

http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com

all rights reserved 

∞