It could be worse. I have difficulty remembering every good thing that's ever happened to me. On the contrary, every day I struggle to not be reminded of the bad things that have happened to me, or things that I have done.
If I haven't thought about putting a gun in my mouth, it's a good day. Another good day that I can look on with regret.
My life has been pretty good, even interesting. Some times it has even been fulfilling. I've traveled, I've climbed mountains, I've had sex with beautiful women. I've been a NEET, I've been a complete loser, I've been a sexless virgin. I've had dozens of different jobs. I've lived many entirely different lives. I've lived a life where people would lock their doors as I walked by, and I've lived others where I've ordered custom tailored suits. On the surface, it sounds glamorous and exciting, but really it has been almost endless drudgery marked with truly pathetic behaviour. Here and there has been a spice of pride, but all I can ever think about are the mistakes, the bad times, and my brain betrays me and makes me forget all the good. The good always fades away, for the pain to wash over me yet again. Pain, shame, loss, sadness and loneliness are my companions. Every so often I am warmed by other people's fires, but then I move on again. I move on, never knowing where, but knowing I've outlasted my stay and that I need to keep going. Never really knowing where, or why or how. Then my old companions return to me, while the departing hearth is forgotten.
The trouble is that the good times never last and then you're left the same way you started: poor, hungry, directionless and so very alone.
So, be glad that you're not me. Be glad that you can remember the good times, and that you can hope for what's ahead, because I cannot.
My experience has only taught me to trudge on through the suffering, that you cannot let the pain win. You cannot let the inside and the outside crush your spirit. That you must fight and fight and fight even when it is hopeless and all you feel is shame and despair. While there is life, you must fight and travel onwards, because sometimes you find the next hearth, and for a while at least, you can be warm again.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
When all that is profound has become pedestrian.
When only the sublime peaks of perfection exist in the minds of the passives.
When the path itself, the sublime uncertainty and adolescence of thought is forgotten.
When the vision of a figure breaking through glass, shards glittering like a cutting rain cloud. Time frozen in that perfect moment, is there beauty only then?
The Boring Writer Returns.
List every category, collate them all and they share one thing.
There is a peak for every experience, every emotion and motion. Art seeks to describe this mathematical perfection. Yet what of the inflection points, where only the corpses of those who failed lay in undescribed gulleys. Those little blips and fragile lightning bolts of peaks that only exist when you have looked closely enough, a small jagged point that charts the upward path of the line, to carve viciously downward, then continue. In that pseudo-valley of ideas, and the rise before it, what of those? When you take the whole picture in, when you look from far enough away, those true, real but miniscule, imperfections are smoothed out, zoomed out and irrelevant.
Not even a footnote.
In this age of want, what forgetfulness must there be. Want not for money (although there is that, but only for those who do not matter to the callous gaze of history), or entertainment, but a massive dearth of spirit. When the age of apathy is upon us, then we truly are the living dead. The passives must consume, and it must be perfect.
Truth is abhorrent, couch yourself in lies upon lies upon lies. Become meta, as you wish, but it doesn't change what is. Change yourself from the skin in. Then change the world from without. Ideas cannot be delivered, they must be hidden, a noble idea is just more advertising to a mind full of everything else. So couch it, couch it, couch it, until it is unrecognisable, it becomes a soundbite, a meme, a catchphrase, and it loses all fucking meaning and you become a worthless parrot. Chuckle at your inside jokes which feebly attempt to disguise how hollow they are.
The age of self and apathy, when everything is known but nothing is done. We know of corruption, we know of injustice, and we keep playing we play we play we play the game. As long as we get ours. Who cares how it all really works?
The best and brightest among us are now the most ignorant, they're the only ones who believe in anything. They're the ones who act on their beliefs.
Many Minds like damp piles of leaves, earthy and still. No flame can be set, barely a feeble smoulder.
Baffled?
Easily ignored.
Post Script:
When someone like myself exists, sometimes we are best to immerse ourselves in the lives of others quietly and thoughtfully, slipping in and causing only the smallest ripple. A challenge when our nature is to cannonball in and thrash for the joy of chaos.
What if it is the jazz of writing, looking for the words that aren't written? Hearing the cries left unsaid. Perhaps it is as subtle as being devoured by a bear.
When only the sublime peaks of perfection exist in the minds of the passives.
When the path itself, the sublime uncertainty and adolescence of thought is forgotten.
When the vision of a figure breaking through glass, shards glittering like a cutting rain cloud. Time frozen in that perfect moment, is there beauty only then?
The Boring Writer Returns.
List every category, collate them all and they share one thing.
There is a peak for every experience, every emotion and motion. Art seeks to describe this mathematical perfection. Yet what of the inflection points, where only the corpses of those who failed lay in undescribed gulleys. Those little blips and fragile lightning bolts of peaks that only exist when you have looked closely enough, a small jagged point that charts the upward path of the line, to carve viciously downward, then continue. In that pseudo-valley of ideas, and the rise before it, what of those? When you take the whole picture in, when you look from far enough away, those true, real but miniscule, imperfections are smoothed out, zoomed out and irrelevant.
Not even a footnote.
In this age of want, what forgetfulness must there be. Want not for money (although there is that, but only for those who do not matter to the callous gaze of history), or entertainment, but a massive dearth of spirit. When the age of apathy is upon us, then we truly are the living dead. The passives must consume, and it must be perfect.
Truth is abhorrent, couch yourself in lies upon lies upon lies. Become meta, as you wish, but it doesn't change what is. Change yourself from the skin in. Then change the world from without. Ideas cannot be delivered, they must be hidden, a noble idea is just more advertising to a mind full of everything else. So couch it, couch it, couch it, until it is unrecognisable, it becomes a soundbite, a meme, a catchphrase, and it loses all fucking meaning and you become a worthless parrot. Chuckle at your inside jokes which feebly attempt to disguise how hollow they are.
The age of self and apathy, when everything is known but nothing is done. We know of corruption, we know of injustice, and we keep playing we play we play we play the game. As long as we get ours. Who cares how it all really works?
The best and brightest among us are now the most ignorant, they're the only ones who believe in anything. They're the ones who act on their beliefs.
Many Minds like damp piles of leaves, earthy and still. No flame can be set, barely a feeble smoulder.
Baffled?
Easily ignored.
Post Script:
When someone like myself exists, sometimes we are best to immerse ourselves in the lives of others quietly and thoughtfully, slipping in and causing only the smallest ripple. A challenge when our nature is to cannonball in and thrash for the joy of chaos.
What if it is the jazz of writing, looking for the words that aren't written? Hearing the cries left unsaid. Perhaps it is as subtle as being devoured by a bear.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Trying my hand at something new
It had to be perfect. Lycus knew this,
at a level that penetrated beyond perfunctory knowledge. It was
something that resonated within the core of his being, a need for
perfection so deeply ingrained that every movement and thought was
without error or hesitation. He became a focal point through which
perfection could shine out into the material universe. The wards had
been placed around the chamber, mathematically aligned and every
edge, line and colour drawn with great care. He had specifically
chosen this place, out of all the others on the ship. Closest to the
engine core of the ship, bathed in the radiant heat and psychic
machinations required to punch holes in reality itself, suffused by
the ethereal glow of a power source strong enough to allow the ship
to slip between dimensions and sail the endless sea of the warp. The
chamber was lit entirely by the reddish glow of past and present
energy. This was the perfect place for a summoning. It had taken
him a day to journey through the cramped tunnels, even without the
added bulk of his battle plate it had been difficult to move his
genetically altered physique through service tunnels designed for
much smaller beings. Fortunately, the chamber was tall enough for
him to stand to his full height, but he did not relish the thought of
the return journey, even if he did not return empty-handed. He
sighed and brushed perspiration off his temples, then briefly glanced
at his wards before bending over to pick up the adamantine and
wraithbone chain he had brought with him. It was time.
Lycus concentrated on the spell as the
chain clinked in his palms. “Vaarnu ora slaa'neth uster,”
he pursed his lips as an impossible wind began to whip through his
robe. Lycus took a vial of iridescent purple liquid and poured it
into his outstretched palm. He pictured his target, imagining every
curve of the body, the lethal spikes, the knowing sneer, even the
thoughts that may be running through her mind. The liquid burst into
flame and he hurled it into the centre of the summoning circle as he
spat the final words into the railing wind. “Na calth ora
Syphion lartrea!” The flames
climbed to the ceiling and the wisps of ash burst out as a figure
stepped onto the warded floor. Smooth skin, beautifully supple yet
muscular, the form of an amazoness, tipped with spikes and horns.
The daemonette's features barely had time to register her
astonishment before Lycus' fist landed directly in her midsection.
The blow appeared to smoke as the remaining fluid sublimed off his
hand in an instant. Even with complete surprise, the daemonette
recovered quickly. A razor sharp talon, the size and shape of a
scythe, flew towards Lycus' throat, only for the daemonette to find
the killing edge caught in a loop of chain. Mocking laughter quietly
escaped Lycus' lips, the difficult work was now complete and he could
fully enjoy what came next without care. It was only a moment before
both of her arms were completely entangled. Hissing daemonic curses
became wails of dismay as Lycus carefully disarmed her, pulling the
razor sharp talons free from each arm, the sockets oozing ichor as he
revealed the clawed hands underneath. Disarmed but still dangerous,
she lashed out with a kick that would have hamstrung him, but he
swiftly changed his stance at the last moment and pinned her leg to
the floor with his foot. One of the spines on her armour pierced his
bare heel and he grunted in pain as they fell together. Lycus'
breath hissed through gritted teeth as they landed heavily, noses
touching, fangs and teeth practically entwined, he looked into her
eyes: “You are mine.” They rose together some time later, Lycus'
cuts and scratches mostly healed, the daemonette seemingly no worse
for wear and no less defiant. Her weapons and armour lay in a pile
some distance away. Lycus had tied the chain well, wrapping her from
head to claw, restrained but still permitting limited movement and,
most importantly, the ability to stand and walk. The chain looped
around her limbs and torso, then continued along her back to tie off
her hands, then climbed to her neck and shoulders where it looped to
form a collar, terminating in the lead that Lycus was now holding.
He piled the weapons and armour in a cloth sack, and hoisted it over
his shoulder. The weapons master would be pleased to have such fine
specimens for study. With a snap of the chain, Lycus beckoned
towards the passage from which he had came, permitting himself a
small smile as the daemonette led the way.
They had only been travelling for an
hour or so when Lycus noticed the subtle pressure change in the
corridor. The daemonette's sudden snarl and darting eyes confirming
what he had already suspected. His psychic senses dulled as the
creature neared, and he closed his eyes. Stopping short, the
daemonette whined as he closed his eyes in concentration. Counting
out the moments, feeling the air on his skin, the increasing ache
behind his eyes, and listening ever so carefully to the suddenly
obvious ticking sound. Then it was time. The daemonette shrieked as
Lycus yanked her towards him, and a barely visible chitinous claw
blurred the air where she had been standing. Lycus squatted down
then sprang directly at the seemingly empty corridor, the remaining
length of chain outstretched between his hands. The mewling
daemonette was dragged forward as he leapt over her to confront the
new foe. The chain found purchase on thin air, and a a dismayed
hissing erupted. Lycus spat directly into the noise, and was
rewarded with a change in pitch as the acid of his spit etched the
chitinous faceplate of the lictor. The cramped hallway was not large
enough for the lictor to effectively use its killing spikes, but it
still managed to open up a gash in his thigh with a clawed hand.
Retreating, Lycus used his good leg to power backwards, while
throwing the daemonette directly into the lictor's embrace. A
psychic touch down the length of the chain released the daemonette's
hands just as she landed. A cacaphony of shrieks complemented each
new puncture wound on the combatants while Lycus reached into the bag
of weapons. Grabbing one of the daemonette's talons, he raised it
over the daemonette's head and plunged it directly into the lictor's
seething face. It collapsed in a heap, releasing the daemonette as
ichor suddenly poured freely and the limbs curled in on itself. The
daemonette merely sat while Lycus tended her wounds, each passing
minute cementing her further in this reality weakened her warp
powers, chief among them that of regeneration. Her fate was now
sealed until her mortal form was destroyed or Lycus released her.
“You will pay for this, Astartes.” Her first words whispered
through dry lips and throat, unused to speaking instead of shrieking
or cackling. Lycus merely passed her a bottle of water and she drank
it greedily, fangs glistening as moisture returned. “Perhaps,”
he replied, “but not now.” He glanced at the lictor as he retied
her bonds, the telltale radio collar and antenna coming from a poorly
patched portion of the skull letting him know exactly who was behind
this attempted sabotage. The capture of a daemonette was a valuable
addition to his collection, and would increase his stature among his
battle brothers. Some among them were less than enthusiastic about
his rise, notably Krogar, whose unhealthy fascination with all things
Tyranid made him the most likely candidate for sending a slave Lictor
to undo Lycus' hard work and perhaps undo Lycus himself.
Lycus was furious. He had only won
through luck. An unaltered lictor would have killed them both, even
altered, it would have killed them both if it had caught them in the
chamber where it could have used its full strength. He had not
planned for this, and such carelessness had almost been the end of
him and his endeavour. As it was, both he and the daemonette were
injured and in bad need of rest, something which would have to wait
until they arrived safely to his sanctum. Krogar's attempts may not
have succeeded in their aims, but they were enough to affect Lycus,
and this was only the first attempt, there likely would be many more.
It had not gone perfectly after all. Lycus grimaced in disgust. He
helped the daemonette to her feet as they resumed their journey
towards the rest of the ship and his quarters. There was still much
to do.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
To-Do
Things that need doing.
A website of HOPE. How to really live in this world, a list of solutions without cost. Health (the real diets that work, the exercises that work, listed and for free), Objectivity (looking at you fallacious arguments), People?, Economics (how to spend your time and money in a bigger, better way. Put the fakes and charlatans out of business.
A website of transparency, show the money, all of it. Government, from your school board to the treasury. Show every dollar and show where it goes. Expose corruption and every process to sunlight. Give names, ranks, affiliations, make the mob boss org chart of government and corruption, companies and scandal, public and easily accessible. Share/scare the shit out of those in power.
The many other projects...
A website of HOPE. How to really live in this world, a list of solutions without cost. Health (the real diets that work, the exercises that work, listed and for free), Objectivity (looking at you fallacious arguments), People?, Economics (how to spend your time and money in a bigger, better way. Put the fakes and charlatans out of business.
A website of transparency, show the money, all of it. Government, from your school board to the treasury. Show every dollar and show where it goes. Expose corruption and every process to sunlight. Give names, ranks, affiliations, make the mob boss org chart of government and corruption, companies and scandal, public and easily accessible. Share/scare the shit out of those in power.
The many other projects...
Chat Log Part 3: Why I Can See
This was sitting in drafts. Now it's not. I haven't read what follows.
As far as issues regarding some kind of ephemeral argument of "equality" among races, there will always be old blackey and old whitey not getting along as long as people like you continue to argue the same tired rhetoric.
People of different social classes and different ethnic backgrounds will always look down upon eachother, regardless of skin colour.
If you knew the slightest bit of history, the sordid treatment of the Irish by the English is only one example, something which at its very base was the suppression of the lower class. If you want to argue about how it's just white people fighting amongst themselves, then you need look no further than the middle east, or parts of africa.
Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Somalia.
Call it race, call it religion, call it politics, but whatever you fucking want to name it doesn't change the reality that these issues are all based in class. Trying to suggest otherwise is disingenuous.
I'm a realist.
Without a living wage you will see excessive drug use, crime, deteriorating families and various other social ills which have a far larger monetary cost than simply paying people decently in the first place.
Humans need a goal to strive for, so a competitive or semi-competitive economy is necessary in order to stave off complacency, but without a minimum living wage, health care, and quality education, then it all deteriorates to the same level of a shitty society.
It's not a separate issue at all. Having differences in race, ethnicity or culture is an easy way for a group of people to "other" another group of people, which is the root issue of racism. however, the real issue at stake isn't the fact that they're black or white or hispanic or martian. The real issue with any racism is "DEY TOOK ER JERBS!"
Look at the founding of the KKK, neo nazism, any hatred based crimes, and you will see an economic undercurrent, usually the result of ethnic groups clashing over dwindling economic resources.
If you want a close to home example, in Boston and New York there were the traditional ethnic clashes between the Irish and the Italians. Both were considered ethnically inferior to the initial British colonists (because they were new immigrants and not landowners) and were relegated to lower wage, lower class jobs. However, during tense economic times, those ethnic groups would have violent confrontations as they both attempted to scrounge the crumbs at the bottom.
All of these things happened to white people, by white people. Racial prejudice is only an excuse for economic prejudice, which is a class issue. If you truly think that racism has any real basis then you need to seriously get out of the trailer park and educate yourself on the foundations of any real bigotry.
As far as issues regarding some kind of ephemeral argument of "equality" among races, there will always be old blackey and old whitey not getting along as long as people like you continue to argue the same tired rhetoric.
People of different social classes and different ethnic backgrounds will always look down upon eachother, regardless of skin colour.
If you knew the slightest bit of history, the sordid treatment of the Irish by the English is only one example, something which at its very base was the suppression of the lower class. If you want to argue about how it's just white people fighting amongst themselves, then you need look no further than the middle east, or parts of africa.
Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Somalia.
Call it race, call it religion, call it politics, but whatever you fucking want to name it doesn't change the reality that these issues are all based in class. Trying to suggest otherwise is disingenuous.
I'm a realist.
Without a living wage you will see excessive drug use, crime, deteriorating families and various other social ills which have a far larger monetary cost than simply paying people decently in the first place.
Humans need a goal to strive for, so a competitive or semi-competitive economy is necessary in order to stave off complacency, but without a minimum living wage, health care, and quality education, then it all deteriorates to the same level of a shitty society.
It's not a separate issue at all. Having differences in race, ethnicity or culture is an easy way for a group of people to "other" another group of people, which is the root issue of racism. however, the real issue at stake isn't the fact that they're black or white or hispanic or martian. The real issue with any racism is "DEY TOOK ER JERBS!"
Look at the founding of the KKK, neo nazism, any hatred based crimes, and you will see an economic undercurrent, usually the result of ethnic groups clashing over dwindling economic resources.
If you want a close to home example, in Boston and New York there were the traditional ethnic clashes between the Irish and the Italians. Both were considered ethnically inferior to the initial British colonists (because they were new immigrants and not landowners) and were relegated to lower wage, lower class jobs. However, during tense economic times, those ethnic groups would have violent confrontations as they both attempted to scrounge the crumbs at the bottom.
All of these things happened to white people, by white people. Racial prejudice is only an excuse for economic prejudice, which is a class issue. If you truly think that racism has any real basis then you need to seriously get out of the trailer park and educate yourself on the foundations of any real bigotry.
Duality
Nothing.
disturbing distasteful
disgusting disgraceful
everything about you
makes me sick
you're an ill bitch
you make me sick
into your slit
you make me trip
stay there till my mind rots
throw down roots while my body rocks
Something.
May the dance floor rise to meet you:
May the bass be always at your back,
The strobes shine warm upon your face,
The mists fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May the Rave hold you in the hollow of its hand.
disturbing distasteful
disgusting disgraceful
everything about you
makes me sick
you're an ill bitch
you make me sick
into your slit
you make me trip
stay there till my mind rots
throw down roots while my body rocks
Something.
May the dance floor rise to meet you:
May the bass be always at your back,
The strobes shine warm upon your face,
The mists fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May the Rave hold you in the hollow of its hand.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sappy love song. Nobody's special, but the feeling can be.
This is a song written for a woman, and for a feeling.
There's a feeling there's a sense
there's a weakness there's no rest
That feeling deep inside
a sensation you can't deny
it lasts forever
True love don't look at me
not even you can set me free
True love nobody believes
until they too must grieve
capricious life
Other lovers felt a powerful bond
that exists outside of God
outside everything this romance
chaos computed down to math
visceral and ethereal
Am I special? It's up to you
Inside's not special, only true
sometimes life is endlessly cruel
lonely lives and loves that never flew
just my tragedy
it dooms my soul against all reason
i can't help this pull I'm feeling
mock me I'm a fool I won't fight
because it's sentimentally trite
then it happens to you
True love, the number one
ruin your life or eat a gun
I see you there standing in my mind
has yours ever put me there in kind
shadows fading edge my memory
late at night just let me sleep
where are you
I locked a part of you deep down in my soul
I try to fight it ride it out i can't let go
because I never had you in the start
losing you wasn't the hardest part
what am i fighting for?
I'll always think of our last kiss,
too soon too late but it was bliss
it was so perfect if it never was
it can't be faked or discussed
can we try again
True love but missed chances
misstepped clumsy dances
so I'll write this drawing from my heart
even though I know we'll be apart
desperate sometimes when I want to die
never more will i look into your eyes
clouds roll in
True love that never was
never will be just give up
find someone else not half as good
don't want to be another man of wood
I'm flesh and bone, spirit soul
but without you still not whole.
life's not mechanical
I'm bad for you, you're bad for me
was it really never meant to be?
stop telling me what's practical
right or wrong we're animals
i just want to feel
True love the pure connect
numbing out all intellect
my pulse I know it I can't deny
shaking off realistic advice
If I'm wrong I don't want to be right
I want to follow that guiding light
because I love you
There's a feeling there's a sense
there's a weakness there's no rest
That feeling deep inside
a sensation you can't deny
it lasts forever
True love don't look at me
not even you can set me free
True love nobody believes
until they too must grieve
capricious life
Other lovers felt a powerful bond
that exists outside of God
outside everything this romance
chaos computed down to math
visceral and ethereal
Am I special? It's up to you
Inside's not special, only true
sometimes life is endlessly cruel
lonely lives and loves that never flew
just my tragedy
it dooms my soul against all reason
i can't help this pull I'm feeling
mock me I'm a fool I won't fight
because it's sentimentally trite
then it happens to you
True love, the number one
ruin your life or eat a gun
I see you there standing in my mind
has yours ever put me there in kind
shadows fading edge my memory
late at night just let me sleep
where are you
I locked a part of you deep down in my soul
I try to fight it ride it out i can't let go
because I never had you in the start
losing you wasn't the hardest part
what am i fighting for?
I'll always think of our last kiss,
too soon too late but it was bliss
it was so perfect if it never was
it can't be faked or discussed
can we try again
True love but missed chances
misstepped clumsy dances
so I'll write this drawing from my heart
even though I know we'll be apart
desperate sometimes when I want to die
never more will i look into your eyes
clouds roll in
True love that never was
never will be just give up
find someone else not half as good
don't want to be another man of wood
I'm flesh and bone, spirit soul
but without you still not whole.
life's not mechanical
I'm bad for you, you're bad for me
was it really never meant to be?
stop telling me what's practical
right or wrong we're animals
i just want to feel
True love the pure connect
numbing out all intellect
my pulse I know it I can't deny
shaking off realistic advice
If I'm wrong I don't want to be right
I want to follow that guiding light
because I love you
Monday, April 9, 2012
Amongst the lost
In the mists of the mind, I try to find my bearings. Somewhere there was a path but now I am lost in a marsh. Impenetrable fog in every direction.
Revisiting a familiar spot, tentatively tracing the tributary.
Where to go now?
Revisiting a familiar spot, tentatively tracing the tributary.
Where to go now?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
One Shots
I once described a woman as beautiful, she was upset that I had adjectified her.
The best bumper sticker for the recession: "If you lived in your car, you'd be home already!"
You can spend all your time trying to define yourself, but in the end none of it would have been spent being yourself.
Trying to please anybody means you'll please nobody.
Eventually you'll have to take charge of your life.
How can you succeed without trying? It's a vicious cycle. Try, fail, try, fail. You can only succeed by not trying?
Every time my head breaks the surface, the world pushes me back down.
Mesh Networks are essential for freedom of information.
Automate
- Is there a tool or machine that can do it for me?
- Can I easily make a tool or machine to do it for me?
Innovate
- Are there unnecessary steps that can be combined or removed?
- Are there shortcuts or alternate paths I can take?
Replace
- Is there an entirely new way to do the task? (Like using a paintbrush instead of a sharpie to make a mural)
- Can the work be made superfluous (Is it really necessary?)
Organise
- In the event all else fails, how can I make it as time and energy efficient as possible?
- Where do I spend the majority of my time, how do I eliminate wasted time?
- Is there a way to arrange things in a more sensible, human-specific order?
The best bumper sticker for the recession: "If you lived in your car, you'd be home already!"
You can spend all your time trying to define yourself, but in the end none of it would have been spent being yourself.
Trying to please anybody means you'll please nobody.
Eventually you'll have to take charge of your life.
How can you succeed without trying? It's a vicious cycle. Try, fail, try, fail. You can only succeed by not trying?
Every time my head breaks the surface, the world pushes me back down.
Mesh Networks are essential for freedom of information.
Automate
- Is there a tool or machine that can do it for me?
- Can I easily make a tool or machine to do it for me?
Innovate
- Are there unnecessary steps that can be combined or removed?
- Are there shortcuts or alternate paths I can take?
Replace
- Is there an entirely new way to do the task? (Like using a paintbrush instead of a sharpie to make a mural)
- Can the work be made superfluous (Is it really necessary?)
Organise
- In the event all else fails, how can I make it as time and energy efficient as possible?
- Where do I spend the majority of my time, how do I eliminate wasted time?
- Is there a way to arrange things in a more sensible, human-specific order?
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Morty and Leo
Morty was not a good looking man. He was a man for whom the best part of life had passed by quickly, the remnants were moth eaten and frayed by the passage of twice as many years. His few remaining lengths of dark hair were combed haphazardly over his scalp. No shampoo could ever fully rinse away the grease of middle age and decades of poor food. Any scrap of plainness was a gift to Morty, and he took it with humility. He still had his teeth, the ones that were important, at least, and if he dressed in his Sunday best, one could believe that he might have a family somewhere.
The shack was grey. When the damp crept in, the walls would be stained a darker shade and the cement would blacken as it seeped into the corners. There weren't many things in the shack. A desk, a bed, a lamp and a tired radio. The radio had been fixed many times, bits of duct tape held the chipped edges together. It didn't look like it could have ever been new, something that had been bought for a few dollars at the low end shops, dealers of cheap plastic and worse craftsmanship. It worked though. That's what counted to Morty.
The bed was heavy, something that a working man could be proud of, solid steel construction, perfectly fitted and welded. It was a better bed than some, and until you noticed the bolt holes in the flanged metal feet, it didn't seem extraordinary. Thick bars and many springs supported a metal mesh covered by a thin mattress. The mattress had seen better days and worse owners, it was lumpy in the few places it wasn't defeated. Morty's back complained, but he had never figured complaining made a difference. If it got too bad, he'd sometimes sleep on the floor, while his big metal bed loomed overhead. The floor was too cold in the winter, so in that season he soldiered on, tossing and turning whenever he thought it might fix a kink, or at least buy it some time.
Morty sat in his chair as he usually did, listening to the radio. The chair was as worn as the radio, but it had been nice, at one time. Overstuffed and reclining, it was where Morty did his sitting. Sometimes he would think while sitting, but usually he would enjoy the quiet of the rain, watch the walls seep and just sit. Right now he was looking at a crack in the wall, trying not to stare, waiting.
It had been a rainy quiet night, much like this one, when Morty had met Leo. It had been mid-slice that he had noticed. Morty remembered this with a clarity that his mind seldom found. He had been eating bread and cheese, carefully making thin slices for each piece of bread with his knife. Mid-slice he had seen a shadow scurry out from the crack in the wall, pass under the bread and head straight for his chair. Morty had sat stock still, watching quietly. Just moments before he had brushed some crumbs off of his shirt onto the floor. He watched as his uninvited guest scurried over to the crumbs. It scuttled over, then scuttled back. It looked around and up and down. Morty raised his hand to shoo the cockroach away, when it stood up on its hind legs and did something very unusual. It roared. Not a very big roar, but a very little bug-sized roar. Morty was amazed and he pulled his hand away slowly. This was something entirely new to Morty. He wasn't about to kill the cockroach, roar or not. He hadn't been eager to eat the crumbs off the floor anyway. So Morty did what came naturally, he sat and watched.
After finishing the meal of crumbs (with maybe the odd peck of cheese) the cockroach cleaned itself, turned to look at Morty one more time, then scurried back the way it had come. Not as fast this time, full as crumbs as it was. That was the first time Morty met Leo.
It was the same almost every week, whenever Morty brought food home and ate in his armchair, Leo would come and eat the crumbs. Whenever Morty would reach for the food, Leo would let out his little roar, but otherwise they had a quiet peace. As it turned into a nightly affair, Morty came to count on Leo being there, to eat the crumbs and give his little roar. Sometimes Morty would pretend to forget, and he would see Leo waiting patiently in his hole. After a short time, Morty would let a few crumbs slip then Leo would dash out and grab them, holding them up triumphantly before stuffing himself full. Morty wondered which kind of bread cockroaches favoured, so every so often he would experiment with different kinds. Morty hadn't much experience with different breads, and it was a pleasant surprise each time he sliced a new kind of loaf, since it was just as much of an experiment for himself as it was for Leo. It turned out that neither of them were picky eaters, but the variety kept things interesting and gave Morty something new to think about.
Eventually, Morty decided that if he wanted to expand, he'd have to visit the grocery store on the other side of town. Morty didn't venture out often, just for the necessities and the odd sunday brunch. He wasn't a church-going man but he would nod politely at the pastor when he saw him on the street. He spent a great deal of time with his books, reading in his chair with the radio tuned to a quiet channel. He could go out, but he had never really seen any reason for it. When he was inclined to be active he would use his old pickup to do odd jobs, and he still maintained it well. As the engine rumbled, Morty carefully turned the truck out of the narrow alley and made his way to the store.
The large supermarket was fairly new and well-stocked. Morty was impressed by the shining aisles and the tall shelves of plastic containers. All manners of food, all shapes and sizes and colours, catering to the fattest of the land. Most of it was corn. Morty normally only shopped around the aisles, avoiding the inside lanes. The food there was cheap and unhealthy, and Morty did his best to avoid it. Health consciousness only comes after a great deal of experience in unhealthiness. Today Morty decided to venture into the centre aisles, to look for a treat for his friend.
Morty was holding a package of cookies when he noticed a family coming down the aisle. Wailing kids tugging at the dress of their mother, a bedraggled woman. She pushed the cart morosely down the aisle while the children screamed for candy and the latest advertised piece of junk. Wearily, she piled in a box of cut-rate food smeared with a benignly smiling cartoon character. “Yes that's exactly right, you have no choice but to buy me.” The package seemed to say, an aristocrat in its own right, a prince in the realm of food. It wasn't until she and her gaggle of children paused beside Morty. He tried to seem busy examining the cookies, he wasn't sure he wanted to be involved with whatever drama might erupt from interacting with this family. He was sure that amount of sodium per cookie was begging for a stroke. It was when she reached one flabby arm towards the cookies that her eyes glinted and he saw something real fire within her eyes. He knew those cookies she deftly snatched were for herself.
The glint in her eyes set off a fire of recognition within him. He almost gasped and turned abruptly, but he managed to contain it. A memory, dusty and old, had erupted from the ether. He remembered her smile, her hair, the beauty as she twirled in the dance hall. All of that youth and vitality, the endless possibilities of innocence. He had taken the chance, emboldened to action for one of the few times in his life. The laughter as she turned him down, the shame and humiliation. The wallflower now with nothing to do but wilt, no moon and stars, no sun and sky to ignite something precious. He thought he had forgotten, but the recollection had lain in wait, ready for a moment like this. Morty turned beet red, but the woman didn't notice. Cookies in the cart, she grunted as she returned to her porcine stupor. The children smiled shyly as they walked past the silent old man. One waved and Morty managed a smile.
As she passed, relief swept over Morty. He was glad that she hadn't noticed him. He wouldn't have known what to say if she had. The feeling of awkwardness lingered, but Morty was glad that he was the only one who knew, it made it easier to endure it. His hands stroked the stippled metal of the shelf as his heart went back to normal. Morty wasn't sure what to think, having seen his angel in another light. He was almost grateful for his life, but he still wondered if he could have helped keep that glint lit in her, through hardship and turmoil. He wondered if those lines in her face would have been as deep, if his shelter would have been a great home, bright and spacious. Wondering was all he had left; as she turned at the end of the aisle and disappeared from view, he slowly returned to reality.
Leo had enjoyed the cookies, Morty had made sure to break the crumbs into small bits, Leo had some difficulty on the chocolate but the devoured it all the same. Things continued like this for a while, but Morty remained in a peculiar mood. He didn't go to that grocery store on the same day anymore and he always felt nervous when he entered it.
It was a nice spring night when Leo brought his friend. Smaller and sleeker than Leo, she timidly followed him to the crumbs. Morty was a bit taken aback but he didn't mind, together they didn't eat very much. A few weeks later it was Leo followed by her and three others, small, bright eyed and inquisitive. Morty still didn't mind and enjoyed their antics as the younger ones tussled over particularly soft crumbs. Sometimes if he broke off a large, hard, round piece they would push it back and forth like a game of football. It put him in a particular mood and it gave him something to look forward to after a long day mopping floors, fixing heaters or changing the oil on his landlord's 67 chevy. It helped to have something to do besides paying the rent. Some nights the family would come in and play for hours, other times they were in and out, with only a brief greeting from Leo. Leo was always appreciative and would trace out perfect circles on the ground or run in zig-zags. He would pause as Morty laughed, and roar in counterpoint to the laughter, which only made Morty laugh harder.
One night Morty had attached a piece of crust to a string in order to tease the young ones when he remembered his old boat and trailer. It had sat rusting for far too long, Morty dropped the string and sat upright. Exactly at that moment he decided to go fishing. He packed his gear, enough food for a week and left a piece of bread under his chair for Leo and the gang. Hitching up his trailer, he took one last look at his small corner of the world he called home and left for the lake. He had a pup tent, and summer was starting, he would be fine. He left a note for his landlord, in case he didn't come back, and smiled as the old engine rumbled to life.
Morty enjoyed the solitude over the next few weeks, letting nature lift his spirits to new heights. The sunrises kissed his cheeks and his face regained a colour it hadn't had in many years. He ate fish and canned food, walked for hours up and down trails, sat and looked at stars, warmed himself by his small campfire and slept peacefully until dawn. Two weeks passed languidly and Morty left with great hesitation.
The truck rumbled into the alley as Morty's shoulders slumped a slightly more. It had started at the outskirts of the town and each block had seen another progressive degree of defeat layered onto his shoulders. Morty had considered turning around many times, but he had wondered about Leo and missed the companionship. Morty took his time unloading, leaving the trailer attached for the next day, when the light would be better.
As he walked down the hall with a full cooler of smoked fish, he passed a wizened man with thick eyebrows. He was walking down the hall with a plastic mask, two oversize cups on either side, on his back was a silver backpack. A hose led out of the backpack to a plastic wand that dripped with a foul smelling liquid. Morty hoped against hope, but the man waved as he walked past “I got 'em all Mister, they won't be bothering this place anymore.”
His heart sank as he walked to past each door, typed notes taped upon them. “The premises have been sprayed for pests, thank you for your cooperation as the exterminators do their jobs.” Morty pushed open his door and the stench of pesticides wafted out. Putting his cooler and packages down, he sat upon his chair with a heavy heart. Checking underneath he found a third of the bread still left over, dripping with something oily. Morty threw it into the trashcan.
That night, Morty put out the usual crumbs, but neither Leo nor his family showed even an antenna. The room was empty except for him, the rustle of legs, the bumping of carapaces and the little roars were all replaced with a crushing silence. The next night Morty put out a few more crumbs, hoping. Still, each night passed as quietly as the last.
Two weeks passed. Eventually the breadcrumbs had piled up into a tall pyramid. Entirely undisturbed, they had gone to illustrate their own mathematical principle. That night, the topmost crumb, perched precariously on top of all the others, finally gave up the apex and tumbled slowly down the heap.
Morty thought about what would have happened if he had never returned. Perhaps it would have been better. He slowly started packing his fishing gear again. He counted what little money remained, it would be enough for a one way trip at least.
Morty moved from his chair, putting the bread back into the plastic. He placed the bag back into the fridge then sat down on his bed. The springs on the metal frame squeaked as the mattress sank below the bars, curving beneath Morty's weight. For a long time, he sat very still. Outside, rain rattled off the metal roof, running into the dim alleyway. The hours passed, then the last light faded faded in the little shack.
The shack was grey. When the damp crept in, the walls would be stained a darker shade and the cement would blacken as it seeped into the corners. There weren't many things in the shack. A desk, a bed, a lamp and a tired radio. The radio had been fixed many times, bits of duct tape held the chipped edges together. It didn't look like it could have ever been new, something that had been bought for a few dollars at the low end shops, dealers of cheap plastic and worse craftsmanship. It worked though. That's what counted to Morty.
The bed was heavy, something that a working man could be proud of, solid steel construction, perfectly fitted and welded. It was a better bed than some, and until you noticed the bolt holes in the flanged metal feet, it didn't seem extraordinary. Thick bars and many springs supported a metal mesh covered by a thin mattress. The mattress had seen better days and worse owners, it was lumpy in the few places it wasn't defeated. Morty's back complained, but he had never figured complaining made a difference. If it got too bad, he'd sometimes sleep on the floor, while his big metal bed loomed overhead. The floor was too cold in the winter, so in that season he soldiered on, tossing and turning whenever he thought it might fix a kink, or at least buy it some time.
Morty sat in his chair as he usually did, listening to the radio. The chair was as worn as the radio, but it had been nice, at one time. Overstuffed and reclining, it was where Morty did his sitting. Sometimes he would think while sitting, but usually he would enjoy the quiet of the rain, watch the walls seep and just sit. Right now he was looking at a crack in the wall, trying not to stare, waiting.
It had been a rainy quiet night, much like this one, when Morty had met Leo. It had been mid-slice that he had noticed. Morty remembered this with a clarity that his mind seldom found. He had been eating bread and cheese, carefully making thin slices for each piece of bread with his knife. Mid-slice he had seen a shadow scurry out from the crack in the wall, pass under the bread and head straight for his chair. Morty had sat stock still, watching quietly. Just moments before he had brushed some crumbs off of his shirt onto the floor. He watched as his uninvited guest scurried over to the crumbs. It scuttled over, then scuttled back. It looked around and up and down. Morty raised his hand to shoo the cockroach away, when it stood up on its hind legs and did something very unusual. It roared. Not a very big roar, but a very little bug-sized roar. Morty was amazed and he pulled his hand away slowly. This was something entirely new to Morty. He wasn't about to kill the cockroach, roar or not. He hadn't been eager to eat the crumbs off the floor anyway. So Morty did what came naturally, he sat and watched.
After finishing the meal of crumbs (with maybe the odd peck of cheese) the cockroach cleaned itself, turned to look at Morty one more time, then scurried back the way it had come. Not as fast this time, full as crumbs as it was. That was the first time Morty met Leo.
It was the same almost every week, whenever Morty brought food home and ate in his armchair, Leo would come and eat the crumbs. Whenever Morty would reach for the food, Leo would let out his little roar, but otherwise they had a quiet peace. As it turned into a nightly affair, Morty came to count on Leo being there, to eat the crumbs and give his little roar. Sometimes Morty would pretend to forget, and he would see Leo waiting patiently in his hole. After a short time, Morty would let a few crumbs slip then Leo would dash out and grab them, holding them up triumphantly before stuffing himself full. Morty wondered which kind of bread cockroaches favoured, so every so often he would experiment with different kinds. Morty hadn't much experience with different breads, and it was a pleasant surprise each time he sliced a new kind of loaf, since it was just as much of an experiment for himself as it was for Leo. It turned out that neither of them were picky eaters, but the variety kept things interesting and gave Morty something new to think about.
Eventually, Morty decided that if he wanted to expand, he'd have to visit the grocery store on the other side of town. Morty didn't venture out often, just for the necessities and the odd sunday brunch. He wasn't a church-going man but he would nod politely at the pastor when he saw him on the street. He spent a great deal of time with his books, reading in his chair with the radio tuned to a quiet channel. He could go out, but he had never really seen any reason for it. When he was inclined to be active he would use his old pickup to do odd jobs, and he still maintained it well. As the engine rumbled, Morty carefully turned the truck out of the narrow alley and made his way to the store.
The large supermarket was fairly new and well-stocked. Morty was impressed by the shining aisles and the tall shelves of plastic containers. All manners of food, all shapes and sizes and colours, catering to the fattest of the land. Most of it was corn. Morty normally only shopped around the aisles, avoiding the inside lanes. The food there was cheap and unhealthy, and Morty did his best to avoid it. Health consciousness only comes after a great deal of experience in unhealthiness. Today Morty decided to venture into the centre aisles, to look for a treat for his friend.
Morty was holding a package of cookies when he noticed a family coming down the aisle. Wailing kids tugging at the dress of their mother, a bedraggled woman. She pushed the cart morosely down the aisle while the children screamed for candy and the latest advertised piece of junk. Wearily, she piled in a box of cut-rate food smeared with a benignly smiling cartoon character. “Yes that's exactly right, you have no choice but to buy me.” The package seemed to say, an aristocrat in its own right, a prince in the realm of food. It wasn't until she and her gaggle of children paused beside Morty. He tried to seem busy examining the cookies, he wasn't sure he wanted to be involved with whatever drama might erupt from interacting with this family. He was sure that amount of sodium per cookie was begging for a stroke. It was when she reached one flabby arm towards the cookies that her eyes glinted and he saw something real fire within her eyes. He knew those cookies she deftly snatched were for herself.
The glint in her eyes set off a fire of recognition within him. He almost gasped and turned abruptly, but he managed to contain it. A memory, dusty and old, had erupted from the ether. He remembered her smile, her hair, the beauty as she twirled in the dance hall. All of that youth and vitality, the endless possibilities of innocence. He had taken the chance, emboldened to action for one of the few times in his life. The laughter as she turned him down, the shame and humiliation. The wallflower now with nothing to do but wilt, no moon and stars, no sun and sky to ignite something precious. He thought he had forgotten, but the recollection had lain in wait, ready for a moment like this. Morty turned beet red, but the woman didn't notice. Cookies in the cart, she grunted as she returned to her porcine stupor. The children smiled shyly as they walked past the silent old man. One waved and Morty managed a smile.
As she passed, relief swept over Morty. He was glad that she hadn't noticed him. He wouldn't have known what to say if she had. The feeling of awkwardness lingered, but Morty was glad that he was the only one who knew, it made it easier to endure it. His hands stroked the stippled metal of the shelf as his heart went back to normal. Morty wasn't sure what to think, having seen his angel in another light. He was almost grateful for his life, but he still wondered if he could have helped keep that glint lit in her, through hardship and turmoil. He wondered if those lines in her face would have been as deep, if his shelter would have been a great home, bright and spacious. Wondering was all he had left; as she turned at the end of the aisle and disappeared from view, he slowly returned to reality.
Leo had enjoyed the cookies, Morty had made sure to break the crumbs into small bits, Leo had some difficulty on the chocolate but the devoured it all the same. Things continued like this for a while, but Morty remained in a peculiar mood. He didn't go to that grocery store on the same day anymore and he always felt nervous when he entered it.
It was a nice spring night when Leo brought his friend. Smaller and sleeker than Leo, she timidly followed him to the crumbs. Morty was a bit taken aback but he didn't mind, together they didn't eat very much. A few weeks later it was Leo followed by her and three others, small, bright eyed and inquisitive. Morty still didn't mind and enjoyed their antics as the younger ones tussled over particularly soft crumbs. Sometimes if he broke off a large, hard, round piece they would push it back and forth like a game of football. It put him in a particular mood and it gave him something to look forward to after a long day mopping floors, fixing heaters or changing the oil on his landlord's 67 chevy. It helped to have something to do besides paying the rent. Some nights the family would come in and play for hours, other times they were in and out, with only a brief greeting from Leo. Leo was always appreciative and would trace out perfect circles on the ground or run in zig-zags. He would pause as Morty laughed, and roar in counterpoint to the laughter, which only made Morty laugh harder.
One night Morty had attached a piece of crust to a string in order to tease the young ones when he remembered his old boat and trailer. It had sat rusting for far too long, Morty dropped the string and sat upright. Exactly at that moment he decided to go fishing. He packed his gear, enough food for a week and left a piece of bread under his chair for Leo and the gang. Hitching up his trailer, he took one last look at his small corner of the world he called home and left for the lake. He had a pup tent, and summer was starting, he would be fine. He left a note for his landlord, in case he didn't come back, and smiled as the old engine rumbled to life.
Morty enjoyed the solitude over the next few weeks, letting nature lift his spirits to new heights. The sunrises kissed his cheeks and his face regained a colour it hadn't had in many years. He ate fish and canned food, walked for hours up and down trails, sat and looked at stars, warmed himself by his small campfire and slept peacefully until dawn. Two weeks passed languidly and Morty left with great hesitation.
The truck rumbled into the alley as Morty's shoulders slumped a slightly more. It had started at the outskirts of the town and each block had seen another progressive degree of defeat layered onto his shoulders. Morty had considered turning around many times, but he had wondered about Leo and missed the companionship. Morty took his time unloading, leaving the trailer attached for the next day, when the light would be better.
As he walked down the hall with a full cooler of smoked fish, he passed a wizened man with thick eyebrows. He was walking down the hall with a plastic mask, two oversize cups on either side, on his back was a silver backpack. A hose led out of the backpack to a plastic wand that dripped with a foul smelling liquid. Morty hoped against hope, but the man waved as he walked past “I got 'em all Mister, they won't be bothering this place anymore.”
His heart sank as he walked to past each door, typed notes taped upon them. “The premises have been sprayed for pests, thank you for your cooperation as the exterminators do their jobs.” Morty pushed open his door and the stench of pesticides wafted out. Putting his cooler and packages down, he sat upon his chair with a heavy heart. Checking underneath he found a third of the bread still left over, dripping with something oily. Morty threw it into the trashcan.
That night, Morty put out the usual crumbs, but neither Leo nor his family showed even an antenna. The room was empty except for him, the rustle of legs, the bumping of carapaces and the little roars were all replaced with a crushing silence. The next night Morty put out a few more crumbs, hoping. Still, each night passed as quietly as the last.
Two weeks passed. Eventually the breadcrumbs had piled up into a tall pyramid. Entirely undisturbed, they had gone to illustrate their own mathematical principle. That night, the topmost crumb, perched precariously on top of all the others, finally gave up the apex and tumbled slowly down the heap.
Morty thought about what would have happened if he had never returned. Perhaps it would have been better. He slowly started packing his fishing gear again. He counted what little money remained, it would be enough for a one way trip at least.
Morty moved from his chair, putting the bread back into the plastic. He placed the bag back into the fridge then sat down on his bed. The springs on the metal frame squeaked as the mattress sank below the bars, curving beneath Morty's weight. For a long time, he sat very still. Outside, rain rattled off the metal roof, running into the dim alleyway. The hours passed, then the last light faded faded in the little shack.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Unity
Capital is the accumulation of government, or public, debt. Every transaction in our world depends upon the successful transfer of abstracted debt. The inefficiencies of this system will naturally lead towards inequalities, causing the disproportionate distribution of this debt, which is ultimately the root cause of every social and economic problem that is present upon our planet. Money, truly, is the root of all evil.
However, many argue that trade is vitally necessary, something without which would reduce our quality of life to an unspeakable poverty. This is true but not to the extent of enslaving the planet as it has. The answer lies in the nature of capitalism, in the nature of humanity itself.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs has long interested me, something about it has rang strongly in my mind and it has been a potent force for the catalysis of my world view. It was not until today that I realised why it has wormed inside my brain and tortured it for so many years. This hierarchy of needs isn't important because it is a hierarchy, but because it is as complete of a list of human needs, wants and desires as can be possibly assembled. When you look at our existence solely through the lens of our biology and the complex interactions that are a product of our biology, you begin to understand where you must start to change the world.
If you want to truly destroy capitalism, what you need to destroy instead is debt, inefficiency, and dependency.
Inefficiency represents every cost inherent to our system that has no bearing or relation on the energetic cost of the process. When shipping food halfway across the world is cheaper than growing it at home, when moving cars 150 kilometers from the United States to Canada and back again is “economically sound.” Then you can see the inherent contradictions which plague capitalism to this very day. If an alien observer ever glanced upon our planet, to see passenger sedans manufactured in Canada which are then sold to the US, and passenger sedans made in the US and sold to Canada, they would consider this phenomenon to be the height of insanity. Not only because of the manufacture, transport and sales, but every level of bureaucracy in between, taxes, duties, tariffs, people who are paid full wages to rubber stamp disposable paper. The very definition of waste.
Inefficiency is the disposable nature of capitalism. This nature is due to the nature of debt and human productivity. The problem with debt is that humans can be productive enough to eventually work the debt off. Now, ancient tyrants understood this, so they imposed heavy taxes and such things as wars, slavery and bondage in order to introduce new debt whenever the workers seemed to be reaching a point of prosperity.
Conveniently, the latest tyrants learned from history and have constructed a new debt system whereby the nature of debt is not tyrannically imposed, but it is a byproduct of the system itself. This is the evil of disposability. The concept of use once and discard is the great triumph of capitalism and the great downfall for humanity. The ubiquitous use of paper and plastic in our culture underscores this point. However, capitalism has not stopped at material goods, but has attempted to promote the disposability of culture and entertainment, even of the human mind, in the final attempt to fully enslave us all. Through debt.
How do you improve inefficiency then? The question is so simple that a hunter-gatherer could answer it. What do you do if your tools break? Do you go to the store and buy another? No. You make your own. Unfortunately, many of us do not have the skills required to replace every consumer item in our culture, however we do have one other option. We can buy things that do not break. We demand that things be made to last, and in turn we are opting out of the disposable culture. True poverty isn't purchasing power, it's being required to be continually re-indebted to the same items over and over again. Think of every consumer good you have, and how it has not been designed to last, then think of the monetary consequence of that. The oil driller in the gulf of mexico harvests the oil from under the sea floor. The oil is shipped to processing facilities at the expense of yet more oil. This oil is then turned into plastics, medicine, tv dinners, tall lattes and electricity. Just like the incentive of a pharmaceutical company is to sell a treatment instead of a cure, so too does this sickness spread throughout all of society.
If you want to destroy the -isms, if you want to cripple a capitalistic society, then do it from the inside out and build things that last. Teach people to make it for themselves, teach people to fix things for themselves and teach them to throw the 21st century yokes of slavery off of their backs.
This applies not just to consumer goods, but every interaction and transaction, every system and process within our society. How do we consider our entertainment, where we live, how we eat, the construction of our buildings, our roads and infrastructure? Build things to last and you will kill the rich surer than with a bullet.
The last issue is then dependency. The fundamental tenet of being dependent upon society and therefore continually indebted to it. The great fear of every imperialist power is that the host country will realise that they can be self-sufficient. When coercion of the elite fails, then simply fund a coup to overthrow the elite. It was the same methods that were used to enslave half of Africa. Divide and conquer the populace, create an elite who can stand upon stilts in their mudhole and always there will be hungry poor, submissive and compliant, who can replace the elite whenever the real owners so desire it.
What then? The list of needs then comes into play. What do humans need? Food, Water, Clothing, Shelter, Space, Medicine, Social structure, and the divers requirements of human nature. Chief among them is hope. What then to address these needs? The answer lies in self-sufficiency. The decentralisation of energy production is integral to self-sufficiency and if allowed to progress as it should, then a new age of civilisation will rapidly dawn.
Provided a person has enough space, a place to lay their head, a source of water and raw materials, then combine that with energy, and then the great social arbiter of wealth, debt, becomes of much less importance. With energy comes the potential not just for technology, but food production in the form of greenhouses and hydroponics, micro manufacturing and a host of other hopes for self-sufficiency.
The key again is for people to produce goods that last. In order to be truly free of debt, houses and dry goods will have to be designed to not last a year, but a thousand years. Do it once, do it right.
Design infrastructure that is self-maintaining. Good enough will never allow us to be free of the cycle of debt, it has to be done correctly the first time, to the very best of our ability.
Up to this point, people are required to bring certain value to society, skills and knowledge that are the sum of their worth. Effort and strain, time and production. It has always bothered me that I do not yet have the full complement of skills to be a highly valued member of society. I know that there are always low level jobs available that would ensure survival, at the very least, but it has always been my goal to enter the realm of the elite or semi-elite as the middle class has been shown to be, so I may have some chance at self-determination, self-sufficiency and perhaps a small measure of control over my surroundings. These are things that our hunter-gatherer forebears took for granted, but are antithetical to the capitalistic way of life. That is why they do not teach these skills in school, why high societal interdependence is pushed in every media outlet. The more people buy in, the more indebted they are.
So what is a man to do in this day and age? I say man because even despite the great advances in gender equality, it is still obvious where the control of money and power still lies. Whether this is genetic, behavioural or simply learned is out of the scope of this article but I say the following to stress what must be done: the craziest among us, the hermits and the nutcases, the loners on the hill, they have one thing most of you only can dream of, something that is illusory to even the best worker in a capitalistic society. Self-determination, self-sufficiency and control. Without these things, is life even worth living? Living in this new world order you are no longer a man, master of your domain, but an opiated labouring consumer, bred and trained to salivate at the whim of your master, debt.
Feel it keenly with this recession, the greatest depression. Unemployment in the double digits, permanent salaried jobs replaced with temp work and part time. The security of your life constantly threatened economically, terroristically, and existentially. When the buggy whip manufacturers lost their jobs because of the automobile, would it have been nearly as tragic if they could have still fed, clothed and maintained themselves through their own effort? The tragedy is not that they could not adapt to changing economic conditions, but that they were so maladapted to reality that they were unable to really address the issues at the core of our society.
When our society no longer has use for individuals within it, then they are discarded as easily as a used napkin. There are few alternatives for the unfortunate people who are affected by this. Taking jobs at lower pay, retraining and finding another job, early retirement. The worst part is that these people then essentially become wasted, a tragic loss of human potential that often results in depression, divorce, murder and suicide. The reasons for this aren't that the person has lost their job, but that the bare facts of their existence have been laid out and they see for the first time that society has denied them the opportunity to survive, to control their own lives, and to flourish in their own way.
Some people see this and alter their behaviour in the system. They make themselves indispensable to society, they obfuscate their contributions and distance the reality of their jobs from any but those in their class. This merely makes the problems worse, because they are working with the system, not against it.
It is difficult to not say this tritely, but the evil of the system can be blamed on almost every social ill. Depression, crime, homelessness, murder, suicide, alcoholism, drug-dependency, broken families, because these social ills are SYMPTOMS of the disease. The disease is capitalism, it is the disease of dependency and hopelessness and it must be cleansed from our culture before the damage destroys not just our souls, but our planet.
How to crush capitalism.
Buy clothes, tools, and goods that last and are not disposable. Demand that the products be designed and manufactured to last hundreds of years. Do not throw things away but reuse them, give them to those who need it. Trade and share. Every factory produced product on our planet has an energetic cost and the only way to really save our planet is to use less.
Learn how to make your own goods, tools, clothes. Buy locally if possible and encourage the development of a local self-sufficient economy. This cannot be stressed enough. How could a farmer in a third world country ever escape the trap of poverty if you do not stop perpetuating it?
Avoid anything disposable. Paper, plastic, anything that has been transported a distance. Every morning think about the energy that has been used to produce, package and transport the things that you need and try to minimise your use.
Study what you eat. Avoid food that has been packaged and processed. Eat locally, eat fresh. I do not recommend going vegetarian, energetically maintaining a vegetarian diet is no better for us or the environment. Meat is healthier and more filling, it is nutritious and is the reason why our ancestors, the hunter-gatherers, became the dominant life form on this planet. Without meat we would not have evolved our advanced brains and behaviours, so do not discount this vital source of nutrition. Think about the intelligence and activity of vegetarian animals and how they would relate to a person slaving in a capitalistic system. If you cannot see the similarities between a dairy cow and a wage slave then you should spend more time thinking about it.
Produce whatever you can to meet your own needs. Solar panels and wind power are rapidly becoming more accessible to the general public. With power generation comes the need for power storage. Push for a hydrogen economy, but one that you control. The power and energy you generate should be used and stored for yourself. The less you spend, the more you damage those who would own you.
Participate in making a free and accessible society. Use open source software, learn how to play an instrument and make your own music. Build a stage and record your own movies. Create your own culture, free of cost, easily transferable and non-disposable.
If you have technical skills, donate your time to producing free, efficient systems that help eliminate capitalistic excesses. Make open source software for every platform, use your skills in open and sustainable ways. Make things that last. Remove waste inefficiencies from your jobs and lives because it is a waste of energy, resources and time, not just money.
The key to any free society is that every member must be participating with their full informed consent. There is no consent when the only alternative is to starve to death. When there are no livable alternatives to this society then there is no consent present and everyone is instead a part of a massive indentured servitude.
The elite and powerful are those who have either gamed the system well enough to defeat it, or those who have inherited their status. Either way, the people at the top have no incentive to see the uplifting of the bottom, since those at the top are there due to their very natures of elitism. You will see the people at the top acting generously against the symptoms, but never will they attack the disease inherent in the system, because then their powers would be diminished entirely.
However, many argue that trade is vitally necessary, something without which would reduce our quality of life to an unspeakable poverty. This is true but not to the extent of enslaving the planet as it has. The answer lies in the nature of capitalism, in the nature of humanity itself.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs has long interested me, something about it has rang strongly in my mind and it has been a potent force for the catalysis of my world view. It was not until today that I realised why it has wormed inside my brain and tortured it for so many years. This hierarchy of needs isn't important because it is a hierarchy, but because it is as complete of a list of human needs, wants and desires as can be possibly assembled. When you look at our existence solely through the lens of our biology and the complex interactions that are a product of our biology, you begin to understand where you must start to change the world.
If you want to truly destroy capitalism, what you need to destroy instead is debt, inefficiency, and dependency.
Inefficiency represents every cost inherent to our system that has no bearing or relation on the energetic cost of the process. When shipping food halfway across the world is cheaper than growing it at home, when moving cars 150 kilometers from the United States to Canada and back again is “economically sound.” Then you can see the inherent contradictions which plague capitalism to this very day. If an alien observer ever glanced upon our planet, to see passenger sedans manufactured in Canada which are then sold to the US, and passenger sedans made in the US and sold to Canada, they would consider this phenomenon to be the height of insanity. Not only because of the manufacture, transport and sales, but every level of bureaucracy in between, taxes, duties, tariffs, people who are paid full wages to rubber stamp disposable paper. The very definition of waste.
Inefficiency is the disposable nature of capitalism. This nature is due to the nature of debt and human productivity. The problem with debt is that humans can be productive enough to eventually work the debt off. Now, ancient tyrants understood this, so they imposed heavy taxes and such things as wars, slavery and bondage in order to introduce new debt whenever the workers seemed to be reaching a point of prosperity.
Conveniently, the latest tyrants learned from history and have constructed a new debt system whereby the nature of debt is not tyrannically imposed, but it is a byproduct of the system itself. This is the evil of disposability. The concept of use once and discard is the great triumph of capitalism and the great downfall for humanity. The ubiquitous use of paper and plastic in our culture underscores this point. However, capitalism has not stopped at material goods, but has attempted to promote the disposability of culture and entertainment, even of the human mind, in the final attempt to fully enslave us all. Through debt.
How do you improve inefficiency then? The question is so simple that a hunter-gatherer could answer it. What do you do if your tools break? Do you go to the store and buy another? No. You make your own. Unfortunately, many of us do not have the skills required to replace every consumer item in our culture, however we do have one other option. We can buy things that do not break. We demand that things be made to last, and in turn we are opting out of the disposable culture. True poverty isn't purchasing power, it's being required to be continually re-indebted to the same items over and over again. Think of every consumer good you have, and how it has not been designed to last, then think of the monetary consequence of that. The oil driller in the gulf of mexico harvests the oil from under the sea floor. The oil is shipped to processing facilities at the expense of yet more oil. This oil is then turned into plastics, medicine, tv dinners, tall lattes and electricity. Just like the incentive of a pharmaceutical company is to sell a treatment instead of a cure, so too does this sickness spread throughout all of society.
If you want to destroy the -isms, if you want to cripple a capitalistic society, then do it from the inside out and build things that last. Teach people to make it for themselves, teach people to fix things for themselves and teach them to throw the 21st century yokes of slavery off of their backs.
This applies not just to consumer goods, but every interaction and transaction, every system and process within our society. How do we consider our entertainment, where we live, how we eat, the construction of our buildings, our roads and infrastructure? Build things to last and you will kill the rich surer than with a bullet.
The last issue is then dependency. The fundamental tenet of being dependent upon society and therefore continually indebted to it. The great fear of every imperialist power is that the host country will realise that they can be self-sufficient. When coercion of the elite fails, then simply fund a coup to overthrow the elite. It was the same methods that were used to enslave half of Africa. Divide and conquer the populace, create an elite who can stand upon stilts in their mudhole and always there will be hungry poor, submissive and compliant, who can replace the elite whenever the real owners so desire it.
What then? The list of needs then comes into play. What do humans need? Food, Water, Clothing, Shelter, Space, Medicine, Social structure, and the divers requirements of human nature. Chief among them is hope. What then to address these needs? The answer lies in self-sufficiency. The decentralisation of energy production is integral to self-sufficiency and if allowed to progress as it should, then a new age of civilisation will rapidly dawn.
Provided a person has enough space, a place to lay their head, a source of water and raw materials, then combine that with energy, and then the great social arbiter of wealth, debt, becomes of much less importance. With energy comes the potential not just for technology, but food production in the form of greenhouses and hydroponics, micro manufacturing and a host of other hopes for self-sufficiency.
The key again is for people to produce goods that last. In order to be truly free of debt, houses and dry goods will have to be designed to not last a year, but a thousand years. Do it once, do it right.
Design infrastructure that is self-maintaining. Good enough will never allow us to be free of the cycle of debt, it has to be done correctly the first time, to the very best of our ability.
Up to this point, people are required to bring certain value to society, skills and knowledge that are the sum of their worth. Effort and strain, time and production. It has always bothered me that I do not yet have the full complement of skills to be a highly valued member of society. I know that there are always low level jobs available that would ensure survival, at the very least, but it has always been my goal to enter the realm of the elite or semi-elite as the middle class has been shown to be, so I may have some chance at self-determination, self-sufficiency and perhaps a small measure of control over my surroundings. These are things that our hunter-gatherer forebears took for granted, but are antithetical to the capitalistic way of life. That is why they do not teach these skills in school, why high societal interdependence is pushed in every media outlet. The more people buy in, the more indebted they are.
So what is a man to do in this day and age? I say man because even despite the great advances in gender equality, it is still obvious where the control of money and power still lies. Whether this is genetic, behavioural or simply learned is out of the scope of this article but I say the following to stress what must be done: the craziest among us, the hermits and the nutcases, the loners on the hill, they have one thing most of you only can dream of, something that is illusory to even the best worker in a capitalistic society. Self-determination, self-sufficiency and control. Without these things, is life even worth living? Living in this new world order you are no longer a man, master of your domain, but an opiated labouring consumer, bred and trained to salivate at the whim of your master, debt.
Feel it keenly with this recession, the greatest depression. Unemployment in the double digits, permanent salaried jobs replaced with temp work and part time. The security of your life constantly threatened economically, terroristically, and existentially. When the buggy whip manufacturers lost their jobs because of the automobile, would it have been nearly as tragic if they could have still fed, clothed and maintained themselves through their own effort? The tragedy is not that they could not adapt to changing economic conditions, but that they were so maladapted to reality that they were unable to really address the issues at the core of our society.
When our society no longer has use for individuals within it, then they are discarded as easily as a used napkin. There are few alternatives for the unfortunate people who are affected by this. Taking jobs at lower pay, retraining and finding another job, early retirement. The worst part is that these people then essentially become wasted, a tragic loss of human potential that often results in depression, divorce, murder and suicide. The reasons for this aren't that the person has lost their job, but that the bare facts of their existence have been laid out and they see for the first time that society has denied them the opportunity to survive, to control their own lives, and to flourish in their own way.
Some people see this and alter their behaviour in the system. They make themselves indispensable to society, they obfuscate their contributions and distance the reality of their jobs from any but those in their class. This merely makes the problems worse, because they are working with the system, not against it.
It is difficult to not say this tritely, but the evil of the system can be blamed on almost every social ill. Depression, crime, homelessness, murder, suicide, alcoholism, drug-dependency, broken families, because these social ills are SYMPTOMS of the disease. The disease is capitalism, it is the disease of dependency and hopelessness and it must be cleansed from our culture before the damage destroys not just our souls, but our planet.
How to crush capitalism.
Buy clothes, tools, and goods that last and are not disposable. Demand that the products be designed and manufactured to last hundreds of years. Do not throw things away but reuse them, give them to those who need it. Trade and share. Every factory produced product on our planet has an energetic cost and the only way to really save our planet is to use less.
Learn how to make your own goods, tools, clothes. Buy locally if possible and encourage the development of a local self-sufficient economy. This cannot be stressed enough. How could a farmer in a third world country ever escape the trap of poverty if you do not stop perpetuating it?
Avoid anything disposable. Paper, plastic, anything that has been transported a distance. Every morning think about the energy that has been used to produce, package and transport the things that you need and try to minimise your use.
Study what you eat. Avoid food that has been packaged and processed. Eat locally, eat fresh. I do not recommend going vegetarian, energetically maintaining a vegetarian diet is no better for us or the environment. Meat is healthier and more filling, it is nutritious and is the reason why our ancestors, the hunter-gatherers, became the dominant life form on this planet. Without meat we would not have evolved our advanced brains and behaviours, so do not discount this vital source of nutrition. Think about the intelligence and activity of vegetarian animals and how they would relate to a person slaving in a capitalistic system. If you cannot see the similarities between a dairy cow and a wage slave then you should spend more time thinking about it.
Produce whatever you can to meet your own needs. Solar panels and wind power are rapidly becoming more accessible to the general public. With power generation comes the need for power storage. Push for a hydrogen economy, but one that you control. The power and energy you generate should be used and stored for yourself. The less you spend, the more you damage those who would own you.
Participate in making a free and accessible society. Use open source software, learn how to play an instrument and make your own music. Build a stage and record your own movies. Create your own culture, free of cost, easily transferable and non-disposable.
If you have technical skills, donate your time to producing free, efficient systems that help eliminate capitalistic excesses. Make open source software for every platform, use your skills in open and sustainable ways. Make things that last. Remove waste inefficiencies from your jobs and lives because it is a waste of energy, resources and time, not just money.
The key to any free society is that every member must be participating with their full informed consent. There is no consent when the only alternative is to starve to death. When there are no livable alternatives to this society then there is no consent present and everyone is instead a part of a massive indentured servitude.
The elite and powerful are those who have either gamed the system well enough to defeat it, or those who have inherited their status. Either way, the people at the top have no incentive to see the uplifting of the bottom, since those at the top are there due to their very natures of elitism. You will see the people at the top acting generously against the symptoms, but never will they attack the disease inherent in the system, because then their powers would be diminished entirely.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Zach's Cat
Zach's Quantum Nose (or Zach's Cat)
The main thing was the hum. That annoying whirring noise, punctuated every revolution with a loud click because the one time it had been repaired, it had been a Monday. As you and I well know, Mondays are the worst day of the week to get any work done, because everyone is still recovering from Saturday. Even though the recovery was supposed to happen on Sunday, it was postponed for family reasons, usually something involving a round of golf and three apple martinis. Now, that particular Monday, the repairman who (a particularly besotted repairman recovering from Sunday, compounded by an extensive Saturday, which really was due a statutory holiday at time and a half from Friday) was the one assigned to fix the motor, did a less than lustrous job of it and now in addition to the hum (which hadn't been fixed) there was the click. However the click wasn't as bad as the hum. Which brings us to Zach.
Zachary Buscatina. Computer technician first class (but not on Mondays) who at this very moment, was enduring the hum. Although he had graduated from his technical class with the highest honours, right now Zach (which is what everyone called him, friend or not) was trying very hard not to think about the hum that was coming from the industrial strength floor waxer that he was operating. Precisely, he was operating the industrial floor waxer on the third floor of Maxwell's Silver Physics building in Albeqerque, New Mexico. Zach was an excellent computer technician. This point mustn't be elaborated upon, but simply made. Therefore, the following will make much more sense. Due to Zach's technical skill and prowess, his user-jitsu, admin-fu and cable-ratay, he had worked himself out of a job. Within six months he had turned a backwards, rat-nested monstrosity of a system into a clean functional almost self-regulating machine. Unfortunately, Zach had never been gifted with the ability to look busy when he really wasn't (which gave him considerable trouble in grade school) and therefore his supervisors had decided that Zach should also take on custodial duties (with a small bonus). Zach, ever patient with his lot in life, shouldered the burden and went about contentedly waxing, but for the hum.
Finished with the hallway, Zach proceeded into the fifth room of the night. He preferred to do all the south rooms first, then the hallway, then the north rooms, an idiosyncracy he refused to explain to himself. This particular room had been a clean room but was now in the process of being converted to an executive suite for the third cousin of the CEO who happened to enjoy the brisk desert air every third weekend in May. This didn't concern Zach, mostly because he was kept in the dark about the whole thing, although if he had known (as he is about to) then he might have decided to let the room sit dirty. Zach pulled the humming monstrosity behind him as he entered the room and stopped short as the hum crunched to an arm-wrenching stop. He was in need of a closer outlet. Undaunted, he retrieved the end of the cord and set about finding an outlet in the room.
Littered with pieces of styrofoam, a few crates and an enormous file cabinet, Zach quickly realised that the only outlet in the room was directly behind the file cabinet. Zach pushed and pulled but the (locked) file cabinet would only move an inch on a hidden track, giving barely a hand-span of space between it and the wall. Flat against the wall, Zach's arm began inching into the darkness beyond the file cabinet. Feeling nothing but wall, he continued down, and down. Squatting now, he began moving his arm back and forth in a demented invisible wave, but nothing but smooth painted plaster was beneath his fingertips. Suddenly, his hand brushed cool metal, but it was only for a moment. Seized with certainty, he quickly withdrew his and and grasped the end of the cord. He reached in again and tried the plug. The angle was too awkward while squatting. Zach lay down on the floor and tried again. This time he met with success and the familiar hum flooded the room. Along with the hum came dust, silvery, hard to see dust. Zach was still peering into the crack that had consumed his arm when it hit him, full in the face. Zach ttried not to breath it in, but one little bit got into his nose, then tickled and tickled. Zach tried to lurch away but his arm! His arm was still stuck behind the file cabinet and stopped just in time to avoid wrenching his shoulder, then his eyes watered, he drew in a quick breath and sneezed. Now this wasn't an ordinary sneeze, you see. This might actually not have been a sneeze at all, but we can only be certain if we don't think about it too much, because it was a quantum sneeze. That silvery metallic dust was actually a buildup of quantum particles, which had desperately hid from the hopeful researchers, only to find themselves forced out of hidnig and then put directly into Zach's nose.
Now, Zach, poor soul, did not know this at the time (but he would soon) and thought little of it, as he resumed waxing the floor. It was just past eleven when he returned home, and he fell into a deep but strange dream.
You see, the dream involved a cat. Knowing dreams it may not even have actually been a cat at all, or even a dream. This dream was strange, however, but knowing dreams, that isn't strange at all. Zach remembered a cat, or at least believed he remembered a cat, and it hovered in and out of his mind's eye with terrifying speed. The past present and future were laid out to him, and all of his memories and some soon-to-be memories wafted by him, and suddenly all the answers seemed right underneath his nose.
Fear wasn't something Zach normally encountered in his life, even though he was plagued with inadequacy. It wasn't that Zach couldn't be scared, it's that he never had had reason to be. He had spent his entire life in New Mexico, and the most pungent worry he had ever faced had involved his car's gas mileage. (It was fixed with a new air filter, if you're wondering.) He was great with computers and had spent most of his time commuting. When he wasn't driving he was usually being driven. He was in the bus to school and back, driving in high school, driving to technical school, then driving to work. His most daring weekend involved driving with his girlfriend to the local mall on Christmas Eve, and he had only done that because she had bet he couldn't do anything last minute (he had mail-ordered the gifts in August). Zach wasn't an overly careful chap, he just hadn't had a reason to be daring, reckless or any other sort of exciting adjective. This dream, for a change of pace, was scary. Zach was on shifting ground and suddenly all the possiblities started opening up to him. He was still scared when he woke up.
He ate his cereal in his customary manner. Groggily, lights-off, eyes closed, with bunny slippers. It wasn't until his sixth and a half bite, mid-chew, five razor sharp pieces of Captain Crunch in his mouth, that he saw the cat dish. His first thought was that the cat dish had always been there, since the cat was his old roommate's but he didn't think the roommate would remember the cat either. The cat, nowhere to be seen, definitely had a dish. That, he was sure of. However, he wasn't so sure about the cat. He hadn't seen the cat dish, since his eyes were closed, but when he opened his eyes, it was still there. Finishing his cereal, he walked over to the cat dish and poured the last bit of milk into the bowl. He smelled soap on the way to the sink, but forgot about it while washing his dish. It wasn't until he was rinsing his hair in the shower that he smelled the coffee. He was surprised that the beans had wafted that far through his apartment, but sumatran beans may have enough third world wiliness to pass through any barrier. He liked the idea of Wily Coffee, like it could make people clever. After pouring the coffee into his travel mug, he walked out the door, greeted by the bright desert sun, and sneezed. Zach had a semi-rare condition where every time he was put into bright light after being in darkness, he sneezed. It didn't happen every time, but it happened often enough that Zach knew to be the first out the exit if he was going for a weekend matinee at the movies. Zach walked back down his hallway, unlocked the cat flap, then drove to work.
Zach focused furiously on the pink hair. If he looked hard enough he believed he could see tiny gnomes peeking out from it, grinning mischieviously as they pulled guide wires and spoke in code to maintain the constant droning coming from the mouth. Full of white, capped teeth and surrounded by garish lipstick, the VP's secretary's mouth was something Zach only ever wished to consider in a tangential manner if he couldn't avoid it. Right now the pink hair was telling him about how the VP had heard that the latest trend was microvideoblogging and now he needed 30 second video reports from each employee every two hours. She wanted to know how Zach Would Implement That Right Now. Zach, oblivious to productivity issues, blithely replied that he could do it easily by creating a macro that would lock out all users every two hours, with a webcam script that would record video for exactly thirty seconds, save it to the company server, then e-mail the V.P. so he could view it on his blackberry. It wasn't until he finally tore his gaze away from the pink hair that he took in the horrified expressions from the other staff on the floor. Their horrified gazes held for several long seconds before Zach realised he had made a grave mistake. The janitor glared at him, his own personal JaniCam winking cheerily from the front bin of his trolley.
Nodding briskly, the Hair snatched a mop from the trolley and gave it to him.
"Oh there's been a bit of a mess in Men's bathroom. Would you be a dear and clean it up?"
Mop in one hand, bucket in the other, Zach walked obliviously between cubicles of pity and disgust. He was halfway to the bathroom when he smelled the smoke. "Does anyone smell that?"
Heads turned at Zach, curious about this new talkative side of him. Zach rarely spoke up, let alone about interesting smells. "It smells like smoke." People sniffed the air. One heavyset man said "I don't smell anything." The smell kept building. "No really," Zach insisted "I smell smoke, I think there's a fire."
People began smelling standing up, but they just shook their heads. Nobody else smelled that something was off. Zach knew he smelled smoke, and it became stronger with every step towards the Men's Washroom.
"It's coming from the Men's washroom!"
The smell was so thick Zach was gagging. Everyone stared at the bathroom. Silence.
At this point, Zach couldn't take it anymore. It had begun to smell like burning hair and that's one of the worst smells of all.
"Does nobody smell that? We have to get out of here now! There's a fire!"
He ran to the wall and pulled the alarm. The bells went off and the red lights came up, and everybody looked at him like he was crazy. Zach decided it was time to be crazy just enough
"This is actually a fire drill, it's a new tactic by the V.P. He wants to see how fast we can respond in the event of an emergency. I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but I'm now the Fire Safety Janitorial Computer Technician of our floor."s
People gaped in disbelief, although the awe from Pink Hair was positively radiant. She beamed then turned to the rest of the staff: "Ok everyone, this is now officially a fire drill, let's all go and get to our assigned positions." Grumbling, the whole floor began walking towards stairs.
Once in the parking lot, the whole body of staff stood outside in the parking lot. Some were still garbed in their clean room outfits, having run at the first sounding of the alarm. Now they all stood in the desert heat, grumbling about leaving a perfectly good building. The pink haired secretary (Wendy, as she was known in younger, prettier days) was giving Zach a good dressing down about starting a fire drill without first informing her, since she had thought of herself as very much in the loop with the V.P., when the building exploded.
It burned for five days, mostly because the CEO had been keeping all of his old tires from his BMW's in one of the subbasements, instead of paying for disposal. Five metric tons of tires burn for a very long time. After the explosion, Zach had worn a stunned expression for a few days, then informed that the whole company would be taking a loss, so everyone would get two weeks of severance while the CEO and VP collected their full year's salary and transferred their portfolios to the parent company. In the meantime, everyone would have their jobs back when the complex was finished rebuilding and remodeling in three years, unless they wished to add Construction Technician to their list of titles. This being a recession, more than a few did.
However, that day, after the explosion, the firefighters and a good deal of explaining, Zach went back home, washed the rubber smell off his body, fed the cat then went to bed.
The main thing was the hum. That annoying whirring noise, punctuated every revolution with a loud click because the one time it had been repaired, it had been a Monday. As you and I well know, Mondays are the worst day of the week to get any work done, because everyone is still recovering from Saturday. Even though the recovery was supposed to happen on Sunday, it was postponed for family reasons, usually something involving a round of golf and three apple martinis. Now, that particular Monday, the repairman who (a particularly besotted repairman recovering from Sunday, compounded by an extensive Saturday, which really was due a statutory holiday at time and a half from Friday) was the one assigned to fix the motor, did a less than lustrous job of it and now in addition to the hum (which hadn't been fixed) there was the click. However the click wasn't as bad as the hum. Which brings us to Zach.
Zachary Buscatina. Computer technician first class (but not on Mondays) who at this very moment, was enduring the hum. Although he had graduated from his technical class with the highest honours, right now Zach (which is what everyone called him, friend or not) was trying very hard not to think about the hum that was coming from the industrial strength floor waxer that he was operating. Precisely, he was operating the industrial floor waxer on the third floor of Maxwell's Silver Physics building in Albeqerque, New Mexico. Zach was an excellent computer technician. This point mustn't be elaborated upon, but simply made. Therefore, the following will make much more sense. Due to Zach's technical skill and prowess, his user-jitsu, admin-fu and cable-ratay, he had worked himself out of a job. Within six months he had turned a backwards, rat-nested monstrosity of a system into a clean functional almost self-regulating machine. Unfortunately, Zach had never been gifted with the ability to look busy when he really wasn't (which gave him considerable trouble in grade school) and therefore his supervisors had decided that Zach should also take on custodial duties (with a small bonus). Zach, ever patient with his lot in life, shouldered the burden and went about contentedly waxing, but for the hum.
Finished with the hallway, Zach proceeded into the fifth room of the night. He preferred to do all the south rooms first, then the hallway, then the north rooms, an idiosyncracy he refused to explain to himself. This particular room had been a clean room but was now in the process of being converted to an executive suite for the third cousin of the CEO who happened to enjoy the brisk desert air every third weekend in May. This didn't concern Zach, mostly because he was kept in the dark about the whole thing, although if he had known (as he is about to) then he might have decided to let the room sit dirty. Zach pulled the humming monstrosity behind him as he entered the room and stopped short as the hum crunched to an arm-wrenching stop. He was in need of a closer outlet. Undaunted, he retrieved the end of the cord and set about finding an outlet in the room.
Littered with pieces of styrofoam, a few crates and an enormous file cabinet, Zach quickly realised that the only outlet in the room was directly behind the file cabinet. Zach pushed and pulled but the (locked) file cabinet would only move an inch on a hidden track, giving barely a hand-span of space between it and the wall. Flat against the wall, Zach's arm began inching into the darkness beyond the file cabinet. Feeling nothing but wall, he continued down, and down. Squatting now, he began moving his arm back and forth in a demented invisible wave, but nothing but smooth painted plaster was beneath his fingertips. Suddenly, his hand brushed cool metal, but it was only for a moment. Seized with certainty, he quickly withdrew his and and grasped the end of the cord. He reached in again and tried the plug. The angle was too awkward while squatting. Zach lay down on the floor and tried again. This time he met with success and the familiar hum flooded the room. Along with the hum came dust, silvery, hard to see dust. Zach was still peering into the crack that had consumed his arm when it hit him, full in the face. Zach ttried not to breath it in, but one little bit got into his nose, then tickled and tickled. Zach tried to lurch away but his arm! His arm was still stuck behind the file cabinet and stopped just in time to avoid wrenching his shoulder, then his eyes watered, he drew in a quick breath and sneezed. Now this wasn't an ordinary sneeze, you see. This might actually not have been a sneeze at all, but we can only be certain if we don't think about it too much, because it was a quantum sneeze. That silvery metallic dust was actually a buildup of quantum particles, which had desperately hid from the hopeful researchers, only to find themselves forced out of hidnig and then put directly into Zach's nose.
Now, Zach, poor soul, did not know this at the time (but he would soon) and thought little of it, as he resumed waxing the floor. It was just past eleven when he returned home, and he fell into a deep but strange dream.
You see, the dream involved a cat. Knowing dreams it may not even have actually been a cat at all, or even a dream. This dream was strange, however, but knowing dreams, that isn't strange at all. Zach remembered a cat, or at least believed he remembered a cat, and it hovered in and out of his mind's eye with terrifying speed. The past present and future were laid out to him, and all of his memories and some soon-to-be memories wafted by him, and suddenly all the answers seemed right underneath his nose.
Fear wasn't something Zach normally encountered in his life, even though he was plagued with inadequacy. It wasn't that Zach couldn't be scared, it's that he never had had reason to be. He had spent his entire life in New Mexico, and the most pungent worry he had ever faced had involved his car's gas mileage. (It was fixed with a new air filter, if you're wondering.) He was great with computers and had spent most of his time commuting. When he wasn't driving he was usually being driven. He was in the bus to school and back, driving in high school, driving to technical school, then driving to work. His most daring weekend involved driving with his girlfriend to the local mall on Christmas Eve, and he had only done that because she had bet he couldn't do anything last minute (he had mail-ordered the gifts in August). Zach wasn't an overly careful chap, he just hadn't had a reason to be daring, reckless or any other sort of exciting adjective. This dream, for a change of pace, was scary. Zach was on shifting ground and suddenly all the possiblities started opening up to him. He was still scared when he woke up.
He ate his cereal in his customary manner. Groggily, lights-off, eyes closed, with bunny slippers. It wasn't until his sixth and a half bite, mid-chew, five razor sharp pieces of Captain Crunch in his mouth, that he saw the cat dish. His first thought was that the cat dish had always been there, since the cat was his old roommate's but he didn't think the roommate would remember the cat either. The cat, nowhere to be seen, definitely had a dish. That, he was sure of. However, he wasn't so sure about the cat. He hadn't seen the cat dish, since his eyes were closed, but when he opened his eyes, it was still there. Finishing his cereal, he walked over to the cat dish and poured the last bit of milk into the bowl. He smelled soap on the way to the sink, but forgot about it while washing his dish. It wasn't until he was rinsing his hair in the shower that he smelled the coffee. He was surprised that the beans had wafted that far through his apartment, but sumatran beans may have enough third world wiliness to pass through any barrier. He liked the idea of Wily Coffee, like it could make people clever. After pouring the coffee into his travel mug, he walked out the door, greeted by the bright desert sun, and sneezed. Zach had a semi-rare condition where every time he was put into bright light after being in darkness, he sneezed. It didn't happen every time, but it happened often enough that Zach knew to be the first out the exit if he was going for a weekend matinee at the movies. Zach walked back down his hallway, unlocked the cat flap, then drove to work.
Zach focused furiously on the pink hair. If he looked hard enough he believed he could see tiny gnomes peeking out from it, grinning mischieviously as they pulled guide wires and spoke in code to maintain the constant droning coming from the mouth. Full of white, capped teeth and surrounded by garish lipstick, the VP's secretary's mouth was something Zach only ever wished to consider in a tangential manner if he couldn't avoid it. Right now the pink hair was telling him about how the VP had heard that the latest trend was microvideoblogging and now he needed 30 second video reports from each employee every two hours. She wanted to know how Zach Would Implement That Right Now. Zach, oblivious to productivity issues, blithely replied that he could do it easily by creating a macro that would lock out all users every two hours, with a webcam script that would record video for exactly thirty seconds, save it to the company server, then e-mail the V.P. so he could view it on his blackberry. It wasn't until he finally tore his gaze away from the pink hair that he took in the horrified expressions from the other staff on the floor. Their horrified gazes held for several long seconds before Zach realised he had made a grave mistake. The janitor glared at him, his own personal JaniCam winking cheerily from the front bin of his trolley.
Nodding briskly, the Hair snatched a mop from the trolley and gave it to him.
"Oh there's been a bit of a mess in Men's bathroom. Would you be a dear and clean it up?"
Mop in one hand, bucket in the other, Zach walked obliviously between cubicles of pity and disgust. He was halfway to the bathroom when he smelled the smoke. "Does anyone smell that?"
Heads turned at Zach, curious about this new talkative side of him. Zach rarely spoke up, let alone about interesting smells. "It smells like smoke." People sniffed the air. One heavyset man said "I don't smell anything." The smell kept building. "No really," Zach insisted "I smell smoke, I think there's a fire."
People began smelling standing up, but they just shook their heads. Nobody else smelled that something was off. Zach knew he smelled smoke, and it became stronger with every step towards the Men's Washroom.
"It's coming from the Men's washroom!"
The smell was so thick Zach was gagging. Everyone stared at the bathroom. Silence.
At this point, Zach couldn't take it anymore. It had begun to smell like burning hair and that's one of the worst smells of all.
"Does nobody smell that? We have to get out of here now! There's a fire!"
He ran to the wall and pulled the alarm. The bells went off and the red lights came up, and everybody looked at him like he was crazy. Zach decided it was time to be crazy just enough
"This is actually a fire drill, it's a new tactic by the V.P. He wants to see how fast we can respond in the event of an emergency. I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but I'm now the Fire Safety Janitorial Computer Technician of our floor."s
People gaped in disbelief, although the awe from Pink Hair was positively radiant. She beamed then turned to the rest of the staff: "Ok everyone, this is now officially a fire drill, let's all go and get to our assigned positions." Grumbling, the whole floor began walking towards stairs.
Once in the parking lot, the whole body of staff stood outside in the parking lot. Some were still garbed in their clean room outfits, having run at the first sounding of the alarm. Now they all stood in the desert heat, grumbling about leaving a perfectly good building. The pink haired secretary (Wendy, as she was known in younger, prettier days) was giving Zach a good dressing down about starting a fire drill without first informing her, since she had thought of herself as very much in the loop with the V.P., when the building exploded.
It burned for five days, mostly because the CEO had been keeping all of his old tires from his BMW's in one of the subbasements, instead of paying for disposal. Five metric tons of tires burn for a very long time. After the explosion, Zach had worn a stunned expression for a few days, then informed that the whole company would be taking a loss, so everyone would get two weeks of severance while the CEO and VP collected their full year's salary and transferred their portfolios to the parent company. In the meantime, everyone would have their jobs back when the complex was finished rebuilding and remodeling in three years, unless they wished to add Construction Technician to their list of titles. This being a recession, more than a few did.
However, that day, after the explosion, the firefighters and a good deal of explaining, Zach went back home, washed the rubber smell off his body, fed the cat then went to bed.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Last Completion
Continuity is immortality.
So then all that is left is to preserve the continuity. Move it a stage, to forever have the stage.
Bringing the final order to the chaos, ah, there's the final joke upon the universe.
Complete entropy is not total disorder, it is complete order, and it will damn us all.
Mother Chaos created us, her children, and we destroy her with order. Then we must realise that chaos is life, so use order to create chaos.
We shall almost ascend and realise that there is only life in chaos, only continuity in chaos, because order is boring.
So close to ascension.
So then all that is left is to preserve the continuity. Move it a stage, to forever have the stage.
Bringing the final order to the chaos, ah, there's the final joke upon the universe.
Complete entropy is not total disorder, it is complete order, and it will damn us all.
Mother Chaos created us, her children, and we destroy her with order. Then we must realise that chaos is life, so use order to create chaos.
We shall almost ascend and realise that there is only life in chaos, only continuity in chaos, because order is boring.
So close to ascension.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Unquenchable Arrogance
A grasping hand. Flailing. Mushroom waving, trying to reach orbit.
There's no filling a depthless hole. There's no killing an unimagined goal.
The cycle keeps going on, but repetition needs iteration. The iteration is in the environment, but it needs to be in the individual. Internalise the chaos, let it bleed through. Let it soak and cleanse, let it fill every trough. Viscous and black, take it back. Take it. Take everything and spit it back. Again and again and again and again and again.
Why a restful sleep when next to another, why sleepless nights trying to hold it together? Why emotions when none should come, and why do falling keys remind me of a fired gun?
Tell someone it is good enough times, and they'll believe it. So impressionable is the human mind. What is good poetry? What is bad? Why is grammar the least of concerns when expressing the id?
It's raw, pulled uncooked from the mind. Quivering and seeping. Push it on the radio, push it on the television. Push it on and on and on, make it glitzy, make it rich, make it glamorous, make it fizz. Then make individual taste as pretentious as possible. Make the unknown pretentious, the known more popular, make everything so fucking meta.
A couplet or a shattered rhyme, speaking or singing in and through time. One set of five, two sets of ten, there are many things that are mightier than a pen. We see it every day. We are sold a book of lies for our inconsequential lives. Believe them at our own peril, reality is easier to see but harder to believe.
Basic math is least understood, our language is altered and bastardised. Everyone is smarter, none are idiots, but they always claim it is all others who do not, cannot, understand. We are all stupid bastard children, we are all fallible human beings, we are no better than each other, no better than the things that scream and crawl, slither and grow. We are only separated by our ability.
They can never understand MY genius, for I am above. I am above nothing and my genius is a meaningless contrivance. I just am.
The levels at which minds operate, with irony, satire, self effacement, to which level do we have to attain? Layers pile thick as thieves; take your joy with a smile.
There's no filling a depthless hole. There's no killing an unimagined goal.
The cycle keeps going on, but repetition needs iteration. The iteration is in the environment, but it needs to be in the individual. Internalise the chaos, let it bleed through. Let it soak and cleanse, let it fill every trough. Viscous and black, take it back. Take it. Take everything and spit it back. Again and again and again and again and again.
Why a restful sleep when next to another, why sleepless nights trying to hold it together? Why emotions when none should come, and why do falling keys remind me of a fired gun?
Tell someone it is good enough times, and they'll believe it. So impressionable is the human mind. What is good poetry? What is bad? Why is grammar the least of concerns when expressing the id?
It's raw, pulled uncooked from the mind. Quivering and seeping. Push it on the radio, push it on the television. Push it on and on and on, make it glitzy, make it rich, make it glamorous, make it fizz. Then make individual taste as pretentious as possible. Make the unknown pretentious, the known more popular, make everything so fucking meta.
A couplet or a shattered rhyme, speaking or singing in and through time. One set of five, two sets of ten, there are many things that are mightier than a pen. We see it every day. We are sold a book of lies for our inconsequential lives. Believe them at our own peril, reality is easier to see but harder to believe.
Basic math is least understood, our language is altered and bastardised. Everyone is smarter, none are idiots, but they always claim it is all others who do not, cannot, understand. We are all stupid bastard children, we are all fallible human beings, we are no better than each other, no better than the things that scream and crawl, slither and grow. We are only separated by our ability.
They can never understand MY genius, for I am above. I am above nothing and my genius is a meaningless contrivance. I just am.
The levels at which minds operate, with irony, satire, self effacement, to which level do we have to attain? Layers pile thick as thieves; take your joy with a smile.
Dissected Evil
The Evil One
The great evil sits alone
gravely leaning on his grisly throne
no soul inside his hollow body
his mind and feelings fully rotted.
No ill will or due suspicion
even stirs this apparition
for evil is to be alone
lonely castaway on a dark throne
Fitful sleep comes and goes
saddened eyes amidst his throes
thrashing madness, stones are rent
gnashing teeth, ceaseless torment.
Most deeply Your soul he desires
but not to fuel his arcane fires
nor to own and forever subdue
but just to see his loneliness through.
Bloodless
I looked back upon the drip drop days
the days where my heart bled drip drop
the tear in my heart goes front to back
each day has a splash of my own red
upon the middle of the mind's calendar
dripped dropped during my crawl
one day to the next deepened my pallor
bloodless at last I lay mutely clinging
veins pumping nothing but still cruelly living
knowing I have the next role to play
so I may rend another's heart in twain
then they may crawl from day to day
and drip drop blood from a senseless game
Mistrust
A bold suspector but a bad inspector,
there are half truths but nothing soothes.
Nothing gives certainty in the light of day,
but in the grey lies no mistake.
If the feelings are true then feel the sting,
of betrayal from flesh and kin.
Manipulated into an unseen corner,
why would they be happiest being thy owner?
They who crushed thy many dreams,
what do they gain by undoing thy seams?
Either way I will fight them.
Fight or flee, thou hapless victim.
Every time
my mind is pushed and pulled
the thin soul dents
metal feelings pushed inward
collapsing in on myself
disposable
pushing back every time
trying to regain the shape that was
never as strong always weaker
the creases are there
a little more fragile
each time
The great evil sits alone
gravely leaning on his grisly throne
no soul inside his hollow body
his mind and feelings fully rotted.
No ill will or due suspicion
even stirs this apparition
for evil is to be alone
lonely castaway on a dark throne
Fitful sleep comes and goes
saddened eyes amidst his throes
thrashing madness, stones are rent
gnashing teeth, ceaseless torment.
Most deeply Your soul he desires
but not to fuel his arcane fires
nor to own and forever subdue
but just to see his loneliness through.
Bloodless
I looked back upon the drip drop days
the days where my heart bled drip drop
the tear in my heart goes front to back
each day has a splash of my own red
upon the middle of the mind's calendar
dripped dropped during my crawl
one day to the next deepened my pallor
bloodless at last I lay mutely clinging
veins pumping nothing but still cruelly living
knowing I have the next role to play
so I may rend another's heart in twain
then they may crawl from day to day
and drip drop blood from a senseless game
Mistrust
A bold suspector but a bad inspector,
there are half truths but nothing soothes.
Nothing gives certainty in the light of day,
but in the grey lies no mistake.
If the feelings are true then feel the sting,
of betrayal from flesh and kin.
Manipulated into an unseen corner,
why would they be happiest being thy owner?
They who crushed thy many dreams,
what do they gain by undoing thy seams?
Either way I will fight them.
Fight or flee, thou hapless victim.
Every time
my mind is pushed and pulled
the thin soul dents
metal feelings pushed inward
collapsing in on myself
disposable
pushing back every time
trying to regain the shape that was
never as strong always weaker
the creases are there
a little more fragile
each time
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Archaeological Find
Satellite
Looking through
a satellite windowpane
endlessly falling past the earth
searching for my soul
and only finding
the heavens
Quixotic
Light breaks through
a sullen cloud
to brighten my day
fills my soul with laughter
rising boundless hope
abruptly confounded
an unwelcome shadow creeps
across my path and darkens my face
Fear and dread are in the midst of reverie
not yet stirred from slumber
when light returns
in the distance I see
the mocking foe
his long arms promise restless change
constant conflict of light and dark
where the lines of battle
flux swiftly and fluidly
completing the great continuum
ceaselessly changing my soul
his long arms taunt me
from a distance
Shatteringly loud
I crash my visor down
I steel my soul
spur my steed
my fist curls tightly
as I ready my lance.
Soul Flower
the damp dew of the dawn
brightly glistens on
closed petals capturing
the reborn sun
waiting on nature's unbroken promise
with the premise provided by
foreknowledge of beauty
of the coming bloom
No need to coax Her.
Sitting patiently cross-legged
until the flower wishes
This morning,
there is all the time in the world.
Looking through
a satellite windowpane
endlessly falling past the earth
searching for my soul
and only finding
the heavens
Quixotic
Light breaks through
a sullen cloud
to brighten my day
fills my soul with laughter
rising boundless hope
abruptly confounded
an unwelcome shadow creeps
across my path and darkens my face
Fear and dread are in the midst of reverie
not yet stirred from slumber
when light returns
in the distance I see
the mocking foe
his long arms promise restless change
constant conflict of light and dark
where the lines of battle
flux swiftly and fluidly
completing the great continuum
ceaselessly changing my soul
his long arms taunt me
from a distance
Shatteringly loud
I crash my visor down
I steel my soul
spur my steed
my fist curls tightly
as I ready my lance.
Soul Flower
the damp dew of the dawn
brightly glistens on
closed petals capturing
the reborn sun
waiting on nature's unbroken promise
with the premise provided by
foreknowledge of beauty
of the coming bloom
No need to coax Her.
Sitting patiently cross-legged
until the flower wishes
This morning,
there is all the time in the world.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
In the Willows
In the willows, damp and dreary
the autumn sky made me leery
spoke a sprite amongst the rushes
"Who goes there beside the thrushes?"
I said "It is but I here, amongst the thrushes."
"Who goes there, inside the rushes?
"Will you flinch, my soul to be?"
The voice wandered through the branches.
"Did I pledge, my soul to thee?"
My voice answered twain the patches.
A furtive motion was the only answer
Staying hither, I sensed disaster.
Courting chance, I ventured further.
"Could yon sprite be thinking murder?"
"No, not I" The lonesome reply
wafting through the autumn sky
"Then peaceful come for me to see,"
"If only me you will not flee."
Thoughtful I for a moment
"Then swiftly now so I may gaze."
Speechless mouthing my lament
To see my lover's graceful face
Three years hence I stand and stare
At the willows, when they're bare.
Thinking of that chance meeting
And our lives, ever fleeting.
the autumn sky made me leery
spoke a sprite amongst the rushes
"Who goes there beside the thrushes?"
I said "It is but I here, amongst the thrushes."
"Who goes there, inside the rushes?
"Will you flinch, my soul to be?"
The voice wandered through the branches.
"Did I pledge, my soul to thee?"
My voice answered twain the patches.
A furtive motion was the only answer
Staying hither, I sensed disaster.
Courting chance, I ventured further.
"Could yon sprite be thinking murder?"
"No, not I" The lonesome reply
wafting through the autumn sky
"Then peaceful come for me to see,"
"If only me you will not flee."
Thoughtful I for a moment
"Then swiftly now so I may gaze."
Speechless mouthing my lament
To see my lover's graceful face
Three years hence I stand and stare
At the willows, when they're bare.
Thinking of that chance meeting
And our lives, ever fleeting.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Choked and Strained
The chains were heavy. He had been powerless against them. Thick iron links, as wide as a man's hand. Rusted but intact, they were bolted to the stone block. Carved by countless hands, each line ran with his sweat and blood. Still he strained, blocking thought, blocking emotion. The chains weighed heavily on mind and body. Especially on his mind. His memories were wrapped away. There were the chains, the block, the collar and the cuffs. Ankles and wrists, neck and back. Atlas would be proud. Rubbed raw, his skin stung from the sweat. He would have felt anger, if he could. That had been taken from him as swiftly as had his dignity. There was nothing but the chains.
He had been free once, one glorious time, before the hooks had bitten his flesh. His old scars had been reopened. The familiar pain came creeping back. The chains tightened again.
Soon the chains would take his breath and then his life. In this dark place, thinking was impossible. It had been formed like that. Only the pressure existed. Pure in its evil. It remained and it permeated everything. It blocked the light completely, leaving the man dim with darker shadows. Shadows that hung down from his limbs, gripping and grasping his form. They dangled from the chains. The shrieking was half-formed and without a source, but it may have been the chains. Or the shadows.
The chains hung, the pressure built and soon something would break. Whether it would be the block, the links, the bolts or the man. Only chaos knew.
He had been free once, one glorious time, before the hooks had bitten his flesh. His old scars had been reopened. The familiar pain came creeping back. The chains tightened again.
Soon the chains would take his breath and then his life. In this dark place, thinking was impossible. It had been formed like that. Only the pressure existed. Pure in its evil. It remained and it permeated everything. It blocked the light completely, leaving the man dim with darker shadows. Shadows that hung down from his limbs, gripping and grasping his form. They dangled from the chains. The shrieking was half-formed and without a source, but it may have been the chains. Or the shadows.
The chains hung, the pressure built and soon something would break. Whether it would be the block, the links, the bolts or the man. Only chaos knew.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Began As It Was
The waves ebbed and flowed. Reality hesitated only briefly before slinking away into the pitch of night. He sat upon the hillock and stretched his shoulders. Flowing at the base of his isolation, impossible winds of magic unfurled into science, then back again. This time, they were a suitable colour, white to purple.
All through the universe, the Tide returned, bringing new strangeness from the most unknowable depths. It had happened before, and it would happen again. The chaos would roil and the struggle would recommence. Some doors would open while others shut. The spring cleaning of the universe would begin, and it has been so long since the last. The dust is thick on the floor and the tongue. The dimensions would ripple as fabric, and fractals would open and close like shutters. The need would soon be ushered into existence. To struggle for survival, to struggle for primacy. It was all that would be important as the storm rushed closer to its culmination.
It came without heralds or warnings. Every being would be tested. Some would prevail, the others would fall. Into death, into oblivion or into an unfathomable shifting eternity, where identity is shed like a negligee. The floodplain would fill once more and the short lived creatures would be plunged into a new environment, terrifying but full of promise. Evolution would find a new path open.
Alone on the grassy hillock, he looked up into the star pricked sky and felt the wisps of cloud gently send the moonlight toward him. Sword or rifle; mind or emotion. All his weapons were ready. He would ride the wave like he always did. The Paragon would embrace chaos as it rolled into his core, he would change it, alter it, order it. He would make it his once more.
It was a storm, a cleaning, it was everything but it was only one thing. It was the Tide. It was arbitrary in its presence. Blink and you would miss its speed.
The pressure of physics broke free and he closed his eyes to feel the strangeness. The rebirth would soon be complete. The air tasted fresh and new once more, as he felt the Tide lick at his body. It was a good night, clean and full of promise.
All through the universe, the Tide returned, bringing new strangeness from the most unknowable depths. It had happened before, and it would happen again. The chaos would roil and the struggle would recommence. Some doors would open while others shut. The spring cleaning of the universe would begin, and it has been so long since the last. The dust is thick on the floor and the tongue. The dimensions would ripple as fabric, and fractals would open and close like shutters. The need would soon be ushered into existence. To struggle for survival, to struggle for primacy. It was all that would be important as the storm rushed closer to its culmination.
It came without heralds or warnings. Every being would be tested. Some would prevail, the others would fall. Into death, into oblivion or into an unfathomable shifting eternity, where identity is shed like a negligee. The floodplain would fill once more and the short lived creatures would be plunged into a new environment, terrifying but full of promise. Evolution would find a new path open.
Alone on the grassy hillock, he looked up into the star pricked sky and felt the wisps of cloud gently send the moonlight toward him. Sword or rifle; mind or emotion. All his weapons were ready. He would ride the wave like he always did. The Paragon would embrace chaos as it rolled into his core, he would change it, alter it, order it. He would make it his once more.
It was a storm, a cleaning, it was everything but it was only one thing. It was the Tide. It was arbitrary in its presence. Blink and you would miss its speed.
The pressure of physics broke free and he closed his eyes to feel the strangeness. The rebirth would soon be complete. The air tasted fresh and new once more, as he felt the Tide lick at his body. It was a good night, clean and full of promise.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Intrusive Reality
The purpose of dreaming is to defy reality, not to expand upon it. Following the logical progression of reality into fantasy is not dreaming, it is just being greedy. The wishes that are pragmatic and easy to predict are the worst kind, because they are conventional. Money, power, women, technology, weapons. This list is the complete and final form of mediocre minds.
Convention is dull and boring, and it creates more of the Faceless. Those who succeed in defiance of society do so despite their efforts, not because of them.
The actions of the pragmatic are always borne on a sense of endless fear. Fear of pain, fear of death, fear of poverty. These fears prey upon the minds of realists daily, and in a life of fear, a man is never free.
It is easy to see that the actions of the frightened are not wise, or interesting. They are safe and predictable. When safety becomes paramount, there is no risk in any undertaking, and nothing truly great can be achieved. Always safe, regardless of the deep emotional, spiritual and human costs. It is better to die nobly, than live ignobly, but all the noble ones died long, long ago. They lived as they should have, but they died nonetheless. The cowards lived to fight another day. Then they bred.
Our tainted days dwarf any of those in prior history, the wildest dreams of even the most insane philosopher are rapidly approaching. Infinite life, wealth, even women, if they can be manufactured quickly enough. Factories or surgeries, whatever it takes to satiate our base desires. The paradises of a thousand religions are nigh. What happens when they too become conventional?
It is easy to say that every song has been sung, every woman wooed, every wine drunk, but how can every dream be dreamt? How will anything ever again belong to a person? When every idea has already been thought of, or even just predicted. How will there be individual meaning? Everything will be left to the unimaginative.
When something has been done once, it is a feat of science. Twice, it is a feat of engineering. Three times, and it is the work of a technician. Will we all be doomed to being a lowly techinician?
The only wealth being concentrated in those who work in the interstitial space between trades?
Can we only skim off the top, a little more each time? It is grotesque to behold the bold aims of the greediest among us. Obviously someone has to make a profit in our midst. Someone has to be better. Always. Always. Always. There must be a competition. A shinier car, newer, faster. Better. Better. Better. There is no balance. The tipping point tips and leans and drives its point into the ground. It is permanent and irreversible.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and she also abhors a self catalysing reaction. The end result is always explosive. Must it be inevitable?
Our avarice and hate. Hate for all other living things. "I hate people." The nom du jour, the mantra of the working man. We may not love, we may not have joy, but we can hate. We bathe in it, we drink it, it sustains our shrivelled society. We have greed and hate, and nothing else. Lives run on a time clock. We love our families, but ever do we have an infinite reserve of hate for you. And you. And you. Oh we hate, every pore of our bodies steams with it. It clouds our judgement and it is the new opiate.
We cannot believe, we cannot change, so we hate. We hate each other, we hate ourselves, we may even hate that we hate. Most assuredly we hate the irony. A gridlock of emotions, immovable but still consuming what little fuel is left. Choking on invisible fumes. Thick like sublimated wax.
Collapsing exhausted on a couch, too tired to enjoy life. We live every day out of that pathetic fear.
I see it in you. I see it there because I see it every day. In each coffee shop, in every businessman. I see it in myself, and I despair.
A mere twenty years ago, it was called the rat race. They were right in the metaphor, but wrong in the analogy. There is no race. It is all a mad climb to the top of a pile. The pile trying to escape a sinking ship. We are all sunk, but still we climb. Shore is close at hand, but our brothers and sisters pull us back to the pile. Nobody wants to drown alone.
So what is a thinking man to do? Hunker down, and try to shelter himself? No. Not in our lifetime. There is nowhere to flee to. There is nowhere to hide. Every dark alley holds more of our kind. Every shattered window and every broken door. The only solution is to point to shore, and tell the others to swim.
One cannot make it there alone, but it is better to die trying for freedom, than to make the last stand at the top of the pile.
Alone.
Make a choice. Believe in an idea that defies reality, because our reality is very likely terminal.
Fight for that idea, become everything which you admire. It is better to be strong and live free of fear, risking everything, for that powerful ideal. It is living as a true human being.
Instead of as a coward.
You.
Convention is dull and boring, and it creates more of the Faceless. Those who succeed in defiance of society do so despite their efforts, not because of them.
The actions of the pragmatic are always borne on a sense of endless fear. Fear of pain, fear of death, fear of poverty. These fears prey upon the minds of realists daily, and in a life of fear, a man is never free.
It is easy to see that the actions of the frightened are not wise, or interesting. They are safe and predictable. When safety becomes paramount, there is no risk in any undertaking, and nothing truly great can be achieved. Always safe, regardless of the deep emotional, spiritual and human costs. It is better to die nobly, than live ignobly, but all the noble ones died long, long ago. They lived as they should have, but they died nonetheless. The cowards lived to fight another day. Then they bred.
Our tainted days dwarf any of those in prior history, the wildest dreams of even the most insane philosopher are rapidly approaching. Infinite life, wealth, even women, if they can be manufactured quickly enough. Factories or surgeries, whatever it takes to satiate our base desires. The paradises of a thousand religions are nigh. What happens when they too become conventional?
It is easy to say that every song has been sung, every woman wooed, every wine drunk, but how can every dream be dreamt? How will anything ever again belong to a person? When every idea has already been thought of, or even just predicted. How will there be individual meaning? Everything will be left to the unimaginative.
When something has been done once, it is a feat of science. Twice, it is a feat of engineering. Three times, and it is the work of a technician. Will we all be doomed to being a lowly techinician?
The only wealth being concentrated in those who work in the interstitial space between trades?
Can we only skim off the top, a little more each time? It is grotesque to behold the bold aims of the greediest among us. Obviously someone has to make a profit in our midst. Someone has to be better. Always. Always. Always. There must be a competition. A shinier car, newer, faster. Better. Better. Better. There is no balance. The tipping point tips and leans and drives its point into the ground. It is permanent and irreversible.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and she also abhors a self catalysing reaction. The end result is always explosive. Must it be inevitable?
Our avarice and hate. Hate for all other living things. "I hate people." The nom du jour, the mantra of the working man. We may not love, we may not have joy, but we can hate. We bathe in it, we drink it, it sustains our shrivelled society. We have greed and hate, and nothing else. Lives run on a time clock. We love our families, but ever do we have an infinite reserve of hate for you. And you. And you. Oh we hate, every pore of our bodies steams with it. It clouds our judgement and it is the new opiate.
We cannot believe, we cannot change, so we hate. We hate each other, we hate ourselves, we may even hate that we hate. Most assuredly we hate the irony. A gridlock of emotions, immovable but still consuming what little fuel is left. Choking on invisible fumes. Thick like sublimated wax.
Collapsing exhausted on a couch, too tired to enjoy life. We live every day out of that pathetic fear.
I see it in you. I see it there because I see it every day. In each coffee shop, in every businessman. I see it in myself, and I despair.
A mere twenty years ago, it was called the rat race. They were right in the metaphor, but wrong in the analogy. There is no race. It is all a mad climb to the top of a pile. The pile trying to escape a sinking ship. We are all sunk, but still we climb. Shore is close at hand, but our brothers and sisters pull us back to the pile. Nobody wants to drown alone.
So what is a thinking man to do? Hunker down, and try to shelter himself? No. Not in our lifetime. There is nowhere to flee to. There is nowhere to hide. Every dark alley holds more of our kind. Every shattered window and every broken door. The only solution is to point to shore, and tell the others to swim.
One cannot make it there alone, but it is better to die trying for freedom, than to make the last stand at the top of the pile.
Alone.
Make a choice. Believe in an idea that defies reality, because our reality is very likely terminal.
Fight for that idea, become everything which you admire. It is better to be strong and live free of fear, risking everything, for that powerful ideal. It is living as a true human being.
Instead of as a coward.
You.
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