all deviants must do this. indeed, every individual is their own person so that everyone deviates. the norm is platonic.
the various requirements of the evolved agreements of allowable ways to behave are meant to substitute for the application of force by personal whim. some rigor is required by participants in such violence-reducing schemes in order to restrain and forestall the violence. The hard edge of the inwardly peace-enforcing culture has to adequately deal with the potential for violence at its territorial & conceptual edges. The required rigor is difficult to calibrate, easy to abuse, easy to do wrong.
it is necessary to have this acknowledgement of an edge to a culture by its participants. it is necessary that there be agreement at some level by the participants of a culture on how things are done. the alternative is personalized violence on whatever scale the warlords happen to be operating on. who are the warlords? they are the people who like to make war. either the peaceful people hire them or they go into business for themselves. there are plenty of them around: people who like to fight, enough of them to force their way of life on the rest of us pretty much constantly during human history. culture is an ongoing varied attempt to bottle the violent people and keep them within something otherwise they would take over the world and fight forever because that is what they like to do.
the peaceful people have to talk the fighters into not fighting. the fighters would rather fight. sometimes the peaceful people have to make up stuff to tell the fighters, other times they have to threaten to do something they declare to be "bad" that is or isn't violent itself, or they have to give the fighters something to do: give them some trouble to keep them out of trouble, maybe even make something up. it doesn't always work. fighters regularly take over governing systems, go to war, make messes and debts. all sorts of problems emerge when one is working in an emergency.
we could kill all the fighters but that probably wouldn't work. it seems to be a thing that comes out in the male gender. would have to kill all the males.
predeliction to violence:
step on the bug. bug dies. half step on the bug. bug half dies. front half tries to get away from squashed back half. maybe it does, front half goes crawling off oozing goo from behind. collapses, wiggles legs, twitches, dies.
chop worms into pieces, wriggling pieces of worm pain as they try to get away from the monster who smears the pieces into the ground then picks up unsmeared wiggly pieces and shows them to a girl. If the girl is a bird or maybe even a monkey she's going to eat the pieces, if she's a human maybe she's going to go "yuk" and maybe the 10 year old torture boy will take them and rub them into the hair of a convenient peripheral male or maybe he's so deep into pain creation that he tries it on the girl and trouble can emerge because maybe that's kind of over the line for that culture maybe (or maybe the peripheral male or the girl had training in the ways of war, it is not impossible that 10 year olds can have that training.
public torture and execution wildly popular spectacles throughout human history. public eating (of dead things) one of greatest human funs. public sex (as opposite of violence, more on that later), very rare. public pooping and peeing (as opposite of eating) essentially does not happen in human culture, when it does it is described as social failure.
violence: some people that is what they live for.
megalomania: many of us have experienced that. in 1979 i used an accellerant during the iran hostage crisis, right at the beginning. i was as the facebook group "new to islam" was toying with the possibility of a muslim identity to wear. the crisis brand new, that night a bunch of notables at sunni al-azhar univ in cairo issued a statement calling on the shi'a (dogs) in iran to release the embassy staff, one of the charges was that the embassy was a nest of spies, the azharis announced of course its a nest of spies, that's what embassies are. and i thought in my accellerant modified state (annoying to people in the apartment who had to go to school/work tomorrow but i didn't care, accellerated was what i was) you know, maybe something can be done. i was in nyc, i imagined going to the un to pray, people would ask me, i'd tell them i was there to pray for hostage release, come join me, it would spread, the whole world would stop & pray, the game players in iran would be melted gandhi-style & the world would be saved.
next day i have enough oomph in "me" to sell that crazy vision on my girlfriend, we subwayed up to the un & did a couple of hours of prayer out on the sidewalk. some people stopped to talk, some took pictures, none joined us. we gave up & went on with our lives. do you suppose if we had stayed there for 40 days & 40 nights it would have worked? 40 years?
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
avocations, experts
predelictions may, if the owner of that predeliction is curious and adventurous, lead to study, which may lead to expertise. you want to know something you go to the expert. the movie maker, the geek, the prostitute, the drug user, the money maker, the cook, the mercenary, anything. the vast store of human expertise.
but really i must examine the yuk factor because that is where the trouble is. that and greed. we develop expertise in things other people find regretable. people who don't share our minority predeliction can be induced perhaps to ignore us in our practice, if we refuse to let them ignore us there can get to be trouble.
but really i must examine the yuk factor because that is where the trouble is. that and greed. we develop expertise in things other people find regretable. people who don't share our minority predeliction can be induced perhaps to ignore us in our practice, if we refuse to let them ignore us there can get to be trouble.
shapes of desire
really all that is necessary is that rich people stop hoarding. the "good" ones all say "soon as i get things where i want them for the family i'll go into philanthropy bigtime." the "bad" ones just say "you can never have too much stuff." the rest of "us" don't do that. we tolerate these megahoarders in our midst because we are peaceful and they are militant about getting and keeping their stuff. there are not more of "them" than there are of "us," the opposite. but "we" do not have that fire in the belly about "stuff." so we do not wipe them out. "we" are passive. most of us. we let stuff happen.
most of us like to reference higher authority to justify whatever it is we do. doesn't matter what it is, the habit is to allow someone else to take the responsibility: the boss, the staff, the saviour, whatever.
predelictions: i found myself drawn to things. small shiny objects, snakes, turtles, comics, ancient history, pictures of naked female humans, french fries. i found myself not interested in: guns, cars, sports, meat on the bone, fighting. first i didn't like horror movies because they were scary, later because they were stupid. i was a beta child, picked next to last for the team, would fight but only if i had to, maybe i'd do ok, sometimes i'd definitively lose.
predelictions: things that make the heart go pitterpat, the senses become more alert, the body elevated into a higher gear of one sort or another. that state of enhanced experience can be obtained by many widely varying methods, basic athletic activity is probably the easiest and most commonly used method. problems can develop with any of them if recklessly engaged in. food enjoyment perhaps the worst at this planetary human moment. the thought of the delectibility of dinner bringing the sympathetic saliva, the enjoyable pulse surge, the slight flush of the cutaneous capillaries, increased secretions, turning into an arrow of desire: i want that thing. want it again. want again. again.
most of us like to reference higher authority to justify whatever it is we do. doesn't matter what it is, the habit is to allow someone else to take the responsibility: the boss, the staff, the saviour, whatever.
predelictions: i found myself drawn to things. small shiny objects, snakes, turtles, comics, ancient history, pictures of naked female humans, french fries. i found myself not interested in: guns, cars, sports, meat on the bone, fighting. first i didn't like horror movies because they were scary, later because they were stupid. i was a beta child, picked next to last for the team, would fight but only if i had to, maybe i'd do ok, sometimes i'd definitively lose.
predelictions: things that make the heart go pitterpat, the senses become more alert, the body elevated into a higher gear of one sort or another. that state of enhanced experience can be obtained by many widely varying methods, basic athletic activity is probably the easiest and most commonly used method. problems can develop with any of them if recklessly engaged in. food enjoyment perhaps the worst at this planetary human moment. the thought of the delectibility of dinner bringing the sympathetic saliva, the enjoyable pulse surge, the slight flush of the cutaneous capillaries, increased secretions, turning into an arrow of desire: i want that thing. want it again. want again. again.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
catchers
people want what they want & thats all there is to it. first desire then the explanation.
so there is pitching and catching. it is possible to get real good at either position.
in sports it is mostly the pitcher that gets the worship. the catcher job is to fend off the heat mostly, except in baseball where the catcher job is to catch. imagine a game where the skill of the catcher would be to elegantly catch, you know, everything that was thrown at it. balls, sticks, rhymes, machines, people, nature. what would it be like if the catcher was the hero of the game? like in, say, porn. celebration/worship of catching. exotically athletic catching.
an olympic sport consisting of people punching their way out of specially constructed paper bags.
we like to talk about what weve accomplished. legendary feats of catching celebrated only over in corners of shared understanding, the rest of them concerned with pointy objects projected.
which makes sense because pointy objects can be dangerous but catchers do not damage except if they engulf & drown but thats food, where the two directions of flow come together. later for food. i want to start with outer layers: relations between membranes.
catcher worship as the catcher accepts everything and transmutes it by that acceptance into a heartthrob echo of higher places.
so there is pitching and catching. it is possible to get real good at either position.
in sports it is mostly the pitcher that gets the worship. the catcher job is to fend off the heat mostly, except in baseball where the catcher job is to catch. imagine a game where the skill of the catcher would be to elegantly catch, you know, everything that was thrown at it. balls, sticks, rhymes, machines, people, nature. what would it be like if the catcher was the hero of the game? like in, say, porn. celebration/worship of catching. exotically athletic catching.
an olympic sport consisting of people punching their way out of specially constructed paper bags.
we like to talk about what weve accomplished. legendary feats of catching celebrated only over in corners of shared understanding, the rest of them concerned with pointy objects projected.
which makes sense because pointy objects can be dangerous but catchers do not damage except if they engulf & drown but thats food, where the two directions of flow come together. later for food. i want to start with outer layers: relations between membranes.
catcher worship as the catcher accepts everything and transmutes it by that acceptance into a heartthrob echo of higher places.
Monday, July 18, 2011
why its better
secret ingredient.
it is not necessary to employ secret ingredients. the tunnel through the darkness to the light can be dug by bleeding and torn hands with a broken heart but that is not required. tools can be used, can be invented, can be found. no sin inherent in use of tools. always possible to abuse. so what then, do nothing?
proper tool for particular job. right size, right shape, right chemical composition. carefully applied in proper circumstance, an enhanced result obtained.
because we are allowed in human culture to discuss only certain things and not others it is essentially not happening that users of certain tools are not able to speak in favor of their as it were responsible way of doing things. the things they do or make that cannot be freely mentioned or even perhaps freely engaged in for whatever reason. such usages perhaps riling to the neighbors. working on a bunch of cars in the yard maybe, bottle cap collecting, certain controlled substances used in certain ways. edge activity.
so: discussions of pleasure, crime, law.
it is not necessary to employ secret ingredients. the tunnel through the darkness to the light can be dug by bleeding and torn hands with a broken heart but that is not required. tools can be used, can be invented, can be found. no sin inherent in use of tools. always possible to abuse. so what then, do nothing?
proper tool for particular job. right size, right shape, right chemical composition. carefully applied in proper circumstance, an enhanced result obtained.
because we are allowed in human culture to discuss only certain things and not others it is essentially not happening that users of certain tools are not able to speak in favor of their as it were responsible way of doing things. the things they do or make that cannot be freely mentioned or even perhaps freely engaged in for whatever reason. such usages perhaps riling to the neighbors. working on a bunch of cars in the yard maybe, bottle cap collecting, certain controlled substances used in certain ways. edge activity.
so: discussions of pleasure, crime, law.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
handshake
they know we dont know the difference between right and left. they know that we use paper. they think that were dirty. like the dogs we like to have as pets. we wipe and maybe we wash our hands but still we wiped rather than washed and we probably used our right hand because we dont know the difference. eew, and then we always want to shake hands. its just gross all around. they cant wait until we fall and they dont have to ape our manners anymore with that bs handshaking hugging air kissing public touching stuff. ug. they think.
but i dream bonobo dreams.
national geographic of course. lions are mating. the camera is to the side and below them, we see mostly their faces. hes snarling ears back just exactly like hes going to kill something and shes all smug and full of it. we took a goat to get serviced and he jumped and jabbed twice and she got that look on her face: filled up. i watched her skin tone change on the way home in the back of the truck. skin got more turgid, lips puffed up. body melted and reset. smell of billygoat drifting off her body.
snarling lion. the shared pathways of violence and sex.
the 7 deadly sins:
but i dream bonobo dreams.
national geographic of course. lions are mating. the camera is to the side and below them, we see mostly their faces. hes snarling ears back just exactly like hes going to kill something and shes all smug and full of it. we took a goat to get serviced and he jumped and jabbed twice and she got that look on her face: filled up. i watched her skin tone change on the way home in the back of the truck. skin got more turgid, lips puffed up. body melted and reset. smell of billygoat drifting off her body.
snarling lion. the shared pathways of violence and sex.
the 7 deadly sins:
- one might imagine that they are listed in some kind of rank order but that cant be right, can it.
and must deal with this silly multiincidence of "rightness" referring to a direction, an angle, the opposite of wrongness, and a political philosophy. in my world thats all it is, so when i use the word i can use it any of those ways and itll be "right." in context. and its worse than that. write, rite. stupid language. like chang chang chang.
conditional imperative
must write. must write. dont want to write. sloth. fear of effort. all for naught. drag seared bleeding body through rocky desert to reach the end all for naught. burning light from above. me to create the only shadow.
coolness in the shadow. cant see in the shadow. dark in the dark. if its my dark i can be comfortable in here.
i crawl on, creating my darkness below me, the only inside, where i can be me. i stand between me and my shadow. crawling i stand.
dont want to write. a life devised to avoid things. culture built so that all things can be operated on out of the space between hand and eye. come here all you things over here where i can get you hands on you.
worms in puddle after rain. stupid worms. in the freedom of nature a boy is playing with them, mashing them with his shoed foot, another boy watches, asks first boy why, :cause i want to: and the snarl and clenched fist like hes prepared to fight for his right to kill worms.
second boys son, younger than boy one, him too, with the worms. pulls them until they are broken inside, then pulls them apart. you know, i said, when you do that they get dead. :i want them to be dead: he seems to have become a fine young man he does.
i curl up into my shadow. i expand my shadow. my hole. my refuge from the burning light, the rocks, the thorns, the wild dogs. the more i curl the smaller it gets. only i stand between the burning light and my shadow. the light & the heat, sharp rocks, etc. compell action. one moves and dies or one is still and dies.
the trick was that the shadow turned out not to be empty. away from the necessities displayed in the light. darkness, where the ghosts of possibility live.
coolness in the shadow. cant see in the shadow. dark in the dark. if its my dark i can be comfortable in here.
i crawl on, creating my darkness below me, the only inside, where i can be me. i stand between me and my shadow. crawling i stand.
dont want to write. a life devised to avoid things. culture built so that all things can be operated on out of the space between hand and eye. come here all you things over here where i can get you hands on you.
worms in puddle after rain. stupid worms. in the freedom of nature a boy is playing with them, mashing them with his shoed foot, another boy watches, asks first boy why, :cause i want to: and the snarl and clenched fist like hes prepared to fight for his right to kill worms.
second boys son, younger than boy one, him too, with the worms. pulls them until they are broken inside, then pulls them apart. you know, i said, when you do that they get dead. :i want them to be dead: he seems to have become a fine young man he does.
i curl up into my shadow. i expand my shadow. my hole. my refuge from the burning light, the rocks, the thorns, the wild dogs. the more i curl the smaller it gets. only i stand between the burning light and my shadow. the light & the heat, sharp rocks, etc. compell action. one moves and dies or one is still and dies.
the trick was that the shadow turned out not to be empty. away from the necessities displayed in the light. darkness, where the ghosts of possibility live.
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