Working Town

Here's a song I wrote about twelve years ago after finding the courage to give up a lucrative I.T. career and moving back to Scooterville in order to begin a life of mindfulness, creativity, charity and guidance... so I thought. Immediately there was resistance. The song was in reflection of that, an observation; in no way a rant. At least that's how it is in my memory.

I was knocked off course, though, and never really got back on the same track. I've become better at some things and worse at others, and never regained so much focus again.

The theme for poetry club this month is transformation. So I dusted this off and compiled a proper video. Looking at the result, song and video arranged over a decade apart, I can see a difference in attitude. I look back at that time with more love and forgiveness. If I was trying to blame others before, that was unwise, and I'm not anymore.

Some-Idiot

Some-IDIOT: this is a sort of safe word used in place of the dreaded T _ _ _ p word; the unspeakable name of the great orange psychotic pea-brained narcissist who was recently granted the largely-ceremonial role of President of the United Semi-automatic-gun-peoples of America (a.k.a.: USA) by a minority voting contingent comprised of gullible morons; filthy stinking racists; redneck gun-humping fucknutters; the criminally rich and other miscellaneous confused scaredy cats, along with an exceptionally goofy antiquated system known as the Exceptionally Goofy Antiquated Electoral College, or Electoral College for short, who's job it is to inflate the voting power of slave states through a mind-boggling patchwork of qualifiers, legal ambiguity and an approval rating among American citizens which has lingered in a decided minority since your grandparents first danced the jitterbug.

Basically it artificially stops the more-popular Democrats from keeping power and creates a flip-flopping two-party experience which nurtures enough hostile tribal delirium among the peoples that they won't be inclined to stop and think about who the real enemy might be, because THAT would be holy-shit-bad-bad-news for the wee horde of miscreants who have been getting away with gleefully running (or owning as they put it) the country and stuffing their pockets under cover of a maelstrom of misdirection and fear-mongering for an
absurdly long time.

Uggghhhh!

Why

The fuck

Are we talking about this?

Question I: What IDIOSYNCRASY or INSIGHT has been useful to you, either overall, or on a particular occasion?

The habit and talent for detecting ILLUSION. Which is everywhere, by the way.

Court rooms and crapshoots

I recently survived a long bout of crime/courtroom real-life Netflix drama. Oh boy. What a grueling bout of prosecutor and cop corruption and flagrant miscarriage. And this is with my BS filter on high alert with a close eye on the method, apparent intent and biases of the filmmakers.

What is soon apparent is the horrible realization that not only is justice a deeply slippery intangible ambition but the formula we've concocted to find it is like a four-lane bridge with a three-and-a-half lane gaping hole in it.

There is an assumption that the court system is designed to discover the truth, but if such a blueprint was ever devised we can't possibly be following it.

Cops are definitely not responsible for truth, and no offence intended. That is not at all their job. They perform their job tactically in accordance to situations. Cops reasonably assume that the truth is the objective of prosecutors and court rooms, after they've jailed a suspect. 

Prosecutors have very little incentive toward truth. They are judged, rewarded or reprimanded by their ability to settle cases by one means or another. And for those cases which make it to court it is not their job to find the truth but to win. One way or another. And by the way the temptation to cheat and the opportunity to cheat, are both immense. And to sweep those realities under the rug we sanctify their positions and pretend that they are above reproach, for no precise reason at all.

And where they might be inclined to turn on their too-cozy relationship with law officers in any pursuit of truth they face the frightening monster that is cop solidarity. Find me a cop anywhere - anywhere! ...who is more loyal to the people they purport to serve or to truth or to justice than they are to each other.

And this phenomenon is too universal to blame on individual cops. It's there because of the paradigms they are bred in. Their jobs are dangerous and bloody difficult in ways that don't resemble other jobs. They will naturally lean hard on one another for support and survival.

Witnesses are examined without proper regard for the realities and flaws of human memory and they are put under such scrutiny and threat that they are almost certainly scared into regarding their own safety above the pursuit of truth, not to mention the biases they come pre-equipped with.

When we're talking about the most perilous cases, they are jury-decided and there things really pour down the rabbit hole. Judges have very limited opportunity to guide juries or to guide lawyers. They are auditors of process. The one player who might actually be equipped to finding truth as well as devoted to it, at least at a conscious level, the judge, is removed from the ultimate decision.

As with every (or nearly every) institution or organization, the fatal flaw in the courtroom design is that their rules, process and philosophies rely on illusion, They fail to recognize basic human nature. Human beings will behave in ways that best appear loyal to law, rule, and loyalty to the organization but secretly bent toward the selfish wishes of their egos; secrets often not even privy to the individual's consciousness; the main reason all organizations are to some significant degree corrupted.

Part of the problem with ego in this environment is that egos fool most of the people in a room into thinking that they alone are the smartest person in the room. And everyone involved in a court case; lawyer, witness, judge, jury assumes much too early that they know the truth about unproven elements, and they will espouse those presumptions and resist new evidence to the contrary.

And once juries are left to their own devices, they are almost always immediately split, and not with logic then paving the way to consensus but with subservience to the more persuasive personalities among them.

I never met the lawyer, poet and writer, Ed Wildman. He sadly departed before his friends became my friends. But he was known to say that there was more justice on the streets than in courtrooms: "In the street men generally get what's coming to them. In the courtroom it's a crapshoot."

Of course there are forces in the courtroom that are anything but random. Such as who has the most resources. Whether corporations or individuals, rich defendants have a great track record in courtrooms, and lets face it, in this society there are very few truly lawful ways to get rich.

How to stop the rich from buying legal victory by out-spending the poor? Here's a suggestion:

A court case combatant (plaintiff/prosecutor/defendant) can hire/employ pre-trial counsel and/or investigators as desired but trial lawyers are assigned by the courts. Trial lawyers would be financially incentivized by receiving ratings based on their performance and seniority, paid accordingly, and assigned to cases relative to a simple case-rating system. Cases with the most at stake (dollar amounts/maximum sentences) receive the highest-rated lawyers - on both sides.

Junior lawyers start out serving as assistants to mentoring high-rated lawyers on high-rated cases thus employing defense teams.

Successful claimants and defendants declared innocent pay nothing for their trial lawyer(s) whose performance-based incomes are generated by a tax on the damages and fines paid by the guilty.

With lawyers not being paid directly by their clients it enables this important game-changer:

A lawyer's objective is then not primarily to win, and their score-carding system will reflect it: A lawyer's job is then to seek the truth, each beginning from the perspective of their "client." But their loyalty, as with the judge, is first to justice, truth, and the people.

Another thing: Cop solidarity must be bred out of the system. It is one of the most problematic corruptions in our society. At the least, shouldn't individual police positions be rotated regularly so that familiarization does not take hold? Perhaps a cop's partners should always be newish. I'm sure there are many other ways to support them and fight the problem if we think about it.

With juries I am deeply suspicious of this consensus rule. Where juries are split for a long long time can we not drag some common sense into the equation? Can we not infer that no obvious truth has been made apparent? Can we not then look at liability and guard against the worst possible scenario perhaps?

Look at the case where the defendant spent more than a decade in jail for murder before being discovered innocent thanks to the maturation of DNA evidence technology. Almost miraculously, a bitter cop community soon tried to pin another murder on him where court proceedings pointed at a host of holes in their case. Despite this, eleven gullible members of the jury put him behind bars again following the drawn out bullying of the lone member initially leaning towards the guilty decision.

In that case here was the worst possible scenario consideration. If he was truly guilty but declared innocent, he'd be freed but after spending two decades in prison and detention; thus he already served a 20-year sentence for one murder anyway! Almost zero jeopardy!

Instead they probably re-jailed an innocent man who then spends almost his entire adult life in jail for no reasons. Probably the most tragic jeopardy imaginable. And this is what they took a chance on. To this day people and organizations devote their lives to trying to free this man. What a human catastrophe. They chose to risk the worst possible scenario.

Even when juries are removed from the system I know there are problems. I 've been personally involved in three court cases without juries and every one was a complete debacle.

1. The defendant presented his case to the duty counsel who walked into court, entirely forgot every promise to the client and basically tied a ribbon around him and made a gift of him to the prosecutor and the judge, who seemed thick as thieves. The latter ridiculed the defendant, forgetting he was a judge and not the world's lamest shock comedian. 

2. The court failed to allow a mentally challenged man to get the assistance he required in order to assemble a competent counsel and was easily bullied into complete submission by his opponent.

3. The defendant's documents which proved him innocent or at least 99% so, were of no interest to the busy prosecutor who warned he should accept a deal on a lesser charge and pay $200 instead of risking a $1500 fine plus further tribulations if he risked going before the judge. He could have read the documents and came to the obvious conclusion to drop the case. The defendant, not imagining how he could possibly come up with $1500 complied and went home $200 poorer and his dignity pulverized, this after the deal was finalized by the judge goading the baffled defendant into lying in court in order to justify the details of the artificial arrangement. It all came down to governmental financial management with no regard for truth.

Oh by the way, the great lion's share of USA's two million inmates are poor black men who balked as per above principal and are jailed without trial but through intimidation and the threat of much longer sentences if they don't accept the plea bargain. Logic dictates that the number of incarcerated innocent in the USA is overwhelming. 

I'm glad I almost knew you Ed. Crapshoots indeed. Let us all remember that and guide our affairs accordingly.

Lawyers in Love

Oppose the growing entitlement and presumption of corporations for government hand-outs in favour of equality and support for the poor. 

Keeping it in

Recently binged this Netflix serial The Keepers and it was a very tense and intriguing true crime deal featuring the catholic church, some scandal of the type you'd predict plus a whole lot more. It features some very sober; sometimes chilling perspectives on the proven phenomenon of repressed memory.

Recently I witnessed something which led me to look at another form of repression; clearly related. I won't go into that directly but instead offer a more simple example to follow.

What I realized is that when the mind represses certain thoughts (current; not memories) from surfacing because they are... too dangerous to immediately contemplate it might not be able to remove the reaction to them; the pain, but merely to delay it.

Take a look at this video: a well-meaning and perhaps misguided attempt at fun by loving parents who think they understand their child and probably don't always. They are perhaps tickled at the tears of joy they produced in their boy's eyes, without realizing that these are actually tears of pain which only manifested after it was finally safe to let them out. Meaning: The pain was delayed and muted but not fully extinguished. The source of the pain is the sudden irrational fear that he may not be loved - or loved sufficiently, which is, again, probably never fully appreciated consciously, but enough to manifest a shadow of despair which is only freely felt once he perceives it was a false alarm.

Boys Don't Cry

Save some bees. You know it's them that feed you eh?

Egotistical?

I was thinking about empathy and was suddenly surprised I had not considered something before: That the development of this capacity to generate feelings spawned by another person's experience and not our own - should hardly be surprising; that this capacity and the capacity to appreciate our own experience may in fact be nearly - or else exactly - the same thing.

Identity is a strange thing and largely warped from illusion. I must wonder if feeling something for our own self is (at least for empaths) in fact just empathy - because a human being is not a solitary party. The conscious and extinctive minds are not the same thing and are (I'm inclined to say "in fact") so obviously separate that they must communicate (or more likely eavesdrop) in dreams. 

We do know for fact that the brain is a collection of agencies which lack a stable hierarchy. They have to send communications back and forth.

I know that when I feel strong emotions (good, bad or neither precisely) in regards to my own experience it feels very much like an empathetic experience because I rarely feel much liability if any. It's merely the context which moves me.

I mentioned this to the Eloquent Potter - that I wondered if empathy and attached feelings were in essence the same thing and he seemed to agree. He claimed that empathy was in fact egotistical in nature. I see the point. Common empaths are not psychics. We don't actually feel another's feelings. We feel our own but which are stimulated by the ponderance of another's experience as we interpret it, no matter how close or far we are from the mark.

"Egotistical" sounds like a harsh criticism when I think of some empaths. One dear friend who identifies as such seems never to look down on those she empathizes with but in fact seems to suffer for her gift often more than the actual sufferer does. In fact there are infrequent occasions where I will withhold from her my own unfortunate experience because I feel certain she will hurt for it much more than I am! I'm talking about Dog Whisperer and I freely name her because credit is due. I know she is sincere in her empathetic offerings. She regularly handles her own suffering as well as that of others with generous grace and aplomb. There's a good soul in that woman and I hope she knows it.

Ganges Delta Blues

Tell Biden we don't need another pipeline at an extraordinary expense to the biosphere

Vitality… painted over

Hey so back over to the A-to-Z we’re finally unveiling the previously postponed V-Day. The assignment was too good not to treat right. It came from the valiant, vibrant, venerable, infrequently verbose and too-frequently valedictory; my very valuable friend, life coach and visionary, the venturesome Vietnam Vagabond; the Eloquent Potter. And it is:

Varnish

Varnish is the shit…

…that is everywhere.

Let me look back at just the last, oh, thirty-six hours.

I watched a video about quantizing and auto-tune. Exactly how this shit is done. The anatomy of this phenomena that has made the overly-safe, overly-simplified, corporate-dictated pablum we call main-stream music so grotesque to my ears; so obscenely, vulgarly, morbidly anti-human. Why modern mainstream music reeks of death. It is not real. It is varnish. The musicians who are tricked into selling out have suffocated within this varnish. Of course the saving grace is that there are heaps of amazing music being made every day. You just have to hurl your fucking radio into the fires of Mordor and go looking elsewhere. Bandcamp for instance. Soundcloud.

I stopped for gas and saw that my drink was on sale: three for seven bucks. Varnish, it turned out. I went inside, picked my three and was charged not $7 but $13.

“Huh?” I says.

“Oh the special isn’t working,” says the corporate slave.

The special isn’t working.

When I was young no one ever uttered the words the special isn’t working. No context existed where such a phrase could bear any meaning. If I had said to my English teacher for any reason “the special isn’t working” I would certainly expect to be told I would be repeating the grade.

Oh we had computers when I was young. But computers were still tools at the time; tools which served the user; the human being who operated the computer tool; the human being who still maintained sentience. Today a gas station cashier is literally a tool of the computer.

Of course the pumps themselves are varnish, aren’t they? This is not where oil comes from. It’s ripped out of the ground in manners which compromise the biosphere, it is taken from a place where it served the biosphere as a filter and then it magically makes our car go zoom zoom zoom (a little TV varnish) and what we don’t see through that particular varnish is the cloud of toxins formerly filtered from the ground now being burned and fed to the sky where it will fuck us over real good.

Yesterday morning the alarmingly nervous, high-strung, OCD basket case of a day shift guard came in to relieve me and spotted my coat hanging from the back of a chair. She sputtered and agonized trying to find words for the occasion, finally pointing: “That doesn’t look good!” Coats over chairs is not proper varnish. The reality is that we all use coats. They are not hurting anyone (in the office I mean). If you could actually follow the trail of your coat’s creation you will find harm somewhere. I guarantee it. If not a furry animal or sheep or a sweatshop third world in-effect-slave there are still more avenues of suffering in the trail of a textile factory. Suffering we do not see through the layers of varnish.

I saw the faces of Ford, Trudeau and Trump because you cannot access the internet without their weaselly little faces weaselling onto your screen one creepy way or another. Their entire existence is varnish. They are the curtain between we and those who have our money and control us. They are talking idiot-boxes. They are court jesters, juggling their balls and pretending that they are the real show while they are not.

Maybe we don’t mind living this way. Maybe the varnish is nicer than the reality. And here’s where I get stuck. I know very well that the rewards for embracing reality are so much finer. But to fully explain why will make me sound like religion, when I am not. And so people will turn away. Oh well. Fuck em.

The Venturesome Vietnam Vagabond is an angel to me at times. He is not fooled by anything - anything external anyway. I think he knows that reality is better than varnish.

“Do you have a coaster for me?” I asked.

He laughs and gestures at the grand wooden table with its myriad of markings. It is a mural; a family history. And tonight we will eat well and drink copiously and add another stroke or two to this wooden canvas; this time capsule. And we’ll say not a word about sports, weather or headlines. We’ll unearth more reality and lay ourselves bare. Thank heavens there is still a place to do this.

I could go on and on. Anywhere you look you are seeing varnish. Give it a thought and you'll start to realize the illegitimacy of anything you happen to witness.

Varnish is the shit that is everywhere. It is what we have built our society out of, instead of celebrating life. 

WALK AWAY FROM THIS POST

If you know me in real life this post is not for you. Be a mature adult, take my warning and just go away and forget about it.

For those who don’t know me, it’s W-Day:

Weary, withering, wasted…

The wonderful, worldly, we-oriented, World Citizen has whisked these words along from the west coast:

Wake up! 

And it is magically, hilariously, precisely relevant. I am absolutely one atom away from being asleep right now. My brain is a wreck. Just coming up with the above alliteration has drained me for the day. After an almost-week of mildly less then normal sleep performance I have spent a couple days doing almost nothing but sleeping, and yet in the few-hour segments in between epic naps I remain dead tired.

I will catch up on the V column one fine day when I can almost-function again. For now I take this critical W assignment and give it a quick hatchet job as best I can. Ready?

Environmentally you could say there are two kinds of people in the world; those who are apparently ignorant or uncaring with regards to the “planet” and the future of humanity, and those who appear to care but are deluded as to the reality of the situation.

Many of the nicest people I know are online getting all romantic about the environment and how it is getting a much needed break from us. And some jump to the absurd notion that we are starting to wake up! (and smell the coffee environmentally)

It is the death of all hope if the people we count on to lead us to salvation have no idea what they’re doing.

For countless reasons, over and over through decades, thousands have said "People are finally waking up!" No we are not. At best, precious minorities of people have woken from deeply deluded dreams into slightly less deluded dreams. In general we are more asleep than ever and falling into impossible traps to escape from. The very best and very worst case scenarios for Covid-19 are the same scenario: That the human population, beautiful, pitiable and perfectly insane, will be drastically alarmingly reduced.

Have I lost the last reader now? Good. ‘Cause no one will want to read this:

These messages I hear about how great it is that mother nature is getting a well deserved rest is precisely this:

A Nazi shoots a machine gun into a crowd of prisoners as they gradually tumble to their deaths. But then he throws the machine gun to the ground, pulls out a hand gun and begins killing them one bullet at a time. And one well-meaning stander-by says “Ah, how great they’re getting a well-deserved rest.”

I can’t seem to find another human being who actually understands how causality works (they all think they do) or another human being who understands the complex components, system and fragile configurations of the biosphere, which humans, even at this moment, are systematically dismantling it at an utterly unfathomable speed by any realistic cosmic context.

Am I going to do anything about it? Of course not. But I’m also not going to hide from the truth. And I’m not going to hide from the truth because I have a relationship with truth which no other human I know appears to have. (Tolle does, by the way). As for the biosphere’s plight; I am useless. Group one above is also useless as is group two.

Am I angry about this? No. But sometimes I am frustrated because communication with other people about the core dramas of our reality is fucking impossible and there is a kind of loneliness there which sometimes frustrates me. A lot of that frustration is aimed back at myself: for why have I failed to teach anyone anything despite all the research I do?

Here’s a great bit of comedy: Michael Moore has released a film Planet of the Humans. I haven’t watched it yet even though, as my brother noted in an email about it, it’s right up my apparently-narrow alley.

It may be vain and foolish to assume the film will only reveal the epic load of crap I already know, such as the preposterousness of practically every mainstream green organization and the utter fallacy of “industrial green clean energy.” All industry is a bullet to the head of the biosphere, including windmill and solar panel industries. There is no escaping this reality. But I can’t help instinctively making that assumption and I don’t feel quite in the mood just yet for going down a dark ugly rabbit hole that I already know like the back of my hand. (I promise to report back once I actually view the film.)

A part of the problem is that I assume that Moore (knowing how he rolls) will get caught up in the facade and guilt of things which I don’t really care to get wrapped up in. I don’t want to point fingers. Global human insanity starts at the core of the illusion; the gap between real instinctive mind and our outrageously flawed stuttering early evolution of consciousness. And we’re all in this together.

For a long long time as I say little about this matter, sensing no will around me to hear it, I have held a vain hope that some genius would come along and tell me why I’m wrong about the simple reality of biosphere and industry and just the other night I managed to get in on a webinar regarding green economy (what a wonderful fantasy) with none other than Noam Chomsky the special guest.

This could be my big chance! To get this question to him?

But the question panel grew fast and immediately and I realized I had no chance. But half way up I found a very similar question, framed around the claims of Moore’s The Planet of Humans. I discovered that one could comment on a question though it was rarely done. So I did: “I pray this question gets up-voted. It is critical!”

Lo and behold the comment, regardless of its content, visually drew attention. And immediately people were hitting the vote button and the question gradually rose to the top and was addressed. The host completely bungled it. It was not worded perfectly and the host made it worse. Chomsky gave an awkward 3-or-4 word dismissive response.

Thanks host. Thanks humans. Thank you for being so reliably; so tirelessly useless.

But did Chomsky fully misunderstand the question? I don’t really think he could have. Why did he not try to address it better?

Could he still be in the dark, environmentally? Brainy as he is? Perhaps?

Or is it this?

Does he see the same dilemma which concerns me?

Does he feel that to communicate every truth to the masses, were it accepted, result in complete despair and disorder; chaos?

Even if climate change is largely a red herring (not for being untrue but for being ultimately irrelevant), is it a placebo in effect which might keep cold-hearted humans acting responsible because there appears to be hope?

There is another reality here, perhaps most important of all. Nothing is immortal in this universe. Not humans, not Earth. Not the sun. But our living experiences are immortal because we experience no beginning or end. We are not aware of our own birth and death. That makes for A LOT to think about.

The end is inevitable even if sadly coming way sooner than necessary (except perhaps for the lucky grandchildren of the ultimately criminal super-duper-pooper rich who have been stealing from us all and will afford trillion dollar seats on Elon’s Mars rockets maybe?) well so what?

Why not exist at or near the inevitable end? Why take it as tragedy? There is still opportunity to evolve our minds and to love and to seek survival within whatever like-minded community we arrange ourselves. And if necessary to go out not with a bang but gracefully; respectfully; lovingly.

Have I been at all coherent? I don’t know why I write this. I don’t want to stomp on people I love who have been writing so hopefully and romantically and with flawed logic. They are good people. But I do get deeply, unwisely, lonesomely frustrated sometimes. I am far from the top of my spiritual game…

Stuff to think about.  

Kindness

Okay, back to the A-to-Z where it’s K time, boys and girls. And the kind, knowledgeable, keen, kurious, kourageous, king of the kitchen; the kidneyless kid; the Earnest Chef has kicked in the following K word for our konsideration. Let’s do something with it:

Karma

I could write all day and night about this, which would not serve the A-Z enterprise well at all. Let me try to boil my thoughts down to their briefest essence.

When I have been most loving, not in specific moments but in periods of frequent moments, those are the same periods in which I needed little love in return. In fact when I have been most loving I have required NO love in return, yet in those same times I did receive the most love.

The give and take part sounds like Karma, eh?

But with the irony; that I received it when I did not need it, I can easily interpret the same causation which reveals that behavior and rewards can not be bought and sold. Religion seems to bribe you: Behave like an angel and you’ll be invited into paradise.

It doesn’t work. The universe can not be fooled. When illusions are defeated the freedom is real. ACTING nice can draw others into ACTING nice to you. This is lovely but it can be a counterfeit currency. Nothing compares to the reality.

Loving because your mind is so clear that there is no other option but to love, that is real. And in that state nothing fools you. There are literally no fears or problems of any consequence because they have no power of illusion over you.

There are so many religious, poetic, mystical ways of looking at this stuff but the scientific way is a valid, beautiful, comforting method which can encompass the other… umbrellas.

When we are pure - which can be done in moments! Do not despair that such an evolution is out of reach! - when we are pure, the integrity that is our natural process brings out harmony, kindness, selflessness and what we get in return - call it Karma if you want - is the other face of freedom. It’s the joy we get in the immense privilege to be human. The joyful reality of our circumstance is unveiled.

The flip side: When our clouded deluded ego-infested mind exudes the selfish lack of integrity and we put bad things into our community we pay the price - again, call it karma if you wish. We forbid ourselves from participating in real freedom and real joy.

Karma is not magic. It is ever so precisely a reality that is measurable in the scientific view. 

V is for Veil

I was talking to the Eloquent Potter about issues of the mind and revealed to him one of my rather unpopular understandings which I rarely reveal: That the human race is deeply insane. And that the term "human nature" is largely a construct of flattery. It's a category of mental illnesses which are so ubiquitous we label them as something "normal" so as to preserve our illusion of collective sanity.

"Well of course," he replied. He then explained that the origin of the word nature fit with that entirely. Someone who was severely mentally handicapped was said to be "natural."

Together

I’m noticing, over the last few days, how increased mindfulness (or wakefulness etc.) doesn’t only avail wisdom but also the simplest intelligence. I have had many meetings and social engagements lately and have been a little more on the ball and have noticed how much clearer I see the relationship dynamics without the nigglings - the wisps - of pride and paranoia twisting my perception. All these relationships look so much more joyful, beautiful and worthwhile and full of possibility through detached observation.

The word detachment seems to scare people off though. I’m talking about perception that is without these false filters of need; dependency; expectation. I find this hard to describe. For me it comes through organic trust in the lessons I have learned, first-hand, about the illusions spun by instinctive mind. For me detachment has no negative connotations. It is not about lack of love, for instance. In fact it avails so much more love.

I’m sure that Tolle or Buddhist literature would describe a different path for finding this detachment; a path or paths which I seem to have forgotten precisely. I recall these readings too dimly at the moment. For me it came through the habit of creative solitude and a bottomless fascination for truth; or more accurately it turned out, the absence of truth and the forensic study of its displacement. It is why, in my more powerful state of former years, I was strong in leveraging influence; nudging people more toward creativity, before I began faltering and eventually withdrawing, more intentionally of late.

I am reminded the advantages of clarity when one is not so self-interested in the dynamics of relationships. It is enough that we are all alive, human and imperfect together, and taking on this great drama together, as witnesses to the universe, and to our own potential as a creature of harmony; both internal and collectively.

The Lonely Lumberjack is perhaps a little less lonely

I saw him wheeling past me; leaning into his walker, barely an arm’s length away, on the other side of the cafe window where I sipped a fine coffee and nibbled an outrageously large and delicious donut following the collapse of far more humble plans. I downed the last morsels and set out to catch up to him but the old man is deceivingly quick.

It had probably been two years since I last spent any moment alone with him one on one. I’d left his apartment moments after a pair of snarling bigoted tirades aimed at two different minorities. Well, maybe not tirades. Let’s say… tiradettes.

For two years we’ve politely nodded, waved or smiled at group functions, and sometimes even briefly chatted. but given I was probably his second-closest male friend, and officially the executor of his will, there was always the elephant in the gymnasium. He does not make friends easily and maintains perhaps a trio at best. Often, in my more wakeful moments I have told myself I should at least explain the reasons for my aloofness and try to give him one more chance. I don’t need him to change his mind necessarily, but only to keep out of my face the product of his albeit-honest misperceptions which he gleaned in prison; viewing the worst possible behaviour from certain associations while succumbing to tribal illusions. I understand his view, and why it is natural and why certain logic escapes him. In ways he is very wise and in other ways very unwise, but I want no part of his prejudice. It is offensive to people I love more than he, and I don’t wish to feel unfaithful.

So I lingered in the neighbourhood, sitting on a bench, writing on an adorable onion-skin air-mail writing pad surely manufactured a half-century ago which I found in a dusty variety store across the street. Sure enough he eventually came rolling back and I called out to him.

He brought me up to his apartment. I was in financial decrepitude at the time and eagerly accepted a hearty pasta meal with plenty of meat in the sauce. I declined seconds but while washing up in the bathroom he slipped another bowl out undetected and I much enjoyed it again.

“Watch out for that [Theatre Guy],” he suddenly warned me. He’d no doubt seen us sitting together. “Never trust that ___ hole.”

So here it comes again. ‘Well, I’m on his circle.” I said. Well we’re already good friends, is what I wanted to say. Better friends than you and I. And furthermore, Theatre Guy is straight. And you’re a dumbass. Sometimes.

I don’t know why Mr. Lumberjack respects me so much. No man alive meets the rigid standards by which he judges men. Me especially I would think. Women meanwhile are sacred.

We met up again recently without incident and soon I will take him shopping for clothes again.

I don’t know if he understands why I cooled off with him. I’d previously warned him a couple times about bigoted conversation but he assumes I’m simply naive about it, and too generous in my appraisals. I wasn’t bothered by his words at the surprise pasta dinner; only disappointed. Perhaps we’ll be able to maintain an understanding going forward and remain friends.

Departing

Well, this piece got away from me… as some do. Oh well. I post it intact:

The Liaison’s funeral was not a big one. His influence manifested mostly through the wires to many locales beyond Scooterville. But I think that both his family and co-workers may have been surprised by the extent of outreach from the writing community. More than a hundred writers sent words of comfort or even flowers (and we accounted for a good third of the attendance). I was proud of sick boy’s moving speech at the event which helped to crystallize this for everyone.

His boss was a very sweet man who spoke very kindly of him. I was grateful for this brief insight into the other side of the Liaison’s life and said so later to the fellow, on the lawn, as we shook hands, both failing to hold back tears entirely. We’re likely to meet for a drink at some point.

The brother also spoke, of their childhood struggles for one thing, and it was very sincere and moving.

Then the final speaker was a soulless troglodyte named Pastor F.U. or thereabouts, who had never met the Liaison once in his life but who felt empowered to condescend to us with the usual outrageous doublethink concerning atheism versus faith and the inane ass-backwards idea that belief provides meaning in life.

I tried not to walk out. I reminded myself that I was here for the prime purpose of supporting the Liaison’s family. I thought carefully; realized I could not in any good conscience give permission to this hijacking, got up and walked out and waited in the parking lot to take my assigned passengers to the cemetery. I hoped very much that I had not caused a scene in any way; that I made no one other than the troglodyte uncomfortable. I did not want this event to be about me and my principles. Dog Whisperer, despite being an employee of a church, came to find me afterwards and issued firm support. She wanted to follow me out but her seating was trapped in essence. So that was a comfort to hear.

It can be immensely sad to reflect on the apparently-growing collective human insanity. It is not only the swiftly-deteriorating economic and environmental systems which point to impending disaster. It is the realization that almost nobody among the privileged societies which steer the world has any regard for truth, but only the addiction to the clinging to falsehoods derived from cherry-picked factoids, peddled by the world’s grotesquely-untrustworthy horde of priests, politicians and corporate-sponsored mouthpieces: whichever ones happen to peddle the particular bullshit which is most flattering, convenient or profitable to the ultimately self-serving and self-righteous listener.

We created a society wherein there is no requirement, regard or reward for truth (except in the field of science which cannot function without it - and look how the field of science is routinely maligned by the above perpetrators), a society riddled with problems which will not be solved because problems are not solved without truth.

But truth is so buried. The internet is surely 99% rubbish. And we’re so busy chasing our unfortunate addictions there is no time for the average person to unearth truth. We need specialists devoted to it. I am trying to do just that I suppose, but society does not include this in the ledger of currency nor afford a framework for accountability.

Where oh where are the people who can summon the courage to just want the truth no matter what it is? No matter how unflattering, how inconvenient, how unprofitable it might be? Are you out there? You’re certainly not in the youtube comment section; I know that.

And if you exist, where do you turn to for real news? for real authority? Where are the leaders or other powerful voices who only want to report truth without personal interest? Probably the Buddha, probably the real Jesus of Nazareth prior to being exploited and misquoted and misunderstood. Einstein of course. Likely Eckhart Tolle. Likely that dude who wrote the Four Hour Work Week! Read Tolle by the way, for goodness sake.

I’m not going to be falsely humble. I am a devoted adept of truth on my good days and frankly, even on my mediocre days. I was a self-identified Catholic who denied my tribe when I learned it untrue. I gave up my position as a climate-change denier when the truth became all-too apparent. I walked away from my sports tribes when I learned of their delusion. I have largely given up many instinctive tribal mind comforts having learned of their treachery. I even gave up my self-image as a good person, prepared to accept that I was an evil person if that was where the pursuit of truth led me - which it did - for a while. Somehow (through very fortunate circumstance) I was afforded a certain brand of courage that I can see almost nowhere else.

I wish I knew how to tell my story. I wish that people would know what I know: that the reward for this kind of courage is utterly freeing and joyful and transformative; transcending even, and that the fears which contain you will be revealed illusion! Where are the champions of truth to lead us? I appear not to have what it takes, nor where to find such a congregation.

Reflections: Fear

Roast beef with gravy AND horseradish! At the same time! Mashed potatoes, cooked corn and carrots, coffee and mint-chocolate chip ice cream!

Not bad for a free meal, eh? Well, I dropped a fiver in the collection box which I do most of the time. Otherwise, when times are tough, I wash a few giant pots and pans as a contribution.

The topic at this circles dinner celebration is fears, and how we have conquered them.

Some extolled the comforting virtues of their Saviour. Others had more earthly entities to praise. One excellent dad talked about the actual nightmares from the early days of parenting: in which terrible dangers loomed over his offspring who were always just out of his reach, and how he had to finally trust in the benevolence of higher powers, and relinquish absolute custody in his mind; something that bears relevance to my own mind and the troubles it so recently suffered, but which I truly seem to have finally found legitimate peace with.

I spoke of the fears which still haunted me at the age of thirty-one; fears so common they were not perceived as fears at the time, but which I suffered for nevertheless, unequipped to figure the accounting:

The fear of being poor; of being disrespected; of being unpopular; of being wrong; of getting caught in a lie; or losing my job; my car; my house; the love-relationship which seemed to garner popular admiration for its longevity, and for how darn cute we were in public.

While being monsters at home.

And I spoke of the unexpected solution: getting dumped from that relationship after twelve years-and-change, and then just days later, getting laid off from the occupation I had coveted for an equal duration: How I seemed to have lost everything, including the house.

But that I discovered how the groove I thought my life had been in, was really a rut.

How that blessed period of material freedom (via generous severance package and home equity) and this new freedom from societal investments in the mind of a person with mature perspectives on the world - compared to the usual free-minded of our society; the youths who conversely lack experience to draw upon, presented a very rare and golden opportunity, and a rare salvation.

The soul searching, the decision to write, the blank page, the questions and the search for truth. The courage and self-accusation, the discovery of illusion in the gap between consciousness and instinct, the immense ubiquity of it, but finally the mastery of context and the break-through to the wisest, universal perspectives… and the resulting freedom from the great majority of fears that nearly everyone inherits without knowing they have. Ninety-nine per cent of fears are the product of illusions, and simply evaporate once you see clearly.

Not everyone can have the privilege of losing everything around age thirty. That is a shame.

But most can find more time for solitude and creativity, which is where the process starts. It doesn’t require talent to win the best prizes that art offers. It’s all in the experience; not the product.  

Papal pansophy and Obi Wan-liners

Unfortunately the vast majority of quotes circulated not only on FB but literally everywhere are falsely attributed (mostly unknowingly), and the more famous or polarized a person is, the more quotes are invented or re-attributed to them by people more eager to push their agenda than to be honest. For instance 99% of published Hitler quotes were faked by those who wished to paint the words of their opposition in the worst light. And Yogi Berra rarely had anything intelligent to say. Most of the quotes he's attributed were redirected to him as a joke; a way to poke fun at him for all his authentic malapropisms and other ding-battery.

The human penchant for misquoting came about well before the internet by the way. Those captured in respected books and on posters are just as likely suspect. The only quotes you ever see that are more likely to be true than false are those that are published along with the full context (place/date/occasion/publication as applicable) which unfortunately is the only fully responsible way to share a quote.

This is a dilemma, I know. Naturally we want to share good ideas and we want to have integrity and thus to attribute them fairly. But we live in a world of rampant misinformation and it's important to me that people realize it, in the hopes we will demand better some day and achieve a sane society.

The comfort is that every quote is real in that it came from somebody! The answer, I suppose, is to check Snopes or such and add in the context if verified, and if not, change it to "attribution unknown." Unfortunately it takes a lot of work to be real in a world that mostly isn't. On my good days, when I succeed, the reward is worth it.

Needs

It was perhaps ten years ago when I came to fully understand that I had only three needs.

1. Food to eat.

2. Protection from the elements.

3. Protection from predators.

The same needs as any mammal.

It seemed clear at that time that I would evermore be joyful as long as these three conditions were met. I have since succumbed to an instinctive need, illusory of course: the feeling of need toward that who I love most. Of course I must admit consciously that this (or rather a great component of it) is not actually much love from the universal perspective, even though it feels to me immense. I know that the universal love I once felt is the far more real. But enough of that for now.

I understand fully the truly recreational nature of the hundred and one needs most people think they have and which they pursue with the bulk of their energy, as I once sort-of did, though without typical vigor.

We think we need promotions, respect, wealth, safer accident-protective automobiles, handier cell-phones, someone to love and vice versa (and at times pretend to love and vice versa) at the exclusion of others, affordable hydro, job security, spiritual faith, the correct wardrobe, hope, etc…

And some might add purpose. Though purpose is a cinch. Anyone can design their own purpose. It’s not a need, but it’s pretty useful and there’s nothing to stop us from having it, other than lack of clarity; optimally an “outer purpose” (societal purpose) as Tolle would say, along with recognition of our innate inner purpose; which is to become conscious; fully human.

Here’s the terrible irony: all these illusory needs, which I realize a lot of people probably cannot easily conceive the falseness of -- both alone, and/or in combination with each other, manifest a short list of inevitable consequences in the realm of tribal disconnection, environmental devastation and social/economic erosion (which are all thoroughly related) which brings about this realization:

Pursuit of all these recreational and illusory needs is swiftly destroying:

1. Our food sources both animal and vegetable.

2. The manageability/survivability of the elements.

3. The suppression of inevitably- widespread human predators (preying on other humans).

The relentless pursuits of all the false needs are swiftly and precisely pushing all of our real needs out of reach.

100 Must-See Films! -- Dystopia

 “For young people, dystopia isn’t a future to be averted; it’s a version of what’s already happening in the world they inhabit…

…The adult dystopia extrapolates from aspects of the present to show readers how terrible things will become if our deplorable behavior continues unchecked. The more utterly the protagonist is crushed, the more urgent and forceful the message. Because authors of children’s fiction are “reluctant to depict the extinction of hope within their stories,” writes British academic Kay Sambell, they equivocate when it comes to delivering a moral. Yes, our errors and delusions may lead to catastrophe, but if—as usually happens in dystopian novels for children—a new, better way of life can be assembled from the ruins, would the apocalypse really be such a bad thing?”

—Laura Miller, The New Yorker

12. I Am Legend (2007,USA)

Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan

Someone said, “Oh my god, you have to see I Am Legend!”

I hadn’t heard of it but I take recommendations to heart. I asked no questions. I just went to the theater and watched it without any expectations at all and was blown away. I didn’t realize until later that part of the reason I was so utterly absorbed in and fascinated by the film was because I had never seen a trailer nor was I aware that it was connected by tradition to certain historic films of note. I literally watched the movie as the director intended it to be watched, entirely free of spoilers. All of the clues and hints in the film were allowed to function properly.

I now realize that almost every movie trailer you watch literally spoils the film for you. Since then I have tried extra hard to avoid spoils – which means I avoid even the slightest hints at plot; a standard which most people fall well short of, thinking that only very specific plot explanations; the turning points, do any harm. I try to stay away from plot altogether and I turn off trailers the moment I decide I want to watch the given film.

I will tell you that I Am Legend is full of suspense and emotion with a very responsible measure of well-crafted action. It has a huge epic feel and Will Smith’s acting was brilliant and he won a bucket of awards for it.

If you happen not to know anything about this film, for goodness sake, go watch it. Either way, you’re in for a treat.

Writers: Richard Matheson [novel], Mark Protosevich (The Cell), Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind)

Director: Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games)

Budget: $150,000,000

IMDB rating: 7.2

Trailer (if you insist!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0muvixSrd0

13. Metropolis (1927, Germany)

Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich

It’s been over ninety years since Fritz Lang and wife Thea von Harbou began constructing this captivating and dire warning of a future society melting down from overpopulation, machine dependence and deadly polarization of classes. It’s historically intriguing, deeply poetic and rather clearly allegorical with plenty of consideration to eye candy and entertainment.

A young naïve member of the ruling class finds himself in the bowels of the city and discovers its harrowing substructure in a manner – in my mind – hauntingly similar to the Eloi-Morlock paradigm of Orwell’s hugely prescient and relevant novel The Time Machine, published thirty-two years earlier. It is also hauntingly similar to a little civilization I know well which has perilously devolved for another ninety years while blissfully ignoring said warnings.

In my interpretation, a lot of naïve criticism concerning illucidity has stemmed from misunderstandings of the severely truncated versions viewed prior to 2002. Kino International has since obtained much discovered footage and released new versions (the second in 2010) which are hugely restored and expanded. I believe prior versions were not consciously edited (as was often thought) but were actually patchwork reconstructions in the complete absence of the original film (which shall probably never surface).

Make sure you access a recent Kino version or else the plot and characters will basically make no sense to you!

Award-winning critic and film historian Kim Newman calls it “Visionary, apocalyptic, gothic, erotic, strange and epic.”  < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT7qGzRUCKw >

Writer: Thea von Harbou (M)

Director: Fritz Lang (M)

Budget: 5,000,000 reichsmarks

IMDB rating: 8.2

Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSExdX0tds4

Welcome to the real world...

14. The Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003, USA, Australia)

Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Lawrence Fishburne

I firmly propose that this is the most significant work of wisdom ever captured in a film enterprise. Though the plot reads like sci-fi fantasy of the highest order, I say that this story’s premise is, by all meaningful accounting, true. I suggest that all the manifestations of illusion which are artfully exposed here, reveal the reality of our living circumstances and that only the precise material source of the system of illusions is a cloaked metaphor, that only this core premise designates the movie science fiction and not documentary.

I feel confident I could take this vast script and re-use it word for word, or with perhaps a few metaphorical translations, and create a story which is perfectly contemporary and revelatory, with any small hitches owing to the following circumstance which I speculate confidently: that this stunning expose is not the masterwork of any single mind but of much collaboration of sources beyond the credited creators Andy and Lana Wachowski. By some degree of chance an imperfect but near-perfect tale is told of the bona fide matrix in which we exist; the weave of illusions at the root of  literally all of humankind’s problems and the root of its increasingly relevant mortality.

Its secondary expression of genre, action, is presented here in groundbreaking form (much copied since then) and with increasing gratuity through the progression of sequels. Thus I suggest there is something here – much actually – for everyone. Had I presented these one hundred films in count-down order, The Matrix would be… the one.

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Writers/Directors: the Wachowski Brothers (V for Vendetta)

Budget: $323,000,000 3-film total

IMDB rating: 8.7 (The Matrix)

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8e-FF8MsqU

Short List:

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981, Australia) Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston

Elysium (2013, USA) Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga