Grey autumn day; editorial corrections — 2020-10-21

Hello world,

I hope that you are well, feeling accepted, loved, and if you do not feel empowered, that at least you feel comfortable with your existence. If not today, then surely tomorrow, with renewed resolution, may you advance your work, your art, your connections.

Here is today’s stream from The Majority Report with Sam Seder and friends. I love Sam and the gang, and if you have yet to watch this YouTube channel as a means of political commentary, then I would advise that you check it out!

I have been going through my posts, trying to fix broken links, making little (appropriate) edits along the way. More to that, I have not been shy about pointing out when and where I have held up a person, an idea, or a publication that I do not, today, agree with. There’s quite a bit of such content, such prior takes of mine, such beliefs as I would today frame as lazy, as errors, as naivete, as the efficacy and virulence of bad information –a testament to how well false information can spread.

I often, well… in bursts, and with healthy breaks, do find myself in conversation, in what would be nice to be arguments upon reality, facts we can agree upon, and reason, as we proceed through the arguments, with modern right-aligned persons.

That is, I am often talking with those who I would characterize as being modern right-wing populists (supporters of Trump, of the Trump GOP, and of publications and ideas which pander to them), and in these talks, I am often reminded (and I often remind them), that I was once where they were.

Yes, there was a time when I was such a mind that if I met my then-self on the street, today, I would likely think I was smart enough, but I would worry and wonder why I believed this, that, and the other thing which would seem boorish, uninformed, generally contemptable to my modern self.

There are posts on this blog which may well undermine, if not merely dismiss such ideas as feminism. There are posts which are fearful of global cooperation, and there was much thinking, then, by way of paranoid conspiracy theories.

I certainly hope there aren’t any climate-change denial trash in here, but, as I said, there was a time when I was scared, tricked into believing such things as I am really not interested in admitting. In fact… it was as recently as 2016 that I was captured by some of the same lies and propaganda which presently holds the right. I shudder at the thought of how I may have reacted to the Black Lives Matter, movement, back in 2008, 2009, 2010…

Was I a supporter of Trump, naively, in 2016? Well, I do not believe so, but I do recall being of such a… malaise, a creeping nihilism as to not be as politically active and informed as I am today, as I see as being a necessity, today.

I can see people, today, taking positions, making arguments (or repeating arguments) that I once may have made, that I may have repeated. I have been there.

Of course, I have not been four years deep into such lies and propaganda, and so, despite once having common roots in prior errors, I am too far removed, and they, too alien from my own perspective for these talks to really go anywhere.

I have had temporary breakthroughs with persons of such beliefs. However, since each of us stews within our own realities, it’s as simple as going to sleep, waking up to the same news sources, to the same reason and beliefs and errors of the day before, and then all that which I perceived as progress with this or that other, then becomes no progress at all –we may as well have not even had a conversation.

The few (aforementioned) temporary successes are overshadowed by a great wealth of irrational, unhelpful discord, a disagreement from which there can be no path to agreement, at least not with respect to any of the core beliefs, nor the facts and beliefs which must support these.

Our perceptual filters are of a form that, unless we are diligent, rigorous in questioning our positions and beliefs, then we are likely doomed to have our biases only entrenched further, as we easily accept material which confirms our beliefs, and as we find comfort in the rejection of that which, if true, and if we were reasonable, ought to shake our beliefs.

Such talks about Trump and Trump-aligned thought typically go quite poorly. This is so, because their core narratives require the belief that the institutions which I would deem reputable and trustworthy, are not, in fact, to be trusted at all, and that what I perceive as Trump and the GOP being backward, unintelligent, untrustworthy, acting against the common good of America, her allies, and the world, future, et al is actually my error in perception.

Indeed, to believe Trump’s position, so far as I can tell, one must believe that Trump is fighting a deep state which wants to stop him… to… hurt America? Or to make America communist? One must believe that the media lies about Trump, and that he is actually very-very intelligent, kind, and is a selfless statesperson who has America’s best interest at heart. You can see how impossible it would be to have a real (useful) argument with such a person, can’t you?

If Trump isn’t an incurious moron, a huckster pandering to the lowest common denominator, then where shall we find reputable proof of this? We must use Breitbart? We must use OAN? We must use Fox and Friends on a day when they are particularly kind to the president? We must use Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Qanon? And yet, we cannot use the New York Times, we cannot use the CBC, we cannot use The Globe and Mail, not Reuters, nor any source who does not, themselves, parade the populist narrative that the media lies about the president, and that the president is guilty only of being unpopular in the eyes of the establishment.

It’s not possible. I’m not going to take 4chan as a source, and they are not going to take NPR as a source. I will be dubious of the GOP-controlled senate, and they will be dismissive of the Democrat-controlled house.

And since it is not possible for either side to reason with each other… then… well, I don’t yet see a way ahead, a way through what has been developing for the last four years.

Blah.

Beyond mere identity politics, tribalism, and an understandable unawareness of what is happening to them (I’ve been there), I truly do not understand how it is that an intelligent person can be duped so, and how they can take on the charge, to defend such things as they cannot, themselves, understand, and to do so for so many years…

People who “do not believe in climate change”, in fact, don’t know what they believe. You cannot understand climate science, and then not believe it. That’s not how it works. You either understand it, and then you know that climate change is a real problem that needs collective action, or you repeat what you have heard and read in your political circles, that climate change isn’t real, and this lies in place of what otherwise would be an interest in understanding, and/or the consequent understanding of having looked into the subject with an actual interest in knowing what is what.

I digress.

How a person can change over the course of ten years. University, newsroom experience, newsy and philosophy friends, late night talks, many old books by brilliant humans, paying more attention to politics, science, my prejudices; and to, in effect, be shielded by the worst of the disinformation, a mere product of my being a progressive, of having built such an understanding of the world that I have no reason to dislike the opposite sex, or to disparage other races, or to support someone like Trump.

Depending on how you look at it, I have either believed things in the past which I find boorish, dumb, offensive (if I may be so mean to myself), or… well, and/or, I have grown, and where I believed one thing, I now have come to look at it, to look at these things with more information, more context, et al.

I should here like to say that I would like to apologize for much of what is posted here.

There was a time when I was comfortable saying that pretty much whatever Joe Rogan has to say, or thinks, that I, too, believed this, that I support it. Well, of late (especially so), I am really not very happy with Joe Rogan, as I don’t believe he does enough to protect himself, and his viewers/fans from misinformation, disinformation, and, frankly, outright propaganda.

I’ve said it before, you cannot, as Joe has done, sit down with so many intelligent people to talk, and then fall back upon a position of, “Hey, I’m just a dummy, don’t listen to me”. You can’t. That’s so intellectually-dishonest that it is downright irresponsible.

People listen to Joe, and Joe knows this, and I believe that Joe owes it to himself, and to his audience, to become the journalist that the world needs.

I know Joe is good in his heart, and I know Joe is essentially intelligent enough, certainly enough to lay it down onto fake intellectual Candace Owens.

In this episode, below, Candace Owens tries to do her schtick, but accidentally insists to die upon the really dumb hill of “climate change isn’t real”, ugh, yuck, and Joe recognizes her glaring intellectual fault, and so he holds her feet to the fire, and makes her either account for her comments, or to suffer the humiliation of having to repeat “I’m not going to die on this hill”, while doing just that.

Climate change is a wonderful litmus test of intelligence, in 2020. If someone cannot explain it, that’s okay, but if they cannot explain it, while also disavowing it… yikes!

Yuck, why would you go around saying that climate change isn’t real, or that the science isn’t settled, or that it’s too late, or that it’s blown out of proportion? If you are so uneducated on the topic, as you must be, why on Earth are you talking so boldly about something that many people know quite a bit about? This is like putting your ignorance onto a flag, or a red hat, and then waving it about. It’s bewildering for the rest of us.

So, yes, I will continue to prune, adjust, to update this blog, while also, ideally, not simply removing all the content that I do not now agree with. Some of it must come down.

I’m pretty sure there are still posts which hold on high such names as Stefan Molyneux, Jordan Peterson. The former, I listened to a long time ago, and I thought he sounded smart (yuck!), and the latter, I basically had a crush on… yeah, until he did his pivot, and then embraced the right wing.

If you come across something that is gross, please send me a message, or leave a comment, and I will address these at my earliest convenience. Just know that, these days, I am nearer (I’d like to think…) Carl Sagan, to Attenborough, to minds who think science and humanity can be good and useful, and that responsibility, truth, kindness, social and technological progress are necessary.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Regards,

-J

COVID-19 – Thoughts from Toronto – E02

When I sit down to write something serious, I tend to approach it as though it were to be written in stone, upon the largest and most important stone, where then this stone is to be lifted onto the visible side of the moon, where a very bright light will shine upon it for all time –and it had better perfect, because the truth of the moon rock is eternal, good, and useful, else it is unhelpful, unsightly, wholly contemptable; and why would I even set out to fail myself and others so?

Of course… a reasonable person would know that this isn’t achievable. Yes, I can hope and work toward having my writing displayed on the moon for people to read at night as they look to the stars in contemplation of their own existence… but, I should also be planning for a future where I am not a prolific oracle who would be thought wise while defacing the moon for questionable ends.

As before said, as I know, and as I think we would all like to see in practice, I need to just allow myself to write. Too much needless, self-imposed pressure and constraints.

Anyway, to follow my prior post, re: COVID-19 experiences in Toronto, Ontario, what’s to say? Actually, there’s probably quite a bit to say. I don’t believe I’ll be doing that, saying it all. I’ll share some thoughts in passing, and maybe a trend will come of this.

Apparently a function of international geopolitics, where on one side there are people believing one thing, apparently with good reason (Trump cannot be trusted, he is a fool, he is dangerous), and on the other side, there are those who ardently hold beliefs to the contrary, and seemingly without good reason (we must trust Trump –it is his critics who cannot be trusted); this same behaviour seems to be manifesting on the local level with respect to COVID-19 and associated measures, re: “Wear a mask, social distance, defer to public health guidelines on the matter of the evolving pandemic.” vs. “Masks don’t work, this is an attack on my freedoms, and the health experts are lying.”.

John M. Kelly Library, UofT, William McElcheran Sculpture

So, how is Toronto with COVID? The people so lucky as to be well informed on the subject, and who can afford to protect themselves and others seem to be trying to do just that. Those who think the pandemic and the associated measures are a conspiracy, or a hoax, well, they will continue to behave in ways contrary to the public good (and their own good, paradoxically), and this will always be an issue with respect to how this or any place recovers from the pandemic, and how humanity will face the next challenge to the common that also requires everyone coming together. Climate change, pollution, degradation of the biome, and the prospect of nuclear war, to name a few.

I had been going for runs, first with a mask, and then without a mask, but the latter was always-always done in a fashion where I could keep more than enough outside physical distance between myself and others. I still keep my mask in my pocket, during these runs, just in case I have to go anywhere, or to move through an area where physical distancing isn’t possible, or isn’t enough.

At the grocery store, they have someone at the door spraying down carts, and patrons are encouraged to take a cart, using these to enforce a sort of unthinking cart-length physical distancing.

Although it’s not a popular option, for various reasons, I find that using the self-checkout lane at the grocery store gets me in and out with the least amount of queuing, interaction with others. In all the time of the pandemic, I’ve actually not once had to wait in line. Not once. In, grab my stuffs (maybe/probably some cookies), to the checkout without delay, scan, swipe, and I’m on my way out the door, rubbing my hands in the hand sanitizer accessible on exit. At least for me, the system works.

As per the efficacy of masks, and of social distancing, and of not being in a workplace environment during these times, I have not been sick since late January, possibly early February of this year. In the years prior, honestly, 2018-2019, maybe I wasn’t washing my hands often enough, and/or I operated with complete and utter ignorance with respect to protecting myself from colds and flus out there in the world; during those two years, I had a cold… sorta all the time. And now, in COVID, nothing, not a single sore throat, not a single cough, not anything. It’s quite interesting a thing to behold.

I have not been to a friends’ houses, nor to a party, nor to a rave, nor to a restaurant, nor have I been on any dates, nothing. I’ve been either by myself, or within the bubble of my family. My goodness, how I would like to have a giant house party with all my friends once this collective headache is beyond us. Going to be so good. Ugh.

So far as I can tell, how we deal with COVID-19 is representative about how we deal with climate change, the propagation of bad information, and really any other problems facing civilization today. In each of the major problem of the day, we seem to have an entire political force that is based around acting to delegitimize and oppose efforts to effectively work together to fix the problems facing the common.

Unhelpful, backwards, dangerous leaders and political groups like Trump and the modern GOP find their power in subverting the actual good of the people, and instead preying upon the fears of the people, their distrust, their more base emotions and emotional baggage, and harnessing that for what is perceived as political gain.

It’s terrible, and it’s ever a wonder how and precisely why so many people would bring themselves to turn to a false idol like Trump, and to exchange so much for what is essentially cult worship of an obviously untrustworthy, disreputable narcissist.

To be sure, I think this is precisely what is occurring when we see anti-maskers, anti-vaccine folks (even though Trump, himself, is presently pro-vaccine, it would seem), and people who have the gall to share obviously false conspiracy theory “documentaries” on their social media, lifting on high a moron conman like Trump, amplifying the voices of individuals who agree with Trump his ilk, and then presenting themselves and their obvious misunderstanding of everything as a wisdom superior to reputable institutions of health and science. “Take the masks off. Liberate yourselves!”, the unfortunate minds loudly, and with their own names, with no shame, do proclaim.

It breaks my heart.

On November 3rd, whether or not Trump and the GOP are voted out of office, there will still be a great, great many people who are woefully misinformed, lied to, twisted by false and destructive narratives, and it sucks, and I’m sad for them, I’m sad for us all.

Despite so many who have been lost to a new world of rampant, effective disinformation, the rest of us are doing well enough to stay safe from COVID-19. I believe we will be able to navigate this, but we will have to do so with the other side dragging their feet, and this will invariably make it more costly, more difficult.

My first mask was picked off of a clothesline in west Toronto, as someone had prepared a number of colourful masks for pedestrians and neighbours to take as they need. This is the sort of beauty that we need to get through such problems, and in such beauty is the understanding that we are stronger, more able together –happier, better together.

That’s all for now.

Take care,

-J

Covid-19 – Thoughts from Toronto – E01

Good day, world,

So, there is a pandemic spreading across the world, and in virtually every country (so far as I know) the virus is spreading through local transmission.

The date is March 25th, 2020, a Wednesday, and the weather outside is a little crisp, but warm enough for a light jacket, or a t-shirt and a sweater to be sufficient.

Of course, those who do go outside, they go outside either by themselves, or with those with whom they have chosen to self-quarantine.

And that’s the name of the game, the self-quarantine.

From my layperson understanding of it, the idea is that we need to all exercise social distancing, that we need to outright avoid being near to other humans… for… well, for the foreseeable future. And, in 2020, the future really isn’t all that predictable.

And we must do so as an effort to ‘Flatten the Curve’, that is to say, we need to prevent everyone from getting sick at once. If everyone gets sick at once, and everyone loads up the healthcare system, irrespective of nation, there will be much suffering, much death, and a very bad time for us all.

It’s not the end of the world, but a chapter of the world which presents itself as challenges, difficult choices.

Re: 2020, what a year this is turning out to be. We exited 2019 with the republicans choosing not to kick Trump out of office, re: his impeachment; alarms about climate change ringing (rightly so);  a potential war with Iran (one plane-full of civilians accidentally shot out of the sky as a glib, sad, infinitely-regrettable bonus of these difficult and endlessly-trying times); only then to be greeted by a global pandemic, an outbreak of a novel strain of the corona virus, so-named COVID-19.

Though it seems to have originated in Wuhan, China, it is now across the globe, on the minds of just about everyone.

I had a cold in late December, a pretty bad one. Of course, I couldn’t get tested, nor receive an antibody test, and so I don’t know if I’ve had it, I don’t know if I have it, and/or if I am transmitting it to others, presently.

As such, I have not seen my family, nor my friends, at least not in person.

As one who reads the news, closely, frequently, perhaps obsessively, I saw the virus coming, and I was able to prepare before the masses began such actions as to precipitate memes about toilet paper hoarding.

By mid-February, I began to take it all seriously.

Over the weeks to follow, I would take frequent little visits to the grocery store, and I began to amass a little collection of non-perishable foods; rice, beans, canned ham, canned tuna, frozen means and microwave dinners. In addition, I also picked up plenty of toilet paper, cannabis, and anything else that I would like to have, and would need to have, should a pandemic occur.

I told family and friends to prepare (once my preparations were mostly complete), and then I waited. And lo, the very first disaster for which I prepared… it came, and, alarmingly, my worries were vindicated. Note: vindication, it’s actually not always so nice. I digress.

It has been more than a week since I have last gone to the grocery store. I will probably go again, to continue to collect supplies, more canned food, more rice, et al.

That said, there is a quality to the present situation, a quality that feels like a game. What is the game? It’s like this: how many times can you go back for supplies, before going back causes you to become infected?

Yes, I may have enough food, presently, but the ancestral mind within me, the survivalist within me wants me to get more, to keep growing my stores, to keep filling my fridge, my cupboards.

Given the nature of this virus, the way that it spreads so easily, how it can stay on surfaces –maybe even for days– and how it can hang in the air, in droplets, after someone has exhaled, coughed, or otherwise set the particles aloft, such that others can breathe them in… there really is a need to know when it’s time to pull back, when it’s time to, in effect, roll the stone before your cave entrance.

When is that time? Has it come and gone, is it before us still?

The safe answer is that you probably should already be done shopping, and you should be sheltering in place.

The last time that I went to the grocer, it was a local Sobeys. I noticed that they were washing the automated checkout machines with disinfectant, between each customer.

Also, however, less of a comfort, near the produce, I saw an Asian man with a face-mask on, and two nervous-looking police officers standing near to him, talking, trying to resolve some such situation.

I couldn’t tell if that was a sick man, or perhaps fear and racism bubbling up.

In either case, you could see that people were uncomfortable.

Some people are taking it seriously, and some are not.

I certainly am, my parents seem to be, and I hope you and yours are, too.

For those who do not have the opportunity to shelter in place… people who must go to their jobs, I am so very appreciative of them. Yes, it makes my life easier if the lights and internet are flowing, but it also helps us all.

I can only imagine what horrors would be set upon us if this pandemic was received as well as the 1918 influenza.

In the modern age, yes we have information dissemination, yes we have a robust science of medicine, but so too do we have Netflix, Youtube, Zoom (conferencing software that is presently popular).

These, the fruits of our high-contrivance, allow us to stay inside, to help the people remain occupied, calm, and, most importantly, healthy, and out of the damn way, while the health system, and medical professionals can fight the dire battle to save as many people as possible.

Ignorant people (typically not their own fault) either think this isn’t a big deal, or that it’s the end of the world.

It is a big deal, it is, but it isn’t the end of the world.

For some individuals, for families, yes, it may feel, and, in effect, in may be their end of the world. This makes me very sad.

Mmm.

I must admit, having prepared for this, having spent a winter in depressive-isolation, I feel almost too well quipped to deal with this quarantine. I’ve actually had to change very little of my day-to-day activities.

I find myself feeling so good, enjoying my time by myself, that if/when I smoke a little weed… the very first thing that comes to mind is a feeling of shame; shame that I am not ever-conscious of the suffering which is running rampant, a sort of guilt.

Mmm.

These are my meandering thoughts from my self-imposed, preventative quarantine.

I’ll post more, as I do possess some ability to communicate, and I certainly am paying attention. It’s only fair that I should convert my awareness, my penchant for words (not to say this is well written…) into something of a record, into something useful.

I have another website, and I shall be posting to that, too. But, unlike how these posts are, that which I post to my other site is more polished. For the time being, until I can go back and see what I have shared here, I think I’d prefer to keep the two websites separate.

Anyway, I hope everyone is taking this very seriously, and that each can find a bit of peace, a bit of calm in these trying times.

Regards,

• J

Oct 1st, 2018

Hello world,

This looks to be another journal entry; the only substantive things to be said, I imagine, will concern me, my unfiltered thoughts

Life.

Sometimes, perhaps often, when a famous person dies, typically a famous old person, one hears something along the lines of ‘person X is survived by their beloved person Y, without whom, person X just couldn’t have done good thing Z (or anything at all)’.

I hear this, I read this, and I wonder what greater good I could achieve if I could offload some of the burden of want, of what emotional instability just comes with the job (re: to be a human/animal chemistry set of emotions and inclinations that could be subdued, or brought out more, by such a friend, lover, close trusted confidant.

Of course, that amount of toxic masculinity which I keep within myself, namely, the understanding that I ought not ask for help, I ought not complain, I must not view my struggles as being struggles in want of another to help me.

I must do this alone.

If and when I get my life in order, then, surely then the whole operation will be good, useful, and beautiful.

I digress.

I need to find a job. Well, it may well be the case that it comes to pass that, yes, a job, any job will do, and must do, as I have allowed myself to trade time (wasted time) for debt.

What I truly need is a career…

I’d like to say that I don’t know how I went through so many productive years without finding a home for my creative mind… but I do. I do.

Should I have gone to University, rather than college? Perhaps I’d be writing more. Perhaps I’d be teaching? Had I stayed the course, I’d probably be somewhere.

Should I have followed advertising copywriting? Perhaps. Oh, the opportunity I had, there.

Moral compass, leading me toward the newsroom. Mmm, it’s rather clear that I should have asserted myself, more, during those times.

I really felt at home in the newsroom.

Spending morning and afternoons in university, spending evenings with news people, copy editors, journalists… that was my peak form.

A mouse, I was. The wrong publication (for me), it was. And so, the quiet mouse kept his furry little head down, and he quietly stayed in his place.

To what end? A better paying job in marketing. A job for which one could argue I am presently qualified. Bleh.

Hmm… let me think. Had I all the time and money, what would I do?

I would go back to University, I would finish my undergrad in Philosophy and political science.

And then? Well, then, given that all the time and money (re: material freedom), then I would and could be so content as to write the book, finish the work…

But why do I not do this, now?

A silence more silent and heavy than words can, here, detail.

Mmm…

Art.

A man divided.

Do I become the photographer, do I become the author… do I find some office job that will accept me.

Do I run away?

I know not.

In truth, I just want to take beautiful photos of people, I want to be a philosopher king, I want to guide life toward the beautiful, and I’d like to participate in this beauty in a constructive way.

Politics? Am I capable of this?

I say philosopher king, mostly in jest.

I just… I feel as though my interests in this world, my love for life, humanity, and the good and useful progress of either is very, very important to me. I feel this is so, to such a degree, that I possess some honest and authentic quality that wants to enrich life itself, before enriching this particular body/life of mine.

So as to say, I feel as though I have meditated on my (re: Spinoza’s) metaphysics for so long that my brain feels like it is structured in a way that wants others, wants everyone to live a beautiful life.

There is so much obvious greed, stupidity, so much ugliness in politics, in politicians… I almost feel drawn to such work by way of a need to ascend to my civic duty.

Similarly, it is my strength, my interest in helping people that makes me want to become a police officer. But, the whole deal about being shot, having to constantly deal with troubled people and perilous situations (interestingly, typing that, I felt the draw)(that comment, notwithstanding), does not bode well with me.

Mmm, perhaps if I lost my parents, then, perhaps I would feel more comfortable with getting into a dangerous line of work.

Suffice to say, I am an able body, an able mind, and I want to help this place, my family, my friends, city, country, my planet, my people, life itself.

And lo, here I lay, in bed, nothing but potential within me (well, plenty of doubt, guts, chicken, etc.), and (I mean it this time) nothing but opportunity, possibility before me, out there in the world.

If I continue to stay quiet, as I did during the rise of Trump and alt/far-right Trumpism, then I deserve what we get afterwards.

The leader we need:

We need someone who knows where life came from, and how we are all connected, by not just our lineage, but our common planet, our common path.

We need someone who does not wish to enrich themselves.

We need someone who does not hate.

We need someone who is prepared to do unpopular, necessary things, and whom we can trust to explain this to us.

Most of all, especially now, we need someone who can make well the temperament of the people. For, what good is a great leader if the people have been made sick, petty, and mean?

These divisive tactics… the dog whistles of the right. It makes dogs, barking dogs of the people.

Anyway…

Behold, the meandering path of my mind.

Will I ever have a family? Will I ever live as my parents do? Will I finish my book?

I’ll admit it, I’m lost, so frustrated as to be tired, in debt, and time, like a receding edge beneath my feet, it marches on, resolute.

The Earth, this place is the most beautiful thing imaginable.

We can do better. I can, and I must, do better. If not for me, if not for my loving parents… then for the Earth, for Life, for the living Cosmos.

Oh, Cosmos, give me the strength to do the good that needs to be done.

Oh me.

Everyone that knows me, they know me as an intelligent, able person (so far as I know). They have no cause to believe I am falling.

And falling I am…

Mmm, but a bird falls, and in falling, it picks up speed. Watch the bird fly. I’d like to soar.

This life, it is what we make of it.

In closing, here is a wonderful song, perhaps an equally wonderful music video;

DATA – Don’t Sing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37eEUsd1ASA
Love, sing about love, think about the vivid, sing about war. ❤

Take care,

– J

Little thoughts 03

Who will be the first to stop the old ways?

Will it be they, who, from the beast having turned over its back, are thrown from the existent order? If nothing else, yes, it will be this.

Will those who take themselves off of the animal of burden, voluntarily, will they be spared?

No, not unless they could reach the necessary height, meet the necessary escape velocity, and even then, they would have to make a life on the Moon, or Mars, or the equally incalculable inhospitable conditions of deep within the Earth, or in space, living within something like a tin can… and such a life would have to be of the overman;

Unlike our lives today, these which must merely be lived for the Ubermench, lives (ideally) lived in preparation for his, for their arrival (from within, not from without — though the overman might well be aliens of other worlds, to our own, he is native; he is the next man of humanity), those who live in the next home for man, these men (used in the sense of humanity, therefore, I absolutely mean all humans, irrespective of sex or gender) cannot be of the old ways, they must be wholly of the new way, the new way of Being, and being human.

For, to escape death, here, only to die elsewhere of the same terrible disease of the mind?

How terrible, how terrible and foolish, selfish.

Mmm, it is this terror, this greed, this ugliness that makes this place, presently, so defunct, so fucked, respectively.

Not fucked in the absolute sense, no. But, mmm, well, actually, yes, we might be in such a dire position as to say that our situation is totally fucked.

Where was I?

Oh yes, the most evolutionarily-advanced form of life has woken up, but, we’ve merely woken from a dream within a dream, and woke, we are not. As such, with our industry, our commerce, with our focus on the days of the life of existence, rather than existence writ large…

And so we poison the ocean… poison the air… mmm, worst of all, we poison our minds, the minds of one another.

Will God save us? Perhaps, perhaps not.

Of course, God walks among us, God is (among other / all things) Man, Himself.

For, in my view, God is Nature, and Nature God. Man? Man is nature, and nature God, and, therefore, God is man.

Yes, God is the trees, but the trees cannot speak but to grow, to die, to blossom, to give fruit, to give no fruit, to die.

It is God, it is Nature as Man that allows Nature, that allows God, the Cosmos to speak.

And what does He/She/They say?

Does Nature tell us to love? Does nature tell us to respect life, to preserve and cherish what we have been given, what we have found ourselves growing out of?

Sometimes, but, so too does this God say “fake news”, “not in my backyard”, and “fuck you, I’m here to get mine”.

Why?

Because He will speak and think and act as we do.

By poisoning our minds, by turning toward greed, shortsighted views, collectively, we have put these words and thoughts into our collective mind.

And, like an infection in the body, the illness moved to our collective mind, to our God, and he was made ill, too.

Love your fellow man, find kind paths to take, find difficult heights to ascend… persevere, work to make this place cleaner, healthier, and of love, a love that wants to fight, to fight to live for good and right, to fight to survive, to survive with meaning; to use mere subsistence when it must be so, and then to get back up, and to, again, to always seek The Good.

It is this allegiance to The Good, to knowledge thereof that will heal our collective, to right the mind of Nature, such that we may know one another as we can and ought, as family, as fingers upon the hand that keeps us, as leaves upon the tree that gives life.

God is the good that we give to one another.

Salvation will only ever come from the good thoughts, the noble actions of men like you and I.

Mmm.

Eventually, this animal on which we hoard our resources, on whose back we have wars, military operations, pipelines, hostile takeovers, value to shareholders over value proper… eventually we either have to get off the animal’s back, to help it recover, and to care for it, as well as ourselves, or, we just do as we are known to do… and we do so until the animal collapses, until Mother Earth, or our will to go on passes some threshold beyond which there is nothing but stars, rocks, gas, just thoughtless stuff, going on and on and on, until some of it can, for a time, struggle between the base, thoughtless lower nature… and the far more difficult, more useful, uniquely beautiful higher nature which brings me and my thoughts to stir, each and every morning.

And even in such a light, one must be hopeful in their conclusion that life just pops up, that the vastness of time and space are such that we can afford to let the ~13.7 billion monkeys writing on an equal number of typewriters lose their copy of the Magna Carta, of the works of Shakespeare… because, surely, the incalculable causal and random events and special conditions which brought everything to be, and, to be from nothing, oh, that it can and will just happen again, right?

That’s some guess.

It’s a hope.

It’s a hope born of fear. Fear, not of death, not of permanent cosmic annihilation, perhaps not even of the cessation of all known life, of civilization, and, as we understand it, possibility itself… no, the fear most high, most moving, most terrible… that is the fear that you know the wrong that you do, your culpability, the blood and Earth and history on your hands.

Out, out damn spot?

No.

Leave your hands unwashed.

Let the sun, let the moon light your hands pf crimson.

Guilty are we all.

Precious is this all.

The only way through is by living, individually, collectively, as conscious of our crimes, our ugly desires, our complacency.

Mmm.

Life is precious. Life as you and I know it? God… I know of no sin greater than to let all of this be for naught.

Just daily thoughts, these.

Beautiful, all of it, everything, everyone.

If only we could love it all in the way that such beauty deserves.

We can. Some do. We will.

I have hope, hope and love.

Take care

– J

Little thoughts 02

The elephant in the room is one of self-censorship.

On the one hand, to write, toward the end of being a writer; this, if left unchecked, could be nearer to the production of noise, for the sake of noise, than to the letting out of thoughts, elucidation, thereof for which my efforts are aimed.

Mmm, conversely, perhaps it is the incessant blowing of this, my vuvuzela –a contemptible instrument– that clears it out, such that I can, as I once did, make music.

My brain, my mind –allow me this digression; a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Always, most always, mmm, often; often, I feel as though my mind rests in some super-position of creative / ideological potentiality. Touching upon many and varied possible paths, options, ideas… often to the benefit of no single idea.

I imagine a person sinking into quicksand, and I see this person considering his escape forwards, backwards, to this side, and to that. Mmm, such a man, unless he selects the right option in time, such a man goes nowhere but down.

This world.

The recent period in which I stopped writing, in this time, the world seems to have become that much more crazy.

So many facets of this, too.

Where does one even begin to untangle the mess? How does one reform this colossal house of cards, while standing upon it?

Mmm, I believe the solution has more to do with addressing the card, the nature of the form of the card, the individual card, itself.

Why do I hide my ideas, so?

What if someone heard my words, and they completed my work for me? Why, on a deep and substantial level, do I fear this?

I do not understand. Well, the ego, et al, I suppose I do. But, you think I’d be above that, no?

It’s as if I was in a large burning building, and I wanted to let everyone in the building know that it burns, and that it will destroy us all if we do nothing, or if we spend too much resources doing other things… and yet, in light of my apparent inability to make this message clear, I have not handed the responsibility to others…

In fact, haha, truth be told, the very reason I stopped sharing my thoughts, here, was because I had begun to write my own book, to start my work with a true, real, honest attempt at finishing it.

I didn’t want to just let it out. I wanted to bottle up my feelings, my thoughts, such that they would burst forth onto the page.

Mmm, and they did. So too, of course, came forth the cruel reality that I am best equipped for writing… where the act of writing does not include editing.

Sure, I can edit, but my editing skills are seperate from my writing abilities. They come from different places within me.

I’d like to blame others, I really would. Well, I’d like to be so honest as to let my frustrations speak, however petty and self-serving as they may be.

I wish I had gone to university, I wish I could go back, right now, and continue my studies in philosophy.

Sometimes I think about taking all of my notes, destroying them. Perhaps then I’ll be able to write real thoughts, once more.

Otherwise, having written what feels like… most everything that needs to be written, I feel like I am just tracing the letters of prior pages written.

Do I have the rigor, the mind, the skill set to work at a newspaper, in academia, at a place that deals with minds, people, humanity, the future?

Well, a question I can answer with greater ease: do I have the ability to think less of my abilities, to undercut my worth, to stop myself where forward motion would bring me potential success? Oh yes; oh yes, my friend, I can do that.

Oh, the world.

You sprang out of nothing, out of the something which is nature, and here you shine for yourself to see.

And now that we have a clearer idea what nature is, what we are, what all this is… mmm, on the large, we do almost nothing.

There is a mechanism to existence, a reality of reality that, unless we fight, work to clear our vision of it, that blinds us to truth, makes us too lazy to act on that which makes its way through the blinders.

I have said it before, if I truly knew, if in my heart I fully, fully understood my own beliefs, the reasonable metaphysics of this place, this thing, this mind, this nature, this God, if I knew what I knew, and I actually knew it, truly, it would manage to be more terrifying than finally coming to realize that you are trapped in a cage with a hungry, angry lion.

For, if the lion takes his/her time to torture you to death, you still die; through cessation of existence, you find your escape.

The truth of reality? I could put myself in a cage with such a lion, I could put my head into its mouth, snap it shut for the animal.

And still, still, I would not, could not escape nature.

Of course, this is not a clear analogy. No.

Truer would be… haha… well, the truth, itself, would suffice; it’s like life, by chance, by the sheer volume and span of time and space came to be… and, in keeping with this improbability, life then advanced to such a dizzying height as inanimate matter becoming animate to the degree that it considers its own existence, right and wrong, that it contrives such things as the self, civilization, history, science, rocketry, et al.

Oh, yes, and then, despite how ability to know, and to know ourselves, we see that we hurt ourselves so. Worse yet, the atoms that might as well have arranged themselves into the blueprint for the mind, for love, for life… that blueprint stands to be lost forever.

And yet… despite knowing this… despite knowing that saving humanity from itself, saving life from humanity, saving humanity for life… despite knowing how terribly, terribly, terribly important this is…

The consequences of inaction, of incorrect action are so great…

Despite knowing this, we find problems in other, temporary, superficial things.

Donald Trump holds the highest office in the known universe.

…

Carl Sagan, you died too soon.

Nature, please grant me the strength to find a way to preserve our wondrous forms of life.

Sigh.

Do I want a job and a family? That is, do I want to participate in the game?

Or, do I want to communicate that which it is that I feel it within me to be necessary?

It’s a real question.

Can I do both?

I think I could be a good father.

I believe I can be a good man, a good human.

Why must I feel compelled to be loved so that I may write?

Anyway, I feel a little better having shared this.

The world is a beautiful place, and so are you.

Take care, remember to be kind,

– J

little thoughts 01

Little thoughts, like small drops of water falling from a large sky, onto a large surface below, alone, they are but a temporary flit of affectation, and as that, barely so.

Together, the many little things form a great something, and their effect, something greater, surely.

Water cuts, erodes, washes away; water pulls heat out, water delivers heat, water turns to gas and ceases to be water… but for that moment.

And, in so doing, in its change, a truth is revealed, yes, that truth.

A truth so simple, so apparent, once you arrive upon it, one so… inherently so, that I cannot pry myself from it. I cannot turn myself on it, for it speaks to me, and I hear my own voice talking of my having turned my back on myself.

Mmm.

A dream, this morning, something of an apocalypse, something to the effect of time’s passage, of a real and latent worry of that which must be done versus the dwindling opportunity to bring the right into being.

Mmm, of course, though I could see –in this frivolous dream, this fancy, unwilling imagining– the writing on the sky, as it were, I was concerned not with rods and rocks from heaven sent, no.

Rather, I found myself with the soft, warm, sumptuous bosom of a young woman.

I could see her body, and, concomitant to my appetites, physically, carnally speaking, I knew her form was good and right, mmm.

I could sense her general character to be trusting, mmm, but I could see not her face. Or, had I, her visage was of no vista that I have come to know.

Mmm… and I have come to know many such faces.

At the end of the dream, as panic reached something of a fevered pitch, I was still touching her hand, looking at the tanned, supple contours of her flesh; I looked at her, and I wanted to believe in it, in her, in my own terrible mind, at that moment.

But I could not, I did not, for the grooves of love, of its permanent affectation upon the mind, these could be felt, still, even beneath the spell of sleep, of the cage of imagination, opened, turned upon the mind; I knew this was not love, but some empty hunger for it, some hollow desire for… for love? Comfort, perhaps. But, perhaps love.

The takeaway?

Probably that meditation is something that I require.

My busy mind… it knows what must be done, the necessary work, even if it is to hold toward the sky, an opened umbrella, offering no true protection against oblivion, of what falls from the sky, what rods and rocks and special light from the constitution, the configuration of this place.

And yet, I give in to such secondary pursuits as the open investigation for love, trust, for human connection, cosmic communion.

Blah.

Have I shared good thoughts, this day? Mmm, perhaps not. Though, I have spoken, and I should like to speak again.

Like the first run in a long while, sharing thoughts as this, it typically begins quite painfully, relatively fruitlessly, only to improve with each iteration, with each consequtive attempt.

Take care,

– J

The old, the powerful (short story)

From beyond the knowledge of the shell, of even the projectile within, the hammer follows the will of some finger (the appendage to a much larger question atop a question, atop a question ad infinitum, until we reach not some hard wall, not some resolute end, or lowest turtle, or willing mind; rather, it isn’t until we understand the relationship of the whole that we can see the origin to our current path), the path of the physical constraints of the mechanism that delivers the firing pin to the rear of the casing.

Youth, the explosion that first propels us, that first heat and light and fire that seems to tear away the cocoon that was our personal nothing, the fleeting, familiar warmth of a void that delivered us into the world.

Tumbling through the air, spinning, heating with the coarse, rushing air, and, as our trajectory begins to dip, we cool; the energy drains from us, or, becomes manifest in the distance, in our own affectation of the world, of each other.

And then we strike a wall at terminal velocity, perhaps we bury ourselves into the ground, maybe we strike someone in the heart, and the world is forever changed, again, and again, and, well, this is how the world works.

Hmm.

Imagine a world where we do not age as in decline. What if, instead, the older one became, the larger, stronger, more verve-filled one became?

Gone would be the days of sitting by Grandmother’s bedside, waiting for her to lose her local battle to entropy, to the use and re-use of mechanisms ill-equipped for the immortality of the human.

Instead, one would notice Grandpa in the weight room, in the middle of the night, despite his claims that he was tired as the dinner table.

Frozen, from the doorway, Andrew, the youngest of the ten children of the house licked his lips, the dim blue light from the room not yet fallen onto him.

“Grandpa”, he spoke, cautiously, his hand on his hip’s holstered sidearm, “what are you doing up so late, shouldn-”

“I’m only eighty-two”, Bernard interrupted, slowly letting down the combined seven hundred pounds, back onto the rack. The rack sagged under the weight, as Bernard’s giant, bursting muscles relaxed. “My granddaddy lived to be a hundred and forty”, he spoke, taking a swig from his water bottle, still laying, looking up at the ceiling.

Andrew moved his right hand’s middle finger, an inch, just to be touching the leather clasp that held the revolver in place.

As if responding to this unseen motion, immediately, Andrew’s eighty-two year old grandfather ducked his head beneath the bench press bar, leaned forward, as if in one or two, soft, yet quick motions. His head, looking at the floor, slowly tilted up, toward his grandson.

“Now listen, I just want to be healthy, while I’m still here, and there’s–“, he began, before his was cut off by his grandson.

“No, you can’t be doing this; you haven’t been taking your medication, have you?”, Andrew said, his throat in pain from the fear, and of the sadness, a physiological reaction of fight or flight.

The room was silent; though, to the boy, the room was filled with tinnitus, the beating of his heart, his breath. To the man, his highly developed years, his eyes, beyond high definition, could see detail in the moon-cast shadow in the hallway, enough to see, to hear Andrew’s finger pop the little revolver clasp off of its holster.

“NOW LISTEN!”, Bernard shouted, as he stood.

With two loud bangs, Andrew fired two shots into his grandfather’s chest. Bernard lunges at the boy. Another three shots fire off, flashing the room, each time, blinding only the boy. His wrists crushed, Andrew lay on his back in the hallway, his torso unnaturally twisted around, his upper torso flat against the linoleum floor. Andrew looked beyond his mangled hand, the gun deformed, too, covered in red and pink, wet bits of flesh, through the sliding glass door, into the yard.

Andrew could not hear anything, and his vision was failing him, before the draining blood took with it, his consciousness, his life, he saw his grandfather’s 7′ frame, half way to the treeline that stood twenty-five feed from the back of the house.

His grandfather’s body suddenly stiffened, and his white collared shirt began to fly into little pieces, into the air. Out of view, on the deck, and out of the windows on the second floor, all of the children of the family emptied their weapons, filling his back, cutting his head in half with bullets and projectiles of varying caliber. Overkill, always.

Behind Andrew, just as the lights inside, went out, a woman, his aunt, ate quietly at some cheese that she stole from the dinner table. Alice never felt like she was eating enough. She felt old. She felt strong. She ate the cheese. Tensing the muscles in her back, long, thick muscles hidden beneath a dated dress that we wore often, Alice stepped into the night.

Lifting the fingers of her dress with her bloodied hands, she disappeared.

It wouldn’t be for another hour that the family notices that both of Andrew’s hands were missing, not a piece larger than a pea, anywhere to be seen. Not until morning would they find Alice missing.

Following the investigation of a terrible, terrible event that laid waste to two neighboring industrial districts, some years later, the family learned the true age of Alice, not aunt, not mother, but great, great grandmother.

• J

 

Photo, words

“I am become death, destroyer of worlds”, he said, learning against his bicycle, his feet, and it, planted into the sun-white grass, the stark black of the leaves, beneath him.

“Did you mean to say that?”, she asked, looking through her mirror, into an image she was imagining, a man leaning against his bicycle, in the park; the scene, completely bereft of colour, and wholly dark, stark with black and white contrast.

“You said you love me”, she said, her own eyes closed now, “just now, you say you loved me”, her question could be felt in her stomach; like quickly driving over a hill, in the back seat of a car, she felt the sudden pull of her innards, her unconscious mind flirting with the awareness of the dubious reality, here entertained, with such conviction.

With his head down, his hands in his pockets, he looked as though he were sleeping. He didn’t say anything like that. He knew he had not, because he could feel the tension within him to do this; that tension was as strong as ever.

“I meant that I was alone, and that I wanted to be warmed, some”, his lips moved, the words drawn out in his head, invisible lips and vocal chords, constrained by the mere functional understanding of speech.

“Yes, and I am alone too–“, she began, but he had already begun speaking over her.

“I shouldn’t have come here”, he said, aloud.

“I should have stayed away.”, she said in her mind, he said in his.

And together, they shared in the silence of their minds.

• J

 

 

20161024 – navel gazing

Words and ideas, they opine in my head. Flowing, but not like water rushing over the fall’s edge, cascading into the air as a great, white, billowing mist. No. These days, the words and ideas seem to move about like flotsam, forgotten: trash that’s become lost to the pointless swirl of an eddy. Relegated to follow itself, to lead itself nowhere, round and round, until time, until circumstance dries it up, leaving only the dusty, dirt-speckled residue of what had ceased to be, long before the moisture of its body had left it.

And lo, I am now faced with an opportunity to pick myself up, to gather these words and ideas, this garbage, my wreckage, and to toss it all–everything, toward those turbulent waves. To drown, to swim away into the blackness; to be, or to become overwhelmed, beyond hope, and to then walk the ocean floor, reluctantly waiting for the sun to envelop the Earth, to boil off this weight above my head, and to turn me to the same ash as everyone and everything that I have known, here on this place in space and time we call home.

hmmph

And I may do this. I may do it with no good reason beyond depression.

Hmm, and if I do find myself and my weightless, empty thoughts dashed upon the rocks below, well, that wouldn’t be the end, either. For, being so-destroyed would be another such eddy, only, one less familiar, far less comfortable. And so, given my fall, I could just do it again, and again, and again, until I have either succeeded, or until my life and/or opportunities in life have expired.

Time. Time is finite. Life, is worthwhile, certainly if you’re already in it, and you’ve not found yourself immediately aware of the horrors capable of the human animal and his human animal civilization.

Open your eyes, and you may find yourself suckling at the bosom of one who loves and cares for you. Blink, and now there are worms suckling at you, beneath a pile of your brethren, atop countless generations of that same life that lives on in the near-to-infinite variations.

This blink. This time between lives, we feel that it is something like the length of the life that we presently lead. Oh, the life that I presently have is good, and therefore I may enjoy this good life for some eighty years, at which point I may roll the dice, once more, hoping to get a life as good as I now enjoy.

I’m afraid to tell you –mainly, because I have spent years writing a book on the subject,  a book I doubt that I have the heart to finish without assistance, the help of a trusted adviser, likely a Buddhist — that this blink of a lifetime, it is an illusion.

What I mean to say, and perhaps I won’t here describe it (lest I fear that my words are too imprecise, concerning something that is paramount to my intellectual, heartfelt existence), is that all existences, all existence everywhere, all of it, all of you, each of us, myself, your dog, the little bugs on your face, what animated, living things that live upon them, all of you are a single existence. That existence, this universal existence is you. Rather, more precisely, it is You. Call it us, call it we, call it God or the Cosmos.

You do not experience your life after the last life, before the next life. Rather, you experience everything, all of the time, all at once, everywhere.

The only reason why you are not aware of this, is because your intellect, that which may grasp this idea, is essentially extraneous additions upon the more basic animal constitution, and that animal that you indelibly are, it simply must survive, and because of the way this place, the cosmos, this universe, at least this apparently physical instantiation of it is structured, one body can (under normal circumstances) only know itself and the world through that single intimate lens of awareness.

If the animal body was aware of the oneness of everything, as the intellect can ascend to, then, I imagine we would be something more like the ant, or, perhaps the bee. The individual would be lost, and to that, our quality of life; indeed, life itself, as we know it.

I am meandering, dangerously, with these words. Like a painter, rather, like a “painter” who looks at his easel with reproach, with a disgust that hurts his being, like a “lover” who never speaks to his love. Is such a person a lover, or are they simply deluded, perhaps they’re in love with the idea of being in love.

Yes, I put these words here, but am I a writer for doing so?
Have I put anything here, really, that hasn’t been said before by me, and/or is not pitiful navel gazing?

I doubt it.
But this is a step, a step toward a long, long journey that I had stopped taking steps toward.

Sometimes, your first step is a stumble.
Perhaps that’s what this is.
I certainly hope so.

– J