Tuesday, January 29, 2008
All I Really Want in this World
A fenced in area with a partial roof, a fire place, a comfortable bed, a solar oven, lots of candles, an oil lamp, pens, paper, the smell of damp earth, a cool night breeze, fruit trees, some chickens, drinking water, hot running out-door shower, red beens and rice, eggs, bread, butter, milk, a serval, a deck of cards, many books, a garden, and occasional company to keep from getting too lonely.
you know there ain't no devil, that's just god when he's drunk
Life won't let you get comfortable. I've been thinking. My philosophy on life seems to be a synthesis of ideas gained from Frank Herbert, Kurt Vonnegut, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Shakespeare.
Frank Herbert:
"It is the pressures of life that shape who you are. Intentions mean nothing, your actions define you. Self-control is the path to ultimate power. There is no telling the limits of the human mind."
"When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom."
"To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror."
Kurt Vonnegut:
"We are here to fart around, don't let anyone try to tell you different. Life is chaotic and beautiful, laugh when you can, love when you can, create as often as possible."
"Anyone who believes in telepathy raise my hand"
"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."
Isaac Asimov:
"There is no telling the limits of the human mind, even when you think you've accounted for all variables. One anomaly can disrupt whole systems. Control is never absolute. God created humans in his image, humans can create something better. Sometimes it is necessary to make the ultimate sacrifice avoid the ultimate sacrifice. Cognitive dissonance usually means you've come across a very important and valuable idea."
"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly."
Robert Heinlein:
"Understanding is the key to love, and love is unabashedly innocent…naïve, it has to be. There is no force as attractive as the purity of thoughtless, unquestioning love."
"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
"I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
Shakespeare:
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your philosophies."
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
You join the ranks of Indiana's honorable departed. I will quote you as you have quoted Eugene Debs. I will visit John Dillinger's grave in honor of your sister, who preceded you into the great inevitable mystery. I will smoke a cigarette for you. I will allow the spirit of Kilgore Trout into my body and let him do his work through me. I will keep an eye out for my karass, and love every minute of the absurdity of my life. I will try my best to understand that extreme pain is a form of time travel, and the only connections are through love and laughter. Should time hiccup, I will try to enjoy the extra amount accorded without going on autopilot. I will make love when I can, because it is good for me. I will brush my teeth with hot water and be mindful of my other half. I will appreciate art, and I will learn to live with my past only to find upon returning that my past has been erased and only the hollow remnants of it stand in memory. I will hope to one day see you as an unwavering band of light in the chrono-synclastic infundibulum.
When you're dead, you're dead.
hi-ho!
When you're dead, you're dead.
hi-ho!
The Competence of this Administration
Liberals keep pointing out the incompetence of this administration, which I find absurd. They are only incompetent if their actions are focused on liberal values and democratic goals, which most acknowledge is not what the republican party as a whole or this administration adheres to. In a speech Bush Jr. has said, "some call you the elite, I call you my base." He does well by them, and his administration does well in what they set out to do. Liberals just keep taking the bait of their stated goals and don't bother trying to preempt their apparent goals.
In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan. [Guardian]
1998 Unocal Statement:Suspension of activities related to proposednatural gas pipeline across Afghanistan As a result of sharply deteriorating political conditions in the region, Unocal, which serves as the development manager for the Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline consortium, has suspended all activities involving the proposed pipeline project in Afghanistan
.http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/oil.html
26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime.
http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10∓ctg=policy
This means that they planned to attack Afghanistan before 9/11. Did we get the terrorist responsible…is that ineptitude?...I don't know…they sure got their pipeline though, which they had been planning a lot longer than they had been looking for terrorists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm
My point is simply, our government is not in the hands of fools, but savvy, formidable politicians who have the connections, power, and know-how to get done exactly what they want to get done, and they do. Don't ever doubt it, don't call them stupid. This supposed stupidity and incompetence is a red-herring, it keeps us from questioning. Respect them, don't underestimate them. We have not dug ourselves deeper and deeper by electing idiots, we are in this hole of lost civil liberties and unending war, and systemic destabilization of the middle east, and America-hating, and continuing loss of life all over the globe because we have underestimated them.
They have the democratic party reacting, which makes it impossible to act. The democrats are constantly trying to save face because the republicans have taken core liberal issues and turned them into dirty words. It's like a woman being teased because she is on her period, but women are learning to say, "damn right I bleed, and there is nothing unclean about it…I have the power to bring life into this world." It's like Hispanics being thought of as less intelligent because they don't speak English perfectly, but they are learning to say, "What do you know of Hispanic literature, poetry, philosophy, huh Gringo?" It's like homosexuals being considered sinners because they love, but they are learning to say, "Excuse me, why can I kill my fellow man and rape my fellow woman in war, but I cannot love them in peace?"
So why can't the democratic party say "Hell yes…I'm a flip-flopper because I consider new information as it becomes available and I change my perspective when intelligence and reason invalidates my previous position….Fuck you, I am not soft on crime, I am soft on criminals because they are people who have fallen through the cracks, and instead of crippling their ability to function in this world or taking their lives, I would fill in the cracks to prevent people from falling through in the future…and Hell yes, that is why I am pro welfare, that is why I am pro education, that is why I am pro universal healthcare…Hell yes, I am pro-choice because we do not have the socialist measures to equip every woman with the means and time to raise a healthy, well-adjusted child out of poverty, and we already have too many women and children living below the poverty line…Hell yes, homosexuals, minorities, and women should have the same rights afforded everyone else.A word of advice for liberals, reclaim your name, admit your policies and platforms and explain why you hold them in esteem, stop trying to justify them. Trying to justify them overshadows the fact that million of Americans hold the same values…that you condescend to act as if rationality, equality, and compassion need to be justified, you make millions of Americans doubt their validity.
Wake up democrats, most Americans do listen, you just haven't been saying anything. We are not apathetic, we are disenfranchised. We are not stupid, we are ill-informed. We are not finicky, we are confused.
In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan. [Guardian]
1998 Unocal Statement:Suspension of activities related to proposednatural gas pipeline across Afghanistan As a result of sharply deteriorating political conditions in the region, Unocal, which serves as the development manager for the Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline consortium, has suspended all activities involving the proposed pipeline project in Afghanistan
.http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/oil.html
26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime.
http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10∓ctg=policy
This means that they planned to attack Afghanistan before 9/11. Did we get the terrorist responsible…is that ineptitude?...I don't know…they sure got their pipeline though, which they had been planning a lot longer than they had been looking for terrorists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2608713.stm
My point is simply, our government is not in the hands of fools, but savvy, formidable politicians who have the connections, power, and know-how to get done exactly what they want to get done, and they do. Don't ever doubt it, don't call them stupid. This supposed stupidity and incompetence is a red-herring, it keeps us from questioning. Respect them, don't underestimate them. We have not dug ourselves deeper and deeper by electing idiots, we are in this hole of lost civil liberties and unending war, and systemic destabilization of the middle east, and America-hating, and continuing loss of life all over the globe because we have underestimated them.
They have the democratic party reacting, which makes it impossible to act. The democrats are constantly trying to save face because the republicans have taken core liberal issues and turned them into dirty words. It's like a woman being teased because she is on her period, but women are learning to say, "damn right I bleed, and there is nothing unclean about it…I have the power to bring life into this world." It's like Hispanics being thought of as less intelligent because they don't speak English perfectly, but they are learning to say, "What do you know of Hispanic literature, poetry, philosophy, huh Gringo?" It's like homosexuals being considered sinners because they love, but they are learning to say, "Excuse me, why can I kill my fellow man and rape my fellow woman in war, but I cannot love them in peace?"
So why can't the democratic party say "Hell yes…I'm a flip-flopper because I consider new information as it becomes available and I change my perspective when intelligence and reason invalidates my previous position….Fuck you, I am not soft on crime, I am soft on criminals because they are people who have fallen through the cracks, and instead of crippling their ability to function in this world or taking their lives, I would fill in the cracks to prevent people from falling through in the future…and Hell yes, that is why I am pro welfare, that is why I am pro education, that is why I am pro universal healthcare…Hell yes, I am pro-choice because we do not have the socialist measures to equip every woman with the means and time to raise a healthy, well-adjusted child out of poverty, and we already have too many women and children living below the poverty line…Hell yes, homosexuals, minorities, and women should have the same rights afforded everyone else.A word of advice for liberals, reclaim your name, admit your policies and platforms and explain why you hold them in esteem, stop trying to justify them. Trying to justify them overshadows the fact that million of Americans hold the same values…that you condescend to act as if rationality, equality, and compassion need to be justified, you make millions of Americans doubt their validity.
Wake up democrats, most Americans do listen, you just haven't been saying anything. We are not apathetic, we are disenfranchised. We are not stupid, we are ill-informed. We are not finicky, we are confused.
Myth of the U.S. Melting Pot
For all the liberals out there who have a misconstrued notion of what America has been, is, and will continue to be. America is not a melting pot. It is not multicultural.
The first naturalization law in the United States was the March 26, 1790 Naturalization Act which restricted naturalization to "free white persons" of "good moral character"
After the immigration of 123,000 Chinese in the decade of 1870 to 1880, who joined the 105,000 who had immigrated from 1850 to 1870, Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which specifically limited further Chinese immigration
After President William McKinley was assassinated by a second-generation immigrant anarchist, Congress enacts in 1901 the Anarchist Exclusion Act to exclude known anarchist agitators. A literacy requirement was added in Immigration Act of 1917.
A more complex quota plan replaced this "emergency" system under the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reid Act). The reference census used was changed to that of 1890, which greatly reduced the number of Southern and Eastern European immigrants.
And once they got here..
Nativist prejudice against Irish Catholics reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the Know Nothing Movement, which tried to oust Catholics from public office..
the creation of a parochial school system, in addition to numerous colleges, that isolated about half the Irish youth from the public schools. After 1860 Irish sang songs (see illustration) about signs reading "HELP WANTED - NO IRISH NEED APPLY", which were also referred to as "the NINA signs."..
the media often stereotyped the Irish in America as being boss-controlled, violent (both among themselves and with those of other ethnic groups), being prone to alcoholism, voting illegally, and being dependent on street gangs that were often violent or criminal..
During World War I, German Americans, especially those born abroad, were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to the German Empire..
Several thousand vocal opponents of the war were imprisoned..Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty. One man was killed in Illinois. Some Germans during this time "Americanized" their names (e.g. Schmidt to Smith) and limited their use of the German language in public places..
he Alien Registration Act of 1940 required 300,000 German-born U.S. resident aliens to register with the federal government and restricted their travel and property ownership rights. [8] [9] Under the still active Alien Enemy Act of 1798, the United States government interned nearly 11,000 German Americans between 1940 and 1948. Some of these were United States citizens. Civil rights violations occurred. 500 were arrested without warrant. Others were held without charge for months or interrogated without benefit of legal counsel. Convictions were not eligible for appeal. An unknown number of "voluntary internees" joined their spouses and parents in the camps and were not permitted to leave.
The internment of Italian Americans during World War II has often been overshadowed by the Japanese American internment..roughly 600,000 Italians who were citizens of Italy and had not become American citizens were required to carry identity cards that labelled them as "resident aliens." Some 10,000 people in war zones on the West Coast were required to move inland. About 250 supporters of Italian Fascism were held in military camps for up to two years. Lawrence DiStasi claims that these wartime restrictions and internments contributed more than anything else to the loss of spoken Italian in the United States
~wikipedia
The lesson here is that we were all hated and mistreated when we came here, until our children forgot their tongues and culture and conformed to the in-bred blue-blood people in charge. People have been systematically barred from immigration or discriminated against upon arrival to the U.S. because of ..race,.. (I..m including white ethnics here, because they weren..t considered ..white.. when they came, although they were later considered white and so have attained over-all better chances of succeeding) religion, and creed. This also points out the myth that equality is a fundamental right of equality in America. Earlier ..white.. immigrants were considered inferior races, but after assimilation there wasn..t much in the way to tell them apart from the ..real white.. people, whereas immigrants ..of color.. could never fully assimilate into the in-bred blue-blood ideal and so have known very little in the way of equality.
I..m not saying that this is the way it should have been, it is merely the way it has been and is..so get off the liberal band-wagon and instead of espousing misinformation as to what America stands for, change what America stands for..
Make us a melting pot with all the flavors of each culture coming through in the stone soup.
Make equality possible for all by not making it contingent upon being able to ape the in-bred blue blood elites.
I am a white-ethnic, but I have every chance in the world because I retain only the most superficial aspects of my cultural heritage. Irish drink and are quarrelsome, Germans like bratwurst and sauerkraut and are Lutheran, etc. I find that unfortunate. But it could be worse. I would not have new immigrants who cannot so easily be subsumed by the ..white.. but is actually white-male-western-European culture of the United States have to throw away their cultural heritage to have a chance in this society. I would not have African Americans whose culture was obliterated upon being forced into slavery in the United States have less of a chance in this society because any of them who so chooses refuses to accept the values of a country that has so wronged them.
Do we really want equality, or do we just want to use it as a catch phrase? Do we really want multiculturalism or are we content with the conflicting notion in the media that we are and at the same time that multiculturalism is impossible to stabilize? Do we even know what multiculturalism is? Or, has the dominant culture so inflicted upon each wave of immigrants their prejudices that we are lost in an abyss of violence and recrimination?
It seems to me that we should all accept the validity of every group..s pain and the impossibility to measure or qualify that pain, and so reach over the abyss, join hands and take this country, which has been promised to all of us and never delivered..remember that before African Americans were in the Ghetto, it was German Americans, Irish Americans, Polish Americans, that Jews have been in Ghetto..s all over the world, that we are brothers and sisters in our pain no matter how trivial or severe..that we are all victimized and should stop victimizing one another so we can have a clear view of the source.
Amen.
The first naturalization law in the United States was the March 26, 1790 Naturalization Act which restricted naturalization to "free white persons" of "good moral character"
After the immigration of 123,000 Chinese in the decade of 1870 to 1880, who joined the 105,000 who had immigrated from 1850 to 1870, Congress in 1882 passed the Chinese Exclusion Act which specifically limited further Chinese immigration
After President William McKinley was assassinated by a second-generation immigrant anarchist, Congress enacts in 1901 the Anarchist Exclusion Act to exclude known anarchist agitators. A literacy requirement was added in Immigration Act of 1917.
A more complex quota plan replaced this "emergency" system under the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reid Act). The reference census used was changed to that of 1890, which greatly reduced the number of Southern and Eastern European immigrants.
And once they got here..
Nativist prejudice against Irish Catholics reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the Know Nothing Movement, which tried to oust Catholics from public office..
the creation of a parochial school system, in addition to numerous colleges, that isolated about half the Irish youth from the public schools. After 1860 Irish sang songs (see illustration) about signs reading "HELP WANTED - NO IRISH NEED APPLY", which were also referred to as "the NINA signs."..
the media often stereotyped the Irish in America as being boss-controlled, violent (both among themselves and with those of other ethnic groups), being prone to alcoholism, voting illegally, and being dependent on street gangs that were often violent or criminal..
During World War I, German Americans, especially those born abroad, were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to the German Empire..
Several thousand vocal opponents of the war were imprisoned..Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty. One man was killed in Illinois. Some Germans during this time "Americanized" their names (e.g. Schmidt to Smith) and limited their use of the German language in public places..
he Alien Registration Act of 1940 required 300,000 German-born U.S. resident aliens to register with the federal government and restricted their travel and property ownership rights. [8] [9] Under the still active Alien Enemy Act of 1798, the United States government interned nearly 11,000 German Americans between 1940 and 1948. Some of these were United States citizens. Civil rights violations occurred. 500 were arrested without warrant. Others were held without charge for months or interrogated without benefit of legal counsel. Convictions were not eligible for appeal. An unknown number of "voluntary internees" joined their spouses and parents in the camps and were not permitted to leave.
The internment of Italian Americans during World War II has often been overshadowed by the Japanese American internment..roughly 600,000 Italians who were citizens of Italy and had not become American citizens were required to carry identity cards that labelled them as "resident aliens." Some 10,000 people in war zones on the West Coast were required to move inland. About 250 supporters of Italian Fascism were held in military camps for up to two years. Lawrence DiStasi claims that these wartime restrictions and internments contributed more than anything else to the loss of spoken Italian in the United States
~wikipedia
The lesson here is that we were all hated and mistreated when we came here, until our children forgot their tongues and culture and conformed to the in-bred blue-blood people in charge. People have been systematically barred from immigration or discriminated against upon arrival to the U.S. because of ..race,.. (I..m including white ethnics here, because they weren..t considered ..white.. when they came, although they were later considered white and so have attained over-all better chances of succeeding) religion, and creed. This also points out the myth that equality is a fundamental right of equality in America. Earlier ..white.. immigrants were considered inferior races, but after assimilation there wasn..t much in the way to tell them apart from the ..real white.. people, whereas immigrants ..of color.. could never fully assimilate into the in-bred blue-blood ideal and so have known very little in the way of equality.
I..m not saying that this is the way it should have been, it is merely the way it has been and is..so get off the liberal band-wagon and instead of espousing misinformation as to what America stands for, change what America stands for..
Make us a melting pot with all the flavors of each culture coming through in the stone soup.
Make equality possible for all by not making it contingent upon being able to ape the in-bred blue blood elites.
I am a white-ethnic, but I have every chance in the world because I retain only the most superficial aspects of my cultural heritage. Irish drink and are quarrelsome, Germans like bratwurst and sauerkraut and are Lutheran, etc. I find that unfortunate. But it could be worse. I would not have new immigrants who cannot so easily be subsumed by the ..white.. but is actually white-male-western-European culture of the United States have to throw away their cultural heritage to have a chance in this society. I would not have African Americans whose culture was obliterated upon being forced into slavery in the United States have less of a chance in this society because any of them who so chooses refuses to accept the values of a country that has so wronged them.
Do we really want equality, or do we just want to use it as a catch phrase? Do we really want multiculturalism or are we content with the conflicting notion in the media that we are and at the same time that multiculturalism is impossible to stabilize? Do we even know what multiculturalism is? Or, has the dominant culture so inflicted upon each wave of immigrants their prejudices that we are lost in an abyss of violence and recrimination?
It seems to me that we should all accept the validity of every group..s pain and the impossibility to measure or qualify that pain, and so reach over the abyss, join hands and take this country, which has been promised to all of us and never delivered..remember that before African Americans were in the Ghetto, it was German Americans, Irish Americans, Polish Americans, that Jews have been in Ghetto..s all over the world, that we are brothers and sisters in our pain no matter how trivial or severe..that we are all victimized and should stop victimizing one another so we can have a clear view of the source.
Amen.
It is better to know and regret than to live in ignorance
I killed a thing on this night. A spider, so large I felt it cracking beneath my shoe. I nearly cried. It is harder than you..d think to kill a thing that big. At first I examined it, in wonder at how it got so big in secret in this house. I blew on it to see if it would run, it did not. I saw that one of its legs was injured. I walked off to continue my painting. The thought that it might be poisonous crossed my mind. I went back to examine it further, though I wouldn..t know how to tell a poisonous spider save the red shape on a black widow..s belly, as if I..d ever turn a black widow over to see its belly. I could glean nothing from what I saw. Again I went off to work on my painting. The thought occurred to me that perhaps someone in this house could die a strange death and later it would be determined that it had been a poisonous spider. It would have been my negligence, so I determined to kill the poor injured beast. I grabbed some excess paper towel leftover from cleaning the glass for the frames I just bought. I used it as a shield for my hand as I pushed down, then attempting to pick up the corpse; instead I saw I was cruel, that the spider now had three injured legs, crushed up against its body. I tried again, this time injuring all of its legs, and then, when I lifted up the paper towel and saw it failing as it tried to writhe, is when I began to hold back the tears. What right have I to cause such suffering? I put the paper towel back over it and stood, I pushed into the crippled creature with all my weight on the ball of my foot. Through the towel, my pink embroidered sock, my black shoes, I felt the crunch. I hoped that was it. I picked up the creature in the towel, this time it did not scurry away, and I took it and dumped it in the toilet someone had not flushed. I felt like pure evil, if it was still alive, it would meet finality drowning in piss water, and then I flushed.
Perhaps I lack perspective, but I snuffed out a life, I brought an end to existence. This weighs heavily on me. Usually I leave spiders I find. I destroy their web, careful not to hurt it, if it is in a high traffic area of the house. I cover my food well and let flies be. I capture earwigs and release them outside. Why did I kill this thing? Did its size invoke some hidden territorial instinct? I don..t know.
One night, eleven years ago I was doing something perfectly ordinary, so ordinary that I don..t remember what it was. I was listening to music, singing along, pretending it was my feeling, my song, or I was watching television, laughing, wanting, hungering, imagining it was my great adventure, or I was reading a book, crying, longing, learning that those could be my words. It does not matter. I was twelve, my brother was seventeen. It was late, but how late I don..t remember. It could have been eleven at night or three in the morning. My brother came into whatever room in which I was doing whatever it was I was doing. He said, ..Mark is in town, I know where he is. Let..s go see him... He was speaking of my father who we had not seen in five years. I did not remember much of my father, for it had been not even a year that he was in my life those five years prior, and before that I had not seen him since I was two. I remembered the smell of beer and peppermint schnapps and how he terrified me because he did everything you weren..t supposed to do. I remembered watching him get drunk, and proceed to give my brother and his friends a ride somewhere and I was there too, and he sped through the piles of leaves that had been raked out in the street, and I remember thinking I heard somewhere that people put cinderblocks in their leaves to keep people form doing these things, and we would hit one, and my dad would lose control of the car and something horrible would happen. I remembered his constant encouragement, his words of wisdom, sometimes so slurred I could not understand them but still got a sense of grandiosity from them..he was my father. I agreed that we should go see him, and we snuck out of the house..my mother was asleep already. He was in the Valparaiso motel, which was a decrepit little place and I..m quite sure is closed now, I don..t even remember fully where it was. We got to the room and there he was. Long frizzy red hair frantically sticking out like it would break off if you touched it, blue eyes all the more brilliant for being blood shot, splotchy red skin in resistance to tanning during his long days working out in the sun. I knew I was looking at a broken man, but it didn..t matter, this was my father, I wanted to know him, for I..ve always held this belief that your heritage is your legacy, you carry it with you and it continues after you. There were beer bottles in varying degrees of emptiness on every horizontal surface in the room, there were clothes strewn about, and garbage on the floor, fast food bags here and there, ashtrays overflowing. I remember being drawn to his acoustic fender guitar, he had some months before sent money to help buy my first guitar. I picked up the fender and started playing the chords I knew. He asked me about music and I spoke with the enthusiasm of an almost teenager looking for what would define me. So simply my father came back into my life. And later I would bitterly scorn him for consigning the fender, and I would scream at him when he was in his drunken stupors, and I would cuss at him when I felt like it, and I would break things periodically, and once I even injured him as his rage fed my rage. He would also ritualistically bring me treats when I lived with him, cigarettes, candy, cookies. He would buy me so many albums, my first amp and electric guitar, a nice shitty little squire, and then he bought me the jagstang that was so easy to play and laughed at my weak fingers and called me electric guitar baby, and then he bought me the twelve string, and paints, and whatever I wanted and he saved whatever artwork I discarded, whatever poems I discarded, he encouraged me every time I picked up one of my guitars, he gave me books to read. He was never abusive, just drunk, abrasive, inconsiderate, inconsistent, and sometimes embarrassing. Perhaps my anger and violence were necessary to get over his absence in my childhood, perhaps I should thank him for coming back and letting me work through that for there is no doubt I am a calmer person for it today, if not much less mean. He has gone again on his journey, and it has been nearly a year since I have seen him. I can honestly say I miss him.
Perhaps I lack perspective, but I snuffed out a life, I brought an end to existence. This weighs heavily on me. Usually I leave spiders I find. I destroy their web, careful not to hurt it, if it is in a high traffic area of the house. I cover my food well and let flies be. I capture earwigs and release them outside. Why did I kill this thing? Did its size invoke some hidden territorial instinct? I don..t know.
One night, eleven years ago I was doing something perfectly ordinary, so ordinary that I don..t remember what it was. I was listening to music, singing along, pretending it was my feeling, my song, or I was watching television, laughing, wanting, hungering, imagining it was my great adventure, or I was reading a book, crying, longing, learning that those could be my words. It does not matter. I was twelve, my brother was seventeen. It was late, but how late I don..t remember. It could have been eleven at night or three in the morning. My brother came into whatever room in which I was doing whatever it was I was doing. He said, ..Mark is in town, I know where he is. Let..s go see him... He was speaking of my father who we had not seen in five years. I did not remember much of my father, for it had been not even a year that he was in my life those five years prior, and before that I had not seen him since I was two. I remembered the smell of beer and peppermint schnapps and how he terrified me because he did everything you weren..t supposed to do. I remembered watching him get drunk, and proceed to give my brother and his friends a ride somewhere and I was there too, and he sped through the piles of leaves that had been raked out in the street, and I remember thinking I heard somewhere that people put cinderblocks in their leaves to keep people form doing these things, and we would hit one, and my dad would lose control of the car and something horrible would happen. I remembered his constant encouragement, his words of wisdom, sometimes so slurred I could not understand them but still got a sense of grandiosity from them..he was my father. I agreed that we should go see him, and we snuck out of the house..my mother was asleep already. He was in the Valparaiso motel, which was a decrepit little place and I..m quite sure is closed now, I don..t even remember fully where it was. We got to the room and there he was. Long frizzy red hair frantically sticking out like it would break off if you touched it, blue eyes all the more brilliant for being blood shot, splotchy red skin in resistance to tanning during his long days working out in the sun. I knew I was looking at a broken man, but it didn..t matter, this was my father, I wanted to know him, for I..ve always held this belief that your heritage is your legacy, you carry it with you and it continues after you. There were beer bottles in varying degrees of emptiness on every horizontal surface in the room, there were clothes strewn about, and garbage on the floor, fast food bags here and there, ashtrays overflowing. I remember being drawn to his acoustic fender guitar, he had some months before sent money to help buy my first guitar. I picked up the fender and started playing the chords I knew. He asked me about music and I spoke with the enthusiasm of an almost teenager looking for what would define me. So simply my father came back into my life. And later I would bitterly scorn him for consigning the fender, and I would scream at him when he was in his drunken stupors, and I would cuss at him when I felt like it, and I would break things periodically, and once I even injured him as his rage fed my rage. He would also ritualistically bring me treats when I lived with him, cigarettes, candy, cookies. He would buy me so many albums, my first amp and electric guitar, a nice shitty little squire, and then he bought me the jagstang that was so easy to play and laughed at my weak fingers and called me electric guitar baby, and then he bought me the twelve string, and paints, and whatever I wanted and he saved whatever artwork I discarded, whatever poems I discarded, he encouraged me every time I picked up one of my guitars, he gave me books to read. He was never abusive, just drunk, abrasive, inconsiderate, inconsistent, and sometimes embarrassing. Perhaps my anger and violence were necessary to get over his absence in my childhood, perhaps I should thank him for coming back and letting me work through that for there is no doubt I am a calmer person for it today, if not much less mean. He has gone again on his journey, and it has been nearly a year since I have seen him. I can honestly say I miss him.
Thought Experimentation
I'm feeling slightly spaced, just had my first exam in abnormal psych and my head is full of useless distinctions for behaviors most people have and emotions most people experience and paranoia that seems perfectly rational to me. Im adding a new paradigm, the reversion paradigm; either everyone Ive ever met is psychologically disturbed or there is no such thing as psychologically disturbed, there are just some people who are so hung up on themselves, their schema's, their feelings, their perceptions, et cetera, that they think they must be totally unique and go to a professional to confirm it. I'm not discounting the people who really have difficulty coping, or the real crazies. I'm just saying Ive never known anyone cured by therapy, and I have trouble believing that it is our place to correct brain dysfunctions that are only dysfunctional because we have decided to define them as such in this place and time.
My grandmother may have bought guns and started going to church when she had an episode, but that is the norm for much of society. She may have also accepted a ride from a helpful semi driver who was going where she was when she decided to skip the state for no apparent reason, and for her own indiscernible reasons left a note at a truck stop where they stopped to eat to saying that she had been kidnapped and to call the cops. She may have later parted ways with the driver without warning him, amused with the prospect of what such a simple action can do without knowing that there were roadblocks throughout the state stopping semis looking for her. She may have actually believed she had been abducted, or she may have just been having some fun, seeing how she could manipulate her environment. Her episodes could be seen as a grand experiment, a moment of clarity, or an act of defiance against the boredom and monotony and sublimation her life was when she followed custom, was a testament to norms. Perhaps her mother dying when she was so young and trying to find a husband but unable to fulfill the duties she was told were hers as wife and mother and unable to find a man who could fulfill the duties she was told were his as husband and father, and with nothing else to define her she fell to pieces. So the system didn't work, her socialization left here ill-prepared to deal with life.
Cognitive psychology is about such situations, when reality is out of tune with perception. Its answer is to change the perception so that a person feels better about their reality. I think that human greatness comes from changing reality so that a person feels better about what they perceive. What if a therapist got hold of Gandhi and convinced him it was not a lawyers responsibility to change the law, just to use it. That it was his job to use his knowledge to prove or disprove that something was lawful, not to get involved with world issues, economics, imperialism, that he should adjust his schema to make him happier and accept things the way they are. What if they told him the anxiety he felt over the English colonial powers over India were the wrong way of thinking about things, that he should try to see the positive aspects.
What if a psychoanalyst got hold of Mark Twain and asked him if he thought that maybe his preoccupation with political thought and religion was due to the distance of his father and wanting to have sexual ideation of his mother. What if Twain then remembered a particularly traumatic event of his childhood, felt catharsis, and no longer cared for illustrating race relations, the way women had been made useless, the hypocrisies of religion, the tyranny of government, et cetera, through his stories and letters and lectures?
Reversion paradigm continued: When considering a sample of scientists compared to the larger population, scientists are disproportionately afflicted with schizophrenia. When considering a sample of artists and musicians compared with the larger population, the artists and musicians are disproportionately afflicted with depression and/or bipolar disorder. (Seriously Research it). So, it is the crazies who have defined beauty, who have seen past the prior construct to redefine for us all what reality is, who have, in short, made life worth living.
My grandmother may have bought guns and started going to church when she had an episode, but that is the norm for much of society. She may have also accepted a ride from a helpful semi driver who was going where she was when she decided to skip the state for no apparent reason, and for her own indiscernible reasons left a note at a truck stop where they stopped to eat to saying that she had been kidnapped and to call the cops. She may have later parted ways with the driver without warning him, amused with the prospect of what such a simple action can do without knowing that there were roadblocks throughout the state stopping semis looking for her. She may have actually believed she had been abducted, or she may have just been having some fun, seeing how she could manipulate her environment. Her episodes could be seen as a grand experiment, a moment of clarity, or an act of defiance against the boredom and monotony and sublimation her life was when she followed custom, was a testament to norms. Perhaps her mother dying when she was so young and trying to find a husband but unable to fulfill the duties she was told were hers as wife and mother and unable to find a man who could fulfill the duties she was told were his as husband and father, and with nothing else to define her she fell to pieces. So the system didn't work, her socialization left here ill-prepared to deal with life.
Cognitive psychology is about such situations, when reality is out of tune with perception. Its answer is to change the perception so that a person feels better about their reality. I think that human greatness comes from changing reality so that a person feels better about what they perceive. What if a therapist got hold of Gandhi and convinced him it was not a lawyers responsibility to change the law, just to use it. That it was his job to use his knowledge to prove or disprove that something was lawful, not to get involved with world issues, economics, imperialism, that he should adjust his schema to make him happier and accept things the way they are. What if they told him the anxiety he felt over the English colonial powers over India were the wrong way of thinking about things, that he should try to see the positive aspects.
What if a psychoanalyst got hold of Mark Twain and asked him if he thought that maybe his preoccupation with political thought and religion was due to the distance of his father and wanting to have sexual ideation of his mother. What if Twain then remembered a particularly traumatic event of his childhood, felt catharsis, and no longer cared for illustrating race relations, the way women had been made useless, the hypocrisies of religion, the tyranny of government, et cetera, through his stories and letters and lectures?
Reversion paradigm continued: When considering a sample of scientists compared to the larger population, scientists are disproportionately afflicted with schizophrenia. When considering a sample of artists and musicians compared with the larger population, the artists and musicians are disproportionately afflicted with depression and/or bipolar disorder. (Seriously Research it). So, it is the crazies who have defined beauty, who have seen past the prior construct to redefine for us all what reality is, who have, in short, made life worth living.
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