A little video with some of my thoughts of late. About a fundamental paradox that we exist in. I’m sounding very Hesse but I believe in it, I truly do. We are screwed. There is no way out and around the paradox. If you know a way, let me know in the comments.
The paradox is not just the ordinary absurdist, existential drumbeat of nothing really means anything ‘cuz it just disappears and dies. No. It is about the here and now, the daily day in and day out that we live in and through. And it basically goes like this -
We want to be happy. We want to have peace on earth. We want to not cause pain and to love our selves and neighbors. We do. Ask 100 people today and they’ll say … hell yeah, that would be great. However, all 100 people don’t do that, live like that. They actually live the opposite of that. And they can’t break out from the hate deep inside them, how their ego pushes them to be better than others and create false dualism, othering, me not him, I not her.
But here is the rub. Not being like this would mean, not existing, not being alive to the world, being “in” the world. It’s an a priori, our evil, petty, bloody, hatred and detesting of others so we can feel better, bigger, like we exist. There is no way out of this matrix. Our horrible nature is built in. Voila. Freedom of self can not be found. There are too many of us. There are these chains and that’s it baby. Sorry Dorothy, there ain’t no Oz.
Now, I think I’ll try to read some Dostoevsky tonight, he hits on this and maybe he can find me a way out. Or maybe I’ll read Tolstoy, his Ivan and Grand Inquisitor. Maybe he can help me. I sure as hell can’t, can’t help myself.
Here is a short, kind of transcript of the video, if you just want to read.
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Man, I don’t think I can do it anymore, write poetry that is … Like I got something to say, that’s not it. Rather, I just don’t like what I write anymore. It’s not what I want to be or stand for …
I mean, everything that gets onto the page or comes out of my pipes is, “Look at that loser there!”, “Look at those stupid people here.” It’s just so divisive, us and them. And I hate it, I hate it. I just can’t do it any more. Not even if it makes me feel good.
But it isn’t just poetry or my poetry. The whole god damn, godsmacked world is like that and operates in this spirit and fashion. I’mbetterthanhimism. Those Republican red-necked wackos, those Asian smoking gooks, those white middle-class suburban loopers. It just goes on and on and on, the hate inside us is immense. There is this little person, this weak child trying to get out but it can’t, so it screams at everything else, just to make it feel good.
I feel like I’m inside a global episode of McLaren’s “Neighbors”. I’m mean, come on, we are all going to die, so why shouldn’t we love each other? Really, love each other, each and every one of us? But we don’t. We go on killing each other, putting each other down and being consumed with petty things like - this guy called me out on Twitter. Come on, man. There are people sleeping out in the cold, people dying on the streets, people lonely and chewing their own arms off … yet we go and on and on with our petty oneupmanship, pompous as shit show. Day after day after day.
I guess we don’t want to be happy. We’d rather just bloat up ourselves with cultures false tribalism. Buy the next trend, wear the next hat that everyone else is wearing, belong to something at the expense of hating something else. We are idiots. We are filth.
Levi Strauss said that the base, the default archetype which everyone uses to make the world livable for themselves is clean/unclean. And that’s what we do. This girl is clean, she’s my kind. That guy is dirty, he’s a louse. Damn religion and love of country is founded on it. We make a million of these judgements every day. And I do too in my poetry and I’m sick of it. Sick. Sick. Sick. Cuz it ain’t the truth.
It’s not easy to love thy neighbor. Truly love them or if you aren’t up for that much, just like them, respect them. It’s not easy. But we don’t even try. We might pretend for awhile but we don’t even try.
It’s why I wish that some really nasty aliens would visit. Start causing trouble. Maybe that would bring us together. Maybe. Wells had that idea. But I don’t go time to wait for that. Anyway, it is just another trap. We’re still hating something so we feel good about ourselves. Only their aliens, so they don’t count.
“Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits and will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves,” the Inquisitor says. “Others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another while the rest, weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet. They will tremble impotently before our wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song… We promise that only when they renounce their freedom and submit to us will they be free," - The Grand Inquisitor
The Paradox Of "A Better World"