“To be alive, one must constantly struggle to remain awake.”
For the last week, I’ve been walking across the beach to the ocean, walking into the 2 degree water and WAKING UP. It’s done my soul wonders. I should have been doing this ages ago.
And it hit me again, we all need to wake up. Direct experience of our world is becoming a scarce commodity. Truly, I mean that.
So much of our life is automatic behavior, a kind of sleepwalking through existence. Culture takes over and we sleep in our body, a driverless car. It’s gotten even worse with technology - technology that drives our behaviour, has a direct pipeline into our desires and manipulates our behavior. Technology, that phone in your hand is a portal into your own agency. I lean towards Buddhism because it compels, exhorts me to be mindful of the world, to continually be waking up to the world.
I’m reminded of my days reading Guy Debord, a French “thinker”. His concept of “the spectacle” was long before there was an internet or the vast technologies at the disposal of the wealthy class to control our behavior.
“The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.” ― Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
Debord’s critique was Marxist. I won’t and don’t go down that rabbit hole. I follow the dictum “I must create my own system or be ruled by that of another.” (William Blake). Call me a “loving anarchist”. That said, I do think Debord’s analysis of society, its operational rational and day-to-day functioning hits the nail on the head.
We are all controlled by culture, media, outside forces to live in an unreal world. I call it “irrealism”. Its kryptonite for an artist is gagaism. We need to get rid of our default to truth, to trust the world we live in as truth. It ain’t.
The beginnings of waking up start with our beginning to question the very nature of why we do anything.
We are made into providers, consumers, robots to the world. Even our pleasures are fads, a desire to belong and follow. Most of us, myself included are sleepwalking. We rarely feel, experience the world-as-it-is. Our Steppenwolf is a sheep.
“Just try it once — a tree, or at least a considerable section of sky, is to be seen anywhere. It does not even have to be blue sky; in some way or another the light of the sun always makes itself felt. Accustom yourself every morning to look for a moment at the sky and suddenly you will be aware of the air around you, the scent of morning freshness that is bestowed on you between sleep and labor. You will find every day that the gable of every house has its own particular look, its own special lighting. Pay it some heed if you will have for the rest of the day a remnant of satisfaction and a touch of coexistence with nature. Gradually and without effort the eye trains itself to transmit many small delights, to contemplate nature and the city streets, to appreciate the inexhaustible fun of daily life. From there on to the fully trained artistic eye is the smaller half of the journey; the principal thing is the beginning, the opening of the eyes.” ―Hermann Hesse
We all believe we are who we are. Challenge that. You aren’t who you are! You aren’t anything - waking up is being immersed in the world, disappearing into the world, discarding your paper clothes and frilly adornments.
We need to wake up. Change.
Constantly wake up and remind ourselves, protect ourselves of the forces selling us the notion of believing in the world as it is. That’s the key of the spectacle - keeping on the spectacles that make us never challenge the world as it is - stasis. Stasis is how the money keeps coming in for those at the top of this steaming irreal dung heap. We now believe in “no better world”.
It’s 9:21 am, Sunday. I’m heading out the door of my hotel. Going to walk across the street into the waves.
Share this post