Well I thought I'd be consistent enough to keep an average margin of posts per month, but as it happens, life changes....thankfully. New occasions bring new opportunities and I find myself writing as much as ever, although not per blogosphere, as it were.
My ideas are coming together through the question of culture. I am asking myself why the cultural programming I've been endowed with has brought this free-thinking individual to where I am right now. I credit the entire ecosystem of the planet for blessing me with the potentials I have before me, and I pledge my allegiance to the multiplicitude of organisms and ecosystems that will inevitably evolve and pervade all the surfaces of this planet either without the species of which I'm a member.
Thanks life...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Question of Culture
I've always asked myself why the world is like it is. I still don't have the answer, and don't expect to either, but over the years have developed many more ways of answering life's more humble questions. What is our culture and how has it gotten its shape? Where did it come from and where is it going? Who put it together and why does it seem as though appearances change on the surface while the undercurrents trace back thousands of years? Is there something going on that we as the general populace have no idea about?
Here's my unique way of formulating what must be an ancient question, and what I present as a unique way of answering it; steeped in contrarian perspectives both new and old, the method to my madness is to question what is called culture. To set up the asking I want to outline two different modes of thought. Neither having priority, both are aspects of the existential situation we call human experience.
The overriding thesis at hand is that the origin of this duality comes from a unified source. The basis of experience as consciousness is essentially unity; only in order to experience itself as anything, consciousness must necessarily make its limits. Be they just veils and membranes enveloping relatively independent transitional bodies, the code at their base has common denominators. Two categorical bodies are to be developed and employed here to indicate this fundamental dynamic. One question is to be asked of both ways of thinking: is this a sustainable way for culture to evolve? My answer is that they both need to be balanced consciously for culture to evolve sustainably.
To characterize this dynamic, two metaphors will serve to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of each end of our spectrum. The one I will call culture, for convenience's sake, as it is my way of describing what is commonly accepted as the normative and categorical elements of western society. The other I'm calling community, as the word holds common ground with unity, and hints at the feeling I'm trying to communicate. Culture, as elaborated here, is a process of building, whereas community is a process of growth. Community is an organic function whereas culture is an artificial one. Culture postulates that the original unity breaks down into a duality whereas community recognizes the impervious nature of unity as a polarized spectrum. Community shows that evolution occurs as a process of cooperation among biologically diverse members of an ecosystem whereas culture asserts that evolution happens by competitive domination over the environment by the most able organism.
As a general overview, I'm calling the metaphor of community organic and the metaphor or culture as archonic. The roots of these words indicate how I'm putting them to use here; as organic derives from the Greek root of organon, meaning 'that with which one works', archonic derives from the Greek root of arkhon, meaning 'ruler', or 'beginning to rule' in its verb form. These polarities can be considered as part of a spectrum and not mutually exclusive. Both are necessary and valid modes of thinking and being that constitute the yin-yang balance of this human condition. Try and guess which is yin and which is yang. My position is that in order for any sort of existence or experience, these forces need to be balanced enough so as to provide the form and content on which it can be founded. Therefore it is also my position that these forces are still balanced enough today so that we can experience existence and I can communicate my perspectives. The motivation behind my need to put forth these ideas is that although we're still balanced enough between culture and community to 'be' 'here,' where being is too vaguely defined and here is at a precipice. There has been, and still is, an all-too-much emphasized aspect of culture that implicitly refuses recognition of the importance of community.
It is an overwhelming tendency that summarizes my take on culture: humans have for too long invested their energy and attention into systems that divest them of responsibility for their actions, be they religions, sciences, or systems of authority. The idea that one can rest assured in something external doing everything necessary to provide the individual with sustenance, morality, entertainment, and ultimately salvation, is an irresponsible decision at best, and, more honestly, a parasitic scourge on the planet. Believing that one need not blame oneself for the happenings in and around the community, and that self-satisfaction is the ultimate goal of life, is to condemn the entire population and all of posterity to failure.
Rather, by taking up responsibility for one's own community by first standing up as a unique sovereign individual,
( still in progress)
Here's my unique way of formulating what must be an ancient question, and what I present as a unique way of answering it; steeped in contrarian perspectives both new and old, the method to my madness is to question what is called culture. To set up the asking I want to outline two different modes of thought. Neither having priority, both are aspects of the existential situation we call human experience.
The overriding thesis at hand is that the origin of this duality comes from a unified source. The basis of experience as consciousness is essentially unity; only in order to experience itself as anything, consciousness must necessarily make its limits. Be they just veils and membranes enveloping relatively independent transitional bodies, the code at their base has common denominators. Two categorical bodies are to be developed and employed here to indicate this fundamental dynamic. One question is to be asked of both ways of thinking: is this a sustainable way for culture to evolve? My answer is that they both need to be balanced consciously for culture to evolve sustainably.
To characterize this dynamic, two metaphors will serve to illustrate the idiosyncrasies of each end of our spectrum. The one I will call culture, for convenience's sake, as it is my way of describing what is commonly accepted as the normative and categorical elements of western society. The other I'm calling community, as the word holds common ground with unity, and hints at the feeling I'm trying to communicate. Culture, as elaborated here, is a process of building, whereas community is a process of growth. Community is an organic function whereas culture is an artificial one. Culture postulates that the original unity breaks down into a duality whereas community recognizes the impervious nature of unity as a polarized spectrum. Community shows that evolution occurs as a process of cooperation among biologically diverse members of an ecosystem whereas culture asserts that evolution happens by competitive domination over the environment by the most able organism.
As a general overview, I'm calling the metaphor of community organic and the metaphor or culture as archonic. The roots of these words indicate how I'm putting them to use here; as organic derives from the Greek root of organon, meaning 'that with which one works', archonic derives from the Greek root of arkhon, meaning 'ruler', or 'beginning to rule' in its verb form. These polarities can be considered as part of a spectrum and not mutually exclusive. Both are necessary and valid modes of thinking and being that constitute the yin-yang balance of this human condition. Try and guess which is yin and which is yang. My position is that in order for any sort of existence or experience, these forces need to be balanced enough so as to provide the form and content on which it can be founded. Therefore it is also my position that these forces are still balanced enough today so that we can experience existence and I can communicate my perspectives. The motivation behind my need to put forth these ideas is that although we're still balanced enough between culture and community to 'be' 'here,' where being is too vaguely defined and here is at a precipice. There has been, and still is, an all-too-much emphasized aspect of culture that implicitly refuses recognition of the importance of community.
It is an overwhelming tendency that summarizes my take on culture: humans have for too long invested their energy and attention into systems that divest them of responsibility for their actions, be they religions, sciences, or systems of authority. The idea that one can rest assured in something external doing everything necessary to provide the individual with sustenance, morality, entertainment, and ultimately salvation, is an irresponsible decision at best, and, more honestly, a parasitic scourge on the planet. Believing that one need not blame oneself for the happenings in and around the community, and that self-satisfaction is the ultimate goal of life, is to condemn the entire population and all of posterity to failure.
Rather, by taking up responsibility for one's own community by first standing up as a unique sovereign individual,
( still in progress)
Sunday, September 19, 2010
update
Well, it's been a while since I've posted, mostly because I've been in transit, moving from one place to another as I so often do; also because I've been updating my ideas and how they relate overall, the ideas have subsequently developed substantially. My work of late has focused on the ideas I originally wanted to include in the philosophical sort of treatise that I imagined creating shortly after resigning from academia. Though the ideas I want to express haven't changed very much, the way I express myself has changed quite dramatically. Indeed, I've developed some very succinct ways to show what I have to say that are far more precise and definite than I ever had before. Writing through this blog format has rendered my style more acute than I was previously able to communicate.
What I've been doing is compiling the couple of months worth of writing that occurred as the initiation of the misfit shaman, and incorporating that work into a previous project that was my retort to academia. The post entitled The Stone That The Builder Refused was my first draft at a first chapter for the aforementioned project. It has changed quite significantly over the past few year that I've been entertaining the ideas, even though the heart of the matter remains true to the original intent. The posts that follow will be my work on this philosophical treatise that will hopefully adequately contain the scope of my intended communication.
What I've been doing is compiling the couple of months worth of writing that occurred as the initiation of the misfit shaman, and incorporating that work into a previous project that was my retort to academia. The post entitled The Stone That The Builder Refused was my first draft at a first chapter for the aforementioned project. It has changed quite significantly over the past few year that I've been entertaining the ideas, even though the heart of the matter remains true to the original intent. The posts that follow will be my work on this philosophical treatise that will hopefully adequately contain the scope of my intended communication.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
From Darkness Into Light
Here's a story I started working on yesterday. It's a retelling of Plato's allegory of the cave, mixed with an element of Flatland. I have yet to finish or edit it, but I think it's worth reading still. I could use an idea or two for how to finish it. If you've got something in mind after reading it, please feel free to contribute:
____________________
One day I woke up and my chains were loose. I'd never guessed this could be possible, let alone that it'd happen to me! Of all people. Who was I, for that matter? I was nobody; and now I have a tale to tell and the all words to make sure it gets told.
You see, my society lives chained in the dark, lined up along a wall in a cave facing the rear. In the middle of this pack lies the king, flanked by his elite imperial guard on both sides. We peasants never see the king for this reason, and nevertheless tend to trust the booming voice of the regent without question. I still identify with them. Not nostalgically, though, that's for sure.
So life is linear. They're all chained together in a line. The farther out to the extremities you go, the people appear more and more wearisome. This is because they are so. On the margins of society the basics of life are increasingly scarce. This is where I lived. You see, this is a minimally operational culture, where the basics are provided by the state. Food, standardized coveralls, of course, a few sundries, and the games. Just so long as everyone follows the rules, passing everything to its appropriate destination down the chain. The task might seem pretty simple if you've only ever lived next to two people at once. Considering you get to know them fairly well the process ought to flow really smoothly, and we all try our best to make sure it does, but surprisingly often the order is interrupted somewhere somehow! And then the shit really gets fucked 'cause everyone gets mixed up and resources are 'redistributed!'
But I'm getting flustered...those days have passed for me. I can't decide which part of the story I should tell next. These words are all still so new to me. In school we were taught about polarity, duality, and the sacred axis. The chains. This left-right world is all we could comprehend, even though the stars that make the games are clearly in front, and what I was to learn, originate from behind. A new axis. A new modality for existence. But was it really new? Had I discovered something that hadn't been discovered? Does this even mean anything?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. To backtrack a bit here, I'll explain one of the 'hit-the-fan' incidents I got all worked up about earlier. It all started when I swallowed my tongue. At least that's what I think might have happened. Just as the announcement of imminent sleep echoed left to the depths of my current hollow, I was drinking some water when Jeffrey, my neighbour, startled me with a strange comment that I can't really remember. But I choked, and choked hard, and somehow only lost consciousness momentarily. That moment is important and I'll tell you about it rest assured. Thing is, I remained mostly conscious throughout even though I wasn't able to breathe, and I saw what happens 'at night.'
Imminent sleep is the time of day that everyone thinks they all drift off at the same time for a particular mystical and sacred reason. It just so happens that when everyone goes off to la-la land, they're breathing in a quick acting sleep-inducing compound that is probably pretty effective overall, seeing as how I never once woke up before! This time around though, I got over my choking fit, and was without breath for long enough to avoid the sleeping gas. But that's not all that happened... I went somewhere else in between. I got outside by going inside, if that means anything at all.
After gasping and gagging for air, reaching out around me for something, anything, chains lashing out in all directions, seeing that William and Jeffrey were indeed asleep, one more gasp, and I thought I'd died. I suddenly felt as though I was a giant blue sphere, or at least part of it, and I am composed of more dimensions than I had previously believed. In fact, I had clear thinking enough to see that every single belief that my culture had imposed on me was a lie. The one word is even embedded in the other! Just look! Instead of imposing a belief on what I was experiencing, I let it happen. For lack of a better word I had a vision; the embedded unity and entanglement that is all of consciousness, even in it's relative states that seem independent, are beautifully interlaced in chaotic patterns of concretion and dissipation though a manifold geometric prism of direct sensory experience. These are the best words I currently have available so please bear with me.
I examined what I was experiencing and found all information. I didn't know where to begin. This intention to explore those new vistas just didn't seem quite appropriate. Was this hyper-reality only mine to behold or does it belong to my people as well? I gazed longingly through a sort of snake-rope of indescribable brilliance, and anguish beset my conscience. Then my experience snapped back into my body and I was in chains once again.
Only, they were loose. I struggled agonizingly as my body had undergone quite the shocking trauma less than a moment before, but one hand wrangled free and the other followed shortly after. Freeing my legs was a much more arduous task. I'd never used them before. With bones aching and muscles atrophied I mustered up all the might of my soul and shed my yoke of bondage.
Using all the physical and psychic energy available to me, I persevered through the task of crawling to the left-most end of the line, past hundreds of sleeping, chained, and still looking tormented individuals. I got there just as everyone was waking up, about thirty meters or so by my best estimation past the last prisoner. There I found a dark little cave and I holed up to rest. I drifted off to sleep with tremors of the terror inherent in my insubordination.
It was the next night, perhaps, that I awoke to find that the smaller cave I was in was at a bit of an oblique angle to the rest of the line. Imbued with a overflowing feeling beyond anything I can explain, I also had a disquieting inclination that something was horribly wrong. I'd been taught that all was linear and we learn from the games on the mystical wall, but now I could see down the line! I could see the chained sheeple languishing in dreamless rest, from the closest one about thirty meters away, to hundreds and hundreds more before the so-called guards. At this point I couldn't see the king, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here.
I rested observingly, eager to see what the games might reveal through my new eyes. In the morning, or at least what we called morning, I could see the light in the cave was increasing. I receded as far as I could into the smaller cave without losing my new perspective. The light was coming from 'behind' the wall, a new directional indicator I'd developed to explain what lay over the wall. This was all so interesting, scary, and magnificent. The light seemed to be coming from a single source, just over the wall, and reflected off of mirrors all around the rear, hidden, behind, part of the cave. There was smoke diffracting the light and the games were about to begin.
The light split off into many different coloured streams bouncing from mirror to mirror and through smoky mists eventually to come together forming the stars. “The Crab!” an excited player shouted. “No, you fool it's clearly Andromeda, don't go with The Crab,” retorted another. “Damn you both to Hades! Being the most obvious and dominant of all the constellations in the sky this can only be The Hunter,” added a third. The crescendo of voices rose all along the line as the players tried to outwit each other. Their fervent zeal for competition was eclipsed only by the sheer volume of this discordant cacophony.
You see, the games worked in a left against right competition reminiscent of Sissyphus' ordeal. No matter which side was winning or losing, they were all bound to continue the competition. Emotions flare when leftists talk about rightys and vice versa. The antagonism being totally unfounded, however, as I was soon to discover. The catharsis of each side during times of debate or conflict reached magnanimous proportions, voices so loud to be nearly deafening due to the cave's acoustic resonances. But it was not a creative or enriching enterprise. The game was all about conflict and competition and it created an emotionally negative space. Yet these underlying forces needed expression whether positive or not.
I could see that compared with the incomparable vistas of psychic landscapes I so briefly explored at the limits of life and death, the petty gaming of naming stars was undignified at best and couldn't be called anything less than psychic slavery. Upon this realization my inner experience asserted an indefatigable No! and along with it a Yes! No to all slavery and yes to freedom! But I was getting hungry. I'd been watching the games in awe, absorbing the same information yet again, only this time from new eyes. These eyes required sustenance.
By this point my legs were somewhat functional and I could crawl around. I hadn't even figured out walking yet, but I wanted to crawl the very end of the line. Slithering on the ground at some points, pulling myself along, even scraping my back and neck bloody, I was determined to find the limits of the line and my cave, and I did.
At first I thought it was terminal. At this point I couldn't see anything as I'd been inching my way between masses of solid rock for many hours and maybe even days. Betraying my solemn vow of silence so as to maintain discretion, I lashed out emotionally, striking what I thought to be a mound of dirt at the foot of my final barrier. It was soft. I struck it again and it moved some. Frantically, I began digging, pulling myself along with every gesture and then I was struck by the most amazing force: I broke out of the cave and into the sun!
Staggering, even though on all fours, and completely blinded by the magnitude of the light on my closed eyes, I managed my way down the slope, away from the tiny hole in the side of the mountain. Then, an uncommon noise attracted my attention. There was a rustling, whispering, even a gurgling that I just couldn't identify but had to experience. It got louder and louder and before I knew it my hands found the shallow creek. I drank from it and rejoiced aloud. Never before had I been more alive.
So I stayed there for a while, and my eyes acclimated enough for me to get a glimpse of the colour and beauty around me. There were greens and blues like I'd never seen! I was not yet fully mobile, so I explored my immediate vicinity carefully. Quick agitations were catching the corner of my eye all the time so I decided to wait patiently. Small black specks moved about sporadically, but it was the one that flew over me that made the most impression. I recognized corvus, the crow, instantly from my cultural tradition. This was one of the constellation maps of the game. Maybe it wasn't totally useless in the end. After all, had I never lived the game, I'd never have made it to experience this wider scope of life.
Well I didn't mention it before because it seemed immodest of me, but I was really the best player of the game at one time. It just didn't satisfy me to seek social position or succeed in a career in the game. No matter how much effort I put into the game, and how many years I spent playing, I never even saw anyone else graduate, let alone graduating myself. And now I know why. The game was a way to distract everyone's attention away from their bondage. They learned to accept that life was merely a chance to play a few games. Once I'd figured all this out for myself, I couldn't play the game any more.
My meager subsistence from minimal effort grew more scarce and I was moved toward the end of the line. No one actually graduated or ascended as the king said he did and was offering to the masses. No one questioned exactly how the so-called mystical powers managed to control their lives, or more importantly, why. With these resignations at heart did I concede defeat to the king. This was the day before I woke up for real.
I had macroscopic plans. To get there I'd need to evolve, so I did. I found food in edible greens and dug for roots too. I climbed trees and nourished myself with their fruits. I ate flowers and bugs, nettles and leaves, bulbs and legumes and whatever I could stomach.
____________________
One day I woke up and my chains were loose. I'd never guessed this could be possible, let alone that it'd happen to me! Of all people. Who was I, for that matter? I was nobody; and now I have a tale to tell and the all words to make sure it gets told.
You see, my society lives chained in the dark, lined up along a wall in a cave facing the rear. In the middle of this pack lies the king, flanked by his elite imperial guard on both sides. We peasants never see the king for this reason, and nevertheless tend to trust the booming voice of the regent without question. I still identify with them. Not nostalgically, though, that's for sure.
So life is linear. They're all chained together in a line. The farther out to the extremities you go, the people appear more and more wearisome. This is because they are so. On the margins of society the basics of life are increasingly scarce. This is where I lived. You see, this is a minimally operational culture, where the basics are provided by the state. Food, standardized coveralls, of course, a few sundries, and the games. Just so long as everyone follows the rules, passing everything to its appropriate destination down the chain. The task might seem pretty simple if you've only ever lived next to two people at once. Considering you get to know them fairly well the process ought to flow really smoothly, and we all try our best to make sure it does, but surprisingly often the order is interrupted somewhere somehow! And then the shit really gets fucked 'cause everyone gets mixed up and resources are 'redistributed!'
But I'm getting flustered...those days have passed for me. I can't decide which part of the story I should tell next. These words are all still so new to me. In school we were taught about polarity, duality, and the sacred axis. The chains. This left-right world is all we could comprehend, even though the stars that make the games are clearly in front, and what I was to learn, originate from behind. A new axis. A new modality for existence. But was it really new? Had I discovered something that hadn't been discovered? Does this even mean anything?
But I'm getting ahead of myself. To backtrack a bit here, I'll explain one of the 'hit-the-fan' incidents I got all worked up about earlier. It all started when I swallowed my tongue. At least that's what I think might have happened. Just as the announcement of imminent sleep echoed left to the depths of my current hollow, I was drinking some water when Jeffrey, my neighbour, startled me with a strange comment that I can't really remember. But I choked, and choked hard, and somehow only lost consciousness momentarily. That moment is important and I'll tell you about it rest assured. Thing is, I remained mostly conscious throughout even though I wasn't able to breathe, and I saw what happens 'at night.'
Imminent sleep is the time of day that everyone thinks they all drift off at the same time for a particular mystical and sacred reason. It just so happens that when everyone goes off to la-la land, they're breathing in a quick acting sleep-inducing compound that is probably pretty effective overall, seeing as how I never once woke up before! This time around though, I got over my choking fit, and was without breath for long enough to avoid the sleeping gas. But that's not all that happened... I went somewhere else in between. I got outside by going inside, if that means anything at all.
After gasping and gagging for air, reaching out around me for something, anything, chains lashing out in all directions, seeing that William and Jeffrey were indeed asleep, one more gasp, and I thought I'd died. I suddenly felt as though I was a giant blue sphere, or at least part of it, and I am composed of more dimensions than I had previously believed. In fact, I had clear thinking enough to see that every single belief that my culture had imposed on me was a lie. The one word is even embedded in the other! Just look! Instead of imposing a belief on what I was experiencing, I let it happen. For lack of a better word I had a vision; the embedded unity and entanglement that is all of consciousness, even in it's relative states that seem independent, are beautifully interlaced in chaotic patterns of concretion and dissipation though a manifold geometric prism of direct sensory experience. These are the best words I currently have available so please bear with me.
I examined what I was experiencing and found all information. I didn't know where to begin. This intention to explore those new vistas just didn't seem quite appropriate. Was this hyper-reality only mine to behold or does it belong to my people as well? I gazed longingly through a sort of snake-rope of indescribable brilliance, and anguish beset my conscience. Then my experience snapped back into my body and I was in chains once again.
Only, they were loose. I struggled agonizingly as my body had undergone quite the shocking trauma less than a moment before, but one hand wrangled free and the other followed shortly after. Freeing my legs was a much more arduous task. I'd never used them before. With bones aching and muscles atrophied I mustered up all the might of my soul and shed my yoke of bondage.
Using all the physical and psychic energy available to me, I persevered through the task of crawling to the left-most end of the line, past hundreds of sleeping, chained, and still looking tormented individuals. I got there just as everyone was waking up, about thirty meters or so by my best estimation past the last prisoner. There I found a dark little cave and I holed up to rest. I drifted off to sleep with tremors of the terror inherent in my insubordination.
It was the next night, perhaps, that I awoke to find that the smaller cave I was in was at a bit of an oblique angle to the rest of the line. Imbued with a overflowing feeling beyond anything I can explain, I also had a disquieting inclination that something was horribly wrong. I'd been taught that all was linear and we learn from the games on the mystical wall, but now I could see down the line! I could see the chained sheeple languishing in dreamless rest, from the closest one about thirty meters away, to hundreds and hundreds more before the so-called guards. At this point I couldn't see the king, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here.
I rested observingly, eager to see what the games might reveal through my new eyes. In the morning, or at least what we called morning, I could see the light in the cave was increasing. I receded as far as I could into the smaller cave without losing my new perspective. The light was coming from 'behind' the wall, a new directional indicator I'd developed to explain what lay over the wall. This was all so interesting, scary, and magnificent. The light seemed to be coming from a single source, just over the wall, and reflected off of mirrors all around the rear, hidden, behind, part of the cave. There was smoke diffracting the light and the games were about to begin.
The light split off into many different coloured streams bouncing from mirror to mirror and through smoky mists eventually to come together forming the stars. “The Crab!” an excited player shouted. “No, you fool it's clearly Andromeda, don't go with The Crab,” retorted another. “Damn you both to Hades! Being the most obvious and dominant of all the constellations in the sky this can only be The Hunter,” added a third. The crescendo of voices rose all along the line as the players tried to outwit each other. Their fervent zeal for competition was eclipsed only by the sheer volume of this discordant cacophony.
You see, the games worked in a left against right competition reminiscent of Sissyphus' ordeal. No matter which side was winning or losing, they were all bound to continue the competition. Emotions flare when leftists talk about rightys and vice versa. The antagonism being totally unfounded, however, as I was soon to discover. The catharsis of each side during times of debate or conflict reached magnanimous proportions, voices so loud to be nearly deafening due to the cave's acoustic resonances. But it was not a creative or enriching enterprise. The game was all about conflict and competition and it created an emotionally negative space. Yet these underlying forces needed expression whether positive or not.
I could see that compared with the incomparable vistas of psychic landscapes I so briefly explored at the limits of life and death, the petty gaming of naming stars was undignified at best and couldn't be called anything less than psychic slavery. Upon this realization my inner experience asserted an indefatigable No! and along with it a Yes! No to all slavery and yes to freedom! But I was getting hungry. I'd been watching the games in awe, absorbing the same information yet again, only this time from new eyes. These eyes required sustenance.
By this point my legs were somewhat functional and I could crawl around. I hadn't even figured out walking yet, but I wanted to crawl the very end of the line. Slithering on the ground at some points, pulling myself along, even scraping my back and neck bloody, I was determined to find the limits of the line and my cave, and I did.
At first I thought it was terminal. At this point I couldn't see anything as I'd been inching my way between masses of solid rock for many hours and maybe even days. Betraying my solemn vow of silence so as to maintain discretion, I lashed out emotionally, striking what I thought to be a mound of dirt at the foot of my final barrier. It was soft. I struck it again and it moved some. Frantically, I began digging, pulling myself along with every gesture and then I was struck by the most amazing force: I broke out of the cave and into the sun!
Staggering, even though on all fours, and completely blinded by the magnitude of the light on my closed eyes, I managed my way down the slope, away from the tiny hole in the side of the mountain. Then, an uncommon noise attracted my attention. There was a rustling, whispering, even a gurgling that I just couldn't identify but had to experience. It got louder and louder and before I knew it my hands found the shallow creek. I drank from it and rejoiced aloud. Never before had I been more alive.
So I stayed there for a while, and my eyes acclimated enough for me to get a glimpse of the colour and beauty around me. There were greens and blues like I'd never seen! I was not yet fully mobile, so I explored my immediate vicinity carefully. Quick agitations were catching the corner of my eye all the time so I decided to wait patiently. Small black specks moved about sporadically, but it was the one that flew over me that made the most impression. I recognized corvus, the crow, instantly from my cultural tradition. This was one of the constellation maps of the game. Maybe it wasn't totally useless in the end. After all, had I never lived the game, I'd never have made it to experience this wider scope of life.
Well I didn't mention it before because it seemed immodest of me, but I was really the best player of the game at one time. It just didn't satisfy me to seek social position or succeed in a career in the game. No matter how much effort I put into the game, and how many years I spent playing, I never even saw anyone else graduate, let alone graduating myself. And now I know why. The game was a way to distract everyone's attention away from their bondage. They learned to accept that life was merely a chance to play a few games. Once I'd figured all this out for myself, I couldn't play the game any more.
My meager subsistence from minimal effort grew more scarce and I was moved toward the end of the line. No one actually graduated or ascended as the king said he did and was offering to the masses. No one questioned exactly how the so-called mystical powers managed to control their lives, or more importantly, why. With these resignations at heart did I concede defeat to the king. This was the day before I woke up for real.
I had macroscopic plans. To get there I'd need to evolve, so I did. I found food in edible greens and dug for roots too. I climbed trees and nourished myself with their fruits. I ate flowers and bugs, nettles and leaves, bulbs and legumes and whatever I could stomach.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
(under)/(over) - standing
This is a demarcation that is seldom made in the foray of attitudes that constitute our cultural morass. This milieu consists of many systems of under-standing, without ever taking into consideration that I stand-over things as well. It is my individual quest to stand fast, accepting responsibility for what I stand on and what stands on me as well.
The best way to show the difference between under and over -standing is by identifying the occasion of persuasion and differentiating it from mind control. Both situations involve overstanding, individuals' experiences, and understanding; the differences revolve around the language used to comment on a common situation. When persuasion happens, individuals overstand the need to consensually enter a common linguistic understanding; whereas in a situation of mind control, conceptual structures, also understanding are built to contain or repress the individuality that is expressed in the act of overstanding.
Overstanding is an individual's experience, the self as it is, whether recognized as such or not. This is the locus of the individuated human situation.
Understanding is the common human experience, as modeled and modulated through the use of language.
The former occurs in the realms of perception and belief, the latter in the realms of dialogue and culture. Perception and dialogue are openness whereas belief and culture are limited enterprises.
In the realm of understanding, perception can be influenced by culture and compel subsequent states of overstanding. This is belief: in searching for truth, understanding (a specific model) can be confused with overstanding (perception, experience of self, and intellectual honesty).
The best example of this is how the law society and governments use legalese to confound the 'citizens of the world,' depriving individuals' overstanding of their legal status and imposing fictitious corporate identities on living souls and forcing specific limitations of language on the individuals who make up common society.
However, even in the most personal of personal realms, in the inner experience of overstanding, dialogue can be influenced by culturally imposed belief and compel subsequent states of understanding, resulting in cognitive dissonance and even so far as inauthentic perception. Some people still 'believe' that a plane hit the Pentagon. Give me a break.
Overstanding has been left at understanding's door, and everyone skips gleefully into the chapel of reason. 'It's OK, psychology and technology and medicine will take care of me just fine.' 'I don't need to think about my own well-being because there is a plan for me to follow right here.' 'The government is a natural evolution of social structures.' Those statements are all fine and good and all, if you care to accept them at face value, but for many others on the planet right now this just isn't enough.
For me, I recognize no authority but my own in determining how I overstand the world. Whatever understandings I care to utilize in this journey are at my whim, and mine alone. Remembering the call I made to any and all who would hear, it can be lucidly addressed by elucidating the over/under -standing distinction.
The first option being, you yourself authorize violence against your peers on behalf of and executed by agents of international financiers and their controllers. This is the current state of understanding that the world operates under, veiled by jingoistic narcissism that is sublimated into culture by means of education, money, television, government and other mind control means. The only other option is abolishing the state and financial system. Anything less, like reform, is a futile struggle. Einstein put it something like this; that you can't solve the problems of a situation by using the same kinds of thinking that got you there in the first place.
Having only been a few weeks since I've really comprehended this part of my trip, there have been limited few people that have suffered my rant so far. Nonetheless, of those few, maybe 20% actually got it, whether they agreed or not which is not the important part, and the rest just kind of nodded along. The only time that anyone wanted to retort was when there were six representatives from the common line of thinking and me from my uncommon approach. And, being the more intoxicated one among us, I somehow allowed myself to be talked into the corner that I was arguing against. I don't recall exactly how that discussion took place but it's not important. It just goes to show that the more common understanding is more easily rallied in its own defense because it has so many supporters. Power in numbers. Just look at the zombie archetype. They are stupid and many and will get you eventually, unless you're clever and cunning enough...
Overstanding is what humans really want, And yes, I'm willing to put in my two cents for what I think about that. None of this is definitive, it's part of my overstanding process. People want to love and be loved. Because this might not be so apparent in the world today, I refer you back to the mind control of imposed concepts being discussed throughout the blog here. I think it is only in retaliation to having individuality suppressed that people act out of fear, and instinctually focus on their self-preservation alone.
This state of mind is capitalized on by capitalism and capitalists and their controllers. Understanding only states of fear, overstanding is atrophied into nearly permanent rigor mortis. Then, the only options available when understanding comes under attack, or seems to be threatened at least, are those provided by the cultural programming. Creativity and imagination on how to solve even the simplest of life's occasions has been stifled to below mediocrity.
understanding is sorcery
overstanding is magic
sorcerers control
magicians create
tbc...
The best way to show the difference between under and over -standing is by identifying the occasion of persuasion and differentiating it from mind control. Both situations involve overstanding, individuals' experiences, and understanding; the differences revolve around the language used to comment on a common situation. When persuasion happens, individuals overstand the need to consensually enter a common linguistic understanding; whereas in a situation of mind control, conceptual structures, also understanding are built to contain or repress the individuality that is expressed in the act of overstanding.
Overstanding is an individual's experience, the self as it is, whether recognized as such or not. This is the locus of the individuated human situation.
Understanding is the common human experience, as modeled and modulated through the use of language.
The former occurs in the realms of perception and belief, the latter in the realms of dialogue and culture. Perception and dialogue are openness whereas belief and culture are limited enterprises.
In the realm of understanding, perception can be influenced by culture and compel subsequent states of overstanding. This is belief: in searching for truth, understanding (a specific model) can be confused with overstanding (perception, experience of self, and intellectual honesty).
The best example of this is how the law society and governments use legalese to confound the 'citizens of the world,' depriving individuals' overstanding of their legal status and imposing fictitious corporate identities on living souls and forcing specific limitations of language on the individuals who make up common society.
However, even in the most personal of personal realms, in the inner experience of overstanding, dialogue can be influenced by culturally imposed belief and compel subsequent states of understanding, resulting in cognitive dissonance and even so far as inauthentic perception. Some people still 'believe' that a plane hit the Pentagon. Give me a break.
Overstanding has been left at understanding's door, and everyone skips gleefully into the chapel of reason. 'It's OK, psychology and technology and medicine will take care of me just fine.' 'I don't need to think about my own well-being because there is a plan for me to follow right here.' 'The government is a natural evolution of social structures.' Those statements are all fine and good and all, if you care to accept them at face value, but for many others on the planet right now this just isn't enough.
For me, I recognize no authority but my own in determining how I overstand the world. Whatever understandings I care to utilize in this journey are at my whim, and mine alone. Remembering the call I made to any and all who would hear, it can be lucidly addressed by elucidating the over/under -standing distinction.
The first option being, you yourself authorize violence against your peers on behalf of and executed by agents of international financiers and their controllers. This is the current state of understanding that the world operates under, veiled by jingoistic narcissism that is sublimated into culture by means of education, money, television, government and other mind control means. The only other option is abolishing the state and financial system. Anything less, like reform, is a futile struggle. Einstein put it something like this; that you can't solve the problems of a situation by using the same kinds of thinking that got you there in the first place.
Having only been a few weeks since I've really comprehended this part of my trip, there have been limited few people that have suffered my rant so far. Nonetheless, of those few, maybe 20% actually got it, whether they agreed or not which is not the important part, and the rest just kind of nodded along. The only time that anyone wanted to retort was when there were six representatives from the common line of thinking and me from my uncommon approach. And, being the more intoxicated one among us, I somehow allowed myself to be talked into the corner that I was arguing against. I don't recall exactly how that discussion took place but it's not important. It just goes to show that the more common understanding is more easily rallied in its own defense because it has so many supporters. Power in numbers. Just look at the zombie archetype. They are stupid and many and will get you eventually, unless you're clever and cunning enough...
Overstanding is what humans really want, And yes, I'm willing to put in my two cents for what I think about that. None of this is definitive, it's part of my overstanding process. People want to love and be loved. Because this might not be so apparent in the world today, I refer you back to the mind control of imposed concepts being discussed throughout the blog here. I think it is only in retaliation to having individuality suppressed that people act out of fear, and instinctually focus on their self-preservation alone.
This state of mind is capitalized on by capitalism and capitalists and their controllers. Understanding only states of fear, overstanding is atrophied into nearly permanent rigor mortis. Then, the only options available when understanding comes under attack, or seems to be threatened at least, are those provided by the cultural programming. Creativity and imagination on how to solve even the simplest of life's occasions has been stifled to below mediocrity.
understanding is sorcery
overstanding is magic
sorcerers control
magicians create
tbc...
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Turning Point
Well, I think this is about the time that I venture away from trying to establish my philosophical view and begin commenting on specific issues to which this perspective might lend value. In setting up the idiosyncrasies that make up my own outlook, that is, a commitment to novelty and ever-new paradigms, I think I can now comment on issues of evidence, conjecture, information, disinformation, paradigm and prejudice, without being coerced into an absolutist perspective of anything. If you think I'm mistaken, please let us engage the issue!
So, what I take to be sufficient for at least introducing my ideas is the page called Guide, as it stands for now (Aug. 19 / '10). Inevitably, the posts that have been posted before then will be edited to suit whatever fancy I so happen to entertain, yet they summarize enough of what I was trying to accomplish up to now.
The models to be put forth ought inevitably be overtaken; if and only if better models emerge should any previous ones be in the race to superiority that paradigms must necessarily engage.
As an indicative phenomenon, I'd like to present the work of Miles from The Holoplex as a very edifying approach to the subjects I'm interested in and will be articulating further on this here blog...
So, what I take to be sufficient for at least introducing my ideas is the page called Guide, as it stands for now (Aug. 19 / '10). Inevitably, the posts that have been posted before then will be edited to suit whatever fancy I so happen to entertain, yet they summarize enough of what I was trying to accomplish up to now.
The models to be put forth ought inevitably be overtaken; if and only if better models emerge should any previous ones be in the race to superiority that paradigms must necessarily engage.
As an indicative phenomenon, I'd like to present the work of Miles from The Holoplex as a very edifying approach to the subjects I'm interested in and will be articulating further on this here blog...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Terrence McKenna
One of the most influential individuals on my thinking, Terrence McKenna has a very potent repertoire of mind blowing ideas. His scientific skepticism and rational approach never closed off his mind from approaching any topic that I can think of. Being a public speaker in his day, and speaking to diverse audiences, I've been privileged to be able to listen to many of his pithy diatribes and hear all sorts of questions asked of him.
Some of my favourite quotes I can remember off the top of my head:
"If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed."
"There is a spiritual obligation, there is a task to be done. It is not, however, something as simple as following a set of somebody else's rules."
"Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego."
And from wiki-quotes:
"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."
"We are caged by our cultural programming. Culture is a mass hallucination, and when you step outside the mass hallucination you see it for what it's worth."
"What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief."
Some of my favourite quotes I can remember off the top of my head:
"If the truth can be told so as to be understood it will be believed."
"There is a spiritual obligation, there is a task to be done. It is not, however, something as simple as following a set of somebody else's rules."
"Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego."
And from wiki-quotes:
"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."
"We are caged by our cultural programming. Culture is a mass hallucination, and when you step outside the mass hallucination you see it for what it's worth."
"What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief."
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