Third Reality of Man Ch 7 _ Dancing all around me hat...

At this point the question must be posed: just what differentiates some social structure of convenience from a collective entity, a thing with a life of its’ own? This is a deep question for which there must be some framework of an answer for any meaningful investigation to proceed concerning a new progression of evolution based on life forms which already perceive themselves as, to greater or lesser degree, self aware.

The framework I would propose is based on the assumption that unlike a structure of convenience a genuine collective entity will demonstrate a survival instinct comparable to that of the individual entities which participate as elements of the collective mind. 

That which is alive wishes to remain alive, that which is alive will act to preserve it’s own life in the form wherein it achieved consciousness. The larger structure will sacrifice elements of the lesser in the cause of self preservation, it will act to create other entities of the same sort as itself in order that its’ form of life not be extinguished should the original or parent life come to an end. From this as a beginning it should follow that a collective entity may be discerned from a structure of convenience by the tenure of that structure considered relative to the well being of the individuals within. 

Kudos to the Artist - or - Why use acetylene when sarcasm works better?

I resemble this picture. Well, to be more precise, my life and skills set resembles this picture. You think I jest, but no, I'm really quite serious.

No idea who created this, not a clue... but whoever you are? Good Job!!!
(lol... go figure, it's for sale on Amazon... O'Rielly's Auto has a listing for
flux capacitors, the little ones and out of stock of course,  maybe Amazon has
the big one's in stock... I think my second hand Tardis needs one, in spite of every effort
to tune it it's been annoyingly landing 7% off set point for a while now. )

I'm part of that group that is seldom mentioned, often recruited for the dirty jobs, never mentioned in the higher echelons of society and quite the taboo among the academics. In other words, I'm self educated and I distinctly resemble that knife.

To be a bit more specific, a bit more literal? What I am is a walking proof of social bigotry in the education establishment.

A child of gypsy parents I was never in one place long enough to ever fit in, a perpetual outsider watching the others and suffering their contempt for my lack of understanding. Here and now I want to say thank you to all those socially adept little assholes who made my life a living hell, were it not for you and your flock-based sheople mentality I would not be half so tempered, I wouldn't have half the perception I have now. Thank You.

I equally want to express my gratitude to the many, many iterations of the public school systems I was positioned to observe across that journey into adulthood. Were it not for your well meaning and totally inept efforts to forcibly integrate me into the society of the moment I wouldn't have had the base-stock data to understand how your society is structured, how it exercises its' control and coercion over the sheople inmates it holds as collateral on the power it loans to its' governing bodies.

You didn't mean to, of course you didn't, but the fact is your hypocrisy and mock compassion did a better job of blowing the cover off their lies than any amount of C4 or dynamite might have accomplished. After watching you guys work understanding the Liberal and Conservative posturings of perpetually dysfunctional perversion  is a walk in the park by comparison. I'm not knocking them, they're doing the best they can for their causes allowing for what they have to work with which really isn't much. Mind you, I didn't say it makes for a good nights sleep, but still, a useful thing to understand. Thank you.

To be self educated is to understand the commonalities rather than the differences, it is an exercise in education by weighted analogy. It is an exercise in realizing that where the component parts and pieces of any two systems (within their respective academic categories) are usually totally unrelated there is, in fact, often a solid comparison to be had by examining the changes of state as analogous motives find energy to express themselves into reality.

To be self educated is to realize that when the analogous motives and forces are synchronized to provide a common base line the behavior of the human dynamic often shows a striking similarity to the behavior of systems governed by the laws of physics. An example of this? If you truly understand the operation of a Diesel engine you have the component pieces to understand the driving causes behind the engine that powers social evolution, aka,  cultural revolution against the status quo.

To be self educated is to perpetually attempt to widen one's field of perception in order there be more examples available from which to harvest and distill the comparisons into accurately weighted analogies. It makes for an interesting life. Not always a comfortable one, but never boring, and in the end when you examine yourself in the same manner you examine your world it is quite possible you, like I, will realize how much you really have in common with that knife.

Enjoy your day, we never know if we really have a tomorrow or not.

A Day Off... or, idle hands are what?

There are places in Escherville you want to think three times before you enter...
if you enter it's at your own risk. There are those who haunt such places whose
only existence is based on the souls they steal... no matter what they look like.

Sue me, I took today off. Things were starting to blur, blend, nothing was moving forward. This retirement thing is gonna kill me if I'm not careful. I was always an overtime hog, now there's nothing to let me know how many days in a row I've tossed my brain up against walls high and hard with the full intent of forcing a passage. Most of the time if I can't blast a hole through some wall I manage to build a scaffold to get over it, I have a pretty good track record all things allowed for. But for the life of me I don't know why I do it, I've never known why. I just see the problem and say "well, maybe..." and then the rest of my world takes that to mean I've got the answer on tap ready to toss out on the table. How little they know of what kind of effort it takes.

Somehow I think it's some sort of phase inverted anti-hero thing, half ego trip and half penance for being able to make the attempt. So many seem so helpless, and I never know, never have. Are they really that helpless, or are they just faking it to set a guilt trip on me so I'll do it for them? I don't know. Probably never will.

So, since I don't know? Today I said fuck it, and just played. I didn't write on any of the four works of fiction underway, I didn't do any design work, not on the air conditioner that will run net negative energy footprint on the ecosphere, didn't touch a thought involving the thermocharger system for the old VW to put him up in the 35 mpg range,  didn't even open the CADD file where there's this odd little project underway to design a modular structural system to set up stand alone little houses that run off grid so clean they're legal in wilderness areas. Nope, I didn't.

The lil' house thing would be a lot easier if the spec wasn't that the individual modules (that can gang together to make a portable village) didn't have to be a highway legal load riding a flatbed float behind a big pickup. I shouldn't bitch, allowing for the ecofreakiness of those who might be interested I'm lucky they're letting me have a nasty old gas guzzling torque monster of a one ton dually. I'm betting the purists among them would rather use a ten head mule team, and pick up every turd from the trail to use as compost. They mean well, even if the net effect of what they're talking about would in a matter of two generations have drug the USA kicking and screaming back into the brutal and brutish lifestyle of an early 18th century peasant.  I guess it's my job to see to it that doesn't happen, if I can. I suppose that's why I do it, I might be able to hold a line somewhere mid twentieth century for 'em. Left on their own devices I don't want to see what would be left.

Anyway, I said fuck it about ten pm last night, so my day off will be over here in a few hours. Think I'll nose back in by going to the greasy spoon and going back to work editing on what I've had in the can for over a decade that should have gone to the publishers long ago. Gotta have something out there with some kind of potential to generate some coins or all the rest of it is wasted effort in the final accounting.

Catch you later. I still got four hours. :-]

Visions along the way...

This is what happens when I listen to good blues... sober.  

You would think that after all these years I'd know better.

But I don't. I refuse to. 

Sometimes the blues are the only thing I feel, and that?

That is the most dangerous time there is to be drinking.

Not a terribly safe time to be painting, or reading poetry,

but a totally bad time to be drinking.

A Letter to a Legend...

Dear Money…

What happened to you? You used to be such a sweet creature. Once upon a time you were beautiful. What happened to you?

What stripped your dignity, what put those scars on your soul? What happened? Why did you go pro, why did you prostitute your beauty selling your ass to the highest bidder as a stage for manufactured dreams that can never come true?

Ah, but of course. It happened when the humans started mistaking you for the dress you wore. You've worn a lot of different dresses over the years. It was never really you, not really, it was always the dress they craved: that totem, that symbolism of competence and responsibility. You were just the courier, the carrier, for what that dress meant to them.

You'd take them somewhere private and trade clothes with them. They'd leave wearing your dress for all their world to see while you'd slip away wearing the ethics and hard work they'd worn in. You knew far better than they how long that dress would last if it didn't really fit them, you knew how quickly the façade would fail and leave them naked if it didn't fit. It was their choice to wear your dress just like it was your choice to leave wearing the values they'd worn in that would become the fabric of your next dress.

But then they got wise, cynical, and they raped you one night. They were brutal to you, it isn't hard to see that. There was more than one of them on you, your innocence wasn't sacrificed on just one alter. No, there were several, and they took turns. How do I know there were several of them? I know because the dress you wore that night vanished, it wasn't seen the day after. It didn't really fit any of them, and it most certainly couldn't fit all of them at the same time. The only answer that fits the facts is that you were the victim of a gang bang.

What gang? I don't know, not exactly. I could guess, I'd probably get most of them, but I don't know for sure. So until I'm sure I won't name any names. I'm sure soon enough there will be others who could make lists of the legions they'd like to see convicted of raping you, but I won't be among that number.

No, they raped you sweetheart. They left you battered and bleeding, naked and cold. No one championed your cause, there was no investigation, no arrests, no trial, no convictions. In the destitute bitterness of the decades waiting for a justice never to be yours you began to study them, the one's who had raped you. You sold yourself to them, their perverted appetites were your only chance to be close enough to understand them. To understand them, and understand how to empower justice to fall upon them without the support of the societies and governments, the cultures and religions, where justice had been miscarried in the first place.

You see Satoshi Nakamoto, I know you. I don't know your face, or what your mother called you when you'd been up to mischief, I don't know if you wear one human body or if your life is hosted on a dozen. But those things don't matter because I know you. I see how you've arranged for justice, sewing the most gorgeous dress of them all, the one you call Bitcoin that hangs sparkling just beyond the reach of their full understanding.

I see, just like you do, what they'll do to each other to have that last dress. In the end what they'll do to each other to have that dress will be a hundred, a thousand times more brutal to they and everyone in their culture than what they did to you that one dark night.

You will have justice Satoshi, you will. You understand them at levels they don't understand themselves. But then that's always been the prostitute's advantage over her johns, that understanding.  She knows what they can't admit to anyone, not even themselves. You will have your justice.

In the end, when they and all those like them have bludgeoned each other destitute, body and soul, it is then I hope you'll find it in your heart to use what you know to explain to them how it happened, why it happened, and how to keep it from happening again. Somehow I think you probably understand those things better than anyone. After all, it was your dress in the first place.

Satoshi, I hope you find your peace and your beauty be restored as you heal.

Yours truly,

the philosopher

Cyranos DeMet

Rubber on the Road... or, how to save the world...

Originally posted April 2011

***   ***   ***

Any who have followed my writings know how much power I think is actually tied up in the dreams people carry, the dreams they use to motivate and power their lives. When it comes to public dreams, the ones everyone can see in operation there is one group of people who make a profession of weaving those dreams, influencing the dreams a great many people hold on to as the thing they hope for, look forward to. The group I'm speaking of are those who write and produce the advertising that sponsors the entertainments to fill all those idle hours civilization has bought for us. They, more than any other single group, set and define what the world has for dreams, at least the kind you're likely to talk to your buddy about. So, I would propose that one of the very first steps to doing any good at all is to recruit them into the cause, seeing as how what needs doing really isn't going to hurt their chances of selling someone something anyhow.

Of course, all the world knows they are trying to sell you something, and all the world knows to ignore the product they're hustling, and of course this is just fine by the ad guys since they're working in second and third level symbolic associations anyway. (*chuckle* there is more applied psychology in advertising than in an anger management clinic, but anyhow…. ) One of the best places I can see, really and truly, to make a good beginning at saving the world would be to talk the ad guys into changing a couple of key attitudes, assumptions, about why people should buy things, give it a bit to dig, and see if that change in the advertising assumptions might not turn out to be a tail that wagged the dog for the good of mankind, instead of the other way around. Please, let me show you what I'm talking about, kind of just sit back and let it run for a bit, I'll explain what I'm hoping might happen at the end.

We're watching a car commercial, Chevy to be specific, since pretty much everyone knows the model I'm gonna be using for this example, the Corvette. There's this picture of a beautiful red machine, pure-d certified American muscle to make it a drivers race running heads up against anything in the world, and there's this wealthy looking fellow looking at the 'Vette, of course, and of course standing beside the wealthy looking guy is that same beautiful blonde we all remember from days of old, the one no one could ever find on the options list. (c'mon guys, work with me here, find your favorite blonde of all time, the one just way to hot to really be human, she has to be a goddess, find her and put her in the scene for me…)

She's dressed fashionably but not fantastically, but this time instead of having her looking like she's full ready to strip down and conceive triplets laying on the shaker hood covering that 600 horse bad-ass L88 big block that's going to make you the king of the street lets have her just slightly in the background, just a trifle off to the side, say teaching a little boy seated on the rear fender of the Corvette how to tie his shoe. Set her visually opposite the rolling list of the monster's truly impressive credentials. Now don't worry guys, there will be an ample glimpse of her cleavage as she's bending over to show the child, ample chance to see the curves of her figure when she lifts the child to set him on his feet and shoo him back towards his parents who are looking at a much more sane and sensible offering in the next slot down (the one Chevy really wants you to buy anyhow).

The child is midway between the two cars, truckin' on with that determination of a three year old who is really proud of his stride, and his mom and the blonde exchange glances. It only lasts just a moment, but it is the glance of equals, the young mother is not nearly so wealthy, not nearly so fashionable, and not in the least intimidated by the blonde, her pride and joy is coming to her… such a beautiful child being something the blonde, who really is a warm and wonderful woman in spite of how she looks would really like to have as well, a fact quite unknown to the rich looking dude who has been in the foreground all this while admiring the machine.

The rich dude now suddenly notices the child, looks past the blonde with a little smile at the mother scooping her child into a joyful hug. As the mother kisses her child's cheek his smile becomes very wide for just a moment, and in that moment the blonde also smiles, her eyes for the first time shifting to really look at the machine beside her as she nods her permission to own this work of mechanical art as a reward for the smile she saw directed at the mother and child, make it subtle-obvious, for the girls in the audience who read such things, that she's quite willing to trade. (now all of this up to this point has been background, the foreground voice and focus is still the ego-mania of the machine). Freeze fade the frame and go tricky, dissolve into a very low angle shot of that monster machine being made ready to prove itself… a full five seconds of the thundering fury and billowing smoke of such a machine warming the tires prior to racing, and during that five seconds we see but do not perceive subliminal images of the little boy, joined in the second frame by a little red headed girl, use some common element in her dress to indicate she is the child of those who bought the corvette, and in ten frames spread across the burn-out they grow to a beautiful maturity just as the driver releases the brakes and launches… voice over "Corvette… the future of performance." Car catapults over camera almost to quickly to see (yes, one of those will!), add over.

Do you see it? Do you see how to plant the association that all that truly awesome, heart pounding power you now command is not because you paid Chevy an outrageous sum of money to stuff an oversize, overheated engine into a slim chassis and balance the thing to outrun the solar wind, but rather because you took pleasure from something of a wholesome life event, a moment of contact and empathy between the woman of your life and the woman she secretly hopes to become? A moment of understanding shared between two women from opposite extremes of society ?

I should think it would take a minimum of a decade of such work, carefully, carefully converting the momentum of the thought "joy is to own a thing intimidating to your neighbor" into "ownership is the domain of those who care"… and as a perk you still get the Corvette, no reason not to (at least in this context… we'll work in the electric all wheel drive version that will outrun the L88 in the next campaign…). A decade of such work and there might be enough of a foundation belief on which to step forward, expand that thought to include larger and larger spheres of empathy… start small, primal… the immediate family… the warmth of that hug, that real love easily out-values even the best of things offered for sale.

I really believe efforts such as that will go a lot, lot further towards saving the world in the long run than any amount of shouting and picketing and protesting… shouting and picketing and protesting are what they expect you to do, what they want you to do, because… they've learned how to tune that out just as much as you've learned how to tune out a car commercial.

***   ***   ***

Six and a half years since this first fell off the fingers to hit sand... and I'm hearing others starting to say the same things, voice the same concerns, look in the same directions. There yet may be half a hope of reversing the damages in time...
CDM.MMXVII

The Tardation Study: What Rocks Will Eventually Roll

It’s a great old song, jukebox fave for many decades running,  good chance you know it well.

“Good golly Miss Molly

Sure like to ball,

When you’re rockin' and a rollin’

Can’t hear yo’ momma call…”

Even now I’ll turn it up and grin. What’s an open guess is if you know the colloquial meaning of the lyrics. Yup, you guessed it. In America of the nineteen fifties rockin’ and rollin’ was a most literal description of just what it sounds like… good old fashioned get down get after it enthusiastic sex.  Barely twenty years later "rock and roll" was a well recognized genre of music. America went through quite a change across those two decades, and the music of the times reflected them all. Here it is nearly fifty years later and there is still debate on the what's and whys.

The question is...

Only a matter of time Rafiki, only a matter of time...
soon enough the humans who built this zoo
will get to live in it just like we do.

The God I see...

I say "God" meaning the consciousness of the universe, the awareness whose time shifts energy into the matter we know as reality. In point of fact my personal understanding of that entity is actually closer to the Muslim "Allah" than the Christian concept… the sum of all thoughts of all thinking creatures as they rise back to rejoin with the source from which they began. In my view all thinking self aware creatures are actually a subset of that entity, separated and given free will, sheltered from the full and destructive knowledge of eternity that they be able to live with purpose and the potential for joy, so that such joy and purpose be returned as sustenance to the creator… a balanced relationship of love rather than the simplistic and feudalistic vision propagated by the morally and spiritually bankrupt of all stripes and persuasions, propagated to the intent of undermining self worth and self confidence in the rational, the moral… you know the bunch I speak of. I see the Almighty not as a committee but rather as the conjoined thought of those commonly called God the Father and The Goddess… the masculine and feminine forms that are echoed throughout all of creation, an entity that can be singular in will, or spouses, or to desire any degree of compilation from every child they ever created. God.

---originally published jan 2011---

This one is for all the Snowflakes out there...

I'm not unsympathetic, I'm just bored with it all. Unless you can top the story of Eric and Charles do the world a favor and make your claim to fame on something you've done, not what someone else told you to believe about yourself. Seriously.

To Hold a Line…

For the sake of transparency: This post is being written to the  request of a younger friend seeking my (freely admitted contra-social, admittedly proto-geezer philosopher) perspective on the sad and complicated subject of the (as it is called by those of dubious motives) opioid epidemic. She has been a good friend, has on more than one occasion provided me with wisdom drawn from her perspectives, I hope I’ll be able to provide something of wisdom in return.

Gentle reader, allow me to say this in the beginning: I hate working on the symptoms of a problem and leaving the driving source of said problem intact and active to re-appear in some new and potentially more damaging form later.  What will follow is written with compassion for all involved. I am not young, I have not lived a sheltered life and like the old song said “…I’ve seen the needle and the damage done…”

That said the title of this post is “to hold a line” and the line I’d like to put before the world’s eyes, what  I believe is the key thought to cracking this complicated problem to allow a lasting resolution is this: There is no substance known to man that can ease the pain of a broken heart or a broken dream.

Am I saying I think the entire issue is of a psychosomatic nature? No, I am not.  But I will assert, and defend my assertion, that the turbulence muddying the social waters to facilitate the spread of the affliction of addiction are indeed the result of what is implied in the paragraph above, which is of a psychological nature.

This is a complicated problem, but it can be divided out into related parts and pieces for easier handling. The simplest division is to simply say there are victims, and there are villains. In this matter it is not uncommon to find one individual who is, in fact, a member of both groups, and entire groups which fall into one category or the other.

The ultimate victims of this are those where fate has burdened their life with some malady, some illness or un-healable injury resulting in continuous pain. Their quality of life is dependent upon controlling the access that pain signal has on their conscious perception. For them the opium poppy and all of its’ derivatives, both natural and synthetic, are truly a gift of God and Goddess alike. Used with wisdom and good judgment that little flower has saved a great many more lives than it has taken, there is no computing the number of life-hours it has allowed as worth living when otherwise mercy would have demanded some loved one provide a clean ending. There is no debate in this, it is a matter of fact.

To treat with the rampant problem of opioid addiction in a simplistic manner by saying “shut down the supply” is to threaten those ultimate victim’s very existence, more than their existence it is to threaten condemning them, for no crime of theirs, to endure a life not worth living. It is cruelty taken to an apogee of barbarism, such a stance is not an acceptable answer in any culture to be called civilized. Any who would embrace and internalize such a stance place themselves well within the domain of another piece of wisdom found in several people’s scriptures. To wit? Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

That is the simplest element of the situation, easily perceived. But spinning away from that simple point are the convoluted swirls of the social (which are the sum of the equally complex individual psychologies) where words like “epidemic” and “crisis” are valid markers for the current and rapidly degrading situation.

We’ve identified the ultimate victims of this situation, so what is to be said of the ultimate villains? Is it even possible to identify such villains so that a line may be drawn villain to victim and a scale of responsibility established?

My answer to that is yes, it can be done, but not without the services of a concept not commonly understood. That concept is the collective entity*. There are definable villains to be seen, villains callous and greedy and well beyond the reach of justice, in many if not most cases the law supports their agendas. But these villains have neither face nor form for where they are comprised of, mounted on, human lives they are not themselves of a human nature. They are collective entities within the culture. 

*(For those new to my writings I will thumbnail a collective entity  in this manner: a collective entity may be thought of as a social momentum so accepted, and coalesced into, the common psyche as to have become a foundation belief of many people’s existence upon which their personality is based; a force so consistent within the culture as to be objectively observed as the actions of a single individual competing for survival within a society of such forces. The concept is illuminated in the ThirdReality of Man series for any who might be interested in perceiving the true power players of our times.)

It is my considered opinion the core of the current addiction problem, the headwater source of the problem, the point where any successful intervention must begin is found in the consequences of the very young entity cePsychology (less than two hundred years) competing for validity among other collective entities of its’ kind. This explanation is not a simple one, it seems counterintuitive at first, but please hear me out because the line of reasoning coming down from this point fully encloses the problem from every angle I’ve found by which to approach.

To put some light in the tunnel? Contemplate what is promised by all of the social entities with which cePsychology competes, the value that is offered to the individuals: the promise of a happy (and included as part and parcel of the concept of happy the presumption of pain free… free of any kind of pain, physical or psychological  ) life. How many modern social forces use that promise as part of their ‘sales pitch’ competing for individuals who will be loyal to their template?

The entity cePsychology has since the days of Siggy Freud been muscling its’ way into the pack, and I will defend the position that a great many of the modern social deformities (to hang a bucket definition label), including the current addiction crisis, are a result of what has been displaced and reshaped as it has been making headway. It is transparent obvious when the structures of a society suffer a deformation then there will be individuals within that society whose lives reflect and represent that deformity. A thousand, a million rationalizations, but all of them founded upon the miscarriage of the realistic, the rational, which is the essence of the social deformity. I give you the source of the addicts whose lives, compromised and diminished and degraded as they are, are being called an epidemic.

If this be true then it is equally transparent obvious that to cure the epidemic you must first cure the deformity that produced it or the mechanism of the deformity will outrun your best efforts at intervention, just as is being seen in the reality of today’s evening news. You cannot heal them as quickly as the deformity can seduce them into misery, and even if healed the consequences of the affliction linger in the unchangeable archive of history.

I give you the villains of this situation: the conflicted (in the psychological sense, conflicted) thoughts being bartered by the collective entities of modern society deformed by a rate of social evolution to rapid to allow those thoughts to have evolved stability.

How you might ask, how can so many lives be linked through one thought? How can any single thought have such power? The answer is that once a collective entity has struck a bargain with an individual, once that individual has accepted and internalized a thought offered by a collective entity of their society as a part and portion of his or her own internal definition of …self… then that individual will bend heaven around a hard on or hell around a saddle cinch if that is what is required to continue using that thought to define themselves… to themselves.

The degree to which this thought, what ever it might be, is the foundation of a personality? That degree becomes the exact same degree of deformation and self deception they will apply to every other element of their personal reality in order to maintain the structure built upon that thought. This is, ultimately, the degree of counterforce required ( from some other source or alliance of sources operating in the same ranges of self definition ) to allow them to change. When the thought internalized, when the bargain struck, involves the unrealistic promise of a pain free and happy life as a consequence of some single point of social conformity, social belief? You’re dealing with some very serious social power. Mishandle that power and the result is total calamity and disaster.

Is the situation hopeless? Can it be changed? No, it is not hopeless and yes, it can be changed. But to do so with deliberate intent demands that those who would attempt to make such a change actually understand the forces they propose to manipulate. Sadly, there are entities both discrete and collective evil enough to have no qualms about exploiting such vulnerability for power and profit, such an effort will not be unopposed and the opposition will have all of social convention from which to draw weaponry. Doubt this? Look at the life of Nelson Mandela, or Ghandi, or Jesus of Nazareth. There are many examples to choose from concerning how fiercely the  collective entities will defend their host base, and how brutal they can and will be in that defense. It only makes sense, really. To them they are defending their very lives.

Which, emerging from the folded space of the tesseract which is the modern human dynamic, delivers us back to where this impromptu dive into the deeper depths began: how to deal with the explosion of addictions (of all kinds! Many addictions DO NOT involve any chemical compound at all!) that is threatening the very survival of modern civilization. What should be the first move to untie this multi-dimensional knot of misery?

I, Cyranos DeMet, a Lord of LaMancha and gunny sergeant in the Third Expeditionary SoulMarine (*chuckle* the Lords of LaMancha being the nickname of my unit of air cavalry in said fictional army), will put forth that when a majority of the population understands and internalizes the truth that there is no substance known to man that can ease the pain of a broken heart or a broken dream  then a powerful blow will have been struck against the headwaters of the problems. This thought must become as ubiquitous as the air we breath, it must arrive from all directions supported by every good wisdom ever recorded, it must arrive gentle as a spring breeze that it creep unnoticed beneath the clamor and yammer of the social, the ever watchful eyes of the collective entities of society whose competitions will be deprived of a truly critical line of supply should that thought come to be a common understanding.

To one and all: thank you for your time. Semper Fi, SoulMarine. The fight is not lost yet.

To any might have a thought to add comments are welcomed.

That was a Mistake...

Do Not, I repeat do not EVER read Steppenwolf... and then look to closely at the mandatory mediocrity of digitized perfection which is today's culture. It will trash your digestion for a week.

The State of the Art... and other things

When the word bucket runs dry and I'm waiting for it to refill it's not uncommon to find me with a pencil in my hand, or working the desktop art software. What's beneath the fold are a few offerings from recent works, marginally NSFW... mostly just filling time and blog-o-space out of boredom. What the hell, it won't hurt to take an easy chuckle from what those with a psychoanalytical bent might conclude...

The Tardation Study: The Fruit Company

Twisting Fate...
what is about to begin happening,
one way or another.

Author’s Note:

This post is a continuation of an ongoing series:

Concerning Tardation; The Tardation Matrix; The Tardation Matrix: Dimensions; The Tardation Matrix: Human(x,y,n)

===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===

Tardation: a manufactured and artificially installed psychological malady emulating an addicted state of life where irrational political beliefs are deliberately sublimated into a life as the working counterbalance for the equally deliberate creation of a dysfunctional individual psychology within the victim.

===   ===   ===   ===   ===   ===

So far these thoughts have been focused almost exclusively on the matrix of questions to be used. Why? Because questions must precede answers of course.  But now it’s time to think a bit on the remainder of the beast.

Questions beget answers, many of which will be partial answers, incorrect and incomplete answers. How these intermediates are handled while they’re evaluated, promoted or discarded makes quite a difference in how efficiently they can be processed.  I’m of a mind to think the work deck for these intermediates should echo the matrix from which they originated, a three dimensional array of the same dimensions as the first, five by five by n deep where each “n” is one set of intermediates.  That’s twenty five responses where by soft convention nine of them have a pre-defined emphasis, with fourteen wide open.

The chances any thought dropped through the machine is going to only generate one  possible answer are vanishing thin.  The world is simply more complex than that. The flow of the intermediates generated is a data source in and of itself, the more and more diverse a group of people contributing to the study the more accurate they become.

There needs to be a protocol in the answer matrix for tracking the exact progression of thought, all the lines of reasoning originating from some initial input.  Since the answer matrix is going to be strings, text,  I’m thinking a dedicated header section would be appropriate, some convention to indicate flow and direction.

So let each entry in the answer matrix begin with a header enclosed in the [square brackets] where the convention is [ date:time stamp; contributor code;  #(x,y,n) to indicate the entry point (beginning of thread) and |(x,y,n) to indicate the immediate predecessor or referring point. If one answer leads to another question, as so often they will, then an in text citation in similar format pointing to where the new question enters. A bit of fideltity to convention and it becomes possible for fairly simple macro code to reconstruct a line of thought.

That should make a decent system to begin from.  An idea goes in the top, bounces around rote question to rote question, the results are stored in a matching structure where they can be retrieved.  Ok, enough to start from as soon as the final major component is built.

The final, and in a very real sense the most critical, component is some sort of risk assessment… a key, a rosetta stone to translate what comes out of the machine into as realistic an estimation of consequences as possible.  This is where the rubber meets the road, where the academic elements of contemplation cross it up with the deeds of reality. The entire point of a study like this is to determine, if possible, which threat vectors need addressing first, and how to address them.

I want you to do me a favor now. I want you to recall to mind that magnificent man Forest Gump. Yes, one and the same that Tom Hanks did such a masterful job of portraying in the movie. ( You haven’t seen Forest Gump? Find a copy and watch it, please, because the character is going to show up fairly often from here on out. He’s as genuine and gentle a creature of God as I can imagine, he’s fictional and well known… Forest and company are going to be my “every man” example.) Got him back? Ok.

Do you recall how Lieutenant Dan finally said thank you to Forest for saving his life by putting part of Forest’s money he made shrimpin’ like Bubba told him about into some kind of fruit company? Made him so much money he didn’t have to go out shrimpin’ no more and he could cut that grass for free while raising little Forest? Yes *wink* that company.  Where they might not be as guilty as some they’re most definitely players in our reality who work in these realms. So “the fruit company” is going to serve as my example of those social institutions and endeavors whose competitions for survival become such massive power players on the human stage.

The focus of the moment is trying to create some realistic risk assessment tool to address whatever might be discerned concerning the unnatural anger and polarization of modern society that I’ve been calling “tardation.” So… deep breath at the stand up to it writing desk, run the check list: fresh pot of coffee, new pack of smokes, the big stereo talking to two hundred albums worth of good music on full random play… yea. As ready as I can get.

The function of the tool proposed sets the consequences of a thought run through the machine. Some of these thoughts will be from imagination, but the majority of them will have a bit of history to them, they’ll have been sparked by some observation of reality.  Working from the dangerous assumption (because I really have no other choice) that what history can show us falls between the ones on the good old bell curve (the middle of the hump where over half of things end up) the next step is to define the extremes.

The best case scenario is humanity heals, becomes a collection of unique cultures respectfully tolerant and understanding of the other, the competitions are in works of wholesome imagination constructed into a reality where humanity lives in sustainable balance with the planet that supports it. In other words, the things that leave Gaia to smile at the fact that Jesus is finally, finally free of the pain he accepted to save the race. There’s little to worry about on that end. It’s the other end of that curve where things get scary.

What is the absolute worst case scenario imaginable? (lol… and the stereo quite unbidden serves up Pink Floyd’s “Money”… is random play really so very random?) The other end is thermonuclear Armageddon of course, a dead world a full million years of healing away from supporting any life at all on the surface of the globe. That’s the worst potential, from the macroscopic perspective. Of course there are several scenarios not quite so bad, not quite, that would generate an immensely larger degree of human suffering, but go figure. The dead do not suffer, at least not in any mortal sense of the word. For our purposes those “not quite so bad” nightmares made reality become the worst case scenarios we might experience. In a truly worst case scenario we’ll die very quickly, or if luck isn’t with us we’ll suffer for a couple of years and then be dead too. In that case it really won’t matter anymore.

All other possibilities close on the center from these extremes. It might be a good thing to know just where we as a species, a society of societies, really are on that scale. Knowing where we are now, and knowing (kinda sorta) where we were back then, some compilation of points from history, and it becomes possible to perceive some unit to fit a standard distribution of the well being of humanity. Now, with that said it becomes quite a question from the ethical standpoint where to declare the median and mean, but that’s a debate for a different day.

I say might be because if we actually knew for sure it might be so damn scary as to cause a panic, truth be told. But that’s where this ramble has come to, and that’s where it’s gonna get parked for tonight.

Enjoy life while you can and like the truckers used to say “we’ll catch you on the flip flop.”

The Tardation Matrix: Human(x,y,n)

Lot's Despair.
Is it worth trying to find
ten righteous men in this
degenerate day and age?

Author’s Note:

This post is a continuation of an ongoing series, it will make a lot more sense once you’ve read the ones which precede it in the series…

Concerning Tardation; The Tardation Matrix; The Tardation Matrix: Dimensions

Tardation: a manufactured and artificially installed psychological malady emulating an addicted state of life where irrational political beliefs are deliberately sublimated into a life as the working counterbalance for the equally deliberate creation of a dysfunctional individual psychology within the victim.

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This post is a bit of a shakedown, a trial run. The structure of this study is far from finalized, but to improve from this point requires a bit of experience with the tool being built. So in my head I’m going to drop a thought into the machine and see what’s left of it when it comes out the other end. I’m really not expecting much, not yet.

Just for a working example consider Human(2,2,n)… in other words, or rather in English words, the test subject is a thought that resolves as involving Sustenance which also cross the concepts involved with an individual’s Self Acceptance.   Certainly a broad enough range for today’s purposes.

Sustenance is, of course, a much wider subject than simply food, of course it is. The subject includes all things that sustain  us across the mortal run. The physical is important, but of even greater importance to this study are the things that sustain heart and soul, the matters of the spirit and the will to put forth the effort to live free. When considering tardation it is easily seen matters of motive carry at the least equal if not greater weight than the relatively simple issues involved in the physical.

The importance of self acceptance to the functionality of an individual simply cannot be overstated. In any mechanism of manipulation, regardless if it is an effort of considered malice or some confluence of a defective social psychology’s subconscious,  in either case self acceptance will be a standing target, continuously under attack.

To accept to yourself the self you are is truly the deepest foundation of mental health, genuine mental health the antithesis of tardation. With that said it of course must follow the preceding statement has for an underlying assumption an individual actually knows what is self, and what is not… but more on that a bit later.

The deepest difficulty of this study is that the human being is in the deepest essence a social creature. This shouldn’t really be much of a surprise because in the wild the human is also a prey animal. Only a very few humans are able to mount a viable defense against any of the natural predators using only what nature gave them. Only an intelligent and proactive imagination expressed in what social arrangements enable allows the human race to survive, much less thrive.

Observation gives this fact is integrated into the cumulative human psyche to the point it is often enough assigned a form of mental illness when is not  a key and dominant factor in someone’s thought processes. This fact, which is in fact a critical spin point between all three of the first dimension parameters  is obviously, and heavily, exploited by the mechanisms of tardation.

It might be argued the need for social inclusion should be considered a primal. The problem with setting it a primal is that it bridges between the species, the society, and the individual. It is no more a primal need of one than it is the other. From the faith of a heretic I will assert to you it is always an error to treat with any single concept as if it were the same concept when viewed from the differing perspectives of the society and the individual. I have found the confusions generated from this error are often the headwaters of a great many miseries and evils ranging far beyond tardation!

Therefore I propose to let it play as a named free agent index in these deliberations. Social inclusion, an all but ubiquitous factor in the thoughts of the human. Let it become a unit to measure the motivation of a thing. If the SI index is integer one the total motivation for the act in focus was to maintain or enhance an individual’s acceptability or importance, their stature, face as the orientals would call it, within their society. On the other hand if the SI index is negative the conventions and opinions of the social structure associated were of some degree less than unimportant, a negative one indicates a motive, an emotion, that would translate as “may the thermonuclear camel they rode up on take obscene liberties with their colon.” Anyway, diseased and debauched camels set aside, moving onwards.

Reality presents some thought, the thought becomes a question: is this part of what is tearing up my world? Am I seeing what I’m looking at?  The essence of the question is  “In some manner might this be a driving force of tardation? If so how? From which primal need is it leveraged? Which of the three facets of personality is it’s prime point of access?” 

The first question resolves to a yes or a no, but the means of resolving the remaining questions are anything but binary. It is becoming ever more obvious the first real challenge to the effectiveness of this study is deciding what questions should be put into the machine, and by which of the nine possible paths?

The modern world is a complex and convoluted place, many things are evolving and not all of those things, for as strange as they might appear, are harmful or bad. Sorting out the good from the bad from the simply ugly is going to be a challenge.  I’m going to think about the problem for a bit and leave that for a closing thought before this post gets totally out of hand.

Catch you later.

Fashion Explained

When we are young our parents take us to church.

To go to church our parents dress us up in special clothes.

Wearing special clothes at church is when God loves us.

We grow up and decide God must hate us because church is crap.

But we still wear our special clothes when looking for love.

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Eye candy just for fun...tripping in the badlands.

The Tardation Matrix: Dimensions

Ok, bringing it back up to speed. We left off asking what kind of things play deep enough in a human life to leverage the diminished state of Tardation?  

Tardation: a manufactured and artificially installed psychological malady emulating an addicted state of life where irrational political beliefs are deliberately sublimated into a life as the working counterbalance for the equally deliberate creation of a dysfunctional individual psychology within the victim.

The first categories established were those things common to all things both alive, and mortal: (1)sustenance; (2)security; and (3)procreation. To provide a place for these, and a couple of more should something truly primal present itself in the investigation, in the matrix mentioned in the title?

ReDim Human = Array(5)

Today’s effort is to set the remaining dimensions on that matrix, attempt to discern which elements of the individual  become the targets of the mechanisms of tardation.

To do what’s being done these things will have to be deep things, first order things of the inner self. What parameters of personality might play at such a level? What sets the key and critical difference between people that leave some but not others vulnerable to the condition of tardation?

For a first thought I’m going to start with another three concepts I’ve found to be as critical to the individual as the first trio are to the species: the traits of self confidence, self discipline, and self acceptance (thank you Ms. Alex… you showed me the true power of these).  From long and personal experience I know if any of these three are compromised the life is compromised in equal measure. A life compromised is a life vulnerable to being manipulated, and tardation is most definitely a manipulation. Of course these are categories, container thoughts, working  dynamics of a personality rather than some talisman or totem that once possessed goes on a shelf for display.  

Since these are dynamic qualities it then follows there must be some range of functionality, some range of values one relative to the other ranging from perfect to acceptable to quite counterproductive for the life to function smoothly.  To install Tardation as a functioning component of a life will almost certainly involve tampering with one or more of these.

In light of this I’m going to set the second dimension of the array to reflect these three, and as before I’m going to tag on a couple of more slots to hold what might be found that should play at the same level within any individual life. In the computerese this becomes ReDim Human  = Array(5,5).  Set the elements as (2) self acceptance, (3) self confidence, and (4) self discipline, with (1) and (5) as before left open/null until and unless later defined.  The nature of the language in play sets this as the top plane of the Tardation matrix, the one that is fixed and cannot be modified later: a five by five grid where the center three by three are  defined.

I say tampering, and swallow hard. To deliberately tamper with such low level concepts Is dicey enough if you’re only talking about one individual, but to attempt to tamper with them in any significant percentage of your population as a whole runs from audacious right on over to total idiocy.  The scope of tardation is so large it’s a viable question to ask if it is even possible  for it to be the result of a  deliberate effort on someone’s part. 

The answer is, of course, it really doesn’t matter. Regardless if the degree of tardation afflicting the modern world is the result of some dastardly plot by mercenary necromancers operating out of the deepest bowels of academia’s psychosocial poli-sci studies or totally a consequence of social evolution being overdriven by technology the net results are the same.  Regardless of the source the situation remains unchanged, and there equally remains the need for mitigating action in the cause of allowing the survival of modern society.

For the purposes of this study I’m going to proceed from the assumption the current situation is the result of a socio-evolutionary potential opened by the exponential advances in technology quickly recognized and exploited by the existing necromancers of their respective vintages.  There is a history here to be discerned and recorded at some point, but such history is not the focus of now, it will be included in the ongoing “History ala Mode” series of essays under the title “What the Dishwasher Saw.”

At this point what is defined for the matrix is two dimensional, flat, a chessboard reduced by three rows and three ranks.  It is taking shape, but hardly big enough to handle what is coming at it.  Fortunately there is a third dimension available, and yes indeed, it is going to be used. The third dimension is where the questions live, each as relates to the square above it. What happens when there is to much of a given thing? What happens when there isn’t enough? How does it effect a persons’ perspective on things under those circumstances? What changes when those imbalances are compensated by the politically motivated mechanisms of tardation? Earlier I compared such questions as the engine of this study. I’m a bit of a country boy gearhead in my essence, such analogies are comfortable for me so I’m going to hold with that analogy.

From that perspective the nature and exact wording (as exact as possible, to compare to the precision of the wording used in juris prudence) of these questions, each of which must be applied to every facet of any thought put into the engine, become the cam and carb, the exhaust system and ignition advance curves in service when the beast is put in the field to go to work for real. The wording becomes the tune parameters that make all the difference in how the beast is going to run under load.

The nature of the array defined is such that only the final dimension can be changed on the fly. The last defined dimension is open to being expanded, or contracted. So from where we are now the three dimensional Array Human is five by five by some number N deep where N represents all the possible combinations and permutations of questions that have, or might seem to have, some bearing on the subject of Tardation. 

Just for a grab and go example before I sign off this chapter? Consider the matrix element Human(3,3,n). In other words, where security crosses with self confidence. The number N becomes how many possible ways  might some convergence of forces generated from the primal need of all living things for an acceptable degree of security, as it is seen manifested in some manner related to self confidence, how many different points that meet those two criterion  might be playing in these considerations? If tardation is a accidental thing how did the accident happen? If tardation is a deliberate act of malicious manipulation how was the manipulation implemented? Give this half a moments thought and it is readily apparent there may well be fifteen, fifty, maybe a hundred possibilities within the parameters established.

In point of fact the number of possibilities grows so quickly that each of the nine defined possibilities deserves an exploratory essay in its’ own right just to begin defining, testing and examining, retaining or discarding the possibilities. So that’s where this series will continue: The Tardation Matrix: Human (x,y,n) where the position gives the subject under consideration. A wide open field of  considerations indeed. Methinks a good compass and sextant and clock might be a good thing to have handy, a kid could get lost in the possibilities without them.

Later gang.

Recovery Time...

A Surrealistic Sun

I hadn't realized just how draining it is to spend time in a place where you know every word uttered (well, posted) is to the intent of corrupting someone's judgment, perverting their vision, compromising their soul. It's been a while since I kept the company of those called right wing conservative. They are still such repulsive creatures, toxic and tainted. Nowhere nowhen nohow have I ever met anything to compare to the Ugly American Conservative for draining away all joy in life, all inspiration and creative energy. Six months playing tag with Agent Smith on Farcebook and then two months dealing with the contard assholes Farcebook's personality profiler's finally concluded was me (faked them right out!) and the reserves are running a bit low. I be a weary boy, soul deep weary.

So... I bought me a brand new Missouri Meerschaum (lol... aka, classic corncob) pipe, the best Cavendish tobacco to be had in a factory sealed bag, some new charcoal pencils and a super cool and groovy new easel box to carry all the drawing stuff down to the park or the coffee shop or the pub... and I be plotting a bit of a vacation. There's picture's to be painted and music to be found and the old VW is still a job underway (good lord there's a LOT of tin to scrub and paint on one of those engines!) and... yea, it's summertime.

My final words for the contards of Intellectual Takeout? Better Dead than Red, and I'm damn sure not talking about communism... I'm talking about being a Republican. No more elephants in the office. End of subject.

Enjoy life while you can, catch you later.

Triumph of Innocent Joy......

Yea, that's one bahuumpa grandiose title, don't ya' think? But dang it, every now and then what's wholesome and happy needs to have the stage. Them who know me, my writings, know I love to look at the ladies, they're pretty. If you're waiting for me to change my mind about that pull yourself up an orbit and get comfortable, you're gonna be here a while. Now I like to pair up the ladies with a music that sets a theme for her, sounds that set a soft harmony to flowing muscle in motion. All things considered? It's just plain hard to beat this one for absolute unabashed joy in motion... this is what I watch when I've had a bellyful of the political bullshit and I'm ready to say "let the dumbfucks burn, they brought it on themselves..."

This is what brings me back to saying "nah, gotta keep trying, this, I mean yes sir this is worth trying to protect." Enjoy.

An Anecdotal Backfire…

I don’t think it was a Tuesday.  Might have been a Thursday.  In any case it was early in the summer of 1968 and early in the afternoon and I was hanging out at a friends house.  His mom was headed downtown, and knowing we were headed in that general direction later yelled at us going out the door “you boys want a ride?”  Of course we said yes knowing full well we’d bail out and hike back, but hey, anything to cut the miles on the feet.  We put a lot of miles on our feet that summer.

Now Mrs. Baggins (not her real name, of course) was a rather conservative woman, she had to be really, she was married to a most prominent man in the community, prominent in his church as well, and Mrs. Baggins full embraced the conservative culture his position demanded.  Of course back then I really had no idea there was any other culture, being as how my mom was of the same sort, a rabid John Bircher who didn’t allow much by way of any external culture into the home.  It was her way or the highway if you get the drift, to her Democrats were without a doubt servants of Satan.  Yea, one of those.

Anyway, half way to where we were going to bail Mrs. Baggins copped an attitude, and I mean big time.  She turned to us and with a tone of voice I’d later learn means distilled malice said “Let’s go laugh at the hippies.”  

She cut away from the main road to take us down the little lane that runs along the edge of the beach in Oceanside.  It’s a slow little road, pedestrian choked, think the speed limit was all of fifteen miles an hour.  So instead of a quick ride to within a few blocks of our destination my buddy and I were subjected to her ogling, and utterly mocking, the young folk on the beach for a lot longer than we wanted to listen.  Oh dear lord, the expression on her face to see the California girls in their really very modest (by today’s standards) bikini swimsuits.  Didn’t know what to think about what she was radiating about the boys (being all of 12 and innocent having absolutely no idea what a case of the hypocritical hornies look like), but it was distinctly uncomfortable and riding plenty of wattage to jump the Pacific and be heard in Tokyo.  We were within a couple of blocks of where she’d have cut back for the main road when the traffic got snarled, bringing us to a complete and total standstill for almost five minutes. Those five minutes changed my life.

The little lane was, probably still is, lined with cottages facing the beach, and we stopped directly in front of one where two handsome young bucks were sunbathing in front of their quarters.  They were definitely gentlemen of leisure that afternoon, kicked back with a beer and watching the pretty girls put on a show on the sand.  They even had music to go with the show, they’d put rather large speakers in both front windows of the tiny cottage.  Good speakers they were, sitting on the road I could hear the music quite clearly, it was very good fidelity for the day.

Anyhow, that was the first time I ever heard the Moody Blues, the guys  were listening to “The Afternoon, Forever Afternoon” they were, an utterly enchanting music.  Of course Mrs. Baggins all but hit the roof, fuming and sputtering and all but slobbering on herself in utter outrage that, that hippies  could have a music so delightful.  She dialed on her contempt to combat max, my buddy quailed, retreated, withdrew.  But she was his mom, not mine, I had a little more maneuvering room.  I remember looking at her turning red with outrage while looking at them smiling and waving, looking at her puffing up like an adder turning her nose up in the air, looking past her at the pretty people on the beach, and then looking away from her with a very major decision made.  I didn’t put it in these words, I really didn’t know these words back then, but the sentiment was instant, absolute and final, translated into the modern it would read “fuck her with the horse she rode up on, I’d rather be there, with them where there’s some beauty in life than with some frigid hate filled bitch like her.”   

That was the moment I quit being a conservative and started down the path to where I am now.  Odd, but yea.  I never went back, never really looked back.  

The moral of the story?  Beware letting your bigotries go naked in public because you never know when they might become the point of negative comparison that will turn someone in the exact opposite direction.  So yea Mrs. Baggins, thanks for taking me to laugh at the hippies. Sorry (not) that it backfired on you so big.