SOMEHOW

Ab(..c..)’s, loner life can only be the way to go for those that were so disposed when they got here. It’s not a choice.

None of it, this, that, the other, is chosen.

And so, for example, I have a time or two beaten about the head & shoulders shampoo salesman for “stoicism.” Saying attributes are a philosophy for sale, or studied internalization, is snakeoil. But that kind of oil has not & will never “Peak.”

Said it before: Nobody would choose what is if choosing were a choice. (Apply competitive compensating “subtleties” to this bumper sticker. If the whole human population could choose & so chose to be sociopaths, nobody would be here to write anything in the next instant. The choosers of sociopathy would be chosen for exile of one sort or another.)

It’s a diamond hard facet, that choice is all sorts of other things than what it soapily-windowed claims to be: conceit, egomania, character armoring, psych/emotional defense mech muckery, Madison Ave manipulation, on & on the pitches are legion & the legions never stop marching as/how/when/where ordered.

*I* understand that no matter how many times the diamond cuts glass house window panegyrics painstakenly erected against the cold, or scary, pain of “out there” ~ Oakland ~ the anti-Bastiat bunch will just call the glaziers they’ve all got on now always-in-hand cell phone speed-dial to come replace the emperor’s robes “covering up” their not centerfold nor cover model nakedness…which nobody wants to see, & so projection & averted gazes to the rescue.

But. That doesn’t mean I won’t say it, or write it, or sing it, as many different ways as I can. Because that’s my tune, the song I came in on, & will leave on.

And. Even if “we” as melt, or as yet unmelted Borg bullion cube, cannot be unchosen, maybe some broth cups, or little foil-wrapped 3D cubes, can understand that how they define “we” isn’t the only definition.

Islands, with little outboards, or bigger inboards, or sails, moving about, coming together, going aloha, a la the guy that puts literal Sea Gypsy writes in her from time to time, is, or can be seen as/to be, a we of individuals that puts emphasis on individuals…where emphasis “should” be. But isn’t: Lord of the Flies Wings Puller didn’t get any kicks that way.

Maybe some can understand that the standard we-chest is the war chest ~ standard, asymmetric, nuclear, all the ways of wrecking & carnage ~ that it’s the same steaming hunk of junk that was slammed shut – the choiceless human chest o’ drawers – before hope could escape, & be neutralized in whatever number of half-lives it takes before that stuff no longer poisons & kills.

Steamroller Blues:

But none of my stuff is prescriptive. It’s just descriptive. There is no prescription. No cure. No transcendence or redemption. The “transhumanists” cannot get from here to there any more than the the El Dorado’ists or Fountain of Youth’ists could, nor the Stalinists-Maoists-Constitutional Republicists could. Pangloss, who EC used to mention, was right. This is the best of all possible worlds, given the construction materials: glass.

Mr. Glass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmzbosye2-Y

The we-chest warchest has “weapons” that fuse-alchemize “other materials” into glass. And the American node of the we-chest has dropped these weapons on people, twice. And it sounds like that node would like to do it again.

Mulholland Falls:

It’s for something else, but it works here; try it:

As usual so often is the case, books I am reading line up with the constellation of events surround. The stars in the sky all move, but they all move en masse, together, & it/nothing n/ever changes, for all that apparent movement. Mamet & Vidal are the 2 lining up. (But Breathing – the titles I mentioned you before – lines up too, right?)

Mamet leans heavy on what he believes is the Judeo-Christian foundation of all that is good – or as good as it can be for/among feet of clay people. A lot of political conservatives, his new beat, do this dance. Mamet’s come far, but he’s my age & it is clear he’ll never get far enough, will never arrive “where he started. And know the place for the first time.”

If two sharp-pointed people can be a tradable pattern, Mamet, along with Milch (the great Deadwood creator/writer), are both fascinated with order – as in law & order…as in “law” & “orders.”

But as Milch explained his rendition of the master Pimp & Crimelord Al Swearingen, paraphrasing, ”he recognized need, so wanted just enough – semblance of – order to facilitate his robbing of everybody.” Just so. And Mamet prints on the page his acceptance of the “Chicago Way” – graft, bribery, etc (which is of course not in any way confined to Chicago).

Vidal’s historical (very close to just plain history, one has said) novel Julian is about the Roman emperor who tried to return that empire to Hellenism ~ all those different gods, & sacrifices – paganism ~ about a hundred years after the Christ was killed. He was late, knew it, an impatient philosopher-emperor, pushed too hard, & I guess got whacked (almost done with the read, but not there yet).

And the mono-god “Christians” (Jesus, a Jew, but especially Paul, a Jew…who never even met Jesus, but ran what sure looks like one of the most successful long cons in the long history of confidence scams…) took their turn at the prevail. Anyway, this passage:

“But Julian grimly persisted, on the ground that no matter how alarming some of these rites may appear to us, each is a part of our race’s constant attempt to placate the gods. Every ancient ceremony has its own inner logic, & efficacy. The only fault I find with Julian was that he was in too great a hurry. He wanted everything restored at once. We were to return to the age of Augustus in a matter of months. Given years, I am sure he could have reestablished the old religions. The people hunger for them. The Christians do not offer enough, though I must say they are outrageously bold in the way they adapt our most sacred rituals & festivals to their own ends. A clear sign that their religion is a false one, improvised by man in time, rather than born naturally of eternity.

From the beginning, the Christians tried to allay mans’ fear of death. Yet they still have not found a way to release that element in each of us which demands communion with the One. Our mysteries accomplish this, which is why the are the envy of the Christians & the enduring object of their spite. Now I am perfectly willing to grant that the Christian way is *one* way to knowing. But it is not the only way, as they declare. If it were, why would they be so eager to borrow from us? What most disturbs me is their curious hopelessness about *this* life, & the undue emphasis they put on the next. Of course eternity is larger than the brief span of a man’s life, but to live entirely within the idea of eternity is limiting to the spirit & makes man wretched in his day-to-day existence, since his eye must always be fixed not on this lovely world but on that dark door through which he must one day pass. The Christians are almost as death-minded as the original Egyptians, & I have yet to meet one, even my old pupil & beloved friend Basil, who has ever got from his faith that sense of joy & release, of oneness with creation & delight in what has been created, that a man receives when he has gone through those days & nights at Eleusis. It is the meagerness of Christian feeling that disconcerts me, their rejection of this world in favor of a next which is- to be tactful – not entirely certain. Finally, one must oppose them because of their intellectual arrogance, which seems to me often like madness. We are told that there is only one way, one revelation: theirs. Nowhere in their tirades & warnings can one find the modesty or wisdom of a Plato, or that pristine world of flesh & spirit Homer sang of. From the beginning, curses & complaints have been the Christian style, inherited from the Jews, whose human & intellectual discipline is as admirable as their continuing bitterness is limiting & blighting.

I see nothing good ever coming out of this religious system no matter how much it absorbs our ancient customs & puts to use for its own ends Hellenic wit & logic. Yet I have no doubt now that the Christians will prevail. Julian was our last hope, & he went too soon. Something large & harmful has now come into the life of this old world. One recalls, stoically, the injunction of Sophocles: “And ever shall this law hold good, nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse.”

It is also significant that this death cult should take hold just as the barbarians are gathering on our borders. It is fitting if our world is to fall – & I am certain that it will – the heirs of those who had originally created this beautiful civilization & made great art should be at the end art-less & worship a dead man & disdain this life for an unknown eternity behind the dark door. But I have given way to my worst fault! Prolixity! I have delivered myself of a small oration when I should have kept to the task at hand, Julian in Antioch.”

The world, without all the artificial punctuations of maplines & specialists & cartel’d tyrants, is prolixity. I like prolixity. Same as I like my everything-in-it Super Sauce, smothering a little pasta. “Tedious” (in the definition of “prolix”) is projection.

The Monopoly On Violence