Comprising miscellaneous notes on 'life' in Central Kalifornia:

I am so utterly bored right now that I am looking forward to the prospect of doing random temp. clerical work in order to break the tedium.  What is wrong with me?

The San Joaquin Valley is flat.  It's so flat, the people don't even have quirks.  No convolutions are allowed.  There are so many churches here that God got offended and left. 

Speaking of which:  What kind of asshole goes into a building - especially a cheap stuccoed one - to ask some jerk in a dress to talk to God for them?  Those guys need to get real jobs, anyway.  I can talk to God just fine on my own - why don't you go pick strawberries or something, Father Spud?  There are mountains near here - why don't the faithful just go up there, where the view is better?

I am living in a town rumoured to have been founded by the KKK.  This is eerily plausible.  Nothing is open past nine, and there aren't even any bars here.  I don't want one for myself, but I am somehow discomfited by their absence - it seems a sign of a culture with very very wrong priorities.   I suppose people watch television.  Speaking of which - they report on high school sports on the television news here.  How empty does your life have to be for you to care about high school sports?   Maybe it's a pederast thing, to go with all the clergy.

Pray for me.

Willie Nelson - of whom no evil shall be spoken in my presence - once sang, "Still is still moving to me."   As for I an' I, moving is still ... still.

I have moved, and my emotional and physical functioning, and those of those around me, are all farblondget and yet, I am still here, and here, I am still.

I am like a hurricane; I always have been: whirling dysfunctional disorder and strife surrounding a hollow 'eye' of stillness - a core that is almost mineral in its inability to be touched.  Cool, high, and indifferent, I am lunar.

Or, alternately, I am so utterly disturbed by everything, all the time, that I am in a constant state of low-level shock.

Oddly, introspection yields no clues as to which of these competing self-conceptions is correct - if either is.

Perhaps there are two of me.

I suppose I should be bothered about war or injustiice or something equally heinous, but right now, I am instead appalled by the fact that the media seem to be habitually refering to 2003 UB₃₁₃, which is arguably our twelfth planet, by its unofficial, informal, and utterly inappropriate nickname, "Xena" - as in "Xena, Warrior Princess".

Don't get me wrong - I don't mind the worthy toilers at Mount Palomar having their geeky fun amongst themselves with this - I am quite in favor of geeky fun myself.   But the name has been taken up by many - especially newspapers and, tellingly, television - as if it were the actual God-damned name of the thing.

As if they thought it would be reasonable for a planet to be named "Xena" - after a television character.

Re-read that last sentence a few times until the significance of this fact sinks in completely.   You'll know you've fully digested this tidbit when your extremities go numb and you start killing people and other living things.

O my brethren (and, uh, cistern?) this is very bad.   All things grand and large have traditionally taken the names of ancient Deities and, well, celestial beings, in line with the stature and, ahem, gravity of their high and supralunary station.  At times, demi-gods and heroes have been admitted into this pantheon, but mere-human worthies have typically been content to have a lunar crater or a park bench or an off-ramp dedicated to their beloved shades.   And these me-hums were not even fictional.   For Christ's sake, we used to worship entities like 2003 UB₃₁₃!   Perhaps we still should.   These are the ornaments of the night sky, which is the shared vista of all, from the slave to the emporer.   These are the large-scale features of natural - and ipso facto, of divine - reality.   These are entities which have inspired our philosophers, poets, and mystics; which have driven advances in mathematics and the sciences; which have fueled the progress of civilization (Galileo, anyone?); by which we have dreamed and yearned and wondered, and by which we have been awed and humbled and uplifted.  This is real, honest-to-whatever, really real reality here!   It appears that we have declined to the point where the lumpen-proletariat are thought to have lost the ability to discern the stars by which Ulysses steered o'er the wine-dark seas from the "stars" on Hollywood Boulevard.   Put differently, they think we can't tell myth from commodity.   They think we can't tell illusion from reality.

Undoubtedly, they are right.

I should like to say - at the risk of undermining the apocalyptic negativity which has always been my stock-in-trade - a few words about love.

1 - Love of humanity

Appeals to love are often dismissed as naive, idealistic; yet, in truth, it is the disparagers of love who have retreated into fantasy.  I try to convey to others the ugly truths:  the alienation from fundamentals that drives our daily lives, our intimacy with suffering and injustice, and the whole contemporary (and perennial) nightmare.  It is only in ignoring these that can one also successfully ignore love.  The two realities are intertwined.  They both become clear from direct contact with what is actually going on here and now in the concrete moment in which we live.

The great Californian philosopher Josiah Royce (for whose acquaintance I am deeply indebted to a dear friend and colleague - Eudaimon! Wish you were ear! ) observed that true morality is an amalgam of perception and sentiment.  When one truly and fully perceives the nature of the other beings around one, this naturally triggers in us a response, rooted in our most innate and authentic sense of value.  This is like Kant's principle of humanity in some ways - a cognitive recognition of the inherent worthiness of conscious minds.  But it crucially mediated by that form of perception that is - love.  Those Bhikkus of the Dhutanga-Kammatthana (or "forest monk") tradition of Thailand, who live for long periods in tiger-filled forests, overcome their fear, often, by a sober reflection on the fundamentally similar situation of the tigers - who are burdened, as we are, by pain, illness, fear, desire, and death.  Sometimes, this culminates in a great and clear feeling of love for the tigers, in the presence of which, fear is banished.  Oddly enough, very few, if any, of these monks are harmed by the tigers among whom they live without shelter or protection.  As many wise heads have observed, fear and ignorance are complementary, even identical, while they are cured by love and understanding, which are also, in a certain sense, identical.

Nowadays - and this may surprise those of you who know me - I am fond of saying (and sometimes sincerely) that I am the luckiest person in the world, because I never have to deal with anyone I truly detest.  For years I have struggled with the residual racism that lurks in the hearts of most of us; I began to win that struggle only when I gave in and admitted that the only solution is to strive to "love thy neighbor as thyself".  At that point, superficialities become more transparently superficial.

But - everyone?  Even assholes?  Like it or not, yes.  People act vilely - for reasons.  Such people are in a bad way, and suffering more greatly (usually) than those they are assholes toward.  As William Blake said:  "Mutual forgiveness of every vice; such are the gates of paradise."

2 - Love of friends

Since my blog has been something of a whine-fest, it has evoked lovely expressions of support from friends, despite the years of neglect I have heaped on them.   I cannot begin to express how deeply friendship of all kinds - from deepest long-term intimacy to intense encounters with strangers who, for a day or two, were confidantes - has structured my life, and over and over, renewed my vision of what life is, and what it should be.  My soul has been saved by my friends so many times that I cannot begin to convey what the connection with select others has meant.  I have known some of the finest people on Earth, by my reckoning.  Through friendship, one learns how to be a human among humans - a life-long task, but a worthy one. 

3 - Love of BD

My inamorata - how can I begin to praise her?  Brilliant, creative, willful, discerning, beautiful, eloquent, strong - and always, and insistently, herself - despite a world that wants anything but a woman with her own mind who refuses to fold.  I have been largely silent about her in this blog, largely because I shrink before the task of conveying what cannot be conveyed.

The love that I have discovered in the close pairing with a kindred soul has saved me from spiritual and emotional death, and she continues to egg me ever onward toward the light.  I have learned that two people can actually improve each other - through understanding and patience and silliness, and, for lack of a better word, love.  When I began to perceive who it was that I was with, I could barely contain my awe.  And now, miraculously, we are about to begin a lifetime together, on a new basis, and by our own rules, under the guidance of the only law that matters.

I cannot say any more, because the topic is larger than my powers of expression.

The word "cynicism" is used in at least two senses, and these are related, but the distinction between them is quite important.

Normally, when we label a person a cynic, we mean that they regard everything as bullshit - or at least that they want to be seen that way.  But, historically, the word derives from a school of philosophy, tracing its lineage back to Socrates, and ultimately giving birth to Stoicism.  These philosophical Cynics were, it is true, extremely fond of identifying all those aspects of life that fall into the bullshit bin, and yet, implicitly, they did hold Nature (physis) as the standard of anti-bullshit, against which everything else was measured, and, verily, found to be bullshit.

These worthies have a controversial geneology, but the figure who appears most consistently as the archetypal Cynic is Diogenes of Sinope.  Quite probably, the majority of stories we have about him are mythic - but what a myth!  He famously is said to have wandered in broad daylight with a lit lantern, rushing up to each person he encountered and staring intently into their faces, then moving on with an air of disappointment.  Questioned, he explained that he was looking for an honest man. 

It was once said of him:  "That man is Socrates gone mad."  As if that were a bad  thing! 

This Diogenes - sometimes also counted as the first Discordian (though the Cynics revered Heracles rather than Eris) - lived outdoors, possibly in an amphora, or large clay jug.  It is said that when his reputation as a philosopher had spread, Alexander the Great, in a mood to patronize the humanities, went to visit Diogenes at his campsite, where he was sunning himself.  You must understand that from a Greek perspective, Alex was the ruler of the world - or at least, as much of the world as anyone knew about.   So, the Ruler of Everything offers our man Diogenes a boon - what would the eminent sage like?  Diogenes replies:  "Step to one side; you're blocking my light."  Why?  Because Alex was just a man, after all, and Diogenes had all he wanted already.  From the perspective of Nature, a man's a man, for all that, and nothing other.

Diogenes' father had been implicated in a counterfieting scandal (or something like it).  Now, in an honor-oriented society like that of the Hellenes, the shame of a criminal father was a burden most would not easily bear.  Diogenes took as his personal motto: "Deface the coinage!" which remains good advice.  What is a coin, after all, but a hunk of metal?  The imprint on it, and its presumed value, are simply matters of culture (nomos) and the unease we may feel at the thought of drawing Groucho glasses on Geo: Washington's face is simply a superstition arising from our inability to see that culture is - bullshit.  Once the coinage is defaced, it reveals its true, natural character.

When Diogenes saw a boy drinking from a river by scooping the water up with his hands, he instantly smashed his drinking-cup on the ground, bemoaning what a fool he had been, all his years.  He had seen the difference between the actual nature of water, and the cultural construct of drinking. 

And as with this, so with everything.

I have received some feedback on the post Why I Never Write You, to the effect that I need to not take on such a wretched, pitiful self-image. I must admit, reading over it now, that it seems to have come from a rather bad place.

At the risk of sounding terribly Californian, I think one thing I inherited from my Mother is victim consciousness.  What this is, is to take oneself as the passive victim of (presumably hostile) circumstances, and to underestimate one's own role as the author of one's life.  This is what the better sort of new-ager means when they parrot such slogans as "You create your own reality".  To put it differently, mental health is here equated with a sense of one's own agency, and with an approach to life that is creative and constructive, flowing from one's sense of oneself as a creator and constructor. 

These new-agers are, in a sense, terribly wrong; and yet, they are also not entirely un-right.  Their wrongness lies in a lack of compassion, and also in the failure to recognize that, whatever their origin, bad situations and circumstances are real, and quite efficacious in crushing the spirit and rendering it weak.  Great traditions like Christianity and Buddhism, or even Existentialism, have always held very close to their core a sense of the darkness and peril of our lives, and the reality of suffering.  One who is blind to the reality of others' suffering is morally retarded, and spiritually hamstrung. 

So what's right?  Well, those who view themselves as victims tend to respond to life as victims - fighting, perhaps, against the forces that oppress them, but not properly seizing the reins.  In fact, if one simply pays attention and reflects, one sees, in world-historical figures like Jesus, or Napoleon, that a person composed of the same body parts as us, and the same sort of mind, presumably burdened with the same cravings, aversions, and weaknesses that burden us, can cause tremendous shifts in the direction of their own lives and the general development of the world.  We can be affected by circumstances, it is true, but what we make of those is rather up to us.  One needs only food, water, and occasional protection from the elements, and any competent individual can acquire these easily if they put a mind to it - even if this means eating squirrels and sleeping under a bush. The rest is blind prejudice and acquired craving, and utterly unnecessary.  So what, then, can anyone really do to us?  Certainly, we can be killed or injured through violence, but this happens very rarely, and is really not a realistic thing to be concerned over most of the time, for most people.  What can we do?  We can live at peace, easily.  We can even turn our minds to the arts of persuasion, of construction, of art and technology and do something or make something.  I often reflect on the Watts Towers, which were literally assembled from trash, or my own home, which was assembled in the early 20th century from debris by poor people with no resources other than rubble. 

The Buddha was utterly without resources, and homeless, and yet he found, by his own account, everything he or anyone could possibly hope for, and this by his own efforts.  So, the simple matter of negotiating a proper life for oneself should be no great shakes by comparison.

Before I die, I must find out, at any cost, what the Hell is going on in this video:

Tide or Death

It's either a Russian advertisement for Tide detergent, in which case the Russians are really, really fucked-up people, or, perhaps, a Russian satire of the American hard-sell, in which case both Americans and Russians are really, really fucked-up people.  In any case, the key concept here is fucked-up.

Recently, John Prescott, U.K.  Labour Party Deputy PM, described our beloved American President as "crap", and a "cowboy with his Stetson on".

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1219716.ece

Bear in mind that world leaders don't do this.  The "dear leader" of North Korea may be an exception to this rule, it is true, but that only means that he and Bush are the only world leaders exempted from the usual rules of politesse.  I hasten to add that the "dear leader" has the world's largest collection of Daffy Duck memorabilia, and is easily the worst thing to happen to Korea since Japan.

Now, personally, I have a certain nostalgaic fondness for Stetsons, and even for the proper sort of cowboy.  But, really, I am gratified to hear a plain acknowledgement by a man of distinction that the (ahem) "leader of the free world" is a raving nutcase.  How many times have you heard your American friends, in despair, swear that if this goes on, they will move to Canada?  Did this happen very much under the Kennedy administration, do you suppose?  Shit, it didn't happen under the Ford administration!  We are a global laughing-stock.  Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?

I have said often, and to many, that the pursuit of philosophy is like a mess of pick-up-sticks:  one can't touch any single part without moving the whole mass.  Of course, philosophy is distinguished from other activities largely by its approach, rather than by its objects.  In fact, the material of philosophy is, and has always been, all and everything.  So what one touches is - anything, and what moves is - everything.  Or, as Charles Fort put it:  "One measures a circle beginning anywhere." 

So - games.  An old Go proverb (is there any other kind?) says, succinctly:  As Go is, so is life.

I'm as guilty as anyone of having vices.  I collect them, moving from one to another of them in turn as they wear out or lose their vividness, and yet I never completely throw any of them out.  Games are notoriously a vice.  Monastic rules and the writings of moralists are full of exhortations to pass by such trifles in favor of more edifying pursuits, like self-flagellation.  But I've always reckoned that I would die someday, (and that for good) and ought to pass my time as I please - time being all I have or am.

So, having squandered my youth on these follies, what can be made of them?

Games have taught me forcefully a lesson I should like to have picked up sooner and by more impressve means - warfare or meditation or something.  That lesson is simple, and like all simple truths, utterly deceptive in its simplicity, and rich in its ramifications.  It is this:  PAY ATTENTION!  One loses by losing mindfulness of what is present directly before one, or by disregarding either the details or the overall situation, both of which dynamically interact at all times. 

I have also learned another lesson, and a harder one to convey to those who do not play games.  It is, again, simple:  games are totally meaningless in themselves, and they are an utter bore to play unless one animates them by pretending in earnest that they matter.  Put another way, the game isn't worth the price of the candle unless one cares, and the more one cares, the more intensely one will feel the game, and the more readily will one ascend to those states of concentration and sublime reasoning that are the chief pleasures of the true player.  One must care deeply - and caring is what creates depth.    Sartre says we make ourselves by our actions, which are creative gestures through which we are the authors of value and meaning.   For that matter, Heidegger points out that time gains its sense by the quality of concern - orientation toward a preferred future. 

Or:  games are not our actual lives, but they are best when treated as if they were; and life may not be a game, strictly speaking, but it should be lived as if it were.

It occurs to me that wallowing in self-loathing, self-pity, and, well, SELF  is rather exactly playing into the hands of the enemy (b/k/a the kilesas).   Having done it to the hilt, I think I could afford to let it go. 

So, a constructive start to the remaining portion of my allotted days.  Having lost a lot of what I thought my life was about, I am now free to do, be, and create anything I please. 

Let's go!

(This entry's title is a loose translation of Lux Nova Umbra Est, a band partially derived from the late, lamented Man is the Bastard.)