Here's a tale of abuila - and of a generation consumed by it ... by which I mean:  mine.

You show me yours, and I'll show you mine, okay?  Or maybe, I'll show you yours, too.

My generation were not apathetic.  As it says in the film Slacker:  "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy."   I think we were fairly perceptive in our day, and rather liberated in thought and behavior, as such things go.  I find people younger than myself rather narrow in many ways - we were often accused of being "Reagan Youth", or at least of harboring a few of same among our ranks, but the young now appear much moreso - no values but unenlightened self-interest, etc.  Everyone curses, has any sort of sex that they are inclined to, and all the inebriants they can afford; but no thought is ever out of place.  Everyone's such a "rebel" that they're all exactly alike, and ultimately, profoundly reactionary.

Probably one out of six people I went to high school or college with would have self-identified as anarchists, communists, social democrats, deep ecologists, atheists, neopagans, vegetarians, or, perhaps, fascists.  They at least might sympathize with some of these or with allied tendencies like the punk movement.  The point is - people dared to be what they were not supposed to be.  But, to be candid, we didn't do much.  We threw some great parties, and made a lot of art, even propaganda, and we spread among ourselves some wonderfully radical speculations and hypotheses, and some sublime pipe dreams (in every sense).  We made some decent music here and there.  And we printed up thousands, perhaps millions, of 'zines (a/k/a "what people did before there were 'blogs") - but, we didn't actually accomplish much. 

Some would say it was because we were too high to get off the couch, but really, it was more of a failure of will than anything else.  We had grown up under Reagan and Bush, which would break anyone's spirit.   And, though we did, at first, throw a million protests - many of them quite large, innovative, and even militant - these ultimately began to strike us as futile.  At some point, we noticed that only we read our 'zines, which we already agreed with.  We converted no-one, and really, no-one cares about art except "art world" scenesters, and they don't matter at all.  Protests don't change public policy unless they get very violent, or disrupt the normal functioning of government and business.  This was starting to happen with the wave of increasingly ambitious "anti-globalization" protests, but then 9/11 happened, and everyone chickened out, or went into shock, or something....  maybe they were all shipped off to Gitmo?  And then - nothing. 

And today's nothing has been brought to you by ... the generation that meant well, but did very little about it.

(But we did do it in style.)

Imagine that everytime you looked at someone, you would see their mind rather than their body.  That is, you would not see their actual physical appearance, but a visible metaphor for their state of mind.  That crabbed expression - a soul caught in one of the Hell worlds.  That dull, glazed-over look about the eyes - a mind gone dim from fleeing from understanding.  That hostile, tough-guy demeanor - fear re-written as agression.  That sneer - feelings of inferiority disguised as feelings of superiority. 

And so on.

How could you bear to live?

(This is a sequel to my earlier post concerning games, q.v.)

A few additional things games have tried to teach me:

1. Do not underestimate your opponent or your ally.
   "Trust your partner" is an axiom of bridge, and those who neglect it reliably do poorly in that august sport.  In life too, if one condescends to one's allies (actual or potential), one loses.  And one loses both in games and in life by playing on the assumption of the inferiority of others.
2. Play your best game.
   This is not so much in order to win as it is in order to show respect for those with whom one plays.  This implies concentrating, and mustering one's full talent, but it also implies not being overly conventional or predictable, even at the risk of losing.   Playing a boring game wastes their time and yours.  The word of Nietzsche:   "Live dangerously."   In other words:   Play the game in earnest.   Step out a bit, for, in the words of the Sex Pistols:   "You don't do what you want and you fade away."
3. Resignation is honorable.
   This is (I believe) an old chess proverb, but it applies everywhere.   Knowing when to stop avoids wasting your time, and your opponents', and allows you to move on to the next, presumably better game, or a new stage of the same game.   Our moving to the Devil's Litterbox, b/k/a the San Joaquin Valley, was informed by this sort of consideration.   In the literature, philosophical and economic, on decision theory, a lively debate has emerged on the issue of calculating on sunk costs.  
   So far as I can tell, the smart money says to stop throwing money in the well after it clearly establishes its disinclination to grant your wishes.   Some disagree with this, of course...

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.