Dostoevsky

Life.

I was thinking about Dostoevsky's Notes from underground a few minutes ago. About the meanings of the words, yes, but also the flow of logic, the mad creativity of the logic, and then finally just the mind who could create such a thing. The thinking itself, the act of thinking as a man writing a manifesto toward postmodernist thought. The abstraction of abstraction.

It goes so far that I somehow felt it ended where eastern thought begins ... a synthesis of eastern and western thought: A logic of nonrepresentational thought through a nonrepresentation of logical thought.

To do that in one man's mind? Even if unintentional? Or without an awareness of that possibility? It's a stepping off point, a chance to choose again. Freedom. Liberty. Autonomy ... in Relation to All Else.

If Dostoevsky's mind began and ended within that single story I'd say, "Wow." But it's more remarkable still that this was the tiniest fraction of his thought. Just as this writing under-represents mine. Or anything any person writes under- and mis-represents all that person has thought, thinks, or will think.

I mean, come on, man, there's gotta be jazz. It can't just be, "Well, I decided that doing nothing but thinking is sublime in the most perverse possible way and, to embrace the perverse means becoming natural" ... or something like that. For awhile. Until it shifts into some other weird fucking thinking, some of it to my liking. Parts VI and VII blew a few new holes in my mind. It was like a structure came into being and my mind had to follow Dostoevsky's thought. He wrote a raging rant, but each sentence is essential.

Let me look at some key sentences, though, perhaps use them in my particular order to tell a different story using the same words. A more essential story. Without so much verbiage. But mostly in his words:

I could not even become an insect. I swear that to be too conscious is an illness. Every sort of consciousness is a disease. I feel every refinement of all that is "good and beautiful," but I do ugly things. Actions that all, perhaps, I committed while consciously aware that they ought not to be committed.

"Ought"? On what basis?

I committed a loathsome action again but this time the bitterness transformed into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness--into positive real enjoyment. Enjoyment was just from the too intense consciousness of one's own degradation. Even if time allowed and faith created the capacity to change you would most likely not wish to change. Perhaps, in reality, there is nothing for you to change into.

The inertia developing from an over-acute conscious meant that one was not only unable to change but could do absolutely nothing. One is not to blame in being a scoundrel. When one is acutely aware of being a scoundrel, of the hopelessness of one's position, there is, of course, the enjoyment of despair. Even if I had had magnanimity, I should only have had more suffering from the sense of its uselessness. I should certainly have never been able to do anything from being magnanimous--neither to forgive the laws of nature; nor to forget, for even if it were owing to the laws of nature, it is insulting all the same.

A real normal man is stupid. I am not disputing that, but perhaps the normal man should be stupid, how do you know?

For instance, I could say "Let's worship that guy ... he was the winning QB in the Super Bowl." And then pretend to be shocked when the guy who few fans at all know on anything approximating a personal level swallow the mythology of the man's character as created through very short sports-media choreographed interviews that highlight a smiling, aw-shucks face. All the sudden he's Opey with an uncanny knack for getting away from defensive lineman and finding open receivers improvising sandlot routes whenever he breaks from the pocket. Awesome physical display, indicative of great determination and concentration, but it says nothing of the man's ethics. So why do so many Americans believe these media-created superstars are superhuman? Or exceptional in any other way than through their few observable freakishly amazing skills?

I wonder.

Apart from the one fundamental nastiness the luckless mouse succeeds in creating around it so many other nastinesses in the form of doubts and questions, adds to the one question so many unsettled questions that there inevitably works up around it a sort of fatal brew, a stinking mess, made up of its doubts emotions, and of the contempt spat upon it be the direct men of action who stand solemnly about it as judges and arbitrators, laughing at it until their sides ache. Of course the only thing left for the mouse to do is to dismiss all that with a wave of its paw, and, with a smile of assumed contempt in which it does not even itself believe, creep ignominiously into its mouse-hole. There in its nasty, stinking, underground home our insulted, crushed, and ridiculed mouse promptly becomes absorbed in cold, malignant, and, above all, everlasting spite. Teasing, tormenting itself. Ashamed of its imaginings, forgives nothing, revenges itself, recalls it on its deathbed all over again, with interest accumulated over all the years ...

In that cold, abominable half despair, half belief, in that conscious burying itself alive for grief in the underworld ... The hopelessness of one's position ... unsatisfied desires ... oscillations, resolutions, ... repented enjoyment ...

Nature does not ask your permission. The deductions of natural science and mathematics? I dislike those laws, but they are stone walls and I haven't the strength. Absurdity of absurdities. All the impossibilities: the stone wall. Grinding teeth in silent impotence, sinking into luxurious inertia, brooding without an object for your spit, All around you is a sleight of hand, a bit of juggling, a cardsharper's trick, it's all simply a mess, no knowing what and no understanding who, but in spite of all these uncertainties and fumblings there is still an ache in you, and the more you do not know and the longer you do not act, the worse the ache.

Oh, you will be finding enjoyment in a toothache next! Malignancy is the whole point! The enjoyment of the sufferer ... the pleasure in those moans. They express in the first place all the aimlessness of your pain, which is so humiliating to your consciousness; the whole legal system of nature on which you spit disdainfully, of course, but from which you suffer all the same while she does not ...

Or does she? Does nature itself suffer from its own nature? If we suffer from our own nature, might not the universe be suffering as well? Suffering the pain of differentiation and unending change. Or so I imagine. At times. When I'm not imagining anything else other than that.

Come, can a man who attempts to find enjoyment in the very feeling of his own degradation possibly have a spark of respect for himself? If only one could blame the laws of nature, for the laws of nature have throughout my life offended me more than anything.

I invented adventures--lies!--for myself and made up a life ... I had to live some way. A bit dull to sit forever with one's hands folded. I tried hard to be in love. I suffered, but I had no faith in my suffering. After a faint stir of self-mockery and an indulgence in self-jealousy resulted in ennui I allowed inertia to overcome me. You know, the fruit of consciousness is inertia.

The "direct" persons, the men of action, take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily that others do that they have found an infallible foundation for their activity, and their minds are at ease and you know that is the chief thing. To act, you must have your mind completely at ease without any trace of doubt in it. Where are the causes on which I am to build?

But why ask for causes? Why not ask for correlations? Aren't relationships all that there are? Does anything exist without being in a particular position in relation to all other objects (for lack of a better term at the moment) in other positions? Everything I sense or perceive is in relation to me. Or so i think. And if I'm wrong there isn't necessarily a consequence. But there could be. And we just don't know. The enjoyment of that is the perversion of humanity. But a perversion that could transform humanity into another species. Why not? What if? Could be. Maybe. Who knows?

Reflecting, every primary cause draws after itself another still more primary, and so on to infinity. Consciousness and Reflection. If a man revenges himself because he sees justice in it then that man has chosen as his primary cause justice. But where is there virtue in justice? It is nothing but spite, the abdication of consciousness to anger, the disintegration of self into object, a phantom playing the role of me, My feelings, hate or love, deceive me. Result: a soap-bubble and inertia. I neither begin nor finish anything.

But what of my goals? Have you seen my fish? What if the vocation of every intelligent man is babble, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve? Is a man shopping also a son, a friend, an accountant, a lover, a liar, a thief, a fat bastard, a fast runner, tall and slack-jawed, brave and buzz-sawed, crazy and blame thawed.

Wish, wish, wishing. What is advantage? Accuracy. Principles: laughter. Reckoning with certainty. Classification? Statistics and formulas. Prosperity, wealth, freedom, peace. Obscurantist reckoning. Strange advantage. Classification. Laws of reason and truth. Significance of virtue. Interests? Opposition to one's own advantage? An advantageous advantage?

Opposition to all laws. Opposition to reason, honor, peace, prosperity. Opposition to usefulness. An advantageous advantage. Normal interests: good and normal. Logical exercises. Systems and abstract deductions. Intentional truth distortion; sensory evidence used to justify logic.

"But look about you. Blood is being spilled in streams and in the merriest way, as though it were champagne ... The only gain of civilization for mankind is the greater capacity for variety of sensations--and absolutely nothing more."

Now that's a statement. I bow in awe. But only experience the sensation.

"Civilization has made mankind more bloodthirsty. In old days he saw justice in bloodhed and with his conscience at peace exterminated those he thought proper. [Humanity] is far from having learnt to act as reason and science would dictate."

Because of the lack of a philosophy? An ethics? A will? A capacity?

Man will cease from intentional error. Science teaches man that he never really had a will of his own. The laws of nature. Mathematically, like an index. Calculations and explanations. No more incidents, no more adventures. No more living. Economic relations, ready-made and worked-out. Nothing to see here. Nothing to play. Halcyon days of boredom and stupidity. Prosperity a propos of nothing. "I say hadn't we better kick over the hwole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil and to enable us once more to live at our own sweet foolish will!

All systems, theories. Classification. Advantageous advantage. Preferring to act through choice rather than reason or advantage dictate. Choice? Independent choice? Ha! There is no such thing as choice!

Surely you know this. A mathematical formula representing the false view of our advantage, that we have choice. Foolishness. If its not mathematics or logic, its needs and desires. What free will could there be? I can calculate and prove, but am I free to do so? Can I calculate in error of mathematics and find truth? Reason is an excellent thing; reason is nothing but reason. Will is nothing but will. What does reason know? It knows will and it knows it is controlled by will. It knows it fools itself into believing it is in charge, that reason and consciousness are one. But they are not. Consciousness can exist independent of reason. Reason cannot exist independent of consciousness.

But two times two makes four and my will cannot deny this except within my consciousness. But it's also true that my will cannot understand the truths of mathematics without my consciousness. Consciousness, then, must be superior to will. Right? How can i will without deciding to will? I can be without deciding to be, but I can't will without deciding to will. My consciousness is necessary for will, but not for being. I think. Right?

Dostoevsky says that a man dreads finding the mathematical certainty he seeks. To embrace uncertainty, then, seems like a logical thing to do. Well, uncertainty in relation to the past and the future. But a certainty in the now. Not one that is known, but one that is willed. Or at least allowed and observed.

Suffering or well-being, asks Dostoevsky in Notes from Underground. Caring for both, he opines, makes more sense than favoring one over the other. But perhaps even to care is ridiculous even though it seems to be necessary to escape inertia. D's narrator proclaims that it is better to do nothing.

Arizona Authoritarianism

I don't typically write posts like this on this blog, but when issues like this arise there's no room for subtlety at all. I lived in Yuma, Arizona, between the ages of 10 and 18, from 1980 to 1988, and my experiences in that environment shaped my understanding of the state's politics and economics. Because my personal experiences in other parts of the U.S. have proven to be so much less disturbing in comparison I have most often downplayed just how horrific the political and economic powers in that state were (and apparently still are). I suppose I was just grateful to be able to move away to more humane environments populated by others who had much more compassion for those less financially fortunate.

But this story on Huffington Post about Arizona's new immigration law is just too Orwellian to ignore. Most sane individuals seem to conceive of Arizona's immigration politics as racist. Yes, they are. But they are far more insidious than that. This is more an issue of class than race as far as I can tell. Under this new immigration law, schools will lose state funding if they offer courses that "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

On the surface, it seems "merely" racist, but the implications of the use of "ethnic solidarity" in this new law seem to indicate that Arizona lawmakers are trying to thwart any threats to the state's long-standing practice of exploiting cheap ethnic labor. I say that because I witnessed first-hand how immigrant labor was exploited and abused by wealth while working in industrial farm fields harvesting watermelons and grapes with migrant laborers in the late 80s. It seems to me that the thinking of lawmakers is that if there is solidarity amongst ethnic immigrants and those culturally different then there is the possibility of those classes exercising their political rights to free assembly, to organize as a group, as a collective, as a political and economic power. Labor standing up to ownership in order to demand fair wages and basic human rights? Arizona's legal answer to that possibility is a resounding "Fuck no!" Businesses love Arizona because it's the next best thing to operating in "third-world" countries without substantive labor laws or environmental protections. As I said before, this is far more about class than it is race (not that the two can really be isolated in that state because historically the Mexican immigrants--legal and "illegal"--have been exploited as cheap labor).

The closest thing I've written on this blog about this issue is my entry titled "Illegal Mexican Immigrant Socrates." What I was exploring in that piece was the impotence of philosophy, reason, and logic in the face of abusive power. "might makes right" in Arizona politics and economics. The nuts and bolts of the state's laws and law enforcement practices reflect the influence of the state's wealth. The best way to understand the state's approach to politics or economics is as an authoritarianism designed to maintain the status quo in relation to industrial agriculture and defense contracting.

Now, that might seem counterintuitive given the rhetoric of "individualism" and "individual rights" that spews forth from politicians and business leaders in the state. The quote from above is a perfect example of that rhetoric. In one breath, they present a contradiction by imposing an authoritarian will against the individual, denying the possibility of an individual student's choice to learn about ethnicity, collectivism, and any alternative form of political philosophy or cultural identity by creating an educational climate that financially punishes schools that offer ethnic studies classes in their curricula. And this new law also rejects the "individualism" of persons who speak English with an accent (those who learned English as a second language) by denying them the right to teach English in Arizona schools.

This contradiction, the authoritarian cult of "individuality," is one of the pillars of the unspoken but very real religion of Arizona: maintaining historical power dynamics between wealthy ownership and impoverished labor. As I said, it's a rhetorical contradiction that in practice is quite coherent: "Individualism," as framed by Arizona lawmakers, in a state of economic and political inequality benefits the few who have amassed the greatest wealth and political power at the expense of the rights and well-being of the poor and culturally different. Such a philosophy ensures an eternal recurrence of the state's historical status quo: wealth's position of power is strengthened for its self-interested perpetual benefit while the position of weakness of the masses of financially, politically, and legally impotent laborers becomes ever more entrenched.

To add insult to injury, there is also the notion that those being exploited have only themselves to blame for their misery, as if the impositions of state law and policy do not create an institutional hierarchy of social and economic injustice. The unspoken implication is that the impoverished and culturally different could liberate themselves from their suffering by simply changing their attitudes and dutifully submitting to the abhorrent ethics of the state's wealth and power. A potential "escape" from this otherwise inevitable indentured servitude is presented rhetorically to the public by talk radio personalities and newspaper editorials for those who are willing to assist the exploitative practices of entrenched ownership and political power by practicing an antagonism toward the weakest and most vulnerable residents and laborers in the state. In other words, if you are willing to become "one of us" by abusing these "evil others" then perhaps you may eventually share in the spoils of dominance. Perhaps. No guarantees. Because of that, it's just a way to encourage the poor to police themselves by internalizing the dominant ideology of the state.

Arizona also suffers from a bizarre and disconcerting religious dynamic that supports the class/race division in the state. While it's far more complicated than what I am presenting here, I recall two extremes in the state: on one hand, there was the Mexican and Mexican-American mystical Catholicism that was centered on the practiced ideals of family and community and, on the other hand, there was a strange alliance between the white WASP-like pseudo-mystical Protestant evangelicalism and the white WASP-like pseudo-mystical Mormonism that was rhetorically centered on ideals of individuality, self-reliance, and merit-based accomplishment (while, in practice, the alliance acted in an insular fashion that had nothing at all to do with individualism, self-reliance, or merit-based accomplishment).

The enforcement of the state's draconian drug laws also seemed to ensure the continuation of the dominance/submission dynamic between wealth and the ethnic working poor. The laws were enforced in an uneven fashion through the almost exclusive focus of the state law enforcement's attention on the poor. The relative absence of property ownership and the grouping of ethnically and culturally different peoples in centralized and easy-to-isolate pockets of poverty made it easy for state law enforcement agencies and personnel to target, harass, and control those populations. Amongst the poor, the ethnic poor in particular, these tactics created an even greater sense of helplessness and hopelessness, a sense that the poor and the brown-skinned have few if any rights, no recourse to the law, and were, essentially, slaves to aggressively hostile agents of political and economic power. The criminal justice system, like all institutional powers in Arizona, functioned as an ally of wealth against the interests of the poor and culturally different.

In that sense, there is nothing new going on here at all. This is just another wave of terror against a class of individuals who have been historically abused and exploited by wealth and political power in Arizona.

Fuck Arizona. Pinche putos.

this is something ... thisisnothing ... this is something ... thisisnothing ... this is something?

I think Buddha's a motherfucker.

See, I've always been confused by the Buddhist concept of nothingness. Of the concept of nothingness in general, though, really. It's just that I first encountered the concept through Buddhism. But it's nothingness itself that confuses me. I can understand the idea that nothing could theoretically exist, but I can't reconcile that idea with the conflicting idea that everything I perceive as "something" is an illusion. I can understand it in the sense that the interpretation of everything we see is an illusion. That I'm humble enough to acknowledge.

What I'm wondering is how an illusion could arise from nothingness without nothingness becoming "something" and, therefore ... no longer nothingness. Something and nothing cannot co-exist. They can alternate in being (inexplicably), but that would mean something would have every right to claim that nothingness is the illusion. From my perspective, that seems to be the case. But that also means time has to be factored into the equation. I can understand the idea that time itself is an illusion. As I mentioned earlier, I have no problem with the notion that all of our perceptions are illusory distortions of reality. But distortions of nothingness? How can nothingness be distorted? By what? My "point" of perceptual awareness? Is perception itself, regardless of interpretation, the illusion? If so, how? How can perception exist at all--awareness!--if there is nothing? It's nonsense.

But what of these ideas, if that's the case? The idea that being is absurd, that it's just a paradoxical charade filled with sorrow and laughter even though nothing actually exists ... except in the consciousness of a being that I experience as me even though I and nothing else exists. Fucking ridiculous. I don't know what type of fungi the Buddha was ingesting, but it clearly fucked with his brain. Maybe nothingness was an aspiration of his. Or maybe he was onto something with the idea that existence is both a happy accident and a cruel absurdity. It feels that way. But the idea of a nothingness with consciousness and ability to create the illusion of there being something for beings that don't exist ... all concoctions of the mind, the ultimate illusion. Mastery in terms of absolutely the opposite of every bit of sense I possess. Which is why the Buddha may be right. There's just no way of knowing and, given that, nothingness seems no less absurd than "somethingness."

By the way, I think Phil Hartman encapsulated Buddhism perfectly in this sketch (I could only find the transcript):

Phil Hartman

how to fall in love

I met Gina at an unannounced street performance of West Side Story just west of the Jordaan. It was later in the evening, dusk, and I saw her dress swirling in the wind, illuminated by the lavender sky, and the silhouette of her body, strikingly long and lithe, backlit by the setting sun. The shock of her hair crackled into the sky like a roaring fire and sparkles of subatomic explosions generated a rainbow-colored neon halo that ebbed and flowed above and around her head and body. I wondered if her being spontaneously generated as a quantum eclipse coming between me and the sun, an unusual gift of accidental physics transforming my deepest subconscious longings into a physical being, a creation infinitely superior to "her" creator, as if I'd momentarily been given the opportunity to make the decision to defy natural laws to recreate the universe in a fashion less structurally indifferent to life. More specifically, a universe passionately engaged and aware of individuated beings acting with compassion, mercy, and affection.

I have to admit, it shocked me to witness the universe's change in attitude. I did not expect to have the ability, even if just for a moment, to spontaneously use my subconscious to create a real-world vision of perfect beauty and love. I've wondered since if I had seen Gina for the first time from any other location with a different perspective if I would have noticed the willingness of the universe to creatively collaborate with me. As an artist, I long to create with others so, I mean, the opportunity to work with the untapped power of the universe to create a being made strictly from particles of passion (Pa), joy (Jy), and love (Lv)? Some artists have aspirations of making it in, say, New York. To show work in an elite setting, a setting considered a pinnacle? Understandable, but there's something to be said for omnipotence.

Naturally, I was drawn toward my creation. As I neared, she became more and more radiant. Her face came into focus and she sent a smile that rearranged molecules throughout my body. I was subsequently recreated by my creation as something that exceeded anything I ever imagined I could be. I understood in a flash why a god might think so highly of its creations and why an artist might believe a particularly extraordinary work of art exceeds her own abilities and, through this recognition, uses her creation to develop a deeper appreciation of life. In the process, the artist learns how to live and, perhaps, the universe learns how to love. 

 Gina's eyes, powdered blue with streaks of lightning emanating from liquid black opals, showed me worlds within myself that defied every angle of my sense of "how things are" and even "how things could be." I saw it all, everything good that there was, is, or ever will be. And I saw that she saw more than that even, more than I could ever see, and tears flowed from my eyes as I kept walking toward her, pulled by the gravity of her love. I stopped within a foot of her and simply gazed into her eyes. She never blinked but her eyes seemed to glisten brighter and brighter as I looked. The passage of time became a ridiculous concept.

Thinking about it now, I wonder if that moment exists eternally? If all moments exist without end, not as they are, but as they are created anew and anew. Thinking back about falling in love, it seems as if it's the height of our being. The purpose of our being. And perhaps it is just to ensure that individuals continue procreating to renew the species again and again because that's the design of life, to recreate itself indefinitely, adapting to changing environments by creating new versions of itself more suited to meet those changes.

But why is the story told that way if it is felt in such a radically different way? What is the purpose of telling the story of love from an analytical or critical point of view? To control it? To manipulate it? To what end? Gina spoke, her voice like a harp and her breath fluttering into my chest like a hummingbird, "You are beaming." I shook my head yes and tried to keep my heart from exploding through my ribs. Gina laughed at me and shook her head. Her strawberry hair was still whipping in the wind like a cotton-candy inferno. The light was dimming and as it did her face took on a more earthy realness. Less like a fire angel or a phoenix and more like an adventurous, cocksure urban sprite. Somehow her body moved without moving, gracefully energetic, exuding both ease and desire. She seemed to look right through me, as if I wasn't there at times, as if there was something in the universe more interesting than I.

I realized she was watching the play on the street spill over into the park. Tony, filled with joy, ran into Maria on the playground. I turned back to Gina. She opened her mouth to say something but then stopped. It seemed like she either lost the words or lost the nerve. She's human after all! For some reason I was overjoyed by this realization. It was a little intimidating being in the presence of absolute perfection. Don't the cracks and fissures in the Pieta give the beauty of the sculpture a soulfulness it otherwise lacked? Plus, I wondered if she might disappear at any moment.

My heart, instead of trying to rip through my chest, relaxed in the warmth of appreciative breathing. The sensation of impending explosion along with the paradoxical obliteration of time ceased. Her mouth dangled open as she stared at me and then her the expression on her face shifted, becoming softer, much more gentle. Her hair settled down and the wind followed suit. Her dress came to rest against her body. She blinked her eyes several times. Her chest heaved as she took a deep breath. Her smile widened as she exhaled. 

 "That was exhilarating, but, damn, that took a little bit out of me."

"I'll bet it did. There were quarks popping in and out of existence all around you. I thought we might all be obliterated by an explosion of love--and I was kind of hoping for it--but you showed a little humanity there a second ago."

"I know, right? It was like, man, I am really going to set the world afire if I don't take a deep breath. I mean, I love you all so I'd prefer not to incinerate you ... even if it would be a perfect way to go."

"You know, since we're talking about death, can I just ask why?"

Gina sighed. "I can't really say. I'm still trying to figure it all out myself. I mean, I got pretty good working with certain techniques, but as time and space changes beyond my wildest imaginings and certainly as life began developing I've found myself at a loss. I just don't know where to go from here. I did not expect self-aware beings to develop in the way that you did. Humanity, I mean. It's so ... ugly!"

"Sadly, I agree with you. Humanity is incredibly ugly much of the time."

"Why don't you love more?"

"Not very many of us have learned how to love. Heck, I'm not sure very many even know what love means."

"It doesn't matter what you know. It's what you do."

"Unfortunately, you're wrong about that."

"No, I specifically engineered the universe to result in self-aware beings who willingly choose to love one another all the time. Every single moment. All of your internal struggles are the result of your spiritual misalignments. They're along your spine, by the way, so stop with the hocus-pocus beliefs and do some yoga for crissakes. Breathing is pretty important, you know? Drink plenty of liquids. Make sure you're eating healthy food. Actively engage your creativity."

"I did. I mean, I created you, after all."

"No, I created you."

"Yeah, but I created you first."

"Ha!" Gina almost fell on the ground laughing. "You created me first? Oh, you have got to be kidding. I rearranged your entire cellular composition, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, what do you think you did to me when I came into being here? You just chose to rearrange the physics of your perception so that you could see me. You certainly didn't create me in the fashion you believe."

"Wow. That's heavy."

"Yeah. Now you're getting it."

God caressed my cheek with her left hand. For some reason, it tasted like sugar and then my legs turn to rubber. I swooned. Gina scooped her right arm around my body and caught me as I nearly fainted. I looked up at her face shrouded by a wild mane of blonde fuchsia against the backdrop of a purple dark sky. She raised me up and as I steadied myself on my feet she leaned in to kiss me.

You know that scene near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.? Yeah, it wasn't anything like that. I just felt the moist softness of her lips against mine, the pressure of them changing as she moved them, puckering, unpuckering, opening, a flicker of her tongue and then the fullness of her lips curled around mine, a rhythmic dance that develops into a language all its own. I felt Gina's fingers digging into my back and gradually working their way down, massaging even the last bit of tension from my body. I lost track of everything but the physical sensation of pure pleasure.

When I finally came out of the trance I found myself in the Flying Crow Pose. The God who created me who I recreated who recreated me was nowhere to be found. I was everywhere, though. Everyone on the street was a different version of me. I saw myself in everyone. And I loved me. I wanted to ask the different versions of me how I was doing, if I could use some help in any way. Sometimes I said yes to myself and sometimes I said no. It seemed to depend on how the particular me had developed. I felt tremendous joy when I ran into myself when I was happy and generous and sadness when I saw myself filled with sorrow or fear.

I still don't know how to describe the emotion I feel when I see cruelty and indifference, though. Something akin to mourning or grief, I suppose. I've been wondering if suffering is a necessary ingredient for love. Everyone I've ever met who is kind or generous has also told me that the world is a vicious, cruel place and that it might just be a miracle that anyone cares at all. But they always defy their own logic by acting with love toward others. It often seems to be the people who have the fewest reasons to love who demonstrate the most extraordinary abilities to love abundantly. Why is that?

how to relax (part I)

K. D. and Gloria walked into the cafe a little after three that afternoon. I'd just arrived and ordered an espresso. They plopped down across from me armed with shopping bags. They looked exhausted.

"What the hell are you guys doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're backpacking through Europe and you have like six shopping bags on you. It's your second day here!" I laughed. They shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

"I'm just giving you a hard time. I really have no idea what you're going to do with that stuff other than ship it back or maybe put it in a storage locker at the train station. I assume your return flight is out of Schiphol?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's probably the cheapest and most convenient alternative. So, what did you buy."

K. D. groaned. "Shoes. Lots of shoes."

"Shut up. What about the African mask and the globe that marks smoke-friendly cities with a pot leaf?"

"Those are legitimate souvenirs. They say to everyone, 'Hey, I was traveling through Europe and I found this weird shit that has no value whatsoever.' I can show it to my friends."

Gloria put her head in her hands. "Oh my God."

"I've been thinking that I need a room just for weird stuff. No furniture, nothing functional at all. Just strange objects and knickknacks scattered strategically around the room. Maybe some stuff hanging on walls, some dangling from the ceiling. A few things glued or nailed to the floor at odd angles that seem to defy gravity."

"And what room are you planning on using?"

"I was thinking the spare bedroom would work?"

"You're a child."

"It sounds pretty fun to me, K. D." Gloria glared at me. "Hey, I'm just being honest. I mean, shit, I don't live with him so it just sounds cool. I mean, if I come to visit I want to crash in the weird room."

"See?"

"You're both children. I'll just get a sandbox and you two can play in the backyard."

"That's a cool idea, too."

"Yeah, I'd be even more likely to come visit if you had a sandbox."

Laughter. When we all ran out of steam and stopped to breath I said, "Look, I figured you guys are probably pretty wiped out. You've been going pretty hard ever since you arrived so I made reservations for massages at a spa. A Dutch spa. Meaning, co-ed and clothing optional."

"Really?" asked Gloria. She seemed interested.

"Yeah. It'll be relaxing. You'll feel like you're in heaven."

"I don't know, Michael. It's just--"

"Money? Hey, it's on me if that's the case. I mean, I made the reservations without even asking you so it's only fair."

"No, no, no. That's not it. Thank you, but, no, there's no way you're paying for that. Hell you've already been too generous! It's just--"

"Why did you make the reservations, Michael?"

"Because it seemed like a good idea."

"But why?"

"Because massages feel good."

"Or maybe you just want to see me naked."

"I've seen you naked. Last night. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Well ..." Gloria laughed. "Yeah, okay. Sorry. The American in me."

"Fair. Okay, so we need to be there in an hour so we should get going. It's probably about a half hour walk. We can take your bags back to my apartment first then go."

Gloria turned her head. "K. D.?"

"Sure. Why not? Michael hasn't steered us wrong yet. Thanks, man."

"No problem."

"But we'll pay our own way."

"Whatever makes you comfortable."

I paid for my espresso and we walked down the block to my place. Gloria wanted to change. I told them to just grab a change of clothes. "There are showers there. You're going to be wandering around in the buff so there's no point."

Gloria whined, "But I want to try on my new clothes."

I smiled. "There's always tonight."

Gloria pretended to pout but relented. We left the bags and walked back down the street and took a right and then a left onto Keizersgracht. We followed the canal for awhile, casually joking around. K. D. and Gloria were wide-eyed, taking in the sights, the well-dressed bikers whistling and singing as they rode by, the men in suits talking into their bluetooth devices, the children running hard, screaming and laughing, chasing each other down the street, taunting pedestrians and cycllists both. We passed couples walking hand-in-hand, looking up moon-eyed at the sun-dappled emerald green leaves providing a soft-lit canopy next to the mansions, stately and grand, shouldering either side of the canal. As we snaked further into the center of the city we passed a gaggle of Japanese tourists clicking cameras like mice pounding a lever for cheese who were posing for pictures in front of every street lamp, Dutch-language sign, and canal bridge in sight.

Almost everyone we passed, all the Dutch at least, were tall, fit, well-dressed, and beautiful. Mostly young or middle-aged. Every now and then an elderly man or woman walked by, each one walking gracefully, face relaxed, eyes alive with a depth that said, "I've lived my life in the practice of appreciation." I could feel my lungs expanding as I breathed in the lightness of being all around me. I kept wondering if the Son of Flubber was tinkering with the physics, if everyone might start floating up into the air.

It's not like I've ever run into Mother Goose or The Invisible Man, but there are some strange characters in Amsterdam. Shamans, mystics, warlocks, Satanists, krishnas, global adventurers, artists, and on it goes. I met a guy at an afterparty one night who juggled chainsaws as a busker. He told me he got into the trade when he was fifteen years old. He had illegally crossed the Bulgarian border and traveled all the way to Amsterdam. He said he met a guy who put him up in exchange for sex. He got free drugs and booze, too. He started partying heavily, met some street performers, and eventually mentored under an old vet. Again, in exchange for sex.

Amsterdam's not all lollipops and Mary Poppins. Still, it's mostly what you make of it. If you want to juggle chainsaws to get by then you juggle chainsaws. If you want to dreamily stroll along canals and watch the smiling faces of beautiful people singing as they elegantly bicycle past you then go that route. Whatever you want, man. However you want to live your life.

"So, Michael, what made you decide to move to Amsterdam?"

I looked around me. "Isn't it obvious?"

Gloria and K. D. looked around. They smiled. "Still, what drew you to Amsterdam in the first place?"

"I flew here about a decade ago on my first trip through Europe. I was married, it was our honeymoon. The flight into Amsterdam was cheap and we were doing a month-long trip around Europe anyway so it didn't matter where we started. I doubt we would have traveled here at all if it hadn't been for the cheap flight. But as soon as I walked out of Centraal Station I was blown away. Actually, even Schiphol blew me away. Just wandering around a technologically advanced airport with all sorts of lit-up yellow signs with strange words like "vertrek" or "gesloten." I had never been outside the U.S. before that trip. Well, except Mexico. The poverty there was overwhelming. The Dutch, though? They seemed technologically advanced and wealthy. I'd always believed the mantra that the U.S. is 'the best' when it comes to, well, everything. Not because I was gullible. I just had no other country other than Mexico to compare to the U.S. Well, turns out, some countries are light years ahead of the U.S. in certain ways."

"Such as?"

"Happiness. Hey, this is it. Let's pick up this discussion later. We're heading into a spa. Time to leave the mind and enter the body."

Opening Act

I opened for a band once. It wasn't planned. A friend, a guitarist, asked me if I'd do it. No notice for me, but I said okay. I asked him what I should say. He said it didn't matter. I asked,

"What if I want to tell a story about the U.S. military using geese as weapons of mass destruction in Afghanistan?"

"Whatever, man. We just want someone to keep the crowd entertained or at least occupied in some way while we get set up. It should only be a few minutes."

"There's a lot of people here, but ... okay, what the hell."

So, after talking with the band for awhile they got the go-ahead to get started. They set me up with a microphone on a stand and I looked out over a crowd of a couple hundred people. I guess. It could have been more or less. I didn't do a head-count. It was a lot of people. I was just hoping to relax and listen to some music.

But, I was in a good mood so I said right away

"Hello, I'm Michael and I am not in the band. I wanted to be in the band, but they have taste ... and talent. Look, they're musicians. They're skilled. They're artists. I'm a hack. I've got nothing to offer at all.

Well, that's not entirely true. I had one idea. It was the one idea I pitched to them. Just a little while ago, in fact. They shot it down, but I'm going to tell you about it anyway just to show you how fucking smart these assholes are.

See, I wanted to come out here and front for them, open with some BLAMMO and rock this place. I wanted to ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!!! I was going to come out screaming like the half-wit mutant offspring of Ronnie James Dio and Bruce Dickinson, blasting you with thump-de-da-thump-de-da-thump-de-da-thuuuuu-UMP-de-da-the-thump-thump-de-da-thump-de-da-thump-de-da--

Oh, when the fire started rising
To the platelets in the STARRRRRS
The mighty wind of Venus
Accompanied by chocolate BARRRRRS
Foretold the wisdom of the ages:
CHICKS DIG GUYS WHO PLAY GUITARRRRRS!!!!!!!
Oh, YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAAAAAA ... UH!

But, no, they rejected the idea. Not because I have a horrible voice. Not because the lyrics suck. Both good reasons, but instead they rejected my idea because it elevated one member of their trio above the others. Egalitarians, these fuckers.

I should have added this verse:

But those chicks I like the best
The ones better than ALLLLLLL the rest
Are the ones who blow the bassists
While the drummers cum on their TITS! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! WHOOOO!

Yeah, so here are the guys who didn't want me to sing that song ... What? ... ... You're not ready? Keep going? ... Keep going?

Look, people, I've got nothing. That was it. I was at a theater earlier today crying while watching live feeds of seals being clubbed to death. I'm emotionally exhausted. I want to go home. I want you to cuddle with me later. No, not you. You're too hairy. And you're a man. I was talking about your girlfriend or wife or mistress or ... the woman sitting next to you. Yeah, her. Your wife? Yeah.

Hey, look, nothing against you, pal. If I was into men, sure, but I'm not. I will sleep with your wife, though. You're laughing right now, I know, but I'm actually telling you what I'm going to be doing soon. Not tonight. I've got other plans. I was thinking next Tuesday. Could you run a few extra errands between, say, six and ten p.m.? I haven't had sex with your wife before--first time I've ever seen her--so I'd like a little time to get to know her first, flirt a little, tease, fool around. You know, have fun for awhile before getting really nasty for a good hour or so.

Wait outside your front door around ten p.m. I'll exit there and then make out with your wife while you watch. She'll beg me to stay, but I will leave and never see either of you again. Your wife will turn to you and say "Looking at you makes me want to puke." Your relationship will be over. She will fall in love with many men and women throughout her life and remain sexually satisfied most of her days until she dies from the intensity of an orgasm while being fucked by a dildo with a head shaped into a likeness of Barack Obama.

You, on the other hand, will never again find love. You will live for decades in increasingly excruciating existential agony while physically deteriorating organ by organ until both your body and mind are sludge. You'll still feel yourself as yourself, but unable to move, unable to speak, a struggle to breath, no way to communicate, until madness overtakes you. Oh, the horror, man!

I am so sorry! See, this is why it sucks to be able to predict the future. I mean, I really doubt I'm going to enjoy fucking your wife as much as I would have had I not known that your life was going to end up like that. I hate this, but as far as I can tell there is no way to change things. I mean, my ability to see the future is flawless. I don't see stuff and then nothing happens. I see what happens before it happens, you know? I'm sorry, I'm just a messenger. A reporter, I guess, giving you the current news about future events.

You can't even kill yourself, dude. I mean, you literally have decades of growing existential terror ahead of you and a complete body/mind breakdown near the end of your life. I've seen thousands of future deaths and yours is, by far, the most excruciating. No one deserves what you are going to experience. It's just not right. I'm so sorry. There's just nothing that can be done.

Well, it looks like the band is ready to play. Enjoy the music, folks. The rest of your lives look great. It's just that one dude who is really screwed. Oh, there is some short-term good news for you tonight, man. You're going to have a really great time listening to the band, your wife is going to fuck you like an animal later, and you're going to wake up to breakfast in bed. Things don't start going bad until next Tuesday. You got a kick-ass four-day weekend ahead you, man! Celebrate!"

how to paint

I suppose with everyone there is a past. I was painting awhile ago, revisiting a technique that I was working on when I was living in Amsterdam. I had started painting not to develop the skill, not to create anything, not to someday show my paintings anywhere to anyone. I started painting only because I had found drawing a way to focus my attention whenever floating a little farther past beyond than I wanted to float at any particular time. A way of reorienting my perception in line with the physical world in some way.

The reason it was effective was because it required active, participative decision making. I figured if drawing required some concentration then a more complex creative form such as painting would be even more involving. It was. It is. There's the added complexity of color added to the mix and making decisions about what colors look good together in particular combinations and how to apply the paint in a way that creates particular effects. Early on, I didn't make value judgments in any conceptual manner. Truth is I couldn't. Even if I had wanted to I wouldn't have known how. Not right away.

What I was beginning to realize was that I was, in a way, creating an entirely new perceptual understanding of my sensory experience of space and time. A language, in a way. A visual language ... created by physical movement of the torso, the arms and hands using a foreign substance. I focused on more than just my torso, though. I felt my body cramping and creaking when it was in an awkward position, out of alignment. So I focused on my core, on the position of my legs, on my posture, on the way I moved my arms, on the way I turned my wrist, on the way I grasped my brush.

Each decision told a story of visual color, but for me I also saw what a particular color looked like when applied with a particular brush. Or putty knife. Or screwdriver. Or fork. Or whatever I grabbed to apply or manipulate paint and what a series of applications looked like with this movement or that from this position or that. It just kept going and going, endless explorations into this consideration then that then that then that then that and then back again to the second that and then the third and then the second second and then a new that ... jazz.

I saw in the activity freedom, creativity. Decision making. Self-direction. Self-creation. You are what you do, right? At a certain point, I shifted from nonconceptual painting to an exploration on the fringe of storytelling. Optical illusions, colorful deceptions. All the makings of movements that never quite became definitive. In between. Transitory moments, the genesis of conceptualizations. I was paying attention to how I conceptualized, what the process was for me. I tweaked it now and then. Experimented with the process. Constructivism. I was scaffolding, really.

But without a predetermined outcome. Patternless ... until a pattern began to emerge. And then I tried teasing out whatever might be within while trying to stop to preserve possibilities. Unfinished. Perpetual creation. No ending. Just the application of layer after layer of paint. Until passing out, face planted firmly on wet canvas.

I was out one night a week or so after that. I had touched up the painting and went with what was there. I did what I could. It was unfinished but in an odd state of development. Chaotic but somehow deeply appealing. I met a couple out that night, young tourists passing through Amsterdam. I was at a coffeeshop well off the beaten path so it was unusual to see overnighters. They were interesting, though. Americans, but with unusual points of view. Not easy to categorize.

Anyway, after talking for awhile they said they wanted to shroom, but didn't feel comfortable being out in the city on their own because they didn't know it at all. Smart. They asked me if I'd sort of act as a guide. I said sure, whatever. I figured I could show them a few quieter, more softly lit spots toward the south. Somewhere to roam without roaming too far from my digs ... just in case there was a need to settle during a freakout.

I took them to a smart shop and suggested a low-to-mid grade. We each ate a dose ... gradually. Over an hour, probably. Just wandering about here and there with no purpose, no destination. Just sensory explorers moving our bodies between canals and gabled mansions on cobblestone streets and over seventeenth century bridges. The air had a just-rained smell. It was crisp, but not cold. Almost cozy with our jackets.

"It is almost cozy with our jackets!" Apparently I was talking out loud. For how long? The shrooms were working their magic. We hung out in a park for awhile, Gloria twirled and sang for a long time. K. D. felt the grass, then lied down on top of it while apologizing to it, and stared at the starlit sky without saying a word. I watched one and then the other, back and forth, all the while trying to avoid consideration of the purpose of fingernails.

K. D. sat up. He asked me if we could go to my place so that he could use a bathroom. I told him he should pee in some bushes. He said, no, I don't have to pee. Oh. ... Oh.

So, we went back to my place. It took some time. Gloria kept turning to cross every bridge we passed because she wanted to see what everything looked like while standing at it apex. I told her, repeatedly, that it probably looked pretty similar, that K. D. was in bad shape--and he was. He was moaning and groaning the whole way. I was certain he would shit his pants, but he somehow managed to make it. In spite of Gloria, who insisted every time I pleaded my case that the view was different and then cackled like a cartoon hyena stealing a meal from a lion.

When we got back to my place, K. D. ran into the bathroom and stayed in there for over an hour. Every once in awhile there was a yelp or a weird squawk, an occasional declaration of a new discovery like "Birds don't have fingers!" followed by several "wows." Gloria, for her part, stripped off her clothes and put on an apron she found in the kitchen. She examined the contents of drawers while I put on some music and made a batch of cocktails.

After a time, K. D. came out of the bathroom. Gloria and I were in the kitchen talking about how bright the color blue might really be under perfect conditions when we heard a shriek. "No, no, no, no, no, no! Take it away! I don't want that. Not right now. No! It's too much!"

Gloria and I ran out to the living room. K. D. was curled up on the floor in a corner looking up at the wall to our right. He pointed. "I'm so scared." I turned to look. It was my painting hanging on the wall. I got lost in it pretty quickly. There were so many colors! They were all running next to each other, into each other, over each other, layer after layer, a heap of bubbling breathing from the wall, heaving and collapsing. Each blurb or blotch or blend or blaze of color a living thing, an independent entity trying desperately to remain individuated, to not become lost in the larger composition, to be more than just a part making a whole. But each one of them was simply a distinctive color located in a particular place trying to break free and go elsewhere, become something other than what each one of them was, all to no end, each indefinitely stuck being only what it was: color frozen in the last moment of struggle to become meaningful in a painting lacking conceptual purpose.

I looked at Gloria. Her mouth was agape. Her eyes were filled with tears. "It's endless. It's so beautiful, but it never gets anywhere."

I replied, "It doesn't become anything."

K. D. whispered, "It hates me."

"I've never tried to paint," said Gloria.

That surprised me. "Never? Not even as a little girl?"

"No. Never."

"Do you want to try?"

Gloria turned slowly to look at me. She had a creepy look in her eyes. "No. I think I just like looking at paintings. I don't think I should try something I haven't tried before when I just want to look."

"Okay."

Gloria turned back to the painting and stared at it. She smiled.

I woke up the next day on the couch. I sat up, disoriented. I saw jeans, a shirt, and women's undies on the floor near the kitchen. I remembered Gloria and K. D. I looked over at the corner of the living room and saw K. D. sleeping there. I rubbed my eyes and reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table. One left. I sat back and lit it. I thought about the night before for a second and decided to check the bedroom to see if Gloria was there. She was lying naked on top of the blankets. I grabbed a blanket from the closet and covered her.

I went to the kitchen to make some coffee. I wondered what else happened the night before. I still couldn't remember. It didn't matter. I felt surprisingly good. Refreshed even. I opened the windows in all the rooms. It was a beautiful spring day. Sunshine and warmth. A nice breeze to keep it cool.

The apartment I was renting was fully furnished and loaded with goodies. I began the process of making Italian espresso with high-end restaurant-grade technology. The process actually required a bit of finesse, some actual skill. Thinking my way through it with rapt attention became a sort of zen experience. A sense of order and balance, a process that produced a richly rewarding result. But I had begun to love the process itself and sometimes made an espresso that I poured into the sink after finishing just because I wanted the pleasure of thinking and moving my body in that way just as a means to focus my attention on the world in an ordered, sequential fashion. Constructing a structure, a purpose for living.

What is alarming about much contemporary culture is that these everyday processes we live over and over again comprise our identity. But it's not just the acts themselves, but our attitude toward them, the motivations pushing each one of us toward particular decisions to repeat the same sequences of actions over and over again. We don't think of our routines as rituals very often, not in the U.S., but they are. And yet, we hold our rituals in low esteem. We dream of futures with more glamorous rituals, of opportunities for real freedom, for power even, to make decisions we imagine might fulfill longings, whatever angst is knotting those muscles in your neck, your shoulders, your lower back, or your calves. Dreams of being carefree begin and end in the body. And, yes, in relation to the surrounding environment.

I finished making the first espresso. I took the small cup on a saucer to K. D. I nudged him lightly. He groaned and turned his head up toward me. "Where am I?" I smiled at him for a moment and held out the saucer. He sat up and took it from me. "Thank you." I went back to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. I took it to K. D. and told him that Gloria was asleep in the bedroom. I went back to the kitchen to make more coffee.

Gloria walked into the kitchen as I prepared the French press. She was wearing one of my sweatshirts. It was long on her, about mid-thigh. She yawned while she walked up to me then put her arms around me and squeezed very tight. "I had so much fun last night. Thank you."

"How's K. D. feeling?"

"He's okay. Tired. He was wondering if he could use the shower."

"Of course. There are towels in the chest next to the bathroom door. The hot water takes about half a minute to kick in but when it does it's really hot so tell him to be careful."

"Okay. Thanks."

I made the coffee and took it out to the living room along with a plate of gingerbread cookies.

"You are amazing. Thank you."

"I'm enjoying myself. I'm glad you're happy."

"Oh, very happy. Unbelievably happy, really. Everything inside me is warm. Radiating heat, actually. Everything is expanding. With every breath."

"That's beautiful."

Gloria smiled and poured some of the cream I'd brought out. She took a sip. "Delicious. I feel so cozy."

"Gezellig."

"What?"

"It's the Dutch equivalent. It means more than just cozy, but it's close. A feeling of warmth, of sharing good company, an inviting environment."

"That's the best of life."

"I agree. The Dutch seem to agree as well."

"Yeah, but I don't think just anyone would have shepherded us around the city and allowed us to sleep in their house, let alone make coffee for us in the morning."

"I guarantee you that if any Dutch person or family hosted you overnight that they'd make you coffee in the morning. Or at least stroll with you to a nearby cafe for a cup. But, yeah, I doubt you'd meet a ton of people here or anywhere else who'd have enjoyed that type of night with you."

"Why did you, by the way?"

"I was having fun. You guys seemed cool, like you were up for a little adventure."

"Yeah. So, what are you doing today?"

"Really?"

"Well, we don't have to get back on the train today. We had an idea of where we wanted to go on this trip, but we have Eurail passes and no reservations elsewhere so we can actually stay as long as we want. Well, for two weeks, anyway. I mean, we will be moving on to other countries, but we can wait another day. Or two even."

She paused.

"Oh, shit! That sounds horrible! I didn't mean to suggest that you should guide us around or put us up for a couple more days!"

I laughed. "I didn't take it that way, at all. I understand what you meant."

"Thanks. I was just excited about staying a little longer. This is such a great city! It's so beautiful and romantic and breathtaking and inspiring! And really, really free."

"It's a city structured for living. For living well. Every day. Every day. It's damn close to heaven. Especially if you have money. But even if you don't."

"So, you're American but you live here? What do you do?"

"What I do and what I have done are not always the same thing. I have done many things, I do what I'm doing right now, and I will do many more things."

Gloria laughed. "Are you still tripping? Did you eat more shrooms this morning?"

I laughed, too. K. D. came out of the bedroom. He had already showered and changed. His clothes. And in other ways, possibly. He sat on the chair across from me and grabbed the coffee I'd made. Steam was still rising from it so it was still somewhat hot.

"Thanks for letting me use your shower. And for the coffee."

"No problem."

"What do you think about staying another day or two here, K.?"

"Really?" K. D. raised his eyebrows a little and smiled as he considered the possibility. "I mean, yeah. Hell yeah! I don't want to put you out, though, Michael."

"Yeah, we really don't."

"I understand. Um, I mean..." I started to think a little. I didn't really have any plans over the next couple of days. I was only planning on spending some time in museums, writing at cafes, and doing some painting in the evenings over the next few days. The beauty of Amsterdam is that plans are ridiculous. It's best not to make plans because what happens in the city organically is usually more intriguing and exhilarating than any itinerary that removes the moment-to-moment engaging urgency of decision making for days or weeks on end. Sure, there are special events, but everyday life in and throughout Amsterdam is usually better than any particular planned event. No one thing is essential and yet it's the totality of the choices accessible and available that makes the city so invigorating, so full of possibility. The city begs for spontaneous participation. Everything is alluring and thus it compels people to shake out the cobwebs from their awareness. If you don't, you might miss something!

"We can pay you, you know?"

"No, no. You don't need to do that, K. D. I appreciate the gesture, but that's not what I'm about."

"I didn't mean to imply that at all."

"Relax. It's not a big deal. I didn't take it that way, at all. That slice of American thinking is hard to escape."

"American thinking?"

"Yeah. The idea that generosity and hospitality--decency--come with price tags attached. No, it's the way human beings choose to treat one another, as individuals enjoying one another's presence. And, as such, providing each with opportunities to create, collaborate, and share."

"That's beautiful," said Gloria.

"Yeah, it is," added K. D. "So, if we did stay, what would you suggest doing?"

"Well, I need to run a few errands this afternoon. If you're exhausted and need to sleep you can stay here. Otherwise, you could go for a walk and explore some neighborhoods, check out a museum, rent bikes, relax at a coffeeshop or a cafe and watch the people passing by, see what you see."

We all agreed to meet back at the cafe at the end of my block around 15:00. Gloria took a shower and got ready to go. K. D. and I relaxed and enjoyed our coffee. He mentioned how much fun he'd had the night before, but how the painting had freaked him out. I asked him what about it had scared him so much?

"It was just so busy with color. Crazy, energetic movements. I could feel the chaos of movement jumping out of it. It's hilarious now, but I thought it wanted to consume me in some way. Just wipe me out. Not physically, but emotionally. Or maybe intellectually. I don't know, but whatever it was I didn't want to let go of myself and I was afraid if I kept looking at it that I might forget ... everything. It scared the shit out of me."

"Wow. That's ... brutal."

"I know. But it was good. I hadn't realized how tightly I was holding on to a particular sense of myself as I had been."

"Wonderful."

"I know. I feel much more at ease today. I haven't been this relaxed in a long time. That was the whole point of this trip through Europe, you know? To put the past behind and reinvigorate our lives. Hell, yesterday was the first full day of our vacation and, boom, I'm in the zone. I don't think that would have been the case if we hadn't met you."

"Who knows. I'm sure you would have relaxed at some point. Whatever would have happened if you hadn't met me never will now so you'll never know. I never would have either way so what can i say. I was just living my life, too, and you certainly created the conditions for a day I wouldn't have otherwise enjoyed. Look, as much as this city has to offer aesthetically and in terms of intriguing events, this place is about the people. The setting enhances life but it's the lives themselves that create the play. And, as everyone knows, the play's the thing."

"Or, in my case, the painting's the thing."

"Yeah, painting does it for me, too. Doesn't seem to matter whether it's a noun or a verb, either."

Happy Birthday To Me

I was walking downtown yesterday and I saw an elderly homeless man missing most of a leg sitting on a sidewalk leaning against a brick building weeping while being showered with rose petals by a radiantly beautiful lily white young woman with long flowing auburn hair and a silky light blue dress dancing sensuously while singing about sunshine and love. I stopped about a block away, once I realized what I was seeing, and just watched. The man doubled over, sobbing, his shoulders heaving and his head shaking. Excruciating emotional suffering. The woman carefree, in love with life, sharing her joy in a completely self-absorbed manner, oblivious to the man's reception of her zeal.

But there was no reception. Two complete strangers living entirely different lives at the same moment who just happen to be expressing their inner selves within a foot or two of one another. It wouldn't seem quite so unusual to imagine the same two individuals occupying neighboring apartments just down the block doing the same thing (or capturing the spirit in a similar form) while alone in the privacy of their homes. But it was unusual to see such a public exhibition of self-absorbed oblivion while seemingly engaged with one another. Rose petal showers from beautiful strangers don't typically result in uncontrollable outbursts of despair, either.

But, maybe I'm wrong. So far in life, it's the only response to being showered with rose petals on a busy street that I've ever witnessed. Or heard about. Or read about. So, a first. Of sorts. To an extent, I'd like to see what happens with a larger sample. In other words, I'd like to ask beautiful young women around the world to travel to downtown Portland, dress in silky slinky dresses, and let rose petals snow on pedestrians of all stripes. Dance sensuously. Sing of sunshine and love. Your love of sunshine. The sunshine of your love. The love of your sunshine. Your sunshine of love.

Creating events, observing them, focusing on randomly selected details, and then measuring them in some capacity under as many variable circumstances with as many different subjects as possible. For the purpose of ... ?

That was generally what I was thinking as I watched this ... performance. I suppose it was a performance. But it also seemed very real, unplanned. Authentic. Even if absurd. Somehow it was also the most accurate representation of the totality of the potential of human relationships I'd ever encountered. In that one act, it told the story of human history. And the story of the future of humanity. An eternal return of myopia, self-absorption, disconnection, and misunderstanding. Could be sorrow or bliss, though. Or anything in between. Or anything beyond.

I was talking with a friend just a few hours ago, a guy I hadn't seen in a long time, but a good friend going back a decade. What was interesting was how each of us began talking with the present versions of our selves as if the other was a versions of a self past. I started to notice it at a certain point when a reference was made to something that took me back to a state of being and a type of thinking from several years ago. Like a flash of lightning. Explosions of images, of "scenes" of past experiences visible through my inner eye, out of context from their narratives of the time, rapidly interpreted through the narrative of now, and ... both the past and the present changed. My perception of the past and the present changed. I realized I was I.a at the moment but the possible self my friend began talking with (before her realized I was not the same person at all) might have been I.y or I.stgwk. How many versions of "me" have there been thus far in life? There was no predictable path evident because there was no particular path to take that was anything other than a different version of the same life. So, personal preference is really all there is. And it's unpredictable. The decision to commit to x, y, or z occurs each moment and, thus, each moment is a different "me."

What is becoming clearer to me as I type this, though, is that most of the transitions in my perception of self occur when the past meets the present and, through the consideration of each from the point of view of either, a new conception emerges that contains elements of both, some traits being dominant and some recessive, some likely to flower under certain conditions and most likely to remain dormant unless activated for some reason or another. A birth. A new life. A new self being born into the world.

In that sense, today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me! I may celebrate by showering a stranger with rose petals.

Response to comments, part deux

I tried to respond anonymously to the last round of comments. Didn't work. Well, it worked once when I just pressed down on a key and hit return. So, I finally made a comment and the comment was "fffffff." Whee! So, another entry as a response.

Nancy, I understand what you're saying about beating your head against the wall of the system. The issue is that the system will bang your head against the wall if you don't do so voluntarily.

Now, you may ask how that happens and I will answer, "through force." If you follow the rules of society as a means to avoid becoming a victim of state/corporate force then you are voluntarily banging your head against the wall (unless of course you are freely embracing being what the system wants you to be--a laborer and a consumer--in the way the system wants you to be a laborer and a consumer).

If you choose to veer from those boundaries, it will become apparent soon enough. If you start chopping down trees at the nearest woods you can find (because you want to build a house on a nice expanse of mowed grass you saw that was adjacent to another house) then you'll get attention very, very fast.

As angry people come to you to stop you--police as well as neighbors and homeowners--you'll realize that you are not free to use the resources you can see with your own eyes. Someone else "owns" the trees you see. Someone else "owns" the land and the grass growing from it on the spot you wanted to build your house.

So, whether you realize it or not, the system is banging your head against the wall. You've internalized what you are not "allowed" to do. You grew up being taught the rules by those in positions of authority and just like Pavlov's dogs you were either punished or rewarded based on whether or not your words and your actions matched the script written by the most powerful individuals driving institutions around the country and world.

So, what do you do with this information? Well, unlike the powerful, I'm not going to force you or anyone else to follow MY script. I'm detaching myself from the rules of the game so that I can THINK for myself. It's an ongoing struggle and there was just so much bullshit injected into my brain, creating all kinds of ridiculous wiring problems that affected my thinking in completely unhealthy ways (but also completely in tune with the system's structure--the system is designed to make each person unthinking and unhealthy) that it's a never-ending process.

So, for you, you create what you want organically as you see fit. That's what I offer that the system doesn't. I offer freedom. I don't inhibit you or anyone else. I simply express myself and I do so as much as a means to wrap my head around the lies I've been told so that I can better understand them, untangle them, and all of the sudden I have malleable neural synapses again. The difference now, though, is that I'm in control of creating new synaptic pathways. Decision making determines how they'll form and the identity that accompanies those decisions is ... still unknown to me. Which is, from my perspective, the beauty of open-ended self-creation. I'm not predetermining an outcome for my own identity or for my understanding of the world.

In other words, wonder-fueled discovery followed by wonder-fueled discovery. If you want a "way" to be in the world, that's it. And there certainly isn't a need for a system of ANY sort for anyone who is actively engaged in their moments. Not that I or anyone else doesn't LONG for the system at times. Even much of the time. It's familiar, it's easy, it does all the heavy lifting and thinking for you.

But it also means remaining perpetually a child, a follower embracing the opportunity to give up all responsibility for thought and action. A pet even more than a child, really. Which is what I wrote in an earlier post. As soon as life is reduced to merely comfort and survival, well, those conditions can be met by the system. If that's a satisfying life for you or anyone else then it will be embraced.

I embraced that life for quite awhile. I figured there was nothing that could be done, the system was entrenched so what was there to do but follow or be destroyed? So I got in line and numbed myself to reality, following the drudgery of days just like the rest of the unhappy. And if you don't think Americans are unhappy, I can show you places in the world where people are. It's NOTICEABLE! Very easily perceived.

Which brings me to PQ's point about the world being better. I think the percentages of those suffering to those not is about the same as it always has been, frankly. There are still places in the world with high infant mortality rates and all that. And for every case like that I'll go ahead and show that for the child born that would have died at birth, the child's is now being born into a Dickensian slum in China, India, Mexico, Ecuadaor, Brazil, Columbia, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Mozambique, Vietnam, and on an on. Most of Asia, Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, and South and Central America are poor. Extremely poor. Technology has just improved the means of exploitation and control.

But, yes, I agree, it's always been this way. I'm definitely not arguing against that. That, in fact, is my point. There has been NO progression in history. There couldn't be, anyway. Each individual life may find a progression over time, but, guess what? Also a deterioration over time. That's the reason why civilization's are problematic. They have lifespans that exceed their generations. They shouldn't. I really believe that. Each individual in each generation, in order to even come close to reaching their potential, NEEDS the opportunity for self-direction. Anything short of that is ... we may as well not have sentience. In fact, we'd be better off without awareness if following the lead of others is all we're choosing to do, all we're ALLOWED to do.

I have more to add in relation to what can change. If you're assuming that an individual entry is telling a story independent of all of the other entries then you'd be mistaken. They should be taken as a whole and, if taken that way, it's quite obvious I'm still in the process telling the story. Start multiplying the first four posts I made in January by the number for March. Take that number, insert it into the third paragraph of the first entry for February. Use that context to create the basis for a collateralized debt obligation, sell it as a hedge fund betting on societal collapse, and then wait for Armageddon. Your returns will be lucrative, but your riches will be useless absent the civilization that valued them. That's the story for each one of us even now, though, stories of individuals wealthy with riches civilization does not value.

Next time I'll tell a story about the stories Wall Street tells itself and how those stories create the reality we all experience. Wealth, in a sense, is just the power to make your story the one everyone else has to follow ... OR ELSE!

Response to comments

Thanks for the comments, Nancy, Summer, and Professor Q.

I still haven't figured out to respond through the comments section ... on my own blog. Yes, that is how technologically inept I am. Or lazy. Or indifferent. Or ... something.

Anyway, you've made a lot of good comments, all, but I want to respond to the comments from my most recent journal entry. I'll start with your comments, Professor.

Yes, I did mean in a humanitarian sense. But I also mean technology in terms of the physical as well. You are imagining a particular person and extrapolating as if that's the norm for a person to fly on commercial airlines and have access to surgeries with anesthesia and other modern medical technology. But there is also the majority of the world's population that does not share in that prosperity and, in fact, suffers more because of technological advancements. The greater the technology, the greater the means of controlling their lives--their behavior.

Performing repetitive tasks for 12 hours a day six or seven days a week as a teenager and on into adulthood cripples the body, destroys any chance at developing a sense of autonomy or self-direction in life, psychologically grinds a person into an automaton (even the self-conception of "victim" would be a step up), and reduces the individual's purpose in being to subsistence through labor to make the shoes for your man on the jet flying off to India to receive a kidney "donated" from a desperately impoverished undesirable. As I've said, it's all a matter of one's position. For the world's wealthier classes advancements in technology and science are incredibly beneficial and truly can raise the quality of life exponentially. On the flip side, technological and scientific advancements have just made the world's poor and those enduring the worst of war more susceptible to the world's wealthy-- those owning and controlling the resources that have been developed through those scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs--who continue to manipulate, exploit, imprison, injure, kill, and destroy.

That's why I say ethics is dead. What I mean by that is that public consciousness, in the U.S., is awaking (again--and they'll fall asleep again) to the fact that there is no real-world evidence indicating that power is ever acting an ethical manner. Power may act legally, but never ethically. To hold any type of ethics at all would require a person to sacrifice self-interest at times for the good of the whole. Not to be compelled to sacrifice self-interest, but to willingly choose to act in a way that is for the benefit of others. Individuals do that, but institutions never do. Never. Ever.

Humans are somewhat limited by the structuralism of language, but there are means for some degree of liberation from linguistic thinking. Not so for institutions which are entirely rule-based in their activities. They cannot veer from the script in the way that humans can. The individuals in positions that "steer" institutions? Oh, yeah. But when have you ever witnessed an individual directing an institution toward the public interest while going against its own because of the rogue actions of a CEO or department head? No, the anti-institutional actions (sometimes illegal) are pursued for self-interested reasons. Theoretically, a company decision maker could act in the public's interest to satisfy his own self-interest in helping the public. I can't really think of a case of that happening off-hand, but I'm sure there are some isolated incidents. I'd be interested if anyone knows of any cases like that.

And I think that segues into what you said, Nancy, about the people you feel you can affect through personal caring to make your own life feel worthwhile. I'm not begrudging you that, but it's neither here nor there for the world. To effect global change institutional models have to change. In fact, institutional relations also need to change. I'm becoming more convinced that it cannot be done piecemeal but instead as a series of well-planned steps over generations. In some ways, that is happening organically at the regional/local/individual level, but the majority of the world's political and economic landscape is being transformed by the global corporate vision for civilization. It ain't pretty.

The sources of good news are events such as the awarding of the Nobel Prize for economics to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson for their work on resource management by community institutions. Those are the types of models that need to be explored. If we were a sensible people and we actually lived in a democracy we would consider alternatives to the status quo as much as anything to follow a path of continuous improvement (continuous learning providing the basis for that change). Of course, priorities would have to change. We would have to collectively hold humanitarianism in higher esteem than we do property rights. That isn't the case in the United States and it is codified in law that property rights trump human rights--think of how quickly you shift to "he's trespassing" instead of "I can't believe that guy is waving a gun around and yelling at that kid to get off his land, that he should be paying him for the air he's breathing while standing there." Well, you might think the latter, but the U.S. Constitution and state laws support the crazy guy on the verge of shooting the teenager walking around in some lemon groves.

That alone seems like something to be re-examined, but the "right" and "left" in the United States--as they act in positions of government power--are split by about a millimeter. So, you know, sigh, shrug your shoulders, wail, just say fuck it, try it, embrace it, make love to it, walk down the aisle with it, and then one day you wake up in the middle of the night to find yourself tied to the bed while U.S. corruption is raping you. You shout, "Hey, I thought you loved me! I hated you, you wore me down, I gave in to you, I submitted and became not just a servant but also a cheerleader. I've done your bidding even as you've committed atrocity after atrocity. And even after all of that you are still tying me down to rape me? Why?"

"Well ... because I can. And it feels good. Plus, I'm trading ass rapes as derivatives now. It's something I had inserted into a bankruptcy reform plan being proposed in Congress. I figured I'd get in some practice because it looks like we've got the votes. I'd apologize, but I'm enjoying myself to much."

Foucault

Foucault is, as we would expect, a very unconventional historian. He is a historian of discourse, and more precisely of the discursive practices of the human sciences. He is concerned with both the internal rules and norms, the rules of exclusion and hierarchy that dictate what can be said within these discourses, and with the institutions, the material sites of the social power that envelop, legitimize, normalize, and sustain scientific discourse. In his early books, Madness and Civilization (1961; English translation, 1965) and Birth of the Clinic (1963; English translation, 1973), Foucault investigates the discourses of psychiatry and medicine and the ways in which these discourses produce, perceive, and regulate their objects, "sanity" and "health."

Foucault seeks, provocatively, to demonstrate that distinctions basic to these discourses, distinctions between madness and sanity, sickness and health, are arbitrary distinctions related not to the progress of knowledge but to new or changing social relations of exclusion and integration embedded in institutional frameworks such as asylums and clinics, whose functions were social control—normalization and administration—and were neither scientific nor humanitarian. While Foucault refuses to posit any general statement regarding the relationship between discourse and society, he appears to be reducing discourse to those social institutions and non-discursive forces that provide its material conditions of existence.

The history of madness reveals no progress in the theoretical understanding of an illness. Rather, it indicates a consistent tendency to project general social preconceptions and anxieties into theoretical frameworks that justify the confinement of whatever social groups or personality types that appear to threaten society during a particular period. The poor, the dissident, the criminal, and the insane are separated or herded together, treated as humans or as animals, confined or liberated, according to considerations that are primarily political rather than scientific.

Medical practice, Foucault argues, is similarly grounded in social concerns, the clinic and the hospital being microcosms of those attitudes toward human nature prevailing among the dominant classes of society at a given time. Small wonder that Althusser approved of these works and saw them as recognizable offspring of his own ideas. However, in his next two works, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (1966; English translation, 1973a) and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969; English translation, 1972), Foucault shifts his perspective to the internal structural constraints of discourse alone and to a new anti-materialist methodological strategy that he calls "archaeology." Institutional and social determinations of discourse disappear, replaced by what Foucault calls an "episteme," by which he understands "the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and possibly formalized systems . . . the totality of relations that can be discovered, for a given period, between the sciences when one analyzes them at the level of discursive regularities" (Foucault 1972, 191).

In The Order of Things , Foucault contrasts the four epistemic epochs of the so-called human sciences—discourses whose objects are life (biology), labor (society), and language (culture)—from the late Middle Ages to the twentieth century. The first of these, the Renaissance, was characterized by similitude, the desire to find the same within the different, the extent to which objects resemble each other and the extent to which words truly signify things. The tortuous attempt to demonstrate the similarity of things, that everything to a significant extent resembles everything else, exhausted itself by the seventeenth century.

An "archaeological shift" occurred, bringing a new episteme that dominated the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which Foucault calls the Classical Age. The classical episteme focused on differences revealed by the Renaissance and attempted to account for them by a discursive protocol involving comparison, ordering, and representation. According to this protocol, representation is certain and logical; the principle of comparison and ordering of differences moves from the simple to the complex in a carefully calibrated system based on contiguity and continuity. The role of consciousness is one of exteriority. Mind simply observes and classifies representations that are themselves independent and immediate. Representing the essential order of things, identity and difference, means the discovery of a system of control over them.

The belief of the Classical Age was that if the correct table of relationships could be discovered, one could manipulate "life," "wealth," and "language" by manipulating the signs that signify them. However, the classical principle of order and comparison is undermined by the perception of temporality, of the differential origin of things, a perception that destroys the timeless ground of continuity and contiguity, which made things measurable and comparable. At the end of the eighteenth century another "archaeological shift" occurred, inaugurating the Modern Age, dominated by an awareness of temporality and finitude. Knowledge was problematized as thought was increasingly absorbed with the historicity of species, modes of production, and language usages.

"Man," hitherto invisible, became a knowing subject among objects and, more significantly, the object of his own historical understanding. Epistemology came into being as an attempt to discover the grounds on which representations are possible or legitimate given the finitude and limitations of the human subject. "Man" is thus no more than an epistemic creation of the Modern Age, which began with the realization of human finitude and was characterized by its attempt to overcome or transcend these limitations within the epistemic framework of the human subject—to find a ground for meaning and knowledge within what Foucault calls the "analytic of finitude."

The modern episteme has exhausted itself attempting to overcome oppositions between the transcendental form of knowing and the historical content of knowledge, between the thinking cogito and the "unthought" background that is its condition of existence, and, finally, between the historical situation of man, how man is already in history and cut off from all origins, and the historical primacy of man, that man is the agent or maker of history. As a result, Foucault concludes, the Age of Man is currently being displaced by a new, fourth age that has abandoned the analytic of finitude and accepted the disappearance of the human subject, the opacity of language, and the absence of historical meaning. Significantly, Foucault credits Nietzsche with the initial insight into the coming "post-Modern" age:

• In our day, and once again Nietzsche indicated the turning-point from a long way off, it is not so much the absence or the death of God that is affirmed as the end of man. . . . Rather than the death of God—or, rather, in the wake of that death and in a profound correlation with it—what Nietzsche's thought heralds is the end of his murderer; it is the explosion of man's face in laughter, and the return of masks; it is the scattering of the profound stream of time by which he felt himself carried along and whose pressure he suspected in the very being of things; it is the identity of the Return of the Same with the absolute dispersion of man. (Foucault 1973, 385)

escholarship.org

Here's a key point for me: "The history of madness reveals no progress in the theoretical understanding of an illness. Rather, it indicates a consistent tendency to project general social preconceptions and anxieties into theoretical frameworks that justify the confinement of whatever social groups or personality types that appear to threaten society during a particular period. The poor, the dissident, the criminal, and the insane are separated or herded together, treated as humans or as animals, confined or liberated, according to considerations that are primarily political rather than scientific. 

Medical practice, Foucault argues, is similarly grounded in social concerns, the clinic and the hospital being microcosms of those attitudes toward human nature prevailing among the dominant classes of society at a given time." I read Foucault for the first time well over a decade ago and I thought to myself, "This explains everything that has seemed completely absurd to me." The reason being is that I was raised as many Americans are raised: to believe in things as they are, that there is an inherentness to the way things are, a rightness or order in life and that things that are "bad" will be brought back into line in time to make the world balanced and good--for us (the "good" humans)--again.

The issue that I was having in "real life" was that these stories I absorbed through tellings and "showings" by parents, teachers, administrators, coaches, managers, owners, and other individuals in positions of greater social, economic, and legal power than I possessed were all being exposed as bullshit by reality. Now, it's a particular kind of hell to be a powerless child observing a world of comparatively powerful adults committing both formal and informal acts of madness and cruelty against one another and, especially, against "classes" of others (the poor, the drug addicts, the socially awkward, etc.). Life viewed through a lens in which the foundations justifying beliefs and behaviors are not only arbitrary but unexamined by "practitioners" leads to one conclusion: everyone and everything is completely absurd. 

 These memes about scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements making life better stand on no more solid ground than the idea that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow being watched over by a possessive leprechaun. It's the same with health care reform. As is true with all legislation and policy, the "science" of health care provision and delivery was never a factor in the process except as fuel for political momentum. The one interesting aspect of that is that it seems, for the first time in my lifetime, that the whole of American society is waking up to what I've understood since childhood: the world is absurd and the U.S. government, in its economics and politics, is abusive, cruel, and tyrannical when it isn't merely indifferent. Now, in a different age that may not have been the case. I have no idea. I've lived only in my own moments rather than as a historical entity. And I realize that even the stories I tell myself are arbitrary and temporary. If knowledge is power then the knowledge that my ideas of myself and the world are undoubtedly just means to an end that I don't even fully understand then I can never act responsibly because I know that I can never know enough to make a responsible decision. 

That being the case, ideas such as "criminal prostitution" or "illegal drugs" make no sense at all. Like Foucault, I understand the illegality of all things--even murder--as motivated by political pragmatics rather than ethics or morality. I recognize that my recoil against murder is based on my own personal pragmatics rather than a law of the universe. Gravity is a reality beyond human control; murder is either committed or isn't because of human choices. Actually, murder is committed because of political/legal creations. Killing is a non-legal, non-political act whereas murder is a legal/political act. Killing is only murder if certain legal conditions are met ... according to judges and juries.

In a sense, a trial is simply a theatrical dramatization of past events that are under dispute in some significant way to various actors with power and influence. The practice of the trial in the United States is familiar and, as such, seems like a given, as reliable and "real" as gravity. But it's a concoction, a discursive creation not made once and for all and set in stone hundreds of years ago but an ongoing dynamic, each event not only a replication of past events but a confirmation of the rightness of those past events. It is trusted on faith by those who have attached it to the American identity whereas it is accepted with resignation by those who recognize they have no more power to change the judicial system than they do to change the laws of gravity.

Now, the outlook on all forms of reality changes radically depending on the type of attitude or belief one develops in relation to any particular thing. In this case, the trial is the particular thing, but it could be anything. Having an attitude that is favorable toward the rules and procedures of U.S. trials is going to factor into other perspectives (or has been factored in because of other perspectives) on U.S. law and politics. Believing U.S. trials to be unjust will likely be related to other beliefs about U.S. law and politics. Take the dominant Middle Eastern view of the United States, that America is the Great Satan because of its lack of respect for the sovereignty of other nations. That colors perceptions about all things American. Conversely, an economic globalization ideologue looks at U.S. foreign policy and views the U.S. as an extremely good country because of its lack of respect for the sovereignty of countries that are hostile to foreign investment and control of resources. 

Neither perspective is "right" based on any independent criteria. That's just it: there are no independent criteria. There are only individual beliefs, attitudes, preferences, etc., that may or may not become law and policy depending on choices made (and much else) in particular circumstances. So where does that leave us? Right back to where we actually are and where we've always been. There has been no progression throughout "history." No, just new humans being born, living for awhile, and then dying. The stories they make up about themselves and the world? No more or less than anything else that a person thinks or doesn't think. Kind of Buddhist, yes, but it's not my fault. I don't really care. I haven't for a long time. Look, you just stop giving a shit about much of anything abstract when you realize that there's nothing more than personal preference involved with any belief structure (story structure). Would I like it to be different? Yes, but because it won't and can't be different, the desire for change is just a form of suffering. If I was a Buddhist I would just accept that everything changes in ways that are meaningless. Perhaps. But I can choose to suffer if I'd like and desire what cannot be. It's best to recognize the futility of caring even if I feel compelled to care.

Don't blame me. I didn't create this reality. I'm just doing time in the prison of my body within the prison of civilization within the prison of ... within the prison. Just like anyone else. I'm just refusing to pretend that I'm free when reality informs me that I am anything but. Why mention any of this? Why cut and paste so much of that writeup about Foucault and then rattle on in this way? I don't know for sure. It's really nothing more than releasing the scream echoing through my being ever since I realized that very, very few human beings are loving and caring. I hear lots of talk about love but I see very, very little evidence in public. Caring is something people do behind closed doors, apparently. Most people seem to care for others in much the way they watch porn: while in their rooms alone at night when no one else is around. In other words, the nature of care in the United States is masturbatory. The character of Americans (and the country as a whole) is taking. Giving that actually helps alleviate suffering and provides real opportunities for empowerment is about as common as meeting someone who won a Powerball jackpot.

If we wanted to see compassion in the world we'd change our politics and restructure our laws and economics. But that would really require trust and love of others. There's nothing there, though. Religion plays a role, for one: "I don't have to be good because if I just give my life over to Jesus some day I'll be saved and all the really horrible things I do to myself and others will be forgiven by the magic man in the sky after I die and all the suffering I'm enduring now is bearable because I know that I'll be receiving an eternal paycheck for all of the injustice I've endured when I walk up the Pearly Gates." That's why religion is the opiate of the masses. You take away the eternal paycheck from people and they go, "I'm enduring what?! For no reason at all?!!! Motherfucker!!! I am going to kill those motherfuckers for screwing me over!"

Yeah, that's why religion plays such a big role in politics. I mean, the only way to endure suffering is to create a story that justifies it or at least gives hope that the suffering will end and something better will come. But, taking that approach ultimately allows others who are NOT believing that some external other loves and cares about them and will make all the booboos go away to actively engage in life and perhaps even influence or control individual circumstances and perhaps human relations on a wider scale. The way the world looks to me is a relatively few people really REALLY engaged with life in internationl politics and business, controlling the flow of resources and humanity around the world, determining how the majority of humanity spends their lives (think mines in Latin America--come on, none of the indigenous people chose to work in mines except out of necessity, a necessity created by those who were actively engaged in taking and using and controlling in the ways they wanted).

That's why Thucydides is right about power and Socrates is a fucking idiot. And yet, Socrates would be right if 20th century academics had not divided and subdivided subjects into separate disciplines and then walled them off from all other modes of thought in order to preserve their "integrity" (as if doing so could possibly create a discourse that would be predictably useable and functional in the real-world). Well, that's bullshit. You can't separate ethical inquiry from social sciences and expect politics to be measured in any way other than in terms of materialistic measures. So, ethics is dead. Has been. It probably never existed except in the way Zeus exists (in the minds or hearts of humans). Ethics is in the realm of "ought" and the social sciences focus on the "is" without making value judgments (well, that's bullshit, but that's the meme). Eh, I'm done. Fuck it.