Monday, November 24, 2008

Excerpts from "Things I Have Learned"

Since 2003 I have been keeping a log of ideas, points, refutations and theses called Things I Have Learned. Some of it has been spun out into real essays, some of it is being saved for my 800-page Crackpot Manifesto. Here are some small pieces from it.

If you knew someone was going to die, you’d be nice to them, wouldn’t you? Remember that everyone IS going to die, and act accordingly. Pity is not a weakness, but the fear of weakness is.
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The ruling class pass laws against certain behaviors and activities called "vice." Vice means "everybody does it but no one is supposed to admit it." These are a convenient set of laws for the ruling class: as they control the justice system they need not worry about their own vices while at the same time they can use the vice laws to imprison people when necessary. On an individual scale dissenting voices can be discredited or silenced; on the scale of entire populations this provides for a large and booming prison labor business.

The ruling class is comprised of two factions: the "conservatives" and the "liberals." The conservatives believe that the people can not be trusted and so must be kept firmly under control. The liberals believe the same thing -- the only difference between factions are the proposed forms of control. That the people must be kept controlled is never in question. The alternative to this false dilemma -- the evolution of consciousness, both in the individual and in groups, so that the people can learn to take care of themselves without control -- is marginalized and dismissed. And why not? If people did not need to be controlled there would be no need for a ruling class to control them.
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The problem with the Global Village is that the number of village idiots the village has increases exponentially the larger the village gets. By the time the village is global the crowds of idiots chanting nonsense all but drive out anything intelligent or even intelligible. Indeed, this is exactly what we have seen happen with the Internet. It is perhaps this sense that the barbarians of nonsense are perpetually at the gates of one’s conscious world that leads to the obsession with things being “real” or “natural.” (Note the popularity of “reality TV”, hip-hop’s cultural obsession with being “real”, and even the marked demographic increase in the natural foods market as a few examples of this trend as it appears in different forms.)
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Conspiracy theories fall apart because they assume conscious human decision where unconscious human behavior is a simpler and more probable explanation.

The true conspiracy is the conspiracy of self-deception, which we’re all in on. Every character is a part of the Order.
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Honey isn’t natural— bees make it!
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What if the alphabet was not comprised of letters, as it is today, but rather was made up of tiny aspirin tablets?
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The Pax Romana was a sham. the whole duration saw many wars of conquest or to quell rebellion (as well as numerous reigns of terror on the home front). The idea that wars don’t really count if they don’t take place on native soil became the foundation of the American Empire.
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Comparing the parallel aspects of Oneness and Nothingness to binary numbering: In binary the principal importance of a one is that it is not a zero and vice versa, whereas the importance of the One and the Void is that they are the same. The gift is the curse. The punishment is the reward. Life is a double-edged sword, but still, it's just one sword. The chicken IS the egg.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Found Art

speaking of constant struggles for self-control

i got another optimus prime
it's pretty ridiculous
not only the phrase "i got another optimus prime"
and all that entails
but also
the optimus prime himself
he's the movie "protoform" version
remember how in the movie they came down as comets?
that's what he transforms into
he's all like bluish gray
and he transforms into a bluish gray comet
he is the least optimus prime i have
unless you count the gorilla
which you should
because i have him too.

A Brief Manifesto

July 2006:
I
will not be trapped by this world
nor fall prey to the pitfalls and snares
laid out by those asleep to prevent awakening
I will not be guilted
I will not be shamed
I will suffer no expectations
save my own.

The Antichrist (or, Snappy Answers To Stupid Bitches)

May 2007:

I was already in a bad mood when I walked out of the Shop Rite. Why I was in this bad mood is another tale for another time and one I will most likely never tell so insert your own bad mood experience and vibe with me. I was already in a bad mood and, as I walked out of the Shop Rite this lady standing outside flagged me down to cough up a contribution to her cause. Normally I would just politely mumble an excuse and move on, or, if the cause was worthy, actually hand over some cash. But today I was in a bad mood, as I have now said three times, and the cause was D.A.R.E., so I decided to have some fun as an alien on this planet. The sign said "DARE to resist drugs and violence" so I turned to her with my best sweet sincere smile and said "But I like drugs and violence!" She frowned for a second -- I had deftly leaped right off of her script and she needed time to recover, but recover she did and like a champ too, countering with "But these are kids we're talking about!" Nice move. Appeal to our culture's idolization of children as an abstract. I smiled again and replied "Yeah, I liked drugs and violence when I was a kid!" Another frown almost instantly covered up and she came back with "But we're talking about fifth graders, not high schoolers!" As if she was tacitly admitting that she liked drugs and violence too, and further that she probably fucked half of her high school class, but that fifth graders existed in a purer state and we needed to protect them. With my money. So I smiled again, this time nothing sweet or sincere about it, and said "I liked drugs and violence when I was in fifth grade." Another frown, another pause, and then "Okay, have a nice day." "Same to you," I said and walked towards my car, content that later that night that woman would, over the dinner table, tell her husband how that afternoon she had met the Antichrist.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

On The Topic Of Failure

"Tried to fix my shortcomings, I just came up short..."
- Joe Budden

The truth? I consider myself to be a failure.

I do not consider myself to be a failure because I have failed by the standards of society -- the college degree, the prestigious career, the home in the suburbs with the 2.3 kids -- although I am certainly a resounding failure by any of those standards. I don't consider myself to be a failure by the standards of society because I do not consider the standards of society.

I consider myself a failure because I have also failed by my own standards. I have failed to actualize myself, I have failed to act on the things I have learned. I figured out that love is the answer, that perfect love casts out fear, but I prefer to shun love and remain enshrouded in the fear. I see the path I must take and I refuse it. Knowing as I do that I am the only person I can control, I do not control myself. I keep my head in the clouds of a future that does not exist. I tell myself that I am a prophet, that my function is to be the gadfly, the crazy old man in the church tower ringing the bells, John the Baptist to one who has yet to come. The truth is I am paralyzed by fear. I have failed to conquer myself through knowledge. I have failed to pursue other avenues to conquer myself. I have failed to forgive myself, to forgive others, for the wrongs that have been done to me or by me. I have failed to use my talents and knowledge to uplift humanity, using it instead to amuse myself. I have failed to keep my darker side in rein.

It does me no good to recognize that each one of you is also a failure by my standards.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Optimus Prime Died For Your Sins

(I just went out and picked up the 25th anniversary re-release of the G1, original, Optimus Prime. Doing thus I came one step closer to re-claiming my lost childhood. In honor of this happy occasion here is one of my most popular essays, also available in my book, If You Don't Give Me Heaven. Originally written sometime in 2005.)

I cried when Optimus Prime died.

As a child I had already had to accept that they killed Jesus and that they killed John Lennon – in fact, to look around the world it seemed like most everyone was crazy and people kept killing each other right and left. Back then we still lived under the bombscare and it even seemed like somebody might kill us all some day soon. When Grandpa died I numbly came to terms with it though the whole concept of death seemed very unfair. Already I began to understand that one day I too would die – it was in the fine print of this contract that I couldn’t quite recall signing. But all of that was the real world. The world of cartoons, the world of children’s stories, was a sacrosanct place where ugly realities like death weren’t supposed to tread. Then Optimus Prime died. It was as if one day Elmer Fudd killed Bugs Bunny or the Big Bad Wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood. It wasn’t supposed to happen. And certainly not to Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime was an inspirational figure in my youth. Leader of the heroic Autobots, his motto was “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” It said so right on the back of his box. And who could disagree with that? Or rather, since it seemed the world was full of crazy people intent on depriving each other of basic freedoms, who should disagree with that? More to the point, Optimus Prime was willing to fight to preserve and protect that freedom. He was willing to die for it.

While other Transformers’ vehicle modes were sleek and sexy -- race cars, jet fighters and the like; Optimus Prime transformed into that most utilitarian of vehicles; the tractor trailer. As John Lennon (another dead hero) once sang, “A working class hero is something to be” and a tractor trailer is nothing if not working class. He represented the values most important for a leader; a sense of self-sacrifice, undying compassion and a respect for life in all of its forms; values hard to find in actual world leaders then or now. Optimus Prime didn’t command his war against the Decepticons from some “undisclosed location,” sending young ones off to die to make him and his cronies richer. He was always to be found at the front lines of the action, doing his best to keep the collateral damage down and protecting his own. Though born millions of years before Christ on a faraway world his actions reflected the teachings and values of Jesus more than many so-called “Christian” leaders.

So I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that they killed him. I mean, they killed Socrates, they killed Gandhi and they killed Martin Luther King. The older, wiser and more cynical Noel isn’t surprised that they killed Optimus Prime too. If being a compassionate and selfless leader was easy then our history wouldn’t be so filled with criminals, robber barons and predators sitting on thrones or in Oval Offices and living well off of the suffering of the multitude. It must be that there’s a price to pay for sticking up for principles. The older, wiser and more cynical Noel understands this well.

But inside me still is the child who doesn’t understand this, in tears because it doesn’t seem fair that the world is full of pain and death. I wish I could speak to that child, to tell him that it will all be okay. That they bring Optimus Prime back and in the end we all benefit because of those who, like him, have been willing to be sacrificed. That one day the world will be more like Lennon’s “Imagine” and less like a cruel and pointless joke. I wish I could wipe away his tears and comfort him.

But I cannot find the words.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Bounded In A Nutshell

And what am I supposed to say?
Somehow I'm in
a game I ain't allowed to win
and then I'm told to play?
Know my role, throw my soul away?
Until I'm old and gray?
Then they'll lay Noel in a hole to decay?

The Social Contract: Not Worth The Paper It's Written On

The other day I got into a debate with this character who tried to defend his position by talking about the "social contract." You ever hear of this? I will save you a trip to Wikipedia and explain it Reader's Digest condensed-style. The social contract is some fruity abstract concept that came out of the the so-called "Enlightenment." When you hear someone talk about the social contract, it is a sure sign that they are some ivory tower intellectual that does not live in the real world. What it is, is supposedly we have all agreed to hand our own individual sovereignty over to a governing body in exchange for mutual benefits we could not achieve on our own. (With of course, the governing body usually getting the lion's share of the "mutual benefits.") Know what the problem with the social contract is?

I never signed it.

Did you? Did anybody?

Now I realize this seems like a pretty glib argument at first glance, but take it a step further. I also never signed the U.S. Constitution that is the literal foundation of the government I am supposedly bound to. There's some kind of "tacit approval" that I supposedly give just by existing on the land that I exist on, but I explicitly deny any such tacit approval. My position is extremely simple: I am not beholden to the laws of man. I am beholden to my own conscience and common sense and that's it. Armed people are real. Cages are real. If I flout the laws in too direct and obvious a fashion, armed people will put me in a cage. That is all real. If I go too far armed people will kill me, and death is also real. (Actually, of course, death is an illusion of this frame of existence. I was never born and I will never die. But that's besides the point.) But the laws the armed people say they are enforcing are not real. Get it? Now, common sense tells me that I want to avoid having armed people imprison or murder me. My conscience tells me that I don't want to do anything to other people that I would not have done to me. So, despite my bold pronouncements as a self-proclaimed outlaw, I am actually at worst a pretty harmless person. Harmless as the dove, you might say.

Wait, I take it back. Besides my conscience and common sense I am also beholden to the physical laws of the universe, but my hunch is that this is only because I am at a low level of consciousness. I suspect that for highly advanced consciousness the laws of physics are about as flexible as the laws of man are. Again, that is neither here nor there.

The point is, your individual sovereignty is derived directly from your connection to God and no body of people can take it from you. What you choose to do with it, whether to hold on to it or to give it up, is entirely up to you.

Next time: Remember when they made Doritos in Mountain Dew flavor? What the heck was that about?