The 2 Page Experiments

The How, What, and Why

For months now I’ve been coming on here spilling my brain chatter in a stream of consciousness manner that, accelerated by beer and Jager, has often worked me into a frenzy of ecstasy and speed smear that can sometimes lead to those less than flattering moments we’re all too familiar with, and for which I apologize. But I’m a changed man. I’m taking a different route –at least, temporarily. But first an explanation of the multiplicity that brought me to this point. Recently, I had come to the end of a five year stint of vocational studies that started with me deciding to get a 3rd grade engineers license and visions of me sitting in front of a boiler, making about 15$ an hour, and studying postmodern and critical theory. But due to financial pressures common to us all, I got caught up in it, went on to obtain two OS diplomas in plant maintenance, a CompTia A+ certification, and three more in Microsoft office. The pressure to pad my resume “just a little more” became relentless. And with each chosen goal, there was always a promise to myself that once the task was completed, I would return to my studies in liberal and fine arts. Towards the end, it grew clear that I had fallen into the proverbial trap of the carrot on a stick, and increasingly felt what could only be described as guilt, a sense that, had I been a religious man, I had somehow failed God. Still, it seemed, there was always more I had to do to make myself, as the salesman of my training material told me, recession-proof. Ironically, what really opened my eyes was a rapid onset of cataracts. I felt already, due to my age, the pressure of a decreasing number of productive years. But going 30 to 50 percent blind really brought it home. The urgency of making the best of my time and justifying my point A to point B with those things that did so authentically stood beyond deniability or refute. The cataracts removed, and seeing clearer than ever, I immediately deepened my commitment to reading and this board. It wasn’t long before fate anointed my choice with the announcement that Borders would be closing, thereby initiating a process that, with each price reduction, presented a situation that I, a creature of compulsion, could hardly resist. I repeatedly found myself trudging back with mixed feelings of elation and growing self disgust, often grumbling how I wished they would just close the damn place already.

30 plus books and magazines later, it came to an end. And with piles of books on my end tables and anywhere I could put them, and the daunting task of going through all that reading material, much of which I would have to go over several times to get anything out of, along with some of my older material I equally needed to retread, my situation was complicated by a creative urge that had been long pent up and needed some attention. Furthermore, I had always followed Nietzsche’s prescription of putting my vices to work for me and needed something to do while drinking. But I had always found it best to focus either on input or output, and that any attempt to do both, at the same time, would only result in a general half-assing of all my efforts. But my angst proved unwarranted as I found I could commit most of my time to reading, and then satisfy, to some extent, my creative urge thanks to the drive-by nature of what we do here. Plus that, it gave me something to do while drinking. And therein lays the beauty and efficiency of it, or what I should refer to as a harmonious coexistence of efficiencies: that of my need to read and my creative impulse –not to mention my love of drink. I mean it just worked: the non-committal nature of bouncing off of other articulate and intelligent people in an act that is creative while being almost as natural as conversation. And because of it, I’ve recently felt something I haven’t in quite some time: authentic flow, that spontaneous occurrence of things falling into place and allowing one a taste of the ecstatic –an ecstasy, unfortunately, that can lead to those less than flattering moments and, once again, for which I apologize. But all good things come to an end; and it was only a matter of time before I would feel the need to produce something more finished. As much as I love this, there is equally something to be said for the process of actively shaping a piece of prose, of taking out and adding in (the obsessive tweaking) until one is satisfied, and the brain goes numb and empty, or has to abandon it in despair. There would eventually come a point at which I would have to set the books aside and actively seek to reign it all in, tame it, and turn it into something a little less tentative and a little more polished. Hence: the present experiment.

The rules are fairly simple and based on an exercise I was co-opted into by a friend who was taking a composition course: Word default settings (11 point Font and 1.15 line spacing) so there is no cheating by using smaller ones, and (this is important now!) 2 pages only -not one sentence, not one phrase, not even so much as a word on page three. I explain this because I encourage anyone who wants to polish their own composition skills and try it themselves to post the results here. But, once again, should one post anything with a title and so much as a period on page 3, they shall suffer a frowny face next to their name, their mother informed, and be relentlessly flogged with recommendations as to what sentences can be trimmed. Remember, it can be checked and you can be messaged; so keep the consequences in mind. Furthermore, this is not meant to be some personal one way dialogue. Like any post, they’re there to be commented on. Whether it concerns form, content, or both is up to you. However, should there be a lot of content based responses, to reduce confusion and increase visibility, I will move it, with all relevant comments, to its own string.

That said, I think anyone who has taken a composition course is privy to the why. The purpose is twofold: formal in that the smaller size allows the writer to focus on quality over quantity, things like compression, clarity, and stronger sentences, and content based in that it forces us to focus on the individual elements of our mental constructs, making them stronger and clearer, thereby strengthening the mental construct to which they are a part. This might seem especially challenging to the philosopher/intellectual who depends a lot on deferred meaning. But one could approach it as a rhizome, a point in a process that can spawn another piece, either by elaborating on some particular, or by initiating a new but closely related work. It’s pretty much what we already do; only in this case we take it step by step. Ultimately, I think it is about what my creative writing teacher emphasized in his insistence on compression: that wordiness suggests a lack of faith in the reader, that it’s not a matter of producing a mirror of what’s on one’s mind, but rather a guide, a script for the reader’s imagination, a perspective they can use as they may.

Nihilism

Nihilism does nothing. It always has. Since Socrates’ proclamation that he knew nothing, since the Platonic hierarchy collapsed, under its own weight and emptiness, in the face of the enlightened and romantic, since Nietzsche broke into his Dionysian dance at the death of God and Truth, since the phenomenological reduction of Descartes’ thinking thing to the existential nothingness of consciousness, and since the postmodern break into playful celebration at its coming of age, it’s always been there, waiting, doing nothing. It seems silly to accuse it of things. Yet, we condemn it, bandy it about, loosely, as if its mere association could render an assertion somehow meaningless. But Nihilism does nothing. It doesn’t seek to undermine traditions, dogmas, or assumptions. They passively collapse on it. And when we embrace it, we pin it to our chests, or to that of another, like some badge of honor. But who, truly, can be said to be a nihilist. It doesn’t seek to explain or justify itself; and any utterance or assertion is to do something and, thereby, miss the point. Nietzsche certainly couldn’t pull it off. He said too much, made too many assertions. Nor can any ideology or method be said to synonymous with it. But it was always there doing nothing while we were doing everything. Skepticism was a method by which we worked towards it. Anarchism was a political expression not of it, but us in the face of it. Existentialism? Nihilism with an excuse, thereby, not nihilism. And postmodernism? Once again, a mere celebration, a ticker tape parade and welcome party for what was always home.

In fact, I would argue that the word, itself, is an oxymoron since an “ism” is always doing something. To cop off Wittgenstein, one of the most anti-nihilist of all (but perhaps not as we will explore later): it is a “that” of which we should not speak. Perhaps it would be better to speak of the nihilistic or the nihilistic perspective, of a kind of passing experience or sensation (epiphany perhaps?) that cannot be held or kept or seen strait on, a mere stillness that, like a phantom, can glance the corner of the eye. Yet, it is always before, around, and behind us. Why wouldn’t it be ahead, since it is the foundation, the absurdity, of our here and now? We look back and watch all chains of cause and effect trail away, converge, and dissolve into nothing. It’s amazing we can even move forward, thrashing as we do in this mass-less sea. Yet we do, or seem to do. Propelling in a kind of forward flight, we project out of nothing. We strain, stretch our finger toward something, and, never truly touching it, plunge, at last, back into nothing.

Could this be the upswing? The joy and meaning? The glass half full as differentiated from the glass half empty? I approached this page, the emptiness, a nothing, and made something. Not knowing how it would happen, the words took form, propelling it seemed, out of nothing and gathered this peculiar way out of infinite others. It was as if there were all these bits and pieces looking for a place, any place, a shelter from the nothing. Yet here it is: a testimony to that from which it came. The only potential of nothing is no potential, no fixed direction. This is why we cannot say that the nihilistic obliges us to make no assertions. In fact, it may be a cause to do so, the meaning derived, the fear that compels our flight. In fact, maybe it’s why we dream. We slip away, from alpha to beta, and into theta, and it may be through the noetic images produced in this state that we dip our toe into the nothingness of a deep delta wave sleep. We lay in bed, our thoughts flowing regularly and with meaningful intent. In time, they begin to digress, form sensations until sensations take form, and one those forms darts your way. You jolt awake. What were you afraid of? Or maybe it wasn’t you, but consciousness afraid of its own dissipation, the loss of intentionality? Consciousness is always consciousness of something and in order for a thing to exist, it must, at bottom, perceive that it exists. What would a conscious be that suddenly became conscious of nothing? “I hate sleeping”, the old man says in the movie Moonstruck,” it’s too much like death.” It’s no wonder we flee like we do. It’s in our blood, our history. Greece, at the beginning of civilization (and having just crawled out of the muck) considered nature bad and civilization good and, consequently, its mental constructs, if constructed by the more advanced and civilized, equally good. It’s no wonder Plato would ban the poets from his republic. Passion is for primates, that stage of man that stood between Greece and the nothingness from which it came. Nor is it any wonder, after numerous political and religious tyrannies and atrocities, that these ideal forms would collapse on their own ethereal emptiness, and that the romantics would seek a return to that primal state. But there was a divide, a splitting up into 2 distinct trajectories. The enlightened clung to the ideal forms of reason. And we do it still. We do as Wittgenstein: prescribe a method and pretend it gives us absolutes and certainty. But all we are doing is fleeing, denying, and shutting out the nothing. We cling to the symbolic order and watch the psychotics and junkies slip away into their own little bubbles with their own little systems of meaning. We watch as others, having no solid criteria by which to work, turn to the praxis of power: I have power because I am right, therefore, I am right because I have power. They forget the underlying nothingness of all human constructs and turn smug. Cut-throat capitalists gather, and gather more, as if to fill the void. They’re never satisfied. Players crush hearts as if seeking the underlying emptiness. And serial killers kill as if to reacquaint us with nothing. We think we fear them. But perhaps we fear the nothing. Clearly, the certainty of something, the metaphysic of Presence, could not hold them close. We have to ask why. We have to ask if they sensed the underlying nothingness, the nihilistic, and refusing to deny it, to flee, as most of us “normal” people do, fell into a trap.

So much for the upswing. What went wrong? And why all this rather than nothing? Why did I write? I could have left this blank. But I didn’t. Why? One could say it was to let there be something. But it makes no sense. It’s absurd, clearly a flight from silence, the empty page, the nothingness. What else could it be with so much contradiction? I attempt to explain the nihilistic when the more I write, the further away I get. This wasn’t the piece I expected. This wasn’t the life I expected. Yet here it is. Still, maybe I should have written a poem, or created an image. I shouldn’t have tried to mean, but be. Perhaps I should have done nothing.

Full Thrust

I think of you now: tweaked on drugs, booze, and phenomenology. Your legs, forward and back, straddle some imaginary abyss, while your hands waver at your sides in an uneasy balance. Your head teeters as your eyes narrow and your mouth twists into a strained expression of ecstasy.
“Full thrust," you mutter, “speed smear!”
*
Depth, intensity, and lightness of touch.
*
Russell says that philosophy lies in that no-man’s land between science and theology. I, however, not being a religious man, would revise that to say that it lies in that no-man’s land between science and art, and that it is the different points we can inhabit on this spectrum that makes the distinction between the analytic and the continental. The analytic, of course, always sticks closer to the scientific and, in that capacity, has value. At the same time, it would be wrong to over exaggerate its import to the point of dismissing the continental as the muddle-headed ramblings of poets and story tellers. This is because the analytic, as ordained as it would seem by the scientific method, is handicapped by this virtue in that it must limit its inquiries to what can be demonstrated. It tends to tell us more about what we cannot say than what we can:
1+1=2
If I let go of this pencil, it will drop the ground.
And even a relativistic hippy knows better than to step in front of a moving bus.
Enough said. Surely this can’t be enough. When it comes to 1+1 fact status, reality gives us little that can even come close. And there is way too much of import that is way beyond all reasonable hope of adequate demonstration. Only the continental, and its poetic speculations, can fill this gap. Picasso argues that taste is the enemy of art, that expectation stifles the creative act. Likewise, it is only by sacrificing certainty one can hope for understanding, for inspiration, and the beauty of a vision.
*
We all know that the Simulacrum doesn’t exist, that the Gulf War did happen, that Baudrillard is more of a Sci-fi writer who happens to be a philosopher, that there is no object such as a being-for-or-in-itself, and that Foucault’s situational ethics and reason of power cannot be established with certainty. It’s no surprise to us that Sartre won his Pulitzer for literature, that Being and Nothing is an articulation on the theme of Nausea and that the experience described seems strangely like a mescaline trip. It poses no problem for us. Why should it you? We know it’s only perspectives, mental constructs constructed in our mental labs and held before the world to see how they stand. We know the method. We know what works, what doesn’t, and all points in between. And we know the difference between fact and speculation. The only question left is: do you?
*
Whenever confronted with the issue of reason, I have to ask 2 questions:
By what criteria is a statement deemed to be reasonable?
And by what power will that criterion be enforced?
*
We have art so that we do not die of truth, Nietzsche proclaims as he breaks into his Dionysian dance. And for the first time, philosophy acknowledges the value of resonance and seduction.
*
Despite Lacan’s apparent success as an intellectual and womanizer and at somehow mixing the two (though we must be suspicious as we’re never sure where his loyalties lie), my experience has been that philosophy isn’t the kind of thing you try to pick up chicks with.
*
Admit it you prudes, you systematizers of bad faith: it’s resonance and seduction. The mathematical precision, the order, resonates with your fierce repulsion to chaos, and seduces you like a warm body in a cold, confusing world. How can you lie like that (even to yourselves) while claiming some intimate and exclusive access to Truth? What’s to be ashamed of? It all has value. It’s all fuel for the fire. Why be so anal? While some of us need it to stand at attention, others want it to rock and roll?
*
There is only one truth: no truth, only understanding.
There is only one rule: perspective: you either get it or you don’t.
And there is only one law (the golden one): DON’T BE AN A-HOLE!!!
*
My father, born in Arkansas and migrant to California, type-A personality, aggressive driver, and 40 year veteran of the L.A. roads, use to advise me on staying out of wrecks:
Drive like a fucking madman, son;
Make those other cocksuckers stay out of your way!

Efficiency

As typical as it seems, in market based societies, it’s never enough to talk about more and less. We cannot, for instance, rest on the old adage that workers want more compensation for less work, while their employers pose, against these demands, their own requirement for minimal investment at maximum return. It might seem common sense. But on closer investigation, we might see that the two positions are not so deeply entrenched. If they were, the workplace would hardly be worth any amount of compensation, a perpetual battle with management while struggling to stay afoot in the mass competition toward better paying and easier jobs. And from there, the evidence goes all over the place. How can one be so happy at 10 an hour and another so miserable at 20? The janitor whistles, easily, while mopping his floor. He seems entranced, content, as if in meditation. Another man, sleek and muscular from hauling furniture, makes enough to go to the bar, nightly, and wakes each morning to sweat it off. At quitting time, the cycle repeats. And no random piss tests, thank God. Vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients continue to scrimp through their hand to mouth lives. Meanwhile, a white collar manager slumps over his computer, grumbles often, and when he can, steals a moment on Monster.com. He’s hardly afraid he’ll get caught and, sometimes, even hopes. And then there’s us: the intellectually and creatively curious, strange creatures that, in our ass-backwardness, approach the hierarchy of needs from the top down. We neglect basic creature comforts while clinging, often self destructively, to the drug-like addiction of self actualization. And what are we working toward? That is when so many of our heroes, the successful and famous, live public lives of misery, and sometimes kill themselves? Clearly, we need to break it down to individual needs, demands, and desires. We need to penetrate the multiplicity and interrogate the interactions. Furthermore, we need to recognize that it is primarily about expectations and their satisfaction, and that satisfaction (for our purposes) is not binary and digital by nature, but analogue, subjective, and a matter of degree. We need to consider efficiencies.

Efficiency, a mechanical term used for equipment such as pumps, boilers, HVACs, etc., concerns the actual output of a system as compared to its theoretical rating and is a product of the differential between what the designer’s mathematics tell them, what something should be able to do, and what actually occurs in practice. But at a more fundamental level, it can also be the differential between the energy or resources put in to a thing (the input) and energy or resource gotten out (the output). And it is in this sense that we use the term. Only, for our purposes, we will define it in the more abstract sense of that which seeks to maximize itself by minimizing the differential between input and output. But before we go on, there is more we can learn from the boiler room. First of all, we need to understand that there can never be 100% efficiency. Along the way, there is always a loss (heat loss) that can never return to an active or potential form. As any plant-op knows, you can never expect a 100% return on condensate on any boiler system. And like perpetual motion, everywhere we look, we find it equally elusive. Secondly, we must remain mindful that energy can never be created or destroyed, only transformed, eventually ending in its always final form: heat. Therefore, any motion or energy must be taken from something else. The pump must be driven by electricity. The electricity must created by the turbine that, in turn, derives its energy from steam. And steam is the product of heat (remember heat loss?) taken from coal, its BTUs, that sees its efficiency reduced to ash. And finally, it must be remembered that our boiler room is a complex and dynamic interaction of efficiencies, a coexistence in which any one efficiency making too large a demand can steal energy from other efficiencies, thereby minimizing them and causing a breakdown in the supra-efficiency of coexistence. Furthermore, sub-efficiencies can be supra-efficiencies to their own relevant sub-efficiencies while also being sub efficiency to their own supra efficiencies. The pump, an efficiency in itself, is the product of a lot of sub efficiencies (the windings, the armature, etc.). It, in turn, is a sub-efficiency to the supra-efficiency of the boiler room (the plant) that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of the building by either heating or cooling it, thereby maximizing the tenant’s sub-efficiency of being comfortable that, in turn, serves the supra-efficiency of how they function in the building.

And thus we leave the boiler room with new tools to analyze our initial questions. We now see why the janitor can whistle while he meditates on the movement of the mop: time passes quickly in thought, and he has managed to keep his life within his means. For him, it is not matter of more; it is a question of efficiency. Likewise, the furniture hauler maximizes the efficiencies of his desire to drink and smoke pot without interference from the efficiency of job security. Plus he likes the exercise. Even the vagrants, drifters, and welfare recipients make more sense. They’ve balanced their efficiencies by lowering their demands. Meanwhile, the white collar worker struggles daily with the minimized efficiencies of job security, a sense of meaning, and family life due to long hours at the office that do nothing to increase financial efficiency in his salaried position. We further see the minimization of the supra-efficiency of co-existence that can occur when either the workers or employers make higher demands, and maximize efficiency by compromising others. If the employer demands higher profit, that efficiency can only be maximized, that is since energy and resources cannot be created out of nothing, by stealing from the efficiencies of the employees and their sub-efficiencies. And should the worker demand more, this can only take from the supra-efficiency of the company and further the economy by raising prices. Consequently, we now see that the Occupy Wall Street movement may not be a demand for more, but a demand for efficiency. It’s not about hating the rich. It’s about hating wealth at the expense of everyone else: the maximization of the large scale efficiencies of the few at the expense of others, and the minimization of their efficiencies. We can also see, finally, how our desire for self actualization can interact with other sub-efficiencies, and how the minimization of those others can lead one to misery, or even suicide. The applications seem infinite, and may well go beyond the issue of economics. The coexistence between the environment and civilization immediately comes to mind. But given our present focus, we might consider the possibility of a new ethical theory that says (complimenting the utilitarian) that those acts are good that maximize the supra-efficiency of coexistence. We might consider our happiest moments and ask: was it matter of having more? Or was it, rather, a matter of having all needs, demands, and desires, ours and those of others, come together in a state of harmonious co-existence: the coexistence of efficiencies?

Sound Bites

The problem with intellectuals is that they tend to talk in sound bites….
See what I mean?

On a recent episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, public record was made of Cornel West, black philosopher and activist, standing up and ready to throw down with Ron Christie who had made a negative (and in my opinion, snide) comment concerning West’s use of sound bites. “A brother don’t go to jail twice for sound bites”, he snarled as he settled and sat back down. This was, first of all, intriguing and a surprise as West, though a bit excitable, is a consistently buoyant and joyful man. At the same time, it was pathetic in that Christie, a black conservative, had made the criticism after backing his position with a long string of platitudes. Be that as it may, both men had clearly fallen into a popular, yet, questionable understanding of the term. We’ve heard the condemnations: sloganeering, jingoism, cheap commercialization of higher thought. Wanting to stand above the common fray, we snub our nose at the sound bite and fail to even distinguish it from the platitude, which is something quite different and, while usually harmless and somewhat useful, can ultimately prove more manipulative. However, I would argue that the sound bite serves two vital functions, one of which is rooted in the primary functions of language. For one, it is, for better or worse, the primary means by which any philosophy gets to common people and, while leaving them with gaps and misconceptions, at least gives the discipline validity among those for which it would otherwise hold no value. From Descartes’ “Ergo Cogito Sum” to Sartre’s “Existence precedes Essence” to Nietzsche’s, ironically, beaten to death “What doesn’t kill me makes me strong”, the sound bite is the fire brought by Sisphysus to the people and gives access to those who lack the patience, time, or willingness to confront the opaque prose and ideas of philosophy. And though some among us would like to punish the perpetrators in the same manner as the myth, there is still the possibility that, for some, these bite-size nuggets may be enough to encourage further exploration. But more important is how the sound bite can function for the intellectual themselves. I would argue that the sound bite is the poetry of the intellectually curious, or as Frost describes the poem: a momentary stay against confusion. We rise out disorder into order, he further says, I would sooner play tennis with the net down than write free verse. But what he failed to see was that free verse, being a concession to the messiness of reality and the plainness of general discourse, takes on the same ordering function as the more willful structuring of fixed forms. And it is only a short step to recognize that this utility is not exclusive to higher forms of communication, but ubiquitous throughout language itself, and that the sound bite serves as a tentative anchor, a brief reprieve from a turbulent flux of thought, language, and meaning.

But it’s a reprieve that cannot be permanent. And it is imperative upon us, as those who take this common function to a higher level, to encourage ourselves and others to let go, to surrender ourselves to the flux, the creative destruction that, if we let it, can take us to the next reprieve with more experience, better perspective, and greater safety. As Layotard warns, in The Postmodern Condition, there is a human gravitation toward the accessible and easily communicated -the place where sound bites and platitudes can take on a brownshirted arrogance and run amok, oppress, and destroy. Furthermore, we could say as much of language as Deluez and Guattarri does of the book: it doesn’t mirror the world but forms a rhizome with it. And when we fail to make this distinction, confuse language for reality and try to fix meaning, we run into trouble. Tempted by the ease of heuristics, we turn from thought and settle into superficiality. We fixate on appearances and develop an apparent inability or lack of willingness to look beneath the surface. We refuse to leave the cave. We categorize and leave it at that, resort to tags and readymade concepts. Racial slurs fall casually from our lips. The Mexicans are stealing our jobs . Cain admonishes his own race to quit feeling sorry for themselves and go to work. White boys cheer him on. He’s better than Obama. Liberal! Conservative! Right-wing! Left-wing! Fascist! You can’t do that, that’s socialism. REEK! REEK! REEK! Death to Capitalism the sign at the rally reads. Heuristic narratives abound. A man works a job for years, is prompt and dependable, and every night goes home to smoke a joint. The company initiates random drug testing, hangs signs that boast Proud to Be Drug Free as if the accomplishment were anything more than an executive decision. After the man tests dirty and is given the choice of rehab or losing his job, the counselor scolds him gently: See what drugs will get you? A professor inquires, What went on in those buildings before 9/11? and is fired for questioning the narrative of America, land of the free, love it or leave it, always number 1, and now the noble victim. How they flourished then, the platitudes and sound bites. And when times get tough, the tough turn simple. Meanwhile, tepid scholars shut it all out on their semantic gerbil wheels, take pride in their mathematical precision, and scoff, smugly, at speculation. That of which we cannot speak, we must not say. There are other ways to shut a discourse down.

We now see how the ordering function of language can turn on language as creation, how sound bites, and even platitudes, once innocuous, can turn to whips, or stones that could crack a skull if hurled just right. And we have to wonder, given the abuse, if we have the right to a mutter a word, much less a sentence. And yet we talk and write. I’m tired of being pissed. I’m tired of myself being pissed. I must look beyond my own clichés; it’s always more complex than “stupid” or “evil”. And still, the narrative beckons me. It will surely get me when I’m weak or drunk. Meanwhile, a child listens to strange sounds passing over their head, plays, mimics, and learns to speak. Later, we evolve in conversation, repeat the lines that express us best, and wanting more, engage in random variations and juxtapositions. Sooner or later, we find a better way. For myself, my mind’s a flux. ( How would I know what I thought if I did not write? The writer says.) But soon enough the sounds will emerge. Mere utterances will gather into a kind of psychic mother-nese, a dancing la langue that sprouts in all directions, and fills my head like vines. They’ll wait for words to bud like so much foliage that, thick and unruly, must be trimmed and shaped and brought to order. A poem is like a good bra,says Donald Justice, and finishes with,There comes a time when reader and poem are equally beautiful. And with that in mind, a goal, and a little effort, the sound bite as such takes form.

Loose Ends

40 days in the desert…. Well, actually, 40 hrs and 5 stepping stones later I return to the conversation not a more enlightened man, but empty as air. I’m not Christ for God’s sake! I’m just a guy who wanted see what would happen. I’m even doing it now as I don’t know what to say or what I’m going to say. I have no idea how to fill this space and get to the money shot. Was it worth it? Yeah…. Sure…. Why not? Am I satisfied? Well, no, not entirely. There’s always a better way to say a thing. And satisfaction was never the only purpose. As with everything I do, it was more about process, the act of becoming, and of seeing what becomes. But to make the becoming worth it, I have to approach it from every angle. It’s the only way I can hope to break through the elastic barrier, the creative hymen that gets me to a further point. And as I once read about art, one of the greatest myths is the notion of creativity as a mystical act. We must approach it as an activity like any other activity –a mere act. And as disappointing as this may seem, as much as it may suck the magic out of the effort, you come to find it’s true. To make it conditional on inspiration, as I did when young, is to paralyze oneself and deny an opportunity to develop craft and sureness of hand. And while there’s nothing mystical in this, there can be moments when craft and imagination come together and the magic actually happens. Inspiration is a little like luck; and it’s like the saying goes: luck is when opportunity meets with preparation. (Fucking platitudes! Not even enough mojo to create a decent sound bite.)

And everyone has an act. The cabinet maker has one: making cabinets. The carpenter has his: building what must be built. The actor has an act in more ways than one. And my act is the act of acting. The rest is up to whim. One must be thankful there are only three ways to approach a thing (swoop, bash, or bleed), that is when there are so many things to be approached. Perhaps too many. Perhaps it’s the source of my ADD, my forward flights of mind. I’m haunted by a kind of postmodern malaise, and find myself the victim of having too many options. Perhaps I was wrong in becoming a generalist. All the anxiety of trying to figure out what to do, that is with a full wish list and, at most, 20 to 25 productive years. Perhaps I should narrow it down. But then I think about that to which I might choose to commit, and what I would have to give up, and, soon enough, I’m back to the old conclusion: never mind.

It’s in my blood, I guess. But at least I still have these: 5 boxes that collected random thoughts and stray ideas. It was as if all the bits and pieces needed to gather, to huddle against the flux in my brain. Even the flux, sensing the safety in numbers, seemed to coalesce into new ideas and pass themselves off as respectable members and colleagues. Perhaps with time, having survived the natural selection of ideas, they’ll make themselves part of the “in crowd”. It’s as much in the same way that sleep produces dreams and that something about the mind that likes juxtapositioning one thing on the other, the random fusing of mental chatter, monad to monad, atom to atom, until the complex and subtle interplay of pleasure and pain, the irrefutable directorship of jouissance finds a pattern. Our dreams repeat it like good sex when found. Beyond that it’s like abstract art: the only meaning to be gotten comes from the discourse that emerges around it. No truth, only interpretation.

And what have I gained from my 5 little dreams? My visions in the desert? Well, for one, I need a vasectomy and Viagra. For another, while I’m good at stringing ideas together, my writing needs work, that I need to plain it down and take Strunk and White’s suggestion that I make strong active sentences the backbone of my work, that the poet in me may be the death of the writer, and that sometimes I’m a little too artsy for my own good –damn that mothernese, that dancing la langue. I’ve also learned that form can condition content, that the form I’ve chosen limits me to three discrete blocks of information, and that it feels good to break things down into smaller paragraphs. It just moves more fluidly. And lastly, I now realize the true influence of Nicole Blackman on my sensibility –all these shifts of mind: a room of moving shadows. Perhaps this is the source of the underlying anger when I wanted to write with the resigned sigh of conclusion. And I cannot say it enough, I’m tired of being pissed. I’m tired of myself being pissed. I’m tired of listening to myself, the rants, the raves. I’m tired of the stupidity. I’m tired of hating people I cannot truly hate. Is this the hazard of making it rock and roll? Or is it just the drink? As Seinfeld jokes: the problem with drunks is that they either really love you or really hate you. Enough said. Luv ya, man! Is my middle the speed smear of these rapid fluctuations? These shifting extremes? Still: I am what I am what I am what I am. It’s a mixed package.

But look at us now! Started with no plan, no idea of what would be included, and here we are. I look to the board like a distant shining city emerging from a haze, and feel the anxiety of wondering what I’ll be when I get there. Much as it was when I took out, I have no plans. I feel different now. But maybe not. Still, I look to it in same way one might look to slipping into wet clothes. I fear the letting go. And I have tried to piece the fragments of myself together for you, but feel I haven’t explained myself. I’ve said a lot about nothing and even have pics. But perhaps it’s not enough. The only thing I can offer now is the money shot, the very assumptions by which I live and breathe:

1. Everything takes its natural course. Even when we intervene it is simply part of that course.
2. Everything must be questioned, including and most importantly ourselves.
3. Assumptions are like promises; they’re made to be broken. (Refer to 1.)

PS: You’re not even there, are you?

?: how do you become a writer

It’s certainly not going to happen here.

This is just practice.

i agree with one major point in your first post, namely, that wordiness does not necessarily mean better. the idea of efficient writing is a good one.

it is for that reason that i’m going to ignore your request for a 2 page anything, because i don’t have 2 pages worth of stuff to write… but the idea is a neat… if i ever get that much information about a topic, i might try it sometime … it allows for a creativity and elegance that I simply ignore most of the time - i write things as think them (albeit out of order frequently)

the idea of excessively wordy essays is taught early to students… i recall several teachers imposing word counts on essays starting in elementary school. this is NOT how one should make a point. in fact its the opposite, people don’t want to read large amounts of information to find what they want - they want the answer now. easy to read information, elegantly displayed information, often goes much further than detailed, redundant… and too wordy of text.

easter egg: next time you open word, type:

=rand(200,99)

and press enter to go to next line. watch what happens

I’m actually surprised anyone took the time to look at this.

Thanks!

Enjoyed the rambles. Writing… It isn’t because we want to, we HAVE to. Agony and ecstacy. About every two or three years I’m compelled to write. Usually, it’s about nothing in particular, just the need to find expression. The rest of the time it’s the two or three sentence blurb. I’ve always had a problem with composition. There seems to be two things happening at the same time, all aimed at the same question: who am I writing this for? If I’m writing or someone else, it’s easy. Tell 'em what you’re going to tell 'em, then tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em. It fulfills the expectations and an idiot (me) can do that sort of thing in their sleep. But when I’m writing for me, it becomes stream of consciousness and composition be damned. I suppose that’s a comment about my undisciplined lack of structure, but for some reason, I have never felt that my authenticity was locked into linguistic structure. In fact, just the opposite. So two pages? Sure, if I’m writing for an audience, but if I’m writing for myself it can be two paragraphs or ten pages…

I noticed that your posts reflect that same attitude.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to read them. I’m always surprised when anyone does and always engage in these exercises with the expectation that I’ll be primarily doing for myself. Plus that, I love the process of shaping a piece of prose.

And your right, they are mostly rambles centered around a theme. But I would also add that a lot of it was due to the confines I laid out for myself which turned it into a game of trying to fill space with as much meaningful content as I could. I hope to take some time out later and try to shape them a little better and extract a little more clarity out of them.

And while your right to point out the loose stream of consciousness method at work in stuff like these and my posts, I like to think of all of it as stepping stones in a process that will lead to work that is well expressed and clearly articulated. Thanks again.

It’s got to be chaotics: this constant gravitation from order to disorder, the getting and spending (the world, after all, is too much with us), and the endless effort to contain the clutter. I stand in my room, cleaned only two days ago, and inspect the wreckage: the empty cigarette packs, the heaping ashtrays and ash that dusts the small table in front of my computers, itself close to toppling under the ill distributed weight of 40 ounce beer bottles (often half full) and beer cans that must be cleaned and recycled. My books are scattered, laid carelessly on any surface that would take them. (And how do my bookshelves fill so fast?) The tops of my bed stands, once two open spaces catching the light, now darken under the artifacts of my daily existence: on one side (gum stimulators, peroxide, acid reducers, etc.), and the other, a growing pile of bills and junk mail, tidings from the digital age, either a stern reminder of an obligation, or a glowing invitation to bring into my life, yet, more clutter. I’ve got nowhere to hide them. All drawers are packed and difficult enough to open and close: another project on my to-do list. Artwork (my father’s and mine) nearly conceal the walls. And, until I either lose the sentiment, or we invent a fourth dimensional storage space, there’s nothing I can do about that. And what would I do without gadgets? The creature comforts of the electronic age? (Which reminds me; I need to organize my documents.) It’s never enough. I know that now. But all I can do is sigh and set to work.
*
Clean, discard, arrange, meditate, it will not be discouraged. Go where you will, it will not be escaped. Create some space, it will fill it. Make some time, it’ll take it, and duly remind you that you are duty bound. Extra cash? No problem! It knows what you want and, for a low monthly payment, that space can be filled. Ubiquitous as an infestation or plague, it closes in from all directions, fills every space, every corner, seeks out every gap and silence and suppresses each in a tyranny of clutter. We could say it’s some kind of coup, or Capitalism, perhaps. But we sense it’s something more. Our instincts tell us that beyond every presence is absence. Well enough. The only problem is that, followed through, it can only follow that beyond every absence is presence. The fabric of being settles in and mends the tear. And the absence of Pierre becomes a kind of presence in itself. Or should we say: the absence of absence expressed through the presence of clutter?
*
The equation’s simple, really: Clutter + Indecision = Angst
*
I’ve got something for you, my mother says as she rummages through her closet. I feign appreciation, take it home, and put it away in my own over-packed closet. Is she in on it too?
*
My friend invites me over for beer and barbeque. He and his wife, both professionals without any children, live in a big white house with plenty of space. And when they’re not looking, I scowl at the clean white walls, the sparse décor, and the wide wooden floors with nothing scattered upon them, floors that give a faint echo as you walk to the bathroom. When I see his garage (his sparsely arranged garage), I imagine what could be stored there.
*
We must despise it, and, yet, seem drawn. Why else would we go to such lengths to rid ourselves of clutter, only to make room for more? No sunny Saturday without yard sales. No day without accepted obligations. No driving without the frustration of traffic. No friends, no lovers, no family without sacrifices of time and money. People are clutter too; they get under our feet; and yet we love. We say we’ve had enough, yet dream, scheme, and want. Nowadays, even the countryside and desert seem to brace against the approaching rumble of bulldozers. Is it the fullness of being we’re after, and then resent when we’re full, bloated, and too bogged down to dance? Is it more than metaphor when Sartre describes existence as being for-itself (a nothingness) projecting out of the in-itself (a something) toward the something of being in-itself? Does our frustration come from gravitating to that which we are equally trying to escape? Or have we simply lost our Zen?
*
Out of my way! I’ve got more important things to do. My wish list is long and my plate runneth over. And I’ve got the technology to do it. I’ve committed to nothing but the life of the mind. You might say I’m the guy that Kierkegaard warned you about: the aesthete. If it can be thought, I want to think it. If it can be experienced by the mind, I want to know what it’s like. Zizek was right. With every discount or coupon, I will buy books that I may or may not get to, if for nothing else, for the vicarious joiussance of having the books know themselves. But still, I’d like to read them. So I’ve got no time for idle chatter, the simple things, or the petty, mundane bullshit. Nor you, demagogue, Mr. Certain, keeper of the key, wannabe Capote with your clever remarks and imaginary entourage, metaphysician of presence; silly guru, would you presume to be anything more than clutter?
*
But look what I’ve done. I’ve filled this space with my own mental clutter. This would be forgivable if it weren’t for the casual and inadvertent way I have just made it yours.
*
It’s done. The room is straightened up –for now. Still, I look into my closet where the giving and taking, the hiding, have created even more clutter. But my mind’s exhausted, and it’s easy to hide, and I close the door. Perhaps I’ll watch a movie On Demand, or something on the internet. There are so many options. Or maybe I’ll take a nap and dream of being in a dark space with only a thin slice of light below me. Maybe, for some unarticulated reason, I’ll draw to it (visibility, perhaps?), and bring clutter into the world.

The Platonic Realm

Watch any commercial, and with some scrutiny, it becomes clear what the primary message is and who is running the show. Starting with the most obvious, the African American, what we usually get are middle class, suburban blacks who only display remote hints of their heritage when it can be exploited for comical effect –such as the stern wife glaring at her apparently clueless husband. Of course, this is not to say that the actual referent is any less African American than the diversity of blacks we might encounter in reality. It is merely to suggest that what is actually being referred to, rather, are yuppies that happen to have dark skin. Nor do we see boundaries crossed when we’re offered, as an alternative: hip hop artists with expensive, but ghettoized clothes (a caveat to their urban roots) embellished with lots of bling. And it’s pretty much the same thing with other minorities. And while one must praise the inclusiveness of it and give it due credit for its part in the spread of multiculturalism, one also has to raise an eyebrow at the catch implied. Even alcohol, which society generally holds mixed feelings about, must seek its acceptance as such. We never see the kinds of parties we go to, or the bars we hang out at. It is, rather the player’s havens, the playgrounds of the successful and celebrity-like, places where the women and men are like Greek statues draped in the latest fashion, with token freaks, beloved and shamanic, thrown in for effect, and where we know they all work hard to play hard and always, as the disclaimer reminds us to do ourselves, drink responsibly. And while it may be less noticeable with whites, because the indoctrination runs deeper and farther back (since the beginning of TV), it is still clearly there. It generally stays within the perimeters of the middle class, driving through a wondrous landscape in the newest SUV, while their misfit and rebellious children, wearing the latest fashions, play video games and ride the rail into a college bound future. “Start having a good life, start living with inspiration”, the song goes as the keys are passed, happily, from stranger to stranger securing a sense of community. To look and hear, one would swear we were living in a golden age shared with us via the bounty of Capitalism. And while it would be obvious that they are merely reflecting the target of their marketers, we also have to ask if media hasn’t (perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not) mutated into a kind of Platonic realm of ideal forms, forms shaped in the drawing rooms of marketers based on our roles as producer/consumers.

And this clearly has bled over into the programming as well. Take, for instance, Seinfeld where the only question that ever seems to confront any character is not one of whether they can afford a product (a question that confronts most of us every day), but rather one of which to buy. Even the token slacker, Kramer, seems to glide easily on whatever income he could possibly have. And in Will and Grace, we come again to “the catch” in that the path to enlightenment, to tolerance for the homosexual, requires that we be weaned into acceptance with a young, attractive professional who, once again, shows no real concern for what he can afford. Even in many family comedies, or even dramas, where there are clearly financial limitations (that are sometimes exploited for humor), the issue of real financial struggle rarely comes up. Nor do movies completely escape it for all their honest efforts to portray the real world. In a special, by Siskal and Ebert, How do They Afford Those Apartments, the two note the discrepancy between the careers the characters were in and the apartments they were living in, yet shouldn’t be able to afford. And it stands to reason that, for many directors, the need to embellish their stories with the visually pleasing might over-ride the precision of reality. It even slips in to independent movies. In Sophia Copula’s, Lost in Translation, the romantic idealism of the privileged partying in extraordinary circumstances; then see it again in Marie Antoinette in the drag of a period piece. Still, it works.

But no ideal is so complete, so impressive, without comparison to the less than ideal. Thanks to COPS, we now have a public whipping post for white trash and stubborn, reluctant minorities. And where, exactly, are the suburbanites, pulled over in their SUVs after a few after-work cocktails? Where are the embezzlers? Apparently, it’s not as interesting. Meanwhile, Dawg, rebel, entrepreneur, devoted shepherd, seeks out the strays and pounces upon them with tough love. Dragging them back to the flock, he petitions them to submission until they must bow their heads in shame and confession and start on the path to self redemption. Always the breakthrough. Always the happy ending. Always the circle of the loving functional closing in on the nonfunctional. “I know!” whimpers the young woman on Intervention and shudders. The gaze of the camera zeroes in. “I was there, man!” pines the fallen celebrity. Another comeback courtesy of Dr. Drew. We cheer at the biggest loser, the fierce willpower to rejoin the beautiful people. And while Hoarders would seem to be of a different breed, on further thought, we realize that the real violation lies in the vulgarization of consumption generally aggravated by an absence of production. It’s a warning to us all. Produce! Consume! Do that or this could be you.

But forget all that. Let’s make a deal and buy a Lotto ticket, ride the Wheel of Fortune to the real world or jersey shore, or let’s go to spring break and scream: who here wants to be a millionaire? From Dialing for dollars to Jeopardy to American Idol to The X Factor, if there is one thing Capitalism has always been good at selling, it’s possibility.

Not that all of us are buying. We know the difference between what we see and what is real. We feel the alienation. It doesn’t concern us. But what should, or even disturb, is the question of whether our leaders do. Given their common remoteness and isolation, together, we have to ask if they actually are true believers. Certainly, some of them have risen from our ranks. But what are they but a success story? And what happens when they’re there and under all that influence? Furthermore, we have to ask if it acts as a normative agent. When the place I work at instituted a no smoking policy throughout the campus, they hung signs that said “Proud to be Smoke Free” as if it were something heroic, something we were all waiting for them to do, but were waiting for them overcome some major obstacle. Was it spin? Or did they actually believe it? Think candy coated fascism. Government passes laws concerning personal behavior as if they had some kind of consensus. Smoking, drugs, drink, prostitution, all of it haunted by the tyranny of the functional.: the realm of ideal forms. And why doesn’t Obama smoke anymore?

The Platonic Realm

Watch any commercial, and with some scrutiny, we soon infer the message and who is running the show. Starting with the obvious, the African American, what we usually get is a middle class, suburban black who only displays remote hints of their heritage when it can be exploited for comical effect –such as the domineering wife glaring at her clueless husband. Of course, this is not to say that the actual referent is any less African American than those we might encounter in reality. It has nothing to do with them. It is, rather, the real referent: yuppies that happen to have dark skin. Nor does the alternative cross any boundaries when we’re offered hip hop artists with expensive, but ghettoized clothes (a caveat to their urban roots) embellished with lots of bling. And it’s much the same with other minorities. And while one must praise the inclusiveness of it and give it due credit for its part in the spread of multiculturalism, one also has to raise an eyebrow at the catch implied. Even alcohol, which society generally holds mixed feelings about, must seek its acceptance through the kinds of parties most of us will never be invited to, or the bars we can afford to hang out at. What we get, rather, are the player’s havens, the playgrounds of the successful and celebrity-like, places where the women and men are like Greek statues draped in the latest fashion, with token freaks, beloved and shamanic, thrown in for paternal effect, and where we know they all work hard to play hard and always, as the disclaimer reminds us to do, drink responsibly. And while it may be more subtle with whites in general, because it’s been developed far longer (since the beginning of TV, in fact), it still generally stays within the perimeters. Strangely content and easy going for success in the the age of Jack Welch, we watch suburbanites drive through wondrous landscapes in the newest SUVs, while their misfit and rebellious children, wearing the latest fashions, play video games and ride the rail into college bound futures. When the road ends, the keys will be passed from stranger to stranger with a message: Start having a good life! Start living with inspiration! Are we witness to a golden age shared with us via the bounty of Capitalism? And while it would be obvious that they reflect the target audience, we also have to ask if media hasn’t (perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not) evolved into a kind of Platonic realm of ideal forms, forms based on our roles as producer/consumers, and perfected in the drawing rooms of marketers.

It’s bled into the programming as well. Take, for instance, Seinfeld where the only question that ever seems to confront any character is not one of whether they can afford a product (a question that confronts most of us every day), but rather one of which to buy. Even the token slacker, Kramer, seems to glide easily on whatever income he could possibly have. And in Will and Grace, we come again to “the catch” in that the path to enlightened tolerance for the homosexual requires that we be weaned into acceptance with a young, attractive professional who, once again, shows no real concern for what he can afford. Even in many family comedies, or even dramas, where there are clearly financial limitations (that are sometimes exploited for humor), the issue of real financial struggle rarely comes up. Nor do movies, for all their effort to rise above, completely escape it. In a special, by Siskel and Ebert, How do They Afford Those Apartments, they note the discrepancy between the careers of the characters and the apartments they were living in but, in reality, wouldn’t be able to afford. And it stands to reason that, for many directors, the need to embellish their stories with the visually pleasing might over-ride the precision of reality. It even slips into the independents. In Sophia Copula’s, Lost in Translation, we indulge in the romantic idealism of the privileged partying in extraordinary circumstances, a modern form of Impressionism as was revealed in Marie Antoinette when she repeats the formula in the dressing of a period piece. And it must have worked. This was evident, to me, in the movie Mammoth that felt like a rising director mimicking their influence. Even the independents take on certain mannerisms, certain ideals.

But no ideal is so complete, so impressive, without comparison to the less than ideal. Thanks to COPS, we now have a public whipping post for white trash and minorities who resist assimilation. There are no reality shows for suburbanites, pulled over in their SUVs after a few after-work cocktails, or for white collar crimes. Apparently, it’s not as interesting, or real. Meanwhile, Dawg, rebel, entrepreneur, devoted shepherd, pounces upon the strays with tough love. Dragging them back to the flock, he petitions them to submission until they must slump, guiltily, and start on the path to self redemption. Always the breakthrough, the happy ending, and always the circle of the loving functional closing in on the nonfunctional. “I know!” whimpers the young woman on Intervention and shudders. The gaze of the camera zeroes in. And another comeback courtesy of Dr Drew, a fallen celebrity pines “I was there, man.” We cheer at the biggest loser, the fierce willpower to rejoin the beautiful people. And while Hoarders would seem to be of a different breed, on further thought, we realize that the real violation lies in the vulgarization of consumption generally aggravated by an absence of production: too much the fullness of being. It’s a warning to us all. Produce! Consume! Do this or that could be you.

But forget all that. Let’s make a deal and buy a Lotto ticket, ride the Wheel of Fortune to the real world or jersey shore, or let’s go to spring break and scream: who here wants to be a millionaire? From Dialing for dollars to Jeopardy to American Idol to The X Factor, if there is one thing Capitalism has always been good at selling, it’s possibility.

Not that all of us are buying. We know the difference between what’s seen and what’s real. We feel the alienation. It’s not what concerns us. What does, or even disturbs, is the question of whether our leaders do. Given their shared remoteness and isolation, we have to ask if they recognize the normative element. When the campus I work at instituted a no smoking policy, they hung signs that said “Proud to be Smoke Free” as if it were something heroic, something we were all waiting for them to do, but were waiting for them overcome some major obstacle. Was it spin? Or are do they truly believe? Think tyranny of the functional, laws and policies passed on personal behavior, on smoking, drinking, drugs, urine testing, prostitution. Think: triumph for democracy. Think: only a true believer. There are those who have risen from our ranks and who should know better. Or is it just another success story? But think what it took to get there and the influence of those who let them in. Think faith. Think Heresy.

Trollers and Tyrants

I imagine a pack of mange-ridden dogs stalking a foggy wood. Eyes fixed forward, there is no banter, no communication, only the rhythmic and machinelike interplay of rasps, a dark cadence, their rapid breaths proclaiming their common intensity. Occasionally, a nose swoops to the ground for the scent of weakness.
*
Imagine a really good party. Imagine the music defining everyone, their power, their beauty, their joy. Think momentum as it engulfs the rambunctious play and buoyant conversation until the dissonance builds into a kind of ecstatic ambiance. Say now: love ya, man! Imagine hearing it everywhere and all the time.

Now imagine it crashed by skinheads. Think first loss: the fullness of the ambience as the playful banter becomes less playful and drops from the music. Think scowls and judgmental glares. Imagine the conversations. Think you conceding; them, never. Think cool, confident tone based not on certainty, but a refusal to accept any other answer. Think: the throwing up of the hands and righteous indignation at your agitation. Hear: the free exchange of ideas, of facts and reason. Think: step carefully. Imagine your unease as you make your case in the crosshairs.
*
It is right to start with skinheads –especially the neo-Nazis. In them, we get a better understanding of what underlies the authoritarian personality and its behaviors. First, we must recognize that they truly think they are right and that, from their perspective (which they are stuck in), all evidence can only support their belief. The problem is that the bulk of those who surround them are either too moderate to accept their extreme position, or too a-political to care. This creates an isolating effect that explains a lot. For instance, it explains their pack orientation. We can easily imagine them huddled back to back against a hostile world. And, no doubt, so can they. Furthermore, it reveals their aggression as being little more than an attempt to overcompensate for the nagging doubt provoked by their minority status. And the same holds true for Libertarians, Hard Determinists, and the religious right. The point is that much of what we generally write off as being a product of fanaticism may actually be a defense.
*
And always, of course, are the advocates of truth and certainty: the aristocrat and amateur scientist, the new law in town, they with all their talk of logic and reason, and the high praise for and exaggerated claim to a scientific method, the firm foundation of the objective. We know it well. They wear it on their sleeves, with their reading lists, and flash it, like a badge of authority, as they rush in to set everything strait. Should we dissent, they, in their cognitive dissonance, will only retreat into Cassandra-like denial and take it as proof of their rightness. Then, having regained their footing, and quick to wit and clever remarks, they’ll lash out like wannabe Capotes until the mocking laughter of their imaginary entourage puts us in our place. But take heart. They do it for our own good. The language game merely escalates into an act of tough love; and they are the only ones left who can save us from our relativistic nonsense. Plead as we will, they will not be detoured. Stand our ground, they will only push forward. Ask how they know, and they’ll casually reply that facts and experts agree, and those that don’t don’t matter. They will demand, debase, degrade, repeat themselves and harp, noxiously, “Prove it! Prove it! Prove it!” until we can only break down and be remade.

Silly gurus, they presume to be something more. And who scheduled the lecture, anyway, the seminar, and what do they have to offer that is so important we should allow our mental space to be used as a podium? And what is it? Money? Power? Adoration? What do they want? Were they ever really invited?
*
Lately, though, it’s been the tightfisted heirs of Nietzsche. Offspring of punk and Neo-Liberalism, they scoff at the complaints of the slave-like and weak. Remember, they roar gleefully, as they glide on circumstances, morality is for losers . Daring the cyberpunk dream of a Darwinistic world, they stand ready and willing. Others crawl from their barrels, a new Diogenes, masturbate in the town square, and sternly chastise the passersby for their phoniness in taking a deferred, polite, and respectable approach to the same urge. Missing, though, is a clear explanation as to what it means to be authentic. Both fantasies are much the same. Sitting in front of a computer in an air conditioned room, it’s easy to imagine, in one’s self, such rugged individualism. But it begs two questions:

1st of all, how much philosophizing would they, or Nietzsche, be able to do with a whip cracking at their backs? Or thinking in a world where the always pressing thought is survival? And 2nd, isn’t it ironic that they, who put so much value on their individuality, their difference from the common crowd (that which defines their player status), would have managed, in the end, to reduce Nietzsche to a fad?
*
In the end, though, the world will change as it will, and any one of us can only play a minor role. And when the day is over, and deep into the night, we’ll rest with our pack, mange ridden dogs and skinheads alike, all of us together. Diogenes will return to his barrel and write (we must admit his sincerity), while the aristocrat chuckles at the silliness of the world, hangs his powdered wig, and settles down to his flasks and equations. On a dark porch in desolate country, the new law in town, with the brim of his hat lowered, will sway on his rocker, strike a match, and take a slow draw from a cigarette which he will exhale with satisfaction. Tomorrow, he’ll sigh, tomorrow. Such men must scoff in the face of isolation. Yet, who do they want to reach? It’s got to be someone. What makes it so important?

The Simulacrum Effect

On October 9, the stock market crashed and the day was christened Black Monday in reference to Black Thursday which marked the beginning of the Great Depression. We readily embraced the connation and braced ourselves as markets plunged throughout the following month, even having our fears confirmed, via media, by 33 eminent economists that gathered in Washington DC, in December, and collectively predicted that the economy “could be the most troubled since the 1930’s". And while things weren’t stellar (they rarely are), and aggravated economic conditions in urban areas, thereby contributing to the L.A. riots and Bush Sr.’s one term presidency, there was nothing about it as catastrophic as dust bowls, 25% unemployment, and soup kitchens. Not even the plummet of 2008 came close to that. On January 17, 1991, we braced again, with thoughts of Vietnam, as air force jets parted for Kuwait and Iraq and proceeded to bring it all to an anti-climax that carried, with it, the phenomenological and emotional impact of a spud missile. It was this sense of being little more than a media event that allowed Baudrillard to boldly state that it didn’t even happen. And while the experience would have been different for an Iraqi, huddled over his children in his living room, while the world exploded around him, Baudrillard’s point had merit and was supported by the statistical irony that more soldiers would have died stateside in auto accidents than did in desert storm.

The point is that, throughout it, things went on as usual. And I suspect this was the case with many others. Furthermore, I have never lost my job to a Mexican or been a victim of reverse discrimination. Never had my ID stolen. Never been carjacked by a dope feign. And throughout all the ups and downs of the economy, I have pretty much always worked –except the one time I got fired. And the experience of most people appears to be similar. And, as much as I hate to admit it, given all my harping, I have never lost a job over a piss test or smoking policy. And even those newsworthy items I have experienced, such as HIV (I lost one friend I hadn’t seen in years and knew another guy who had it), it has never presented itself to me as the epidemic one got from the news. I’ve had people close to me lose good jobs to globalization, but never me. And as I suggested earlier, the crash of 2008 hardly touched me or anyone close. And I’ve never been in a major natural disaster, not which affected me. Admittedly, I’m lucky. And I wouldn’t shame anyone for accusing me of some kind of bourgeoisie complacency. But I suspect there’s something more and that my detachment is actually quite typical. I can’t help but feel that, throughout it all, we’ve been haunted by a chimera, a shadow play, a simulacrum effect perpetrated and sustained through media, and a sense that we’re always on the edge of doom while nothing seems to happen.

At the same time, they could be fulfilling a need, catering to their market. Many of us, as grade school students, crouched beneath our desks in cold war drills and were familiarized early with the apocalyptic grounded in New Testament prophecy. Perhaps we passed it to our children. From our fascination with Nostradamus in the seventies, to global warming, to 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar, we’ve always known that something had to go wrong -as if all this was too good to last. Furthermore, it would seem natural for us, given our always pending deaths, to engage in an archetypal projection, that as we grew older we would feel that things were getting worse. So no wonder we act like it’s the end of the world. Let one illegal immigrant collect government benefits, let one white man lose his job because of a job quota, let one corporate leader be busted for corruption, and we’re all over it. I told you so!, we roar, triumphantly. It’s as if we’re dependent on the unreality of it while being equally addicted to the act of acting like it’s real.

But something changed on 9/11 –at least temporarily. Clearly, the primary offense was the murder of 3000 people. But given the very real fear we felt that day, that history would return and we would, once again, experience a war within our borders, that anything could happen anywhere, you have to wonder if the secondary, but equally important offense was having broken through the simulacrum, of having made it feel real. The swift manner in which the networks worked to mend the tear suggested this. It was all so media friendly: digital collages, video superimposed on video, tanks foreshadowing war, the devastation, our reactions, and all of it peppered with images of a media friendly villain. Even the act contributed. If it hadn’t really happened, it would have made an excellent plot for a Steven Segal movie. Except in that narrative, the towers never would have been touched. So we flexed our muscles and balled our fists. The networks balanced our despair with broadcasts of our patriotic glee and unity and fluff pieces on the increased consumption of American flags. Of course, no serious journalist would dare a real analysis of why the terrorists wanted those buildings so bad (it was their second attempt), of what went on in there before, and what policies pissed these people off to such an extent. “Jealousy” we barked without hesitation. But that only reinforced our unquestioned embrace of the given narrative. Of course, the healing wasn’t truly complete until the wars that followed, wars kept easy to forget by image control implemented by military, government, and the corporate vultures that benefitted. Having a vested interest, they clearly learned some important lessons from Vietnam in keeping those that didn’t (and even stood to lose) from putting a stop to it all. We have to keep in mind, here, that these are the first wars that failed to benefit the American worker (war being Keynesian economics on steroids), but managed the tradition of running us into debt.

But what we should really worry about is a “boy who cried wolf” situation. Given the conditioning involved in being convinced of the import of things we generally find to be inconsequential, how will we know the consequential when we see it? Common sense tells us that the earth can only sustain so many people before it has to start discarding them through catastrophic measures (hunger, disease, war). But how do you convince people of this who are stuck in the complacency of the simulacrum, who have grown use to the sensational non-event? Outside of the actual disaster, how do you prove anything with what we have come see as mere entertainment, the camera of reality TV turned from the personal to the national (global even), that it could be real this time?

Clutter

It’s got to be chaotics: this constant gravitation from order to disorder, the getting and spending (the world, after all, is too much with us), and the endless effort to contain the clutter. I stand in my room, cleaned only two days ago, and inspect the wreckage: the empty cigarette packs, the heaping ashtrays and ash that dusts the small table in front of my computers, itself close to toppling under the ill distributed weight of 40 ounce beer bottles (often half full) and beer cans that must be cleaned and recycled. My books are scattered, laid carelessly on any surface that would take them. (And how do my bookshelves fill so fast?) The tops of my bed stands, once two open spaces catching the light, now darken under the artifacts of my daily existence: on one side (gum stimulators, peroxide, acid reducers, etc.), and the other, a growing pile of bills and junk mail, tidings from the digital age, either a stern reminder of an obligation, or a glowing invitation to bring into my life, yet, more clutter. I’ve got nowhere to hide them. All drawers are packed and difficult enough to open and close: another project on my to-do list. Artwork (my father’s and mine) nearly conceal the walls. And, until I either lose the sentiment, or we invent a fourth dimensional storage space, there’s nothing I can do about that. And what would I do without gadgets? The creature comforts of the electronic age? (Which reminds me; I need to organize my documents.) It’s never enough. I know that now. But all I can do is sigh and set to work.
*
Clean, discard, arrange, meditate, it will not be discouraged. Go where you will, it will not be escaped. Create some space, it will fill it. Make some time, it’ll take it, and duly remind you that you are duty bound. Extra cash? No problem! It knows what you want and, for a low monthly payment, that space can be filled. Ubiquitous as an infestation or plague, it closes in from all directions, fills every space, every corner, seeks out every gap and silence and suppresses each in a tyranny of clutter. We could say it’s some kind of coup, or Capitalism, perhaps. But we sense it’s something more. Our instincts tell us that beyond every presence is absence. Well enough. The only problem is that, followed through, it can only follow that beyond every absence is presence. The fabric of being settles in and mends the tear. And the absence of Pierre becomes a kind of presence in itself. Or should we say: the absence of absence expressed through the presence of clutter?
*
The equation’s simple, really: Clutter + Indecision = Angst
*
I’ve got something for you, my mother says as she rummages through her closet. I feign appreciation, take it home, and put it away in my own over-packed closet. Is she in on it too?
*
My friend invites me over for beer and barbeque. He and his wife, both professionals without any children, live in a big white house with plenty of space. And when they’re not looking, I scowl at the clean white walls, the sparse décor, and the wide wooden floors with nothing scattered upon them, floors that give a faint echo as you walk to the bathroom. When I see his garage (his sparsely arranged garage), I imagine what could be stored there.
*
We must despise it, and, yet, seem drawn. Why else would we go to such lengths to rid ourselves of clutter, only to make room for more? No sunny Saturday without yard sales. No day without accepted obligations. No driving without the frustration of traffic. No friends, no lovers, no family without sacrifices of time and money. People are clutter too; they get under our feet; and yet we love. We say we’ve had enough, yet dream, scheme, and want. Nowadays, even the countryside and desert seem to brace against the approaching rumble of bulldozers. Is it the fullness of being we’re after, and then resent when we’re full, bloated, and too bogged down to dance? Is it more than metaphor when Sartre describes existence as being for-itself (a nothingness) projecting out of the in-itself (a something) toward the something of being in-itself? Does our frustration come from gravitating to that which we are equally trying to escape? Or have we simply lost our Zen?
*
Out of my way! I’ve got more important things to do. My wish list is long and my plate runneth over. And I’ve got the technology to do it. I’ve committed to nothing but the life of the mind. You might say I’m the guy that Kierkegaard warned you about: the aesthete. If it can be thought, I want to think it. If it can be experienced by the mind, I want to know what it’s like. Zizek was right. With every discount or coupon, I will buy books that I may or may not get to, if for nothing else, for the vicarious joiussance of having the books know themselves. But still, I’d like to read them. So I’ve got no time for idle chatter, the simple things, or the petty, mundane bullshit. Nor you, demagogue, Mr. Certain, keeper of the key, wannabe Capote with your clever remarks and imaginary entourage, metaphysician of presence; silly guru, would you presume to be anything more than clutter?
*
But look what I’ve done. I’ve filled this space with my own mental clutter. This would be forgivable if it weren’t for the casual and inadvertent way I have just made it yours.
*
It’s done. The room is straightened up –for now. Still, I look into my closet where the giving and taking, the hiding, have created even more clutter. But my mind’s exhausted, and it’s easy to hide, and I close the door. Perhaps I’ll watch a movie On Demand, or something on the internet. There are so many options. Or maybe I’ll take a nap and dream of being in a dark space with only a thin slice of light below me. Maybe, for some unarticulated reason, I’ll draw to it (visibility, perhaps?), and bring clutter into the world.