Concept of Narrative at 19:00

Status update, April 17th 2011

I am beginning to understand the work of Charles Bukowski for the first time after coming down from On High.  Truly, truly, love is a fog.

Like a tomcat dodgin' raindrops

Working all weekend
like a tomcat dodgin' raindrops,
dancing over the self-concious cages
sabotaging the didactic missles.
A single-track mind, weeping constantly,
always sharp and at attention,
the supreme commander of the meatsuit.
Like a sudden gust of turbulence in the evening,
the effluvia of a new angle feels fresh and hi.
Riding this wild thing to its own conclusions,
feeling so naked that its right,
but rightly exposed to every tragedy
and ready for real human triumphs
which is to climb a holy mountain,
to crush the ego into a soft sand
and knead its suffering into clay
which is the absolute earth
and form it into a greatness
which was yesterday's shit.
So get wet, tomcat,
or spend your life spinning
your indigenous dance.
Every epic is formulaic,
archaic and prosaic.
So do as you are destined
leaving your desolate home
of which there is no return,
which has become wilderness
and the house of new tenants
and enter the odyssey which awaits.

interesting Daniel Pinchbeck bio

Great book about all matters contemporary and in question

This book should not be immediately dismissed for showing an interest in 2012.  Rightfully, the world has become cynical about marked, prophesized dates in the future and while Daniel Pinchbeck ultimately theorizes that 2012 will bring a "transformation of consciousness", his discussion is completely tangible, relevant and thought-provoking.

The Return of Quetzalcoatl would bring readers together from vastly different fields and backgrounds including fine arts, psychology, computer science, engineering, physics, metaphysics, philosophy, new age philosophy, hallucinogenic drug enthusiasts, and cultural analysts. 

With an emphasis on technology and futurism, the book is ultimately about spiritual journey and the question of humanism in the face of a highly technological and uncertain world.  What appeals to me about this book is the willingness to distinguish what constitutes a "will-to-ignorance" from the need to reach individual, creative solutions to the various issues outlined in the book.  Believe me, the book is out-there, but its never so far-out that you cannot see a glimmer of your own life in it.

Pinchbeck, at the very least, entertains readers by interpreting the world in a completely different way.  Be prepared to look into the future from the hindsights of Jungian psychology, a comparison of eastern and western philosophy and a reinterpretation of literatures.  Despite the headiness of pseudo-spiritual matters, the book is highly grounded in the realities of resource scarcity, and a precarious world of religious and political power structures.  

The book offerse perspectives on how to develop into "higher consciousness" in a different, changing world and offers an alternative view of "archaic revival" through "mythic structures and archetypes".  With a wholly realistic world view, Pinchbeck acknowledges the reality and necessity of suffering as losses before gains (a view of history and human development).  At the same time, the book puts a  cliche spotlight on ancient knowledge which muddles his progressive case as he describes travelling the world to trip on various, indigeounous hallucinogens. 

"God, as a psychic fact, reveals himself in our neuroses, our allergies, our failed love-affairs. 'God enters through the wound' he [Nietzsche] said."

Regardless of any truth or fallacy in the ideas of the book,  it is VERY interesting for a critical reader who might be concerned with trends moving towards negative and destructive tendencies of thought.  The Return of Quetzalcoatl in my view is an extreme esoteric voice which adds a needed perspective to remind readers of the immense power that they have.  It tries to introduce and validate a completely different way of thinking which does not have to necessarily be adopted but considered.

"Technology, its poisonous by-products, weapons of mass destruction, and inhumane repercussions are projections of the human psyche, expressing our current stage of development. They express not only our consciousness, but our unconsciousness."

"There are lots of questions but there are no answers"
-David Lynch

More about optimism, sustainability and saltiness

"You are the salt of the earth:
but if salt has lost its taste, how shall
its saltness be restored?  It is no longer
good for anything except to be thrown
out and trodden under foot by men.

You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
Nor do men light a lamp
and put it under a bushel,
but on a stand, and it gives light
to all in the house.  Let your light
so shine before men, that they may
see your good works and give glory
to your father who is in heaven.

Therefore I tell you, do not be
anxious about your life, what you shall eat
or what you shall drink, nor about your body,
what you shall put on.  Is not life more than food?
and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds
of the air: they neither sow nor reap
nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father
feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add
one cubit to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field,
which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown
into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,
O men of little faith?
Therefore do not be anxious saying,
What shall we eat?
What shall we drink? or
What shall we wear?
For the gentiles seek all these things;
and your heavenly father knows
that you need them all.
But seek first his kingdom
and his righeousness,
and all these things should be yours as well.

Therefore, do not be anxious
about tomorrow, for tomorrow
will be anxious for itself.
Let the day's own trouble be enough for the day."

-The words of Jesus
Book of Matthew Chapter 6, 13-14 and 25-34

One hell of a marketing campaign

If I were to say "The nature of our thoughts is the most effective contributor to our generation's future" many would accuse me of being too metaphysical, esoteric and generally unrealistic when compared to the role that action plays in the progression of events in the future.
Action is certainly the only way that anything is going to happen in the external world. But what causes those actions?
Our thoughts and our attitudes ultimately dictate our behavior, no? Therefore we act on the basis of how we feel, what we are thinking about, what we imagine.
      When we are afraid, we unconsciously produce the effect that we are afraid of. The decisions we make, based out of fear, cause the fear to be more imminent. Have you ever seen the movie Sphere where a group of scientists are in a secret laboratory at the bottom of the ocean and somehow whatever they fear immediately materializes - kind of like that.  But its really more like the attorney (or whatever he was) in Jurassic Park I that thought he could hide from the T-rex in an outhouse.
      In Hollywood, the characters which are most conscious of their fears or those that succumb to their fears the most (the ones whose motives are purely for survival or in avoidance of conflict) always have an unfortunate, moralistic end.
     Likewise in real life, as we are more objective, seeing and believing only what we want to see, we act in ways that make that a reality.  There is NO reason to even entertain disturbing ideas.  We all know people who are good at manifesting what they want.  What are they like?  They are positive, they are energetic, they are enthusiastic, they are entirely optimistic.  Some critics might say that it is because they are getting what they want that they are so optimistic.  But I would argue that it is the other way around. The way we think and feel decides who we are in the present and allows us to act according to the person we will become.  
    The idea of collective consciousness is not far off, either.  Just as every individual is in control of their own lives through their perception, our collective view of our social future is also decided by every person, I think.  You could call it paradigm.  A campaign to transform the United States would not necessarily be forcibly political, it would not be a cultural shift spearheaded by an elitist Avante Garde.  It would simply be a shift in consciousness.  When I say "consciousness", I don't mean to be ambiguous or esoteric again.  What I mean by consciousness is a lack of fear, an awareness of values and an awareness of true desires.  Some of these things are not very easy to do, however, learning to get rid of dominating, irrational fears and subsequent feelings of self-doubt, and guilt is a CLEAR, OBJECTIVE, REASONABLE, and ACHIEVABLE GOAL. 

     Today there are fears with potentially very dangerous consequences in this global climate.  I say potentially because our minds will draw us to those events or they will draw us to OUR end result.   It is important that I refrain from even mentioning the negative potential in the world because merely introducing the idea plants seeds which grow into controlling vines.  If we do not believe in it, then we will not allow it when the time comes to make a decision.  Many of the fears today are beyond our immediate control other than how we govern ourselves now and how we perceive our future - Not even how we perceive our future - it depends on how clearly we imagine it - how detailed can we be.  Who can ultimately stop us?  We are not going to be passengers in history as populations have been in the past.  Governments have made and executed plans against the hegemonic will because people have had no alternative vision for their own future.  Let's do this for ourselves.  Let's really imagine what our future will look like.  Let's stay focused on that and avoid being swept into a campaign which does not bring us closer to our goals.
      While many argue that our aspirations are too diverse, I believe that we would not be surprised at how many values we share.  Some are so universal that there would be no reason to sign them into law.  It would be redundant.


Would it be possible to develop technology to economically and socially support a human population double the size that it is today?


Yes it is possible.


All those in favor please raise your hand.


Is there anybody opposed to the idea? - There might be some people.  We'll talk about that later.


Will we develop and implement the technology?  That is the question at hand.


All Fears can be traced back to the fear of not having enough.  That is the master fear.  I am probably preaching,  but some of the pessimists out there believe that resources are scarce and limited.  This leads to a resignation of a Darwinian view of the economy and of society.  We don't have to be a perfect reflection of animals in nature.  We can reason, imagine and dictate our own futures.  I believe that it is this "resignation to darwinism" which continually puts us in places which we don't want to be in.  There are some that love to romanticize that "it is just the way that nature is".  They are right to an extent - while we are busy making plans, a disaster could strike, killing us in our sleep.  But that is out of our control.  Worrying about a natural disaster is not going to keep it from happening.  Our lot in life is to make our decisions based on logic about what we really want out of this whole experience.


Part of this resignation to darwinism is that: our utopias must always be costly to someone else - The weak, the poor, the uneducated etc.


Is this true?  No.


Is it possible to ELIMINATE human cost (exploitation)?  Yes.


Will we do it?  That is the question at hand.


Back to the question of "Enough".  The fear of not having enough can potentially ALWAYS exist.  It is not a matter of survival.  As standards of living have risen to unimaginable heights in some countries, there has been a marked increase, in the U.S. for example, of what Enough means.


Take an example of similar instances of decadence of the 1920s.  Enough was at an all-time high and consequentially the Fear of Not Having Enough meant different things.  New lifestyle images were marketed and sold without a consideration of why they were so great.  Everybody wanted the 1920s version of enough.  To get it: they bled the banks dry.  We are doing the same thing:  not with credit, but with Mortgages.


Enough is no longer a practical matter.  It is no longer a matter of survival.


Enough has become an ideological symbol.  It is status.  It is meaningless.  Yet some say it is worth a great cost.  If we do not pay this heavy price, we will not have the 21st century version of ENOUGH.


Can we separate The Irrational Fear of Not Having Enough from real desire?  Hunger?


Yes I think we can.  It will take one hell of a marketing campaign:

How do you convince a nation that it is in their own self-interest to lower their standard of living?

We vote with what we buy, and nothing will move forward until we quit reelecting the same business as usual politics. 


We can have decadence, but we can do it smarter.

Would it be possible to beat big industries at their own game by taking our business elsewhere until we get what we want?


Yes.


What is keeping that from happening?  Who is standing in our way?


We have to start deciding for ourselves and believing in the possibility of our own visions.
Lets put one choice in a nutshell:


We can:


A.)  Control and limit our population growth until we are more sustainable.
B.)  Implement technology immediately to sustain more and more and more life.
C.)  Ditch this society and go "off-the-grid", dude.
D.)  Continue the human tradition of social cycles which involve the painful and destructive return to balance.


All four options are possible.


Our minds are the key and we are all responsible and powerful.  There are many claims that things will not change because they have never changed the ol' nothing-new-under-the-sun theory.  They said that before cars, before the microwave oven, before going into space etc.  If we believe that there can be no Utopia, then there will be no Utopia.


But I can imagine a Utopia just as Edison could imagine and produce a light bulb so people could read at night.


Lets ditch the word Utopia and call it:

An explosion into sustainable infinity where exponential growth will reveal wonders which were once in a lifetime and will soon be a weekly occurrence.

Wikipedia article on Rusalka

Pisen Rusalky O Mesiku (Song of the Moon) Rusalka's aria from Rusalka

Mesiku na nebi hlubokem....................Oh, moon high up in the deep, deep sky,
Svetlo tvé daleko vidi.....................Your light sees far away regions,
Po svete bloudis sirokém...................You travel round the wide,
Divas se v pribytky lidi...................Wide world peering into human dwellings

Mesicku, postuj chvili....................Oh, moon, stand still for a moment,
reckni mi, kde je muj mily................Tell me, ah, tell me where is my lover!
Rekni mu, stribmy mesicku.................Tell him. please, silvery moon in the sky,
me ze jej objima rame,....................That I am hugging him firmly,
aby si alespon chvilicku..................That he should for at least a while
vzpomenul ve sneni na mne.................Remember his dreams!
Zasvet mu do daleka,......................Light up his far away place,
rekni mu, rekni m kdo tu nan ceka! ...... Tell him,ah, tell him who is here waiting!
O mneli duse lidska sni, ................ If he is dreaming about me,
at'se tou vzpominkou vzbudi! ...........May this remembrance waken him!
Mesicku, nezhasni, nezhasni! ............ O, moon, don't disappear, disappear!

Translation by Jules Brunelle (brunellejules@videotron.ca)