now he's in some pizza joint. it's lunch time and the place is filling with casual friday office workers loud and laughing. he comes here to meet a friend. it seems like his friend isn't going to show up.
    he's just moved to a new dump. the halls are dark narrow and airless. downstairs inside one of the side entrances there's a smell that his friends who helped him move in described as urine and fried chicken. his kitchen smells of insecticide. he lives in a place of smells. one could navigate with eyes closed following one's nose. for some reason that he hasn't quite figured out yet he deserves this. as things fall out it seems that it's ok for him to live there though the people who give him his money, make and distribute the rules about where he can and cannot live, and counsel him, wouldn't be caught dead even visiting the place.
    but what can he expect? he copped out. he quit and walked out though in his mind they struck the first blow. they hit him, took everything he valued away from him. his subsequent actions have been in reaction to that.
    and this is his rationalization. it's probably not that way at all. he is sure that they have their own explanations for their actions and motives, yet they probably don't think about it. that's the main frustrating thing about it. there was never an open debate. if there had been and it had been shown to him that he was mistaken and how he was mistaken he could accept that. he is not so entirely convinced of his correctness that he cannot admit to error and make appropriate adjustments. but it never happened. there was no discussion. only orders.
    so he asks himself why, since there is no one else to ask. and he concludes that the reason there was no discussion was because there was some doubt. any discussion would have brought out this doubt and paralyzed them. they cannot do what they do, they cannot function unless they are certain. they cannot admit to any error or even doubt. that's what he's for. he's the doubt. he's the error. if he is wrong then they are right.
    but that's that. it all comes down to there being more of them than there is only one of him. yet there is only one each of them. there is only one each of all of us. but that gets all changed around when things become collective. the collective operates on us and them. the majority and minority. the collective gets its identity as much by what it is not as by what it is. us and them are interchangeable. for every us there is a them. and every them thinks of itself as us.
    it's a game of musical chairs on a merry-go-round. if one can get to a chair - a limited number of chairs - then one is one of us. there cannot be doubt. there cannot be hesitation. there is no discussion.
    this is our nature. it is with us as much as us having to breathe. it beats with our hearts.
    so there really isn't much point in his writing about it. but he continues writing anyway.
    could there be something different? could there be another way? there have been many who have proposed other ways. but it has only been restructuring the present collective groupings. it does not get rid of us and them. that still rears its ugly head. there is us who believe in this restructuring and them those who don't, perhaps believing in another of their own. so there is always disagreement, always a struggle.
    it all always breaks down to us and them no matter how inclusive any group tries to be. it breaks down that way within the group itself. there are always those more equal than others. there are always those who are more inside. there are always the dividing lines. those who are us are always better than those who are them. they are more deserving of the benefits and rank and status. they better understand the principles and philosophy. all inclusive groups will always break down into exclusive elements. beware most of all the groups who deny this.
    a group of bums can be just as exclusive as the highest class country club. there are just as many and as complex rules determining who is us and who is them as are used by all collective groups, even by those who do not think of themselves as a collective group.
    there is nothing new in this. there should be nothing new in this. stating this is stating the obvious. however, at times the obvious needs to be stated. we forget the obvious. we make up other things about who we are and what we are doing and begin to believe in them without remembering what they are or where they came from and what they're based on.
    we define the world and ourselves in the world as we need to. it's part of how we function and interact and inter-react. there are those who gain and those who lose as this goes on. we each have limited control over what happens to us. we may choose our options in any given situation. we cannot choose which options will be available for us to choose from. they are given, resulting from the surrounding environment that we all take part in shaping. we select from a menu. our selections offer other menus which in turn offer more depending upon what we choose. we usually can never return back to the previous menus once we have selected from them. the menus are always limited and the items on them are predetermined, preset.
    this predetermination does not come from some sort of higher being or force or design. it is predetermined as the result of the cumulative effect of all the options we collectively have chosen all of us together and alone independently. at some point the options have come from nature and reality. but we have for the most part moved far beyond that into our own world and our own options we have created. but they are equally set in stone. we still remain human as much as the world remains the world.
    we cannot create what is not. we may further discover things about the world that we did not know before - certain qualities. but if the world did not have these qualities we could not have created them from nothing. it is what we choose to do with what we discover that creates our own particular human world. that is entirely our own invention. we can understand fire. we understand that fire will keep us warm. we understand that fire will forge metals. we understand that we can forge these metals into weapons. that is our choice. that is an option we create. that is the world we create.

    (while listening to blows against the empire)
    it becomes like a fractured lucid liquid madness. perhaps that is what it is. of course that is only a description of it. words. a hat. a sombrero. a thing. it. it is it. it being it. is is is. being being being. zap!
    there goes another circuit breaker. as a whole section of his mind blacks out, crashes. all files lost. perhaps some of the software too. maybe even hardware. let's hope the back up was working.
    nevermind.
    diamond thieves.
    jazz.
    memory of something else. memory of becoming. something dizzy. now it's all in a box. what's not in the box is forgotten. we wonder if it ever existed. then we stop wondering. what were we wondering about? something else becoming. a dizzy memory.
    singing about all going together. somewhere. grabbing hold of whatever can take us away.
    we lost our grip and we stayed. we sank down. we remembered that it wasn't real. did anyone make it?
    there are those who wandered about not seeming to be quite here. not seeing what we see. and they walked around grinning. whatever became of them?
    now are those who have taken their place. mumbling to themselves. shouting out to the air. their grins are clenched teeth.
    it was all fashion. it was a trend that washed ashore and was taken out again with the next tide leaving behind the usual debris.
    he waits here. he smokes another death cigarette. his breath gasping. lungs ache. fingers tingle. muscles cramp. mind evaporates. heart pounding.
    what was he waiting for? was something supposed to happen? did something happen? what are the possibilities here? what are the alternatives? could something have happened and we not know it?
    he doesn't know what he's asking. what was it he thinks might have happened? what was supposed to happen? all he knows is that it seems not to have happened. otherwise would it be like this?
    we settle into what is. some of us fight it and only end up fighting themselves - and being defeated. we settle into defeat. but defeat of what? - by what?
    it seems to be the way it's always been. a few more trinkets and gizmos that seem that they might be a bit shoddier than the ones we used to know. the ones we used to know now being gone. everything is always being replaced - replaced by that which is replaced in its turn. the turns seeming to be coming ever sooner.
    we are progressing. what is considered old is becoming younger. soon everything will be instantly new all the time. nothing will be old ever again. everything will be newer than new. new will be old. it will be so new it will not even come into existence. existence will be old. our imaginations will be beyond that. soon even imagining will not be new. what is imagined will be old. what is imagined takes time. who wants to take the time to imagine? we will conceive things beyond imagination. newer than imagination. newer than now. then conceiving will seem old to us. what is conceived is already in the past. it is a moment behind. we will want what is newer than the new moment of conception. we will reach through conception as we reached through existence and imagination. we will be in the realm of intuition. the entire concept of newness will seem to be old. it will be the past. history. there is no more history. it will be dirty with time.
    time will be too slow. time burdened by having to pass from the future to the past will seem clumsy and awkward, especially since it needs to pass through the present to get from one to the other. now will seem to us an eternity ago. we will not wish to wait while something takes its time becoming now. we will be by then impatient with things making their slow motion entrance into the future. the future will be a barrier to us. our intuition will shatter it. the future will fall behind us. all time will be past. we will shed ourselves of time. then it will be our intuition that will become heavy to us. it will feel like the stone of sisyphus. we will let it go. intuition will become to us old. it too will be left to the past. we will then unchain ourselves from the past. the past will be all things, all things that have become old to us even before they became new, before they were imagined as new, before they were conceived as new, before our intuition sensed their newness. that will all be the past. and the past we will banish.
    and what about us? will we not also be in the past? that is the chain - ourselves. we will break the chain. then...

    as he follows his thoughts out until they disappear from themselves into the ether of the nothingness of everything. nothing that opens up beyond everything until everything becomes nothing.
    yet it still remains. everything exists no matter what nothingness it becomes or that surrounds it. it may become a mere singularity, that absolute point just this side of oblivion. all space and time into one unit, one dimension.
    would we even notice?
    and he is writing this as if he knows anything.

    weirdness.
    lifting cloud containing a distant mind. it's on its own. it hears a pink floyd sound. it is stabbed somewhere where there is no pain but produces disorientation. it thinks it doesn't know what to think. it tries something else. it gets sick.
    it is alone. it being alone makes it feel very dizzy. the dizziness turns its stomach. it chokes and coughs. something nasty comes out. it doesn't know what it is but it knows that it's nasty. it doesn't look like anything is supposed to look like. something that looks like that would be all wrong. it looked like something all wrong. something nasty. like what nothing is supposed to look like.
    then it felt better having gotten something nasty like that out of its system. then suddenly that something nasty turned into what appeared to be an angel. it had never seen an angel, only pictures of what people had imagined what angels looked like. what this looked like looked nothing like any of that business but it was sure that this was what an angel would look like for real.
    the angel looked a bit nasty. it made it feel afraid.
    then the angel said, fear not. i am here with glad tidings. behold!
    and with that it beheld a flaming turnip.
    the cloud descended.
    it stepped upon the ground again. it stepped forward. it fell down. and it kept falling.
    while it was still falling he decided to stop writing and go to bed. it was already morning.

    later that morning he woke up. he comes down to the cafe in the building where he used to live. he's moved a couple blocks up the street.
    his mind is dull and blank in the daytime. there's cheesy oldie songs on the radio. songs he hated to begin with. but someone decided that he must listen to them again. a world of other people's decisions. people he doesn't know but he knows he doesn't like them very well. judging from what they create they are unimaginative and stupid. they follow patterns. the easily recognized. even when something new comes into it it is quickly reduced to a pattern. what is new is a quirk, a glitch in the system that is supposed to run smoothly. it is a product of chaos, not invention.
    and what about him? if anybody reduces everything down to a pattern, he does. so what exactly is he trying to get at judging others? does he even know?
    they are perfect.
    he is to blame.
    he just has his likes and dislikes like anyone else does. and they are for the most part contradictory. he wants things his way though he doesn't know what that is. he becomes bored with the familiar, confused by the strange. what he likes and dislikes are connected to patterns in his psychology. certain experiences create associative emotional responses that continue responding to similar stimuli. it goes around and around.
    and that's all anyone else does. we do not really respond to one another. we respond to these signals we receive that trigger a response we have learned. we do not even really see one another. we see our childhood dreams and nightmares. it's all in the mix. a composite reality. fragments of earlier experience made into what seems to be a coherent present whole. we fill in the gaps, smooth over the rough edges, rationalize the contradictions until it seems solid, seamless, consistent. then we forget we have done this. it takes something to go "wrong" for us to maybe begin to question.
    what goes wrong is what's going right. reality continues to act in its own way, in its own nature despite how we've reconstructed it otherwise. our reconstruction is what goes wrong. it begins to come apart. it is not a matter of it going wrong, though that is what it may seem like to us, but having been wrong to begin with. we can no longer pretend that it represents reality, though we still do. we try to fix it. it must remain what it is. it is what we are used to, what we have built our lives around. so we get our quick fix kits, we hire professionals, we buy remedies to get it all to stand still, quit moving around on us, quit changing into something else we do not recognize because we have never ever really truly seen it before as it is.
    many of us give up on it altogether. we trade it in for a new and improved one. one that has been researched and tested to get the bugs out and assembled ready for j. q. consumer. a model that usually has options one may choose from to customize it to one's particular needs or desires. it's a dream come true. all the old worries and concerns are swept away and are kept away as long as one can maintain it. it seems so real - or at least what we want to be real. reality without a glitch, without anything going wrong, a smooth ride to paradise.

    hard soft flowers rising. names disguising identity. identity disguising self. howling. shattering. calm peace. a fog settles in. the strangler prowls. dogs scatter.
    this is what can be imagined. this is what can be made possible. easy handling of the broken pieces. blood. little children playing. a fist. rockets launched. targets. civilians.
    we gently turn away. we gaze out at the scenes we would see otherwise. ships at sea. torpedoes. lifting up. going down.
    what else do we want?

    we dig into it searching for something real that fits into our imagination. it's between the two that is in disagreement, disharmony. on one side we want to perceive the world as it is, on the other to have the world be as we perceive it. either our imagination is illusion or the world is illusion. either way, something doesn't fit together. and there's nothing to tell us which it is.

    empty cups. the noise of silence. cars passing in the breeze. open doorways toward something unseen.
    all points are zero. everything begins in every moment. there is no before or after. there is the absurdity of the moment. there is the impossibility of existence.
    we stand within ourselves wondering. there is too much for us to think about, so we don't think. we follow what seems to be what is, how it is. why is beyond our ability to comprehend, to grasp. we continue to believe that there is a why. we want this why to be aware of us, to have a purpose for our being created. we imagine it almost real enough to touch it, yet it remains beyond our touch. we explain to ourselves that this is a sign of its greatness. we are comforted by not being able to prove its existence. its possibility is overwhelming, protecting.
    this thought, this feeling preserves us. it is a fundamental component of our psychology, our consciousness. whether real or not it holds our diverse perceptions of the world together. it places them into a whole. the whole is imagined to exist though we may only see its parts. there can be no contradiction among the parts.
    though it does break down into that at times for us individually and collectively. the whole no longer fits together. the contradiction of the parts become too much for it to hold. we then have to rearrange them, rename them, redefine them to fit them back together again - a different paradigm. the lack of meaning becomes meaning. the lack of purpose becomes purpose. the psychological need of our minds takes over and puts chaos back into order. not god becomes god. we can rest easy once again.
    and maybe this is progress, and maybe it is not. are we moving through the veils toward a clearer perception or are we moving away? or is there moving toward or away? that assumes that there is something true and real to be clearly or unclearly perceived. that may not be. that may only be our preconception. yet there is our own feeling and sense of such a thing. it seems hardwired into the neurological structure of our brains that we experience as the psychological structure of our minds. there is nothing to tell us whether it is true or false, real or unreal. however it exists with us and we exist with it - within it. it underlies our being able to function intellectually, emotionally and spontaneously in the world. we operate from assumptions, and our assumptions do produce real results. the proof of that is our continued existence. whether our existence is ideal or not is secondary and a different argument.
    so it may be only the relationship we have, or feel that we have, with that sense of real truth, the whole, whatever it may be or not be that is what is important. how much is it able to allow us to feel connected to the world, though what we are connected to may be only our present perception of the world? the wonder of it is that we are able to change it from time to time. we change the world, at least our own being in the world. as that changes it changes our perceptions. as our perceptions change it eventually becomes necessary for the underlying model of our perceptions to change. our perceptions of the world no longer fit within the parameters of our model of the world. whether these changing models are progressive refinements of a truer comprehension is almost moot - though not entirely. it is and probably will continue to be a philosophical metaphysical question with no way to settle it one way or the other. it is both distant and near.

    so we end up back at whatever. whatever it is or isn't. whatever we perceive it as. whatever we model it as being. whatever works or doesn't work for us individually and/or collectively.
    we end up back at where one such as himself thinks and writes and has little or no effect on anyone or anything beyond himself. if it ever happens that his words gain a readership and have some influence this only changes things in regard to himself. he moves into a position held by countless others. behind him another moves into the position he leaves vacant. the structure remains the same. only individual pieces move around within it. it makes no difference whether he remains where he is or whether that position is held by another. there will always be someone in this position he presently holds. there will always be someone scribbling mad nonsense no one will ever read. does it matter except to himself whether it is specifically him in this position or not? yes/no.
    if he moves into a position where his writing and ideas (if any of this is ideas) becomes communicated and known there still remains all those whose writing and ideas are not. maybe this is how it should remain. anything else would confuse us.
     we each individually filter incoming data and information so as not to become overwhelmed. we organize it into this and that giving it different levels of priority. often we misjudge which leads us into making mistakes, minor and major ones. we are sometimes able to correct these mistakes and sometimes not. sometimes the mistakes are fatal. often it is even the minor ones that screw things up beyond repair (for want of a nail...).
      and we do this collectively as well. we collectively filter, organize, prioritize. we collectively misjudge and make mistakes. these can be collectively correctable or be collectively fatal.
    we expect ourselves to operate collectively, sociologically, differently than we do individually, psychologically. the collective group is thought to make and expected to make more intelligent decisions than the individuals within that group. we believe this so much that we do not recognize or do not want to recognize when it doesn't - when the group proves to be just as unintelligent as the individuals composing it. we believe this so strongly that we look away from the group to the individual to find the source of what went wrong when something goes wrong. and we find it. there will always be individuals to blame. one can be and often is found randomly. there is always someone who screwed up, or it seems that they screwed up. those individuals are eliminated and it is felt that the problem is solved. until the group screws up again and more individuals need to be found responsible and eliminated.
    the group is as self-protecting and self-deceiving as any individual. yet the group has the advantage of numbers over the individual. the weight of numbers and often the weight of numbers alone is enough to make the group right and the individual wrong. the majority is always correct and must protect itself from the individual or even a collective minority. that's what scapegoats are for. every group has a scapegoat. scapegoats are pressure release valves. by eliminating real or imagined dissenters or troublemakers or maybe just those who aren't enthusiastic enough, not quite with the program, not carrying their weight, the group is able to breathe a collective sigh of relief and continue to plow straight ahead the way it always has. with the elimination of these individuals is also eliminated the thought that the motives and actions of the group might need to be questioned. the group can perpetuate itself for quite awhile operating this way. far longer than the actual constructive usefulness of the group itself.
    the group is a seemingly solid base for individuals to attach themselves to. they often would be more inclined to question their own motives and actions, their own judgments, before those of the group. this even among those eliminated from the group who will more often see fault in themselves than in the group that has rejected them. they will think how they have failed the group not how the group has failed them and continues to do so like a great lumbering beast that it is. that failure may take some time before the group/beast finally actually collapses. some things are to stupid to die. the group perpetually propped up by the faith of the individuals it is composed of is one of these things. many groups wander about like zombies on autopilot for quite some time before dropping. the scapegoat process allows them to maintain the illusion that they are still viable living entities.

    and so on. blah blah blah. regurgitating one's mind then lap it up again like the dog one is. or cough it up and chew it like cud like some stupid cow.
    the idiot mind knows no limit either high or low. it has no respect, least of all for itself. it can slip its own slippery way into and out of most anything and everything. it always has the option of knowing and having stated nothing but babbling nonsense. what insight might spill out is just that, something that just spills out.
    an incantation. a charm. charming. a formula. exit. entry.
    something that always remains the same. surrounding within. a day and a night.
    what is thought and unthought. what is ordinary.
    the long distance between. beauty. the face we desire shining from our minds. the face that pleases, that says nice things we love to hear. the soothing voice. we are taken away.
    jesus and buddha fucking on the shore. waves washing over their bodies sparkling in the sun. a vacation paradise. moses cannonballs into the pool. mohammed and krisna play backgammon in the shade of palm trees.
    ideas come and go. nothing's getting started. time oozes like industrial sludge. a rainbow of fumes. the eye that burns and itches. how are we to take anything seriously? we betray ourselves on so many levels. we are all left abandoned. we find each other broken and alone. who saves who?
    out of this we assemble an ideal. this and/or that is what should be. we should be rich and famous. we should be simple and humble. we should be more trusting. we should be more wary.
    we are at the end with no place to go - no way to get out. and it still keeps coming. one of us climbing out pushes another down, even if we didn't intend it. it's everyone each for oneself. we are too entangled for any one of us not to affect the others. yet we are too far apart to touch.
    do we want to touch? what is transmitted but pain? what is felt but misery?
    we put on the appearance that that is not what is going on. we operate as if that is not going on. it looks good. we are fooled by our performance. we believe. it takes an experienced eye to see through it. we all see through it. we are all experienced. we know what to recognize. we see the shadows. we have learned to keep silent. we have learned not to speak. that is our peace. there is no sense in our being reminded of that which there is no cure or remedy for. are we all going to sit around and cry and sob and rent our clothes and gnash our teeth? spare us that indignity at least. though there are those who enjoy putting on that show, and other savor it. we play villain, victim, hero dramas all the time. it gives our dull lives meaning. it feeds our boredom with the fuel of emotion, ignites the coals into flame. we never tire of it however much it exhausts us. we each take turns playing all of the parts. we each in turn are guilty and innocent, condemned and forgiven.
    this is our nature. this is how our nature sets up the game. it is our nature to play the game. the game is real. it is life and death. it is a dance.
    within this one may find a place of some comfort. a place where one is left alone. a place where one may find enjoyment. one may be able to share this place with others, if one learns to be selective. otherwise the others bring it back in again, those always playing the game.
    so we learn to build defenses and to isolate ourselves, even from those with whom we have a certain amount of trust. there is always the risk of betrayal, that we ourselves may even be the betrayer. our own trust is no more guaranteed than another's though we will not usually admit to that.
    we all see ourselves as innocent. the bottom line is always that we are victims. some may play the hero. who acknowledges oneself as being the villain? yet there is an abundance of villains. they must be someone. they must be someone among ourselves. where else do they come from? is there really this factory in hell or someplace that manufactures them? some place else other than where we ourselves reside. and who owns and operates this factory? is there someone else besides ourselves? or do we believe in satan and demons? how convenient that belief is. a loophole that allows us to escape responsibility.
    not that we must punish ourselves for it. a simple acknowledgment would be enough. playing the game with nothing up our sleeves or under the table. a good honest game of chance. winners and losers with each round without guilt or innocence, without being condemned or exonerated, without shame or pride. or would that take the fun and excitement out of it? would we play it if in playing it we didn't risk everything? - if heaven wasn't played against hell? - if salvation wasn't played against damnation? - if survival wasn't played against extinction? are we afraid we would be bored otherwise?
    we are here. we have arrived by some means for some reason that we have not figured out yet. it may be random happenstance, though we have imagined a multitude of other reasons. we are faced with mortality and all that is associated with it. life can be hard. just surviving can be an impossible task.
    one would think that this would be enough to occupy ourselves with, to be challenging. yet on top of that we place further obstacles of our own making and invention that would not otherwise exist. what exists of its own that we are forced to deal with we can do nothing or little about. the world is the world. reality is reality. there it is. here we are. that is not our decision and only marginally under our control. the things we add to what is given are entirely our decision and under our control. they would not exist otherwise.
    is survival too easy, too boring? we add all the social constraints to it as well. it's not enough that we provide food, clothing and shelter for ourselves, now we must justify it. to the normal hazards of life and death we add judgment and reward and punishment. then, the highest absurdity of it all, we complain about the unfairness of it - the unfairness of what we ourselves had created and decided should exist where it did not exist before and there is no need or reason for it to exist except to make our lives - all of our lives - that much harder to bear.
    and we pride ourselves on our intelligence. we claim to be above the rest of the animals because of it - because we can name things, because we can build trinkets and gizmos.
    but how intelligent is it when we name good from evil and build things that imprison and destroy us for these sins we have invented?
    he would rather be a pig raised and fed for slaughter. keep him from all salvation. let his eyes never see the gates of heaven nor his feet take one step toward the promised land. let his mind be too stupid to know the knowledge of good and evil.
    isn't life and being enough? isn't existence in and out itself an experience of amazing delight? what more paradise than this? isn't it enough to just have pleasure and pain? what more does good and evil do to improve it? now we must feel guilt. now we must feel ambition. now there is success and failure. survival and experience isn't enough.
    but this is in the human heart. it is our fate to shape our fate. survival isn't enough. we are always afraid. our fear drives us to do strange things. it drives us toward power. power needs justification. power needs enemies. power becomes a goal - the goal. it is the measure among us.

    lucky dogs.
    waiting for arrival. waiting for it to come into balance. not one or the other. not up without down. not light without darkness.
    waiting for the others to arrive. waiting for the pushing a shoving to end. waiting for progress to reach what it longs for.
    when one person's freedom imprisons others. when one person's wealth impoverishes others. when we all attempt to be on top and it pushes all of us down.
    waiting for this realization to dawn. waiting to be able to walk down the street and not be walking through a war zone, the boasts and the threats, the wounded, the victors with their prizes.
    what will cut through it? what will finally bring it down? struggles against it have only fueled it. just that much more to kill and die for. just another victory when it is the idea and concept of victory that which defeats us even when we gain it. one more flag waving on the battlefield. what does it matter what it represents? all flags represent victory. hail victory!
    this petty mob scene. some gain the walls of the fortress of power. they then become its defenders defending their victory.
    when do we walk away from it? when do we decide not to participate whether we would have won or lost? when do we put down the weapons of our pride?
    from time to time there are those who do this. they remove themselves from history. some survive, others do not. they are forgotten, absorbed. we continue on with our forever war of victories feeding on the power of it.
    power.
    power for this. power for that. we want power. they want power. power ever reaching for victory. power against power. flag against flag. the war goes on. the war with its constant victory and defeat. we haven't figured out that one cannot exist without the other. we may gain victory as being identified with a specific group. but to have victory, an opposing group must be defeated. does it matter to the greater whole of us which way this is turned around, which specific group defeats another? as a whole we are the ones defeated as much as we are the ones victorious. we are the ones fallen as much as we are the ones standing. it is our flag that is trampled as much as it is our flag that is raised. we are the ones imprisoned as much as the ones freed. we are the ones who are evil as much as we are the ones who are good. we are them as much as we are us.
    all of us.
    all of them.
    we are them.
    we are more them than them - the specific thems of the particular conflicts. we do not identify ourselves with any us groups to the exclusion of the others. as such we are not considered to be one of us by them. to not be one of us, in their view, makes us one of them. so we become them to all and us to none.
    we are left outside. we are the universal them. we are also the universal us. we are not the ones who divide ourselves from others but are divided out by the others - all the others. they draw the lines and decide who is in and who is out. we could very much be in. we do not have anything against being in in and of itself. we like to belong as much as any other. we are social animals as much as any other. we do not enjoy nor look for isolation. but to belong, to be accepted as belonging to one specific us group to the exclusion of not belonging to another is something we cannot agree to. why adopt an idea that promotes conflict? - especially conflict with others who are ourselves? this strikes us as being destructive despite what worthy goals any particular group may see itself promoting. if they need an enemy, we would rather be the enemy. we would rather be them. the mere act of dividing themselves as us apart from them undermines everything they might be trying to do for the common good.
    they seek to absorb. they perceive themselves as the us that all others should be. any and all who do not agree with this are identified as them, the enemy who is to be defeated, who is to surrender. there is no compromise. compromise is treachery, treason, betrayal.
    but this is how some of us behave. they are not them to us. they are just as much us as we are. they are just those of us who divide themselves and everyone else into us and them. we are them to them.
    we offer nothing but the idea of us. us and us alone. there are no conditions to it - except the conditions others put on it for themselves. there is nothing to give up or surrender to. not even one's identification with any specific us group and or one's identification of others as them. we cannot say that these are good or bad. it is how we are. there are those who will argue that the struggle among competing groups makes us stronger and better.
    maybe yes. maybe no.
    this has been our history. does it need to be our future?
    how much stronger and better do we need to be? how many victories do we need. how much power?
    we are not the only species that competes against itself. that is what natural selection is all about.
    but natural selection is not always about strength and power as many understand it. it is the survival of the fittest not the strongest that is the law of natural selection. those who fit into whatever environment surrounds them. being the strongest and most powerful is one option among many. it might not always be the best. being able to run away and hide is another option.
    being on top of the food chain is no real advantage. if anything, it is more precarious. predators starve along with their prey. the two populations linked together. elimination of all competition may lead to one's own self-destruction.
    we may adapt better to being defeated than by being victorious. one can never tell.
    the more specialized a species is the less adaptable it is. those who can adapt to more situations will be more likely to survive. those who can adapt to conflict will survive those who try to end conflict. while there is always a group who are the strongest and most powerful the composition of this group is only temporarily made up of one specific group or another. the rulers come and go like weather. the ruled adapt and sit out the storms of the ongoing conflict. it becomes questionable as to which are the strongest and most powerful - those who hold power or those who must endure those who hold power - those who are victorious or those who are defeated.

    fearful.
    the ideal of community. diverse, inclusive, co-operative, beneficial, harmonious.
    agony.
    mutual support. giving and taking. fulfilling needs.
    hatred.
    when needs are not enough. when something else unnamed makes its hunger known. when one wants, craves for something not on the menu, as diverse and varied as the menu might be. when longing and frustration enter the scene.
    mutual defense. refusal. a line drawn between give and take. exclusion. isolation.
    how do we tame this human beast that is born and dwells within any one of us? at some point the good of the all must be sacrificed for the good of the many. how many? who? based on what? what is need and what is desire? what are we without desire? how much need do we actually need? do we need to laugh? do we need to cry? do we need to be angry? do we need to kill? do we need danger? disease? injury? death? how real do we make the ideal? does it need to be real? how do we know what the real is or not?
    do we need to have those who are excluded? will there always be them no matter what we decide? do some of us need to be them for their own reasons, by their own definition? just to be contrary? just to be opposite? just to be extreme? just to be whatever?
     so, beginning with some sort or another ideal, given for the moment we could establish one that everyone initially agreed to and felt it would satisfy any reasonable need, how is it kept from reverting back to what we had before - what we have now? what restrictions are imposed? can an ideal have restrictions? how ideal is it for those who are restricted? aren't they as human as we are? perhaps they are more so feeling the need to express something human that the rest of us feel needs to be restricted.
    yet it is human to always seek an ideal however much it may be proven to be a fantasy. it would not be human to give up on the pursuit, to give in to what is. we seem to need to at least imagine an ideal though no ideal could ever be achieved. we may be left with the only ideal we can imagine being oblivion, an unconscious end to our misery.
    this is also a consideration concerning our actually achieving an ideal state. if we were to do so in the real world, what would we then imagine? we imagine an ideal from our non-ideal situation. to be human is to imagine the ideal, what is not. what then when we have the ideal, when what is not is made to be?
    and what of what ideals are and have been imagined? some of the most beautiful and wonderful ideals have been imagined out of some of the most miserable circumstances. visions of heaven imagined in prisons, torture chambers, at the stake or from self-imposed deprivation. the worker's paradise imagined while the landlord was pounding on the door for the rent. art imagined from deformity, disease, madness. a promised land imagined from those fated to wander. jeweled and golden cities imagined by those on the threshold of starvation, beaten and worked as slaves. toleration imagined by those persecuted. oasis imagined by those in the desert. islands by those on the sea.
    the imagination creates the ideal from what is denied. how else do we know what the ideal is? so what ideals are imagined by those living in the ideal? or is the ideal the end of imagination?

    around and around we go as we have always gone before. seeking and finding, losing and seeking again. to have it and not to have it being traded back and forth.
    when the ideal is maybe not some ultimate perfection but a state where everyone's basic needs are taken care of. these needs being both individual and collective needs. also including opportunity to develop, to explore and express from this base of common provision and security. restrictions will need to be imposed but these should be common to all. the many benefit and to make the many as most as possible. there will always be sacrifice.
    and how far have we reached this, given that we are human and are filled with human conflict? not the ultimate ideal but a common ideal.
    and we attempt to improve and perfect. and we should give ourselves credit for accomplishing something. to allow us to look around ourselves and one another and say that at least we have managed to get this far. it may not be where we want to be, but it is somewhere. how often do we do that? how often do we allow ourselves that? even just for a moment.
    a moment of taking a breath, to clear our heads of thoughts shouting at one another. not forever. not to remain in that, in a delusion that everything is fine, but to acknowledge that it's ok at this one given moment. this moment between where we were and where we are trying to get to, arguing and fighting the whole way. to say that that's ok for this moment. we're human, we should expect that, but without forgetting that we can and should expect ourselves to be better than that. and maybe we will be. and maybe we will never be. maybe we will sink into the worst that we can be instead. but this moment while we pause and collect ourselves a bit, it's ok. we can load up and keep firing at one another after that. that's ok too.

    he is dreaming. he hasn't much else to do but dream and writing down what he is dreaming about, if anything.
    he dreams alone with his own dreams that keep him apart from the others. he dreams out where others have dreamed who also were kept apart by their dreaming.
    those involved in the world want nothing to do with dreams unless they can produce something tangible and practical and productive and profitable as it should be. he too wants these things. he wants coffee, cigarettes, notebook, pencil - among other things. food, clothing, shelter. a computer that works, busses that run on time, a bank that receive his checks from the state on a given date, drivers who stop for traffic lights when he crosses the street, criminals who rob someone else, not him. and for people to leave him alone while he is dreaming.
    so he is a very tangible practical man interested in what is productive and profitable for himself. he wants everything set just so so he can know where it is so he can step around it and avoid it. this way it doesn't cause him much fuss and bother, and he can dream.
    disorder and negligence either on the part of others or himself is a distracting nuisance interfering with dreaming. the life of a dreamer is not disordered or negligent. the clock is the dreamers best friend. those who forget time become entangled in the clutter of the world resulting from their own thoughtlessness. they are poor dreamers. one sees them mumbling and grumbling to themselves half in reality and half out bumping into themselves coming and going without being able to do anything well - not even the simple act of dreaming.
    dreaming takes time. disorder and negligence robs one of time. it makes the real world that much more of a burden and demanding that much more attention - attention taken away from dreaming. disordered and negligent dreamers are not true dreamers at all. they are idiot fools who don't know their own mind from a hole in the ground. their mind is a hole in the ground.

    everybody waiting for the righteous fire to burn away the chaff. everybody figuring that they are protected and will make it to the garden.
    we are them. we are the ones who are probably going down. we are out in the open, exposed. we aren't connected. we aren't hidden behind walls. we don't have weapons or stockpiles of supplies. we don't expect any help or assistance when the shit hits the fan. but then, we are in the garden already. we've always been here since the beginning. we've watched while the others spent the past 10,000 years or so trashing it. now they expect it's going to magically appear again for them. we laugh at that.
    it doesn't need to appear. it's always been here. the only place it's disappeared from is their minds. they walk through it every day and don't see it because they have turned their eyes and minds toward other things. the very same things they expect now to save them that are the very same things that are destroying their world.
    what do they expect to bring to the garden with them? their possessions? their weapons? their names and rank? what will be any different between that and now? what will keep them from once again destroying what has been given to them? what will they have learned besides that power is the key to survival? this is what their history has shown them. at least it has shown that power survives. it becomes stronger while all else becomes weak. it feeds upon those who attach themselves to it. these shine for the moment in glory until they are used up and cast aside. power lives on full of the life these have given it. that is their history. the history of drug addicts found dead in an alley. they will fall as others have fallen, used and spent, while power seeks new prey. power seeks a new name, a new face to become, to use toward its own ends.
    power seems invincible. it would appear that nothing on earth can stop it. but power does have one weakness. it needs to feed to survive like anything else. the sure way to defeat it, to kill it, is to turn and walk away. leave it to starve.
    yet that cannot be done by one or a few, or even many or most. power needs only one of us to offer oneself to it, to be lured in by its seductive spell and promise, to share in its immortality. this is enough for power to keep itself alive. power in fact thrives best with the fewer it holds at any one time. it can then revel itself all the more. it shines out into the world as a beacon calling, come to me. partake of me. what i give to these i hold now i will give to you. and the many respond and go to it to position themselves to be next to give themselves over to it, to surrender to its command, to be lifted up to be seated upon its throne, to be the name and face it uses to act in the world for the moment.

    what is left to remain. what is discovered.
    he sits here writing. he writes nearly every day. he comes back to himself writing. he looks for what it is he is writing about - attempting to write about. something maybe someone else might want to read. what would that be? he's asked this before. he still doesn't know. if he was a wiser man...
    he goes to a bookstore or a library. what are people reading? is there anything in particular? a theme? and idea? what is being communicated among us? then there's the newspapers and magazines and radio and tv and movies.
    how would he fit into all that? where would he want to fit in? given an opportunity to have something published and put out for sale, what would he have it be? something to entertain? to encourage? to change? to inform? something about them? something about himself? about himself as one of them? about them and himself as us? does he see them/us doing anything right? anything wrong? does he approach that question at all? how can one not approach it? isn't that what we are concerned about - what we're doing right or wrong? not on a moral level perhaps. who's concerned about morality? but personal success and survival. and isn't that what underlies morality?
    is he searching over the same ground he's been through before to find that this ground has been picked clean by others? he can only repeat what they have previously written. maybe he could come up with a new way of stating it. there is always new context it is applied to, ourselves as we are changing, that might bring out different angles from the same material. rework it once again as it has been reworked before.
    the ridiculous. the absurd. absurd in the existential sense. abstractions in chaos. morphological order gushing through it like an amoebae maintaining its consistency but not its form, splitting at a moment's notice - dissolving, being eaten, deconstructed and reconstructed. pirate systems pirating other pirate systems. a few being powerful enough to claim legitimacy.
    what does all this do for one? what does one do with all of it? one may open oneself up to it and blow away on the wind. or, one pieces together some sort of structure from what happens to be blowing by and try to stand one's ground. one closes oneself off from as much as possible, to filter it down to what is useful and productive for one's existence, and, if one is able to do so, for one's enjoyment.
    he enjoys sitting here writing. he has managed to set things up, to close himself off from the destructive and distracting, to be able to do this. though perhaps it itself is destructive and distracting. is there something else he should be doing? not if he is to continue writing. he has decided or has come to decide or has been brought to decide that writing is important, what he should be doing, though there probably isn't much evidence to support that. what has his writing come to? what will it ever come to?
    for now, and for the better part of his life, especially the past 10-15 years, it has held him together. though it also took him away. it has been his structure, his shelter. it exists as that. it maintains its coherence as that. it refers to itself mostly and little to outside itself. it is the madness of one maintaining one's sanity against an external world caught up in its own madness. but since definitions of sanity are socially constructed, he is the one insane. society has the majority on its side, that's all. it has the power and authority of custom - custom of the collective, driven by habit. this still holds true with the present custom of change that has overrun the custom of tradition. custom is custom. it is what everyone is doing, or what everyone believes everyone is doing. custom, whether traditional or new and changing, is collective behavior and those ideas, beliefs, symbols systems, etc. that promote that behavior. change is just as much collective custom as tradition. individualism is just as much collective behavior as collectivism. it is also a custom. it is what the collective believes and what informs and guides the collective about how to behave - how individuals are to behave within the collective. whether it is to put the collective above the individual or the individual above the collective. and all that trash.
    so is he mad or not? is the society around him mad or not? whichever way it is or may be seen to be, he survives. society maintains him though it won't allow him to participate, except on its own terms - except if his writing could be said to be participating. society tolerates him and those like him, though that could change tomorrow. that debate continues - how much people such as himself should be tolerated and supported. but then nearly everyone is in that position. what one is doing today could be condemned tomorrow. many are finding themselves in that position. our goal, our directive, is to evolve, to progress, to become more efficient, advance our light into the darkness.
    hail victory!