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bbreferencearchive · 2 years

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My 2021 New Years Revolution

At the end of the previous year, I wrote and sent out a little poem speaking to how 2019 had been a rough row to hoe, and raising hints for the better times ahead in 2020. The dubious quality of lyrical content aside, it’s obvious that I’m hardly a reliable oracle.

Now, with the passing of another rough year, a part of me is wishing we could skip 2021 altogether and use the time to get a running start at 2022. If the previous year was a difficult row to hoe, this last one has been a bitch in the ditch, and it worries me that tough years might run in threes.

But then, it’s already a clearly established fact that when it comes to making predictions about the future my track record is dismal. With that understanding, here comes the straight skinny as I see it, unvarnished by flowery platitudes.

We’re all doomed. The world is on fire, literally and figuratively. People living in regions all over the world are drowning in suffering and misery, variously being ravaged by devastating storms, floods, mudslides, massive wildfires, earthquakes, plagues of infectious disease, abject poverty, hunger and thirst, joblessness, homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, mass incarceration, suicide, violent political upheaval, religio-political terrorism, widespread ethnicism and endemic ethnic genocide, organized predatory thuggery, and war. Burgeoning multitudes of people have left their homelands to join increasing populations of refugees in search of a safer and better life, some now imprisoned in refugee camps where conditions are poor and despair flourishes.

Looming over all of us, regardless of social standing or affiliation, like a dark cloud overshadowing this entire litany of tragedy and disaster, are shifts in the weathersphere so massive and momentous that the narrow conditions that make this planet habitable for our species are collapsing faster than most scientists were predicting just a few years ago. Moreover, we are woefully behind the 8-ball in taking those measures we must take if we are to have any chance at all of slowing, let alone stopping and reversing, this implacably advancing threat to our continued existence.

The debate between industrialist profiteers and the scientific community over whether or not climate change is real has us lagging in our response to the threat, when we don’t have the luxury of time to fool around. At the rate we’re going, greed and willful ignorance may spell our extinction as a species. It should not be so hard to arrive at some consensus on the basis of our own senses alone, science notwithstanding. When smoke from monstrous fires in the western states this past year darkened the skies over Europe, that alone should be enough to cinch the case in the minds of intelligent persons. I am left with a lingering cough after two months of breathing that same smoke, so I’m definitely convinced.

And as if we needed any more distraction from the need of rising to meet these challenges, there’s an orange guy in the White House who has barricaded himself in the bathroom, refusing to comply with the eviction notice that was, along with his ass, recently handed to him. Enough already!

Have I overlooked anything in this doomsday review? Oh, yeah ... the viral pandemonium. Perhaps I should’ve led with that considering how it has played such a devastating role in the lives of us all, and how large it has been playing in my personal life.

Prisons notoriously make an ideal environment for the spread of an infectious disease. The prison where I reside has been on varying degrees of CoVid-19 lockdown since last March. The number of coronavirus infections among prisoners and staff has been relatively low compared to some of the other prisons in the state. Inter-facility transfers of prisoners have been halted for the most part, with quarantine protocols in place for transfers deemed necessary, such as in the case of a medical emergency.

The danger of an unknowingly infected prison employee being the source of coronavirus transmission inside the prison is minimized by subjecting staff to temperature checks when they arrive for work, and weekly CoVid-19 testing. The system is fairly reliable but not foolproof. With the spike in community spread after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and a significant rise of new cases among prisoners, the authorities took the precaution of putting the facility on full lockdown as of the beginning of December. All I wanted for Christmas was a hot shower. That didn’t happen.

Despite the hardships, I’m grateful to all the local decision-makers who have kept me, and most others in here, safe from coronavirus infection during this time.

Am I suffering from pandemic fatigue? You betcha! And I’m probably a little too fixated on the news from outside for my own good. It’s like I’m feeling all the pain and confusion people are suffering in the world these days, and I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to do with that.

Unlike the other challenges to survival that our species is facing, this one, the current pandemic, is not manmade. A virus is a lifeform produced by nature. Some of the notions I’ve heard ascribed to the CoVid-19 pandemic strike me as pretty weird. Bizarre absurdities.

This pandemic is not God’s judgement on humanity. It is not a morality play, not karma, nor is it nature’s way of culling the human populations with any kind of intelligent plan or intention. A virus, or any other microbe that might make us sick, is neither good nor bad. To nature, the progenitor of all lifeforms on this planet, a parasite is just as valid a form of life as its host. Any species, one supremely intelligent or one as gormless as a slug, must adapt to prevailing conditions or perish, simple as that. And nature is too busy making the next new thing to care about the outcome one way or the other.

But we humans care. We tend to be curious creatures, and some of us observe what nature is doing very closely. Biologists believe that most if not all of the viruses that have plagued us across the millennia (for many of which we carry instructions coded in our DNA to immunize us against their former ability to make us sick) emerged out of bat caves, where there are steamy brews of bat poop and bugs and microorganisms, all squirming around in the muck and experimentally mutating. Mother Nature likes to play with herself in the dark, cooking up new life.

New viral contagions are typically delivered to humans and other mammals by unwitting bats, as it is believed happened to trigger our current pandemic. Just last week I listened to a talk by a biologist who described how he and others in his field are capturing bats to swab their mouths for new viruses, to map the viral DNA for the development of vaccines that might be used to make pre-emptive strikes on future pandemics. The researchers are also vaccinating bats to prevent them from contracting diseases and transmitting them to human beings and other mammals. What’s more, they’re getting the bats to inoculate each other. Bats like to lick one another’s fur. If a vaccine is applied to the fur of one bat, that bat will then carry the vaccine to all of the other bats in its cohort. Clever, eh? Turns out it’s a whole lot easier to inoculate a population of bats than it is to inoculate eight billion people.

This time around, though, we’ll be doing it the old-fashioned way. The US is in the midst of a somewhat rocky rollout of the first CoVid-19 vaccines. Certainly, we are at the beginning of the end of this pandemic, but we are far from being out of the woods. Infections are peaking in many parts of the world. Even with multiple vaccines being made available we are looking at some long months before we begin to get the pandemic under control. The majority of the world’s population must be inoculated against the virus before a high enough level of immunization is reached to be able to say we’ve beaten this strain of coronavirus.

We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the out-going administration for the success of the Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program. This truly remarkable achievement is a testament to what is possible when people pool their ideas and come together in a concerted way to realize a goal. It’s a pretty safe bet that it wasn’t Donald Trump’s own strategy (Dr. Trump’s idea, remember, was a cleansing injection of bleach), but it happened on his watch, and it was his administration’s task force that rallied the pharmaceutical companies to tackle vaccine development. In spite of his almost criminally lackadaisical and disingenuous approach to the handling of the pandemic in this country he deserves the credit for this remarkable success.

Yes, I’m aware that this acknowledgment seems somewhat begrudging. Sorry, it’s the best I can manage for now.

No one is to be blamed for a natural catastrophe, of course, but it didn’t have to be so bad. Unfortunately for folks in the US, and some other countries, we were hit with the global outbreak of an infectious disease at a time when we had saddled ourselves with nationalist leadership predisposed to protecting its self-interest. When suddenly facing the ravages of a pandemic societies quickly discover that there is little protective value in meticulously drawn arbitrary borders and their assortments of barricades. Ethnic and religious divisions, gender biases, ideological disagreements, class divisions, and the myriad other contrivances we humans have devised to separate ourselves from one another only serve to disguise the fact of our commonality and get in the way of concerted efforts needed to beat back our common enemy.

Without equivocation, my position is that all of humanity is of common stock. Responsibility for oneself carries with it the need to be responsible for one another. Just try to name a single thing that should be more unifying than a common threat to our existence. The coronavirus itself recognizes our commonality better than many of we humans do. To the virus we are just one big yummy feast, and the perfect playground to propagate its species.

The next time we are confronted by the challenges of a pandemic disease — and I hate to break it to you, there will be many next times — we may be too late in responding to it if we fail to learn some important lessons from the current experience. We may be too slow on the uptake if we have to adjust for being misled by leaders who have convinced us that the enemies to be guarded against are brown border jumpers, foreign religious zealots, asylum seekers, the free press and members of the opposing political party. These constructs of suspicion and fear tend to be the foundation of self-fulfilling prophesy; these mocked-up preoccupations are ultimately revealed to be frivolous when natural phenomena catastrophically assume pre-eminence on a global scale.

In this case prejudice, fear, complacency and petty self-interest conspired to distract us from preparing for what we had long been told by the experts in communicable disease would certainly come. It was a failure that turned out to be debilitating and even fatal for a great many people, a failure to take enough notice of the little things. A tiny invisible enemy was sneaking up on us.

The invader hitched a ride in a bat and was transported into Wuhan by an enterprising trader in exotic wild animals, brought to market for eating by people. Or so it was conjectured during the earliest investigations of the outbreak, which means it’s likely closest to the truth of the various theories that have been tendered in the past year.

Oh, the perils of eating bats in the 21st Century!

Now, speaking strictly for myself, although I have a fairly adventurous palette for a westerner, I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the notion of eating any part of a bat. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about the sorts of places bats hang out in during the day, the corpses of their fellows littering the floors of their caves along with all the other creepy stuff roiling down there, and triggers my gag reflex when I associate that with eating one of those critters. But that’s just me, so no judgements. Sensibilities vary from one culture to another. In parts of Asia in particular, virtually any creature that crawls, flaps, swims, squirms, buzzes, hops, waddles, or what have you, is on the menu. In some of these cultures it is believed that certain animals, or parts of animals, impart curative or enhancing benefits when consumed. Now we know there can be unwelcome consequences to some of these practices.

It is possible, I suspect, that the Chinese government was slow to inform the rest of the world about the outbreak because, perhaps, it would mean losing face to have to admit that some Chinese citizens are inclined to put highly unusual items on their dinner plates. And maybe they believed that they could contain the outbreak before anyone in other nations became the wiser. Reportedly, the wet markets where exotic animals were being sold for food in Wuhan have been shut down by the government, suggesting my surmise may be the right of it.

Blame is one of the most unproductive behaviors a person can engage in, it seems to me. Donald Trump apparently believes otherwise. Like a common schoolyard bully, he makes up derogatory names for people he doesn’t like or who threaten or thwart him, and deflects responsibility for his failings by blaming others. Both of these propensities are dominant features in his personality that he has brought into the office of the presidency. He has consistently, without evident shame, employed infantile name-calling and blaming throughout his tenure as the POTUS whenever he is confronted by an obstacle he is ill-equipped to deal with.

And that’s what gripes me about the guy: that he occupies the space reserved for a most important leader while lacking any real leadership qualities at a time when leadership is what this country needs most.

In keeping with his immature propensities, Trump wasted no time in shifting all the blame for the pandemic onto the Chinese, calling it “the China plague” during his speeches. He has yet to mention, as far as I know, that Chinese geneticists acted immediately to make the genetic code of the new coronavirus public as soon as they had mapped it. This shaved valuable time off the vaccine development period so that big pharma companies could get vaccines to us rapidly. In a pandemic there is much more to be gained by cooperating than with divisive rhetoric. The virus is a threat to all people of all nations equally, after all.

I knew we were in trouble when, in the early stages of the pandemic spread, Trump appointed his dipped-in-Colgate VP to head the new coronavirus task force team. For a time, President Trump stood to one side, self-consciously rotating to and fro from his hips like a mechanical Santa in a store window while his yes-man and health experts did the talking. This couldn’t last for long. Trump commandeered control of the microphone and returned to making vague reassurances to America, playing down the severity of the pandemic, saying he had it all under control, and emphasizing the need to get the economy back on track at all costs. He contradicted the guidance of medical experts on his own task force with his talk of quack remedies and cures, as if wishful thinking could ever be a replacement for real and responsible policy.

It became clear to me then that to Donald J. Trump, even in the face of a dire national threat, the only thing truly important is what’s good for Donald J. Trump. How he might look to the supporters of his re-election campaign would henceforth take precedence over any other consideration, including the safety and well-being of the American citizenry.

Absolutely unconscionable to me is that the erstwhile leader of the free world would fail to inform the American people just how infectious the viral outbreak is, and how severe and potentially deadly the CoVid-19 illness could be, as soon as he knew. And when the extreme seriousness of the pandemic became self-evident, he again failed to lead, failed in his responsibility as a president to recommend and exemplify the safeguards that help to slow the spread of the disease and help to provide personal protections against getting infected. He failed his office by failing the people.

Trump said he didn’t like to wear a mask because he thought it made him look weak, and chided others around him for wearing one as a way of badgering them into following his bad example. Well, take it from someone who has lived for more than half a century in a world where guys who want to look tough are in abundance: the need to look tough to others is the refuge of one with weaknesses to hide. Hard looks may seem impressive in a theatrical wrestling ring where bombast and athleticism are combined to make a show of being tough, but hard looks have never won a war in real life. In my experience, giving people hard looks is an invitation to getting a punch in the face.

There was a time in this country, and it was not so long ago, when it was understood that being an American carried with it a certain level of patriotic responsibility, or civic duty. It was considered a small price to pay for the freedoms we enjoy. Seeking to support the well-being of fellow citizens, even when a sacrifice of some sort may be involved, was believed to be about the most patriotic thing one could do.

Nowadays we have American citizens wrapping themselves in American flags and sporting American insignia, as if to say they are more patriotic than those other Americans, while refusing to do a few little simple things that would truly support their country at this time. By modifying their behavior in accordance with the expert guidance they would help to safeguard themselves, their immediate families and cohorts, neighbors and other Americans, as well as severely challenged hospitals from the ravages of coronavirus infection.

The excuse used by elected officials and regular citizens for refusing to go along with the guidance from the medical community is the need to get the US economy back on track at all costs. Many people are stricken by the loss of their livelihoods, so this is understandable, if acutely myopic. If the US health care system collapses as a result of being overwhelmed with coronavirus cases the economic consequences will be orders of magnitude worse than what we’re already experiencing. This is because the health care system is intimately connected to many other parts of the economy, through insurance companies, employers, corporate holdings, drug manufacturers and suppliers, banks, first responders, etc. The collapse of a hospital triggers a domino-effect cascade of financial disruption downstream.

During the second World War the government imposed strict curfews, blackouts, mandated selective service in the military, commandeered private manufacturing for wartime uses, implemented rationing and other austerities. These government orders were a hardship or an inconvenience to the country’s citizens, yet few of them complained. Everyone understood it was their duty as patriots to comply with the measures the government deemed necessary to defeat a determined enemy and win the war for the free world.

The current pandemic has already killed more Americans in the past year than were killed in all four years of WWII combined. This evening I heard a news report that decried a record 4000 Americans dying from complications from CoVid-19 in just the past 24 hours. We are at war. Make no mistake about it. The out-going president’s cavalier attitude regarding CoVid-19 casualties notwithstanding, we have to be on a wartime footing if we are to succeed in keeping the number of deaths of our citizens to a minimum and avoid the complete collapse of our economy.

Some very brave nurses, doctors, medical technicians and other healthcare professionals have been fighting on behalf of all of us for the better part of a year. Many are exhausted, some are experiencing PTSD or something very much like it, while struggling and failing to stay ahead of the rate of infection. Other frontline workers, too, some of them immigrants, some of them undocumented, have put themselves in jeopardy to keep us safe, and keep us in food and supplies, largely freeing us from the need to be concerned about these necessities so we can hunker down and slow the spread. All they have asked from us in return was just a few simple things: wash our hands, wear a mask, keep a reasonable distance from anyone outside of our personal cohort, and stay at home when possible.

Yet we have a large segment of the US population waving American flags and wearing MAGA apparel who have made the refusal to wear a mask and socially distance a symbolic gesture of loyalty to the Ignoramus In Chief, in defiance of the common good. My God, I wonder where the America my father joined the Marines to fight for in WWII has gone.

Hypocrisy has infected the social integrity of this country like I have not seen before in my lifetime, and may threaten the American way of life even more than the coronavirus pandemic. A sad irony is that many of the people who object most loudly to stay-at-home orders and mask mandates on the basis of their being infringements on their civil rights as Americans see no contradiction when they demand that the government enact a law that would deprive a woman of sovereignty over her own body.

On the day that the result of the recent presidential election was called I authored a brief reflection on the significance of the event and shared it openly. In one part I referred to the current president as a “malignant narcissist” and otherwise cast him in an unflattering light. Most readers who responded agreed with my assessment. There was a little push-back, however, mostly from people who mistakenly assumed from my remarks that I was a fan of his opponent in the race. The fact that “narcissist” is not a word that appears in a dictionary, much less a personal noun in the way that I used it, was not among the objections.

Anyway, I do regret applying the term in the way that I did. No person should be labeled with the name of their illness or disability as if it is who they are, no matter who they are, and even when that’s the way it seems.

Once upon a time when I was a much younger man and quite naive in some respects, I befriended someone who suffered from malignant narcissism, a man by the name of Charlie Manson. Being too inexperienced back in those days to apprehend my own human frailties, much less the complex psychology of a man who had been damaged as much as Manson had, I couldn’t see the danger he posed to everyone in his sphere of influence. I continue to pay a heavy price for the failure of discerning judgement that allowed that man to be any part of my life.

From hard-knocks experience, I developed an acute sensitivity that allows me to detect that particularly toxic form of narcissism whenever I encounter someone who is possessed by the trait. Though only a small minority, such people are a feature of the prison landscape. One is wise to be on guard when in their vicinity.

It seems to me that some people may be born with a defect that exhibits as that form of malignancy, but I think in most cases it manifests when a child’s innate desire to love and be loved is crushed by one or more adults in the child’s early life. Donald Trump’s father, who is said to have been a notorious predatory slum lord, no doubt subjected young Donald to brutish treatment, if only love denied.

Based on what I have seen and experienced, malignant narcissism is a kind of immoral self-delusion. Those suffering from it are typically willing to sacrifice without compunction the well-being of anyone and everyone on the altar of what they perceive is the image of themselves in the eyes of others. To one who has not known love and doesn’t know what genuine love looks like, the trappings of popularity, adoration, and devoted loyalty will do. Such people are driven only by what they believe best serves the interests of number one, without any detectable suggestion of regret, there being no true self-awareness to raise the specter of moral dilemma. An all-consuming egocentricity of this sort is the sanctuary of one who is incredibly lonely, a loneliness often hidden behind a veneer of bravado or hostility.

Many years ago something like a grub crawled into the space where Donald Trump’s heart should have been, and it squirms around in there to this day.

While I don’t really want to alarm anyone, it might be of some value to take note that Donald Trump has a whole lot more followers than Charlie ever dreamed about having. And they’ve got a ton of guns.

A man, a father, a loved and respected member of his community, is being slowly executed by asphyxiation on a street in Minneapolis. His clean white t-shirt has picked up dirt from the asphalt where he lays in the shadow of a police cruiser. The city policeman seems almost nonchalant as he kneels over the man, pressing down hard on his knee to suppress the big man’s struggles; he is following his training, after all, employing a procedure prescribed for dealing with an uncooperative individual who meets a certain suspect profile. The officer ignores the pleas for mercy, those of the big man as well as those of some onlookers, including a fellow officer. The man knows he is about to die; he begs for someone nearby to relay a last message of love and regret to his mother. The knee on his throat presses down harder, closing his windpipe, and, after almost nine long minutes, the big man dies. The cell phone video goes black.

Mark me now, I have seen some bad shit in my days on this earth. My life is that kind of puzzle. Even so, not much comes to mind as dreadful and horrifying as witnessing the slaying of George Floyd in that bystander’s film on my little prison television.

President Trump’s response? Pretty much zilch. If that grub in his chest wriggled at all it was not so as anyone else could tell.

Whatever may be the final determination in the killing of George Floyd, it certainly looked to all the world like the modern equivalent of a lynching. And it followed a long series of killings of people of color that bore the markings of being racially motivated, going back years, decades, centuries. What made the killing of Floyd so profoundly different was the compelling film, and the way the internet made it possible for people all over the world to see it. The cry for justice continues to resound.

After weeks of nearly constant protest marches and demonstrations that brought together people of every age and skin complexion, to raise a cry, in the midst of a global plague, for an end to the abuses of a derelict criminal justice system, Trump finally makes a statement in response to the concerns of the populace. Only obliquely, though, in typical Trumpian fashion, framing a response he believes will promote his image as a tough guy in the minds of voters, while obscuring the glaring social inequities troubling the national conscience with yet another calculated misdirection.

A slumbering giant has awakened and is demanding equity in opportunity and justice under the law, with an end to the violence brought by law enforcement into the communities of people of color. And all President Trump can think to do is puff out his chest and toss insults at the giant. A fool fails to rise to the moment. When what we need is some leadership with a heart, what we get instead is a stunt empty of purpose or meaning.

It is June 1st, 2020. A loud, somewhat raucous but peaceful demonstration is underway in Lafayette Square, near the White House. The POTUS stands at his bully pulpit in the Rose Garden and blathers some inane rhetoric about how he is the law-and-order president, and that he’s going to bring the might of US law enforcement down on the heads of rioters and looters who threaten the American way of life. And then, as a demonstration of his intention, with a phalanx of federal police and military personnel to clear his path of protesters, Trump crashes the BLM protest demonstration in Lafayette Square so he can get a photograph of himself taken with a Bible he has never opened in front of a church he has never entered.

One of the more indelible moments in the video of this spectacle is an extended shot of an elderly white man, one of the protesters, brutally knocked to the ground by the police escort in their rush to clear the path for Trump. He was left lying there, flat on his back on the concrete pavement, his head split open, bleeding out of his ears. I don’t recall any mention of that man’s name.

The election is done. Not done, however, is all the drama over the result, which is likely to linger for some time. Everyone, if only on a deep level some people are unwilling to acknowledge, knows that the election was fair and the result accurate. Those who believed that Trump was going to be their conquering hero and deliver on his empty promises to bring their old jobs back and keep the darkies out of the country may want to believe that the election was rigged, and the presidency stolen. Honestly, I feel for them all. The political elites in Washington have ignored their plight and their needs for far too long. Nevertheless, the people have spoken. A significant majority, including many republicans, acted to assert that demagoguery in the office of the Presidency is not a good look for the nation. Otherwise, the winner in the election is divided government.

Looks like we’re not going to be able to expect a whole lot of help from that quarter. The challenges people in this nation and the world are facing are not insurmountable, but many of them are massive. We need help from the people who are elected into offices to provide that help, yet it seems that when all those political folks get together in Washington all they can do for the most part is bicker over which side has the best political philosophy, and jockey for position in preparation for the next election cycle. It seems that no one is actually doing any real listening, each politician only waiting for their next turn to do the talking. Those of us down here in middle earth have been disappointed so many times!

This nation was founded as a democratic republic. How did we get to the place where it’s become republicanism versus democracy? Where are “We the people ...” in all this?

The two-party system in its current incarnation is so dysfunctional, so mired in power struggle for its own sake, that it’s no longer able to serve the people. All the energy, for the most part, gets spent leapfrogging from one election cycle to the next, with dark money determining outcomes.

But what do I know? I’m just a guy in prison who has never voted in his life (though I would if I could), and who didn’t pay much attention to what happens in the political arena, tracking what happened in that world with one ear and sidelong glances, until I saw a guy I knew to be deadly dangerous elected into office as President. That got my attention. Now that I’ve invested a good deal of time in watching the goings on in Washington much more closely for a while, I can see the real danger that ineffective government poses to the well-being of America. And now that I see it, I find that I am not comfortable being complacent about what is happening in the political world. For what value there may be in sharing what I’m seeing from my low vantage, here you are.

* * *

We’re living in a burning house, folks. The writing of my reflections on the past year and my thoughts looking ahead had to be put on pause for a bit, my process having been rudely interrupted by yet another Trump-instigated drama. The events of 2020 are literally bleeding into 2021. The Trump Presidency is like an unwelcome gift that just keeps on giving.

A little over a week ago a friend gave me a heads up, tipping me off that a new wrinkle in the fabric of American society was developing in the nation’s capital. Ordinarily I never turn on my television during the day. There’s only so much pop culture a guy can take before something like a bout with depression sets in, so I usually limit my television watching to evenings only. Significant world events are the rare exception.

I turned on the tube and watched as the nightmarish events at the US Capitol Building began to violently unfold, learning only later that Donald Trump was doing precisely the same thing at precisely the same time. Not since the days of MAD and the Vietnam conflict during the Cold War era have I felt less proud to be an American.

When I first tuned in the scene that greeted me was that of a hostile horde of white-complexioned people converging on the central edifice of our American democracy, like a mob of angry villagers hot on the heels of Doktor Frankenstein’s monster. Only this was not an old black and white movie; it was an ugly horror show in hi-res living color, and the mob was not carrying torches and pitchforks; they were wearing apparel and carrying banners and flags emblematic of the cult of Trump. Many in the mob were waving signs saying “Stop The Steal” or messages with a similar meaning.

A couple of the rioters were scaling the walls of the Capitol Building freestyle, which seemed especially odd since there were plenty of staircases nearby. And as time went on most of the climbers seemed to get stuck in place, not going up or down but only clinging to the walls like weird ornaments. Stranger still, there was no evidence in sight of police or military personnel for quite some time. It baffled me why it took such a long time for law enforcement to bring the rioting under control and clear the grounds of the would-be revolutionaries.

Way back in the day I used to think of myself as a revolutionary. What I saw on January 6th bore little resemblance to what I imagined the revolution would look like in those long ago days.

The scenes filmed inside the Capitol Building, shot with cell phones, reveal people who have been made mad by years of a steady diet of poisonous rhetoric. Insurgency is too polite a word, and sedition too sensible a word for what was taking place in those hallowed halls. It was a rape of America by some of its own citizens. Rampaging lunatics in an asylum smearing their feces on the walls and decorations to express outrage over the conditions of their confinement. Juvenile delinquents on a vandalism spree, trashing the local high school, indiscriminately breaking up furniture and ripping papers, stealing a few objects to keep as mementos. These are the impressions one is left with after watching the amateur films that will surely remain a centerpiece of the historical record of this disgraceful episode from here on.

The efforts of the Capitol Police and the Washington Metro Police to hold the line on the mob were impressive. The police personnel who were on site on the Capitol Building grounds when the siege began, though uncharacteristically outnumbered by a factor of many to one, comported themselves with professionalism and valor in the face of hundreds of maddog zealots intent on doing great bodily harm, or worse, to the Vice President and members of Congress. They stood fast and did what was possible to mitigate the situation and protect the lawmakers, all the while taking a lot of vocal and physical abuse. Some were injured, and one cop subsequently died from his injuries.

Doubtless some of the police officers in the line of defense had voted for Trump, and may have struggled with some moral dilemmas during the riot. Most if not all did their jobs regardless. Insurgents with connections to the military and law enforcement notwithstanding, of course. The following day it was reported, with few details, that one of the cops on site during the uprising had taken his own life.

Newscasters frequently cut away to video flash-backs of the speech Trump gave to his supporters just prior the assault on the institution of our republic. Like a typical wily mob boss, Trump did not specifically tell his hit squad to storm the Capitol Building. He will claim that all of his remarks were perfectly fine and innocent, that it’s not his fault if some of the people in the crowd took some of his statements the wrong way. His lawyers and the most mendacious of Republicans in Congress will use this rationale to defend Trump against accusations of inciting the throng to engage in seditious acts.

Deny deny deny, Trump’s fall-back position in every instance when he’s been caught in the act of behaving badly. Lie lie lie, like a small boy with chocolate smeared all around his mouth who swears he didn’t eat the candy bar.

The truth is obvious: President Trump stood in front of a crowd of people already twitchy with nervous fervor, like a weapon loaded and cocked, primed by months of being fed the bogus narrative of a fraudulent election, and gave a rabble-rousing speech exhorting his followers to go up to the Capitol Building and demand that his VP alter the count of electoral college votes in his favor. He implored them to disrupt the process of affirming the vote tally concurrently under way, admonishing them that they couldn’t succeed if they were weak, saying they needed to “fight like hell” to take their country back from those he claimed had stolen the election from him. Call it what you will, the truth is that Trump deliberately poured gasoline onto a fire he had been stoking since before the votes were even cast.

The President of the United States of America has the duty to uphold the oath of the office, to stand for truth and justice, adhere policy to the Constitution, and protect the country from all threats, foreign or domestic. Trump’s speech on January 6th did precisely the opposite. Exhorting a mob already lathered-up to near-hysteria to commit seditious acts is in itself an act of sedition, marginally veiled by a cunning speech-writer to allow the possibility of an arguable way out. Trump’s last acts as a sitting President are so disgraceful and repugnant that disgust gets in the way of finding the right words to describe a response.

Trump’s own failures as President and his rhetorical terrorism indict him; yet there are Republicans in Congress who will not, much less convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors. Some of the people who have enabled their Commander in Extremis over the past four years bear at least equal culpability for how effective Trump has been in brutalizing the nation by degrading the trust in democracy that holds it together. Dignifying the betrayal of America in pursuit of an agenda that is inconsistent with the needs of the nation is to be as complicit as the titular face of the betrayal. And in consequence, to be subject to reaping the reckoning that such betrayal will inevitably bring.

I wonder how long it will take for the majority of Trump’s supporters to wake up to a dawning awareness that they’ve been duped. It may take awhile because no one likes to admit they’ve been suckered. Some cracks are already showing, though, as it’s evident that the truth has already begun to sink in for some.

During that reprehensible little pep talk he gave to his supporters just prior to the siege on the Capitol Building, Trump made assurances that he would accompany them on their mission, standing with them during that critical confrontation. Of course he lied again. Bravado and bombast are often a cloak for cowardice. Ducking back into the White House, Trump bunkered down to watch the events unfold on television (anyone who’s been paying attention will know it’s only real for him when he sees it on the tube). A couple of days later he would betray his followers again, in a televised statement from the White House, telling those who had taken his cause to the Capitol Building on the 6th that they do not represent America. (ouch!)

The insurrection, if that’s what we’re calling it, must surely go down in history as the world’s most inept attempted coup. While it was in progress it seemed that there was a kind of interrogatory taking place, a collective introspection of the American conscience, a questioning look at the moral crisis this event represents in the national psyche. The seemingly sleepy response by law enforcement, from the perspective of watching what was going on outside of the Capitol Building, gave us all a long lingering look at what happens to people when the government fails to do some of the most basic things it was created for, and fails to adequately address the real concerns and dire needs of large portions of the country’s population.

Setting aside for the moment those malicious hard cases who scooted in under the camouflage of the Trump parade, most of the people who joined the horde storming the Capitol Building that day were not domestic terrorists. By and large they were a mob of confused, justifiably angry people who had been misled by the lies of a blowhard they revered, and who got swept up in the crowd madness. The same dynamic is at work in prison riots, which are not outside of my personal experience. Peer pressure often plays a role in this sort of thing. In a large assemblage of people caught up in the moment and under the influence of anger and fear a kind of crowd fever can take over, and people get involved in things that are not necessarily representative of their normal moral identities. Yeah, a bunch of impressionable dumbasses, that’s another way to put it. Consequences from a legal standpoint are likely to vary. The price of involvement for some will not be cheap.

There was a steady stream of Trump supporters appearing on the scene at the Capitol Building for some time. The smarter ones, when they saw what was happening up on the walls and landings, turned around, put their flags and signs over their shoulders, and walked back in the direction they had come from. Others were more determined to fulfill their fantasies of being in a revolution, and charged ahead. Some of them climbed the walls, some taunted police with insults, some went into the building after some doors and windows were breached so they could take selfies to use for bragging rights on their social media pages. Poor gullible dumbasses! Imprisonment is a high price to pay for such meager returns.

Even from my faraway vantage it seemed to me that the garden variety Trump supporters were being used like cannon fodder in a more sinister scheme than they understood they were participating in. Some very bad actors with some very bad intentions were prime movers in what took place at the Capitol Building: people who believe that Timothy McVeigh was a patriotic hero; people who are being radicalized from the pulpits of some evangelical churches in rural communities; people who believe that fomenting a race war is the only way to push back on what they see as the browning of the country in order to preserve white majority rule; people who are enthralled by visions of an ascendency of chaos in the world.

I know these types; I can spot them a mile away. They have been stuck inside of propaganda-driven echo chambers for so long they have self-talked themselves into believing in alternate realities built of elaborate fictions. Ask them what the world will look like if they succeed in getting what they want and their faces go blank. A foggy, amorphous aspiration at best; no clear vision of something better on the other side, no real plan, no goal beyond the opportunity to feel the fleeting power of using their guns on people they’ve been warped into believing are either a threat or inferior, or both.

Trump did not create these groups, nor do many in them consider him to be anything like a leader. It’s more a case of mutual exploitation, an alliance of convenience. Self-obsession makes for strange bed fellows.

With the glamour spell broken and Trump revealed as a tin god, now mostly impotent, both his garden variety supporters and the opportunist hard cases who have been exploiting his platform will, each in their own ways, be floundering. The latter have always been lurking in the fringes, and if enough of the country’s population can manage to get cleaner information and move toward the common good, those factions will retreat to whence they came. I worry most for the regular folks whose significant needs have largely been ignored by Washington, making them easy marks for the empty promises of a self-styled savior who claimed he could fix all their problems if only they would vote for him. I worry that in the absence of the demagogue they might just return to their Fox News/Rush Limbaugh echo chambers and get seduced again by fear mongering and conspiracy constructs, leading to another dead end of false hope.

For Trump, you see, was never the real problem. He was a symptom, like itchy bumps are a symptom of chicken pox. As far as anyone can tell, the root of the despair he played on to con his way to enough votes to win the presidency in 2016 persists undiminished by anything he did during his four years in the office. The coal and steel and manufacturing jobs he promised to bring back to rural American communities did not come back. The promised infrastructure projects that were supposed to bring so many new jobs did not manifest. It appears the only building project that actually resulted in something being built is a part of a wall on the southern border, and in fact it only replaced some of the border wall that had already been there. This will remain, I suppose, a lasting monument to the xenophobic egoism that gave rise to it.

The world moved on and left a lot of people in America behind, and essentially cast aside, their plight largely overlooked by media agencies. Out of sight, out of mind, they were left to figure things out on their own. So many people living in digital deserts exacerbates the disconnect, limiting access to unfiltered information and education opportunities. A recipe for social disintegration on a major scale.

None of this should come as a surprise to the bigshots in Washington, not if they’ve been paying attention. The crisis has been in development for decades. It’s an old story: With the regularity of evolving progress come new and better technologies that make earlier technologies obsolete. Artificial intelligence and robotics are rapidly making manufacturing more streamlined, economical, and therefore more profitable to manufacturing companies and their financial holders. Added to this is that America’s affection for inexpensive imported products has resulted in many domestic companies sending their manufacturing to countries with developing economies, so they could compete in the domestic market.

Steam power was replaced with electricity and the internal combustion engine, opening up tremendous new markets, and the need for the work force to adapt and learn new skill sets to keep pace. Technological advancement and changing market forces will tend to displace working people from their livelihoods. Where the failure in the free market system occurs is when there are money-grubbing corporations treating displaced workers as expendable casualties of doing business, as if they were not actually people, and the government ‘for the people’ lets them get away with it. Only in the world of organized crime is it said: Nothing personal; it’s only business.

On the one hand, it’s a good thing we have new technologies to take us beyond reliance on industrial age technologies that are largely dependent on fossil fuels. This may help us to avoid the fate of making the planet too hot and stormy for our species to continue living on it.

On the other hand, as the industrial era jobs have dried up during the rise of the digital age, so too did the livelihoods of millions of people who have depended on those jobs to provide for their families, and to give meaning and purpose to their lives. It’s truly a shame that we lack a leadership in Congress that makes a concerted effort to keep the working people from being stranded and left behind, and makes it a priority to keep them whole and contributing to the nation’s vitality as the job market adapts to progress.

This is a systemic failure of good governance in this country. It is a failure to properly evaluate developing trends in industries and markets, to make preparations and take steps to head off catastrophic social collapse within affected communities. Consequently, the underlying conditions that have engendered a massive outbreak of hopelessness in many of the nation’s communities continue to fester unabated. These communities are in dire need of some solutions that get to the root causes of the despair.

While there has been some lip-service and a little bit of action brought to bear on the symptomatic crises – pervasive mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism, suicides – that have so mortified affected communities, and some grass roots efforts to upgrade skill sets within their work forces, efforts to address the underlying causes of community disintegration have been minimal and patchy at best. This is not the sort of problem that can be solved by throwing food stamps at it.

So that’s how it happened. When local economies collapse and the government fails to take heed and step up to provide some meaningful support, you suffer, and you blame government. You as a man or woman living in such a marginalized community, having lost options for making a satisfactory living, suffering with feelings of hopelessness and despair, and trying to drown the misery in drink or drugs doesn’t really help, and you just keep getting more and more angry about the conditions you’re trying to survive in, well, that makes you vulnerable, susceptible to someone prone to shady dealings. Along comes a chubby charlatan selling his own special brew of MAGA snake oil. Step right up, folks, he says, I’ve got what you need right here, just the thing to ease your pain and cure what ails you. My special potion is the only thing that can fix you, just one vote a bottle. So if you’re desperate enough, you might be willing to risk a vote to take the guy up on the remedy he’s offering.

Now we’ve all had the benefit of seeing what happens when things are allowed to get so bad that a snake oil salesman is able to get his little mitts on the reins of government.

Yes, it was heartbreaking to watch the cradle of democracy in this country be debased by an angry mob. People jacked up on MAGA juice, a circus of disgrace, sickening to witness.

And yet, was it all that surprising? Some would argue that it was almost inevitable, that we could have predicted just such an outcome given all that had preceded it in recent years. All the sniping and take-no-prisoners politics in Washington, the inability of Congress to rise above party loyalty to come together, to find some wiggle room for compromise, to act decisively when the need for action is so plainly visible ... I mean, it’s just tiresome. Congress could not have been more effective in enticing angry citizens to stage an attempted coup if they had actually planned it and sent out engraved invitations.

Again, as someone who has never voted, I claim no party affiliation. Generally speaking, it’s been good enough for me if Congress finds some way to work things out and get the job done. I don’t need to know all the little details. Unfortunately, Congress is broken. The dysfunction in Washington has forced me to pay more attention to government than I would ordinarily care to pay.

The two party system is not my idea of a good time. I’m sure there are some very fine people on both sides, but put them all together in a room and it’s just a basket of deplorables. Robert’s Rules of Order keep the bickering between the two sides superficially polite, but in the end it’s still just petty bickering, with catch phrase sloganing as a politically correct form of name calling used ad nauseum to insult the opposing side and invalidate its position. Jockeying for position in the next election race has taken precedent over serving the public good.

In these incredibly challenging times what we need more than anything else is leadership that has the ability to think and act creatively, to come up with innovative solutions to the problems we face. As an artist, a creative person by nature, I seek to align myself with people who have the ability and inclination to think and act creatively. What success I have had in this life has almost entirely come out of that type of relationship.

The elected representatives we currently have in Washington, both parties combined, can’t seem to rub enough brain cells together between them to produce effectively innovative strategies to bring to the process of finding solutions to the kinds of problems we are facing in today’s world, where the solutions of yesteryear frequently won’t work. We are in great need of some fresh thinking in that very place where ideology so often gets in the way of actual ideas.

As things stand, we have two political parties in perpetual loggerheads around issues of economics, equity, criminal justice, climate change, and other pressing concerns. The persistent log jams invariably arise out of the same tired arguments, often based on principles demonstrably outdated and invalid. Too often, policy is driven by paranoia, the misplaced belief that something of value will be lost if there is capitulation toward a position that veers from the traditional party narrative. There is an irrational presumption that, looking ahead to the next election, it’s safer to stick with the party line. Consequently, the machinery of government is rusted, frozen in place. Broken.

Where is the courage to step out of line and do the right thing, when simply doing the right thing is clearly what is called for? What will it take for Washington to bring teamwork to the process of governance, to obtain the best available information and be ready to take bold, swift action to meet challenges that are already at the crisis point?

Oh, yeah, now I remember. A couple of dinosaurs, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, are locked in a pissing contest, and we all have to wait for them to finish before we can begin to get anywhere – which is liable to take us beyond the foreseeable future, what with the enlarged prostates and all.

Don’t get me wrong: both of the main political parties have valid points of view and precepts in their respective philosophies, and there are aspects of each of those philosophies that I tend to agree with. At this juncture, however, if I were forced to pick a side, Republican or Democrat, my brain would probably short-circuit and fry before I could arrive at a decision.

Frankly, every time I hear Chuck Schumer talk I feel like curling up, pulling the bed covers over my head and going to sleep. Democratic senators have crippled themselves by choosing that man as leader, in my opinion. Pompous, self-righteous, always seeming to be wagging his shaming finger at Republicans. He stands on principle, and dies on that hill almost every time. Principle is a stance, not a strategy. Little wonder that Democrats get outfoxed by Republicans so much of the time, even when they hold both majorities in Congress.

Democrats, by and large, have good intentions. And in this context what this brings to mind is an old saw about a road to somewhere being paved with those things. A philosophy that promotes a level playing field for all of Americans across ethnicity and culture and economic standing (a fairly recent adoption for the democratic platform as a whole, by the way) is admirable, and I believe it is mostly genuine, if somewhat immature. How to go about achieving these goals is where Democrats tend to fall short. Their strategies are typically blunt force, lacking in imagination and effective sales pitch language, and tend to require too much bureaucracy to implement. In consequence, most of the legislation introduced by Democrats crashes and burns against a stone wall of resistance from the other party. I wouldn’t know from real experience, but it must be frustrating to be a Democrat. The leadership’s tendency to blame failure on obstinacy by the opposing side is just a cop-out. Righteous indignation does not a strategy make.

Sometimes I think that the only reason Democrats succeed in winning some elections is because so many Republicans have made themselves so disagreeable that most voters can’t stomach what they’ve come to stand for. Like last November when a significant percentage of voters turned out to say “Nope!” to a Trump re-election when not being wildly excited about the Biden/Harris ticket. And again in Georgia’s Senatorial run-off election when for many voters the main impetus to vote was to flip the Senate in order to pry McConnell’s cold petrified fingers from the tiller of the federal government.

Once the party of Abe Lincoln and Ronnie Reagan, the Republican party of today has lost much of its former dignity. Traditionally, Republicans in government stood as a bulwark of resistance to unfettered government growth and fiscal irresponsibility, a sort of counter-balance to hold the line on attempts by progressive lawmakers to add too much well-meaning but unnecessary or repressive legislation to the books. There’s a good reason for this: Every new law or regulation requires an agency of cops to enforce it, adding another layer of bureaucracy to government. Once these policing agencies are created they tend to stay there, hidden from view, drawing paychecks, even after they have long since become obsolete. Republican conservatism brings balancing restraint to the process of governance to help the country to avoid winding up with a government that is too bloated, too costly to function efficiently, too restrictive for commerce to operate freely, and too much of a tax burden on the people.

That is to say, this once was, in short, the traditional role of the party.

Now we have a Republican party dominated by a collection of jokers who surely have Lincoln and Reagan tossing in their graves. Right, white, and tight, and proud of it, for whom working with Democrats in partnership for balanced governance is anathema. The party has been willing to embrace and enjoin an odious Administration in order to obtain endorsement for stacking the courts with the anti-abortion, pro-Christian, anti-egalitarian, pro-corporation judges they wanted. And to get Presidential buy-off on shifting even more of the tax burden onto the working class by giving a whopping tax cut to megabucks tycoons and corporations, who in turn, quid pro quo, supply dark money to fund wickedly conceived schemes to suppress Democratic participation in voting, and to pay for creating the attack ads used to demonize opposition election candidates.

Very few Republicans in Congress have had the courage to stand up and publicly denounce the Administration for the steady stream of lies, half-truths and disinformation that came out of the White House during the Trump Presidency. Those who did were ostracized by their fellows for breaking with party solidarity, while those who may have agreed with the censure but lacked the courage to express their agreement turned their faces down to the papers in front of them and played dumb. Being in government to represent the people, and failing to speak out in the face of a pack of mistruths from the Executive Branch is dishonorable, and tantamount to being in collaboration with the source of the falsehoods.

In recent years some of the best of the traditional conservatives in Washington have dropped out, resigning from their elective posts in disgust, rather than to compromise their integrity and professional ethics by staying in an office that requires them to violate their principles. They have chosen to forfeit their careers rather than to take part in what amounts to an orchestrated power grab to put all the levers of government solely and exclusively in the hands of an unscrupulous cadre of Republicans, leaving the progressive wing effectively routed from having any real influence in political decision-making.

And it almost worked. Fortuitously, the political coup planned by no-mask MAGA-hat Republicans was foiled by a surprise attack on an exposed flank, and America dodged a bullet. Had that bullet struck its intended mark our democracy might have gone into a death spiral.

Someone who doesn’t have a dog in the fight has to be the one to say it: Donald Trump’s re-election was stolen. Not in the way that he and some of his supporters have claimed, though. The voting was fair and legal, and the tallies were accurate, as confirmed by every election monitor all the way up to the US Supreme Court. Nevertheless, there was a theft of some of the votes Trump had been counting on — and they were not stolen by dead people voting, or jiggered voting machines, or deep state aliens abducting ballots, or any of the other wacky conspiracy stories people like Rudy Giuliani and Steve Q. Bannon would have us believe. No, the diabolical schemes of Trumpist Republicans were thwarted by none other than the viral plague.

This happened in two ways: Faced with the first real crisis of his time in office, the arrival on our shores of a deadly virus, Trump revealed himself to be thoroughly ill-suited to the job of being President. Anyone with one eye half-open, if one was willing to look at all, could plainly see that he was an incompetent fool who would happily risk the lives of the country’s entire population to stay in power. And secondly, in response to the pandemic, mail-in ballot voting was established in many places where that option had not been available, to allow citizens a method they could use to vote in safety. This emboldened many citizens to participate in the election who had previously been disenfranchised or discouraged from voting. Effectively, this did an end run around most of the meticulously planned gerrymandering and other voter suppression schemes employed by many Republican majority state legislatures. Turns out that Trump’s fears around mail-in ballot voting were justified. Ironically, things might have turned out better for him if he had told his supporters to use mail-in ballots instead of sowing so much distrust in that method of voting.

The coronavirus pandemic may have inadvertently saved American democracy, for the time being at least, but that nasty plague has wrought too much death and devastation in the lives of families and communities, and too much damage to our economy to think of it in terms of silver linings. Even in the midst of utter catastrophe there might still be little bits of good luck to be found here and there.

The United States of America, the greatest nation in the world. That’s the reputation. Lately that reputation has been tarnished, and our dignity as a nation has taken some hits. This seems to speak to a need for all of us to make a discriminating assessment of who we are and who we want to be as a nation. Some of the challenges we’ve been dealing with might serve as an instrument for such an examination.

The last four years of an Administration with Trump at the helm might be said to be the nation’s way of revealing how far we can stray from having a government of the people, for the people, by the people, and how easily we can drift away from the principles and core values that fortify its ability to guard, support and preserve the commonwealth.

The coronavirus pandemic might be said to be nature’s way of exposing our human weaknesses, the chinks in our armor, the disparities and inequities in our social system that make some people more vulnerable than others. It has stripped away some of our assumptions and misconceptions, opening windows on some of our bad habits, delusions and complacency regarding the status quo within our society, and how some within it will put politics ahead of the well-being of people. Seeing ourselves naked, so to speak, with all of our vulnerabilities exposed, can be painful. Experiencing ourselves exposed in this way can also make us stronger, more insightful, more humble, and more appreciative of what is truly precious as we approach coming out on the other side of this pandemic. It’s not so much about looking on the brighter side; it’s about getting to a better place.

Here, then, is a lens through which to focus in on that place of vulnerability. Ask yourself: Who am I? The pursuit of answering this single question will, I promise you, lead to all of the questions and answers worth knowing.

What each of us brings to community individually will define the shape of the community collectively. It is the willingness to engage with one another in this conversation that will heal a hurting and confused nation.

* * *

There is a dog in the White House. Not just one dog, but two dogs! This to my mind signifies a Major step in the right direction.

Under circumstances that looked a lot like martial law, a Presidential Inauguration was somewhat nervously held dignifying a peaceful transfer of power despite a recalcitrant former head of state. With our new POTUS sworn in we can begin to breathe a little easier, even though an American is dying from CoVid-19 every few minutes as the pandemic continues to rage around the world, and there are still lots of grumblings in the Trump camp.

With some coaxing from people who apparently have a working understanding of child psychology, the orange guy was enticed to leave the White House on the promise of a military ceremony honoring his time in office. I thought, Firing squad? Funny how an embarrassing thought can pop into one’s mind unbidden. But, no, the ceremony of pomp and circumstance turned out to be a length of red carpet leading out of the White House, and a helicopter ride taking him out of Washington.

Most of us would prefer to be done with the guy, I’m guessing, but Nancy Pelosi is not yet done with Trump, who now goes down in the history books as a President twice impeached by the House. She has delivered the Articles Of Impeachment for a trial in the Senate for inciting sedition. I’m on the fence about Trump being tried in the Senate. Does he deserve it? To quote Koty Lee, one of my all-time favorite singing piano players, “Heck yeah!” But it’s doubtful that enough Republicans in the Senate have the cajones to convict out of fear of political repercussions from Trump supporters down the road. I don’t see the point of the time and expense and distraction of a trial when it’s likely to result in Trump getting another newspaper headline saying he’s been acquitted.

My views on the matter are purely academic, it appears. Madame Speaker is fixated on giving Donald Trump a public spanking. What Nancy doesn’t seem to understand is that Donald likes that sort of thing. In his world, being twice impeached by Nancy Pelosi is a merit badge. Malignant narcissism, remember? A darling of the tabloids, Donald Trump doesn’t care if the focus on him is good, bad or ugly as long as the spotlight is on him. Turning off the spotlight and leaving it off is about the only thing that would be a real punishment to a guy like him.

During his speech in the 2017 Presidential Inauguration ceremony, the freshly sworn-in President Donald J. Trump told a bewildered nation that he saw America’s outlook as bleak and grim, and predicted carnage in its future.

Joseph Biden, in his Inaugural address, promised that he would be a President for all Americans, that he would always tell the American people what he knew to be true, and work to bring unity to a fractured nation.

May it come to be proven that Joe Biden is as true to his words as Donald Trump was to his.

As things stand, the orange guy is out, and dogs are in the White House. This makes me smile. On both counts.

What my part in all this might be is anyone’s guess. Having been in prison for such a long time (if I said how long it wouldn’t mean much because so few people have points of reference enough to be able to imagine the effects) makes it difficult for me to know how I fit in under the present circumstances. I had to work very hard to preserve my sanity, and to avoid becoming so filled with rage and cynicism that I turned myself into a bitter old man of little value to anyone. My perspective, therefore, is something of a rarity. Through this running commentary it may be that I can bring some value to people who, like me, have been struggling to gain some clarity around where we are in the world today, trying to figure out how to fit their piece into the puzzle, and find a way to move forward that produces something beneficial.

To be sure, I could list decades’ worth of grievances as reasons why I resent and despise the US government’s justice system. Although the prison populations in this country are predominately comprised of blacks, latinos, and other people of color, once a resident of the system everyone gets the same treatment. No exaggeration: I have seen, and felt, some of the worst the criminal justice system can dish out. And I am only one of millions of people who have been hand-cuffed to draconian prison sentences and shoved inside to feed the insatiable appetite of the prison industrial complex machinery. A national disgrace, that is, the way human beings are chewed up and spit out the other side as broken people, or dead bodies. Nonetheless, God help me, I love this country and everyone who lives in it, the whole crazy mixed-up bunch of us.

The government in this country, at state and federal levels, has a good many shortcomings, more lately than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The people themselves, however; that’s a different story. The real assets of this nation are not its abundance of material resources but in the living blood and spirit of its people in all of our diversity. Some of those holding political office don’t get this. They want to pick and choose, favoring some over others. This weakens us as a nation.

What our elected officials need to understand, and truly what all of us need to understand as we move forward, is that the full potential contained in the people, in the body politic, can be realized only when there is equal participation by all the people of every stripe, gender, cultural history, ethnic features, social standing, and economic worth. This is the true power of our nation. Some will say that the power is in the US Constitution. It is an important document, one that describes the organization of principles and definitions to help guide the formation of a working nation, but in the end it is still only ink on parchment. The real power is the people, and in the people, the talents and skills that each of us brings to community and enterprise.

Who among us failed to recognize that “Make America Great Again” was a dog whistle? Its obvious message: that we were all supposed to sign on to take the country back to some fantasy yesteryear when America was better than it is today. The best I can figure it to mean, what with everything that was packaged with the slogan, was a return to something like the era of manifest destiny and the second industrial revolution, with the whitest and richest men among us holding sway over all. I fail to see what’s so great or attractive about that sort of unimaginative world view. Who wants to buy a ticket to ride on a train to Backwards?

On his last day in the office of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo posted a tweet saying, “Multiculturalism, all the -isms – they’re not who America is.” And I thought, Huh?! What alternate America does that guy live in? And where does he think he got his last name from? Seems to me that Mr. Pompeo would be well-served if he talked this view over with some of my Native brothers and sisters. I’m sure they would be happy to explain a thing or two about who America is with respect to culture.

Until I read Pompeo’s tweet I was unaware that multicultural was an ism. Having been very nearly my entire adult life in a world where my skin complexion puts me in a minority qualifies me to say: It’s better that than racism. We’ve all had just about enough of that fallacy. So much precious time and exhaustive efforts have been squandered in the perpetuation of falsehoods used to deprive American citizens of fair treatment, equity of opportunity and equal justice under the law. It’s wearisome.

Look, I have been a musician for almost my entire life, and over the years I have played in numerous bands, and with some truly great musicians. If there is anything I know for sure it is that talent comes in all colors, sizes and shapes. Throughout my life, well beyond my work in music, it’s been proven to me time and again that talent and skill and imagination are readily found in people of every cultural background. No one gender, culture, ethnicity or age group has a corner on the market when it comes to this sort of thing. To limit who is heard on the basis of how much melanin a person has in his or her skin, or in what part of the world was their ancestral home, or any other similarly contrived and distracting consideration, is literally self-defeating. Applying any arbitrary bias to limit the diversity of human resources brought to the challenges of building community and finding some solutions to our problems risks the possibility of misplacing that one single idea or element that could bring a great achievement, or even our salvation as a species.

How about we come to an agreement to make America America, and have it done. What I would like to see is a forward-looking vision for this nation and, by extension, the world. Give us the Imagineers! Now more than ever before we need the creatives to step up and show us visions of what a post-industrial era world might look like, and how all the parts might function together harmoniously.

So here’s a full-throated call to the innovators, the artists, the poets, the daydreamers, the mystics, the mythologists, the learned elders, the inventors, the hot-rodding customizers, the ingenious entrepreneurs, the agile-minded economists, the idealists, the pragmatists, the builders, the judicious demolitionists, the conjurers, the green-thumbed gardeners, the curious botanists, the intrepid scientists, the science fictionists, the stalwart explorers, the wordsmiths, the multilingualists, the storytellers, the crafty shop wrights, the organic digitechnologists, the fuzzy logisticians, the fanciful architects, the extraordinary conceptualists, the enthusiasm motivators, and the tactical juxtaposers. All hands on deck!

The canvas is blank; show us what you’ve got. Let’s see some imaginings of a way cooler world.

The disruption in our lives brought by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted a variety of adaptations and some remarkable innovations. Some of them are likely to remain with us after the pandemic is behind us. A good many of them are positive developments, worth hanging onto. There are some worrying social symptoms as well, like kids in difficult family situations, people with substance dependency issues, and no doubt a lot of people have been eating too much, sleeping too much, playing video games obsessively, and grappling with bouts of depression. There will be some adjustments to make during the recovery period once the contagion has been tamped down.

Over these past many months I’ve been humbled by some of the ways people have responded to the pandemic. So many people have suffered the loss of friends and kin, and I feel their grief, even as I feel an abundance of gratitude for the bravery and selflessness of those who have risked their own well-being to help the afflicted and protect the rest of us. Often I have been moved to tears by the acts of selflessness that have been on display, and been inspired by the myriad ways artists and regular folks have found or invented to connect with and support one another during a time when staying physically apart is a necessity to keep each other safe. I love seeing how many people have been looking out for their neighbors, or stepping up to support the homeless, or to help families who have run out of food, while observing the restraints imposed by lockdown. My faith in the innate goodness of humanity has been elevated even as my confidence in the leadership of the federal government has been deeply shaken.

Oh, there will be assistance through the Treasury to help the country scrape by until the pandemic is over. Beyond that, there will be a need for the people to be more resourceful than ever. That’s as it should be. The founding fathers never intended the federal government to be a Big Daddy Warbucks, except when very significant needs arise. Top-down government is not what we want — that way lies autocracy. That said, a national health care system seems to make a lot more sense now, considering the haphazard response to the coronavirus outbreak in general, and the patchy, uncoordinated process of getting people vaccinated across the country. Beyond that, however, whatever creative ideas and projects the Imagineers come up with will mostly have to rely on bottom-up action plans.

So, now that we’ve seen the pitiful end of the manifest destiny era, and the old standard for western civilization has died with an embarrassing whimper, what comes next? I dunno. Your guess is as good as mine. As I said at the beginning of this, I’m out of prophetic pronouncements.

There has been a lot of talk about how we all want to get back to normal. Having been locked in a cell 24/7 for the better part of three months, with only a few brief opportunities to get out for a shower, I can certainly relate to the need to have some normal social interactions with other people. We all miss that. Humans are social creatures, after all. However, speaking strictly for myself, I sincerely hope that the normal we return to after we defeat the virus is one significantly different from the old normal we knew prior to the pandemic. A normal that feels brighter, fresh, outside the box, and more equitable. That would be nice.

I am feeling hopeful but not particularly optimistic. Despite having to sort through some discouraging set-backs, I would not say that I feel pessimistic. My once half-full cup has been drained, and now it’s just empty, containing only potential and expectation, open and waiting for whatever may arise in the world from this point.

As I raise my empty cup to you in salute, I wish you health and safety on your journey. May you be fortified by strength and courage as you face the mystery ahead. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. Be fearless, and be fierce.

Expect the unexpected.

Bobby BeauSoleil

Crossroads 2020-21

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pleasantwizardphilosopher · 3 years

Text

Just you and me

So, I finally gathered the courage to write something and went for a SuperCorp fanfic, because clearly I am supercorp trash. I haven’t decided whether to post it in AO3 or not but if I do I’ll let you know. English is not my first language so if you get any mistakes or some parts lack cohesion please let me know and I’ll try to fix it. This fic goes by the idea that Kara is a very good scientist, she deserves that much, Lena’s background is canon-like. There are no dialogs, only feelings and senses, hope you like it.

*********

Finding yourself stuck in time is hard, at least that’s what most people would feel like under such circumstances, but not for Lena, not right now, where every single piece of “normalcy” her life had is just beginning to crumble, like a piece of sun-dried bread, or the way eggshells crack after someone steps on them, painfully, noisily, in a million pieces, most of all and beyond everything, they shatter unrecognizably and irreparably. Maybe the cold that such pain leaves behind is what led her to run, maybe it was the sudden fear and tiredness that was left in her, like cold steel in her bones, maybe it was the emptiness that started consuming every truth she thought she knew. It did not matter, she fled, running as fast as she could in those 7-inch Louboutins. She never looked back, not even after her flight landed in National City, not even after setting foot for the first time in her new penthouse in the middle of the city. She never regretted it, at first it was rough, sure, like every bumpy road is, yet, after the first glance she ever took at that blonde hair that day in the park, all doubts were erased off her mind.

*********

It was the end of August, the chilly air that announced a cold winter ahead blew her hair, ruffling it in her face; filling the streets, waking scattered orange and brown-ish leaves that had fallen from nearby trees, whistling on its way through the now almost-bare branches. The wind left behind the soft aroma of wet dirt, freshly baked bread and upcoming rain, heartwarmingly, filling her lungs easily with every breath, puffing visible clouds when exhaling. It was certainly nostalgic, the kind that makes you feel warm and cozy and at the same time makes your eyes prickle with unshed tears. Kara felt that pull, as usual, for everything good her life has had, and everything it had taken from her. She stood on the sidewalk, towards National’s City Central Park, glancing around her, taking in her surroundings when her gaze landed on a particular someone, dragged to her as if her eyes were mere pieces of steel and that woman were a huge neodymium magnet; She found herself staring at a sight she’ll always remember, because at that moment, when she first saw her, she felt a different kind of pull at her heart, the kind that screamed “caution!”, but in the good way, hopefully.

Long before she knew her name, what made her laugh, what made fer fidget with her fingers nervously, but above all, long before she had met that woman with dark long silky hair, forest-green eyes and pearly skin. Long before that gorgeous human being, with such power emanating from her, yet such caring, hopeful eyes, crossed her path, long before she made her feel like flying without actually leaving the ground, mostly, who she would grow to love, maybe, maybe she was fantasizing too much, who could blame her, it surely was a sight to remember.

*********

When the double doors slide open, she’s expecting a no-nonsense, powerful, cold-blooded, cocky-demeanor CEO, what she’s definitely not expecting is for such CEO to be almost precisely all that shaped and carefully placed in a stunning, raven-haired woman, whose green eyes could pierce through your soul and would probably make you spill your darkest and deepest secrets, those that also hide so much fear, making her want to walk over there and pour all her support into a hug. Kara swallows. Nevertheless, there is also something else to this woman’s aura, her posture is perfect, clearly carved into her from a very young age, and her smile is polite but stiff, almost practiced, and still, Kara can feel kindness emanating from her, true deep kindness and care. Something brings her to the present again, her breath hitches, those beautiful eyes are staring intently into hers with curiosity and a hint of amusement. The woman in front of her has managed to steal her breath twice now, which is not something she, the founder and co-owner of a start-up company. Harvard graduate and Kryptonian, finds happening often, she has faced great threats, from grumpy bankers to out-of-space threats as Supergirl, yet, Lena Luthor has managed to make her heartbeat go erratic with a simple gaze.

The soft scent of an expensive perfume fills the office, something akin cinnamon, vanilla and a little scotch (?). It is dizzying and a little distracting. She somehow manages to go through her proposal for the CEO without stumbling too much and, fortunately, without rambling. Lena seems fascinated by the proposal and agrees to the terms without major modifications to the contract. After both signing, they shake hands, and maybe, just maybe, they linger a little more than needed, both enraptured by the softness of the other’s hand. Lena pulls away first, fingers tingling, feeling the tips of her fingers warm and a lingering scent of something floral, it is electrifying, like a low current cursing through her veins, making her get goosebumps all over her arms, but she doesn’t mind, as her attention is captured by those ocean blue eyes that seemingly hold the weight of the world. She certainly is nowhere close to getting tired of them.

*********

When they signed this partnership, they did not expect it to turn this way, at least Kara didn't, or so she muses while sitting on the ledge of her rooftop. She truly just meant to get funding and maybe get to work a little up-close with the brilliant, certified genius of a woman. Sure, she is gorgeous and incredibly sharp-minded, as proven by so many magazines’ articles having bothered to analyze both qualities deeply and thoroughly; but after that first sight of her, with such strength and determination to her pose, with each powerful step, with every sway of her hips, albeit hiding so much hurt, sadness, and a great burden, brought to her by her last name; a burden that Kara has somehow come know so well, such need to be understood, because, the truth was, that no one had ever lived through loss the way they did. One lost her world, her culture and way of life, but found love and compassion, whereas Lena was denied both from a very short age, living a life without love, compassion, and affection, in a household where the outside cold wouldn’t enter, as the inside was icier.

The cold nighty wind startles her, it brings to her mind memories of bight smiles, so hard that certain dimples showed, laughs so hard that some wine would be spat on a very white leader couch, sunny days filled with an assortment of foods and a wonderful voice, filling every corner of the room with its melody and a slight accent, becoming more evident when emotion takes a rightful place in her voice, one that comes from a very pale yet very compassionate woman. She has to tell her, it's been just over a year since they first met, but she knows it is time, with them growing closer, she has to tell her she is Supergirl. And yeah, she definitely did NOT expect things to turn this way. (Maybe she kinda did).

**********

When she asked Kara if she understood the quantum mechanics behind the surface plasmon resonance their platinum nanoparticles showed, she wanted to be shaken, mad even, because why wouldn't she, the to-be youngest member of the Science Guild on Krypton? Of course, they didn't have the same metals as they did on Earth, but they understood the physics behind the phenomena. Okay, Lena did do not know her identity, yet, hopefully, but she did have a Bachelor in Mechatronic Engineering and a Master Degree in Advanced Materials, she definitely may have crossed paths with the concept. But hell, how can she be mad when those bright, summer-trees green eyes look at her with such glint of excitement, with a twinkling sparkle or curiosity? Those eyes that were looking at her with a look you give someone you know gets you, beyond understanding your words, those who truly get a grasp of your language, of who you are, what makes you shake with the excitement of a new discovery, a greater challenge. It was then that Kara knew that she could read Lena the way no one had ever done for her, she could grasp what she needed in every moment, what she was thinking, but she also got her sciency stuff, the theoretical jargon, upcoming theories, the physics behind phenomena and she shared her love for technology that could make humans' lives better, longer, healthier. They shared, compassion, vision, passion and... Kara was now almost certain, love.

At least she thinks so, what else could those stolen glances be? She looks up, just to find those forest-green eyes glinting with determination and concentration while those agile slender fingers handle tools and twinkle their way around the solar panel’s circuitry. She is so enraptured by her skills that she mistakenly adds way too much platinum sulfide to the solution, turning it suddenly black and bringing her out of her stupor as the contents boil, violently spilling all over the place, filling the air with a slight scent of iron, evaporated water and burnt plastic. Green eyes break contact with the panel to look towards where strong hands work frantically to turn off the hot plate she was working on, dropping her tools she reaches a hand to help Kara, concerned green eyes looking for any kind of burn injury or spill that may need to be taken care of. After making sure everything is (mostly) okay and that it was just a failed reaction, Kara is suddenly aware of a soft hand pulling her away from the table, vanilla and cinnamon fill the air around her, like a soft embrace, that turns real when Lena pulls her into her arms, a soft bubble surrounding Kara, making her a little giddy and peaceful at the same time. Flowers, fresh-cut flowers is what Lena smells, while she hugs Kara tightly, it is normal to get worried for your best friend after a lab incident, no matter how small, she tells herself, and while it maybe is, it is definitely not normal the way her heart felt like stopping the moment she saw the hot contents of the Erlenmeyer flask spill all over the place, fearing for Kara, feeling it creep up her spine and settle like cold ice on her stomach and lungs, making it hard to breathe.

When strong arms surround her and pull her in tighter, she realizes she has started shaking and hyperventilating, embarrassed she hides her face in the crook of Kara’s neck, and everything fades outside this moment. It is just them, vanilla, and flowers, Kara murmuring sweet nothings into Lena’s ear, hearing her heartbeat even out, and her breathing become normal; and Lena trusting that this person, whose arms seem to be able to lift a bus, whose laugh makes her heart warm and fuzzy, whose smile lights her world and makes her feel safe, cared for and understood; will never let her fall. And perhaps she is right.

**********

Yup, it is definitely love. What else could it be? That snowy January, between hot cocoa and soft muffins, she knew. She is hovering outside her lab, on the outskirts of town, where it was less likely that someone caught her both personas; peeking through the windows, she sees her, Lena is coding the interface that would allow them to take the most efficiency and durability out of the technology they had designed, the mechanical and chemical part was almost done already. She is typing, eyes narrowed in concentration behind thick rimmed glasses, the tip of her tongue poking from a corner of her mouth. And Kara knows, she wants to caress those hands when they were trembling from the winter cold, but also kiss them after a long day working with her computer, she wants to rub her feet after a day filled with meetings and kiss her every time her brilliant mind comes up with a solution for an impossible problem. But above all that, she wants to hold her and whisper into her ear comforting and loving words when she has a nightmare regarding Lex, she knows it’s a common occurrence. She wants to see her crumble knowing that Kara would always hold her and support her, kissing her lovingly every time her insecurities get the best of her. She wants her to feel safe, protected and loved in a way she always deserved but never got.

She sighs, this is it and she knows it, there is not moving forward without coming clean about Supergirl, because, staring at Lena, she knows there is no going back either, looking the way her agile fingers dance around the keyboard as if she were writing a letter to a friend instead of a state-of-the-art software to power and control their recently developed solar panels. She thinks of how beautiful of a soul Lena is, she has such a big heart, she has a huge weight on her shoulders for being a Luthor, a burden which Kara would love to lift from her since it is not hers to carry, it shouldn’t be. Furthermore, she cares so much for the world and the people in it, even for the ones that are not human, unlike her family she is truly kind and compassionate.

Here goes nothing. Kara flies through the lab floor-to-ceiling windows towards the desk where Lena is working, placing beside her the paper bag containing hot cocoa and muffins for her. Due to the cold, the soft warm homey smell soon starts filling the room. Lena looks up smiling, expecting to find Kara behind the treats, but instead, bright green eyes lock with glassy baby blue eyes, trembling lips and fingers fidgeting. Lena stands. She is instantly shaking, whatever it is that could possibly turn the unyielding hero into a crying mess must be of great concern. She steadies herself by grabbing the edge of the table to keep her knees from buckling, knuckles turn white. Green never leaves blue. And just when she is about to ask the hero what brings her here, a strong hand comes to the small of her back to steady her and keep her upright. She has never been this close to Supergirl and at that moment when every sound seems to shut and the air stills, she knows.

She knows why those sky-blue eyes always inspired her such calm and confidence, why she always felt safe in those arms that could bend steel as butter. Because in that moment, when the warmth emanating from that hand starts filtering through her clothes, warming her, her senses are also filled with a smell of flowers, mixed with chocolate and bread, and a hint of mint; when a single tear escapes those ocean blue eyes, she crumbles. She crumbles under that gaze filled with pain and sorrow, filled with such regret that she could feel it creeping through herself, nestling in every corner of her body, making her feel slump and heavy. She also sees intelligence, compassion and strength, qualities she has come to be very familiar with under a blue setting. And so, she grabs the hero’s suit in her fist and buries her face in her chest, a single heart-wreaking cry filling the air. Kara shatters then, knowing how much pain this is causing to a soul that has been betrayed over and over again, who has been abused and pushed to her limits. She knows she is picking an open wound with a stick, and she hates herself for it, for using the same trust Lena gave her against her. They slide to the floor, never letting go of each other, tears falling freely through both their cheeks. Lena breaks into heartbreaking sobs and Kara holds her tighter, as if trying to keep her from falling into pieces, from breaking apart, rocking them both back and forth softly. Lena just cries, screaming from time to time, gripping the fabric so tightly that if it were regular fabric, it would be tearing down by now, but it isn’t, just as the woman holding her, the woman she most certainly is NOT in love with, is not a regular human. They stay there, holding onto each other, never breaking eye contact, the hot cocoa and muffins long forgotten.

**********

She really isn’t mad. She isn’t. So maybe she has been slightly avoiding Kara, but she isn’t mad. Despite her first-instance outburst of emotions, she realized she really isn’t angry at Kara from keeping the Supergirl thing a secret from her, yes, she was deeply hurt and upset but she understands the reasoning behind it, albeit she wishes Kara had told her earlier in their relationship it also makes perfect sense for her to hide it until making sure their relationship was well-founded and strong.

She is quite lost though, there is a small hint of emptiness inside her chest from that day which smelled like chocolate and bread, at first Lena thought she might actually and finally be broken, her heart having taken so many hits already. But the pain eventually faded, and that emptiness never left, on the contrary, it became more present, so much that she was now almost used to it. Like a lingering rock in the bottom of her stomach, or a ball of cotton in her throat, constant, bearable but persistent. And now, as the snow starts melting outside her office she wonders why. She knows why though; she just likes to pretend like she can fool herself.

The morning sun is hitting her office’s windows, warmer than it has been for the past few months and as the first drops of melted snow start to fall from the rooftop to her balcony, the pretense falls to pieces, and she falls along with it. She fumbles with her balcony door and stumbles outside, not even bothering to grab her coat, as soon as she steps outside, she is hit with cold, humid air and slippery floors. Taking huge gasps of cold air to fill lungs that seemingly do not want to be filled.

Maybe this is all she needed, standing on her balcony and glancing at the city, the morning sun casting a bright yellow light over her face, warming her skin softly, while her side in the shadows gets colder every passing second. It is enough, hot and cold, day and night, light and darkness, she always wondered to which side of the scale she tipped the most, she used to believe she was all shadows, a Luthor, and Kara was light, all goodness, she smiles at the irony, a Super. However, while she is taking in the city, calm and almost quiet since it is so early, bright light hitting the buildings and cold, contrasting shadows hiding smaller streets, cars, and people, she gets it. Kara was never all light, and will never be, she has on her shoulders an unbearable pain that will never go away and with her powers come hard choices that no one should ever have to make. And she, she is not darkness, she is both, and she can choose which side to feed, and she wants to choose light, just not any light, one that is personified by blonde hair and ocean-deep blue eyes that she could, and does, get lost into. Maybe, she can bring a certain light to Kara as well, maybe they both deserve it, they deserve each other. Letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding she turned on her heels towards her office and out of it, directly to a certain warehouse on the outskirts of town. The balcony door left open, melted snow glowing gold from the morning sun, dripping into Lena’s office.

**********

Disappointment is that what she feels, no, sadness, for sure, she knew things could go sideways with the whole reveal show and yet, the clench in her heart won’t go away easily, and she knows she absolutely has no right to feel that way, she made that choice, just as she has made every other choice before it. She is tempering with her suit, waiting for her cell culture to finish growing so she can properly test their absorption properties. Soft pop music plays in the background, filling the warehouse with soft notes with a cheesy vibe, the mid-morning sun streams from the windows, lighting the space with an orange-ish golden glow. She finishes her upgrades with a tired huff, never one to hate working on something she surprises herself with such reaction. Groaning with frustration that has nothing to do with her projects and a lot to do with a certain pale powerful, wonderful, CEO.

She walks towards the windows, letting herself bask in the mid-morning light, feeling her powers recharge and her body start buzzing with energy. She clenches her fists, as the warmth caress of the sun on her skin makes her heart ache, missing another entirely different kind of warmth. She leans against a wall and lets her body slide to the ground, bringing her knees to her chest, she closes her eyes, letting herself get lost in the feeling of the sun kissing her skin, softly, almost hesitantly, she can almost picture a certain brunette, softly stroking her cheek, a sweet lovingly caress. A single tear rolls down her cheek from her closed eyes, knowing that such caresses may never be from her, a faith written by her own hand, resulting from her choices, as hard as it is. Letting her straining superhearing and expanding its reach she hears the hustle and bustle from downtown a few kilometers away, she hears the honks of the cars and the heavy panting from people running late for their work, such mundane thing that she may never truly get to live and experience. As her hearing expands, she finds herself focusing in a very well-known heartbeat, one she can distinguish above the sea of heartbeats that flood the city; it is beating absurdly fast, and her first reaction is to focus on her surroundings to find out whether she is in danger or not.

She hears heavy puffs of air, heels clicking steadily and determinately on the pavement, closer with every step, and is she running? Her breath hitches when realization dawns on her, she IS running, towards her. While her mind screams for her to move, to do something, her body is frozen, unresponsive, breath caught in her throat, she absolutely does not understand what is happening and doesn’t know what to expect from the woman that is now reaching her. Before she can dwell on it further, a feminine soft hand with slender cold fingers is touching her knee softly. She is panting from the effort, her breath smells like back coffee and mint, hitting Kara’s face warmly, making her head spin; a slight scent of grounded coffee beams mixed with Lena’s favorite scotch emanates from her clothes, she smells strangely like home; her red lipstick matching her flushed cheeks from running, and Kara cannot help but let her jaw fall open in awe at the sight.

She grabs Lena’s wrists softly and stands up bringing her along. Kara finally gathers her courage and looks at her eyes. She feels like sinking under her gaze, not out of fear, it’s nothing but love and warmth what she sees in those jade-green eyes, feelings she doesn’t feel worthy of, specially not when coming from the Irish goddess. Just when she’s about to close her eyes again, uncapable of keeping her gaze, Lena hooks a finger under her chin and makes her raise her eyes up to hers again. Insecure, scared-like blue puppy eyes find soft-looking bright emerald eyes. It’s understanding what she sees now in those deep green eyes, the same ones that seem capable of reading her like an open book. She lets out a sob, and Lena lets go of her chin, going to grab her hand, bringing it to her lips and kissing her palm tenderly.

The breeze brings to Kara’s nose the scent of Lena’s shampoo, smells like rainy days and autumn leaves, and, as usual, no words are needed when Kara moves her hand from Lena’s lips to cup her cheeks, bringing her other hand up. And, what else can she do other than lean forward? So, she does, she leans forward and kisses her forehead, its soft, tender, like a butterflies’ kiss, just barely brushing her skin, trying to convey her love for her beautiful Genius™ mind, for her brilliance, stubbornness and compassionate selfless soul. She then brushes her lips softly on both her eyelids, trying to convey all the love and regret she feels regarding the way she did Supergirl secret-related things. She parts slowly and watches as Lena opens her eyes fluttering open slowly, bringing her hands up to grab the wrists of the Kara’s hands that are still cupping her face, thumbs softly stroking the inside of the kryptonian’s wrists, she lets out a shaky breath, blue eyes looking at her so lovingly tenderly, with such determination and strength, unyielding as sapphires, she feels no questioning in her heart, this is where she is meant to be, she turns into a mushy puddle and lets herself be drawn into the Girl of Steel.

Kara leans forward and kisses her nose, giggling quietly, Lena simply melts into it feeling a soft warm breath that smells like chocolate and honey, suddenly, the emptiness in her chest melts like ice cream on a hot summer day, leaving nothing but love and warmth, like the one from a fireplace on Christmas Eve. She lets out a shuddering breath, relieved. They lock eyes again, and finally all those unspoken questions find an answer. They lean forward at the same time, their lips meeting in the middle, fitting perfectly against each other. It is warm, tender, loving, and everything it should be, the way every cheesy romantic comedy says it’s like. They pour all their love into that moment, lips moving against each other, chocolate-honey and black coffee.

When they finally part, it’s like breathing for the first time, lungs grasping for oxygen, freshly cut grass, concrete and sun-provided warmth, and it is perfect. Like taking a breath after holding it underwater for a long time, except you never truly knew what breathing was like, until that life-altering breath. They breathe in sync, foreheads touching, Kara’s hands go down to wrap around Lena’s waist, pulling her closer, Lena rests her head softly on Kara’s chest, nuzzling into her neck and closing her eyes, letting herself fall into that fierce love, like an all-consuming fire, she’s been too afraid to open herself to, to be vulnerable. They stay there, enjoying each other’s embrace, the hustle and bustle of the city blind to a beautifully blooming love.

**********

Kara is very clumsy, it does help her keep up her façade, albeit it is also a personal trait of hers. And right now, as she trips on nothing, while standing nonetheless, she makes it extremely evident. Forest green eyes look at her amused from the other side of the door. How does Lena expect Kara not to fall face first to the ground when she is dressed looking like THAT. Wearing a deep red drees that falls softly just below her knees, strapless, leaving her back and cleavage on display, her hair up in a neat bun and her signature 7-inch black heels, Kara definitely stopped breathing, not that she needs to anyway. She stands up awkwardly, taking the dust off her khaki pants and dark blue blazer. Lena cannot hide a smirk after pulling such reaction from no other than Supergirl.

The CEO pulls Kara into her apartment, it smells like vanilla and apples, probably resulting from the many scented candles that Lena likes to light around her apartment. The only light comes from said candles and several Christmas-like light strings that are hanging from the ceiling, giving the place a warm cozy glow. Kara smiles lazily as she leans down to kiss Lena, catching a glimpse of bright emerald eyes melting glimmery before falling shut. She smiles into the kiss. She pulls apart slightly and kisses the tip of Lena’s nose, the raven-haired woman lets out a soft chuckle. Kara grabs her hand, intertwining their fingers, and leads her to the door. Today it’s dinner date day, they are celebrating the successful launch of their joint solar panels project, the best performance ever achieved thanks to a certain Kryptonian’s platinum oxide nanoparticles; and 10 months of full-on dating. As Kara closes the door of Lena’s apartment behind them, the warm smell of the candles fills the hallway and follows them into the elevator, a fluffy plush blanket, a protective mantle surrounding them.

**********

drip…drip… the constant crash of raindrops against the windows surrounding them, rain pouring heavily around them, drowning the usually loud noises of the city’s rush hour, washing away the strong smell of smog. They are tucked under a bus station stop, at least Lena is, Kara is already dripping, since she stubbornly stood outside the small protection the roof offers so Lena and other humas could take cover, she doesn’t get sick anyway. Lena is shivering, although it has been a remarkably hot summer, today was quite a cloudy day and it rained for the most part, resulting in a temperature drop of several degrees. The brunette leans into Kara seeking for her abnormally high body temperature to warm herself up, but the Girl of Steel has other plans, since she cannot fly Lena to their apartment, she might as well take the best out of the situation.

Just as Lena is dropping her full body weight into her, she slides away, pulling Lena’s hand with her, directly into the downpour. Lena gasps when the first heavy drops of the cold water hit her, feeling her clothes get soaked almost instantly, she feels the raindrops roll down her skin and further dampening her clothes, the smell of the rain fully hits her now and when she lifts her eyes from where they were looking at the floor not to trip, she sees Kara smiling her signature megawatt smile at her, completely soaked and intertwining their fingers playfully, so Lena smiles, smiles so hard her dimples show. She lets herself be dragged by Kara, running under the rain, feeling the cold sweeping into her bones, and feeling more whole and filled with happiness than she has in a very long time, if ever.

Kara jumps over a puddle with all the grace of a gazelle, letting go of the CEO’s hand, such displays of her true nature still wonder Lena, just when she is about to make the jump herself, Kara stops and abruptly turns towards her. The world stops. Or maybe she is the one that freezes, the only thing she can hear is the rain pouring heavily around them, and her heart beating erratically in her chest, ringing in her ears, the smell of rain mixes with Kara’s floral perfume, she is getting closer now. The brunette starts shaking, and it has nothing to do with the cold water still running down her body. Kara stands in front of her, soaking wet, dirt all over her jeans from playing in the rain, her hair falls in wet dirty blonde strands around her face, her eyes as baby blue as always are dim because of the raindrops that coat her glasses, and in her soaking hands she’s holding an astonishingly made silver ring, two intertwined silver strings hold one small bright emerald in the middle, the inside of one of the string, in almost unreadably tiny letters reads “You are my hero”. The simplicity of the stone in contrast with the intricate design of the ring.

Lena forgets how to breathe, but Kara understands, so she just waits there, with the most loving smile ever seen stamped on her face. When Lena’s out of body experience ends, she simply nods enthusiastically. And so, the world starts spinning again, the honks of the cars return, engines roaring and muffled conversations, all muted by the rain, washing over them as reality sinks in, they are choosing each other, even when the world has tried to pull them apart repeatedly, furthermore, against each other, for them, none of it matters, just them, here and now, kissing for the first time in hopefully many years to come. Lena lets her hands drape loosely around Kara’s neck, feeling the grounding weight of the ring on her left ring finger, hot against her cold skin, the same way Kara’s hands, which hold her together.

#supergirl #supercorp #fanfic #karlena #kryptonian #i wrote this on a whim #please give me feedback #this is my first fic #be kind

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fictionaffliction · 3 years

Text

Better Forgotten

Chapter One

Pairings: Loki/OC

Summary: Dr. Ingrid Hansen is a respected psychologist struggling with the aftermath of the Snap as well as her own trauma from an accident she endured many years ago. Her world is thrown into utter chaos when she meets a dangerous man posing as a client. Dr. Strange is reluctantly tasked with protecting her, but in order to do so, he must first help her recover who she truly is. While she is grateful for his help, she has to wonder, are some things better forgotten?

Rated M

Warnings: Canon typical violence, eventual mentions of suicide and domestic violence (which will be tagged in the chapters in which they occur), memory loss, chronic pain

September 21, 2012

The brightly lit conference room was lively with chattering voices. Hundreds of scholars, dressed in the grey and beige that business casual dictates, wound their way through the rows of scratchy linen padded chairs. Some exchanged business cards, networking like their livelihoods depended on it, and for many of them, it did. Others were on their phones or had pulled out laptops and started furiously typing away, no doubt responding to messages from their various offices in the little time they had before the keynote speaker took the stage.

Ingrid Hansen had just finished responding to an email of her own before setting her phone to silent and tucking it back into her purse, trading it for a small leather-bound notebook and a pencil. She wrote the name of the keynote, “Neurosurgery as Treatment for Psychiatric Disorders” as well as the name of the speaker. She had double-checked the name on the itinerary when she wrote it down, shrugging off the unusual name. Certainly, he would have gotten his fair share of teasing as a child.

According to the short biography under his name, he was no less than a certifiable genius. He had been published in multiple medical journals, gotten his MD and his Ph.D. concurrently, and was now one of the most respected neurosurgeons in the country if not the world. People had been looking forward to his keynote the entire conference and Ingrid had made sure to come fifteen minutes early to get a good seat. She managed to get a seat in the middle of the second row. An older man with grey hair and glasses stepped onto the stage as the rest of the attendees found their seats. The man waited for a moment before speaking.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as a respectful hush fell over the room, “thank you all for attending this evening’s keynote address. We are, of course, very excited to welcome our guest speaker.” The old man licked his dry lips with a smacking noise in the completely self-unaware way that only old men seem to be able to achieve. “He is an accomplished surgeon with a true passion for medicine and an apparent talent for music trivia.” He chuckled and the conference room laughed with him. “Please welcome to the stage Dr. Stephen Strange.”

The room applauded as a tall, slim man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties took the stage. His dark hair was neatly coiffed to frame his high cheekbones. He looked out over the crowd with discerning eyes and gave a tight smile. As the room quieted, his lecture began.

“Thank you all for the warm welcome. If only everyone greeted surgeons with applause,” Dr. Strange said in a voice that was deeper than Ingrid would have thought. The crowd laughed politely. “In the last one hundred years, neurosurgery and psychology have grown up together like distant cousins. Connections between the two have been known and studied, but never truly explored to such an extent as they are now. Now, technology is finally reaching the point where the two can be intertwined as they always should have been.” He gestured in a practiced manner as his gaze swept over the faces in the room.

Ingrid’s pencil was poised over her notebook, ready to strike down the moment he said something she wanted to remember. He went on for a bit about the potential for technological advancements to change brain chemistry without the need for medication, though it would require dangerous procedures to place implants on the affected parts of the brain. She dutifully noted his points, though she found the idea of experimental treatments morally precarious at best.

“Imagine the benefits for those suffering from dementia and other brain disorders that so deeply affect patients and their loved ones,” he said, turning his gaze to Ingrid as she leaned forward in her seat, her hand continuously taking notes. She stared back at him as he continued after giving her a small smirk. “Later this year, clinical trials for a pacemaker-like device for deep brain stimulation in Alzheimer’s patients will begin. This is an incredibly exciting time in medical history…”

She wrote her short-hand in a hurried hand as he soldiered through the rest of his speech. ‘ Brain stimulation for dementia-- recovery for amnesia?’ It stood to reason, though the mechanical differences for traumatic brain injury and dementia were vastly different. Still, there was hope.

After about an hour, Dr. Strange’s speech concluded and Ingrid packed away her notebook and pencil, her mind still mulling over the possibilities that he had proposed. As this had been the last speaking engagement for the day, a large number of people made their way to the hotel’s restaurant and bar.

She felt a bit sorry for the servers, who had been posted at the hosts’ desk like soldiers ready to rush into battle. They escorted several groups to tables and the noise escalated as menus were set out and drinks poured from glass pitchers reflected the low, golden light. Ingrid herself was content to get a drink at the bar and order room service later to go over her notes and make sure they were actually legible. She had just taken a seat on the soft black leather barstool when there was a small clamor of voices over the restaurant’s generic jazz music as a few people began to spout compliments nearby.

Ingrid turned to see Dr. Strange shaking a few hands as he passed a table of excited colleagues. He thanked them, though Ingrid noticed that his movements seemed stiff and impatient. The doctor passed the table as Ingrid turned back to face the bar. He took the seat next to hers. Not wanting to bother him, she kept her eyes on the drink menu as he reached for his own.

“Well, what did you think?” he asked, glancing at the list of cocktails.

Ingrid looked up. “Me?” she replied.

“Yes, you,” he replied simply, meeting her eyes. “You were taking a lot of notes. I thought you might have some intelligent feedback.”

Ingrid set her menu down and shifted to face him, straightening her navy blue pencil skirt and crossing her ankles. Dr. Strange raised his eyebrows as he waited for her to gather her thoughts. “Frankly, Dr. Strange, psychiatric surgery still has a long way to go before it’s practical, let alone ethical.” His eyes narrowed as he took in a sharp breath between his lips, looking ready for an argument. “However,” she continued before he had a chance, “I do think that it is a possible and even probable treatment in the future. It’s simply a question of how near that future is.”

He nodded, considering her answer. “Well, that is certainly a...diplomatic response.”

She shrugged off his somewhat curt reply. “The dementia treatments are certainly exciting though.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“I do.”

He considered this like he was measuring whether the conversation was worth pursuing. He seemed to deem it worthy of his time, because he asked, “What was your name again?”

“Dr. Ingrid Hansen,” she said, holding out her hand. His large hand enveloped hers in a steady grip.

“Dr. Stephen Strange, but I guess you already knew that,” he replied, keeping his hand on hers. “Can I buy you a drink?”

She smiled and took her hand back, brushing a stray blond hair behind her ear. “I’d like that.”

He signaled the bartender, who came over quickly, having been eyeing them while he waited for them to decide on what they wanted.

“Scotch on the rocks for me,” Dr. Strange said, and then gestured to Ingrid.

“And a Moscato for me, please,” she said. The bartender turned to the back of the bar to fetch their drinks.

“White wine?” he asked, raising a skeptical brow.

“I have a sweet tooth,” she replied simply.

He chuckled. “So, you’re a doctor, you have a sweet tooth, and you are evidently British.”

“I am indeed, though I graduated here in New York,” she explained. The bartender placed their drinks in front of them and left without a word to attend to other patrons.

“And what are you a doctor of?” Dr. Strange asked, taking a sip of his scotch.

“Psychology,” she replied proudly.

The man heaved a sigh as he swallowed. “Of course,” he said with a somewhat disappointed tone.

Ingrid’s eyes narrowed, but she kept the corners of her mouth upturned in a practiced neutral smile. “‘Of course’?” she repeated.

He took another sip before answering. She didn’t break eye contact. “Well, it isn’t that psychology isn’t a worthy pursuit, but psychology is such a soft science it’s about as good as an English degree. I thought you were at least a psychiatrist.”

Her smile slipped from her face as suddenly as a bookshelf collapsing under its own weight. “I beg your pardon, but I am every bit a doctor as I would be if I were a psychiatrist. It’s not like I bought a certificate online,” she snapped.

He held his hands up. “Hey, you don’t need to explain it to me. But I do find it interesting that you were so intent on my speech if you’re not a psychiatrist.”

Ingrid rolled the stem of her glass between her fingers, trying to suppress the indignation that rose up in her chest. “It’s still relevant to my field, Dr. Strange.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” he conceded. Ingrid took a drink, letting the light flavors of the alcohol warm her chest. “So what is it that you do with that degree of yours?”

“Counseling,” she responded shortly.

“What kind?”

“All kinds, but mainly relationship and family counseling.”

He considered this for a moment. “And why the interest in dementia treatment?”

She paused mid-gulp of wine, watching him as his eyes traveled over her face. “Call it a personal interest,” she replied coldly.

“Alright,” he said, rolling his eyes, “no need to be touchy about it.”

Ingrid snorted. “God, you’re arrogant. Do you know that?”

He pursed his lips. “I’ve heard it once or twice. Is that your official diagnosis, Dr. Hansen? Arrogance?” He was baiting her and she knew it.

“No Dr. Strange,” she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. She took in the sight of him carefully, making note of every small movement he made, the way he presented himself, and how his breathing remained steady despite the conflict. “I cannot officially diagnose you at the moment, of course. Though I might wonder at your ability to maintain a relationship given your clear egocentric attitude.”

His mouth curled into a smirk. “Typical therapist. Non-committal answers and appeals to emotion. If you were a real doctor-”

The remainder of Ingrid’s wine doused his face. Sounds of surprise echoed about the bar area as she set her glass back down on the bar with a scowl and looked back at him with steely eyes. Dr. Strange didn’t say anything. He hardly looked phased as the wine dripped off of his long nose and down his cheeks.

“Thanks for the drink.” Ingrid turned to leave and a few sets of eyes looked between them curiously. Her black heels clicked against the tile as she strode out of the restaurant, fuming. Dr. Strange watched her go, assuring himself that he was not the least bit sorry for what he said as the bartender handed him a cloth napkin.

#Better Forgotten #my fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #fanfiction #loki x oc #loki x ofc #doctor strange #stephen strange #Marvel #marvel fanfiction #loki odinson #loki friggason #loki laufeyson #ao3 #Hurt/Comfort #Romance #Doctor Strange x OC #Doctor Strange x OFC #fanfic

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queenofallwitches · 3 years

Text

Why I hate people who spend their adult life arguing online;

1. Well it’s juvenile , I personally prefer to leave any and all pseudo intellectual social discourse in my 6th grade debating class...

2. You aren’t anyone important and not saying novel things, you are using people who have put information that is novel and trying to spin it into your own agenda.

3. Waste of time, fools will be foolish, and if you enjoy the discourse, toastmasters or academic debating would be more productive uses of time

4. You lack self insight

5. You are self aware and doing it due to your own egotistical, sadistic, cunning desires. (Trolls, deep fakes)

Why I never take anyone who loves to argue on menial topics seriously: (spiritually or mentally)

I am high iq and high eq. I am also “attractive by the conventional measures of society” I deal with the most pathetic and malicious idiots who cannot understand a woman who has aesthetic appeal, that can also hold a stimulating and intelligent conversation.

I don’t argue. I problem solve. Arguing online was faded out when I was 14 years old.

But people who are almost 40, ar still out there pretending that they are the most unique and authoritative source of blogging bullshit. When the world media and journalism is where we are today. The academic literature speaks a plethora more than an adult in the hamster wheel, unable to see they are playing checkers in a left vs right, design by social engineering and the think tanks of Tavistock, you play the part they put you to be.

A dialectic of irrational and repetitive arguments is never productive.

It lacks a solution or a higher order of resolution, why are you behaving to destroy when you are claiming to want to create a world better?

So unconscious and unexplained lack of self awareness in adults who are obviously insecure and ignorant becomes old quick.

I comprehend why it’s important but the level of the argument is basic, and been recycled 1000000 times.

Why am I writing this? Free speech is not free. If you can discourse over the same shit and never find a solution you are part of the same fucking problem.

How I know?

Life experience. Learning.

Love of learning and living and devouring the higher level of what if, how can we, let’s move into a better solution.

I have many years of experience that is beyond the understanding of most people and I have gone through things nobody understands.

One time I was a young teen, but was already too smart, too sassy, too aware and that left my life a wreck after I went too far.

I DID get expelled in the 11th grade. I’m no idiot, I am actually genius, by measures of conventional iq.

So I was academically talented without effort, not to boast, because I hated being smart.

But I did get the internet social discourse I needed to say; on things that we should be all knowing are social engineering in a designed dichotomy to divide and conquer.

I was in a program in high school called cum laude. I cannot recall the meaning. But we were advanced academics, not only skilled at learning but sports, extra curricular things like musicals, choir, crusade survivor camps (duke of Edinburgh), debating, tutoring/mentoring younger students & more. I won many awards without trying. Mostly for geography (social science), design tech, visual art & creative writing. I was learning university level things in year 8. And examining and analysis to debate in scholarly discourse about topics that were familiar when I was in 1-2 year of my bachelor degree. An example is philosophy, as this was mandated in the GT program. Smart is my sense of knowing how to balance the logical and the emotional. This is ONE percent of my life but one I did not follow through on and as a result I walk this path now, and I put up with the educated and intelligent “idiots” (like conformity, bullying, bitching kids in the same class) and refuse to stoop to low iq, low eq and low level idiots.

You waste time. I am not saying I am only exclusive to educated or academic professionals, that is not what this is about. This is about me being underestimated and undermined and never taken seriously because I get the most inhuman torment if I do start to speak my truth.

Lucky I found comfort in solitary rebellion. So. Let’s see what I am that is always going to be a work in progress but what my enemies forget all the time.

To remind you:

I am a born, intuitive empath, psychic and ancestral lineages of many esoteric paths play into my natural ability. I used to hate feeling, knowing and perceiving things that I could see happening, in my dreams, visions and “gnosis” before they happened. I felt powerless.

But now I know how to harness it, things change.

And yet still I have to sit back and observe, as I did for years in school, and then in the fucking shithole employment situation that was my consequence of 2 expulsions from schools. (They value conformity over fucking intelligence) I had a gang of kids in my last high school sign a petition to have me expelled and that is one example of how people in my life come to attack, hate, misunderstand and spit venom for no reason.

I never push that energy myself. But I call things as I see them. I am real , and my perception is primed to pierce the veil on those who lack authenticity, who are bullies, cunning, cruel, conformists, deep fakes, fraudulent, following orders for the sake of fear, or just narcissistic or psychopathic “organic portals” who carry out the agenda for the black lodge.

I have no issue if these people want to live a life away from me and what I protect. But when my sphere is crossed into on a repeated basis, I will study the situation in silence. I won’t speak of what I see, without objective and subjective factors weighed in a careful, cautious but not closed minded, way. See you and I are probably not the same because I’m the kind of human who always gives people the benefit of the doubt and believes that people are better, that is my detriment and my strength. I see the good and hope that others carry a genuine heart and soul. But my experience shows me that I am not wrong when I feel off, or intuitive feelings are ignored due to my “dismissal”.

When I find the truth, I always say, I knew I needed to listen to my heart and head.

That’s why I can never be broken, or betrayed, or backstabbed worse than before. It is always a learning lesson I am open to growing from.

I am always open to being wrong, or told how to be better, my flaws are on open display and I am not scared of that. I want to be more helpful to grow and nourish the people and places I interact with.

In my world, arguing online was a dying medium by my 18th birthday. For many reasons. But the enemy is a sucker for this divide and conquer, drama bred social and political bullshit that’s all just opinion and speculation. It creates a negative tone and teaches nothing of novelty or wisdom. It just shows how weak, insecure, paranoid, and self obsessed people who are too old for the high school bullshit, by miles, are. my enemies could even spit out the first longing to follow the death cult of the black lodge, I was already aware of what 95 % of you found out in 2020. I don’t mean to be pretentious or pompous, I’m not. I’m actually the most passionate, loving and open minded human I know. But the people who come into my spaces to play to prey. Imposters and the immoral, A siphoning sickness in a role to ruin, how could anyone do that but someone who is a soul-devoid parasite? That’s real fucking discourse. Let’s talk about morality, moral principles and how they are applied and actualised into the metacogition of your own microcosm.

Suggestions and solutions?

How about discourse on the metaphysics of mystic, magick, the mind and the method to mend the mundane world into a manifestation where a symbiotic system of mutually beneficial prosperity, peace, collaboration, creation & harmony can be lived on a daily basis?

How about solutions and sitting with your own shadow in the darkness to see your flaws.

how they only give me a free pass to watch the shit show. when push comes to shove and patterns that are seen in your behaviour, cyclically, are the key that unlocks the truth of anyone’s hidden motivation.

Why is deception and destruction never noted by the deceived, unless someone like me comes to break the wall of ignorance to say “hey this is the truth and it hurts and looks vile but fucking wake up”. No I don’t like the ripple impact this has but at the same time I am aw woman of strength. I will stand up for the real, authentic and genuine truth and speak my mind.

I don’t sugar coat this bullshit.

Nor will I indulge it.

Let alone be a person who lets it seep it’s tendrils into my life and what I love.

Not ever. Never.

As someone wise once said “despair ends, tactics begin”

You cannot claim any authentic path without putting your soul, blood and spirit to the test of facing your demons, slaying the darkness. I am not sure that comes with what I and others see these action and behaviour presenting to be.

I rarely write things like this, and only want to address this because i walk on a path of “rose and thorn”. My thorn will eventually slay whatever is a threat, a charlatan or a sheep in wolves clothing. By accident. Because what you are lacking is always looking to attack, I am always having to protect and defend my life from the evil.

I see you. I know the hidden hand x64. I am always open to forgiving people if they are sincere but will play reflection of the adverse if passive people are coming to what to me, is a beautiful and amazing thing, and to be acting as agents of sabotage? Shame on your lack of soul, and it’s lack of seeking to steal, stain and shit all over the things of substance, spirituality and sincerity will always be seen when I am the seer seeing the undertones.

So where is the moral compass?

Find yourself, and then you can find something real that is yours to be into and love. Maybe even this. But to fuck with what is real, while being fake, and following orders, is by far, fence sitting and fraudulent, insidious & infantile activity. Why not spend time looking inside to see why you are following this order from who for what? What is your genuine purpose? Soul mission? Higher self ? Or are you all still stuck in the love is the law is the law love under the will of the guy who wrote a book last century.

Fucking even Crowley lived his great work, and he has flaws and did things many would dispute to be “evil”. But he didn’t copy another clone from 100 years prior, following the mantra that someone else made up. That’s the stupid thing, the whole “do what thou wilt” was not do what you want but that is not a strong point for the sheep of the worst. I know as I see both sides, and as a child in the 90s I saw the dark, evil and insidious. To see that again, here, 3 decades later, playing coy but really carrying rancid intent.. is my call to commune what many will never see, because you all are complicit, and tell these fucking lies and divert productive progress by your stupid discourse. These people LOVE senseless debating. Semantics. Solutions, self awareness or seek a soul inside the empty cavern that the black lodge will set inside your sadistic serpentine, slimy soul.

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thinking-in-symbols · 3 years

Text

Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years. When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog. Today I thought I’d revisit that. I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames. I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station! Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this. I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things. I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic. But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm. “Proficient” is a relative term. But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages. I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this. If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused. More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what? I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial. So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish. I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently. Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room. So there’s more work to do. More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point. I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man. I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment. I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories! Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place. I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this. I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected. This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect. Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet. Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket. I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much. Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep! Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years. I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position. More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious. Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately. But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this. That’s a cool idea. I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle. I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money. No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop. That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career. Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others. No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope. I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird. Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right? Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating. So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it. I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues. Just kidding. But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done! Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French! But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao. I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself. How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post. But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done. I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever. I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this. I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive. But a van? Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort. This has actually been front-of-mind for a while. I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point. I do have other thoughts on this, though. Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term? Three months? If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school. However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet. I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through. We’ll see where this goes. It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done. It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes! :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated. But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing. So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years. Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it! Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-)

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet. I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat. Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad! I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”. I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself. The point is, they got done. That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships. I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying. And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life. I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh. I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing. I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect. These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life. I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap. Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change. I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds! Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development. The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort. For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point. It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two. The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science. Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas. I mean, I’ve done some. But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree. I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school. Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now! So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list. I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate. I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more. I know what I need to know. It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news. I’ve always been scared about entering the working world. All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have. But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term. So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done. What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished. I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest. But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life. Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK. There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames. Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

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user-43424 · 4 years

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A Fool's Glance at Hermetic Knowledge

"Reality, weather approached imaginatively or empirically,

remains a surface, Hermetic"

- Samual Beckett

When you hear the term Occult, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Men with long beards in long black robes? Weird goth kids claiming to be Satan? Most people only see the Occult as a wired cult with rituals and demons. However this is a gross misunderstanding of the Occult and its practice. It hardly scratches the surface Occult Knowledge, is. The term Occult comes from the Latin root words, “Cleare” to hide; “Occulere'' to conceal; “Occultare'' secret. Occult literally means hidden knowledge. It's hidden because for the longest time throughout history it was illegal to practice anything outside of the State mandated religion even when the Occult Knowledge itself predates the State religion by thousands of years. It is also hidden by the willfully ignorant. Some people are just lacking the inner insight of this philosophy to gain anything from it. So its meaning is hidden from them by their own ignorance. Just like some people are stronger than others some people are just wiser than others.

Before we go into the Philosophy we have to first talk about, the Master of Masters in Hermetic Knowledge, it would be a disservice if we didn't talk about the man, the myth, the legend Hermes Tristmegistus, also known as the “Thrice-greatest Hermes”. Hermes being the messenger of the gods and the God of hidden knowledge. He is a combination of the Egyptian God Thoth and the Greek God Hermes. The hermetic tradition goes all the way back to Ancient Egypt and Greece, thus why Hermetic philosophy is centered around Hermes Tristmegistus, God of Wisdom. The Emerald Tablets is the collection of the Wisdom of the Thrice Great Hermes, the Center of This Hermitic Tradition the Kybalion subscribes to.

Hermetic Rules of Thumb:

Keep This Stuff Secret –

Some people still see these ideas as threatening to them in some way. Be it a religious conflict or a misunderstanding of the topic. It’s important you keep this information to yourself while you are learning about it. We like to think that the world today is open and free to believe whatever we want to believe, but the world is always changing. Keep your work to yourself not just for your safety but also so your truths and experiences remain your own. Untainted by others opinions. It is also very important that you come to an understanding of this material according to your own fruition. The way you see things, live your life and experience life is unique and should stay unique while you develop yourself and the understanding of this world. I like to think God; The ALL; or whatever the “Source” is. It prefers us to come to an understanding of it on our own in our own way. So during the development stage keep your work a secret.

Don't Throw Pearls at Swine –

If you know someone that won't understand anything about Hermetic Philosophy save yourself some time and headache and keep it to yourself. Chances are that even if they do find it interesting they will more than likely misinterpret the meaning behind words and miss the message behind them. Keep your Pearls for others with pearls.

Milk Before Babes, Meat for the Strong –

As someone just starting to look into Hermetic Philosophy it wouldn't do you well to slap you with advanced occult stuff. That would be like giving you a lesson in quantum physics to a five year old. Not because the kid is dumb but because the kid has not formed a basic understand of key concepts and principles to formulate an advanced understanding of what quantum physics is. Once the kid learns the basic concepts of physics he can later tackle the more advanced knowledge on the topic.

Don't Crystallize This Into a Creed –

Wisdom degenerates when you do this. All truths are half truths and everyone will discover something slightly different during their journey. This is your personal journey. A key part of the Kybalion is The Law. The Law is the Hermetic Principle of Cause and Effect in its aspect of the Law of Attraction, Vibration and Polarity. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Nothing escapes this Law. However, reality is constantly changing and so some laws may also need to change with what is current. Political law is not always factual law thus the problem with censorship. The tides of change may end up covering the truth but there will always be ways to hide the truth in plane sight. You don't always want a stone foundation when a more flexible foundation is way more stable and will last much longer. It is also important that we all find our own truths and not impose on other truths but try to find the whole truth through the combinations of other truths.

Share when the Opportunity Allows-

This breaks all the previous rules, rules are made to be broken if we never broke any of the rules we wouldn't get anywhere as a species, new things would never be discovered and the world would be boring. Just be smart with who you share it with. Some will not understand you and others will downright refuse to understand you, don't need to create drama for yourself with people who can't handle your truth. Remember also that your truth Is still a half truth and always listen and learn from the truths of others. This is exactly what I am doing right now! Break the rules!

There are Seven Main Principles that make up the Hermetic Philosophy.

Mentalism – You will hear this from me constantly, the Universe is Mental the more you understand this the better you will understand this philosophy as a whole.

Correspondence – As Above So Below is something else you will hear constantly. Its is good for understanding paradoxes and hidden secrets of nature

Vibration – Everything is in motion all the time, even when its seems to be at rest the atoms that make up the material are still in motion.

Polarity – Everything is Dual as a result all truths are half truths that make up the whole truth of the Law. All opposites are identical in nature but different in degree. As a result of this Principle things like Good and Evil; Light and Dark; Hot and Cold are two poles of the same thing.

Rhythm – Think of a pendulum and its swing, everything has a rhythm, everything flows in and out, everything has its tides, everything rises and falls.

Cause and Effect – everything happens according to Law. There is no such thing as chance, chances is just an unrecognized Law. Nothing escapes this Law. People who understand this plays the Game and ceases to be an NPC.

Gender – Gender is everything and the Law of Gender is set between a Masculine and Feminine principle. There is mental gender and there is physical gender. There is no exception to this rule in the Hermetic Philosophy. Every Male form has hidden female elements and every Female form has hidden masculine elements.

This Philosophy is a Precursor to Science

These laws are present in everything. The most notable and concrete is that of Newton and his Laws of Physics. Newton's third law is: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. This goes right along with the principles of Cause and Effect and Polarity.

Polarity is very well known in both Physics and Chemistry especially when in electromagnetism. It is present in the study of magnets where they label the two sides of a magnet; the North pole and South pole. You also see it in batteries labeled with positive (+) and negative (-) poles. Very familiar because you see them in almost every electronic device that needs a battery.

Rhythm and vibration is also a physical science. The study of vibration is called Cymatics and it is used in the healthcare field, art and music and engineering and electronics. It is the one principle you see, feel and hear. You can’t see without light and the way it vibrates into your eyes. You can hear sound because of your ears and you can feel the same vibrations with your hands on a speaker.

Gender is present in biology and psychology. It is studied in biology through genetic makeup of an organism. In psychology both the masculine and the feminine are present in the psyche through the Anima/Animus or in the Brahman the Shiva/Shakti.

Hermetic philosophy, is not a religion it is a very basic understanding of how our reality works. You can use this in any aspect of your life from your job to your hobbies to how you raise a family. Its principals are present in every field of study from physical sciences, political sciences, engineering, even literature and art. Understanding the hermetic principles opens up windows of deeper understanding that will make your path in life easier to follow. That is why I personally think about them whenever I encounter a problem.

I hope you found this interpretation of the Kybalion interesting. It really has helped me understand spirituality and philosophy on a different level. This information can and has been used over the course of history to form a deeper understanding of the Universe and our role in it. I Am the Fool! May the light of wisdom show you through the darkest of times.

Sources: The Kybalion, by the Three Initiates

#Kybalion metaphysics #occult

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theginger-patrick · 4 years

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ART 311 - May 11, 2020 The Heroes’ Journey

The Heroes’ Journey is an extremely prolific narrative structure that we see everywhere around is entertainment media. In one of my previous posts, I listed some of my favourite authors and their works which are particularly important to me because of their effective world-building and foreshadowing. Many of these authors’ bodies of work feature stories which are solidly set within the Heroes’ Journey structure, but there’s one story not listed there that I would like to focus on specifically. That would be Contact by Carl Sagan, my single favourite stand-alone novel. As it was first published in 1985 and a movie adaptation starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey being released in 1997, I shouldn’t have to worry about spoilers, but here’s a spoiler warning: SPOILERS BELOW!

The premise of Contact is relatively simple. It’s a story about an astrophysicist performing SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research at an radio-telescope array who receives what turns out to be a message from extraterrestrials, first contact, and the resultant reactions . As soon as most people hear that premise, they’ll assume that it’s either an apocalyptic armageddon style story, a science fiction horror story, or some sort of Star Trek First Contact style story where the aliens come to Earth and peacefully usher humanity into a new era. This story is none of the above. Instead, it’s a breathtakingly beautiful, moving, and awe-inspiring narrative supported by hard science fiction. Hard science fiction is science fiction which is soundly routed in factual science and mathematics. Anyone who comes to know me knows that I am hardly a religious or spiritual person, in fact I’m an outright atheist, however, this novel expresses in better form than I ever could in words the sense of the numinous which I feel when I see images like that of the Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation (taken by the Hubble Telescope and released to the public in 2015), when I read papers on the research done at the LHC (CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Europe), or when I read about advancements in technology and our understanding of the universe which can be used for the betterment of our species.

There are three acts to Contact much like any traditional Heroes’ Journey narrative: The Message, The Machine, and The Galaxy.

The Message:

Our protagonist, Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, spends her early childhood being raised by supportive and loving parents, though her father Theodore “Ted” is the most influential on her life. He is her first mentor on her Heroes’ Journey, and helps to promote and develop her love of learning. From a young age Ellie is intensely inquisitive and devours new knowledge with a voracious appetite; she becomes particularly infatuated with the constant of π , known as “Pi”. This is of particular importance, so take note, and I would argue that this is Ellie’s call to adventure and is never refused or ignored. Unfortunately, while in sixth grade, her mentor and father Ted passes away to be replaced with her step-father John Staughton who is decidedly not supportive of Ellie’s non-feminine interests. Their acrimonious relationship is an important part to her characters development, though it was difficult for me to see it when I first read this novel as a teen.

The novel proceeds quickly through her middle and high school years, primarily using these years to highlight the sexism which was (and still is to a degree) wildly rampant in the STEM fields at the time. I viewed much of this to be further motivation for our hero to pursue her goals, though now with the added motivation of proving her step-father's opinion of her interests to be wrong. Her post-secondary education furthers her love and interest of science, gives her experiences in more social pursuits (*cough* sexual et cetera *cough*), and introduces her to ETI (just look at SETI and guess), and two mentors: two role models with one also being an antagonist of sorts. All of this concludes with her graduation and employment with SETI.

The first sign of extraterrestrial life is shown in the form Ellie discovering a repeating message of sequential prime numbers directed at Earth; this is not something that could randomly occur in nature. This is where the meat of the story begins; the crossing of the threshold. At first there’s skepticism among the scientific community, as there should be, but the message is received by unassociated and independent facilities. As the scientific community works through political channels to ensure redundant monitoring (this is set during the Cold War era) humanity is temporarily united in this realization that we’re not alone in the universe and a desire for further knowledge. This all culminates in the discovery of humanity’s first ever high-powered radio broadcast embedded in the message being returned to us, and industrial innovations and schematics needed to create a machine of unknown purpose embedded even deeper. Thus ends Act 1.

The Machine:

Tests, allies, and enemies are abundant in this part of the novel. Honestly, this is one of the most exciting parts of the entire story for me with all of the political machinations, discussions of about the new technology imparted to humanity by the extraterrestrials (nearly all of which are theoretically possible and grounded in real science), and discussions surrounding the philosophical implications and dilemmas of this new reality. I will glaze over most of it because otherwise this post would truly become a short novel in its own right.

The most important bits to take from this act (in my opinion) are the tests and enemies and approaching the inmost cave. The tests of Ellie’s dedication to following through with her life’s work in finding new funding and conquering adversity in the form of unnecessarily contrarian colleagues and critics, personal relationship, and physical and psychological recovery after a traumatic event. The enemies of this act are primarily the extremist religious and political groups which oppose the construction of The Machine and/or want to bring on the rapture, and . They ultimately destroy The Machine which is being built and funded by the government of the United States in a terrorist attack, and this appears to be the nail in the coffin of the project. The only way in which this is salvaged is through the efforts of an ally Ellie, who has a back-up machine in the works that was being used for “testing” components. The ordeal of this movie is undoubtedly the moment of activation of the machine, when the passengers and the world are witnessing the processes taking place from the opposing perspectives of the interior and exterior. The five passengers within the machine were confronting their fear of the absolute unknown considering this is a machine of foreign origin and technology never before used. Here ends Act 2.

(I am aware that this is Interstellar, not Contact. I just couldn’t find a GIF from Contact)

The Galaxy:

Approaching the inmost cave is what the story transitions into after The Machine activates as the passengers pass into the wormhole network which transports them to The Station. This would also likely cover the Reward (Seizing the Sword) phase. Throughout this sequence in the novel Ellie and the rest of the passengers are getting their first real reward to years of work and dedication with The Message and The Machine, but it’s obvious to the characters and audience that they’re currently in transit somewhere which has further implications on the story/mission. The trip to the station is an endless montage of breathtaking and mind-blowing scenes showing the depth and breadth of the capabilities of the extraterrestrials. Upon arrival, the passengers experience isolation and we later learn that the extraterrestrials were inspecting their memories. They used this data to put each passenger through a highly emotional and cathartic experience which was used to teach each passenger something about themselves of value. It is also when the most beautiful and numinous piece of information is given to Ellie when she asks the alien, who has appeared before her as her dead father Ted, how they experience when they create the numinous (she learned from the alien that the aliens are currently building a freaking galaxy, Cygnus A, using Sagittarius A which is the supermassive black hole in the center of our Galaxy, and is a massively powerful source of radio signals. Already a freaking numinous feat). It answers with Pi. Imagine how this would impact Ellie. Her "discovery” of Pi was one of the most formative experiences of Ellie’s early life. Specifically, the alien states that buried in Pi’s decimals is an encoded message. Imagine. Pi is a universal constant. It is something determined by physical and mathematical relations that just exist; you can’t “build” or “encode” Pi. The alien goes on to describe how they found this message in vague detail and directs Ellie on where to look.This entire combination of phases only concludes once the passengers have returned to Earth.

Their return could likely be classified as combination of the Roadblock phase. Upon their return to Earth, rather than Ellie and the other passengers having a triumphant and joyous return no time appears to have passed on Earth, despite them having spent hours if not days on The Station. They are questioned. There are Inquiries. Politicians and the public are furious that billions of dollars were “wasted” on something that apparently just spun up to a specific speed in place, then stopped. None of the instruments of human origin attached to The Machine recorded anything; there was no sense of movement, no great amount of time had passed just mere moments, no radiation, nothing. Eventually, all of the inquiries “determine” that it was all a big hoax perpetrated by some evil capitalist (the ally that Ellie secured funding and the backup machine from) in order to amass wealth and develop a monopoly on many of the associated technologies and emerging industries. The detection of The Message was all done via the coordination of desperate SETI scientists with this man and his satellites up in space to defraud the world. Fortunately none of the passengers are punished in any way, despite many of them having been scientists deeply involved with the discovery, decoding, and understand of The Message and the construction of The Machine.

The Return of the Elixir phase in this novel is both a phase to be celebrated and mourned. Ellie discovers that her father Ted wasn’t her biological father and that instead the man she thought was her step-father was her biological father. This is a loss of identity that she mourns deeply, but with the experience, perspective, and humility she has gained through this whole journey she is able to forgive her mother’s infidelity and come to terms with this bit of knowledge. She is also able to conduct research regarding Pi to help confirm her story regarding their journey in The Machine and discovers the message hidden in Pi’s decimals. A perfect circle. Ironic as hell and yet an absolutely beautiful impossibility thrown in by Carl Sagan that elicits a sense of the numinous in anyone I know who has read the novel. In closing, not only has Ellie’s Heroes’ Journey given her more wisdom and grace as a human, but also a powerful piece of knowledge that validates her entire experience and does the very thing scientists hunger for the most: she expanded humanity’s understand of the universe and of how much there is more to discover.

I know that that was one hell of a lot of word vomit on the blog, so if you read it all the way then thank you.

#Pi #Contact #Carl Sagan #Interstellar #science fiction #sci-fi #heroes' journey

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tarysande · 5 years

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Hi tarysande! I remember a little while ago you mentioned you were applying to creative writing MFA programs. Just wondering how that went? I'm thinking of applying to some myself, and curious about the process.

I ended up only applying to the one. I was wait-listed but ended up not getting in. And you know, that’s totally fine. Right around the time I found out I’d been wait-listed, I ended up reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. There was a section called Schooling, where she talks some real talk about going into debt to get an MFA and ... you know what, I’m just going to C&P that part. Because I don’t think people talk enough about how debt can destroy creativity. I have been there before and I do not recommend it. If I had been really committed to teaching at the university level—I do think an MFA would’ve proven useful. But to be honest, I think I’d much rather work one-on-one with people, or run small, personal workshops--and I don’t need extra letters after my name for that.

Would I have done the program if I’d gotten in? Debt and all? I don’t know. Maybe. It was pretty prestigious (even being wait-listed was ... a big deal). But I know this section of this book basically grabbed me by the shoulders and said, “THINK HARD ABOUT THIS.” And thinking hard is always worth doing.

Schooling, from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic.

I never got an advanced degree in writing. I don’t have an advanced degree in anything, actually. I graduated from NYU with a bachelor’s degree in political science (because you have to major in something) and I still feel lucky to have received what I consider to have been an excellent, old-fashioned, broad-minded liberal arts education. While I always knew that I wanted to be a writer, and while I took a few writing classes as an undergrad, I chose not to seek out a master’s of fine arts in creative writing once I was finished at NYU. I was suspicious of the idea that the best place for me to find my voice would be in a room filled with fifteen other young writers trying to find their voices. Also, I wasn’t exactly sure what an advanced degree in creative writing would afford me. Going to an arts school is not like going to dentistry school, for instance, where you can be pretty certain of finding a job in your chosen field once your studies are over. And while I do think it’s important for dentists to be officially credentialed by the state (and airline pilots, and lawyers, and manicurists, for that matter), I am not convinced that we need officially credentialed novelists. History seems to agree with me on this point. Twelve North American writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1901: Not one of them had an MFA. Four of them never even got past high school. These days, there are plenty of staggeringly expensive schools where you can go to study the arts. Some of them are fabulous; some of them, not so much. If you want to take that path, go for it—but know that it’s an exchange, and make certain that this exchange truly benefits you. What the schools get from the exchange is clear: your money. What the students get out of the exchange depends on their devotion to learning, the seriousness of the program, and the quality of the teachers. To be sure, you can learn discipline in these programs, and style, and perhaps even courage. You may also meet your tribe at art school—those peers who will provide valuable professional connections and support for your ongoing career. You might even be lucky enough to find the mentor of your dreams, in the form of a particularly sensitive and engaged teacher. But I worry that what students of the arts are often seeking in higher education is nothing more than proof of their own legitimacy—proof that they are for real as creative people, because their degree says so. On one hand, I completely understand this need for validation; it’s an insecure pursuit, to attempt to create. But if you’re working on your craft every day on your own, with steady discipline and love, then you are already for real as a creator, and you don’t need to pay anybody to affirm that for you. If you’ve already gone out and earned yourself an advanced degree in some creative field or another, no worries! If you’re lucky, it made your art better, and at the very least I’m sure it did you no harm. Take whatever lessons you learned at school and use them to improve your craft. Or if you’re getting a degree in the arts right now, and you can honestly and easily afford to do so, that’s also fine. If your school gave you a free ride, better still. You’re fortunate to be there, so use that good fortune to your advantage. Work hard, make the most of your opportunities, and grow, grow, grow. This can be a beautiful time of focused study and creative expansion. But if you’re considering some sort of advanced schooling in the arts and you’re not rolling in cash, I’m telling you—you can live without it. You can certainly live without the debt, because debt will always be the abattoir of creative dreams. One of the best painters I know is a teacher at one of the world’s most esteemed art schools—but my friend himself does not have an advanced degree. He is a master, yes, but he learned his mastery on his own. He became a great painter because he worked devilishly hard for years to become a great painter. Now he teaches others, at a level that he himself was never taught. Which kind of makes you question the necessity of the whole system. But students flock from all over the world to study at this school, and many of these students (the ones who are not from wealthy families, or who did not get a full ride of scholarships from the university) come out of that program with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. My friend cares immensely about his students, and so watching them fall so deeply into debt (while, paradoxically, they strive to become more like him) makes this good man feel sick in the heart, and it makes me feel sick in the heart, too. When I asked my friend why they do it—why these students mortgage their futures so deeply for a few years of creative study—he said, “Well, the truth is, they don’t always think it through. Most artists are impulsive people who don’t plan very far ahead. Artists, by nature, are gamblers. Gambling is a dangerous habit. But whenever you make art, you’re always gambling. You’re rolling the dice on the slim odds that your investment of time, energy, and resources now might pay off later in a big way—that somebody might buy your work, and that you might become successful. Many of my students are gambling that their expensive education will be worth it in the long run.” I get this. I’ve always been creatively impulsive, too. It comes with the territory of curiosity and passion. I take leaps and gambles with my work all the time—or at least I try to. You must be willing to take risks if you want to live a creative existence. But if you’re going to gamble, know that you are gambling. Never roll the dice without being aware that you are holding a pair of dice in your hands. And make certain that you can actually cover your bets (both emotionally and financially). My fear is that many people pay through the nose for advanced schooling in the arts without realizing that they’re actually gambling, because—on the surface—it can look like they’re making a sound investment in their future. After all, isn’t school where people go to learn a profession—and isn’t a profession a responsible and respectable thing to acquire? But the arts are not a profession, in the manner of regular professions. There is no job security in creativity, and there never will be. Going into massive debt in order to become a creator, then, can make a stress and a burden out of something that should only ever have been a joy and a release. And after having invested so much in their education, artists who don’t immediately find professional success (which is most artists) can feel like failures. Their sense of having failed can interfere with their creative self-confidence—and maybe even stop them from creating at all. Then they’re in the terrible position of having to deal not only with a sense of shame and failure, but also with steep monthly bills that will forever remind them of their shame and failure.

Please understand that I am not against higher education by any means; I am merely against crippling indebtedness—particularly for those who wish to live a creative life. And recently (at least here in America) the concept of higher education has become virtually synonymous with crippling indebtedness. Nobody needs debt less than an artist. So try not to fall into that trap. And if you have already fallen into that trap, try to claw your way out of it by any means necessary, as soon as you can. Free yourself so that you can live and create more freely, as you were designed by nature to do.

Be careful with yourself, is what I’m saying.

Be careful about safeguarding your future—but also about safeguarding your sanity.

#asks and answers #Anonymous #on creativity #on writing #as always take all advice with a grain of salt

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9or10allgood · 5 years

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I love Tumblr. Far more than Facebook, which has become a seething morass of political partisanship, and while I’m all about seething partisanship when it’s discussed by people willing to engage their intellects, I’m less so when “debate” means posting memes and gifs which are, let’s be honest, the electronic equivalent of saying “nanny nanny boo boo”.

Anyway… Tumblr. You can, to some degree, control your content. If you are, like I am, mildly (*snort*) obsessed with a certain tall, lanky, Scottish actor, you can find like-minded individuals and follow them and bask in his glory to your heart’s content. Likewise, you can follow fandoms based on television shows and movies and plays and music… and you get my point. You’re all here so, of course, you do.

And, if you are interested in things like politics or social issues or the environment or science or all of the above (and more), that content is also readily available on Tumblr.

Generally speaking, I find the folks on Tumblr to be considerably more relaxed and open and accepting than on Facebook. I attribute that, for the most part, to the members being mostly younger. I’m a great believer in young people. The future belongs to them and I am, present circumstances notwithstanding, mostly optimistic about the future.

I’m a Boomer. I was born eleven years after the end of WWII. (Good Lord, I feel old!) There were no twenty-four-hour television or radio stations, and the internet wasn’t even conceived of, even by the most forward thinkers. Doctors still made housecalls as a matter of course. Milk was still delivered to your door every morning. The polio vaccine was still being tested. Putting a man on the moon was a science fiction fantasy.

As a generation, we “Boomers” were guilty of a lot of things, beginning with not quickly enough shedding some of the baggage from the generation before us. We were still largely segregated and we are paying the price still and we will until - I don’t know how long and that disturbs me more than I can say. We were too quick to distrust the other - just ask the immigrants that came to these shores during and after the War. There was a dear older lady in my church when I was in high school. A kinder, more charitable, more joyful woman you could never hope to meet. She was a German war bride - met an American soldier and they fell in love and married and he brought her home to his small, south Georgia hometown. Their first decade was tough - folks were slow to forget and she was sometimes ostracized. Even when I knew her, people would sometimes refer to her (in lowered tones) as Leroy’s German frau.

We were abysmal when it came to the environment. I mean, look at the cars we drove in the sixties and seventies before the oil crisis forced a turn toward economy cars. Gasoline was $.37 a gallon - and that was hi-test! What did it matter that my mother’s 1971 Mercury Grand Marquis land yacht only got 11 miles to the gallon? Gender equality? Seriously? Gender Identity?!?!? How you came out of the womb is what you were. Period. And if your family had that special uncle or the aunt with a Very Close Friend, well, it just wasn’t talked about, was it…

On the other hand, there were things we did do. That social conscience that drives our society today? You can thank those who loudly and visibly protested the Vietnam War for a lot of it. Sure, there were anti-war movements always, but the Vietnam War lit a fire that, with the availability of news cameras and microphones and news cycles, burned hot and bright until the last helicopter departed the US Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975. And when the war was over, there were plenty of other things to get riled up about: the environment, women’s rights, the right to choose, civil rights, gay rights. Anger over things that are wrong today didn’t just start in the 2000s. A lot of us - and I mean a lot! - have been pissed off for a while.

Putting a man on the moon belongs to the generation before the Boomers, obviously, but the drive to continue space exploration - the space shuttle, the probes that are still sailing toward places beyond our solar system, the International Space Station, the Hubble telescope - belong to us. Medical advances? Advances in diabetic screening and treatment, the MRI, treatment of HIV/AIDS… Cancer research was largely theoretical until the ‘70s. The idea of DNA re-sequencing as a therapeutic treatment? Late ‘70’s.

And as for culture? My generation embraced the idea of embracing the accoutrements of other cultures. Clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, music, food… we were all about it. I see people commenting on “cultural appropriation” as if it’s a bad thing. We - my generation - considered it to be a tangible form of acceptance.

(As an aside, I have a dear friend who is battling uterine cancer. She has lost all of her hair due to chemotherapy. On one of her “good days”, she and her family took in an Indian (the country) festival and, while she was there, saw an artist creating henna tattoos. On impulse, she asked the woman to create one for her scalp. It was a masterpiece, absolutely glorious, and it gave my friend so much of her joy back. For the first time, she was proud to show herself without a wig or scarf. I think if I’d heard anyone say anything about “cultural appropriation”, I would have punched them in the mouth.)

My point to this ramble is this. Lately, I’ve been seeing anti-Boomer things on Tumblr. Boomers are rude. Boomers are backward. Boomers are outdated. And while I get that it’s just a thing for generations to complain about each other, it’s the absolutism that I see that bothers me. When I was young and dealing with my parents’ generation, I didn’t consign the whole kit and kaboodle to the Dark Ages. And, from my viewpoint as an older person, I don’t heave a great sigh and clutch my pearls over the entirety of the Gen X'ers, the Millennials (raised one!), or the Gen Z'ers. I may get annoyed with one or two individuals and have a sudden urge to shake my cane and yell “get off my lawn, whippersnapper!” but I manage to contain myself. (There was the young man in the electronics department at WalMart who, in his most condescending manner, asked me if I knew what a USB port was. I wanted to tell him that I’d been working with computers since before his father first bought his mother a malt at the chocolate shoppe. Instead, I just gave him The Look™ and he mumbled an apology.)

Absolutism about anything is corrosive. I mean, think about it. It lies at the heart of so many of the evils that are tearing at us now. It feeds the desire to hate all of the “other” because of a crime perpetrated by one or a few. Wars result from this kind of thinking. Down through history, you see it. And it’s so much more easily spread now with social media. Again, I would abandon FB altogether - except that it’s how I keep up with the folks back home - because it’s become a political, partisan, largely unintelligent cesspool. All because those on the Left believe that those on the Right are the Minions of Satan and those on the Right think that those on the Left are Bloodsucking Snowflakes. And, of course, they don’t all think that, but it’s so easy to click a “Like” or a “Share” without really thinking about the message they are sending, and before you know it things are out of control and we’ve put a dictator wannabe in the bloody Oval Office!

(Sorry. I’m still upset.)

There are those who ask why boomers are offended. I mean, “ok boomer” is just a joke, right? Well, yeah, but that same reasoning has been applied to how many derogatory labels. (I read one comment that “Boomer” isn’t an ageist slur. Except it kinda is, y'know?) And, again, it spreads and it gets blown out of proportion and there are those who are just ready to jump on a bandwagon - any bandwagon! - and the next thing you know, it’s trending on Twitter and we’ve got one more thing to get mad about that shouldn’t be anything at all because there are so many other things that we really should be mad about and trying to do something about…

Do you get my point?

If someone of any generation gets on your last good nerve, by all means, express yourself. (Short of violence, obviously.) But ease up on projecting the “they’re all bad" mentality. It isn’t true. It doesn’t make anything easier. And we’re all better than that.

Aren’t we?

#boomers #ok boomers #just a few observations #by a boomer

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wallbrat · 4 years

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Felicia

I Intro I read a lot. I research. I pay attention to the news. I do a lot of fact checking. I have 10 to 15 news sources and the news I pay attention to is domestic and international. I spend hours fact checking because people lie. I also make mistakes. If you can prove to me, logically, that I’m wrong, I’ll admit it, apologize and write a retraction. Keep all of this in mind as you continue. II History I’m a student of history. My favorite periods are Ancient and Medieval, however, I’ll read about any period. I spent a few years digging into WWII because my Grandfathers served then. For the last few months I’ve been focused on WWI and the Spanish Flu. The H1N1 virus got it’s nickname not because of where it originated. Spain was neutral and wasn’t under media censorship like the countries fighting the war. Anything detracting from the war effort was not allowed so the news you saw then was not impartial. Spain, however, reported on a disease that was killing people. While H1N1 impacted us in 1918 and 1919, there were reports of it back in 1915. Yes, our government knew about it and restricted the information because of the war effort. The H1N1 virus hit America in three waves, the second wave being the worst. A deadlier strain of H1N1 surfaced and was spread by the massive troop movements of the war. It’s been said that the dropping of the quarantine restrictions are what caused the second wave and that’s incorrect. While it was a small factor, the troop movements are what spread the new strain. The cramped conditions and the malnutrition among the soldiers hastened the spread. It’s estimated that 500 million people died from H1N1. While that doesn’t sound devastating today, in 1918 that was about one third of the world population. The transmission vectors for H1N1 and Covid-19 are similar and a century of time doesn’t tend to change that. While we lack the troop movements and the conditions of WWII, we more than make up for that with our transportation technology. If that technology had been present in 1918, the death toll would have been much higher. We’ve been extremely lucky so far, yet stupidity is attempting to alter that. III Rampant Stupidity Why do we refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past? We have people protesting, with loaded guns, because they want a hair cut. Instead of throwing these morons in jail, they are allowed to continue in their stupidity. I have a few questions for these paragons of questionable intelligence. Where did you get your medical degrees? What? You don’t have medical degrees? OK. Then your Google Fu must be strong. What? You didn’t use Google? Where are you getting your information then? Ahh, I see. It all becomes clear to me now. This is not about politics and it never has been. These shining examples of American arrogance are simply angry because they’re being told what to do. They think they know more than the experts and they rage against any kind of restriction. Instead of doing what they need to do to protect their families and themselves, they prove their stupidity by endangering everyone around them. If people are still wondering why I view humanity as a failed experiment, this is a perfect example. IV The CDC I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV. They have advanced degrees that qualify them to advise us on disease, contrary to what some might choose to believe. Science is fact. Disbelief of science does not invalidate it. In the middle of a pandemic, these are the people I'm going to listen to. Our politicians have no more training in this than I do and out President is less than worthless. To the idiots protesting: No. Your Google Fu is not strong. You're not a scientist or a doctor of anything. If you won't protect others by doing what you're told then stay away from me an mine. I'm 54 years old with a stressed immune system. I follow what's been laid down because I refuse to put you at risk. I could be asymptomatic, meaning I could have the virus and have no symptoms. Having no symptoms does not entitle me to disregard the advice of the experts. Your Pastor or Priest is no more an expert than you are. Some churches ignored the restrictions and what happened to them? Many got sick and others died that may not have if they had done what they were told. V Trumpus Defectus To be clear, our president is neither insane or damaged. He simply doesn't care about you. As long as you vote for him, you could die immediately after casting that vote. He's a billionaire and you're not therefore you're beneath his notice. You don't care about the feelings of a bug when you step on it and that's all you are to him. He's been trained that way since birth. Most of the other billionaires are just like him, he's simply in the public spotlight. Most of the older politicians are no better than he is. They've been bought and paid for decades ago. The sooner we realize that we're nothing more than voting numbers to them, the sooner we can actually make our votes mean something. VI The Economy Money is nothing but ones and zeros in a computer. The dollar is worth what those computers say it is. The economy should have been shut down completely, No money, no revenue, no bills yet everything continues. We could have stayed home, ordered what we needed until this virus burns itself out. Afterwards we could have restarted things, there would have been no penalties and everyone would have been fine. If we had done that it would have restructured the economy, which is exactly why it wasn't done. Another option would have been to turn all of the billionaires into millionaires. Take everything that the filthy rich have, above $500 million, and use it to pay the American people to stay home. We don't need billionaires or the class distinctions they create. It's obvious why this wasn't done. VII Mental Restructuring Since I can't give our country the mental ass kicking it so desperately needs I have to focus inwards. While I'd like to say that this is by choice, it was forced by recent events. Few things are more painful than discovering, or feeling, that you're insignificant in the scheme of things. During a pandemic, our focus should, understandably, on our families and ourselves. Survival is paramount. Understanding that, with the exception of two people, I've done all of the reaching out to make sure that people are OK. These are the same two people that poke ate me if I've been quiet for too long so I wasn't surprised that they reached out first. I'm not a needy, whiny bastard. I'm fairly self-sufficient, I can order what I need and I'm a fairly good cook. Pumpkin, Onyx and I are fine alone, especially since I'm not a big fan of humanity in general. I love certain people but humanity, as a whole, is a lost cause. I didn't reach out for personal connection. I did it see how my friends were doing mentally. The Covid-19 situation has been tough on everyone, especially those of us with mental illnesses. I'm 54 years old with ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and three hernias requiring surgery, which explains the stressed immune system. If it wasn't for the fact that my meds had been increased a month or two before this happened, this situation would have broken me. Two people checking up on me would not have been enough to stop me from imploding. I would have been reduced to a gibbering mess because of the stress or I'd be dead. I'm fine because I noticed a couple of things about five months ago and I consulted my doctor about it. Most people in this situation aren't as lucky as I am, which is why I reach out. Having only two people that bothered to make sure I was OK was eye opening. I'm forced to reevaluate why certain people are in my life and who remains. VIII Bye, Felicia This has honestly been coming for a long time. There are people that only contact me when they want something, usually money. There are others that don't do anything. It's past time to do some pruning. I don't like giving up on people which is why I've avoided this for so long. There are some that are immune to this. My three adoptive sisters in my local area and the ones I love who are out of state. CA, WA, CO, UT, WI, WY, LA, TN, TX, GA, NJ, NY, NH and MD. Wow. Apparently I love more people than I thought I did. They know who they are. If not then they aren't paying attention. If I contact you or interact with you, in any fashion other than work, then I probably love you. Toxic people are leaving as I can't afford to keep them around. Stupidity is also making an exit. Stupidity is Willful Ignorance so why would I want them around to begin with? I have a perfect example of both. There's a post circulating on Facecrack. This one states that the plight of the jews in the Nazi concentration camps is comparable to the Covid-19 quarantine. An old friend shared that on my timeline. If he had been anyone else, I would have deleted and blocked him without hesitation. The only reason he remains is that I've known him for 38 years. I'm waiting to see what he does next. Student of history, remember? I studied WWII in depth so that means that I know more about the concentration camps than most people. The jews were herded there a variety of ways, primarily by train. They were tortured, experimented on, starved, brutalized, a huge number of them were gassed to death and those are actually the high points. It was much worse than I'll ever be able to properly describe and in no way is it even remotely similar to our quarantine. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence. We're all free to say anything that we want to. We just need to be prepared for the repercussions that arise. If anyone else is stupid enough to share something like that on my timeline, or share it any other place that I can see, they are gone. No questions asked. All anyone needs to do to understand the difference between the two situations is to read a US history book that covers WWII. Posting crap like means that you're choosing to ignore basic evidence. I have no room for anyone like that so Bye, Felicia. IX Best vs Worst This situation can bring out the best or worst in people. You can rise to the occasion or you can sink into depravity. There are plenty of example of both around us. I'm working from home. My bills remain paid. My cats and I are fed and safe. I choose to help where I can. While it's true that I have little faith in humanity, that doesn't mean that I have to circle the drain with the rest of them. I will always try to help those around me. I've been extremely fortunate during this and that should be shared with those that are struggling. This is going to get worse before it gets better. I hope I'm wrong yet there are reports of increases in the infection rate where businesses are being reopened. The last thing we need is a second wave but I'm afraid it may happen. X Dystopia I look around and I have to wonder if we're ever going to grow up as a species. We keep making the same mistakes decade after decade. It's a wonder that we haven't blown ourselves off of the planet. The truth is that this is already a Dystopian society. It's not as bad as the examples we see in movies and on TV yet we are moving towards that. Compared to 20 years ago, we have less privileges now than we did then. We gave them away in exchange for the illusion of safety. We have privileges, not rights. Rights don't exist and are simply an invention to make us feel superior. If it can be taken away, it's a privilege. XI Conclusion While that last part was a little darker than I intended, it is true. I write, primarily, to relieve stress and to clear out my head. It gets pretty cramped in there otherwise. While this won't win me any friends, I may actually post this. My life needs some simplifying anyway. Namaste

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showdepremiosclub · 4 years

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An Appeal to American Workers

Concerning the social and economic status of the United States of America... "...man seems to be in a worse state even than the brutes..." -- Samuel von Pufendorf, "On the Duty of Man and Citizen," Book 1, Chapter 3 Introduction For so long, writers of all ages have made their appeals to kings, to queens, to archbishops, saints and popes. When trying to advance their own interests, men of letters would correspond with dukes and rulers of provinces. By contacting those in power, they were confident that their ideals would be expressed to the people in the most succinct and powerful way. Yet, it has been the trend of Anarchists, regardless of era, to make their appeal not to the rulers, but to the ruled -- not to the presidents or the prime ministers to beg for their mercy, but to the workers of the world's nations, and command them to action. Since we are advocates of a certain sense of justice, since we are the prophets of social doom and resurrection, we believe that the cause of the condition of the world is the ruling class and its minions, their state-sanctioned slavery of Capitalism. And, furthermore, we believe that to plead for mercy from those who casually mock the things that stir us, to plead for mercy would be to offer a begging hand to our executioner. For these reasons and more, Anarchists and Freethinkers make their appeals not to kings or queens, not to "sovereign entities" and their mechanized armies, but to the people themselves, that they might liberate themselves and others. It is in such an attitude that I present this piece... An Appeal to the American Workers. Why Revolt? First, when I am speaking to my fellow brethren, my comrade citizens in the United States of America, I want to say this. At first sight of the Communist and Socialist manifestos, their ideologies, the speeches made by their affiliated parties, when I heard these things for the first time, I was in complete disagreement. The language used by these demagogues of Communism was burdened by economic vocabulary. In some works that would be classified as liberal, I've seen the word "aggregate" used five times in a single sentence. Through these bizarre concepts, these overly technical definitions of a so-called sociological science, these "decline in the wage conditions of proletariat" and "bourgeoise distribution of wealth," through all of these is where we hear the call for Communism. I first want to tell my readership that I am familiar with these speeches, these pamphlets, these books, and I am familiar with the awkward and almost inhuman way that they have dealt with the economic question. I have seen men of Socialism do nothing but reprint manifestos and sloganeer, as though their drone-like actions were about to bring about the greatest state of peace, justice, and equity for mankind ever known. While these socio-economic appeals of Communist and Socialist parties are made to the public, they are often ignored; in a way, they are regarded solely as "preaching to the choir." They use words and phrases that the people are generally unfamiliar with. Their politics are relatively dreary; whenever a new party pops up, its statement of faith seems to be followed a pattern completely uniform with the last party. This is not an attack on those who are unfamiliar with the phrases and vocabulary of Communist theory. Rather, it is an attack on those who are ridiculously stuck with such phrases. To other Communist and Socialist comrades, those who feel that society would be greatly benefited through collective property, I ask this: that these awkward and almost erroneous phrases are abandoned now. Not because they are no longer understood by the common people, but because they were never understood by the common people. People must not be intellectuals that they might be revolutionaries. With that said, I want to say that I wholly and truly believe in the philosophy of Communism. I am an advocate of the words of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in matters of economics and sociology. In many ways, I divert from the philosophy that they preached. I am also a follower of the words of Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman, and Alexander Berkman -- the late, forgotten Anarchists of yesteryear, whom openly opposed the arguments of Marxian economics. Again, I diverge from their arguments in many ways. I am a follower of the words of Thomas Paine, when speaks of doing justice as man's only duty; I am a follower of the words of Carl Sagan, when his words oppose the claims of religious fanatics; I am a follower of the words of Jean Jacques Rousseau when his words are of the corruptability and weakness of a Republican government -- I am the humble follower of Mark Twain, Margaret Sanger, Voltaire, Charles Darwin, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. But, in so many cases, I find myself in disagreement. Perhaps it would help my Communist brethren to practice a higher degree of skepticism when reading the works of Marxian economists and other political philosophers. A Revolution -- But Against What? If we are to take an objective and honest look at the situation in the United States today, we will find ourselves looking face to face with some very grim and ugly facts. Many people are losing their jobs to outsourcing. Corporate scandals are becoming a daily occurence. People have lost complete faith in this system that seems to perpetuate unemployment, poverty, and misery. This is not solely my view, but it is the view of the people. More than half of the country does not vote. There can be only one reason for this: people feel that both political parties and their candidates are incapable of redressing the ailments of this dying nation. Underneath the sloganeering of "rugged individualist" philosophers, underneath phrases like "quarterly corporate gains" and "official company accounting procedures," underneath other phrases that serve to aleniate us from the subject, underneath it all, we become more and more dissatisfied with this country. We are a modern country living in a modern world! Yet, when we open our eyes, we still find so much poverty, so much misery, so much homelessness. We find ourselves face to face with an economic system that nobody has tried to improve upon -- an economic system that is essentially the root of these social ills. In so many years, with such great strides in all studies, we feel that men have inherently left one field untouched, that is, the field that deals with how to create a social and economic infrastructure, so as to remove these undesirable elements. We are not moved by self-interest or snobby intellectualism; we are moved by the interest of all of mankind -- it is our interest to eliminate the suffering of the innocent. In a 1997 study by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, for every dollar an employee earned, he made almost six dollars for his employer. [U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, Comparative Statistics, Core Business Stastitics Series, EC97X-C52, issued June 2000.] One dollar of that six earned income goes towards the other expenses, such as replenishing the shelves and electricity. [Business Expenses, 1997 Economic Census, Company Statistic Series, 1997, Issued December 2000, EC97CS-8, US CENSUS BUREAU, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. CENSUS BUREAU.] That means, for every two dollars a Capitalist spends, he is given seven dollars back. The investor makes money because he has money, and for no other reason. He is maintained at a situation in life where more money will do him not much better. And while he is surrounded in elegance, lavishness, and wealth, there are millions of children starving to death in our nation. In 1980, the top 1% of the United States owned more than 25% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 20% do not even own 1% of all the wealth. [U.S. Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. Quoted from Contemporary Macroeconomics, by Milton H. Spencer, Worth Publishers, Inc., Fourth Edition, page 45.] If these facts alone are not enough to disturb anyone of good conscience, then I do not think anything is capable of disturbing them. I could continue to parade statistics around. I could delve deeper and deeper in to the archives of economic thinktanks, pulling out numbers and equations used to determine the unemployment rate's fluctuation in response to the rate of interest of banks. I could pull up a historical timeline, showing the general decrease of wages in contrast to the general increase of profits. There are at least a million articles that discuss the economic question that I have yet to read; each of them from authors of their own particular background, whether Free-Market Capitalists or Marxian Communists. All of these writers have contributed what discoveries they've made to the intellectual community. They offer their words in defense of the trends or patterns they discover in economic behavior. Some of them are motivated by political causes, whether it's the establishment of Statist Communism or the abolishment of Communist political parties in third world nations. Many of them are motivated by their desire for prestige, to be recognized by the community as men and women of thought -- they figure, that if they can make their words more boring, dull, and formulaic than other authors, they will be recognized as men and women of genius by some university community. Some authors have no interest, except to explore the sociological field, and find out what it is that really moves the economy, to discover what gears and what cogs in society effect what other gears. Yes, I could pull out plenty of statistics and many arguments that these economists have utilized in demonstrating their opinions. But, in this appeal to American workers, I must say what I think: I believe that the average man and woman have enough sense and enough experience to make the decision that the status quo is unsatisfactory. Consider a radical reorganization of the social structure. For this reorganization to have any merit to it, we must start with the problems we observe. So, then, let's consider the most obvious problems. There are men and women whose job it is to hold signs on street corners, many times dressed in costumes, trying to entice people to purchase goods and services. They make very little money, but there are men and women in corporate firms whose task is essentially the same. Marketing and Sales executives are making six-digit salaries by devising new and different methods for convincing the public to want their goods. Their job basically is to convince people that they want and need things that their own wit and intellect wouldn't ever tell them to purchase. On top of these executives, there are the people of the media, the makers of commercials, billboards, radio advertisements, newspaper advertisements, graphic design for corporate logos; some people spend years doing market analysis, so that they can uncover trends in the consumer choices of citizens and workers. At the top, there are executives and corporate officials, making millions of dollars a year, and at their disposal is an army of Walmart greeters, sales associates, clerks, manager assistants, and other professionals -- all of them solely exist to entice people to buy things that they otherwise wouldn't have wanted in the first place. From this point, we find that the purpose of their existence is to subvert, control, and manipulate the general will of the people. Their meaning to life is inimical to that of a free conscience. Those people who work in low-wage jobs, spending most of their lives taking orders from supervisors and being criticized for "not having company" spirit -- I cannot blame them. I cannot blame them at all. If being a Walmart greeter was the only job available, if it was the only thing that could help someone support their family or drug habit or pay rent, then I cannot blame them. But to those corporate executives and company officers, these CEOs who control billions of dollars of the world economy, they are responsible for this situation. They have built up a culture of want, consumption, and poverty. Someone looking at it from an objective viewpoint will say that these people are simply useless, they simply do not contribute to society in any positive way, but that is light view of the situation. Not only do sales and marketing associates fail to contribute to society in any meaningful way, but they are parasites; they are the thieves of intellectual liberty. Their fat paychecks are only provided for by the society which they have leached themselves on to. It is not by noble pursuits and honesty that they make their living; it is by avarice and dishonesty. This is among the first and most notable dilemmas of the Capitalist economy: the advertisement industry. Whether we are looking at corporate executives, or people dressed in chicken suits holding signs on the sidewalk, I think I am making a fair judgment in saying this: these people do not contribute to society in any meaningful or productive way. We see, then, the first common and obvious fault of the Capitalist economy. What is the solution? It's a rather simple and obvious one. Those people who are members of this inhuman industry are to be put to productive work. What does that entail, specifically? Well, those employees who were stripped of their old professions would be put to work in meaningful jobs. In particular, they would start to contribute labor to the economy so as to produce goods and services. That means jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, or transportation and distribution. I consider these fields of the economy to be productive because they contribute in satisfying the interests of consumers. Workers on an assembly line, for instance, are creating products that will be consumed: television sets to be watched, clothing to be worn, computers for hobbyists, CDs and DVDs as entertaining media, tools to help other workers accomplish their jobs, etc., etc.. Members of the agricultural economy are invaluable for one obvious reason: they create the food that feeds all of us. Construction workers produce the buildings that people live and work in; they are simply a different type of manufacturing worker. Transportation and distribution is essential, in getting the products from the site they were produced to the site they will be used at. All of these fields are necessary to a healthy and free society. I do not want my opinion on this matter to be misunderstood or misinterpreted. My contention is not that it should be made a crime for men and women to use their own intellect to change the opinions of others. I think that the law should reflect a general anti-censorship ethic: whether in matters of politics or economics or religion or philosophy, or any field of study that has been subject to witch-hunts and being burned alive, I think that all should have intellectual liberty. You should have the right to private discourse, to let the thoughts in your mind mix and meld with memories and experiences, to be the ultimate judge and jury of your own opinion; it is the right to decide that you enjoy something as much as it is the right to say that you dislike something. You should also always have the right to publish the results of your private discourse, to speak with other members of the community in a way that reflects your thoughts, to try and convert people to your opinion on anything, whether art and culture or politics and society. The Statists, Fascists, and others of the anti-Democratic tribe will spend hours upon hours, lamenting the tragedies that have occured and will occur again if the people have the right to intellectual freedom. Whatever tragedies have occured from liberty of thought, they shrink to almost nothing, when one thinks of the tragedies that have occured from the suppression of liberty of thought. We criticize the advertisement industry solely for the sake that it is counter-productive, it works against the general interest and will of all men and women of good character. It invades communities, turning them in to dry husks, destitute of any real sense of culture and destitute of any real sense of purpose. It has turned art into a perversity, exploiting painters and sculptors, taking their passion and molding it into "Buy One, Get One Free!" There is no excuse, no pardon, that could ever be made for this group. However, when we look at the employment of the distribution economy, we find ourselves looking at the same faults that plagued the advertisement industry. Distribution centers, whether they're stores or malls or shopping centers, all of them seem to operate on the same principles that the advertisement industry acts upon. Such an enormous effort is placed on making the products or services look more appealing, so that the consumer is convinced to purchase such items. It also seems as though these distribution centers are having less and less of specific products. Many popular chain stores are a combination of department store and grocery. It seems that almost every store is selling "impulse items" near the counter, including candy and cheap mini-magazines. These impulse items are in every store, whether it's an office supplies store, a furniture store, or even something as simple as a gift card store. Many grocery stores are also selling cooked and prepared food, ready to eat. In their never-ending quest to boost profits and gain stockholder confidence, stores are expanding the line of products that they sell, not to make their selection complete, but to have more income from sales. Distribution centers in an ideal society would not consist in these elegant settings, with employees who act as greeters or make the store look visually appealing, nor would artists be exploited to create artwork for product packaging. The individuals who fill these positions would be transferred to industry sectors where they can act as productive agents of society. In examining the American and European economy structures, we have here seen the greatest reforms and changes we would enact. That is, the greatest reforms and changes we would enact, if the economy was built to serve the interests of mankind, and not built to serve the interests of private corporations and exploiters of labor. With the abolishment of so many professions, one might think that a massive unemployment might take place. This is not necessarily so. Those who would lose their jobs would be relocated to meaningful parts of the economy. That would mean, that society would produce more goods, at a higher quality, with less hours. Essentially, yearly wages would be doubled and work time would be halved. The happiness and satisfaction with life that men and women have would be increased; that is the basic goal of all this discussion and research. Ultimately, in this fair and ideal economy, workers would be paid not according to suggestions and manual aids from the corporate office. They would be paid according to the value that they create. Instead of the minimum wage which finds itself the standard of many industrial, farming, and service jobs, workers would be paid upwards of $20 to $30 an hour, a number that certainly can be afforded by the economy. The primary reason why such workers are not being paid this right now is remarkably simple: those who are the legal owners of capital (mines, farms, stores, factories) want as much money from their business ventures as possible. That means paying as low as possible so that there is more profit. It is for these reasons, that all members of the Capitalist class (those who own the productive parts of society) are regarded as the thieves of labor, the enemies of the working class, the exploiters of the proletariat, among other phrases used by Leftist groups. Among the most bitter ironies that history has taught us, it is this: workers in the year 1600 worked only ten hours a day to secure their needs. When industrial societies arrose, and factories allowed workers to produce ten times as much as when they worked without factories, people started to work 12 to 18 hours a day, sometimes as much as 20 hours a day. The new economic conditions that came with the industrial revolution allowed the Capitalist class to force people to work for so long, since the members of this class were also the ones who controlled food distribution in society. And today, when man's productive power is at least several hundred times that of the 1600 worker, the average workday is 8 hours -- and that alone was a struggle that cost the lives of many workers, gunned down by thugs hired by corporate entities, just to obtain. It is for these reasons, these observations and experiences in what has always felt like a dying world, that I am a Communist and a Socialist. For the motivation of a better world for myself, my fellow human kin of all nations, and the children of the coming generation, that I hold true to these beliefs. Subversive Tactics for Revolutionaries and Reformers There are countless ways in which a willing person can contribute to the revolution of social and economic relations in our world. If a person becomes interested in social change and political reform, then they only have an entire history of revolution to look to for advice. The existence of today's conservative, for example, can only be excused for those who were considered radical by society's standards several hundred years ago. It was once common to think that a king's absolute authority of life and death over every person was just, that the rule of government can be exerted without the authority of the people, that the general will of the population is inconsequential, that the ruling class needs no excuse. These and a thousand more foul lies were once considered public wisdom by the philosophers of the past age. And before these things were believed, even more cruel and bitter philosophies were preached as religion. Before this, there was no conception of justice, no idea of right or wrong. When men thought of morality, they simply thought of what the men who spoke for god said; when men thought of fairness, they simply thought of what the men of government said. It is true, that as we look back in history, we find eclipses in timelines, where a people were defiant, revolutionary, and bold -- where men and women dared to live by their own means, not by the guidelines of a king or priest. But such societies were small and lasted very shortly. Yet, all of this evidence is clear to all who are interested in changing today's social, economic, and political affairs. If you have this interest, then know this. There is reason to hope that things will change. And this hope is fueled by our understanding of history, our own philosophy, and of how today's society operates. The most popular and well-known of the methods of reform is that of the union. People of a particular trade or business unite together so that they can collectively demand better conditions, through practices like a strike or boycott. The interest of the common labor union is antithetical to every interest of the Capitalist class. The labor union demands higher wages, fewer working hours, better working conditions, fair treatment of workers. These are the things that drive up the costs of the businesses. A corporation, which the sole interest of gaining power and wealth, looks to union activity as the greatest offense; it is a small group of people who have combined their power together, so that they might force oppressive groups to change their behavior. The method of the union is the most peaceful method of social change. The greatest threat its members ever pose to society is the threat to stop working, to start boycotting, and to start picketting. Their goals are not achieved through violence, but by a very gandhi-like style. The effective goals of the union are simply the improvement of the working class's conditions. It has always sought economic reorganization, demanding that nobody can be fired except with very good reason (job security) and demanding that the workers are paid fairly according to their labor. While it is true that these are good and valid causes of any standard labor union, it shouldn't be forgotten that a union can be used as a political tool. Consider a city council that has just been bribed by corporations to remove the living wage law (a law that provides around $15 per hour minimum wage). The working class of the city will be greatly hurt. Their living conditions will start to fall, and in a short while, they will feel that their condition has reached their original position. They would either see the impending blow to their movement coming, and do nothing, lay still, take the suffering the state thinks they deserve. Or, all labor unions would combine together, for an enormous general strike. It must be understood, that products being produced, distributed, and consumed, is the government sanctioned form of slavery. For everything bought or sold, money is given to taxes, to support the state. For every hour you work, money is given to federal taxes, to support the state. For everything owned, money is given as property taxes, to support the state. If everyone, from every union in the city, from the services unions, the administrator unions, the manufacturing unions, the transportation unions, if every union in the city were to go out on strike at the same time, they would inflict massive, irreparable damage to the government. They could use their power as unions to force the government to change its decision, otherwise the entire infrastructure would collapse under this pressure. This is also a worthwhile tactic if one union is having difficulty gaining better conditions for itself, and the unions its federated with could go on strike. They go on strike, to tell their employers, to tell the other CEOs, to listen to their unions and accept some collective bargaining agreement, so that business can proceed as usual and the Capitalist system can continue. It is unfortunate that today's unions fail to see the necessity of a federation of unions and of advocating for political causes that directly effect them. Unionizing labor today is legal. That is something they need to realize. True, the burden of poverty is over their heads; they must work so that they can feed themselves. It is always the habit of the weaker victim to be less assertive, less bold in their attacks of their enemy. But we must unite in order that we can oppose our enemies of Capitalism. We must unite, and we must be strong, in that we can overcome our enemies. And also, while I said it was a largely peaceful effort at social change, there is no doubt that the Capitalists have done to keep it anything but that. Investors hired armed police squads to subdue picketters. The social organization of our society has turned us on ourselves. We are killing and murdering each other for crumbs. All the while, an army of police officers are guarding corporate headquarters all across the United States, while people are suffering from poverty and want. Unemployment is high and the wages are low. We have a very good reason for revolting at the state of things. Another popular effort to gain control of the situation, and create a worker's paradise is to form a political party, and to try and gain as many positions in government as possible during elections. However, it has been this method that has received the most criticisms from the general public. Efforts of the state to achieve a truly Socialist effort has had dismal results: the U.S.S.R., the Dictatorship of Cuba, the murder by the allegedly communist governments of Vietnam and Korea. And then, the efforts of minor socialist parties and international communist tendencies, these efforts have accomplished so little. True, there are some European countries that have started to elect Socialist parties, and to enact Socialist legislation. There are campaigns to reduce the average work day, to give better benefits to workers, to protect the consumers from harmful products, and to pay the workers more. But most Communists agree that they want the economy to be in the control of the people; so too, must the political structure of a society be in the control of the people. For this reason, most Communist and Socialist reformers have taken to the method of control via unions; to employ it to obtain political ends on behalf of the working class is to engage in a practice of Anarchy known as Anarcho-Syndicalism. There is also a popular case against voting based on Anarchist principles. Anarchists often argue that if we refuse to vote, then the whole justification of consent with the government falls apart, and the system will collapse. I can hardly see any justification for this. Less than a third of the population votes anyway. If more than two thirds of a nation is not enough force to gain superiority, then at what point do we become effective? Many Anarchists maintain this position: that to refuse to vote is to make a revolutionary step. I hear their arguments, and I don't quite find the logic of their evidence. I do not see how refusing to vote is doing anything to stop the oppressors from continuing to oppress us. If they find at least one thing sacred, or at least semi-sacred, and they are willing to respect the will of the people in electing a representative of their interests, then why should we shut off this method of social and political change? Why should we villify it, destroy it, and inhibit all of its functions, when it is the only method we are legally allowed and encouraged to change the system? Consider this one scenario. There is an island with twenty people on it. There is a Democratic vote on whether this person is to be hung for his crimes or not. Among those who decide not to vote, they argue, "I do not think the collective should ever be able to vote on the life or death of a commune member, so, I shall not vote, and demonstrate my opinion this way," yet, if the majority votes for the killing, then it's the inaction of the Anarchist that played a great role in the murder. For this reason, and reasons like this, we are apt to believe that we can use voting to change things, whether we are voting on a measure or a proposal, or for a person who seems to be the lesser of two evils (despite the fact that evil is evil). Perhaps some Anarchists will consider by ideals much less Anarchist and much less Libertarian if I support voting to a certain extent. Perhaps they will say that I am a reformer, but not a revolutionary, that I am reformist Libertarian, or some other such terms. I have only called myself an Anarchist because my ideals have been in unison with those of passed history, including Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin. I disagreed with them on points, of course, but the basic philosophy remains in tact: elimination of the state, communal ownership of all property, mutual organization of social units, abolishing poverty and all drug prohibition, among so many other efforts to create a better, more lasting peace between men on earth. If this basic philosophy cannot be defined as "Anarchism," then I can see of no other word to fit my arguments. Among many projects of the Anarchists and Communist, there is that project known as a worker colony. A worker colony is a collection of workers, who live and work together in close quarters. They are all assigned housing units and jobs, most of these places catering to industrial or manufacturing jobs. Then they work four to six hours a day, and are given leisure and a suitable pay for the rest of their day. Sir Robert Owen was a philanthropist businessman of the early eighteen hundreds, and created such a society. Instead of the fourteen hour workday, these workers were only required to work eight hours a day. They were given good, high quality food at inexpensive prices and they were given free medical care. The leader of the collective, Robert Owen, was capable of turning a profit with this business venture. In fact, many of these communities were started up by many investors, however, they soon became unfashionable at the sight of rising cost and competitive markets. Many Anarchists of the new era have suggested the creations of such communities, so that people are capable of living as workers and consumers in a society where their happiness is the main end of all productivity. I am not aware of any situation where Anarchists and Communists combined their finances in order to buy land and create such a community, but it is definitely a valuable idea to be considered, even if it's just on a small scale. Finally, there is the most popular and accepted method of spreading Anarchism and bringing about the revolution. That method is propaganda. This can take numerous forms. It can be everything from marches and protests to picketing to leafletting. Personally, I find that leafletting is the most effective way of swaying public opinion against their enemies. A piece of paper briefly outlining our ideals will be something that a person approaches on their own, it is not an argument or a debate, and it allows the person to ingest the ideas at their own speed. It is almost a re-education process. People have to unlearn that social organization should be based upon fear and misery, and have tol earn that all social relationships should be cooperative and fair. Plus, with more people educated and of Anarchist, Marxian, Communist, Socialist, or Libertarian opinions, there will be more people sympathetic to the cause of the unions. There will be fewer people who will work as scabs at a striking business or shop at stores where unions are boycotting. More people will vote for Socialist parties, environmental safe propositions, and Socialist measures. More cities and regions are to obtain a healthy Anarchist and Socialist population. The more people in a city, the more that can contribute to a massive project like a worker colony. The more who are convinced of the Anarchist position, the more who are likely to bring that issue to the eyes of the public, in spray painting across corporate property or marching in line at a protest. With all of these methods, I can hardly see these Anarchists and Communists doing nothing to bring about change. A Free Society: The Appeal for Anarchism I can no doubt expect that many of these ideals are enormously progressive in the eyes of today's American worker. He looks to these principles, these ideas of workers owning the productive forces in society, these revolutionary fundamentals of the workers being paid the wealth they produce, he looks to these, and he might as well be looking in to the future by thousands of the years. He is impressed, but also intimidated, and almost scared of the change. What it would take to change society, he argues, would involve moments of poverty and misery, such great reorganization of the social order, that it must be impossible. And, even if it were possible, it would be necessary that some government should guide it, that some revolutionary vanguard party is necessary to the construction of a new society. Without a large collection of highly armed, highly volatile, highly greedy men, nothing that we seek to change would get changed. It is necessary, in the eyes of these men trained to be hopeless, it is necessary that a government always exist, in order that society can have civil discourse, while the cruel element of mankind is subdued by the police forces and the military barracks. I allude to one incident I uncovered in Portland, Oregon. Fortunately, it is an extremely Leftist town, full of as many Anarchists, Communists, and Socialists, as there are Liberals and Democrats. This has allowed some interesting experiments to come up, since so many people of the same political beliefs are collected together in this one city, and can work together on massive projects. There is one particular cafe which advertises itself as "Worker Owned." It is called Back to Back. In reality, it is owned by the I.W.W., or the Industrial Workers of the World (AKA: "Wobblies"). It just so happens, though, that the people who work there are not the owners, and beyond that, they are 100% volunteers. The only payment they receive is in tips. This is not the realization of the worker's paradise, it is the realization of his worst nightmare. In their vanguardist efforts, the money that is raised with sales should go to two places, in the eyes of the IWW: To other Capitalists, to fund their exploitation of the working class, by helping them sell their products, and to bureaucrats, who can sit around for hours a day arguing with each other over wealth distribution, convinced that they are the essential piece to Proletarian revolution. But, I do not know all the arguments of the IWW. Perhaps, they will use the same language of Corporate America. "In recreating the world, we feel that it is necessary that workers are paid nothing, that they are to live humbly off of charity, while all the wealth in the world is concentrated in the hands of a very small number." We will heard their arguments about cost production, about competition, about inflation. They will speak on the same terms that McDonald's or Walmart would speak, in justifying cost reduction and retail increases. We are Anarchists and Communists. We believe that the Capitalist system must go if there is to be any justice in the economic or social sense; and, above and beyond that, we believe this change in the socio-economic sphere of the world can best be done by our own efforts. So many great tragedies and miseries in the world have been caused by people doing exactly as they are told, by people who act without thought, becoming the slaves to some inhuman entity. We do not need new rulers or more party politics; we need the people to rule for themselves, for each man to be his own master and his own slave. My appeal here, then, for the American people, is an appeal for a Communist economy, as much as it is an appeal for an Anarchist society. The efforts of previous liberation groups has been in a vanguard party, in a despotic government coupled with all capital as public property, these are the greatest of dictatorships. The essential argument behind each argument, that of Anarchism and that of Communism, is the same. The idea of people deserving the wealth they create, and the idea of people living in a democratic society are similar in that both are a demonstration of the common will and desire of the people. They are both based on improving the lot of the majority of people. Besides, Communism cannot be properly carried out unless the most Democratic of conditions exist in society. Look at the Leninist revolution. It was followed and supported by a wide range of social reformers, but the conclusion was the over empowerment of the government, to the point of dictatorship. Lenin held elections once. He lost, and then used his military power to dispose of the winning political candidate. A reign of terror, of secret police, of torture chambers, of a government subverting the natural will of the people to rule themselves. The same can be said of the Castro-led revolution in Cuba. At first, it was a hopeful situation for those who wanted a dramatic change in the social order of the world. But, it was not long before the revolutionaries who sided with Castro quickly turned against him when they found out he chose himself as dictator. Castro violated the will of the people, while parading around like he was its greatest demonstration. So did Lenin. In both of these international cases, it was a revolutionary party that refused to let the people rule themselves. If we are to be successful, we must pay respect to our Socialist brothers, and understand the faults that they made. We must create an Anarchist society, if the Communist economy is ever to be justly employed. I hope that the philosophy, the politics, the economics, and the social views displayed in this essay were enlightening or even heart-warming; I hope I have helped many other workers realize that they are not alone in their opposition of their two greatest enemies, the Capitalists and the government. The first strips him of all his deserved wealth, the second strip him of all freedoms. It is the poverty of slavery, the chains of misery. I hope that the suggested methods for achieving our new world prove helpful, and that the workers of the world are bold and strong enough to try these tactics with me. By uniting, by organizing, we are becoming stronger than the leader of our enemies. Stay strong, and stay linked together.

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