Month: July 2017

I read this just now: https://thedailybeast.com/heres-why-your-favorite-horror-movies-are-so-left-wing

I was reading this yesterday: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pier_Paolo_Pasolini

And I am reading Jose Saramaga’s book “Blindness”, which contains scenes of terrible cruelty.  I read he was a Communist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Saramago

And I wonder, how does one reconcile the apparently genuine concern, the apparently genuine compassion Leftists feel, with their willful disregard of the HISTORY of their own ideas, the millions of crimes which have been committed in their name?  Sean Penn, to take one obvious example, makes a great deal of his alleged sensitivity and passion for humanity.

Here is my thesis, based on my own inner work: some part of them revels in cruelty, even the most outwardly sensitive and kind of them.  This is of course the Cultural Sadeism hypothesis, but when dealing with someone like Saramago, he is obviously not psychologically blind, himself.

But then, perhaps he was.  Blindness is, after all, an allegory he wrote.  Perhaps in creating scenes of mass rape he is echoing Sade, who was so beloved by so much of the Left.

So they spend considerable time contemplating the miseries of the world, the poverty, the racism, the reflexive hatreds, the misunderstandings.  And some part of them reacts abstractly by fashioning a defensive strategy, which says outwardly “I hate all these crimes.  I am a passionate humanitarian.”  But the REAL part of them remains fascinated with shit and murder, with transgression, and with the expression of the pervasive hatred for the world, for life, for humanity, they feel in their hearts.

Novel writing is in large respects the domain of talented liars.  They make up everything.  They might tap into real world experiences, but they can spin them, refashion them, in any way they want.

Many if not most modern artists are full of shit.  They speak in angelic tongues for a time, but when and if revealed, there is nothing but horror at the bottom.

I continue to be a proud American.  I am proud of the ideals we adopted consciously and purposefully.  I am conscious of our many failings, but also conscious of the failure of the vast bulk of the rest of humanity which has not even attempted what we have, and who, in not even trying, cannot in any sense be compared to us.

We created an evolutionary system, one which changes, which adapts, which seeks to better humankind.

This system has, to use a current word, been hacked by lunatics, by cloaked sadists using our own language to attempt to strangle us, our freedom, and everything good in the world.

I cannot understand Republicans who lack the balls to act like Republicans.  We are the ones trying to prevent the destruction of our system, and far too few seem to have the understanding of precocious ten year olds.

Why not repeal Obamacare?  Because millions who are getting free coverage will lose it?  Were they going to vote Republican anyway?  Can we not create in short order through free markets replacement policies even the working poor can afford, which limit the downside potential of even the worst illnesses?

Why is Mattis not opposing the continuing assaults on traditional gender roles in the military?  I read they are training Army women to accept men in their showers who think they are women, just like some ducks think they are dogs.  It is a free country, and men should be free to think what they want, but the rest of us are also free to think of them as mentally ill.  We do not have to share their delusions with them.  God help us if we all begin to feel the need to pander to every fantastic thought the many emotionally ill among us can concoct.

It is hard to be optimistic when there is no much open hatred in the air, and when so much ground has been cleared for mass atrocities.

I had a dream last night where some wise beings were communicating with me, and saying that I have nearly been broken three times.  One was described, and one I can guess, but the third was when an attempt was made to heal me.

Ponder for a moment the tone in a therapists office.  In most cases there are strict prohibitions about hugging and touching.  There is a plan of abstraction, one born ultimately in the utterly fascistic and repressed Vienna of the 19th century.

You are supposed to talk about emotions, and feel them if you can, but always there is a distance between you and the therapist.  There is a tacit claim made that “this is how people interact”, with the further tacit claim that “this is a cold world, and you cannot expect to get too close to anyone”.

The entire therapeutic experience depends on money.  Run out of money or coverage, and your relationship with that therapist is at an end.  It is entirely contingent.  There is no loyalty, no true friendship even possible, since it is frowned on by the ethicists of the profession.  There are rules which state that distance must be maintained.

Ponder going into such a room desperate for love, for nurturing, for reassurance, for hope, for some giving spirit to demonstrate the world is not an intrinsically hostile place, and then ponder the immediate shock that “oh, this is a slow process.  Tell me why you think you are depressed, agitated, angry”.  Ponder the immediate shift that has to happen from the desperate need for a hug, and someone to say ‘its going to be OK.  I have your back.” to “tell me how that makes you feel.”

Many of us did not have the word love in our homes.  It was not a word we used in our home.  I was never told I was loved.  I was never hugged.  And when I was in my late teens, all I knew was that something was missing, but I didn’t have the faintest idea what it might be.  I had no way to compare happy homes with my own.  All I knew was that I was miserable.

So they direct you into this track where you read psychology.  You learn about intrafamilial dynamics.  You develop a shaded trust in the therapist, who is of course liable to disappear at any time, permanently.

What if you had centers where people singing and dancing, where they were happy, and were happy to share their happiness with everyone?  What if hugging were easy?  What if people were emotionally open?  Some cultures are like this today.  None of them has ever contemplated conquering the world.

My work continues, but I think I am getting much closer to where I need to be.

It is gradually occurring to me both that there is nothing to hold on to, and that this is OK.  Life is an enormous ocean, with waves and tides, angry moods and pacific moods.

It is both true that there is no one and no thing to which I can cling, and that I am connected to everyone and everything, just not in a fixed way.

The tide comes and the tide goes, and people will invest entire lifetimes trying to prevent one inch of sway, holding, straining with all their might, when all they needed to do was accept and wait.  It will come back, in some form, but you will fail to see it if you first blind yourself.

To be clear, I was not accusing Trump of exaggerating things, although no doubt he does do some of that.

No, I am talking about the comparisons with Hitler, and the “darkening” of America, and all the other ludicrous propagandistic, hysterical pap out there.

This is LITERALLY the most hyperbolic moment in human HISTORY!!!  All of it!!!  By a LOT!!!!

I really like bread, but it seems virtually all grains sold in this country have Roundup (Glyphosphate) on them, even the “organic” ones.  I was reading this website, then came across this interesting entry: https://healthytraditions.com/healthytraditions/traditional-food/fermented-foods/atchara.html

Here is what caught my eye:

Many Filipinos are not wealthy enough to eat meat regularly outside of these special events. Add that to the fact that most people living in the rural areas do not have refrigeration, and therefore consume meat in larger quantities during these holiday and festive gatherings (such as “lechon” – a roasted whole pig), atchara became a strong tradition at the meals of these events, as their digestive systems were not naturally used to digesting large amounts of meats on a regular basis.

And it occurred to me that EVERY day is feast day for most Americans.  There is nothing special in it.  I love Christmas cookies as much as the next person, but there is no reason I could not eat them every day of the year.  I can and do eat meat every day.  I take on faith that the Buddha was no idiot, and did not suggest vegetarianism idly, but for myself I was a vegetarian in my youth for two years, and found I did not function well, physically or emotionally.  There is something grounding for me in meat that keeps me from drifting away.

Be that as it may, what it occurs to me is that the poverty which is very real with us is spiritual poverty. We can eat anything we want, any time we want (most of us: there is real hunger, too), but how often do we have access to the feeling of belonging, of participating in a vital and real community?

It seems obvious to me that all this experimentation with sexual identity, with racial identity, with using opposition to everything which is, to fashion an identity BUILT on tearing down, is short sighted, and characterized mainly by emotional emptiness and following desperation.  We burn what we hate, and we hate what does not grant us the love we need.  And our society certainly does not create and distribute love well.  We do not do it well in the homes, and what we fail to find there, we can scarcely be expected to build well elsewhere.  We look to others suffering from the same illness to relieve our own.  This must lead to madness, unless it can be palliated by distractions, illusions, useless activity and emotional superficiality.

Our wealth is not our problem.  “Capitalism” is not to blame.  It has always been lunacy to suggest that tearing down can create.  Only creation can create.  And creation is gradual, and always operative within smooth, peaceful times.  It has no place in disaster, which can only breed fear of the new, rigidity, and the violence which follows.

Culture is that which connects us.  It is what allows us as individuals to face collectively our shared fate of decay and death.  Countless brilliant people have created countless useful solaces.  They do not do so through the use of reason.  Such was the conceit of the French Revolutionaries and their progeny, who now inhabit so many high places in so many public places.

No, cultural creation is intuitive; it is spiritually driven.

Listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvcZf7NHMUQ

Is it not quite possible that they are weeping on the way back from the grave?  Is it not equally possible that this music gives them the emotional courage to continue their lives with emotional openness and the joy which this makes possible, in spite of “everything”?

I feel this darkness in the air, and I wonder how we clear it, how we take the next step.  So many people seem to think that by impoverishing the world, we can return to a different, better time.  This is ludicrous.  The task is understanding, on a wisdom level, what it is to be human.

To take as but one example the current cultural offensive on the sexual front, which seeks to destroy all the  evolved wisdom of the human species, what lasting joy can come from the “freedom” to change ones gender like one changes clothes?  What underlies identity?  What is deeper?  Sex, as used today, is nothing a dissimulation, a drug, a lie told to keep the wolves of confusion and despair at bay.

I have nothing against such people.  There have always been people who felt they were born in the wrong body.  But this is something different.  This is an attack on the very few givens remaining in our world, and can only operate to alienate all of us from one another yet further.  There is no end game, other than the childish demand to be allowed to do and say whatever one wants, whenever one wants, and to demand others acquiesce in whatever the delusion of the day is.

We fail at our great peril to value what the past has to teach.  Yes, not all of it is beautiful.  Some of it is ugly.  But without understanding, you see, we REPEAT what has been so many times before.  There is nothing new in tyranny, nothing new in radical intolerance, nothing new in shouting, yelling, hurting, killing, and falling, again, into the pit.

We exist, as I continue to say, in a time when global peace and harmony is possible.  But not through destruction, which has become the dominant mania of most of those entrusted with our “progress”.

We are resurrecting Moloch in the name of progress.  I do not need to read the stories.  I can feel it.

I am one man, living in a small world.  I do have and have shared many ideas, but I think the most important thing right now is for more and more people to stop and ask “what are we doing?  Why are we doing it?  Where is it all leading?  What baseless assumptions, and emotionally driven manias are pushing us?”

How, to put it simply, do we reconcile political freedom with the need all of us have for belonging?  Surely it is obvious an ubiquitous and omnipotent government cannot grant us anything but death in all its forms?

At the beginning of The Sacrifice, by Andrei Tarkovsky, the father is speaking to the son about the miraculous power of consistency, telling him a story of a monk who watered a dead tree daily for two years, at which point it came to life, and they do this while planting a dead tree. At the end, after the fathers seeming madness, the boy waters the tree.

All my life I have admired people who get up every morning and do without fail what they set out to do.  I have never been like this.  I will be good for a time, but then I find myself dreaming, as I did this morning.  I lay around, or sit and drink coffee, and watch images and ideas, and wonder where the time is going.

And it occurs to me that as with many things, there are WAYS of being disciplined.  One way is to lack the imagination to do otherwise.  One way is to be compulsive and really asleep in some ways.  One way is a deep seated fear of failure, of the sort that the military breeds into people.  None of these really apply to me, although I did use fear for a very long time. I whipped and beat myself without mercy.  I am no longer like that, thankfully.

And one way is love: love of an activity, love of oneself and ones health and emotional well being.  This is the healthiest of them all.

The longer I live, the more I feel that it is not what you do, but how you do it.  All of us are set the task when we are born of waking up, of becoming consciously alive, consciously human, and of consciously pursuing the angelic, the higher.  All of us have large dark regions within us, parts which are cut off, which we cannot feel, and which thus cannot provide us needed wisdom.  Finding all of them, inventorying all of them, requires periodic variation, changes in action, changes in perspective.  Within Kum Nye, there are hundreds of different activities, and the practice consists in varying them regularly.  There is no recitation of 100,000 mantras, or decades spent on the exact same meditation.

And here is as good a place as any to post a phrase that came to me the other day: When we own our demons, we amplify our angels.

Two other phrases that kept popping in my head last night: there is no place to start but the middle.

And: if you can see through to the end, the middle is clear.

They are a bit contradictory on the outside, but what I think my unconscious meant was that you have to start with the heart in important things.  The heart, the feeling sense, the connecting sense, the sense of affection, of wanting, of knowing intutitively–is where honest activity flows from.  You cannot force heart from the head.  The head exists to serve the heart, in important ways.  This is something I am still learning to accept.  Intellectualism is such a comfort and shelter, and armor.  It is also, of course, a cage and a stupefying and blinding tranquilizer.

And as far as contemplating an activity, if your heart is in it, you can see yourself doing it.  There are no blocks on the way, no part of you which will throw stumbling blocks in the way.  You can reach areas of objective difficulty, and visualize yourself finding ways to push through.

From my perspective, the fact the a sitting FBI Director broke laws HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ENFORCING in order to support a political agenda and party at the expense of another is by far the most obvious crime on the table, and the one most worthy of a criminal investigation.  He intentionally leaked classified information to damage Trump. Then a friend of his was appointed to investigate his firing, and to look into a dossier which seems to have been created by s Clintin ally at their behest.

Why, given this, should Comey not be accused of Obstucting Justice in the Hillary Clinton investigation? None of the usual protocols were followed, seemingly at his direction.

And why, given that Hillary Clinton and her agent, James Comey, are the only ones who clearly committed crimes, should Comey’s friend Muellef not recuse himself, or admit the plain fact that the whole independent counsel idea was a planned sabotage from the get-go, one aided and abetted by illegal activity on the part of the FBI’s top man?

We have not left la-la land. Other than that we have shrewd and seemingly honest man at the helm, we might still be living in the realm of Barack Marshall Davis.

One thing Trump has that I do not have is an instinct for timing. Perhaps he is simply waiting for the time to turn the firing of Mueller not just into a risk, but s positive asset in the court of non-lunatic public opinion.

In “My dinner with Andre”, he mildly chastises Wally for loving the comfort of an electric blanket, feeling that it separates him from whatever residual connection there may remain between “man in city” and “man in nature”.  Feeling the cold is good.  It can make one feel alive.  Comfort, in contrast, is soporific, not just in the benign sense of a good nights’ sleep, but as something which dulls and deadens the animals senses.

Ones sees this impatience with excessive comfort in things like CrossFit, Spartan Races, commando training for civilians, adventure races, and the like.

But ponder the next step: Virtual Reality.  Ponder children growing up in climate controlled homes, lathered in sun screen when they venture out (never too far, and in most cases never out of the sight of the nervous mother), and surrounded by mind deadening electronics almost from birth.  I will leave that thought there.

The other thing I wanted to share was a thought about the health of Americans.  What if, as a thought experiment, all chairs and bed frames were banned, and all toilets converted to squat toilets, such that people had to eat sitting on the floor, shit squatting, and sleep on the floor, as they do in much of the world?  How long would it take the balloon people to figure out how to not be absurdly obese?

So many people think that lines constitute intelligence, that logic flows in the real world the way it does in thought.  This has always been ridiculous, but it is reinforced by an educational system divorced from animal realities, from cold and heat and hunger and thirst, and the following needs to be functionally intelligent to survive.

I am not one of those people who assumes that because things are flowing in one direction that they cannot reverse course.  We can never know what will happen, can never know when a simple idea will take hold, can never know when the light will dawn again in long vacant eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dfE5DDBUR4

“Wait, what was that?  I thought I heard something.”

Yes, you did.  It was my lack of commentary.  Silence is loud when I do it.

Still, watch this.  Ponder.  Worth your time, unless you are living a self realized fully conscious life, in which case by all means carry on.