Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Ballad of Greg Feely

The active function, every so often, exceeds its grasp and begins to scramble.

Lately I feel a sense of panic that arises during the seasons involving bureaucracy. It's such an obfuscation, deemed necessary through some irrelevance. I'm sure that if we still cling to these functions that they serve some kind of utility, but to me the tax season, and especially income tax itself, seems an elaborate obfuscation of a clumsy larger entity to insert itself into the everyday life of people who ordinarily wouldn't give a flying fuck. Now, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind the well-managed socialism that seems prevalent in Scandinavian countries, but from what information has crossed my path involving these countries, the whole of it seems pretty well-managed and oriented toward the benefit of all citizens.

See, if the government spent less time trying to arrange all of this financial dickery with corporations and special interest groups, instead spending its time on things like health care, education and jobs, then my cynicism would decrease and I'd be a lot happier with this stupid state of affairs. Nevertheless, Corporatism and the big magic spell that concept has cast over our country and perhaps the world has diverted a lot of time, energy and resources into the most ridiculous pursuits for the sake of feeding useless neuroses and fears.

Maybe it's just me, but most of what we perceive as conspiracy seems a simultaneous paranoid fear reaction, polarized into archetypes of Rich, Fearful Old Man in an Ivory Tower and Anarchistic, Fearful Individualist Outside the City Gates. We're all damned afraid and we're all ready to point our fingers at someone for being The Problem, especially lately. So, that said, what the fuck are any of us doing to unfurl the rest of our fingers, extend our hands and say, "Okay, I was being a dick, and you have a point. We're both nervous and agitated for different reasons, and if you're willing to help me with my shit, I'll help you with yours, and then we'll be a better species for it"?

I understand the value of seeking the source of our shit so that it doesn't have to be so unpleasant, but I also appreciate the value of seeing our shit for what it is and spreading it on our gardens instead of letting it rot in a lab as we test it endlessly for why it smells so bad. We have guts, germs, blood, fat, crap, and all manners of juices squirting up and down our being, and in fact our entire physical manifestation comes from inventive collections of germs into ambulatory bags of carbon reactions, absorbing and emitting all sorts of things. The reactions of our consciousness to this process, this basic, natural process of acting as a living being, have been rather prohibitive, especially given to an imbalance in our current conception of dualism, where one polarity has the attribution of greater value in relation to the other ("Good always triumphs over Evil"). If shit smells bad, it must be bad, and thus the act of handling our crap becomes not a part of a greater spectrum, but a banished universe of horror.

What of our fears drain our resources from our living, fructifying process? How might we choose to utilize this drain in a constructive manner? In what ways can we permit the entire living process into our hearts, and how might we best suffer in order to manifest the desires not of our ego or our consciousness, but of our very Soul?

4 comments:

Amanda said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amanda said...

Delete Comment From: Black Elixir Neat

Blogger 13 Muluc said...

I hear you, Ben. The prospect of filling in forms fills me with resentment and aversion. It seems like every year there is more and more demand for pointless busy-work. It feels like I'm being conditioned to submit to arbitrary, intrusive demands. Actually, I do suspect that's what is behind it. I suppose it could be viewed as practice in maintaining equanimity regardless of conditions. I'd certainly consider that an accomplishment if I could manage it, lol.

March 2, 2010 6:39 PM

the BCth said...

"I wouldn't mind the well-managed socialism that seems prevalent in Scandinavian countries, but from what information has crossed my path involving these countries, the whole of it seems pretty well-managed and oriented toward the benefit of all citizens."

Perhaps in a relative sense... but in fact we have been no more immune to greed and corruption than the good ol' USA. Government mismanagement and failure is as much a fact of life here as it is there. Only the degree and flavour of it differ, probably by less than you might expect. Due in part to a growing sense of this, people here are increasingly turning away from the established mainstream political parties in favour of parties that challenge the encroachment of the EU and tackle serious issues with less disingenuousness and tired rhetoric and more candour and common sense. It seems like too little, too late to me sometimes, but mostly I just can't bring myself to care. I'm a terrible person that way. :P

As to the point you were making here, I would agree and say thanks for pointing it out. That darn dualistic mindset just obstinately insists on seeing things its way -- until we become aware of a different way to see.

Ben said...

13: The prospect of these forms and columns becoming obsolete, while operatively something I'd like to see gone, becomes a little more daunting when I consider the idea that if we were to become an info-based economy, the amount of general surveillance and commoditification (New Words I Make! Khaah!) of an otherwise private life give me the willies. That said, now that we've developed external organs of the internet, housing and liquid assets, it's up to us to evolve them from where they are now using the best means available. It's a slow act of shaving down the "ha-durrrr!" that blocks us as a species from accepting novelty to get this stuff going.

BCth: Thank you for the much-needed perspective on outside governments. On the whole, America's media input tends toward mis-information, if not outright dis-information. Baah bahh, corporatism blah blah blah The Prisoner/acid trip loop blah.

Y'know, there's something to be said about apathy toward government. While these structures seem to provide humanity with the centers around which its decisions circulate, like nerve clusters, they're pretty useless if their decisions send us careening toward oblivion. While changing the structure from within seems the optimal way to handle the situation, having outside perspectives on these structures provides those with the gumption to wade through the political mire with input that can revitalize a system with new information, essentially opening up the system to manage the increase in entropy.

When it comes to dualistic mindsets, it sometimes just pays to know when it's showing up in the management of one's thoughts, and if the ways that it shows up can find constructive use to whatever you're doing, as far as innovation and healthy competition go. If it's just "the other guys" and not "The Bad Guys," we can maybe figure out how to best act as organs, liguistically the root of words such as organic and organization.

Lastly, if either one of you get to pick up The Filth by Grant Morrison, it's a heck of a book about the priorities of life, and much more.