Monday, January 24, 2005

Little Man in the Boat Overboard.

.
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There goes the personal ego, what a rowdy fellow; a miniature sun seeking to shine through a cloud of personal ignorance, enswathed in a greater cloud of collective ignorance. The defining characteristic of a personal ego is that it sees itself as something separate from everything else. The defining characteristic of the one ego; The Christ, if you will, is that it bespeaks its unity with all things. I have said before that Love and Unity both share the number 13 in the Hebrew alphabet; or rather I should say, in the context of the Hebrew alphabets attributing numbers to each letter, Love and Unity have an underlying connection. When one considers that Fear- the absence of Love- is a main motivator in the actions of the personal ego, there’s much we can speculate on here.

The personal ego is God’s pet. I’m assuming all of us have had pets and all of us have watched our pet behave according to the impetus of its personality; intrinsic characteristics, instincts, training (or lack of) and the like. I like to think of a wild bear and a trained bear as a good example. Those of us who have taught our bear to dance have a much more fruitful relationship than those with a wild bear.

What is the world after all? It’s a series of stages upon which bears in various stages of expertise exhibit their talents; or what they consider to be their talents. There’s the guy with the lampshade on his head. There’s the comic portraying the guy with the lampshade on his head and there’s the guy whose head is a lampshade with a light inside. There is the small soliloquy stage of the ego performing for itself and then the increasingly larger stages as it performs for others.

Nothing so perfectly exemplifies our present state of dumbed down incompetent ego performance as the ubiquitous Rap and Hip Hop bands as they lurch and expostulate like infantile goons potty talking their way into the lower astral. We now celebrate the most base and guttural aspects of our potential. These crotch-grabbing Neanderthals are the present day Bob Dylan’s and Beatles. On the other hand we have the saccharine and insipid offerings of the Disney lip-sync dancers with the full show presentation of mind numbing treacle. Don’t get me started on Country Music.

I use music by way of example because it is one of the most universal cross cultural phenomena that we have. An entire generation is traveling in the throwback machine. It is the music of ground level materialism. It’s shit. Modern Art is fellow-traveling along. Television and film are riding in the back. Everything is about the image of the personal ego as a tattooed biker slut. Its hip, its happening and it’s the thing that the In Crowd knows.

So what is this, a polemic about the sad state of the day? Yeah, sure, it’s that. You could say, “If it’s too fast, if you don’t get it, then you’re too old.” Fine. Of course, I didn’t care for any of this when I was eighteen, so probably I was too old then too. But these images are just by way of example in the direction of a point about what the personal ego is. The personal ego being limited and ignorant to a lesser or greater degree is easily led. The personal ego likes to belong while standing out. It’s reaching for identity with one more nose ring and a set of pants with fake underwear sewn in over the top of the jeans on a teetering skateboard. It passes thousands of similarly altered personal egos on the street each day, all celebrating their individuality. What’s this really mean? The personal ego is a clown and a fool. That’s what it means. Now the Fundie’s calling out to a Jesus that doesn’t exist are no less fools than them. And the sharp guys and gals in suits who were born with a briefcase in their hands, incipient hemorrhoids and an instinct for the jugular and the backstab, yes, they’re fools too. They’re clowns too. They’re all clowns. Let’s be fair though, I’m a clown as well. Clowns aren’t supposed to make you cry or make you angry however. A clown’s job is to make you laugh; Emmit Kelly aside. Today’s clowns aren’t funny. Today’s clowns are mean, violent and looking for a little John Wayne Gacy style romance. Hey, why not? It’s hip.

I shouldn’t say these things. Who am I to criticize? It makes me a player hater right? When the subtle balance between the male and female principle has spiraled out of control you can be sure you will see a lot of strange things. And you can be sure that the more wacked out it is the harder and quicker the adherents will work to legitimize it. After awhile nobody will have any idea of what normal is. But who wants to be normal? Looking for The False Prophet? Open your eyes. Want to see the prophecy realized? Open your eyes. I ran for cover. Yes, that’s just what I did. I ran for cover. Oh, I know you can’t avoid Samara, but I’m after the less traveled, more scenic route. If I got to be here then I’m going to decorate my room with the things I like to look at while I work on seeing the beauty in all of it; no easy task.

It should be no surprise that the president you have fits perfectly into the whole scenario. What part of what is screamingly obvious don’t you get? What we have here is co-dependent co-incidence. Well, you can discipline your kids with the intention of protecting them from a real ass-kicking or you can just let the world do it for you- and it will. How does that make you feel Little Johnny? Would you like to talk about it?

What’s the perfection of the little ego about? It’s coming to the level of appreciating the Central Ego as the one and only truly singular self. It’s coming to the point where you can dissolve into it. What do you do when the world is going batshit around you and you are powerless in regard of a solution? You work on what you have. You take what you see and you articulate the truth as your personal contribution to the mix. The Central Ego is doing this all the time, so your job is no job at all. It’s times like these when you can really get a jump. Maybe the time to stand still is when everyone else is running amuck; of course you do want to be on the edge of the crowd. You do want to quietly move to the exit so you can leave when some idiot hits the foam ceiling with a Roman candle.

It’s scary to think about it but that’s only when you have supposed you are supposed to do something. Yes, you have your tasks, the ones you can name in your life right now and the ones that present themselves every day; helping out as you go. But it’s bigger than your capacity to change overall. It just is. Thank God someone’s in control huh? Even when it doesn’t look like it.

There’s a reason for the en masse effort to look stupid. There is a point. It’s okay to stand in awe of it. It’s going to work out. You can probably intuit that there’s gonna be a Bad Day at Black Rock. You can suss out where the higher concentrations of chaos are likely, and I’ll tell you, you can be in the middle of it and still walk out unscathed; given the connection and the faith. That’s something for you to determine while the higher mind does the right thing for you in advance; if you’ll let it. This is just a little something to let you know that although you may be surrounded by insanity, the director is totally sane. You can walk off the cliff with the crowd but you don’t have to. For many this is their first taste of show biz. Damn! I never knew the lights would be so bright. You can’t see a thing.

I’m just filled with gratitude. I don’t know how else to put it. I can feel Meher Baba smiling and telling me, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” I know there are yogi’s in the Himalayas who send me their best wishes. I know there are discarnate souls who walk beside me and a couple of big dragon dogs that lick my face and run alongside and watch out for me; you can feel them even if you can’t see them. They’re pets too. They don’t know how big and dangerous and crazy they are unless I tell them. I think they’re cute so that’s what they think too. Enjoy the show.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you happen to be sitting smack dab in the middle of this insanity that your talking about, it can be quite entertaining; a little embarrassing, but entertaining.
It looks more like regression than evolution.

Excuse me now, I've gotta get back to my Puff Daddy cd.

ben

Visible said...

Of course it was intentional. And those dirty little minds are confusing the sacred with the profane. My thoughts are on all the burned witches and Templars numbering in the millions. Yet today, there stands the church still, obviously forgiven and still doing business- more on that tomorrow... but I'm not concerned about being misunderstood, I expect nothing less.

MsZilla said...

Another viewpoint on the kid-discipline thing: I don't discipline my kids to protect them from the world's big boots. I discipline my kids to give them experience. They figure out how to deal with that sort of thing with my size 10's on their toes, and then when the world hits them with a size 14 right in the seat they have something to go on.

As far as the dirty minds, well, they've got enough to go on no matter what you say. My ex and my brother-in-law once managed to turn a discussion of tire maintenance into a series of innuendos about a gal walking by that had me standing there aghast. You'll never get past them, so using their proclivity to make a point aimed right at them seems like good theater to me. Well done. I never twigged to that connection at all, but that might be because it doesn't look like that when you're looking at it from my angle.

Speaking of "angles" I've been thinking a lot lately about them. If you look a lot at the eight-fold path and various other methods of enlightenment, I find that there is an emphasis on the self and detachment that I cannot connect with my life as I percieve it has to be lived in this world at this time. I found writings by two females hoping that would help, but one was more confusing to me than the men, and the other read like a spiritual Better Homes and Gardens. I have the same troubles with Christian writings and the secular writers I've tried. All I've been able to find out of all their works has been a sense of submission to duty, to biological imperatives, and to the world. I have tried to find answers within myself, but that's been a muggs game so far, too. What good I find in here is struggling to stay alive in a whirling mass of the past and present, with a few obsidian-sharp shards of what the future holds. I do what I can to shore them up as they are shoring me up, but there seems to be so little I can do.

That can't be all the universe intends, can it? If that's the case, my Gramma's "Sometimes, you gotta stand there like a jackass in a hailstorm and take it" is a lot easier to spell and takes up far fewer trees to print.

Until something points out a better way, I try to live my life as a sort of walking meditation, but far too often all that seems to accomplish is an escalation. It is as if the evils around us know that I've found a shred of strength, so they must test it.

I think I misunderstand something in a fundamental way, but I haven't been able to find an answer elsewhere either.

Anonymous said...

Well, you were right about the games. I got your email on a delay, very good calls score wise. This is a hell of a good essay too. Some of the lines are stone classic.

Bruce

Anonymous said...

Been coming here for a couple of weeks. You're brilliant. I've never read anything like this. I've never seen it put this way before. Much appreciated.

I'm staying anonymous in the UK.





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