Pre-Nevada Associations and Other Mental Flossing

I wonder if my son will break through to himself as he struggles to make his way in this world. Striving to find himself artistically, he is aggravated by a job that has a woman medusa as a supervisor. My fantasies and hopes for him are mine alone, for he has to define himself in this world. Come to think of it, other than nature which as a species we have assaulted since our Darwinian birth, there is not much to this earth, other than the few million good people on it.

…Since we all return to an inorganic state, while we are organically alive we must endure the spendthrift and careless ways we deal with one another; there is so much to learn, at least societal crap, before we get on with it and what we learn is really useless stuff.

…I associate to the appalling effects of all religions, the coming and goings of gods, the resurrections and divine interventions, the myths, the virgin births, Joseph Smith and his golden plates (created by a jackass from upstate New York), all the superstitions, all the priests and ministers and rabbis speaking in the name of god, the grotesque delusional force of religion and its hateful consequences. The species may advance just a bit if it can jettison this dark matter. As an empty-headed species, we fill our brains with this crap. After millions of years, the best we can produce is a Sean Hannity — talk about a religiously conditioned slob.

…As Clarence Darrow opined, we spend the first half of our lives dominated, aggravated, and appalled by our parents and the second half of our lives irked, bothered and pissed off by our children.

…I associate to a zipper. One zip from the bottom of the crotch to the top and it is done. I think of life like that. Before we are awake, we are shot dead. The task, as I see it, is to become awake and aware. What school teaches that? So, tell your children after a day of indoctrination, that it is all bullshit, express your sadness about that and work with them on becoming alive and awake. Start off with Krishnamurti’s Think on These Things.

Apparently we are split, diced and cut up into all kinds of pieces that we spend most of our lives looking for the missing shards. Bombarded and beset by injunctions, dessicated religions, media massaging, profound group emptinesses, we find it hard to focus, to discover directionality; we crave congruency and don’t know where to look for it — of course, it is not out there. As our planet hurtles through space, I view each of us hurtling through time but we have no orbit.

…Without a whiff of grandiosity but something I can testify to, I have often been assailed or criticized, often judged, to be frank, because I do not conform, march to the sound of a different drummer, have what someone termed a “strong personality” (should i be a dishrag?). I am not politically correct. I am, metaphorically, the child who sees the emperor without his clothes; I am a closet anarchist, an out of the closet rebel; I despise all authority, relying on my inner clockworks. All governments are corrupt. I try to lift my periscope up through the morass for a gasp of oxygen here and there. How does one survive when one sees, even partially? How do you comfort the child who now realizes Santa Claus is imaginary? How do you repair, if you can, the rent in each of us as we discover the permanent faultlines in our parents and then later on the crevasses within ourselves?

…Having worked with clients over the years in a therapeutic setting, I realize that neuroses are a cultural slime that crawls like ooze over our minds throughout our years. If we can halt that, if we can make that blob recede, we have another issue before us. How do we struggle against the matrix-like, subtle and conditional slime that all societies produce that cover us for years as we age. Cheney is a dead human being. Conditioned, limited emotionally and psychologically, he is a tapestry wrought by the more demented weavers of this culture — power, force, will, right and prejudice. A severely limited man, he is a product of our culture. He is us on many, many levels.

…Cheney once more. Notice how his body is canted to the side, as if he meets the world at an angle. Note the metallic voice that drones like a well-automated custard machine. He presents himself not as Richard the Third, or Quasimodo. Rather, he gives you a slope, a descending mound, a scarp partially exposed from the earth. He is topographical in his stature, as if a kind of forest gnome. He brings not light, but darkness. Cheney is a configuration of forces rather than a personality, for he has a limited array of sensibilites. He was shut down decades ago. And yet people listen to his swill, and he is driven by his swill, and his wife has been inundated by his swill. For me, he is the nether embodiment of the worst of humanity, for I see only a graduated difference bewtween him and a rank and file Nazi. Of course, here in America that cannot be. Oh?

…I associate to the historical split between the individual and the state; during the Renaissance the individual roughly held sway. In today’s world the state rules. The 20th Century was an age of state domination. It continues.

…I will not debate global warming. I will use it to make an observation. I believe it is occurring. If you grant that to me, all else follows. The human response to that, the response of individuals and of political entities such as parties reveals a great deal to me. I observe how people respond to future dire straits, how they deny what their eyes tell them, what facts reveal to them. The response to global warming is a thermometer of how human nature responds to adversity or to a challenge or to reality. The very limited ability for individuals to grasp what the world shows them reveals to me the essential defects in the species. We are born ignorant and some of us keep that state of being for the rest of our lives. I describe, I don’t offer balms. It is terrifying enough to see the appalling stupidity. When it comes to global warming, we are watching a repetition compulsion. Only this time it is not manageable, like controlling war.

I weary of associating. I am trying to stay awake. I’d like to invent psychological pins to insert into one’s eyelids to keep them open.

Comments

One response to “Pre-Nevada Associations and Other Mental Flossing”

  1. Laura Suer Avatar
    Laura Suer

    Here is my mental flossing. Usually the religion we practice is a matter of chance. It depends on what part of the planet we are born, and yes, a great deal of conditioning. At times it is almost comical. We just attended Mass last Sunday. I took my 2 children to the sacristy for the “story of Jesus” for those too young to receive Communion. I couldn’t believe it when my children were instructed to color in the picture of Jesus and the “boo-boos’ he had received on Good Friday. This description was so inappropriate and nutty. It is not offensive to me, just off the wall.

    Religion is more than just the faith we practice. It also defines our ancestry and gives structure to the everyday happenings of life. For example, spring comes and goes regardless of religion, but is it not even sweeter when it is punctuated by the traditions of holidays like Passover and Easter?

    Yes, every religion can become perverted and wicked. Yes there are the Crusades. Or how about the crazy people that bomb abortion clinics and say they are doing it to defend the sanctity of life? Very sick indeed.

    Some (not all) atheists are the biggest “fanatics.” One fellow I worked with spent every living breathing moment discussing the foolishness of religion. Religion was his favorite topic. I am not exaggerating. I never once brought up the topic. (I tried desperately to avoid it.). He never spoke about movies or sports or books or food or anything. I told him he spent an awful great deal of time thinking about something that he did not think actually existed. I guess he was desperate to “save” me.

    This belief that certain people are saved/damned based on their religion is disturbing to me. I truly feel God loves the atheist as much as he can love the most devout person. God, I feel works by understanding people’s hearts, intentions and abilities. So much of religion is pure politics.

    As much as I feel there are many flaws with religion, there are the good things. Despite all the chaos involved for my husband and myself in dragging our 2 very small children to church on Sundays, we continue to struggle and go Sunday after Sunday. Because even though we had to chase my son and keep my daughter from eating the crayons she was given to do her Jesus and his boo-boos picture, it was all worth it because of the little things that connect us to this community. (For example there was a word of encouragement from another parent of a handicapped child at the end of Mass. There was the fact that the Monsignor, despite being in a hurry, changed direction to stop and place his hands on my children’s heads to bless them. These simple acts were so kind and genuine. These acts show that God does not just reside abstractly in the heavens, but in individuals as well.)

    Lastly, I do not think it is at all possible to escape conditioning or to be free of belonging to a “group mentality.” Even anarchists and rebels identify themselves with the ideals of being anarchists and rebels. I think a problem occurs when people just identify with one group/community or very few groups/communities. This is when there is a potential to become isolated and judgemental. If a person has a sense of belonging to a wide variety of groups then there is the realization that there is a great deal of variety, overlapping and common ground between all types of people. If you belong to enough “groups” it will not matter to you if a person is liberal, conservative, atheist or religious because there will be one of these liberals, conservatives, atheists, or religious people that you have strongly identified with at some point in some sort of group….. I think.

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