by Prateado | Dec 19, 2017 | boldly onward!, bullshitt, de-evolution, divest, ecology, evolution, fear, fear the fearmongers, intuition, Uncategorized
The Wisdom of Uncertainty is probably Alan Watts’ best-known book. In it, he describes the fundamental openness of the future, the horrible indeterminacy, and the lack of control that is indicative of our condition as embodied beings in this collective experience we call human life on planet earth. This embodiment, this consciousness, is a fragile, finite thing–despite the ramparts and buttresses especially western civilization has erected to attempt to dam(n) the inexorable flow of life and death. This fear of death, what Freud diagnosed as Thanatos, or the death instinct, is precisely what compels us towards our destruction. For the desire for death (thanatos) and the fear of death, are just the Janus faces of craving and aversion. That is, both instincts, are out of alignment with the fact of death itself. And of life, for that matter. Death and life are not events or limns to be fetishized, but respected. As we’re reaching a low for the human race, ecocide, renewed racism and sexism, there is hope. And there is despair. Resting in either of these is unwise, as they are both incomplete half-truths. The steps back with every step forward, are indicative of predators and parasites holding on to their host, believing that their stability and certainty is tied up with dominating others. There is no recognition that maybe they themselves also are fluid, queer beings, subject to change and metamorphosis. No, instead–and in fact what ontologically makes a parasite a parasite–they are blind to the potential to be anything else. They are scared of evolving. They are scared of readapting to a changed ecology. This is...
by Prateado | Apr 7, 2017 | de-evolution, responsibilitization
April 7, 2017 In the BART, I whitness an overweight, tatooed hispanic man with his girlfriend, unpacking a Blood PRessure Monitor. Every piece is wrapped in plastic. The monitor comes with bluetooth, the package reads. I see a Starbucks 12 oz. canned Mocha Doubleshot Energy expresso soda/coffee in his hand. He’s still wearing his pajamas. He has tattoos on his neck. The packaging of this product, the resources that went into building this blood pressure monitor, is further destroying the planet so that future people, irrespective of their dietary habits, will have heigher blood pressure. The 90 decibels the BART screams, also increases everyone’s blood pressure, including those little kids sitting with their mom in front of me, and that butch woman listening to her iphone, trying to blot out the sound. Noise-cancelling headphones be damned, the banshee wail of the BART prevents anyone from concentrating for too long, or letting their nervous system relax. This is just the way of things in late capitalism. This man, destined to die younger because of his drug use and obesity, high sugar intake and hot temper. Where hence the source? What is the cause in this twisted maze of causation? Who or what is to blame? It is here that such questions lose all meaning. Only that he must have come from generations of poverty—not just his family, mind you, but his society. Our society. An impoverished society that teaches that cutting corners and flipping quick tricks is any way to do just by any body, especially one’s own mind-body. The issues are in the tissues, my late friend Psalm Isadora...
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