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we have to fix this
are we acting from fear
or love?
I will soak
through to the bone
some rainy days
Some scorching days
my skin will die
ultra-violently
on desolate others
I won’t talk to
a soul
or the ones i see
will treat me like
a nuisance
some fearful days
i will cry because
i miss you
on loving days
i will laugh because
we’re so close!
a god
disguised as
a vagrant
but then
also vagrants
are god
transforming
from knowledge
to experience
creating a path
from asphalt and
inspiration
would you like
to know the
deepest secret?
held between
the road, the bike,
and me?
:
.
(i am free!)
I love my cats, Tabitha and Shwi-Shwi. Both are playful, and ask for little other than food twice a day. And although the smell of ammonia curdles my lung-strings, their sweet, affectionate dispositions easily outweigh the unpleasantness of keeping up with their litter box.
I’ve been thinking about finding new homes for them.
I grew up with pets as a child, but upon entering my “adult years” (i.e. old enough to be drafted but not old enough to buy a drink), I found myself sympathizing with the ideals that keeping animals as pets is an unfair inhibition of their freedoms. Cats are insatiably curious and to keep them indoors, taunted by the squirrels, grasses and insects skipping along the other side of impenetrable glass barriers, is a violation of the basic rights I afford to all creatures.
I realize that Humane Societies and animal shelters across the country are overpopulated with dogs and cats who need good homes–the kind of home I can technically provide. I can provide healthy, adequate food and water, and a clean litterbox. I will not abuse or neglect my animals, rather, they will find a love in my home as close to unconditional as any ego-bound human can provide. That said, my true objection is to the society that allows this situation to develop–to the realization that many animals have been domesticated, and bred to large populations to satisfy a global thirst to enslave animals for entertainment.
How can I stand for the right of all creatures, “sentient” or otherwise, to live free and without restriction, whilst I am participating in the very behaviour I deject? Hypocrisy fits me like sunburn.
Back to the particular individuals at the center of my mind’s debate: Tabitha and Shwi-Shwi. They are each a product of the domestication-breeding machine, and neither should suffer a situation they did not create. I feel I cannot let them go. To do so would violate a loving bond I share with each of them. They bring joy to my life. I feel I cannot keep them. To do so would only feed the machine, and it is extremely important to me to live my ideals, to “walk the walk”.
I wish I could invoke a shift into the global consciousness, one in which people stop buying and selling animals like property, stop feeding them inadequate foods that lead to the painful breakdown of their bodies at the end of their lives, and then replacing them as though they broke a coffee cup.
delimna…
conundrum…
…indecision.
What should I do?
I’ve just finished Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. Koestler, a Hungarian-born Brit, wrote in German, so I can’t be sure if I should credit Koestler for the language, or Daphne Hardy for her digestible translation. In any case, I’m facinated by so many interesting word choices! The best parts (to me) are those excerpts from Rubashov’s prison diary.
Relevant history: The Russian Revolution of 1917 [wikipedia.org]
“A man’s hair and nails continue to grow after his death so movement still occurred in individual cells, muscles and limbs of the dead party”
“NICHOLAS SALAMANOVITCH RUBASHOV”
Cell 404. Such premature pride!
Once imprisoned, we learn of Rubashov’s rusty familiarity with a tapped code of sorts, a way of breaking down the alphabet into coordinates on a grid which can then be tapped out from cell to cell as a means of communication between prisoners. This is described as “…a square of letters with the 25 compartments–five horizontal rows with five letters in each.” However, our English alphabet with 26 characters won’t fit into this grid; furthermore the Russian alphabet, even in its modern condensed form, appears to have 34 characters? So, I am a little confused about this, but not so much as to actually bother me :o)
whorls – a ring of leaves or other organs around a stem of a plant (2) one turn of a spiral, especially on a shell (3) a complete circle in a fingerprint
exculpate – (1) free from blame (2) clear (a person) of a charge
penultimate – next to the last
ague – (1) a malarial fever, with cold, hot, and sweating stages (2) a shivering fit
cogitate – ponder; meditate
“The fact is: I no longer believe in my infallibility. That is why I’m lost.”
sacrosanct – (of a person, place, law) most sacred; inviolable
dilletante – n. (1) a person who studies a subject superficially (2) a person who enjoys the arts adj. trifling; not thorough; amateurish
“The maturity of the masses lies in the capacity to recognize their own interests. This, however, pre-supposes a certain understanding of the process of production and distribution of goods. A people’s capacity to govern itself democratically is thus proportionate to the degree of its understanding of the structure and functioning of the whole social body.”
“Now, every technical improvement creates a new complication to the economic apparatus, causes the appearance of new factors and combinations, which the masses cannot penetrate for a time. Every jump of technical progress leaves the relative intellectual development of the masses a step behind, and thus causes a fall in the political-maturity thermometer. It takes sometimes tens of years, sometimes generations, for a people’s level of understanding gradually to adapt itself to the changed state of affairs, until it has recovered the same capacity for self-government as it had already posessed at a lower stage of civilization. Hence the political maturity of the masses cannot be measured by an absolute figure, but only relatively, i.e. in proportion to the stage of civilization at that moment.”
(Perhaps we are right now on the immature end of the thermometer–our society and culture don’t appear to be capable of governing ourselves amongst the “great” advances in information technology and communication achieved within the last 20 years. Is this imbalance the reason I have a career?)
aesthete – a person who has, or professes to have a special appreciation of beauty
“In periods of maturity it is the duty and the function of the opposition to appeal to the masses.”
capitulate – surrender, especially on stated conditions
abberation – (1) departure from what is normal or accepted or regarded as right (2) a moral or mental lapse
There is discussion of a character we come to know as RIP VAN WINKLE because of his absence from society (imprisoned) for a span of 20 years. In Rubashov’s attempt to step into RIP’s mind, he imagines how different the world must appear to him. Notably, Rubashov considers that RIP would not have ever experienced wireless before. This is certainly a reference to radio–then a new, cutting edge technology. But what a sign of the times! A modern reader, especially of the younger generation, might blaze past that word, and without realizing it, apply the modern understanding of wireless–as in a means of delivering ethernet to untethered computers (still the same old radio waves–just at much higher frequencies and obscured through modern cryptographics) whilst sipping their caffienated beverage of choice, in a resonably comfortable chair, on a sunny day, but with a cool breeze wrapped around their shoulders–so far removed from the environment typeset in front of them! (I almost made this mistake myself, under those conditions!)
tête-à-tête – a private conversation between two persons
mis-en-scene – (1) the scenery and properties of a play (2) the settings or surroundings of an environment
rent – a large tear in a garment, etc. (2) an opening in the clouds, etc. (3) a cleft, fissure, or gorge
morass – an entaglement; a disordered situation, especially one impending progress
merriment – (1) exuberant enjoyment; being merry (2) mirth, fun
mirth – merriment, laughter
Ha merriment and mirth seem to define one another! What a shite dictionary.
2-4
He listened again and repeated the same sequence of signs. The wall remained mute. He had never yet consciously tapped the word “I”.
The party had taken all he had to give and never supplied him with the answer. And neither did the silent partner whose magic name he had tapped on the wall of the empty cell.
It was obviously not enough to direct a man’s eyes toward a goal and put a knife in his hand; it was unsuitable for him to experiment with a knife. Perhaps later, one day. For the moment he as still too young and awkward.
No, one cannot build a paradise with concrete.
Perhaps now would come the time of great darkeness. Perhaps later, much later, the new movement would arrive–with new flags, a new spirit of both: the economic fatality AND the “oceanic sense”. Perhaps the members of the new party will wear monks’ cowls, and preach that only purity of means can justify the ends. Perhaps they will teach that the tenet is wrong which says that a man is the quotient of one million divided by one million, and will introduce a new kind of arithmetic based on multiplication; on the joining of a million individuals to form a new entity which, no longer an amorphous mass, will develop consciousness and an individuality of its own, with an “oceanic feeling” increased a millionfold, in unlimited yet self-contained space.
Is that consciousness of a million times a million, that larger organism, is already among us, Arthur? Obscured from us, perhaps, by the same mechanism that obscures the silent partner from Rubashov for most of his life?
Hello?
Hello, may I please speak with “Andrew Lie…uh…Le-vits”?
Speaking.
Hi, Andrew, this is inspector [NAME OMMITTED]–I’m with the U.S. Customs Office.
…how can I help you…?
I’m calling regarding a package you mailed to a “Margaret and Fred Levits” on the 23rd of last month…
Yeah, I’ve been on the phone with the post office quite a bit about that one. The last thing they told me was that it was likely lost in transit, and there is nothing they could do since I didn’t buy the insurance thing…why–did you find it?
No, sir, there was a problem with your package. After scanning, we opened it under suspicion and…
I’m sorry; did you say you opened my package…?…somehow, that doesn’t seem…right…
Well, sir, this is a new procedure instituted by the additional authorities granted to us by the U.S. Patrio-
I’m sorry (again); did you say you were with the Customs Office? I thought your office only dealt with issues of international transit…?
Yes, well, you’re correct, however (and its a bit complicated) but our division is already equipped and staffed for the kind of investigation and intervention the Department of Homeland Security is interested in… Honestly, I really can’t talk about it.
Uhhhhhmmm, ok…so what about my package…?
Yes, of course…well, like I said, we opened it and found that you were shipping some sort of food product; some kind of grain.
…? Yes, its called quinoa.
I’m sorry…keen-what?
Quinoa. Q-U-I-N-O-A, and you’re right–its a kind of grain, highly prized by the Incas…I wanted my parents to try it–but…I’m still lost–what’s the problem?
Its a raw food product, sir.
Uhhh…???
As of January 8th of this year, private individuals aren’t allowed to send raw food products through the U.S. Mail Service. You must be a registered food production agency to transport food products…
Um, ok…I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything about this…
…and my job is to call those individuals and let them know, in cases like this one, that we’ve had to destroy their shipment.
What?!? You’re joking, right? That’s just rediculous! What about like, ah, chocolate and candy and flowers–people send those all the time!
Well, yes, sir, but those are manufacturer-sealed, and anyway, those fall under the “gifts” classification.
Gifts?!? Well, FINE then, I was sending my parents a gift of quinoa…? WAIT–what about the other things in the box–I had sent my mother a particular blown-glass windchime she’d been looking for…
I’m sorry, sir, the policy states we must destroy the entire package including all its contents.
!!!!! …did you say this was because of The Patriot Act?
That, and subsequent legislature…
I…haven’t heard about any of this, and I usually have my ear pretty close to the ground. What is happening to this government? All this anti-terror stuff is bullshit!
Sir, this call is being recorded…and monitored…
((CHOKE))
THIS IS FICTIONAL (and I shouldn’t have to feel like I have to type that disclaimer)
I’ve just started Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler.
Thus far, its as good as I was told.
Its making me think about governments again…
and revolutions…
and how goverments are really just people…
the ends do not justify the means…!
why must it be so…complex?
