Motion sickness...

There seems to be a real visual element running alongside my writing at the moment. Perhaps it's because these other people both compliment my ideas and say it all better than me. Nonetheless, I have no interest in killing time and simultaneously injuring eternity; if I cannot focus on reading, and if I can do nothing but wait I will write, write and write some more as William Faulkner sends out the plea.

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."

- T.S. Eliot

It is worth noting that during our time here we are not derailed but rather offered an opportunity to see exactly where the track lies. It is an opportunity that is extended with every moment, as in every moment is a willful spirit that demands recognition; a boundless space in which yesterday can if not be forgotten at least be remedied or understood. And it was last night when I found myself listlessly watching with disbelief an array of incomprehensible television that failed to either amuse or touch me, that I found Bill Hicks projecting upon this world a light that not only I recognized but which I found to be honest and refreshing.

If one ever finds oneself wondering why there is such a spate of pornography and gratuitous violence  on our televisions it is easily answered; we are not living lives but are being continuously entertained. Every moment is presented as though from a projector, and it doesn't require any close reading of Plato's Republic to understand the significance of this.  Our lives are presented to us as fruitful and our country dreams of "growth" and future prosperity, little conscious of the fact that growth lies in actually being connected with each other and connected with the soil that supports us. 

This dream-like existence is perhaps what baffled me the most from the outset; how was I supposed to accept something that was practically given to me? I began this journey very perceptive and asking a number of questions and midway began to lose momentum, taught that real understanding is finishing trivial assignments with no purpose other than improved performance. One can see how this counter-intuitive system of education can wreck perception, undermine connectivity with other people, and overall understanding on inter-species dependence. These should be the first things we are taught, but my memory is powerful and certain details seem to have been overlooked.

It is in my every interest to arouse my companions to self-discovery and mutual awareness. It has been for so many people who have spoken for centuries that we even speak the way we do, even have voices. This music and the voice of the earth speaking through us is because we have language and the courage to speak with sincerity about things that are truthful to us. I am suffering from motion sickness for all of this; the world is carrying me in a direction I never intended and I can see in the eyes of others that they want to keep whatever truth the bear in themselves, because it is better to have a beautiful inner universe than to see that faith trampled upon by others. I personally cannot bear the contradiction and the isolation that goes with it.

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

-T.S. Eliot

We live in times of immense change and in this moment lies the opportunity not for self discovery, but discovery of the other. And I do not mean by that ethnic equality or religious tolerance. If those do not come naturally then that is a whole other issue. In any case we all share a mutual purpose: to nurture and maintain this extraordinary and ancient creation which we inhabit. Even if it created itself, even if the mystery is too deep, the responsibility still lies within ourselves. This is ultimately the reason why I cannot learn the way I am expected to, why I cannot stay in one place; I am overwhelmed too much the extreme lack of empathy for what we regard as resources or raw materials.

Consider the language: raw materials, resources, primary production, industry, and commodities. I read lately in the writings of historian Eric Hobsbawm that most of our recent terms, ideological and industrial, stem from the past several hundred years. They are fabrications with which better collaboration with the system is sought. The term time is money is perhaps the most productive and equally destructive notion that has been invented. Perhaps it ought to be rephrased: human time is money- and only for a while. That's more transparent, and more honest. See, the trouble is, and has been, that human economy has broken its natural link with natural economy, which requires more understanding and patience than we currently have. Our exploitation of resources such as oil and gas has exacerbated the development of alienation and crisis in sustainability.

"Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development."
-Alexander Herzen

This is the kind of writing which I've meant to devote myself to but never quite made time for. And I appear to have ample time at this moment. I just can't fathom it: our governments have made such a wealth of error and abuse of trust yet we continue to offer them our trust; our money is a plea of trust yet we allow it to be invested into the stock market. We allow our government to abuse the trust of growing countries and we exploit their resources to the extent that we have become truly unaware and though we consider them to be dependent on us we rather depend on them and their wealth of skill and labor. We create value in our own markets and completely diminish the value of long-term growth and natural stability in the process. And all we need to do to alleviate this trouble is talk to each other. 

"...intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there"

- "The Alchemist", Paul Coelho, p77