Up early again perhaps awoken by nagging thoughts of the problems in the world. What the world is experiencing these days will almost certainly be worthy of future rocking chair reflection, don't ya think? Possibly with fondness, or, perhaps more realistically, with disdain for the few people who run this carnival and regret at allowing them to rise higher than roadies within it. I think we could have avoided all of this, and I am not alone.
Pity the alien who visits earth and asks to be taken to our leaders! Look who we'd show them! We have Vlad the Impirialer Putin and Xi Jin Winnie the Ping in a race to start WWIII, Putin poised to invade Ukraine and Xi who will have a choice between Hong Kong and Taiwan to bludgeon back into the Mother Country after he finishes with the Beijing Olympics. "Fake Snow, Real Genocide." I saw a CBC online post about who should carry the Canadian flag during the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Please! Do you think I could help myself? I commented that perhaps TWO people should do the honours. Michaels Spavor and Kovrig should be co-carriers of an amended Canadian flag - this one:
I like the anger! LOVE it! But I can't help thinking of other misplaced anger that went into other recent protests. March on Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Skolstrejk for Klimatet... ALL great causes that got sidetracked and weakened by the legitimate villains that really should have been the focus from the beginning. As maybe the smartest human being alive today says it better than I can, I'll quote him, or at least paraphrase him here: "Centralization by the few no-goods for the purpose of accumulating all the wealth and all the power for their own selfish desires NEGATES the entire purpose of the universe. We need to shift to a DE-centralization, but the powers that be won't allow such a telic recursion." Chris Langan. Maybe the second smartest human being alive today knows the "no-goods" to whom Langan refers.
I will surely get back to Langan in future blog posts because I believe his Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe to be the intellectual, logical and mathematical equivalent to the almost purely spiritual Zulu Ubuntu, which is sometimes defined as, "I am because we are," and they are the solution to all that crap above, along with most of the other problems we have. I don't pretend to have a firm grasp on either, but I hope to try. Therein lies my hope, however slim, for mankind.
But short of the above, who am I put in mind of when contemplating the situation of the world today and needing a giant upon whose shoulder I can stand and see some truth unobscured by the ever-rising mound of horseshit? Today I choose Ambrose Bierce. The crotchety, alcoholic, sublimely poetic and humourous purveyor of political and social vitriol that was fortuitously saved from anonymity by his mysterious disappearance. Here's an LA Times article that describes the mystery surrounding Bierce.
I think he was a revolutionary not just in his literal American and Mexican military engagement, but like Christopher Langan (and me) he believed a social revolution was necessary, but the people were unwilling. There is a book and a movie about him both entitled "The Old Gringo." Greg Peck plays him in the movie and Jane Fonda plays the woman he's wooing. There's a scene in which a Mexican guy is dying and asks Bierce if he will die. He replies, "Si," then the guy dies. Jane Fonda's character is horrified. "Why did you tell him he would die?" she asks. "Every man deserves to hear the truth at least once before he dies." was his reply. Jane's character says, "You're so eloquent when saying such appalling things!" He replies, "Story of my life. Everyone appreciates the form, but is frightened of the content."
A VERY similar quote that might put Jesus in this group of frustrated revolutionaries from The Devil's Dictionary is, "Christian- One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin."
The Devil's Dictionary. Really, do yourself a favour and give that a gander. I'll give you but a taste...
Admiration- A polite recognition of one's resemblance to ourselves.
Air- A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
Alliance- In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted into each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Cabbage- a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.
Cerberus- The watch-dog of Hades whose duty it was to guard the entrance - against whom or what it does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
Conversation- A fair for the display of minor mental commodities each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor.
Education- That which discloses to the wise, and disguises from the foolish, their lack of understanding.
Hemp- A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
Litigation- A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Piracy- Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
Interestingly, he defines a plague (partially) as Nature's fortuitous manifestation of Her purposeless objectionableness. If you're like me and have been, for over two years now, thinking something like, "Thanks a lot (God, The One, Monad, Allah, Mammon, or whatever you might call God)! Like we didn't already have enough problems," you may take some comfort in this little definition. Sometimes life is cruel. Don't tax your cabbage head by trying to figure out some purpose to it. Consider the epomis beetle or the tarantula hawk. Nature belies the whole idea of a "merciful" God all the time.
I'm not trying to say that cruelty and killing of the disadvantaged is natural, I don't think it is for humans. I think working as brothers and sisters, not competitors and adversaries is in our nature. But I also believe that that behavior is interpreted as weakness by some and it is taken advantage of for personal gain. This is the behavior I talked about last post, and it's the root cause of all that crap above. Ironically, that same "weak" behavior that got us into this mess, if properly defended against the unnatural selfishness of the few, can be mandated by the many. The few will protest when this happens. I'm not saying any of the above are examples. I actually feel for the truck drivers. But I get upset when I hear them saying things like, "I work very hard to bring necessary things to the people of Canada." This is part of that pile of horseshit I mentioned above whether they know it or not. Now truck drivers are rarely used as examples of superior intellect, but I believe they all know in their hearts that the MAIN reason they do what they do is because they have to pay the bills. That is a burden placed upon us all by the greedy people who run this world. Most of us have jobs to do and so few of us like them! And those are the lucky ones. More and more of us don't even have jobs.
I feel certain that the world could and should be a lot better for all of us if we divide its power and resources with the mandate of making it the best world possible for all of us. We are MILES away from this and protest is likely the way to inch our way closer to it, but proper, level-headed protest. The minute the protest gets angry, it is defeated. This is why extremists always seem to insinuate themselves into the good protests rendering them easy targets for criticism. I dream of someday seeing a lot of MLK-inspired action in our future. Clear of purpose and un-highjackable. That'll be when our future can start to get more positive.
Ambrose Bierce, who had a notoriously short fuse, once said, "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret."
Now I think I'll do what I usually do to take my mind off this stuff. It's what Bierce did too. I'm gonna drink some beer. See you next time.
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