Recently in interludia, cynical Category

After a fortnights hiatus, the sun has returned to the city by the bay, and we are all glorying in it. We, now, is a motley collection of inhabitants drawn to whatever magic this geography can still impress with possessing. I keep forgetting how urgent the human condition, but how aloof I am. Quick, hurry, make babies, because your life is ending--all the art, music, literature, philosophy, anything in the world means nothing, because you are a virus, programmed to replicate yourself, everything else is psychosis.

Now I understand why the christians are so fond of explaining away satan as an idiot--because all the suavity is equally idiotic to the furious rebellion. We also rebel, from time to time, but I watch...I know who is satisfied, who has made "it." The unquestioning believers, the followers--those who give in freely to the reproductive imperative, they are happier, are satisfied inwardly.

So why bother, why anything? Sometimes I don't know, I get involved in personality discussions with myself--am I depressed, or bent, or broken? But no, my problem is I hope, foolishly, for meaning. Although I am a virulent atheist, I need God to exist. I crave more meaning than what I know to be true--not to mean that I am going into the folly and blindness of faith, but some more ascetic and harsh hope, the cynical refusal of disappointment.

Generally, when the follies of the world oppress me too much, I retreat to art. Occasionally I have the inclination to organize that product...generally to a sense of oppression stemming from the sheer volume of art.

Either I'm productive or oppressed, either one, in the extreme.

Prostitution is not paying a woman for sex, it is paying for her to go away afterward.

A conviviance in connivance allows the uncouth to assume a measure of what is wanting, but never is really sufficient.

Is pleasure necessary? Is the necessity of pleasure (assuming a yes answer) negative or positive? Do we find a determination for living in a sometimes artificial need (assuming a positive answer), do we determine equal need in dying?

What benefit, conformity? When might conformity be rebellious? When group consciousness is as much a form of conformity and being conscious is rebellion?

Politics is a profession that grew in direct consequence to prostitution. Someone had to convince the disapproving populace that a whore isn't a whore--obviously an obvious whore would never do, therefore the whore who undertook this particular vice had to be careful not to look like a practicing whore, but rather, to blend into the mainstream of the populace--be they whorish or no.

Is whoring wrong?

It isn't wrong because the ghost of human guilt says so, but if there is a negative aspect to it, it is the taking of a thing ordinarily freely traded between organisms and putting the false context of economy on top of it. The bridge between emotional need and market sensitivities is a thing ugly in its own right, where the gift becomes a commodity--and the freedom to give is diminished in dignity by the ability of the gifted to command giving.

Some small epigram occurs to me:

Freedom is antithetical to order as guilt is stronger than love
I wonder, why guilt should be, save that love was not truly felt.

Fashion is the third oldest profession--the whores need clothing to describe their wares, the politicians need clothing to cover their hidden hearts, and the raving populace needs clothing to protect themselves from each others hoary hands.

Honesty--ugly in the mouths of those for whom it comes only with difficulty.

That which I am accused of, could so easily be true.

Despite the possibility, I have no desire to do so.

Guilty, I am nevertheless, because it is possible.

It isn't that you regret any adverse consequence as a result of your actions, certainly none experienced by other than yourself. Rather, it is a wish to defray any hostility directed at you as a result of your irresponsibility and the duplicity of your chagrin.

No matter how low you look, there's always a level beneath your line of sight.

I try continually to capture some happiness I seem to remember enjoying sometime, but I don't exactly remember when. Actually, I can't remember what the happiness was, or when I gained or lost the capacity to feel it. I think it might be environment, or perhaps relationship oriented. Maybe I am just attaining some new level of neurosis never suspected previously, or even an awareness of existing neurosis.

Living "here" is an interesting study in what I don't want from life, and an interesting examination (to vary word forms) of what I can get from life. I traveled to the slightly less pretensious, if not hippier town of Mountain View. Accosted by rampant orientalism and the smell of stale patchouli, I wandered the street seeking validation from humans who by merely looking, could sense their connexion with me. I was disappointed and silly. I walked and walked and walked, I passed Sunnyvale, I passed Great America, I saw a family smeared across three lanes of beautiful pavement. It did nothing to lighten my mood.

With aching legs and organs, I arrived in what passes for downtown in San Ho...a stretch of slightly more dilapidated hotels and warehouses. Its shocking to see the wealth of silicon valley adjacent to this grinding soulless poverishment in this suburban agglomeration.

Defeated, and re-defeated, I board the train back to Palo Alto, to climb back into my little, expensive cave and dream of living.

It must be stated that I enjoy the privilege of cynicism from a peculiarly advantaged position. I admit to a certain proclivity for complaint. As I have stated in various rhetorical ways throughout this missive of a blog, I am a person of observational compulsion, and of unfiltered reaction.

I am currently bemoaning the human behaviour of finding particular measures of social appropriateness to be the measure of entree, yet the society of the socialised is denied to those who may find some antisocial element in that society's measures. This is a clumsy way of making an essence out of the observations of people who drive expensive cars...these are 'smarter' people, who pay seventy thousand dollars for a vehicle that accomplishes much the same as a thirty thousand dollar vehicle, and contributes to the same malaise as a vehicle at any price. And then there exists a certain snobbery based on ownership of vehicles--the presumption beginning in the perception that vehicles are the correct and proper mode of propulsion for humans, and that the attendant social ills are a result not of the mode of transport, but some failing on the part of planners to shape the world to suit the modality. And I laugh when I see 3.50 at the pump, for regular. I laugh when you are stuck in traffic, for i eschew the car culture, but you run me down in the sidewalk, you blare your horns and play loud music at my home, your exhaust fouls my air, and the society created around your mobility infringes on my mobility, but do you care? Do you feel responsible...

I am at fault for not participating in this silliness, and further, I refuse to attend to the snobbery of purchasing power.