our world
is not
a matrix
but
rather
a scrolling
marquee
FIGURE
collective
experiences
craft
faintly
discernible
scripts
on the
scroll
left to right
GROUND
experienced
collectives
craftily
script
discernible
feints
that
scroll
right to left
ACT ONE
the
blissfully
ignorant
ignorantly
blissful
comfortable
and
youthful
thought
to be
a brighter
lot
than
the more
obscure
masses
they
glow
with the
blissfully
ignorant
ignorantly
blissful
glow
of
comfort
and
youth
that obscures
a more
massive
lot of
brighter
thoughts
they
are blind
to the
fact
that
they
are blinded
to the
facts
they
cannot
see
the faint
figure
on the
scroll
instead
(it
figures)
they
see
the
scrolling
feints
in its stead
and so
their mind (singular)
will
drift
right to left
INTERMISSION
the glow
is magnified
by
“education”
in schools
only
focusing
their
burning
rays
of “knowledge”
directly
upon
the
soul
of
the world
after all
they
told us
education is the lighting of a fire
didn’t
they?
burn
america
burn
our tears
will evaporate
in the flames
anyway
nothing to see here
move on
ACT TWO
the
glow
is extinguished
only
by
true learning
direct
knowledge
raised
and focused
solely
by being
burned
and
schooled
by
the world
what of
those
whose
school
education
is razed
burned
extinguished
directly
by
the world?
what of
those
back from the mouth of hell,
their souls,
all that was left of them,
shatter’d and sunder’d?
some
will
reason
why
when they get
out
they
will
reason
out
the
script
when they get
why
and
their minds (plural)
will
drift
left to right
ACT THREE
and
what of
those
intense
diverse
purposeful
put-upon
few
who
figure
the crafty
intents
and
purposes
of
those
invisible hands
crafting
diversions
to
put upon
the figure?
they
see
right beyond
the feints
scripted
by the left
but
also
beyond
the faint
left to right
script
and
so
the masses
who
can’t
see
beyond
what
they
can
see
don’t mind (verb)
the
few
warnings
put upon
them
by
the
put-upon
few
and so
those
few
who
see
what
those
who
can’t
see
can’t
see
are
left to write
2010/06/18 at 12:50
This is really good. I see you are indeed a smith in more than one sense of the word.
Like the Sarlaac, I will have to digest it however.
PS: Last word: Write or right or both?.
2010/06/18 at 13:01
Holy shit, this is one of the best poems I’ve ever seen.
2010/06/18 at 13:05
He is good, isn’t he?
2010/06/18 at 13:07
@ sdaedalus
Last word: Write or right or both?
whether it all makes sense to you after you digest it à la sarlacc is, i suppose, a good litmus test.
2010/06/18 at 13:08
oh btw, i’m johnny five; the name was already taken on wordpress.
2010/06/18 at 18:47
This is very true. And although the subject is not beautiful, but sad, the poem is beautiful, the words & the way you use them transcend the subject.
Are those who write also trying to right the world or simply to record the truth, or both?
I agree with you about the relative benefits of education and experience.
Well done. You really do repay reading.
2010/06/19 at 02:09
sd — to write the world can often right the world, if the writing can only outlast its subject.
consider the oeuvre of elie wiesel and primo levi, whose pens were ultimately more powerful than not only the sword but also the messerschmidt, luger, and panzer.
arbeit macht frei, indeed, though not in the sense the nazis had intended.
i come from a world of grit, blood, knuckles, and concrete, and to that world my heart will always return. thus the only beauty that i see is dredged from a harsh landscape.
most people look at the holocaust and see only carnage and evil, sometimes wishing for our entire race to be wiped from the planet.
i prefer to see our astonishing ability to smooth out large-amplitude oscillations. against a backdrop of great evil, i see even greater potential.
libertad!
2010/06/19 at 11:11
It’s always good to have a positive outlook on life. Rather than simply complaining about things, make the most of them and turn them to advantage. This is why we were given brains after all, it behoves us to use them in life as well as in attraction.
Without such a positive outlook, species die. out. Whether for this very obvious evo-psych reason, or otherwise, I like survivors. I like the attitude in your comment. Sometimes being relentlessly negative & cynical is too easy an option.
But I hope the potential you see is potential for good rather than simply potential for power or indeed potential for further evil.
2010/06/19 at 12:32
heh. indeed. i am not necessarily an optimist, but certainly an agathist.
this makes a bit more sense upon consideration of the detritus from which i came; my life trajectory has been almost uniformly positive, if jagged.
nowhere to go but up.
not a good place to be, but a great place to be from.
etc.
in fact, although i’ll likely be skewered by the roissysphere for this, i even see feminist antagonism as something that can ultimately manifest male strength (and hopefully will, although things are not looking good at the moment).
i’ll write a post on this, but the basic idea is as follows:
until recently, maintaining relationships was an economic imperative.
therefore, there was much less incentive for non-thrill-seekers to learn strategies for fighting tedium in those relationships.
therefore, marriages lasted, but largely without any trace of sexual tension.
now, people, especially women, are more able to leave relationships at will.
therefore, there is more incentive for non-thrill-seekers to learn such strategies (stretching the elastic).
relationships in which this happens will be stronger, happier, and more actualized, and will seem less like “work”.
there is also a convenient nexus here with the displacement of traditional masculinity (raw strength and brawn) from the world of work.
the handwringers say it’s the death of masculinity; i say it’s an opportunity to transfer that masculinity onto relationships.
a 1920′s steelworker simply would have been too tired to be much of a manly man in his relationship at home.
a 2010′s office worker can take all that surplus energy and invest it into dominance, boundary-pushing, etc.
you women are our responsibility. many of us have forgotten that.
it’s in ephesians 5, but ephesians 5 is a hell of a lot more robust when it’s laminated with economic necessity.
and, lest you mistake me for a white knight, i mean that statement in both senses — in the sense of acting according to a principle that resembles coverture, but also in the sense that according women equal voting rights and political influence to those of men is farcical.
if you recall my previous post at your place, it’s our responsibility to grow the sapling — but it’s also women’s responsibility to hand over the seeds.
inequality = tension = attraction = vive la différence = mutuality = sustainability.
the truth is a bitch.
in both senses of the word.
i shouldn’t write while under the influence of chemicals, or maybe i should.
2010/06/19 at 12:56
In vino veritas (or the equivalent depending on your chemical of choice).
Re. handing over the seeds, I have no difficulty with this in principle.
However from a pure self-interest point of view, I fear the loss of power that would result from loss of voting rights (particularly power over one’s money, and consequently over one’s independence.
It is a big thing, to relinquish one’s independence, I appreciate it may be necessary for a happy life, but surely there must be some inbuilt safeguards built into your system to protect women against exploitation if they relinquish their power. What protection is there going to be for the unequal?
Also, if we follow your analogy through the Married Women’s Property Act would have to be repealed & this would have the unintended consequence of making a man liable for his husband’s debts. It is more than just voting rights.
2010/06/19 at 12:57
Apologies. “husband’s debts” should mean “wife’s debts”. Freudian slip here.
2010/06/19 at 13:19
What protection is there going to be for the unequal?
hmm, this is something about which i will have to think.
but the annoyingly vague answer is — enough protection to preserve life, limb, and livelihood, but not enough to remove the incentives for, or even disincentivize, properly future-oriented decision making.
women are happier with a loss of power; believe me on this.
especially when that power is transferred to a man who combines just the right amounts of forbearance, dynamism, and cruelty.
heh.
darkness.
2010/06/19 at 13:27
especially when that power is transferred to a man who combines just the right amounts of forbearance, dynamism, and cruelty..
I think you’ll have to make this a legal requirement for all men under your new system, maybe passing a test in this as a rite of passage.
2010/06/19 at 13:28
I agree that women often are happier on balance with a loss of power, but only where that loss of power is to someone they are attracted to and respect.
2010/06/19 at 18:26
Yo, can you do something about the format of the blog? So it’s easier to read?
2010/06/20 at 21:37
The Social Hierarchy
our society
is not
a plain
but
rather
a slanting
slope
…
and so
those
few
who
know
what
those
who
don’t
know
don’t
know
rule
break of dawn
2010/06/20 at 21:39
Pupu, you are marvellous. It is lovely to hear more from you than just the occasional sentence.
2010/06/20 at 22:14
pupu:
imitation
flattery
et
cetera
2010/06/20 at 22:27
those
few
who
cast
rules
of
the
caste
rule
break
till
the
break
of
dawn(down)
2010/06/20 at 22:30
T S Eliot said amateurs imitate and masters steal.
Pupu is an amateur.
2010/06/20 at 22:31
pupu –
if you follow the chain of imitation and theft all the way back to its origins, into what third category would you put the people you find at step 1?
2010/06/20 at 22:38
rob?
2010/06/20 at 22:39
robbery
2010/06/20 at 22:40
robbery–>theft–>imitation–>creation(?)
2010/06/20 at 22:41
robbery
theft
imitation
creation (?)
2010/06/20 at 22:46
the thing i like the most about that t.s. eliot quote is that it lays bare the fact that there is no such thing as true creation. “creation” is simply the recombining of existing elements in novel ways.
three avenues of questioning for pupu, who seems to be the philosophical type:
1) how creative can a creator get, before his creations are no longer recognized as creations and are instead mistaken for the equivalent of monkeys’ random banging on typewriters?
2) if monkeys bang randomly on typewriters and create a product that is utter nonsense in its contemporary environment, but then suddenly finds meaning in a future environment, could it properly assume the retroactive label of “creation”?
3) how much is people’s recognition of “genius” is based on what is held in common, and how much is based on what is NOT held in common?
for instance, if a man could learn 100,000 words of a foreign language in one year, this would be widely hailed as genius — because it is just at the right nexus of something everybody does (i.e., language learning) and something almost nobody can do (i.e., learning at that rate).
by contrast, a hypothetical true genius could achieve unbelievable excellence in a field that is not even comprehensive to his peers, thereby forfeiting his possibility of being recognized as a genius at all.
so, is genius a social construct? in other words, is genius, ironically, limited and defined by the limited understanding of surrounding people?
if genius is not a social construct, should we accept the inevitable fact that the greater the genius, the fewer people understand him?
if the foregoing is true, do certified lunatics get a whole new lease on life?
2010/06/21 at 02:14
Pupu read about the Eliot quote at an exhibition of postwar American art (http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/meyerhoffinfo.shtm), and presumed Eliot was referring to concept borrowing from other disciplines as masterful theft. It was both mind opening and reassuring to read such a statement from Eliot. As an amateur science lover and a fan of conspiracy stories in tabloids, Pupu has always suspected an influence from modern physics on Burnt Norton. Here is a line in the poem that reminds Pupu of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: “I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.” Pupu has also heard Eliot was listening to Beethoven’s late quartets while writing his Four Quartets.
Regarding creation, there are perhaps three necessary components: deliberate effort, novelty and relevance. Pure random outcomes should not qualify as creation until some deliberate effort (thought alone counts) is put into the work to bring out its relevance. Once deliberate effort is put into a piece of work, it would immediately constitute as a piece of creation in the creator’s mind because deliberation alone guarantees relevance. However, the value of the creation to the public is less obvious, and relies on the balance between relevance and novelty. Both are low value creations – imitation that is high in relevance but low in novelty, and gibberish that is high in novelty but low in relevance. Based on the above criteria:
1) Both deliberate effort and novelty are present. The issue is about relevance. Until some further effort is made, either by the artist himself or by others to grasp the relevance of the work, it will remain a valuable creation only in the artist’s mind.
2) Whoever finds meaning (relevance) in the monkey’s work has created something. If he has also convinced others to agree with him, creation would be established in others’ mind. The tricky part in this case is whether the person would be considered as a creator or a discoverer.
3) The primary issue here is still about relevance, and to some extent, also about deliberate effort. Pupu’s guess is that the amount of deliberate (thinking) effort a lunatic puts into his statements may not be that high. The bottom line is that if a good deal of deliberate effort is put into the making of a piece of work, it would no doubt constitute as a piece of creation in the author’s/artist’s mind. The rest is for the world to recognize the value of the creation, which is not always guaranteed.
2010/06/21 at 02:39
Uh oh, Johnny, you have won the award for receiving the longest and driest comment from pupu.
2010/06/21 at 04:26
sd –
I agree that women often are happier on balance with a loss of power, but only where that loss of power is to someone they are attracted to and respect.
this is more of a chicken-and-egg problem than you think; “respect” is, after all, at least partially the result of power differentials.
i.e. a woman’s respect for her man forms a positive feedback loop with his disproportionate power in the relationship.
although this loop may seem annoying at first to people who are not very goal-oriented, it is precisely this positive feedback that can nourish a good relationship for a very long time.
2010/06/21 at 04:56
I actually did think of the chicken and egg point when typing this yesterday.
I agree that often the actual loss of power is necessary before the respect.
I think possibly what I am talking about as required by the woman prior to relinquishing power is evidence that if she does so respect will result, in other words that the man is worthy of relinquishing power to in terms of what he is likely to give her in return. There is no point in relinquishing power to someone incapable of providing the necessary quid pro quo.
2010/06/21 at 12:50
I think possibly what I am talking about as required by the woman prior to relinquishing power is evidence that if she does so respect will result, in other words that the man is worthy of relinquishing power to in terms of what he is likely to give her in return. There is no point in relinquishing power to someone incapable of providing the necessary quid pro quo
yep. this = the genesis of the “shit test”.
2010/06/22 at 07:25
pupu — i appreciate the effort. i may reply if i can think of anything remotely as intelligent as what you’ve written.
2010/06/23 at 00:43
Johnny and darling sdaedalus,
Two glasses of wine and tons of efforts later, pupu managed to come up with something so boring. Now you see why she is better off with one liners.