Thursday, January 9, 2014
The Velvet Chains of Groupthink
It's been awhile, hasn't it? Mostly because I just haven't known anything to say that isn't already said, usually better, somewhere that a lot more people read. But today, I watched a video I highly recommend. You know every time you've thought something, and then been too afraid to say anything because it seems like everyone else thinks the opposite? Well, watch this video to see why you did that--and what the consequences are of our collective cowardice. Then STOP doing it, and we'll change the world.
Friday, September 13, 2013
The Petro-Scam--The Road to World War III
I like this guy. He's a bigger information hound even than I am, and he puts together a really good, really understandable video. Ever wonder what the "petro-dollar" is all about? Ever wonder why there's always so much trouble in the Middle East? It's not about "ancient rivalries" or "savage Muslims," or any of the propaganda we've been fed. This isn't a conspiracy theory. Check out his research. Most is projected right on the screen. Watch and see what current world events are really about. For the record, I'm not big on his option 3 at the end. Let's get on the stick.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Nuts
Here's an interesting video of Ron Paul addressing Congress in 2002. You should watch, even if you're not a fan.
A real "nutcase," isn't he?
A real "nutcase," isn't he?
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Problem with Money
I've been thinking on a problem and it's got my head in a knot. Read on and you can join me.
A long time ago, people worked to get stuff for themselves. They worked to gather fruits and nuts or to hunt or to prepare a field and plant some crops--to get food for themselves. They cared for animals--to get milk or meat or leather or wool, for themselves. They built a hut, tepee or house--for shelter for themselves. They cut wood or gathered it--to get heat for themselves. They carried buckets or skins to fill with water, to have water for themselves. They spun flax or cotton or wool, and wove it, to have clothing for themselves. But whatever they did, mostly their work resulted in something that they got to use or keep. And since everybody had the same number of hours, most people got about the same amount of somethings.
Then people started to live in communities where they might help each other. One helped to build a barn for the other, and then the other helped to build a shed for the one. One worked to raise chickens for eggs and traded the eggs to another for some cabbages that the other had worked to grow and harvest. There might have been a change of benefits, but still work equalled things, for the most part.
Later still, most people began to work for money. And at one time, money still represented trade of one type of work for another, most of which involved some kind of a thing. Back when money represented or included precious metals, someone worked (a lot of work, because they're rare) to get the gold or silver out of the earth, and someone worked to mint it into coins. Even paper money, back then, represented gold or silver--it was a certificate that said that you owned some tiny bit of gold or silver or copper, stored in a vault somewhere. It was just easier to carry around than all that metal. It wasn't a direct exchange of benefit of work (the folks who created the money-the bankers--took a cut, and got richer and richer doing it), but it was still work for stuff, mostly. And, importantly, there was, in a vault somewhere, a pile of assets (gold and silver) that backed the money issued. No more assets, no more money. This remained the case throughout history, until just the past few decades.
But since a few decades ago, money is not made of precious metal. Coins are made of junk metal--plentiful metals that require little work to get and have little monetary value. And paper money requires even less work to make. You can make thousands of dollar-papers from cutting down one tree and adding a little cotton and ink and stuff. In fact, you don't even need the paper dollars to make "money." You can just put some numbers in a computer and presto(!), somebody's bank account has a million "dollars" in it. Of course it's illegal for anyone except the Federal Reserve to do that, but they do it quite enough for everyone.
The point is that much of our money doesn't represent ANY gold or silver, or any corn, or any tables and chairs, or any tangible goods at all, held anywhere. The money isn't backed by gold or silver deposits: It's backed only by the "full faith and credit" of the "United States."
Now the United States isn't actually a thing. It's merely an idea--an idea that represents a conglomeration of people who agree to operate as a group. Us. The "United States" can't do anything, produce anything, have an army, or even tax anything, without us. So the "full faith and credit" of the United States is merely a way of saying--"don't worry, our PEOPLE will give you a certain amount of work for this piece of paper." Full faith and credit is just the promise that the people of the United States will work to pay the "work-debt" represented by that dollar.
Ok, now--some of us, when we work, make something. Some people work as farmers and make food or fiber or another product when they work. Some make machines, like cars or computers, or parts of them. Some make furniture, or cloth, or paper, or lumber out of the raw materials that someone else's work made. Some create art, or music, or poetry, or books. Some, like engineers and designers and architects, make a plan for a thing that someone else adds their work to, and together they make a building or a power plant or a car. Whatever people make, the work that is "stored" in that thing that was made is represented by the dollar bill that paid for it--a tangible asset.
But a lot of us-- me included for much of my life, don't make anything. I was a lawyer. I made nothing that myself or anyone else could use. All anyone ever got out of my work was a piece of paper that said someone owed someone else some money for something they did or even didn't do. What I "made" was just imaginary. Just ask anyone who's ever gotten a judgment against someone who didn't have any money to pay the judgment with.
Other people make nothing too--insurance people sell an idea, not a thing, and it will never become a thing. Just a promise that if X happens, we'll pay you some money. Health workers treat people's diseases, but they don't make anything. Bankers and people who work in banks--all they do is move around the money that represents the stuff that someone else made. They don't make anything new. Finance people like stockbrokers and traders and so on--they make nothing. Their "work" is only in trading back and forth pieces of paper (or computer data) that represent someone else's work that made something (like the profit of a Walmart store, or the corn some farmer grew). And yet, those of us who didn't make any thing with our work still get paid. In money that represents nothing except people's promise to work a certain amount for that dollar. And of course, the more "advanced" our society gets, the fewer people work in things that actually make anything. For example, we all heard recently and ad nauseum how we're approaching the point where 20 percent of our economy goes to healthcare, one of those huge industries that produce almost nothing. And even counting the supposed "value" (in GDP) of all the industries like healthcare and finance and law that don't make any things, we're still going in the hole--with a national debt of over $16.7 trillion and climbing.
So here's the rub. First, the government and the bankers make up the money. The treasury department and the "member banks" who own the Federal Reserve decide how much to make--based on some idea that none of us is privy to. They can decide to "expand" or "contract" the money supply. They can eliminate money, or they can issue trillions of dollars' worth more by simple keystrokes on a computer, like they have with the recent "quantitative easing." But as we've seen, the money doesn't mean anything except a promise by the PEOPLE of the United States to work a certain amount in return for it. Now, I for one don't much like the idea of Ben Bernanke and a bunch of bankers at the Fed deciding how much work I and everyone else needs to do to pay for all those dollars, but that's only the start of the problem.
The next part of the problem is those many people who don't make any thing when they work. This is an increasing percentage of the American people. At one time, there were many more American farmers and factory workers and machinists and other folks whose jobs it was to make stuff. That number has been dwindling since the 1960s. You might notice that many of the jobs that don't make anything (doctors and lawyers and bankers and insurance people and stockbrokers and financial traders and so on) tend to be the same jobs that "earn" a lot more money than the people who do make something, like farmers and factory workers and builders. And, since no tangible assets are created by those many of us whose occupations don't make things, the pile of tangible stuff that's represented by the money we issue keeps getting smaller and smaller.
So we have a lot more "dollars" representing a shrinking pile of tangible assets owned by the people who make up the "United States." As a result, more and more of those dollars are bare naked dollars--nothing to show for them except the future work of the people who "promised" (through their good friends the bankers and Treasury Department )to pay for them. They are pure debt--a mere promise that someone will work to make good on them.
But most of the "money" and most of the tangible assets that exist in the United States are in the hands of a few people. Estimates are that the wealthiest 1% of people own 40% of the "wealth" (that is, the assets and the money/debt) in the United States. The next 19 % own another 45% of the wealth. That's 20% of people owning 85% of the assets and money/debt. The next 20%--the second wealthiest fifth--own another 11%, approximately. So the rest--6 out of every 10--own only about 4% all together. A substantial majority of Americans own almost no wealth.
That's bad enough when you think about "wealth" as just that nebulous "money" word. But when you think about it as I have been, and now you are--well, that means that 1 person out of a hundred "owns" the past and future work of 40% of Americans--about 124 MILLION people. Four people in every ten own the work of 96% of their countrymen.
We used to have a legal system in this country where people owned the work of other people. They supposedly outlawed it in 1864. But here we are.
So, now you see why I'm having a problem with this. To be frank, I'm certainly one of those top twenty percent. I'm not even near the bottom of that quintile--so perpetuating this system of slavery is in my own self-interest, at least as compared to a system that's actually fair. And yet, I don't like the idea of owning another person's labor any more than I like the idea of owning the person outright. Seems like it might be time to fix some stuff in this country--dontcha think?
A long time ago, people worked to get stuff for themselves. They worked to gather fruits and nuts or to hunt or to prepare a field and plant some crops--to get food for themselves. They cared for animals--to get milk or meat or leather or wool, for themselves. They built a hut, tepee or house--for shelter for themselves. They cut wood or gathered it--to get heat for themselves. They carried buckets or skins to fill with water, to have water for themselves. They spun flax or cotton or wool, and wove it, to have clothing for themselves. But whatever they did, mostly their work resulted in something that they got to use or keep. And since everybody had the same number of hours, most people got about the same amount of somethings.
Then people started to live in communities where they might help each other. One helped to build a barn for the other, and then the other helped to build a shed for the one. One worked to raise chickens for eggs and traded the eggs to another for some cabbages that the other had worked to grow and harvest. There might have been a change of benefits, but still work equalled things, for the most part.
Later still, most people began to work for money. And at one time, money still represented trade of one type of work for another, most of which involved some kind of a thing. Back when money represented or included precious metals, someone worked (a lot of work, because they're rare) to get the gold or silver out of the earth, and someone worked to mint it into coins. Even paper money, back then, represented gold or silver--it was a certificate that said that you owned some tiny bit of gold or silver or copper, stored in a vault somewhere. It was just easier to carry around than all that metal. It wasn't a direct exchange of benefit of work (the folks who created the money-the bankers--took a cut, and got richer and richer doing it), but it was still work for stuff, mostly. And, importantly, there was, in a vault somewhere, a pile of assets (gold and silver) that backed the money issued. No more assets, no more money. This remained the case throughout history, until just the past few decades.
But since a few decades ago, money is not made of precious metal. Coins are made of junk metal--plentiful metals that require little work to get and have little monetary value. And paper money requires even less work to make. You can make thousands of dollar-papers from cutting down one tree and adding a little cotton and ink and stuff. In fact, you don't even need the paper dollars to make "money." You can just put some numbers in a computer and presto(!), somebody's bank account has a million "dollars" in it. Of course it's illegal for anyone except the Federal Reserve to do that, but they do it quite enough for everyone.
The point is that much of our money doesn't represent ANY gold or silver, or any corn, or any tables and chairs, or any tangible goods at all, held anywhere. The money isn't backed by gold or silver deposits: It's backed only by the "full faith and credit" of the "United States."
Now the United States isn't actually a thing. It's merely an idea--an idea that represents a conglomeration of people who agree to operate as a group. Us. The "United States" can't do anything, produce anything, have an army, or even tax anything, without us. So the "full faith and credit" of the United States is merely a way of saying--"don't worry, our PEOPLE will give you a certain amount of work for this piece of paper." Full faith and credit is just the promise that the people of the United States will work to pay the "work-debt" represented by that dollar.
Ok, now--some of us, when we work, make something. Some people work as farmers and make food or fiber or another product when they work. Some make machines, like cars or computers, or parts of them. Some make furniture, or cloth, or paper, or lumber out of the raw materials that someone else's work made. Some create art, or music, or poetry, or books. Some, like engineers and designers and architects, make a plan for a thing that someone else adds their work to, and together they make a building or a power plant or a car. Whatever people make, the work that is "stored" in that thing that was made is represented by the dollar bill that paid for it--a tangible asset.
But a lot of us-- me included for much of my life, don't make anything. I was a lawyer. I made nothing that myself or anyone else could use. All anyone ever got out of my work was a piece of paper that said someone owed someone else some money for something they did or even didn't do. What I "made" was just imaginary. Just ask anyone who's ever gotten a judgment against someone who didn't have any money to pay the judgment with.
Other people make nothing too--insurance people sell an idea, not a thing, and it will never become a thing. Just a promise that if X happens, we'll pay you some money. Health workers treat people's diseases, but they don't make anything. Bankers and people who work in banks--all they do is move around the money that represents the stuff that someone else made. They don't make anything new. Finance people like stockbrokers and traders and so on--they make nothing. Their "work" is only in trading back and forth pieces of paper (or computer data) that represent someone else's work that made something (like the profit of a Walmart store, or the corn some farmer grew). And yet, those of us who didn't make any thing with our work still get paid. In money that represents nothing except people's promise to work a certain amount for that dollar. And of course, the more "advanced" our society gets, the fewer people work in things that actually make anything. For example, we all heard recently and ad nauseum how we're approaching the point where 20 percent of our economy goes to healthcare, one of those huge industries that produce almost nothing. And even counting the supposed "value" (in GDP) of all the industries like healthcare and finance and law that don't make any things, we're still going in the hole--with a national debt of over $16.7 trillion and climbing.
So here's the rub. First, the government and the bankers make up the money. The treasury department and the "member banks" who own the Federal Reserve decide how much to make--based on some idea that none of us is privy to. They can decide to "expand" or "contract" the money supply. They can eliminate money, or they can issue trillions of dollars' worth more by simple keystrokes on a computer, like they have with the recent "quantitative easing." But as we've seen, the money doesn't mean anything except a promise by the PEOPLE of the United States to work a certain amount in return for it. Now, I for one don't much like the idea of Ben Bernanke and a bunch of bankers at the Fed deciding how much work I and everyone else needs to do to pay for all those dollars, but that's only the start of the problem.
The next part of the problem is those many people who don't make any thing when they work. This is an increasing percentage of the American people. At one time, there were many more American farmers and factory workers and machinists and other folks whose jobs it was to make stuff. That number has been dwindling since the 1960s. You might notice that many of the jobs that don't make anything (doctors and lawyers and bankers and insurance people and stockbrokers and financial traders and so on) tend to be the same jobs that "earn" a lot more money than the people who do make something, like farmers and factory workers and builders. And, since no tangible assets are created by those many of us whose occupations don't make things, the pile of tangible stuff that's represented by the money we issue keeps getting smaller and smaller.
So we have a lot more "dollars" representing a shrinking pile of tangible assets owned by the people who make up the "United States." As a result, more and more of those dollars are bare naked dollars--nothing to show for them except the future work of the people who "promised" (through their good friends the bankers and Treasury Department )to pay for them. They are pure debt--a mere promise that someone will work to make good on them.
But most of the "money" and most of the tangible assets that exist in the United States are in the hands of a few people. Estimates are that the wealthiest 1% of people own 40% of the "wealth" (that is, the assets and the money/debt) in the United States. The next 19 % own another 45% of the wealth. That's 20% of people owning 85% of the assets and money/debt. The next 20%--the second wealthiest fifth--own another 11%, approximately. So the rest--6 out of every 10--own only about 4% all together. A substantial majority of Americans own almost no wealth.
That's bad enough when you think about "wealth" as just that nebulous "money" word. But when you think about it as I have been, and now you are--well, that means that 1 person out of a hundred "owns" the past and future work of 40% of Americans--about 124 MILLION people. Four people in every ten own the work of 96% of their countrymen.
We used to have a legal system in this country where people owned the work of other people. They supposedly outlawed it in 1864. But here we are.
So, now you see why I'm having a problem with this. To be frank, I'm certainly one of those top twenty percent. I'm not even near the bottom of that quintile--so perpetuating this system of slavery is in my own self-interest, at least as compared to a system that's actually fair. And yet, I don't like the idea of owning another person's labor any more than I like the idea of owning the person outright. Seems like it might be time to fix some stuff in this country--dontcha think?
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Still Paying Attention?
Today, I watched a video that confirmed a suspicion I've had for a while, and made short work of the connections that obviously exist between various aspects of what's going on in the world lately. It's not glitzy, but see if you can keep your attention on it for ten minutes. You'll understand a lot more when you're done.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Paying Attention
I guess my block continues, and I've got not much of my own to say. But someone else (smart guy--I like him) has tons to say, with which I wholeheartedly agree. Watch this. This is the real story we should be following--NOT gay marriage; NOT abortion; NOT the execution of some woman in Texas; and NOT the Trayvon Martin gig. Have YOU been paying attention?
Monday, June 24, 2013
Rounding the Corners
Today, after a long stretch of having nothing particularly worthwhile to say, which is still ongoing, I'm sending you to someone else for wisdom. This essay is by Clif High, a master of what he calls the woo-woo (that is, very weird) arts. Sometimes I love reading Clif, and sometimes I hate it. Today is one of the love times--it's like he wrote it just for me. I hope you like this one as much as I do--it's long, but worth it, IMO.
As with most humans, i have failed at most things in my life.
What seems to set me apart from others, besides a curious lack of attachment to my 'identity', is that i count each failure as a personal badge of honor. Many of these badges are worn for all the world to see as scars and disfigurements. i would not have it otherwise; absent ego driven pride, satisfaction is the deepest of the core emotional states, just above love and fear. i am satisfied with my failures.
In a life longer than i had any right to expect, i have learned to fail very well indeed. i had thought to catalog my failures in a very impressive list, but i even fail at that. There is not enough ego pressure to even try to impress itself (prelude to trying to impress others) with its long list of failures. Suffice it to say, that if it was expected of a man, in our western society, over these last 60/sixty years, i have failed at it. Every challenge expected of a man in our society, i stood to meet, only to be knocked down by universe.
Perhaps i agreed in my soul contract, to come as exemplar of failure; perhaps i chose the way of failure as it was something i understood from a previous life, it did not matter, as somehow, whenever i tried on the clothing of success, the fit made me feel uncomfortable, constrained, and strangely, nearer to non-death.
Perhaps it was early exposure to the 'elites', to those who had 'achieved success', or been born into its more favored location in this matrix; perhaps it was some universe planted flaw in my genetics; perhaps space aliens mucked about with my dna; it seems not to be knowable, only evident that i fail to know why i am a failure. However, i do know that 'success' that i have seen, scares me into satisfaction with my life of failure.
i have met those humans who have achieved success, and without variant, i have felt pity for them in their presence. These humans have 'achieved', and from that point on, the were stuck with their 'success'. Mostly i think it may have 'made' their lives, but it ruined their souls. To my failure accustomed eyes, the 'successful' always evoked feelings of the same flavor as i had when viewing the ancient Pharohic Eqyptian relics: here was a civilization that worshipped, and devoted all of its efforts toward a single goal, the 'unchanging state of success'. If you read their surviving literature, a single overarching thematic impression comes across, that life was nothing but a pursuit for perfect, successful stasis. That success could be defined as 'ever unchanging'.
i shudder to consider it, and the skin on my back wants to craw off my spine at the thought of suffering such 'success'. Rather give me my life of wanton failure in infinite reincarnations over a single life of perpetual, eternal, immortal success.
Now lest you think my attitude some twisted conspiracy theorist apologectic sop toward reconciling my personal narrative to my life ending as a failure, let me point out that it is manifesting universe that reinforces my view every time i am presented with 'news' of the successful humans of this planet. i am repelled by the slick, non (or trans?) human images presented as success. One looks at their smooth, unaffected faces (no honor badges there, no scars saying this face has lived, tried, failed and suffered), and nearly weep at the horror of it all. What are these beings presented as 'success' models by the media? What species is being held up as our collective goal? It sure as fuck is not a a human.
At least as a failure, while i always had to pay for my mistakes, i was never forced to live with them, unlike the 'successful' who suffer the reverse, never paying for anything, and yet, preversely having to live with all of it, ever after. Just consider the personality 'clif' and its long string of failures...what may come to mind are those rare occurances of 'near success' as in "eyup, he's a squirrely bastard who usually gets this shit wrong, but you remember that time he had the Max Keiser look-out thing a month before the space aliens buzzed them?"
Live a life of failure, and those few instances one fails to perform to standard stand out. Yet, contrast this with ANY successful personality held up to our society by any authority, media, gov'mint, or religion. Seriously, think of a successful person, in any category of life, and do you remember their long string of successes that got them to that pinnacle? Doubtful; but quite certain you DO remember their instances of 'wardrobe failures', and 'lapses in judgement', and 'run-ins with the law', and 'excessive reaction to stress', and all of the other instances manifest in achieving their 'success'.
Again, consider just what is presented to society by any of the authorities promoting success....is it discussions of the latest greatest song by so-and-so? her last enlightment experience? her fabulous relationship with mother/father/siblings/spouse/children/society? nope, it is her recent DUI/bitch_slip/nip_slip/tongue_slip or other negatively focused, mean-spirited and dare we say it? jealous jibe at her 'success' by focusing on everything but.
Scary stuff. And i have seen, up close, and personal, how being a success affects the people involved. It is truly a terrible thing to observe. These people become so rigidly encased in success, that they become 'denser' on the planet than ordinary humans. This phenomenon has been noticed and commented upon by many writers/failures throughout history in observing their 'betters', the 'successful ones'.
Denser is not good for humans. As the successful person accummulates the 'trappings of success' (please note what we reveal not so subtly in our language), their manifestation of their flesh actually becomes 'thicker' and 'denser' within this matrix. It is not an accident that we refer to the 'gravitas' of such people.
Once cursed with success, ever after living out the payment. Made rigid in demands by ego for yet more success, or if not more, at least NO diminishing of what once was...again, the idea of the unchanging, and perpetual state that success demands. These people afflicted with success, seeming having avoided many of the sufferings of life available to the failure class, and what do they do? They force themselves, in their quest for perpetual success, to replicate the suffering their success supposedly allows them to avoid. It is rampant in their lives, and you are forced to participate in it daily if you injest mainstream media. Examples abound. Just look at the successful person who has 'made it', and need not suffer body damage through daily labor amidst bad enviroment. So what does the successful person do? They subject themselves to 'cosmetic surgery' and in an endless quest for their past body image, bizarre diets, and their resulting impact on mental health. Look at the irony, they are inducing forms of the very suffering their success supposedly avoids.
Yes, i am a failure. i am satisfied as such, as each and every instance of failure is proof of effort, of attempt, of movement and life. And these are all good. i am satisfied in managing to dodge success all these years, and wear my scars as honorable badges of the battles engaged, and proof of passion, if not ability to 'achieve'.
Yes, i am a failure, an old failure, and i have learned over a long life of failure that success is scary. As a linguist, i see it in our common language: success is described always as bringing 'baggage', and "weighty concerns". It is no wonder then, that when the inevitability of change occurs to the 'successful' person, how is it described? As 'falling flat', or a 'face-plant', or a 'fatal fall'...all too true, and too sad.
And the failures? How do we describe them when they fail yet again? Well, first, it is never noticed, and never remembered, so one may contentedly, repetiously fail as much as they wish. And the really cool thing about failure is that universe so supports it as to continually supply a never ending stream of challenges to which one can respond with failure.
Oh, that's right, one thing i failed to note about failure...it has a tendency to make humans a bit smarter, those who survive it, that is.. you see, even a dumb human, seeing that life will continually knock them down, will learn to roll. Of course, universe cooperates by knocking off all the square edges, and hard corners in the many falls that the human takes in coming to that conclusion, thus making it easier for them to roll.
The poor bastards who 'achieve success' (or are 'born to it') early in life are doomed. They never stand a chance. Without failure, how are they to learn to roll?
Yes, if one if forced by life to live long, then learn by the wise experience of others, as i have done, and chose failure as the better path, and learn to roll early in life. The ukemi (falling/rolling) arts will serve you well.
An honorable failure
by clif high, Sun, Jun 23, 2013 08:00As with most humans, i have failed at most things in my life.
What seems to set me apart from others, besides a curious lack of attachment to my 'identity', is that i count each failure as a personal badge of honor. Many of these badges are worn for all the world to see as scars and disfigurements. i would not have it otherwise; absent ego driven pride, satisfaction is the deepest of the core emotional states, just above love and fear. i am satisfied with my failures.
In a life longer than i had any right to expect, i have learned to fail very well indeed. i had thought to catalog my failures in a very impressive list, but i even fail at that. There is not enough ego pressure to even try to impress itself (prelude to trying to impress others) with its long list of failures. Suffice it to say, that if it was expected of a man, in our western society, over these last 60/sixty years, i have failed at it. Every challenge expected of a man in our society, i stood to meet, only to be knocked down by universe.
Perhaps i agreed in my soul contract, to come as exemplar of failure; perhaps i chose the way of failure as it was something i understood from a previous life, it did not matter, as somehow, whenever i tried on the clothing of success, the fit made me feel uncomfortable, constrained, and strangely, nearer to non-death.
Perhaps it was early exposure to the 'elites', to those who had 'achieved success', or been born into its more favored location in this matrix; perhaps it was some universe planted flaw in my genetics; perhaps space aliens mucked about with my dna; it seems not to be knowable, only evident that i fail to know why i am a failure. However, i do know that 'success' that i have seen, scares me into satisfaction with my life of failure.
i have met those humans who have achieved success, and without variant, i have felt pity for them in their presence. These humans have 'achieved', and from that point on, the were stuck with their 'success'. Mostly i think it may have 'made' their lives, but it ruined their souls. To my failure accustomed eyes, the 'successful' always evoked feelings of the same flavor as i had when viewing the ancient Pharohic Eqyptian relics: here was a civilization that worshipped, and devoted all of its efforts toward a single goal, the 'unchanging state of success'. If you read their surviving literature, a single overarching thematic impression comes across, that life was nothing but a pursuit for perfect, successful stasis. That success could be defined as 'ever unchanging'.
i shudder to consider it, and the skin on my back wants to craw off my spine at the thought of suffering such 'success'. Rather give me my life of wanton failure in infinite reincarnations over a single life of perpetual, eternal, immortal success.
Now lest you think my attitude some twisted conspiracy theorist apologectic sop toward reconciling my personal narrative to my life ending as a failure, let me point out that it is manifesting universe that reinforces my view every time i am presented with 'news' of the successful humans of this planet. i am repelled by the slick, non (or trans?) human images presented as success. One looks at their smooth, unaffected faces (no honor badges there, no scars saying this face has lived, tried, failed and suffered), and nearly weep at the horror of it all. What are these beings presented as 'success' models by the media? What species is being held up as our collective goal? It sure as fuck is not a a human.
At least as a failure, while i always had to pay for my mistakes, i was never forced to live with them, unlike the 'successful' who suffer the reverse, never paying for anything, and yet, preversely having to live with all of it, ever after. Just consider the personality 'clif' and its long string of failures...what may come to mind are those rare occurances of 'near success' as in "eyup, he's a squirrely bastard who usually gets this shit wrong, but you remember that time he had the Max Keiser look-out thing a month before the space aliens buzzed them?"
Live a life of failure, and those few instances one fails to perform to standard stand out. Yet, contrast this with ANY successful personality held up to our society by any authority, media, gov'mint, or religion. Seriously, think of a successful person, in any category of life, and do you remember their long string of successes that got them to that pinnacle? Doubtful; but quite certain you DO remember their instances of 'wardrobe failures', and 'lapses in judgement', and 'run-ins with the law', and 'excessive reaction to stress', and all of the other instances manifest in achieving their 'success'.
Again, consider just what is presented to society by any of the authorities promoting success....is it discussions of the latest greatest song by so-and-so? her last enlightment experience? her fabulous relationship with mother/father/siblings/spouse/children/society? nope, it is her recent DUI/bitch_slip/nip_slip/tongue_slip or other negatively focused, mean-spirited and dare we say it? jealous jibe at her 'success' by focusing on everything but.
Scary stuff. And i have seen, up close, and personal, how being a success affects the people involved. It is truly a terrible thing to observe. These people become so rigidly encased in success, that they become 'denser' on the planet than ordinary humans. This phenomenon has been noticed and commented upon by many writers/failures throughout history in observing their 'betters', the 'successful ones'.
Denser is not good for humans. As the successful person accummulates the 'trappings of success' (please note what we reveal not so subtly in our language), their manifestation of their flesh actually becomes 'thicker' and 'denser' within this matrix. It is not an accident that we refer to the 'gravitas' of such people.
Once cursed with success, ever after living out the payment. Made rigid in demands by ego for yet more success, or if not more, at least NO diminishing of what once was...again, the idea of the unchanging, and perpetual state that success demands. These people afflicted with success, seeming having avoided many of the sufferings of life available to the failure class, and what do they do? They force themselves, in their quest for perpetual success, to replicate the suffering their success supposedly allows them to avoid. It is rampant in their lives, and you are forced to participate in it daily if you injest mainstream media. Examples abound. Just look at the successful person who has 'made it', and need not suffer body damage through daily labor amidst bad enviroment. So what does the successful person do? They subject themselves to 'cosmetic surgery' and in an endless quest for their past body image, bizarre diets, and their resulting impact on mental health. Look at the irony, they are inducing forms of the very suffering their success supposedly avoids.
Yes, i am a failure. i am satisfied as such, as each and every instance of failure is proof of effort, of attempt, of movement and life. And these are all good. i am satisfied in managing to dodge success all these years, and wear my scars as honorable badges of the battles engaged, and proof of passion, if not ability to 'achieve'.
Yes, i am a failure, an old failure, and i have learned over a long life of failure that success is scary. As a linguist, i see it in our common language: success is described always as bringing 'baggage', and "weighty concerns". It is no wonder then, that when the inevitability of change occurs to the 'successful' person, how is it described? As 'falling flat', or a 'face-plant', or a 'fatal fall'...all too true, and too sad.
And the failures? How do we describe them when they fail yet again? Well, first, it is never noticed, and never remembered, so one may contentedly, repetiously fail as much as they wish. And the really cool thing about failure is that universe so supports it as to continually supply a never ending stream of challenges to which one can respond with failure.
Oh, that's right, one thing i failed to note about failure...it has a tendency to make humans a bit smarter, those who survive it, that is.. you see, even a dumb human, seeing that life will continually knock them down, will learn to roll. Of course, universe cooperates by knocking off all the square edges, and hard corners in the many falls that the human takes in coming to that conclusion, thus making it easier for them to roll.
The poor bastards who 'achieve success' (or are 'born to it') early in life are doomed. They never stand a chance. Without failure, how are they to learn to roll?
Yes, if one if forced by life to live long, then learn by the wise experience of others, as i have done, and chose failure as the better path, and learn to roll early in life. The ukemi (falling/rolling) arts will serve you well.
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