In a perfect world

Which will never ever happen but it is fun to dream.

If there was a universal truth it would be this that this perfect world will never even happen never even remotely come close to it despite what some philanthropic other dreamers think, wish, or expect.

But in my perfect world anyway as I have a feeling that there are 7 billion plus perfect worlds out there here it is in its best approximation.

Hmmm where to start? With today’s news?

The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, said today and I translate literally that he is
“hostile to all provocation in this hostile era”.  The context being another “offensive” caricature in the French paper called Charlie Hebdo.

Laurent Fabius, s'est déclaré depuis Le Caire, en Egypte, "hostile à toute provocation en cette période hostile".

Some journalism site goes as far as pixelating the drawing as if we were talking royal boobs here again.

Well! Well! Well! Two wrongs don’t make a right they say and also one of my favourite quotes from Walt Whitman: 

“The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”

In a perfect world there would be no need for provocation as there would not be petty religious or nationalistic affections in all the senses of the word to be attached to and be provoked by.

There would be no need for censure as well as all would be free to decide for themselves and all could use cold logical critical thinking as opposed to hot ignorant inflammable passions.

So how serendipitous as I am writing this and listening to my modern “mixed tape” of music titled CHESS and the song I had in mind just popped up, a great help in reflecting on a perfect world wonderfully well expressed by Alanis Morissette in her song Utopia of which I will paste and copy the lyrics for sure if anyone knows me at all.

My perfect world seems to have a lot of No’s if not too many Yesses as most things in my life I am much more aware of what I don’t want and what I don’t like than the opposite.  

For the same reason I suppose I prefer what I call the negative golden rule as opposed to the golden rule.

Do Not Do Unto Others What You Don’t Want Them to Do Unto You

As opposed to

Do Unto Others What You Want Them to Do Unto You.

The latter being much more complex than my negative form.

So here it goes

No Religion

No Country (John Lennon was on to something here)

No Bullying

No War

No Hostility therefore

No need for Resilience

No poverty and by extension

No riches

No Greed

No Lies (here’s a big one) no deceit etc

Hmmmm what else?

That alone would be a great (though impossible already) start

No Censure is definitely a must too in this scenario

It gets complicated though when ones is trying to define Freedom.

My perfect world seems to be a lot like the Eloi WITHOUT the Morlocks.

Now people if you read only two books in your whole life forget the bible even though I like some of its attempts at ancient wisdom and I should attempt reading Shakespeare along with Dostoyevsky, Balzac, Dickens and what not but then again I could read over and over these 2 absolute must in anyone’s life curriculum:

• George Orwell’s 1984 and
• H.G. Wells Time Machine.

Even though here the Eloi are still far from a perfect example. I would like them with a little more intellect appetite but then again intellect appetite seems to be the perfect antidote to “perfection” or at least a great friend of ethnocentrism, schisms, and hostilities of all sorts. As Denys Arcand once said in The Decline of the American Empire: Intellectuals make lousy parents

Pierre: “Les intellectuels font rarement de très bons parents.”

So what now? 

Does the human species need to be a dumb species to survive?

It would certainly seem that our great intellect has compounded the problems rather than solving them.  

I mean chimps have much less complex problems than us. 

The old mythical stories tell us apparently that this Promethean gift from the gods or the devils, this “Knowledge of Good and Evil” has created an irreversible downfall.

The human species will not stop short of flushing itself right off this planet while hoping for a better Ha Olam Haba : a hope I might say that might in fact precipitate that downfall in a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.

So in the meanwhile maybe if luck, fortune, destiny, fate and all their cousins have mercy on me I will leave this planet one day leaving behind me an excellent dystopia to remind us all of my passage for as long as this planet exist anyway and there is someone to read old fables.

Because paradoxically enough in this world the best way to try to describe a utopia is by reverse psychology in a good dystopia showing us all where the future could lead or has lead us.

We'd gather around
All in a room
Fasten our belts
Engage in dialogue
We'd all slow down
Rest without guilt
Not lie without fear
Disagree sans judgement

We would stay and respond and expand and include and allow and forgive and
enjoy and evolve and discern and inquire and accept and admit and divulge and open and reach out and speak up

This is utopia 
This is my utopia
This is my ideal 
My end in sight
Utopia 
This is my utopia
This is my nirvana
My ultimate

We'd open our arms 
We'd all jump in 
We'd all coast down 
Into safety nets

We would share and listen and support and welcome 
Be propelled by passion, not invest in outcomes
We would breathe and be charmed and amused by difference 
Be gentle and make room for every emotion

This is utopia 
This is my utopia
This is my ideal 
My end in sight
Utopia 
This is my utopia
This is my nirvana
My ultimate

We'd provide forums
We'd all speak out
We'd all be heard
We'd all feel seen

We'd rise post-obstacle, more defined, more grateful
We would heal, be humbled, and be unstoppable
We'd hold close and let go and know when to do which 
We'd release and disarm and stand up and feel safe 

This is utopia 
This is my utopia 
This is my ideal 
My end in sight
Utopia
This is my utopia
This is my nirvana
My ultimate

Know so much yet know so little

This has been my nature, my destiny, my curse, for as long as I can remember.

I always envy well-read people and always want to know more yet all those yearnings always remain unfulfilled.

Example: a friend posts a book on Bookface.  I know both authors by name, well kind of but could not tell you anything at all about them.  Can’t even remember the second bloke’s name without looking it up, Neil Gaiman, that’s it I know I have read his name lately and been interested in his stuff, can’t remember what or why. The other is the well-known, well well-known to OTHERS, Terry Pratchett.

And I read some commentary where someone says you can determine who writes what in that book easily by the author style.  Yeah I wish. What he actually wrote was:  There is no question as to the recognizability of both Gaiman's and Pratchett's respective styles here, but neither seems to add anything to the other. One of Gaiman's weaknesses is surely his general lack of humor. 

And I start the book and it says:

dedicating this book to the memory of G. K. Chesterton

A man who knew what was going on.

And there you go I feel even more ignorant for not only don’t I know what is going on I have no clue of what Chesterton ever said or wrote or even when he said it.

And here comes that eternal dilemma again.  I was thinking yesterday of asking my doctor for some Ritalin as I am still looking for that magic pill that will MAKE ME read. 

I want to read, I want to know but somewhere somehow that deep want and need has been broken and is rarely ever ‘repaired’.

There is always this part of me the “who I wish I was” from my old ‘Trinitarian’ view that everyone has three ‘me’, three ‘you’, three ‘ego’.

·         Who I think I am

·         Who I really am

·         Who I wish I was

Well the “who I wish I was” has a reading list somewhere let’s see

All the classic Greeks and Latin: Plato and Virgil and so much more
And the purist part of this “who I wish I was” ALSO WISHES he could read them in their original languages.

Now after that the list gets confused but I envy people like Stephen Fry and Rowan Willams.

Williams speaks or reads 11 languages: English, Welsh, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Biblical Hebrew, Syriac, Latin and both Ancient (koine) and Modern Greek.He learnt Russian in order to be able to read the works of Dostoyevsky in the original.

Dostoyevsky is certainly on that list even though as of today I haven’t read a single book of his.  I am still slowly determining in my mind if I ‘would” read him in French or in English.

So in my short time left on this planet I would like to think that my time would be well spent away in a book, in many books somewhere. 

Why? Well there is no why.  Just so I feel good one moment at a time until I feel nothing at all anymore which happens to all of us.  Just so I get transformed in a good way and maybe transform someone else.

One once said that selling is a transfer of enthusiasm and one is always selling something. So in my best non-capitalist way, I would love to sell ideas or a taste for ideas anyway: ideas that keep going for eons.  Mine and others mixed all together as I have said often that no one is his own man/woman but we are all the additions of billions of particles we picked up here and there.

One of the main procrastinating issues on this subject also would be the question of what is exactly a “profitable” list.  I have expressed earlier also that much reading is not only a “weariness of the flesh” it can also be quite a “vexation to the spirit” both expression of course (glanées) gleaned from two well-known readings.

O well all that reminded me of much wisdom in the Desiderata and also reminds me that even if it is not expanding my repertoire or list, rereading old proven wisdom or pleasure is also well errrrr pleasurable for lack of other word. J

As I was saying earlier selling is a transfer of enthusiasm so before I attempt any Dosto I should try finishing Mon oncle Benjamin from Claude Tillier, apparently a little unknown pearl read and reread by Georges Brassens, a favourite “author” of mind even if you don’t exactly read his clever words, you listen to them with affection and awe.  One thing I should be thankful for here is that I am able to read the original in two languages instead of whining about not being able to read Greek or Latin or Russian.

Speaking of capitalism one of the beauty of modern times is that once copyrights are over one does not have to pay a cent to some greedy publisher to read thousands of good old books now thanks to the Gutenberg project and many others.

One needs a tiny eBook reader a tiny tiny microchip and maybe a desert island with a “tiny” solar panel for recharging LOL and one could lie in a hammock and read for a lifetime or two.

As a matter of fact if one wants to ‘remember what peace there may be in silence’  one might NEED to move to a desert island and certainly not in any suburbs with a gazillion barking dogs.  J

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

“Resist much, obey little.”

There was a time where I thought there was a major twist in cosmic thought in what I called the dark 19^th century.  I mean the Darwin and Nietzsche and Jos Smith and Rutherford nuclear fallout is still all around us and like a volcano still very active.

Now I realise this movement, or these movements rather are still quite active and a lot of “thought nuclear dust’ has been activated in the fifties and the sixties.

For one thing all we hear today seems to be eternal truths like America is a Christian nation under God and the so-called Holocaust killed six million Jews but history wasn’t always so.  

As a matter of fact in a perfect Orwellian nightmare history has been REWRITTEN, to prove only one thing 

that there is no such thing as history really in our human corrupted/corrupting mind 

and that a lot of what is said it tainted lies and distorted propaganda 

when it is not plain psychotic denial and projection.

All the dollar bills and the documents have been rewritten and I am told if I am to “believe” Wikipedia that:

Some scholars maintain that the definition of the Holocaust should also include the Nazis' genocide of millions of people in other groups, including Romani, communists, Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses and other political and religious opponents, which occurred regardless of whether they were of German or non-German ethnic origin. This was the most common definition from the end of WWII to the 1960s.  Using this definition, the total number of Holocaust victims is between 11 million and 17 million people.

I find this “fact” utterly disturbing besides a whole bunch of other points I keep repeating
(i.e. Aborigines, Armenians, Rwandese etc).

But this tells me that someone somewhere, some more than likely Jewish think tank, has decided to appropriate the multiple genocides all to themselves and by doing so to almost literally eliminate or condemn to oblivion FIVE to ELEVEN MILLION other wasted deaths, maybe nearly twice as many as their 6 million.

What is the difference now between pretending that 6 million Jews never died in the holocaust
and 5 to 11 million OTHERS who simply disappeared from history as well.

Am I now just for thinking this attracting the ire of the only hate crime possible today? 

Money talks and bullshit walks as always

but it is not a hate crime, it is a need, a want, to re-establish a sense of truth and reality it is a Winston Smith attempt at independent thinking perceived as thoughtcrimes.

For one thing, the only “truth” we ever hear is from the biggest liar of all, the root of all evil:

MONEY ITSELF.

Poverty does not talk; poverty does not have a voice. 
Poverty does not own media and does not win election.

One would think that there is no truth in poverty that all paupers are liars.

But Truth in its pure and essential sense cannot be bought.

So it is a bit sickening in a modern world to wake up and try to decipher any truth and sense in what hits our eyes and ears every day, or bombards them I should say.

Our brain has been muddled beyond repair, before our conception and beyond our grave.

We are as I keep saying defective engineering, totally irremediably FUBAR.

Our brain is wired to try to find control in chaos and that is where the trouble begins to start with.

We always ask WHY but we never ask

WHY we always ask WHY.

Too many people know how to PROFIT from our inherent weaknesses also and that is where the problem gets compounded.

GREED is probably our greatest downfall.

Food and Water and Shelter for the day are simply not enough for the human animal.

Buddhists would call it attachment and apparently according to them it stems from Ignorance which apparently can be “cured”.  

It’s always nice to have dreamers but I don’t think there is enough reincarnations in two eternities and a half to stamp out ignorance from our monkeys brains.

Plus withdrawing our main comforts of sex and alcohol in this crazy world? 

I mean COME ON! 

Give me a fucking break! :)

And oh yeah become a vegan on top of that?
That’s it. Give me a rope. What is left then?

Jesting apart though,
I can’t see the light at the end of this tunnel.  

Choosing another delusion to replace this delusion

seems to be pointless.

I can only wish that some of my little “light” will keep on shining somewhere in this dark chaotic kosmos and that’s about it. 

If I made one more soul question and wonder maybe all is not in vain.

Question everything.

Don’t believe anything you hear from anyone.

Maybe a bit a la Whitman here since nothing is new under the sun

re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” 

“Resist much, obey little.” 

WHY DOES ANYTHING MATTER AT ALL IN FACT?

Build a tiny box slightly larger than a foot, 32 cm long to be exact, 32 cm high and 32 cm wide.  Fill it with fine sand. Remove one single grain.

That’s it!

This grain is me soon.

Well the box to be accurate is probably much bigger in 2012 but apparently this was the size of the box in 2006.  Why hasn’t the data been updated? Beats me.

So does that give me a sense of purpose now?  Unlikely.

But I can see my blog, my poor little blog lost in so many other blogs dying slowly of inanition or lack of oxygen to its brain.

The stat said BTW that as of 2006, 200 million blogs were left without updates.

I love my blog or at least I used to.  

To me it was a barometer and it probably still is.

But things change, the old passions are still there 

but deafened, dulled, pooped out.

For instance I can’t believe it has been 6 months already since my rant on Cherie Carter-Scott.  Her trash keeps popping over and over on Facebook and I get as incensed and as irritated as before but too tired to bother anymore, too tired to fight insanity and stupidity and what not.  I mean she is definitely FOS and the world is a sad sad place but some things will never change. 

I am not even sure what irritates me so much about the whole thing: the fact that her trash is so popular or the fact that stupidity makes so much money while common sense starves.  It won’t be the first time nor the last for sure but I am still annoyed at this planet and my short stay on it.

Now on this subject there is a part deep inside of me that is totally absolute about my being right on this subject but then again wisdom is a fickle thing and hard to touch and reach and even harder to prove.  And why does it matter if no one ever sees it and everyone jumps on Cherie’s boat and the boat sinks or floats? 

WHY DOES ANYTHING MATTER AT ALL IN FACT?

VANITY OF VANITES, ALL IS VANITY!

So why can’t I just eat and drink and be merry and never give a fuck?

For one thing I am not quite sure what to be “merry” at to begin with: probably a great part of so-called depression and this whole existentialist crisis.

It seems to get harder and harder to find any merriness these days.

Like the song says: what kind of paradise am I looking for? I’ve got everything I want and still I want more.

Buddhists and Hamlet would say Aye there is the rub, I WANT.

I want, I need. What is the diff?

What should I concentrate my efforts, my energy, my breathing, my every breath on really?

Mornings are as always horrible and nights my, good ole nights, are not much better these days. 

The W5’s keep coming. 

Why, Where, When, What and Who or hoW?

I am not any different than the rest of the box and yet I am unique in my own kind of way.  This is all I got: This brain, this body, this temporary life, these thoughts

-         small electrons floating by the trillions.

Yes I have done my “share”, yes I have produced life on this planet and this life has produced other lives but monkeys can do that too.

All this Whitman excitement about LIFE does not excite me at all because life without consciousness is nothing, life without MY consciousness is no life at all as far as I am concerned and I need consciousness to be concerned. 

Hell I could be alive and not conscious and what would it matter:

coma or Alzheimer’s or what not.

If death is a long sleep as they say well where are the dreams then?

Death is a long non REM sleep if it is one. And here comes Hamlet again.

Soon all my zeros and my ones will be gone and what is left?

The zeros and the ones on my dead hard drives or on this dead blog?

It is all about my zeros and my ones: all those electrons in my brains with their trillion synapses producing all my crazy thoughts and entertaining my momentary consciousness.

One glitch in the zeros and ones in fact and all these last electrons vanish forever lost in space.  That feeling we have when a computer crashed in the middle of writing a long document no matter how important it is. One could refer to “With Honors” with Joe Pesci or StephenFry who retrieved the lost Oscar winning script from Emma Thompson’s computer.

So what is all this?

An old story of the wise envying the fool

or the fool wishing to be wiser then?

What does it matter to all the billions and billions of departed souls whether they are remembered or not?  What does it matter to one single still living soul? 
Two souls die every single second on this planet and the media play favourites on whom they will recall and whom they can’t be bothered with.

As I said earlier this week,

no one commemorates My lai or March 16^th, 1968

or any other drone massacre or collateral damage or what not,

not mentioning the millions and millions of deaths caused by economic sanctions or just some poor sap dying from poverty or even worse sheer stupidity.

And that brings me back to another song I guess, having started with Grey from AniDiFranco, I’d like to end, pardon the pun, with Tom Waits and “Dirt in the Ground”.

Voila for now.

A