Les Visible

Well… here we are, less than two days out, waiting to see what surprises are in store and even if, from one large perspective, it looks to go one way… we’ve seen that before too. I want to say that I feel extremely positive, no matter what does or doesn’t happen. I’ve seen a lot of things go down over the years… sometimes from a distance and sometimes from closer in. It really does seem as if the world is mass insanity… always on the verge.

Powers shift to the left and shift to the right, swirling in the winds of collectively believed lies. The world of constantly fabricated illusion appears to have its own weather system. It seems like the bigger the lie, the larger the stormfront. Somebody must think that if you make a lot of noise and flash a lot of lights it will make whatever seems to be happening look authentic.

We’ve all got some degree of personal problems. Sometimes it’s because of the conditions we are in and sometimes it’s because of us; most of the time it’s a combination of both and the severity seems to be keyed to the degree of our denial. I think about denial a lot. I see it everywhere I go. People have this enormous resistance to the truth because it interferes with whatever happy fantasy they are trying to pull off. A lot of the time they think that all they have to do is get through the shit and injury, caused and received and then, on the other side, they can take the time to think about what’s real and what isn’t and then they can be generous and good which just wasn’t possible before.

This is how politicians can come along and tell the exact same lies and fail to do the right thing over and over and over and people don’t see anything strange about it. It’s like they weren’t there last time and the time before that. It’s how they can see proof of election fraud and then tell themselves it must have been something else. It’s how they can watch three buildings come down at the speed of free fall; one of them not even hit by a plane, where no building like these buildings ever came down before, while exposed to even greater trauma… much less three on the same day within hours of each other.

It seems preposterous. It is preposterous that what people are told could be what actually happened. There’s no question in my mind that timed demolition was applied and… over the course of time, there’s no question in my mind that it was an inside job and no question about who was involved… well, that’s not entirely true. There are a lot of details that I don’t know but they have no impact on the general picture.

Two things stick with me from that day. One of them is the look on Bush’s face when Andrew Card was whispering in his ear. The other is Cheney sitting in some war room and telling those who asked about scrambling jets that no jets were to be scrambled. The idea that some stone age Arabs could have so much insider intel and waltz through so many security checkpoints maintained by the same security firm… the idea that people who couldn’t fly small planes could operate large planes with an efficiency and precision that would have pressed the talents of top professionals is… absurd? It’s more than absurd. It’s a cartoon.

For two presidential elections and through Earth shaking abominations, the press was in accord in demeaning and distorting everything said by the Democratic candidates. Even then, when each of the candidates actually won each election… neither of them was allowed to win. Now, a Democratic candidate with a great many more liabilities as far as experience; color, a name that sounds like the name of the biggest so-called long dead terrorist… I could make quite a list here. This candidate waltzes right through every obstacle without even breaking a sweat. And none of this seems odd. Denial appears to be one of those natural forces like gravity. It’s everywhere and it affects everything but people don’t make the connection to what holds them down.

One of my most enduring pastimes is to sit on a bench or a wall, in a café, or somewhere near where people are passing, eating and drinking, shopping, whatever… and watch them. I find that after a while of focus and concentration that I can see things I wouldn’t generally see because I wasn’t looking closely enough. I can watch a mysterious magnetism that is connected to appetite… things of the mind and things visceral… I can see people completely swallowed up in their passions and attractions. You can watch people watching people and watch people watching you and you can listen to what it is that they are talking about. You can see how what they believe to be true has shaped them. You can see the unique differences in perspective between the generations. You can see people on their way in and on their way out. You can see the evidence of different maladies that affect them. By a certain disciplining of the mind you can see deeper and deeper and deeper. It can even get scary.

Sometimes, I see things that torment certain people and I know I could go to them and explain certain things that, were they so disposed, would free them from an unfortunate state and the looming certainty of something much more unfortunate. It is unlikely that most of them would listen to me and very likely that they would be offended; made angry, violent, frightened, etc. They have this investment in what they are and it got them where they are and it’s familiar and predictable, most of the time. There’s this huge investment of time and energy that went into building their particular state of denial. It’s like denial is some sort of hitchhiker that exists in symbiosis with the host. Well, it’s not symbiotic. It’s parasitical but they think it’s symbiotic.

There are people who have no problem rationalizing the deaths and enduring miseries of millions of people if it means they can have their conveniences and more than their fair share of the world’s resources. If you argue for more fairness in use and distribution you are a socialist or something that is really bad for everyone because you want to share the wealth with those who will fight you to protect the rights of the super rich to screw them six ways from Sunday.

I go to the MSM and I look at how the day’s lies are being presented and it looks so real. How could there be so much money and infrastructure in something that is a total lie; a continuous deception of the mind? It’s a kaleidoscope of shit in many shapes and colors artfully concealed so as not to appear to be shit but it certainly is shit. People defend the worst behavior of the worst psychopaths. People defend corrupt and punishing systems in the hope that some day, by some miracle, they will be made rich, or powerful or famous and then that system will work for them and that is why they have to protect the thing that abuses them. That is why they want to believe the same shit they were told last time which didn’t happen and which won’t happen this time either. Like the Greek philosophers who walked on opposite sides of the same river, one of them laughing at the foibles and ironies of life and one weeping, you can either laugh or cry, depending on how it hits you but you can’t do anything about it.

The only thing I can come up with is that it’s a matter of individual choice. The world will be better at times and worse at times but it will always be full of lies and people that believe them. So you have to come to terms with this somehow and choose your place in it. Maybe you participate during the good periods and hide in the Oregon rainforest when it gets bad.

There’s a certain transcendent freedom that comes when you finally realize that you are surrounded by lies and empty promises and you let go of your denial and embrace the simple and profound joys that most people have discarded along the highway to their ruin. There are remarkable and profound possibilities on all sides and inside for those who don’t want what everyone else does want. There’s this cornucopia, curling by the side of the river of time. All sorts of wonderful things are there except for the people to appreciate them. Meanwhile, if you head downstream to where the sewer pipes and chemical drains feed into the river you are going to find a super abundance of life forms feeding on the rich effluents and… each other. So it goes.

♫ Multi-Cultural Cowboys