The socio-cultural dimensions of the implications of the transitions of the...

Dear diary,

Today I woke up and decided that I’m never going to wake up: I’m simply going to remain calm, and sleep thru life. Because, after waking, my head immediately began to fill with arguments against my political enemies, and I didn’t like this feeling; this ever-preparedness for debate — instead, I wish to feel peace. I wish I could bring peace into the world, and let others feel peace; but all I know how to do, for now, is personally to abjure frenzied argument. So I’m going to try to do that.

Last night I listened to a conversation between two people who are part of a group of thinkers that I consider my “enemy camp”; that’s why I awoke with my mental ammo blasting. I’ve heard sages advise others to “listen to the opposite side of eternity”; and “learn to think like your pillow, so that you can correct him compassionately”; with “eternity” here substituting for “the aisle” (as in “the two sides of the U.S. political aisle”), and “pillow” standing in for the word “opponent”. “Don’t cause your life to become an echo chamber by attending only to views with which you yourself agree; but, rather, branch out and consider what others are proposing”. So I tried to do this: I tried to listen to a couple of wannabe Alpha Males praise the Money-game while disparaging endeavors that don’t fit the Money-game.

I conclude that it’s better if I remain in an echo chamber, so that all I hear all day are the thots of fellow humanists who love poetry music art dance and are willing to say goodbye to meticulous valuation…

Recordkeeping… who owes what to who…

Let it all slide away, fade away, disappear back into the imagination. Money and its world. Money and the way it lures one to think.

If no nurse would deign to heal another soul, in a world devoid of money, then we are a dull idea, we humans, and I don’t really care whether or not we populate Mars.

But I am fascinated by any mother who tallies up a tab and presents it to her teenage daughter, saying: “This is how much you owe me for breastfeeding as an infant. When first born, by fixing your lips to my nipple, you inherently agreed to the terms of the following contract, which states that you owe me two gold coins per shot; and since you were in the habit of consuming a double shot-glass thrice daily, that works out to twelve coins per diem, times umpteen eons, which, with interest, comes to thirty pieces of silver.”

Then, when these types of parents enter old age; and the Good Lord inflicts them with senility, so that they require perpetual care; their children, out of resentment for how they were treated (having been surcharged for love & whatnot), leave them to rot in a subpar facility.

And why is the memory-care facility subpar? Because we don’t pay the helpers enough to allow them (here, by “them”, I mean the staff) adequate food, shelter, & clothing: in other words, basic necessities. These helpers therefore remain preoccupied with their own personal survival, rather than with the comfort of their subjects; and thus the staff’s ability to aid their ailing inmates, alas, declines. So there’s your incentive for you. (My point is that our current money-culture refuses to incentivize anything human-centered; please pardon my sarcasm.) Instead of nursing the sick, they should get a job on Wall Street and hedge bets against the survival of their own patients.

I realize it: I caught myself, right here, doing the very thing I wanted to avoid. I’m offering arguments instead of soundly and sweetly sleeping. So let me try to get a little shuteye...

Relinquish all care, and die in debtors’ prison. Are there no sweet dreams in debtors’ prison? Are there no beautiful colors? Well, no, there’s no sleep, because the stench keeps you awake, and there’s no colors: for the whole place is gloomy grey.

I guess you don’t wanna go to debtors’ prison. In fact, you’d like to abolish debtors’ prison, if at all possible. Yet HOW? I assume the best way to change the world is to formulate convincing arguments. And, to do so, one needs to be educated on the topic at hand. So you read a big book about TH'ECONOMY. And then another & another. Big books, with lots of information. Then you meet a person who runs a debtors’ prison, and you say, “Dear sir or madam, I strongly urge you to release all of your victims.” And the prison owner says, “Why should I do that? This debtors’ prison is the way that I pay my bills; otherwise I’d have to go to jail myself, or even to lock myself in my own private prison, which is less fun than freedom, believe me.” And you answer, “You want to know the reason you should let my people go? Here: it is found in these big books on TH'ECONOMY.” And the prison owner says, “I don’t have the time to read these big fat books. Can’t you summarize their contents for me?” And so you summarize their contents; you make Argument One, and Argument Two, and Argument Three; yet after each presentation, irrefutable as they are, the prison owner has the nerve to say “Good argument, but can you PROVE it? For I won’t abolish my prison until I believe your words are TRUE, & I never believe a thing until PROOF is offered.”

So now you’re stuck; it’s a catch (a vicious cycle): for if you say “The proof is in the footnotes of the books; that’s why I waved them under your eyes like they were food,” then the prison owner will say “But I don’t have time to read this junk; can’t you summarize it?” Then your summarization will lack the requisite proof, since it’s only the gist & not the superfine print...

That’s why I’m against time and I’m against truth. For no one never has no time to do nothing right; and truth always harms the wrong folks, because it’s so quiet.

The chicken preceded the egg because the egg requires a chicken to belay it. But the egg preceded the chicken because the chicken requires an egg to climb the fuck out of. Similarly, God beat humans to the finish line, because humans were fashioned from wet mud by God’s own hands, which are photogenically wrinkled & leathery; and then the LORD blew into Mud Man the breath of life, up thru his nose, so he could move. And yet humankind jumped the gun and won the race before their LORD was even an embryo, on account of the fact that WE composed the Bible, which is like a sealed beaker where God resides: he cannot escape. And God would be nothing if we did not hate him. (On its own, the letter ‘oh’ is practically worthless; but if you call it a number, it becomes ‘zero’ and adds great worth to everyone’s balance sheet, provided that you position it only after an existing integer.) Yes, the Holy Scriptures are like the LORD’s debtor-prison. Now the question is: What did he squelch to end up there?

But more importantly: Why must poets remain unpaid? This is an inquiry worth answering; and the answer is this:

The Moneyworld cannot recognize poets, because poets, like truth’s teats, are too gentle & generous. (Note how the richest men are also the violentest.)

But then how do I explain the existence of a WARRIOR POET like Archilochus?

I really like Archilochus. I don’t feel the need to explain him.