It's as if there's a house...

(I named this image "e-Soda".)

Dear diary,

It’s as if there’s a house, which has one exit; and directly outside of that door is a wall of spikes. That’s what everyone’s family seems like to me: we parents keep bearing and raising children; then pushing them, one by one, out into the world; we salute them as they leave our house; they open the door smiling, step forth expecting to begin their exciting new life, and are immediately impaled upon the spikes.

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

[—from Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”]

I’d think that after a certain number of children, we parents would pause and check what seems to be the problem; maybe remove the spiked wall from the exitway... But no: we just keep producing more life; and Cain gets skewered, and Seth gets transpierced... Only Abel is escaped alive to tell thee:

Found a family, build a state,
The pledged event is still the same:
Matter in end will never abate
His ancient brutal claim.

Indolence is heaven’s ally here,
And energy the child of hell:
The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear
But brims the poisoned well.

[That’s actually the entirety of “Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the 12th Century” by Herman Melville.]

But I could be talked into living and even furthering life, in the sense of contributing life to life, if we would dare to change our system — the rules that we install to order ourselves — change it to something loving and harmonious. Right how the system is cruel beyond measure, and nobody wants to admit this to herself — people prefer to tweak and tune this Mechanism of Doom in which we suffer, to make it slightly less excruciatingly painful. But how about completely eliminating its harmful intent. I say throw the thing away.

One problem is that people assume the system must be complex. But I see complexity as favoring the sociopaths who currently dominate. I wish I could get people to think in a very simple way. If you see homelessness, that’s NEGATIVE=FAIL: there’s no argument that can justify that phenomenon — the existence of one person who lacks a house is proof that the system is kaput. But another problem is that people still believe there’s an underlying scarcity of resources; since it may have been true during some obscure period in the past, we assume that it’s a constant: but it’s not; we actually have ample X to meet everyone’s needs, at the very least.

You know what? Forget this. I’m done writing about this stuff. If the ancient Hebrew prophets who lived in the negative era (BC), hundreds & hundreds & hundreds of years ago, railed about these same problems, and they’ve never been resolved, then I don’t see how it’s not a waste of time to continue contributing (tho I fear that my ceasing to fight is exactly what the opponent of weirdness wants). The side that’s willing to lie will always win the argument. The side that’s willing to use force will always rule physicality. If both sides (or all sides) avail themselves of violence, then it’s a test of strength or stamina or luck — whoever comes out on top, when the smoke clears, gets to inherit the dump. Congratulations, it’s radioactive.

Yeah, a prophet is always pissed about his countryfolk not listening to his message. I take it that Isaiah 6:10 was one of Jesus’s favorite verses, as it is mine:

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

But at least Isaiah had an audience. And Ezekiel and Jeremiah and the other prophets had some sort of publisher and distribution, maybe even a marketing campaign. I myself just roar into a tin can, then cap it to seal in the proclamation, and bury it in the desert. No, truthfully I roar into a paper cup and then pour it onto the internet, where things are much less likely to be found than in the desert.

What if you were a prophet whose country actually vouchsafed to hear your words, but then you had no message for it. That’s also my dilemma. Cuz if the U.S. of A. collectively were to announce, “Alright, Bryan, we’re all listening; now what is it that you wanted to tell us? Make it concise — keep your speech under 280 characters; we only have a few instants before the next advertisement whisks our attention away.” I’d stammer something like:

Love each other; treat each other as gods; and forgive all debts, so-called moral as well as financial; especially the latter. War is never justified...

And they’d interrupt “That sounds like the same stuff that Jesus and all those prophets who came before him were already saying.” And I’d admit:

Yeah, I don’t really see the need to fix what was never broken. I just don’t understand why we never attempted to HEED this advice. Our man Jesus said “Don’t do war” and we’re the most warring nation; he said, “Forgive all debts,” and our economic system is pure debt peonage; and he said, “Love one another, treat each stranger as if he or she were a deity...”

And this last is the only advice that we’ve taken to heart, cuz when you go out in public, everyone is holding the door for everyone else, and there is constantly a fresh path of red carpet being unrolled so that some new passerby might walk wherever they’re going; and especially during the Christmas season: everyone blesses everyone else with gifts; for instance, Joseph needed a car, so I bought him a Mercedes; and Jacob needed someone to clean up after his business luncheon, so I bought him a Bosch 500 Series Dishwasher. Eleazar needed a donkey, so I gave him the strongest and healthiest beast from my ranch in Zamora. Even Mary desired to conceive a child, but she was not legally wed yet, and teen pregnancy is frowned upon in our community, but I persuaded the Angel of the Lord to volunteer to help; and now everything’s kosher and on the up and up. The Mob is legit now, too — we just made it an “intel agency”.

So let me get this straight. (I’m now thinking again about the story from Exodus where Yahweh calls his people out of Egypt and leads them into the Promised Land.) OK, so God yanks a strain of people out of one nation, and lures them across the wasteland wilderness to another nation. (Along the way, they find a can of e-Soda buried in the sand, open its lid, and out pops a coiled serpent, which whispers to them the contents of some madman’s diary.) Now this desert trek takes so damn long that the populace ends up procreating the next generation along the way — en route, during the trip — and the original pioneers either die before reaching their destination or shortly thereafter. And when the survivors arrive at their new houses, they find these houses are all already occupied! (Sorta like “Goldilocks & the 3 Bears”.) It turns out that these people left their old country to start a new country, but they ended up having to steal an existing country. Ain’t that a swindle? If they’re gonna have to steal a country anyway, why not just steal the country where they were, in the first place? That would’ve at least saved them a wild-wasteland wander.

And when a country’s people are honorable — which is to say, they treat each other with respect, and their system of social order is fair and just — then God protects them from harm. But if a country’s people are dishonorable — which is to say: opposite of honorable; corrupt — then God punishes that country by bringing in another country from elsewhere to either slaughter the corrupt nation’s inhabitants, or to enslave them, or to annex their nation to the oppressor’s nation and give the occupied nation bad deals in the resultant economy, or (in rare cases) to strike the offensive nation with a famine until only a remnant is left.

It’s confusing to me, because the nation that God uses as a weapon to punish another nation is not always an honorable nation — it would make more sense if God would use ONLY honorable nations to do his dirty work, because then if you saw your homeland being invaded by pixelated monsters, as in the video game Space Invaders (1978) where phalanxes of foreigners shuffle toward you down your computer screen, you would know that these creatures deserve your hide as their prize, because they are good and you are bad.

Instead, God is just as willing to use a wicked country to punish a country that he likes, or at least one that he claims to care deeply about, as he is to sic a preferred country on the unsuspecting. Sorta like how a stockholder might not feel much personal affection for a company whose stock he owns, nevertheless he will take a great interest in how that company performs, because it will boost or shrink his wealth; and he might even hedge his bet on the first company by buying stock in its competitor; for, altho he may feel a slight preference for one company over the other, it’s the one that will secure the growth of his fortune that gets his seal of approval, in the end.

The Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible present Assyria and Babylon as evil nations, which Yahweh God employs to torment his beloved Israel and Judah. What’s the deal, here? Which is better: to be a nation that attracts God’s affection so that he torments you with bad nations in order to “improve” you, as an instance of “tough love”, OR to just be one of those bad nations, who get to go around pillaging God’s chosen ones? I seriously can’t decide who has it better: cuz the people who God hates always get multiple chances to repent of their impieties, cuz God’s always eager to say “Look how merciful I am”; and then the people who God falls in love with always endure major tragedies and hardship, like wandering thru the wasteland as per orders, and dying on the cross cuz you’re gentle and wise, or starving in poverty because you obey the law.

& all the kings that God calls “evil” always possess majestic palaces filled with riches, they have hoards of gold and jewels, huge harems of gorgeous women, and all the servants genuinely enjoy presenting their flamboyant leader with course after course of high cuisine at the nonstop feast that is their kingdom. There’s ballroom dancing and dramatic productions, and they have the finest poets who play the harp well. These are the “evil” kings, remember. And then the “good” kings (I put those words “good” and “evil” in scare-quotes because it’s questionable whether they’re accurate — all we know is that the scribes of the Bible attribute these judgy labels to God), I say, the kings that God approves of and puts his blessing on are…

Actually, come to think of it, the good kings are fun to live under too. They possess gold and silver. They own dancers. They bankroll a giant army with tanks and planes. And they have a good navy. Their country’s unemployment rate is kept low, which is a smart thing because God loves to see his little bees at WORK, making that honey (or milk, if you’re bovine). Plus the good kings own huge statues that have gears and levers inside of them, which must be operated by hand; so these vast smoking idols are filled with laborers. This is an ideal: a national jobs program. (Just wait till the Statue of Liberty awakes.)

And when a good nation is confronted by any other nation who requests to pass thru its midst (that is, to utilize its highways and byways instead of having to troop all the way around its perimeter), the good nation declares to the aspiring passerby nation: “Pass thru us, be our guest: our roads are gold, and we keep them bright and shining by means of our automatic street-sweepers, which we invented so that human beings would not be required to do that type of work (certain tasks are inherently undignified). Everyone is happy here; you will note that many of the people will burst outside of their houses to wave at you as you pass. It’s like a reverse parade: normally those marching in the parade will wave at the watchers; but, here, our watchers toss gifts at the occupying army. Most locals will either stand on their front steps or look out from their open windows. All will greet you warmly. (Despite this uniformity of behavior, I assure you that our populace enjoys freewill and is entirely non-robotic). Notice that all of the roads are lined with Christmas lights — isn’t that charming? It makes one feel tingly in one’s soul. Yes, I repeat: go ahead; pass right on thru. (I’ve instructed those homeowners who don’t want any trouble from you to paint a streak of goat’s blood over their entryway. Try not to molest anyone too severely. And don’t install spiked walls at all the exits, to besiege them. Any such plan is guaranteed to backfire: What happens is that the adults of each household cannot realize that their brood remains fixed to the deterrent. They just keep producing more & more spawn, in the service of humanity. For, carnally speaking, the act of reproduction is enjoyable (that’s programmed into their source-code, so to speak), whereas the task of engaging intellectually with one’s offspring is a drag; so it’s easier just to keep offering replacement models to the tradition than to…” And the good nation faints when confronted with what is unthinkable.