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Carrying My Ashes to the Mountain
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| An idea, perhaps |
[Apr. 25th, 2009|04:31 pm] |
This splendid vision of beauty denies
to me the right to either accept or to
deny, here in this place where everything
is perfected of its own accord, in accord
with the one secret thing, which thing I
hope to be.
This splendid vision of beauty denies, me,
the right to either hope or fear, illusory
projections sure to be let down or fulfilled
So, then, set down, burdens that need not be
or be carried, and fulfill life's central point. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 4th, 2009|09:52 pm] |
In looking over my old livejournal entries, from 2004, I've had occasion to laugh at the dead man that I used to be, and to realize how different I was then. I've grown, but I've grown up in exile.
It's time to come out of exile, I believe. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 25th, 2008|01:02 am] |
I read a letter to the editor recently which referred, not directly, to this country as a Christian nation.
That is an assertion which is, to say the least ... quite interesting.
I read some statistics awhile back, about the percentage of teenage pregnancies that are aborted per country. In this "Christian nation" of ours, it was something like 50%, while in the Netherlands (where they are paid for by the state!), it was around 15%.
Or perhaps this is a "Christian nation" because of the cops who electrocute people with tasers, or simply skip the formalities and gun them down execution-style, without any punishment?
Or perhaps it's because of all of the child-molesting, wife-beating snakes who get up and sing with the rest of the congregation? (I've known of more than a few.)
Or perhaps it's a "Christian nation" because of the half a million dead in Iraq, the other half a million starved or dead from cholera in the 90s (which was, after all, "worth it",) and the who-knows-how-many who die nightly in the fevered dreams of wolves in sheep's clothing who worship power, death and violence?
Nietzsche said it was not their love for man, but their impotence, that stopped them from burning people.
And now that they've cast off the impotence and openly advocate wreathing half of the world - Iran, China, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia - in a cloud of fire and blood, what should we do? Simply turn our heads and refuse comment?
I think not! |
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| In memory of Rusty, who died too young |
[Nov. 29th, 2008|04:21 pm] |
As I write,
the woprds are somehow fugitive,
and are gone too soon
And yet-
I cannot deny the deep, deep depths
of sorrow
turning in a place left empty
by your sudden departure
And yet-
all things are like this.
Coming or going,
together or apart,
many or solitary,
nothing that is born can last.
And yet-
the deep, deep depths of sorrow sing out
and I cannot deny this utter aloneness
pried away by the cold hands,
while I could do nought but watch
helplessly
And I sing out my sorrow for you.
And yet-
Every nerve sings!
With pain or with joy,
Every nerve sings
With sorrow or with gladness
Every nerve sings!
With life or with death,
Every nerve sings!
One, unique, individual, eternal.
Goodbye, Rusty. I love you. Fare well in the future world. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|09:30 pm] |
From here
"That’s why it is so imperative that we take action, and take it now. The college is revamping the gen ed program. Maybe it’s time to require a class in diversity. Or maybe we start branding perpetrators with a scarlet letter, like in that Nathaniel Hawthorne book. Except instead of an A for 'adulterer,' as is the case in the novel, we use a B for 'bigot;' or an I for 'intolerant;' or maybe an S, for 'small-minded-prick-that-will-be-left-behind-the-times.'"
It's interesting how adaptable sheep-pen morality is. When Christianity no longer cuts it, the filthy slut who sleeps around can be, quite conveniently, replaced with another outgroup for the Respectable members of society (in this case, private liberal-arts college kids) to witchhunt (in this case, nasty Bigoted people.)
The role of "tolerance" in a corporate liberal culture is, essentially, to simultaneously change and limit the number of acceptable behaviors in a given society - "diverse" activities become generally acceptable, and anything done by "diverse" people is included under a broad rubric of being at least potentially defensible, if not fully; simultaneously, genuine forms of dissent, such as refusal to pay taxes or fulfill other government mandated obligations, or any thorough-going objection to the commonly prevailing way of life becomes totally unacceptable. People who choose, for instance, to home school their kids, to break contact with society at large, or to do any number of other things, which, under less "tolerant:" systems, would have been mere personal eccentricities, now become (or rather, are now recognized to be) vital threats which could, potentially, strike at the heart of the ruling order.
"Tolerance," then, is a means by which tyranny, or at least social control, is focused - behaviors irrelevant to the State and its attendant institutions (such as alternate sexual expression, moderate drug use, other odd cultural choices) are ignored so that greater resources can be concentrated on those who pose a greater threat (peace activists, secessionists, drop-outs, "gun nuts", people who "think different.)
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 19th, 2008|05:25 pm] |
The real difficulty of putting things back together is not to learn how to read for sustained periods of time, or how to attack, or how to apply sustained effort of any other sort to some problem. The difficulty is, rather, learning how to attack with joy, with Nietzsche's "laughter of the heights."
Putting joy back into conflict is a marriage hard to achieve. One might do well to remember what someone once said:
The Key of Joy is disobedience. |
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| A poem for these times... |
[Oct. 10th, 2008|12:13 pm] |
Contemplation of the Sword
Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assasin and poisoner.
( Read more... ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 8th, 2008|06:26 pm] |
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Endeavor is the path to bliss. Or at least a large part of it. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 3rd, 2008|11:41 pm] |
"I hope Nancy chokes on her filet mignon tonight.
After all the wolf crying, fear mongering by Congress, bet the market goes into the dumper anyway. So those of us paying for this fiasco, will still see the value of our retirement savings greatly reduced. What in the hell are we getting for all the taxes we pay? Unsound bridges, highways that are 20 years behind capacity, broken health care system, NO energy policy, more wooden arrows, lots of lazy ass americans and illegal immigrants eating on my dime, and politicians who lie as easily as they breathe.
Let's revolt, secede or leave. Whatever is possible because this country sucks."
Perhaps this is what Wiston Smith meant when he wrote that the only hope lies with the proles... |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 28th, 2008|07:59 pm] |
"If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles.
( Read more... )
He wrote:
Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 31st, 2008|12:43 pm] |
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I'm going back into New Orleans to get the five cats that I had to leave behind. Wish me luck. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 29th, 2008|11:51 am] |
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It almost seems that if I don't prepare, the storm won't come, and if I leave, I won't come back. None of that is true, but the mind likes to play games. |
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| colorquiz.com negrido |
[Jul. 26th, 2008|09:53 pm] |
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"The fear that he might be prevented from achieving the things he wants drives him to the exploitation of all types of experience, so that he may categorically deny that any of them has any value. This destructive denigration becomes his method of concealing hopelessness and a profound sense of futility." |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|07:26 pm] |
I'm thinking about adding a math minor. For a long time, I've believed that I can do anything that I decide to do.
Well, shouldn't this be subjected to testing?
YES. Hence the math minor.
I've BSed for long enough. It's easy to hold on to remembrances of past accomplishments while the present fades. It's not so easy, however, to watch the present fade away. And so this is, if anything, the easier path. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 7th, 2008|01:02 am] |
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"But tho' obscur'd, this is the form of the Angelic land." |
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| everything i see is sent to me for a purpose |
[May. 29th, 2008|01:20 am] |
everything i see is sent to me for a purpose, and
everything i hear lands somehow jarring on innocent ears
and everything i see serves to justify, somewhere, somehow
a narrow prejudice, and a sneaking glance
everything i hold is sent to me for a purpose - holding
back, holding it together (though only barely)
holding true to form, time after time |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 10th, 2008|06:26 pm] |
If I have ever sinned, it is that I cast down my shield and ran, that I withdrew before the contest had even begun so that some glimmer of cheap hopes and easy rewards would not be denied me.
If I have ever sinned, it is that I have forgotten who I am, and that I have been through unimaginably worse things than anything I can imagine happening now, and survived.
If I have ever sinned, it is that I did not realize the futility of my efforts and the utter and inherent worthlessness of the ends toward which they were directed.
If I have ever sinned, it is that I placed my own cheap comfort ahead of holding aloft the banner of the inherent dignity and divinity of Man.
"The word of Sin is Restriction." |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 2nd, 2008|12:27 pm] |
"The mendicant laughed and said: 'In the triple world, there is no permanent residence; there is no fixed place in the world of transmigration. Sometimes my home is in heaven; sometimes, in hell. Sometimes I may be your wife or your son; at other times, your father or your mother. Sometimes the Tempter King is my teacher and heretics, my friends. Ghosts, birds, and animals may be our parents, children, or wives. From the beginning to the present, there has been no such thing as first and second. How can there be a fixed state of existence from the present back to the very beginning! Turning like a circle or a wheel, beings transmigrate by changing their forms and states of being. Your hair may be completely gray, but it does not necessarily mean that you are my elder brother. My side locks may resemble a dark cloud, but this does not necessarily indicate that I am the younger brother. From the beginningless beginning, you and I have been transmigrating continuously without stopping in any fixed life. Therefore, essentially speaking, I have no permanently fixed birthplace or parents. However, in this present temporal existence, the visionlike being you see before you is residing at a bay in Japan, where a huge camphor tree spreads its shadow. Having yet to attain what I am searching for, I have already reached the age of twenty-four.'"
-Kukai, Indication of the Goals of the Three Teachings |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 26th, 2008|05:55 pm] |
With the aid of the Rosetta Stone program, I've begun learning four languages (Arabic, Latin, French, and German) and will soon add Greek. Hell, I might even add two more (maybe Spanish and Farsi) just for kicks. :-p
Man, productivity is fun. |
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benkilpatrick's journal