SPIRIT OF THE ARTIST

the unrepentant refusal 

to don designations other than

what was bestowed

the instant a semblance had crystallized

- this - has been the caustic knock

of the smelling salts for me today I should reckon.

stirring me up and then luring me out of the saccharine-like slumber, so my eyes could be seared through beholding the fears they had prayed they could always be blind to.

And the inner Thoth sloth, doth maketh so pleasurable, for that which long since should have slipped away shrouded in silence.

Words - Ben NCM

Image - Hilary Cowtown 

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The moment I become certain that I know who I am, is the moment arrogance drowns my humility

The significance of God being called the I AM

I feel I have gained a greater understanding of the significance of God being referred to as the I AM, or simply, I AM. It is because we humans are the I AM NOT. If God's actions are the I DO then we are the I DO NOT or as I say, I DON'T. It is all about divine destiny. The perfect sequence of events which flows as it should.

The effortless narrative which is the thing that does the doing. Humans ruin themselves by becoming excited when they catch a glimpse of God, behold the true nature things, and feel compelled to bring about the wondrous vision they saw themselves when they should have remained humble, and simply accepted the unfolding of their fate. No one needs to try because it has already been written. It has already been done.

The world cannot become any less simple than it is because everything within it cannot be disonnected to the initial cause that brought it into being and remains that which still already is and has been. 

So all that is needed, is for you to grasp the initial simplicity of where everything began, because every manifestation that takes place thereafter that place can be understood as being natural. In the same way we speak about the cradle of civilisation - Africa. Understand Africa and you understand humanity.

And there, brought into existence as a natural consequence of achieving enlightenment, is the trap that all organised religions have fallen into -because you lose what enlightenment you just gained by grasping it and using it to build your own house, your own institution, which is nothing more than an idolatrous shrine to enable you to sustain your worship of the truth that was once yours, but now persists only as a memory of what it is which you seek in vain for a path back towards.

The truth about truth is it can never be shared. It must be made by the self for the self. Its material extracted from the knowledge of the world, woven into fabric with which we shape our own container to hold all that is valuable to us and speaks to us alone. 

"THIS is the truth of things!", I heard myself think when I found myself compelled to dismount from my bike at once outside the Bridge Inn pub and hurriedly sat upon one of its benches in the courtyard. 

Yes, it was the truth of things! It was the trap that all humans eternally fall into and are perpetually seduced by. Their obsession with "bringing the good news" to others. Their arrogance in assuming that the truth that they now possess trumps all others and so must supersede and be reaffirmed as the sole truth. The only truth.

And this is the definition of evil.

Truth Is The Endless Search That Rejoices At Never Being Found

Truth is the endless search that rejoices in never finding itself because when humans think they've found truth they turn it into an effing religion or some organisation that feels the universe has chosen it for a divine purpose, bestowing its members with rights over those who don't possess it - and never will. Truth confers power. However, once they feel they now possess truth, they cease searching, as their mission is now complete, and shortly after this point they start work making this truth an institution and commence being cunts. But there is always truth which lies beyond the truth that has been uncovered. To think that there is an end to truth which is to be found at a fixed point in the search, which the human mind of 2019 is capable of comprehending, demonstrates man's incapacity for unlimited growth and his excellence at sucking his own dick. We are nowhere near our full capacity for what can be known, and as a consequence of that, our capacity to know truth, and so therefore it is the unending searching which leads us to uncover the truth of the truth of the truth and so on... which is why the searching is the truth and so can never be found. And me and my buddy truth both rejoice at this news.

Home Is A Place Of Mind From Which We Search For Truth

Locating the place, person, state of mind, thing which we call home is so important. For me, home is all of those aspects combined. The actual building I'm presently in, where I currently live, is the home my family and I have been rooted in for 30 years. My mother is the living, loving entity who creates the enveloping sense of certainty that I am home. This is where I belong. My father, who has passed, is our helper on the other side and is never absent. This is where I always come back to when constant navigation of the trials of life have left my energies and will depleted. Home is where I am restored.

Home is where fear cannot be conceived. It's a state of mind which mirrors the love, calm and feelings of safety I feel in the home that is the physical space, where my mother and father's presence are always felt, though not always seen. Home feels like I've returned to the womb, a place of mind where time means nothing and I can take as much of it as I need in order to rebuild myself, should I need to.

Home was a place I would search for before, but when I'd found them in the real world and inner world, home then became the place which allowed me to search for the truth.

I Love It When People Use Facebook To Be Truly Honest About The Way They Feel

I love it when people use facebook to post things that are meaningful and don't try to project anything other the truth about what is happening for them. It takes courage to be open enough to do this, and being open is an act of making oneself vulnerable. Accepting one's vulnerabilities I think is the ultimate sign of strength.

When you open yourself up you are able to feel more. You become more receptive to your own emotions and also more sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others. Openness leads to vulnerability because we never know exactly what we will be letting in, and recognising each other's vulnerabilities is what allows empathy to grow - something the world desperately needs an injection of right now.

When you open yourself up on social media, not knowing whether anyone even cares to hear about the struggles you've been going through, you're sending out a beacon to all those people in a similar predicament that don't feel able enough to speak out about their own.

Seeing a friend take that leap of faith, being honest publicly about what life has actually been like for them, without the polished veneer, resonates people deeply and calls out to their soul (like a Batman signal in Gotham's night sky :D). It makes anyone receiving their message feel more human and reassured that they are not alone; and in the long run helps reconnect us all to one another the more people act in this way.

So, up with openness and vulnerability, because nothing can ever enter a doorway which is closed to the world.

We Were Already Living in a Post-Truth World, it's King Just Needed Crowning

We were already living in a post-truth world. Its king just needed crowning. I think it came from the need to go beyond truths. Truths just couldn't convey what we were feeling anymore. They didn't do our feelings justice, and hearing the truth so often made it boring and cliched, so we went beyond it.

Statements that were true like "I'd appreciate it if you could pass me the salt" became "It would be awesome if you could pass me the salt". Volcanoes erupting are awesome. Solar eclipses (although I do think eclipses are happening a bit too much these days) are awesome. Passing salt over the table to pour on one's runny egg is not awesome. If it is awesome to you, then check out a volcano erupting and compare the two.

The truth is boring and cliched because it doesn't change fast enough to keep up with our crazy and sexy lifestyles. It just gets added to slowly over time. The truth is seriously uncool. The truth is a 90's dad in beige Gap Khakis.

So we have to sex truth up in order to make it great again, because the internet made reading and hearing about the truth over and over painfully dull, and humans prefer truth that is playful and very aware of itself. Seeing the truth doesn't mobilise us anymore. Seeing what we'd like to believe is the truth, makes us move. Seeing this self-made truth being crushed will also make us move too.