Fluidity

Yes, fluidity is dependent upon its relation to the present. But as with certain friends, who are like good books with many pages, we should take breaks away from them, put them down occasionally with a good bookmark in place. Pause is pressed. The present moment no longer continues in our minds while we are away from each other. There is no dwelling upon or stewing over done. No grudge burning holes nor puzzles requiring time to find solutions. The present moment has been forgotten but is not lost, because you used your bookmark. And so when it becomes time to return to the story of knowing your friend further, after the period spent apart, it is like an unpausing of the present. Reopening at the page where you left them, removing the bookmark, finding the precise line and continuing. A seamless sewing of presents despite them both occurring in different ages.  And so an act of fluidity does not need to be present all of the time, it just needs to feel like it hasn't spent time away from the present. Suspended animation.

Fluidity in the sense we're talking about here would then be the feeling of the absence of interruption. You could be being interrupted all the time. It's whether you subjectively feel that have you been interrupted or not which is important. A friend with epilepsy would stare blankly for minutes before returning to the present knowing nothing of this interruption.

This is not about the universal present. I'm talking about the subjective present. I'm talking about fluidity in the context of the shared subjective present of two people whose shared reality is suspended in time when they are apart, and continues as it had been whenever they meet again. 

As opposed to the two friends who continue living the present moment of the imagined other through their imagined selves in this present with the imagined other the very moment the two are separated. They cannot forget about each other. They must continue remaining in some sort of present, even if it must be fabricated by themselves. This is a relationship devoid of all fluidity and flow.

My Heart Attack Turned Me Into A Photographer

I've written next to nothing since the election result. Which is fine. But I have been taking pictures in the woods every day. 

I started taking pictures of the trees and nature in the woods after they helped me get better. I'd had what at the time felt like a mini cardiac arrest, induced by the constant chain smoking of cigarettes long into the earlier hours, fuelling my while writing and chess playing, sometimes for up to 3 days without sleep or any exercise to ameliorate the negative impacts.

Then one night I was overcome by peculiar bodily sensations. Nodes. Individuals points started presenting across the top of my chest which felt like blockages. Blocked arteries desperately gasping for clean air they could breath.The number of nodes grew and spread across my chest. My ability to exhale was suddenly capped to a minimum, as was my maximum intake of air.

Then my torso felt as though it too had become riddled with these nodes, these blockages, that now restricted my physical mobility; issuing darting spiky pains like pulled muscles whenever  a shift in movements transgressed the newly enforced curtailments.

I proper shat myself when the nodes finally made their way to the top of my arm. I remember how will power, perseverance and  determination had all become remote memories. Luxuries one can endure only when one has a modicum of certainty about the longevity of one's existence. 

I began stretching myself and massaging my chest like a mad man in vain. No one was in the house at the time. Mum and Kim had gone out to Wales for the day. I kept stretching all different ways to relieve the internal discomfort and continued massaging my chest hoping to improve my circulation. At some point I felt like I knew the chest and bodily pains had peaked and would not become any more intense, so like a true addict I went back outside for 3 more ciggies!! It was a very sad to witness myself incapable of exercising the necessary rationality to do the right thing despite being in a life or death scenario. 

Mum and Kim came back from Wales and I was conspicuously muted for the rest of the night. I went to bed and struggled finding a comfy position to sleep in. The next day mum enquired what was wrong with me. She had two wrong guesses before guessing correctly that I had chest pains. She gave me one of her unopened asthma inhalers and two dissolvable aspirin to thin my blood. It was my day off work, so I went back to bed and slept. 

I woke up mid-afternoon, a little less riddled with chest pains but lung capacity was still bare minimum. My body's maintenance dept needed more time to carry out essential repairs, so I went back to sleep.

I woke up late that evening, with slightly greater lung capacity now but the chest pains had returned as before. It was around 8pm and dark outside. I had an impulse to be proactive to help open my arteries I'd foolishly clogged up with tar and plaque, but walking any distance had become a exhausting chore requiring delicate navigation, especially if it was to at least look half natural. 

I told mum I was going to the local woods to breath some clean forest air. She questioned whether that was such a good idea given my restrictions but I said I was going anyway. 

The woods is only 5 minutes away. I got there and didn't go too far in, but far enough to know when to try and breath deeply. It felt good. Consecutive deep inhales and exhales of clean air really helped break up the heavy shit that had been sitting on my lungs for the past months.

The next morning I decided that visiting the woods each day to inhale its restorative air would be part of my new daily health regimen. So that's what led me to start taking pictures there and posting them every day on my facebook.

"I Am Honoured"

A friend sent me a poem and there were some interesting parts in it that I wanted to share my thoughts with them about. They said "I would be honoured". I replied, "No need to suck my dick!". There then followed a period of ambiguous and possibly uncomfortable silence (not at my end).

After a while I sent them this to try and resolve things:

Just to even out any possible imbalance lingering in the remnants of the tone left... It's not that your intention was ever to fellate me with praise prose, it was more likely the case that you were simply appreciative to receive any kind of feedback or critique about your work from a friend. And so my sensitivity and heightened response did come from a valid place, but a place which seemed to have issued a voice imbued with a drop or two of venom, a substance mildly caustic in order to seal up a certain pathway forever. An act of cauterisation. A heated implement or caustic substance applied to the skin or flesh to seal it and stop further bleeding or prevent future infection. A pathway was sealed. A route forward that is an inbuilt scripted response; that of you feeling honoured that I should ever be interested enough to want to share my thoughts with you about your thoughts. But should I not be equally honoured to be gifted an encounter which compels me to want to share part of myself with someone else? And so my honouring of you was already embedded in the gesture of wanting to offer you my time in the form of my thoughts about yours. I honoured you before you, me, and so your declaration of being honoured was simply to say thank you. No problem at all. You're very welcome! X

Snakes and Ladders

"Sometimes life feels a bit like Snakes & Ladders. We’re all moving across a 2D grid trying to get to the end of a game dictated by dice, made more entertaining whenever a snake or ladder is stepped upon. 

The ladders are love, they lift us, they raise us up towards our goal, the end point, the finishing point. Snakes are like snake oil salesmen who peddle mistruths upon our own desires for wellness, happiness, health, and everlasting contentment in life etc.

The salesman is aware of our needs, and promises us many desirable things we'll receive on terms that cunningly threaten to take away what we hold most dear at the same time - truth, honesty, connection...

Ladders represent the specific amount of progress one can expects taking an alternate route also heading in the direction of the end. Predictable long ones and short ones. The snakes are digressive. They can never be straight and simple in form. They take us back to where we were before, surrounded by the same artefacts we thought we'd moved on from. 

The same songs we've played to death, the same smells that have lost all magic, the same stories whose endings bring no surprise, the same friends we go through the motions with each time we meet... 

We become memories of who we were before but without the parts of our selves that have been lost in the promises made to us by the snakes. 

Up and down the grid we travel, until at some point we look up, and realise the game that is actually being played above our heads. 

Chance. Being forced to roll the dice. Our role within the game we didn't realise we had been playing unawares all along. Seeing yourself from a distance, as an object in the, as a character playing allows one opportunity to leave the grid completely and move on without snakes or ladders, by something akin to faith, by embodying the structures that contain us, gazing at the dotted lines we've been expected to follow, and looking towards the gaps in between, seeing the myriad of truths within them that allow us to create our own meaning.

Creating meaning then becomes a purpose in itself, a journey and not an end point we should strive to get to. Not something to finish, but something to explore indefinitely with love, passion, and the with the joy in others that also float in this realm, a realm which is between the stars and the sea, as we travel across its landscapes with our own stories, our own sounds, histories and cultures that transcend the borders of maps with a hope that is carried by fellow human beings who also look for meaning in a world, where there is none."

..............................................

For me, I think the trick is realising that the game we're playing is actually called Snakes are Ladders. But even more than that. Snakes are Springboards. Snakes are Adders - if you know how to launch yourself off them correctly. Snakes are like big springy coils that give you an elevating boost if you've propelled yourself at the right time. The spring in the step can be the gravity from the vow of our refusal to ever accept we need  to never allow ourselves to feel again. 

Ladders are just linear progressions of benefit that elevate us a specific amount higher than we were before. Ladders are a bit boring. They're like Forrest Gump's nightmare. A box of chocolates all the same flavour - "You always know what you're gonna get...", Forrest said glumly.

Snakes may be lies and mistruths we are sold by others, but they are mainly lies and mistruths we sell to ourselves.

Snakes are the promises that exchanges and transactions we make now can lead to much needed immediate gain without any pain. Very often we deny that these instant boons could turn out to be detrimental to us in the end or have any kind of inherent detrimentality, no matter how mild. We convince ourselves there won't ever be a price to pay for the wonderful benefits that were purchased for a mere pittance.

But there is always a price to pay for anything that seems too good on its surface. 

So it's vital to gauge exactly what that price will be first, or at the very least, accept that the price we finally end up paying for what we got will be more than we parted with at the time - and then weigh up whether or not it makes sense to go ahead with the purchase. 

When I play a game of Snakes and Ladders, the entire board is filled with 'GOAL' squares. I've already won. And so playing consists of me just sightseeing through the game's afterlife, exploring its mechanics and learning how it works.

I'm enveloped by its meaning everywhere I go and don't go. It's the main reason my solitude can't ever become malnourished and turn into loneliness.

Because meaning is everywhere, permeating the vacuum of existence. 

Meaning is like dark energy, a substance which makes up 70% of all energy in the entire universe. Did you know, that there is more energy in the empty space in the universe, than there is in all the planets, stars, galaxies and black holes combined? I shit you not!

But this dark energy doesn't interact with matter as we know it, so how do we know it's actually there? Because we know what it isn't, and we can measure the effects it has on the things that surround it. At present, the true nature of dark energy is unknowable. Even so, we are able to deduce the scale of its ubiquity and likely effect. 

The solid matter that we can see, taste and touch makes up only 5% of all matter in the universe. 95% of everything that is, is hidden from our view. And so the key to having the energy to be able to take on the world, remain cordial with others at all time in ways which advance both towards a point creating shared truths in the agreements made - the limitless store of energy you need in order to operate at your peak, is literally in the air you're currently breathing.


..............................................

I feel like a beagle on the scent of a fox hiding very nearby!!

Thinking about the Snakes and Ladders metaphor again, and the idea that those who play feel that their goal is to reach the top. It was act of reaching a certain level of ascension before one's counterparts had, which was the principle event which precipitated the rush of pleasure into the blood stream. I was thinking how this idea didn't feel quite right to me.

I thought about it for a short time before my brain started doing a wheelie without telling me - began accelerating at full throttle and refused to listen to sense...

Reaching the top I thought was the wrong way to look at the sense of progression one makes towards a final life goal. 'Arriving at the source of an important realisation', seemed to chime a lot more.

But what is the force that draws us closer to where the sense of this realisation is always stronger?

Gravity. 

Gravity is a product of mass. It is a manifestation which occurs naturally whenever something has substance. Things which possess substance draw us towards it.

Gravity is the force by which a body attracts objects towards it centre. Once two bodies are connected in this way, gravity becomes the force which initiates the movements of their dance as they begin orbiting one another.

But each time we orbit each other, the distance between us grows closer, through the pull of attraction, and the spectre of an eventual collision is evoked. 

Our goal or destiny or purpose or the reason or point of existence is to seek out people whose gravity is in perfect sync with our own. Two gravities that are perfectly fine tuned, keeping us at a distance which is as close as possible, without us ever touching. Perpetually orbiting one another without fear of annihilation. An eternal dynamo of dialectic. For as long as is necessary. Until the finitude of time asks this question.

Are you both now ready? 

Is now the time for the moment of contact. The moment of the sublime. Sublimation. When both bodies absorb equally into each other, not one by the other. The merging of equals.

Our destiny is to achieve the perfect death of our selves. To die simultaneously in nothing but joy with the other, in an act of fusion. Marriage. Mutual self-sacrifice so complete it gives birth to a truer beginning this time round.

The need to feel the desire for peace trumps our need to see peace itself manifest.

Epilogue To An Ended Friendship

EPILOGUE: I thought that it could have been the result of my mental exhaustion yesterday that was causing me to be exceptionally forthright and zealous, but after waking up I only feel more certain of myself and the difference in the paths that we've decided to take.

And I'm glad that its happening via text. In words. I can believe it more, because facts are not able to cloth themselves in the disguises of physical appearance. It's all there on the page in black and white. No illusions can be performed to divert the audience's attention.

Which is why this really is the end. Our goals are irreconcilable because they're being guided by completely opposing truths, although it seemed at one point that they might be converging.

Your belief that unskilled thoughtless graft in the service of a ravenous profit obsessed organism like Amazon, whose soul preoccupation is everlasting growth on a planet which can't ever get any bigger to accommodate this delusional mindset, left me stunned.

But then you let me know that Amazon's biggest distribution warehouse had recently met its targets. Apparently. That was the word on the street that someone heard through the grapevine. I mean, what am I supposed to say to that or even think??? It means nothing to me.

Presenting me news that this monolithic organisation whose appetite has now grown so large, classes of human beings are springing into existence keen to have only one purpose while they toil for a living: to keep feeding this systemic idea that giving rich people great deals and bargains at the expense of poor people they never see, don't have to know of or think about is just fine. Nah man. Fuck that! You've always been a bit "Hey Guys! Let's not talk about that depressing topic right now yeah? This is supposed to be a dinner party" - kind of person. But obviously you can't skirt around where you truly stand forever. No wonder you're afraid of expressing what you actually think online and have fears about how your friends will judge you. It's so upsetting. I'm so not like you at all. I can't live a life in that way.

To be happy to invest sizable chunks of your waking hours to a project like Jeff's is best undertaken by people who don't think, can't think, are incapable of reflection, and see their labouring task as destiny itself. You think you are using Amazon to get what you need in order to achieve the success you say you're destined for, but you don't realise what the true price is that you've paid for reducing yourself in such a crude and myopic way, which mocks the vision of what you can be if you strived continuously, instead of the momentary elations of epiphany you savour at your leisure within the grounds of comfort and security. The more I want to be totally honest with you, the more I think I'm likely to cause you pain, which obviously isn't my intention here. It couldn't be intention here because the manner in which I'm trying to hurt you is far too floral and whimsical to ever go straight for the jugular. Writing 'THE END' in finishing off my message yesterday, I admit was a bit dramatic and OTT. But whether it had been well-tempered or even quite muted, the message that it was conveying had a gravity that can't be ignored. Something has ended and I'm not sure what. And things that have ended are sometimes resurrected and given the opportunity for a sequel, which is more often than not very cheesy. But for now, I hope that you're right. I really hope you get to where you want to be and the manner in which you do this is something you feel sure of, because I have nothing more to offer or say.

Opening The Past

in so many moments 

i see myself 

with a want to explore 

through writing 

at some point I will...

now that i finally know 

myself

i'd write 

of the nice times we shared 

poignant and sweet

in the brief while spent

at Claremont

as and when...  

desires to convert 

my heart into words 

wax and wane 

like the FTSE 

but just as important

is seeking

the looking within 

without conditions 

for acceptance 

of aspects and times 

of pain caused and felt

seen and unseen  

my want to go honing

memories, recollections 

evoke quivers of longing 

rippling shame

reliving the visceral 

moments destabilized 

emotions red fevered

with jealousy 

pangs 

the need to possess 

to feel peace inside

inadequate, inferior

synthetic intimacy

impulsive projections

confidence feigned 

before shallow conviction 

suppresses the shaming 

resonant feelings 

of nakedness

 

up from the deep 

uncertainties rise 

when fears hide my absence 

of qualities i wished 

were inside 

to replace this mask 

of myself disguising 

a maturity straining  

but then feelings

effervescence and love

buoyant and light and easy

skins gently brush 

in communion 

in each readjustment 

dispersing its charge 

traversing the void

anticipations leap 

sooner than we 

to embrace.

The Brain Is Radio Receiver Receiving Thoughts Transmitted By The Universe

Perhaps achieving the zenith of our genius can only be attained via a state of total non-thought. Through choosing not to choose. Opening up the self to the point of inversion. Where the inside has become the outside, and the outside, in.

The celestial FM receiver of spirit, embedded within the heart is now able to receive with a total clarity, diction from a place located beyond the locality of the cogitating brain.

What if consciousness as we experience it lies embedded within the fabric of the universe itself, all around us like an ever-permeating ocean of resonating cosmic soup, containing everything that has been and ever can be?

The brain is not the inbuilt thought generation device we assume it must be, but a divine radio receiver of conscious thought, and the living universe is the transmitter whose frequency we perpetually seek to find and tune in to.

So our task and privilege as self-creating entities, is to reconfigure our brains through the right thoughts and deeds to harmonise all our neural connections to enhance the quality of the signal we may receive. If our brains consist of a chaotic mess of wirings, then we receive poor quality signals, broken fragmentary thoughts and ideas. Life is experienced as a constant stream of distracting garbled noise bouncing around our skulls. 

But a brain which has been fashioned with its neural connections to work together in harmony, enables the possibility for a high quality signal to be received - where visions and mental projections possess a striking lucidity. 

In choosing to make ourselves so open to receive them, choosing to have no guards up or barriers erected to protect us from what could possibly happen next - choosing total vulnerability - leads to the capacity of signals of a higher order being permitted to enter the inner domains of our minds, freely and unfettered by any man-made filter. Undisturbed by the ego's pathological need to analyse and question everything it can observe.

Acceptance of everything as being a valid expression of some aspect of life, is a form of love. A state where nothing is denied its right to exist or declared as being evil. And through life-long self-configuration of our brains, the conditions and necessary environment brought about by nurturing our capacity to love, to be loved and critically, our ability to extract strength when in the presence of love - is how we personally manufacture the optimum conditions for our minds to be paid regular visits by superior ideas and thoughts which are dictated to us perfectly from beyond.

In my opinion.😂

How Much Do You Love Me

A scientist finds out much energy is in the connection that joins two atoms by breaking the bonds that hold them together.

The energy released no longer belongs to them. It is transferred into the surrounding space and felt by their neighbours.

Therefore the amount of love I have for you is equal to the amount of love lost when the bonds that connect us are severed forever.

So I won't be able to say how much that is unless it happens, because I just don't know. But my guess is, a lot.

Parents Who Tell Their Kids To Stop Showing Off

I'm not a fan of parents who tell their kids to stop showing off. Without good reason at least. Like an oncoming car or approaching cliff edge which their child is unaware of while performing a pole dancing routine they copied off a drag queen on YouTube. 

Parents who forbid their children from expressing themselves fully because they fear other parents will think they've been teaching their kids about the virtues of boastfulness I feel kill part of the magic in being a child. Each time they choose to blunt their child's desire to express, they pull them one step closer to the drab, grey predictable world they exist in and hate, precisely because it's drab, grey and predictable. 

If it's possible for you to do so, then encourage the freedom in expressing creative impulses throughout your child's life. If your child happens to sing like a strangled cat, then provide guidance and assistance, or point them to someone who can. That way you also get them out of the house for a couple of hours each week at singing lessons, which lowers the chances of you strangling them yourself!

A parent who chastsises their child for not already being good at something they have a passion for I doubt has any appreciation of the amount of time and effort needed to excel at anything. If they did then they wouldn't do something so ignorantly cruel.

To any kids happening to stumble upon this while browsing through your mum or dad's phone - ignore them. Carry on expressing yourself even if they order you to stop. Or ask them why they think you ought to. If they drop some Grade A  codswallop like, "Because I said so!", then I'm sorry, but your parents are assholes.

Showing off your talents, showing the world what you're capable of, isn't a crime because it may cause others to feel inadequate about what they can't do. It's they who needs to grow up. Or should that be, grow down? Obviously, don't be a knobhead yourself and refuse to share the secrets of what you're doing if someone intrigued happens to ask. You have a duty to share the good things you find out in life.

I daydreamed once about creating my own juvenile prison for youths who were super talented, but their refusal to acknowledge or nurture and develop their strengths I deemed as being criminal. Youths were sentenced to a spell inside my jail, where tutors and expert practitioners would find ways to allow them to exploit their squandered talents to the utmost. An organically programmed pathway which grew the potentials of these obviously brilliant youths, would constitute their punishment.

But it's the adults who need to rediscover the joys of knowing and assuming nothing again. The joy of being unafraid to approach life naively. Something they may now regret having discarded because they listened to society's insistence that "they've grown beyond that childish phase now. It no longer serves your purpose". Erect a firm middle finger to any person or society which tells you this, then go retrace your steps to reclaim what has been lost before it's too late.

A person should be the sum of all they've ever experienced, rolled into one. Nothing should ever be thrown away.

I Hate Having To Sleep In A Small Single Bed Each Night

My bedroom is very small. It's pokey. Like a deluxe room at a Japanese pod hotel. Everything has to be very tidy and in its place to make it look like I don't sleep in a charity shop store room, where they keep all surplus stock not good enough to have out on the racks.

I sleep on a top bunk bed because I stripped the bottom bunk out to make space for my piano and cupboards. Total walking space in my bedroom - a modest 3m². Ideal for moments of circular contemplation.

I was telling my boss about all this recently. She's a lovely woman. Very thoughtful and accommodating, appreciative, caring and happy. And she likes to enjoy a nice craft beer at the end of the day.

I was telling her about the miserly amount of sleeping space I get in my bunk bed, because it's made of metal and has a headboard and feetboard(?) which locks my 6'4" body inside a 6'3" frame. So most nights I sleep like an unmotivated starfish. If its proper baltic and the metal feetboard feels like ice on my toes then I will sleep fetal - but I prefer not sleeping scrunched up.

My boss listened attentively to my tales of woe, which must have been very boring for her.

I moaned about the unsatisfactory dimensions of UK bunk beds, and how successive generations of kids are generally taller than the last, but bunk bed lengths hadn't reflected this trend in child growth.

But then I instantly ruined all the sympathy in the air by talking about the perfect length a mattress for me would have to be, by asserting to my boss - "If I want to feel completely relaxed in bed then I'd need at least 4 inches to play with".

I'm Glad That Mental Health Sectioning Has Increased By 17% In The Last 2 years In The UK

I'm glad that mental health sectioning has increased by 17% in the last 2 years.

It proves that despite the Government's attempts to convince us that life is now better than ever with the lies and exaggerated stories it tells us through advertising and politics, something deep inside knows what is happening right now isn't good for us. It cannot be deceived.

I would have promptly shat myself if the headline had said sectioning had decreased by 17% in the last 2 years.

But I'm sad and I'm mad that a government which is bad, continues to stay in denial of what it sees taking place to those it doesn't have to interact with directly. Those people who are out of sight, and so out of mind.

Our government is now accelerating the country so hard that it will soon reach the point where its engine, its people, become completely burned out. Exhausted and unable to take any more, until the UK can go no further, and stops. 

Everything has become so unnecessary and over-complicated because we don't wish to accept that it can be simple.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-50472642

I Hold A View Which Is Diametrically To Nihilism Yet Simultaneously Accepts It

If nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless, then I hold a view that is diametrically opposed yet accepts it. 

A belief of the truth in nothing. The nothing within. The supreme power of the void that lies inside. The black hole that consumes all that enters its vicinity. Returning all chaos which was configured into information, back into chaos. Into its gut goes the primordial soup of equality, where structures and collectives are broken down to their constituent parts, every one and thing made the same.

But like a pond that ripples when a stone is thrown in, information of what just took place remains on its surface. What was 3D is now 2D. The universe we know can be a projection. A hologram. 

This feeding frenzy by our fathomless furnace accelerates its gathering of mass - the more it consumes, the more it can consume - adding depth and breadth to its capacity, which holds more than we can ever hold, and knows more than we can ever know. Our celestial storage. Inner space in inner space. An infinite pit of energy and light which explodes once the time is right. 

A view which accepts that all religious and moral principles have worth, and weight, and thus meaning. Meaning which should be consumed voraciously. Fed into the black hole to be processed by the unconscious. The individual resists the urge of analysis while they gorge, drawing no conclusions, forming no thoughts of their own. They simply focus on the act of knowing, of consuming only knowledge which seduces with the promise of leading to truth. And they do this until the end.

Conclusions and ideas alike, shall come to them fully formed, forged exquisitely in their hidden unknown. And once validation of the value in whatever emanates and escapes without being beckoned has been grasped and then realised by the 'I', it assumes its role in their Being.

We Are Not Here

We are not here. We are sent. An aroma on the winds. Heaven's scent. 

Love

Love is a container which holds space for those within to connect without restraint

Message to N

Hahaha!! What a lovely message! I love how passionate you are in it! But I love even more how we've managed to stay friends and are now helping each other this way. I think I'll have another listen actually before I carry on with this message...

Haha!! When I heard you say "If I'm totally honest with you..", I truly felt that you were about to be, and started rubbing my palms together with glee. That's what I love the most. "Get ready for some good shit!", I said to myself. Do tell me if you have any additional criticisms to add that may have come to you since.

Erm....well, I don't really have much else to say really in reply because I don't disagree with what you point out. From my perspective I just wrote what I needed to write and it took that form. A form I knew would immediately be anathema to many of my facebook friends, but didn't want to change despite knowing this.

Ok, let me listen again and address your points as you make them...

"What it lacks for me, is feeling" - I agree. If taken as a whole anyway. The piece lacks the cohesion necessary to carry the emotions on a constant journey, and there was no attempt by me to address this at the time. Maybe in revisiting the piece today, as I usually abstain from from posting big pieces the day it's been written - perhaps the desire or need to fashion it into something more unified in its purpose will come to me. But I'm not going to force anything if it doesn't. Trying to make things happen always ends up with tears for me!

"It seems like you're talking about yourself in the past, and not in the present" - Yup. Agree with that too! I'm barely present in the entirety of the text, and make only a brief appearance towards the end. The text almost reads like a cold philosophical manifesto. Like it's aim is to propound something profound. And because of this appearance of supposed profundity, along with the text's didactic tone, it causes many people to want to stop reading immediately as it feels like it's contrived, on its it's way to pretension. Again, I was aware of this, and if the impulse to modify the text in order to ameliorate the sense of lofty pretence arrives, then I'll be all over it.

I think the voice IS from the past, as you say. It's not me in the now. It's like a voice from the past being recalled to the present, by Scouse Ben from the Wirral. "Who does he think he is plastering his tomes on Facebook like they're undiscovered ancient manuscripts? I think he may have gone a bit too far with this one". Hahaha!!

"You cannot talk about love with indifference" - Why not? You don't qualify that statement. What happens? What inviolable law is broached in doing so?  

But let's say it's true. Why does the crime of talking about love with indifference mean that it also cannot be spoken of with a voice of purest reverie or abject despair? How are the two linked exactly? Is not aiming between emotional extremes a fine example of striving for mediocrity? "...where what you're invoking is a feeling you can't interpret as either joy or pain".

Jouissance is a feeling of ecstacy, and jubilation is not far behind. Am I misinterpreting you here?

By the way, I used the word 'crime' up above because it fit better, so don't feel like I'm accusing you or anything!

I feel like the cohabitation of statements about knowledge acquisition alongside those of love spoken with a dispassionate voice offends your sensibilities of what is proper. I think you find it grating!

"Knowledge...what knowledge is and how it's experienced, is technical" - I'm not sure what you mean by experiencing knowledge technically. I think I'm more interested in what constitutes the act and process of knowing rather than knowledge itself to be honest. The dynamics of knowing.

There wasn't any intention for the themes of love and knowledge to ever engage, interact, or dance in harmony together; so any contact made was purely coincidental. I just wrote out my thoughts in a serial fashion and refused to do any arranging!  

"Is this really profound? Do you really believe it so? And if you are, then you need to go deeper into the feelings of that to express it in a new way, in a new form of love, of knowledge" - I wholeheartedly agree with you. But I don't think that new form should consist of ordered words. It should remain silent and operate within the realm of the ineffable. 

"...in expression where knowledge becomes another person in the other" - Yes! I'm all for people being transformed for the better through expression which brings them a sense of knowing, which leads to a new becoming.

"And when we talk about otherness, it is something we can never have, we can never possess. It is always absent. It's an absent presence" - Are you sure otherness is something we can never possess? How do you know? More importantly, and leaving aside the proving/disproving aspect - what benefit or advantage does it bring you in believing resolutely that this is the case?

All Knowledge Worth Knowing Cannot Be Taught

All knowledge worth knowing cannot be taught. 

It has to be seen or experienced by the individual itself and felt as truth, otherwise what is learned are merely things society has deemed valuable in order to go further in the game it created.

If your mind is so inclined then it's hard to arrive at the point where you see the words that escaped your lips played a role that was crucial in constructing the reality you now know.

Knowledge doesn't come from books. Information does.

Knowledge of worth, which no one elses knows, is created through knowing one's self, more, in relation to information one imbibes. Books can point in directions with questions and wonders inspired, but answers are all there inside us. 

If you know this, then it will seem to others as though you are well educated despite holding no post. Because you are your own university. The issue is whether you have the courage to enrol and the patience to sit in its seminars, engaging with tutors, who are all parts of you.

Some people see learning as the task to increase the sum of facts and figures in their heads. Knowing is a process of accumulation to them. Of acquisition. But I see knowing as the process of becoming one with the thing I wish to know. Having the thing I wish to know live inside me.

Knowing is an act of embodiment. Fusion with a truth. If I wish to know about love, I know it. I don't read books about love or watch videos where experts wax on about what love is. I just allow myself to feel it. Open myself up, let love inside and grant it the freedom to occupy me.

Love is a squatter whose presence pays all bills

When love is inside me I listen to truths each moment they rise, so don't stress about being on time for its lectures. Like I would in the real world. Because Professor Love is a guest I hope never leaves my house! I learn from her when the time is right. (which is most fortunate, as I am always late)

Many things in this world seem the wrong way around. Like learning. Learning, for me, occurs in emptying one's insides, out. With Art. With Words. With Actions. With Breath. Remaining as such. Never harbouring. Never holding onto. (how full of myself do I sound!) 

It is the art of continual removal of all detritus and debris in the mind. The flushing of obstacles strewn all around, littering its ground, that make one have to tip-toe when going place to place; shifting from memory to memory. Learning is the expelling of all mental refuse we discard when we're discarded, which we refuse to accept began with us, and now swims thick through the air the self is breathing. Turbulent currents of single-use plastic with nowhere to go accumulate in mind over time through denial. And the only place you always are becomes a blizzard of trash pelting you into submission...

Empty it!!! Take it in your hands, turn it over and then tip it all out. Go on, give it a good shake! Make sure you get everything. You missed a bit. No, there! A soggy ALDI receipt. I know, but it still shouldn't be there.

The renewing breeze that only Spring can bring now wafts through the endless pastures before you. Nothing but an infinity of open green space. Nothing but nothing. Cleansed of contaminants you now feel so free walking from A to B in the shortest way possible between two points, with no need to circumnavigate the globe to move 2 steps ahead. You're free to wander without aim through a land you now remember is yours, whose rivers and valleys and mountains give you no fear, and so have no need to be governed.

Having said all this, I don't put up with nonsense in my internal kingdom! Like memories of events banding together in my mind, forbidding me from entering their territory (despite me owning the land!). Out of bounds areas of my self trying to prevent news about what goes on there leaking out, overwhelming me with bad feelings should I come too close. I can't be having that kind thing taking place in my world, I'm sorry. It can breed only fear in one, and loneliness in the other.

It's not a very pleasant, relaxing on the bog of a morning with your favourite newspaper in hand, suddenly hearing a thunderous rumbling crack coming from above. You glance up to see the roof of your house being gently removed, revealing a lovely blue sky high up in the heavens beyond - noting to yourself that it's actually quite nice out today - before a massive beady eye assumes the position of your late roof, an eye belonging to a nosey giant who peers in at you while your bowels in frustration express their reluctance to leave a job half-finished. Petrified and unsatisfied, you immediately turn claret, flushed with fear and embarrassment, hoping in vain that in naming the giant as the pervert he is, with lungs at full capacity, he will turn and scamper towards the horizon feeling ashamed of himself...

But the nosey giant stays and just smiles at you

That's how those places within our minds which don't wish to be known by us ought to be treated. Albums of memories we've buried deep below, have plastered over and long walked away from. Memories too pained by trauma to accept their own voices but desperately wish that they could. By removing the roof of the fortress they erected, the safe space they need to reside in to guard against knowing more pain, the shame of our scrutiny, and the fear of being judged unfairly by others for feeling the way that they do - by lifting the lid and then peering inside with a curiosity free from all motive and intention - healing through an acceptance of all that we are and have had to endure to get here becomes possible, and so hope is born.

Endeavour to locate and expose, all of the mind's no-go zones while they shit on the bog reading horoscopes, and with a friendly Scouse accent wave down at them and say

"Alright mate!"

(actually, don't use a Scouse accent. It may be too grating for some)

And so as each passing day escorts me closer to death, I make a conscious effort to free up all space in my mind to keep it perpetually vacant. Free from all things unknown and any disposable needless clutter. Because there's always more you can learn that has worth. And believing this allows one to become a learner for life. You'll always have space for new lessons learned as there'll always be room to receive them.

YOU WILL FIGHT ON REGARDLESS

Give everything you have and still more, until you've expended all energy and collapsed in a heap. But know that you would rather have it this way than be beating yourself up forever; pissed up and consumed with rage created in you by witnessing the daily injustices Power has normalised and caused many decent working class folk to now fear losing. 

Don't shut yourself away from the chance to continue to fight with fellow comrades hard-wired to carry on till the bitter end, whose determination and resolve can reignite your fire and make you want to sharpen the blade of your intent and stand up again.

It's precisely these moments, where one feels like they are being suffocated by a blanket of ominous dread, wielded by the hand of Power that is prepared to do whatever it needs to in order to win, that you have to say NO. You're not having it. You won't accept these feelings of helplessness. You won't allow yourself to act in accordance to the script they've written for you. You will fight.

Facts Are Like Bricks. Assumptions Are Like Bricks Which Vanish When Facts Turn Up.

A fact is like a brick. It's concrete. Something you know you can build a structure with that will stand by itself when completed. As long as the ground upon which it's been built isn't subsiding.

An assumption is like a brick which instantly vanishes when the fact it claimed to be calls BS and outs it as a fraud. 

Losing the odd brick near the top of what you built isn't so bad. Holes created so high up don't have much weight to bear. But losing bricks at the base of what you've constructed isn't so good. When facts suddenly turn up at your house telling your assumptions to GFTO then you have several options.

Close your door in the face of the facts and go back inside. But sooner or later your house will start creaking, then groaning, before collapsing.

Or see if at first the facts will fit in the spaces your assumptions used to be. Or strip the house back to re-lay where the facts should be and build your house up once again. Or just demolish it completely, and start from scratch if you have the energy, and know how to build houses. Just never ever fall for the illusion that you can live in someone else's dream. Never buy a Barrett or Persimmon Home.

you cant feel self-pity if you don't have a self

You cant feel self-pity if you don't have a self. Not possible. If you believe there's a self then you split yourself in two. I, myself, take advice from Girls with Spice. Let Two Become One. "Gonna make love to yer baby..." Life is unfair so you feel sorry for your self, not you. Because you is me. So be we. "It's the only way to be..."

Truth Is The Endless Search That Rejoices At Never Being Found

Truth is the endless search that rejoices at never being found, because when humans think they've found the truth they turn it into an f***ing institution that becomes convinced the universe has chosen it for a divine purpose - to allow dominion over those who don't yet possess it - and hope never will.

Truth confers power. However, once in receipt of truth, they cease to continue searching, as if their mission was now complete. And shortly after this point they start upon the eternal quest to make the rest of humanity acknowledge the importance of the truth they have found.

But there is always truth which lies beyond the truth that was found which remains uncovered. To think that the final resting place of truth, the climax of its dialectic - could be found so easily - or by looking at all - just a short meander down the path of what ought to be an everlasting search....

That the human mind in 2020 already deems itself capable of comprehending a truth which has no shadow, demonstrates man's ongoing incapacity for unfettered continual growth and the aplomb with which he is able to suck his own dick with no shame with humanity as his audience.

We are nowhere near our full capacity for what can be known, and as a consequence, our capacity to know the nature of what truth really is. And so therefore it is the unending searching which leads to us uncovering the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth and so on.....which is the truth. A truth which can never be found because it can never be lost. And I rejoice at this news.



Why White Servitude Is Not The Answer To Extinction Revolution's Inability To Act As One

yes, white middle-class people *should* be subservient in any movement towards social justice, just like cis men should be subservient in any movement about gender and white people should be subservient in any movement about race (and climate justice is of course about both of those things, as well as disability, class, land rights, colonialism and everything else.) We don’t have the knowledge of what it is like to like at the sharp end of that oppression, and if we don’t deliberately adopt an attitude of service we will replicate the patterns of leadership and privilege which exist everywhere else in society and which exclude and alienate people.

have the time and the money: we do not have the knowledge What you're asserting is very problematic if taken at face value and needs further clarification I feel in order to enhance its ability to not be taken out of context easily.

I agree. The power the privileged possess ought to be fueling the change that has to happen. But employing that power under a banner of subservience is not the right forward in my mind. It feels totally misguided.

Expecting the consistently oppressed to know of the pathway that leads to their ultimate redemption is wishful thinking. To me, taking that path leads to only more impasses, frustrations and then stagnation. A point where the privileged have ticked off all the boxes of the things they need to do to be absolved of all blame, should things end up at this point again. But it's no way to go forward.

"Tell me, poor person, how exactly may I help you?"

"Just talk to me like a human being instead of a subject"

"Well, I have this purse of monies, which I am quite willing to give to you in order to affirm how much I value your existence. Will this in any way help?"

"Yeah, ok. I'll have some free money, yeah. Cheers."

I'm telling you, adopting an attitude of servitude will never work. Not only is it still terribly patronising, but your solution leads to the propagation of what it is itself. You need to do something much more fundamental than that to build the bridge that connects and fully assembles us. Go much much further. Something you're not willing you do yet, or even consider doing (I love the way things will stay at this point until you do do it! Like its some sort of puzzle with only one solution).

It's something white middle-class people are now desperately trying to find ways not to have to do. Offering their service and resources, even relinquishing all authority of the steering wheel of the narrative in order to not have to endure the internal conflicts and difficulties in accepting the working class as having equal worth. Your words on paper say that you accept us, but your demeanour speaks more convincingly.

Whites needing to be subservient as a solution becomes the thing which is then echoed into the future, leading to its own eventual crises. Turning yourself into a servant, is the best way to hold your hands up in order to avoid having to looking within yourself to find the problem and write the solution.

The solution is always for your actions to contain the essence of the vision of the happy ending. The end itself, and never the means to get there. It's the only way one can overwrite the present with the thing one wishes to see continue into the future.

The Human Spirit Is Converting Beauty Into More Betting Chips

A friend who is currently in Hawaii posted a facebook video (which I can't share because of her privacy settings), which is shot from her perspective. She walks out from the mangroves and palm trees on land onto a lovely stretch of white sandy beach she finds completely free from other people, giving her a sense that it's all hers to fully savour and appreciate until a passerby inevitably walks into the frame, breaking the spell.

Naturally, as is becoming the norm these days, I seized upon the opportunity to post a gratingly earnest response below the video in the comment section:

Just wow! I mean, look at this place....and I know it really exists too because N*** is over there. This is real!!! But already this clip feels like a snippet of archival footage from of a period in human history when it was assumed places of beauty would remain as they were forever.

It's ridiculous when you appreciate how lucky we are, and just how beautiful the place we get given to live on is, and the extent of just how far the destructive urges - which we all have at times - have been allowed to follow through with their aims and purpose to be the winner at any cost.

Holidays we spend in Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Lake District - in any location that possesses awe-inspiring natural beauty that just hits you - are all starting to feel less like lovely breaks away in paradise, and more like final chances to appreciate the beauty of Earth as it was, before we let it slip away by refusing to respond to its cries.

And for what? What personal benefit do we obtain from standing back and allowing people who have chosen to give their dark urges total permission to use the beauty and wonder of our natural world - which belongs to no one but the Earth itself, and so is for everyone - how will our mental health as individuals benefit from allowing the dark side of the human spirit to utilise other people, companies, organisations and conglomerates, to break down this decreasingly beautiful planet and home of ours into even more betting chips to keep playing the never ending, stupid game of poker we all still seem to be gripped by - validating its record of achievement each day by consuming its narrative like we would a bestselling thriller or Netflix box set.

What is the point being the winner when you've had to destroy the paradise you were living in to achieve it?