A Tale of Protest:

A Tale of Protest:

I did not think that my life mattered until some one told me that it did not matter. Before then, I was simply carrying out my protest of a seemingly absurd world, my exploration of a divine mystery, and my responsibilities towards humanity. I was simply fighting the artificial tendency to take survival for granted, the bourgeois privilege of pretending that no one is entitled to any thing, an easy claim to make when one has had all that one could want. I was simply absorbing all the feelings of the beings that surrounded me, plotting for their well-being, for if even a single caterpillar somewhere should be crushed I'd feel it, even if only for a second, and all of those seconds would add up. And they would drive me crazy. And then Evil told me that it did not care if I went crazy. That it had nothing to lose by crushing all the caterpillars. It pretended that it was I that was trying to subordinate life to my will. But as I've said: I did not think I mattered until some one told me that I did not. Because then I heard that nihilistic and demeaning voice of Evil through the ears of every being that my heart had reached out to. And every skin cell began to rebel. The careful order of my delicate psyche defiled by this rapist that suggested that I am replaceable, and that to say otherwise is but an act. In short: I was told I was expendable. And how the masses cheered! And so I fell apart and every last connection that depended on my perseverance snapped. And all the water I was bearing, holding back, the hopes of someday being noticed and yes: understood! And showing others, as befit my Nature, as befits all Spirit, all of it snapped open in a flood. The precision of detail, the ardour of survival, the pressing need for justice, and above all: respect. The notion that each life has value. It all fell apart in one puff of smoke. And yet was this appropriate?? After all: who in whose heart film circulates like blood would think to film to write or to watch this? And were the hippies unified in solidarity or nihilism? Surely Watts said that the Universe depends upon each speck. Surely the sheer number of us creates such a resonance -- such humanity -- that were there only ever twelve people on Earth could never be fathomed. In short: our number as a fact does not preclude our value as an ethic. Would the sheer size of our community not render each act that much more decisive? If I cannot travel down the street without stepping upon some toes, does that not render every step that much more vital? Who has not smoked and seen my drawings that I'd thought so little of (despite painstaking care) and not only seen all their meaning but all so found meaning I had not intended consciously? And how is one to approach God seriously if one cannot even take Self seriously, but seeks to escape accountability for the condition of one's Soul?! Who shall sit like Baphomet upon a rug carpet blackened by cigarettes and meditate away the pleas of his last few friends?

Who's the joke now?

No. I refuse nihilism. For it is you that would sabotage others to perpetuate your petty self. Admit then your own purposelessness and save us a moment to consider you. For our sheer number as a species only fails to give us purpose when the act of propagation is reduced to a desperate pastime and when all your seven million peers are not friends but foes, adversaries whose existence is your own antithesis and with whom you might cancel out.

But does God not love you?
Do you not love God?

Even you, Baphomet.
Were you not once a Jesus freak?

Does your accountability mean naught to you?
Why bother then?
Why protest the convictions of the diligent?
Why make one's own stupidity such a damned virtue?
At least admit that it is the weaker of our two! That intelligence is stronger, and that only intelligence can look upon each speck as an irreplaceable gem.
That humanity is pain.
And no one is expendable.

What totalitarians you nihilists are as you laugh at my convictions.
But I tell you this:
Seven million people do not worry me.
Except if most of them are quite as apathetic and as stupid as are you.
And even then I all ways heard the solemn solitary voices in my desperation.
I remember what that girl looked like who said that thing about that band and so on.
And I love her.
And at least for now, she matters.
Who said any thing about what any one else thinks?
One day they all might know my name.
I would prefer they don't.
For every time I fail I am again the only man.
The hero on his quest.
The One who Feels.
And in that very solitude and all of the humility of facing a futility I find a more convincing argument for the value of life than any worldly measure of success.

And each speck of stardust is a jewel.

Dm.A.A.