MILLENNIUM FALCONS and MILLENNIAL PROBLEMS: Part One.

TECHNOLOGY GONE ROGUE:

The most popular film franchise to date is Star Wars, as will be evidenced soon by the premier of the most recent film in George Lucas’ saga. Yet despite the increasing prevalence of science fiction turning into Science Fact in the present day, it is alarming to note that many millennials* seem to have forgotten the underlying meaning of Star Wars. And yes: this is beyond interpretation.

*MicroSoft Word does not recognize this word.

The Star Wars saga begins aboard an Imperial Space Ship that has tracked down Princess Leia Organa en route to the Death Star. The Death Star is a device capable of annihilating an entire planet. Incidentally, the Death Star gets its name from the fact that it is a Space Station the SIZE and SHAPE of an entire planet, but devoid of life save for that which is IMPORTED to it.

Leia Organa, whose surname derives from the same root word as “organism”, “organ”, and “organic”, is taken captive by a hooded, wheezing menace by the name of Darth Vader, whose name means “Dark Father” in what I am told is some language of Nordic Descent (I could all ways check online, but I have a tendency to forget any thing that I did not really have to WORK for, as I’m sure you do as well.). The mechanical grim reaper, who is faceless and impersonal as he is terrifying, is secretly her OWN Dark Father, though she cannot know that, and he might yet be unaware, as is the Audience.

Before she is abducted, Leia sends two droids (robots, one of whom is an android and the other of whom is a beeping trash can) to deliver a message to whoever might hear it. They escape the vessel, breaking off from what is now a machine of destruction in the same manner as an amoeboid creature breaks off by phagocytosis**. Vader’s personnel consider following the escape pod, but they are told to withhold this maneuver by their superiors, because the pod does not contain life-forms. It DOES, however, unbeknownst to them, contain rogue technology, which becomes the two most recognizable robot fugitives in contemporary history, byfar outshining Johnny Five, Rick Deckard, and the Terminator.

**Word does not recognize THIS word, either.

The droids eventually, after wandering for an excruciatingly long time in the deserts of Tatooine***, find Luke Skywalker, an everyman with a big heart and dreams more grandiose than his prospects. The farmer turns out to be Leia’s brother, though he does not recognize her as any thing more than “beautiful” when he views her video recording. The droids prompt him to find Old Ben Kenobi, a reclusive sensei who is one of a minority of adherents to the ancient religion of the Jedi. The only other apparent Believer is Darth Vader Himself, who has turned to the Dark Side of the Force. What unfolds is a dynamic Battle between Good and Evil in a society that has lost all hope of Freedom, under the oppression of the Empire, and has thereby turned from its Spiritual Origins and resolved itself to cynical intellect and groveling before the sheer facts, both of life, (in the case of Luke’s working class parental units) militarism, (in the case of the Empire Itself and its adherents) and scientific skepticism (in the case of Han Solo, a con artist whose rugged, atheistic views are heavily skewed by his own self-interest and egoism). Obi-Wan becomes the bridge between Luke’s Ordinary World and the Extraordinary World, and even though the Greater World proves just as cynical as Luke’s uncle, and a lot more heartless, it becomes the stage for a dynamic battle between Decency and Indecency that involves magic and mystery. And laser swords.

***Again, Word fails.

Luke Skywalker becomes an archetypal Hero because the trilogy follows his studies to become a Jedi, representing Goodness, and he must CHOOSE whether to remain a Jedi or to become a Sith, representing the evil Dark Side that his Dark Father chose, a disciple of his Father’s Way, a product of his Father’s Generation and the Hell that it created, wherein most people live in Godless ennui and anomie, unknowing that they are being USED by malevolent forces that they are forbidden by force of habit to believe in.

George Lucas, when asked by Bill Moyers if he was creating a new myth, insisted that he was telling “an old myth in a new way”. The Taurus director said that mythology was how we pass down the “meat and potatoes of our society”, a metaphor commonly applied to the archetype of the Bull. He drew his inspiration from his own mentor, an Aries by the name of Joseph Campbell, one of the world’s leading experts on Comparative Mythology, who wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Drawing on the term “monomyth”, an idea invented by James Joyce, Campbell theorized that all stories had the same basic structure, and that in order to retain our Humanity in an age of exceedingly depersonalizing machinery we would have to apply these archetypal forms in the realm of Science Fiction.

Unfortunately, the message was muddled over time. Lucas’ Taurus tendencies became misinterpreted by the public as “greed”, and that cast doubt on the Spiritual Authenticity of the trilogy, reducing it to an entertainment franchise.

Yet I do not need to use statistics to prove that Star Wars remains a player in the Collective Imagination. Personally, I seldom dream in Star Wars colours, though that serves to prove that I have little bias more than it disproves my point; in fact, it demonstrates the clarity with which I can confirm my claim with the evidence that follows. The story is retold in Ratchet and Clank, an immensely popular game that recently celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of its release. Clank is a robot that is produced by a computer defect in a Plant that produces Warbots**** for Chairman Drek, a megalomaniacal C.E.O. who is building a new planet “for his people” (really for “cash, and lots of it.” Pardon the spoiler.) by destroying old ones. Clank, who intercepts an Infobot containing a formal warning, by Drek, of his plans, escapes his mindless siblings by commandeering a spaceship. He is shot down by his pursuants on the desert planet known as Veldin, where a struggling mechanic named Ratchet is trying to build a spaceship of his own, but discovers that he is missing a “crucial component”. When Ratchet witnesses the crash, he goes to investigate, finding Clank and pilfering him. Clank startles Ratchet by announcing his own presence, offering to help Ratchet in exchange for Ratchet’s help; Clank is able to start any ship he chooses, and Ratchet’s ship is just what Clank needs in order to head off Drek, since Drek’s Infobot contains coordinates to a planet that Drek was intending to threaten shortly prior to (if not during, or even after the fact of the) invasion. Just as Ratchet is presented with these two robots and the opportunity to avail themselves of their programming, a sort of modern equivalent of a “magical property” that “Animal Guides” possessed in ancient human lore, Clank’s pursuants land on Veldin, and a deal is made as Clank requested. Throughout the remainder of the game, Ratchet struggles to regard Clank as an equal and not as merely a means towards an end, owing to Ratchet’s mechanical eye. Meanwhile, Clank, who is in many ways more “human” than Ratchet (who also happens to be an anthropomorphic catlike thing called a Lombax*****, though that remains beside the point) tries to win Ratchet’s heart in saving the Solar System. Clank, like C3PO and R2D2, (the aforementioned android and trash can duo from Star Wars) is a machine that is a fluke, serving human purposes instead of simply carrying out mechanical functions.

And yes: the movie and the reboot, which molest this touching plot, completely destroy the story in all its nuance and character development. Though they still weren’t TOO bad; I guess that the creators decided they could mess it up as much as they wanted since you can’t beat the original any way.

 Dm.A.A.

THE QUEST OF THE BROKEN SPEAR: Chapter One.

September 2013: THE FAMILIAR WORLD.

I quit my job as a cashier at Joann Fabrics, in semi-rural Poway, following a rejection by Dana M.Z.

I meet Mrs. Delonge, the mother of Tom Delonge, and a probable descendant of the De Longespée family, mere days before the conclusion of my retail stint.

I work my final day at Joann Fabrics, on Friday 13, 2013.

I hear Lorde’s song “Royals” for the first time on the radio as my Father drives me home from work.

September 14, 2013:

1.   I celebrate my first day of freedom at a L.A.N. party at Jay Dey’s house.

2.   I meet Susan’s boyfriend, a Marine with P.T.S.D.

3.   I discover that Anthony Riccio’s mother has died.

4.   With the immediate and unprompted help of Jay, I am drunk for the first time in my life.

5.   Jay helps me to confess my feelings for Aisha ben Hassine.

6.   At Denny’s intoxicated, I tell a stranger in the stall about Anthony, his late Mother, and his obsession with “the Ego”. He replies that the “ego doesn’t even exist.”

7.   Back at the Dey Residence, I vomit.

The following day I begin a new dream log. Having concluded my first Journal, it is not long afterwards that I begin my Red Book with a dream involving Dana. One of its earliest dreams involve the Death of a Mother.

An other detail of note: I hear “Royals” for the second time in my life at the L.A.N. party.

AUTUMN 2013:

·        Micaiah Fonken leaves San Diego, with my help and a great deal of monetary support on my part.

·        REFUSAL OF THE CALL: Despite prodding to return to college, especially by an old professor named Ali (who acts as a MENTOR and an OLD MAGICIAN) I find that my parents are no longer willing to finance my return, when I most need them. I am outraged.

December 2013: THE CALL TO ADVENTURE comes as a literal phone call from Arthur Valenzuela, on a Wednesday. It is on this same Day of the Week, which is named in Latin languages after Mercury, the God of Communications, that Andrew (whose Sun Sign, Virgo, is ruled by Mercury) had confided in me his CENTIPEDE DREAM, also by phone, and mere moments upon my return from a spontaneous and mysterious outing.

Arthur’s call regards an assignment that he has to keep a Dream Record. I share with him a seemingly random entry from my Red Book. The entry refers to an annual debate tournament known as the Winter Classic. I hesitate to explain that part to Arthur, as though I were taking a Leap of Faith. He finds it peculiar, owing to the fact that he has been looking for a volunteer Judge to fill a spot at the same tournament that very year. The tournament happens to be held that very same Friday. I agree to act as a Judge.

Dm.A.A. 

Rage contre la machine:

 I see you eyeing me. Natalie. ;-*

Dm.A.A.

pétrole et aliens:

Dm.A.A.

Letter to an Unknown E-mail:

For the record: if you do not know me, disregard. If you DO, know that I guessed the last few letters of my own accord. I had the opportunity to access your entire public record online. The Age of Privacy is over. So be it. I retain the fortitude to resist temptation. I am no Faust; I do not require knowledge to feel secure, only Imagination.

In this day and age, it is ironical that people ask for numbers when all that information is available, for sale at the price of a Body Shot. Yet it is a testament to our integrity that we do things the old-fashioned way. When we look people up online and find (to our shock!) that they are convicted stalkers, we forget that we had to stalk them to acquire that information. Technology makes hypocrites of us all.

Its saving grace is that if everyone is a stalker, no one is. At any rate: specific details are preferred to superstitions and nebulous generalizations. For better or for worse, I had to use this set of media to their full extent, drawing the line only at what I could handle knowing as impersonal data. To have left the computer untouched in this respect would have been to accrue the blame due to a Luddite Cave-Dweller who had the power all ways at his fingertips to act with influence. And there is no point dwelling in nostalgia for a time when this was unnecessary. The world moves on, as people become less available in person. As much as it pained me in its Absurdity, I had an obligation to adapt, to keep up and EVEN to compete. Forgive me.

At least I can see it. That should testify towards my human-hearted magnanimity. I hope it absolves me of blame and marginalization.

Again: if you know not who this is, it did not matter any way. If you do: know I spared the more incriminating details, for fear that the emotions that you and I shared (as Empathy would attest to) would fall into the hands of an incidental namesake.

Dm.A.A.

SUCCèS:

Dm.A.A.

Four Thirty-two:

http://recreatingbalance1.blogspot.com/2014/09/how-to-easily-convert-any-music-to.html

Dm.A.A.

Sexual Aphorisms, Part #??: The Hardest Part.

The hardest part of seduction and sexual relationships in general is to figure out what the other person is trying to do to please you. You can attempt to please the other person, but you may never know what her own intent is to satisfy your own needs. And it would be barbaric to presume that she is looking ONLY to satisfy her OWN needs, as though that were the only way to interpret her motives and it were some sort of “easy fix” for the problem created by looking to satisfy the Other but not knowing what the Other requires for her satisfaction.

Dm.A.A.

SCIENCE FICTION PITCH:

In the beginning there was Nothing. The Godhead was alone in his abode. He had no friends, no lovers, no adventures. Every thing was dark and dank. One day, he decided to go on an adventure. So The Godhead said: let there be light! And the Universe was born in a collossal BANG of totally spontaneous creative energy. With its conception came all so the Dimensions, all of which were organized within the SuperDimension known as Time. In order to perceive these dimensions an Observer Being was required. So Life was conceived under only the most absurd conditions, which the Observer came to perceive, for some time, as pristine, since he was produced from it and it worked. The Observer Observed the conditions of his home, and he saw that It Was Good.

The Godhead promptly elected to hide from Himself. So he split his identity into an infinite multitude of Gods. These abode primarily in a sanctuary called the Ideal, wherein they were protected from the Dimension of Change. When the time was right they elected to manifest as physical entities on the Plane of Change. So they became Stars and planets, working together to co-create entire galaxies for lightyears and lightyears of space, ad infinitum.

Circling one particular star were nine planets, two of which were called Male and Female. Between them was a planet known as Home. Home became home to various species of Life, all of whom were endowed with the Gender Duality of Male and Female.

For aeons Life prospered on Home. After all: it had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. As the storms of the Creator Gods raged on outside the biosphere of Home, the inhabitants of this paltry planet were protected by its own Godlike Life Force: Mother Earth, whose corollary was the Moon Satellite.

There came to be one organism that threatened the serenity of Home. And that was a parasitic strain of lifeless virus known as Technology. Its existence was viral and parasitic; it would live only by exploiting its host organism. Its entire purpose was to destroy Home Itself. It grew by making use of petty organisms whose intelligence was lesser than their fellows. By enslaving them it would pretend to endow them with its own subtlety, so that they too would become-mechanical and would justify its agenda to their own petty minds by pretending to be of a surpassing intelligence.

Its chief instrument was the stupidest of all races, which will be referred to from here on in as the Slave Race, the Weak Observer, or Humanity.

A war began betwixt Mother Earth and her Parasite. The Goddess manifested her Nature to the full extent of its temporal ability. But the Parasite found an antithesis to Nature: Civilization. As the mechanical briar grew it consumed entire landscapes in its image, building a Global Empire. But then Nature would bubble up and make her move, laying waste to the Global Civilization in one cataclysmic event. And time and time again Technology would regenerate, reconstructing its self from its ashes. Its shards would become new civilizations whose inhabitants eventually forgot that they had once been a part of a Grand Scheme. Technology was subtle in its trickery of the Slave Race. Humans would come to believe at once that all their ancestors were wrong, and yet they would at the same time forget the Universality of this Error, forgetting that all of their ancestors had been “wrong” together. So Technology would successfully submerge Earth’s greatest weapon: Human Nature. Technology, being non-Human, could never totally eliminate the Human Instinct. So all civilization was adorned with images and records of the deeds of Human Beings, who might have been Weak of Will and Wit but to the same degree just as susceptible to the Male God and the Female Goddess as they were to Technology. As Technology grew more and more powerful, It would become more and more adept and clever at denying the validity of these two Deities that had all ways been of camaraderie and service to Planet Home. Yet to the same degree that Technology tightened its grip, Mother Nature would slip away, for Humans will defy control and use Technology towards Natural Purposes whether they are conscious of this tendency or not.

So why have humans elected to remain unconscious? It is because they were fooled. Obviously, since they can only survive on Home, it is in their best interest to preserve Home. Yet Technology was subtle as Humans were stupid. It endowed the Human Mind with a Technological Intellect that would answer to the Authority of Technology directly. This was achieved by channeling the Religious Instinct with which all Observers are endowed towards the fictional entity of Science. The chief fiction was that Humans USED technology, and not the other way around. In truth, Humans can only “use” technology when they are rebelling against it.

Technology convinced the Weak Race that they had managed to set foot on the Moon, and that in the same way as they had reconstructed their Global Population (which, from the perspective of any one sub-civilization, appears to be a “quest of conquest” and “Manifest Destiny”) that they might “colonize” the remainder of their Star System.

The truth is that the Humans never managed to get a single scrap of metal out of the Protective Sphere made by Mother Earth and Moon. It all ways came back as a burnt up husk. Such is what happens when the Beings of one planet try to send any part of their planet out into the Domain of the Other Planets. It gets sent back, devoid of its use, like an adolescent who tries to prove his masculinity at a Bar for Veterans.

It was said by one Slave comedian that the “Planet is fine, but the PEOPLE are fucked.” The truth is that both are in danger. Technology protects Human Beings insofar as they are stupid enough to be controlled. It sets up hierarchies of slavery and then stages slave uprisings only to keep the Humans at War with one an OTHER, while all the while Home Perishes and Mother Earth weeps. It flatters its Master Classes and then takes away their authority, leaving them to fight entire lifetimes only to regain their Godlike pretense while their Slaves fight for the same throne in vengeance. Technology manipulates all Human “knowledge”, and it governs all Human economic and political dealings.

All the while the Proper Function of the Human Being – to Observe – is submerged in the Civilized Agenda. So one question remains, for which no remaining Human Being has an answer, for he has not had the chance to Observe it:

Will Technology finally win? Or will Earth set it back? And if it is set back, will it be set back forever? And what then must become of Human Beings?

Dm.A.A.

CHILDREN:

Children:

All life carries intrinsic meaning.

The fetus is all ready a human being.

It does not have gender when it is still vulnerable to abortion.

Thus abortion is not a women’s issue but a human issue.

It is literally the only human issue that is neither a women’s issue nor a men’s issue.

Because life matters, abortion is immoral.

This is not a matter of individual discernment.

It is Universal to Human Beings and ubiquitous to Rational Beings.

Part of female identity must be the exceptional care that she takes of her body, only because it might bear a child.

No feminist interested in distributing pity amidst rape victims wants to help the woman to prevent rape in the first place.

It is too embarrassing to admit to a part in the victimhood. So the irrational prejudice acts as a demeaning evil whose aid must come late and all ways depends upon the existence of victims. Such a necessity on the part of the organization produces the fatalism that characterizes misandry. Hence men are falsely convicted of being rapists. The alienation that they experience as a result produces the rapist.

The affirmation of life as having intrinsic meaning ends this cycle of abuse.

Abuse towards the unborn child is literally the karma whose other end rests in abuse of the woman.

Older institutions prevented both with greater success than we can find in the present.

Feminism is predicated upon the presupposition that women are capable of Reason.

Egalitarianism indicates that every one must have an equal opportunity at the Truth.

Thus egalitarian feminism must conclude that logical conclusions are Universal and available to all Rational Beings who simply choose to avail of them.

There are no women’s issues or men’s issues. The very notion is sexist.

There are only human issues.

Abortion is the topic that transcends the distinction.

Abortion is Universally immoral.

Parenthood is all ways a choice.

Childhood is all ways a fate.

Children cannot be called selfish by default.

They pursue their needs at all costs.

But selfishness is not the pursuit of needs.

It is the pursuit of wants at the EXPENSE of others’ needs.

To learn discernment is to learn to distinguish needs from wants.

Selfishness is all so characterized by AGGRESSION.

Only some children show early signs of aggression.

These signs are independent in many cases of upbringing.

Many children need not be aggressive to have their needs met.

They are those whose parents did their job.

If they are aggressive any way, it is because they are pursuing wants rather than needs.

This behavior must be prohibited.

Any one who fails to absolves himself of any right to judge of children.

If sex is suspected often as a motive, this prejudice can only be justified if sex is acknowledged as a need.

If sex is a need, it follows that it is a right towards which one is entitled.

Only by protecting needs can one discern selfishness from altruism, for failure to do so would be the pursuit of a desire at an other’s expense. This would threaten the entire moral fabric that preserves Humanity.

An injustice does not cease to be an injustice because it is vocalized.

Facts do not cease to be facts because they are ignored.

Contemporary thought daemonizes the rapist for pursuing his needs.

This is ostensibly childish behavior.

Yet that accusation is daemonizing of the very INNOCENT people that children are.

In fact: to be a “victim” of rape one must still be a child, because an adult woman should, as previously explained, take precautions.

Feminism suggests that “don’t rape” and “don’t get raped” are distinct.

Yet this is a false duality from the perspective of the unborn fetus.

If life does not have intrinsic value, every thing is permissible.

If rationality is not Universal, any thing can be rationalized.

One has no alternative but to admit to the Universality of Logic.

It is not Universality that threatens the human being, but Relativism.

The rapist would in THEORY regard his logic as Universal.

Yet if we permit Relativism to take the place of Universalism then he needs not even a defense. All logic is relative to HIM.

The rapist has rights.

His rights are to have his needs met and to find Equality with all of non-celibate Humanity.

Preferential treatment has robbed him.

Hypocrisy has made him a scapegoat.

But his attitude follows logically from moral decay within the social system that condemns him.

If he cannot retain his rights, neither can his victim.

In that sense, victim and assailant are one.

The assailant actualizes this oneness via the violent act.

Yet the violence is unnecessary if the Need is acknowledged as Right to begin with.

So rape cannot be an exceptional justification for abortion.

Abortion would have therefore to justify rape.

Yet it is preferable to acknowledge the Universal Value of Life.

Only then can one put an end to the violence.

This is what it means to value human rights.

The conventional view is that women are incapable of Reason and misconstrue aggression as self-entitlement. The view continues to suggest that aggression is necessary to receive sexual satisfaction on the parts of both parties.

This is what “rape culture” signifies.

To be dispossessed of this view, we must conclude that aggression is unnecessary.

We must substantiate it by behaving like trees rather than parasites: receiving, giving, but never taking.

We must all so therefore be careful that we do not hold people to double-standards for hormonal reasons. Encouraging activity in deed that one discourages in word is a form of hypocrisy. If “self-entitlement” is rewarded, it becomes justified. And the rapist finds a rational excuse. The act of violence is deduced from the premise. The deduction is valid. It is only the premise that is false.

Such matters must be handled at their core.

The solution to inequality in sexual practice is Trust.

No ideology can produce Trust.

It is a choice on the part of the Individual.

Trust dissolves boundaries and prejudices in a way that does not require force.

Trust is the affirmation of the Intrinsic Value of Life.

It protects all.

Thus we must remember that the World owes us something. And we owe something to the World. If Life is to be preserved as an Intrinsic (rather than arbitrary) Value, it must be acknowledged as an Intrinsic Imperative.

Otherwise we remain children in the lesser sense.

To be a Child in the Greater Sense is to be well-integrated and blameless.

One-sidedness is a mark of barbarism.

The mark of a civilization’s character is in how it treats its children.

Taking only what we need, we become patient.

Feeding the needs of the neighbor, except when REASON forbids us to, we become safe.

All scapegoating is the result of a lack of Integration.

The alpha male projects weakness upon the beta male.

The hyperfeminine woman projects evil upon hypermasculine men.

One is not born a rapist.

One becomes one by being perceived as one.

Such is sociology.

Become again as children if you wish to see the Kingdom.

Dm.A.A.

This was written from the proud perspective of a detached and celibate observer.

CONCLUSION:

Conclusion:

I will not be accused of self-interest from an inferior moral posture. I have been blameless in carrying out the Greatest Good to the extent of my human ability. I have been hurt by self-interest and self-interest alone, and none of this was my own. I will not be penalized for those needs that I would have had fulfilled under the banner of justice, nor will I grovel before the sheer facts of human – really INHUMAN – depravity, as though that could, against all the instruments of Reason, serve as justification for such wrongs. My passions have been in accord with my spiritual quest, and my wrongdoers had turned from this quest despite my repeated warnings and attempts to nurture. My nurturing has been exploited by moral degeneracy infracting upon innocence, and I only turned from my healing quest when that same degenerate took the innocence of an other whom I’ve loved.  That innocence was mine to absolve in my own; it did not belong to my parasite. He shall never judge of me nor find refuge from my justice, for I know now that he has not lived up to his own moral demands of me. I know this because I have internalized those values and fought the moral fight that he was too great a coward to wage on the sovereign soil of his own Soul. I know now that it is in the nature of a parasite to accuse the host of parasitism, for to demoralize is to draw goodness from a host as a tapeworm draws food from a digestive tract, only to corrupt its name in hypocritical vainglory. A hypocrite must accuse the innocent of hypocrisy, for it is in his nature to make accusations of others that pertain exclusively to himself. A narcissist sees all others as only an extension of his ego.

Dm.A.A.

BIAS: (A True Story.) CHAPTER ONE.

BIAS: (A True Story.)

Chapter One: How I Became a K Debater…

By avenue of a series of fortuitous coincidences, I managed to restore my career as a competitive debater by joining the team at Palomar Community College, under the prestigious tutelage of Brandan Whearty, a National Hero in the Forensics Community. For those who do not know: the term “Forensics” refers not exclusively to the analysts whom we hire to find criminals via indirect evidence, at greater personal risk to ourselves in case they might prove to be wrong (as in the situation wherein we have been framed deliberately because Forensics is ubiquitous to the same degree as it is popular, and it draws its popularity from its ubiquity, and to the same degree that it is ubiquitous literally ANY crook can figure out how to manipulate it, even Iago from Othello).

Forensics is all so a term for the Art of Rhetoric. The commonality between the two disciplines owes primarily to the notion of unveiling the Truth and capturing a Villain.

It is of tremendous irony therefore that I began my return to the world of competitive debate via a turning-away-from the entire concept of “Truth”.

The story begins in a High School Psychology Class. An associate (who will be referred to here by the pseudonym King Bear III) had been assigned to keep a Dream Journal, and he knew by avenue of either word-of-mouth or social networking that I was in the habit of doing so. With respect bordering on reverence he asked me to guide him through the Dimension of the Unknown this one time. I obliged. On a Wednesday I think it was that I received a phone call from him. I had no specific method for Dream Journaling. The Jungian School was hard to come by, and I had to contend with psychiatric Nazis who insisted that DESPITE the overwhelming body of anecdotal evidence in Carl Jung’s favour the old Swissman’s theories had been “disproven”. (In short: one had no reason to ACTUALLY READ Jung, even to learn his differences from Freud, whose enduring influence on a Subconscious Level [even in the minds of his contemporary critics and cynics] has created the dismal Reality that he had posited, all most as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is all so for this reason – that Jung’s view was of a surpassing beauty to Freud’s – that Jung has historically been marginalized.)

Nonetheless I mustered what courage I had, and I withdrew my own Red Book from its position upon my bookshelf. This tome I had purchased for a slim price that year, and it would continue to hold value for me that was priceless. Its jacket was supple as snakeskin, and it was adorned on its backside by a red sticker that had been given to me by a friend named Brianna Love. The sticker, which would all ways peel somewhat from the edges, contained upon it the depiction of a young, bespectacled lady, drawn in Japanese Manga fashion and printed in white ink exclusively, upholding two peace signs with her fingers.

I cracked the tome at random and, if memory serves, read directly from the first entry I saw, the one that I had opened to. Within this dream I referenced an annual High School Debate Tournament that I recalled from my years at the same school that Bear still attended. It was one of my few dreams, if not my only one, to make specific reference to this Tournament at the time. It felt odd for me to convey it to him. There was even a brief moment, like a breath taken between runs on a wind instrument in the orchestra, that I omitted that detail, for it had aroused in me a feeling that I could classify as neither embarrassment nor fear, and if I’d had to be defensive I would have said it was embarrassing to cling to this detail from the now outdated “past”.

It was precisely this detail of course that caught the interest of King Bear III. He had been at the time the President of the Debate Team at the school. I might have known this by then, though I’d forgotten. At any rate: he did not hesitate to invite me then and there, over the phone, upon the conclusion of my recollection, to act as a volunteer judge for the same Annual Tournament that my dream had made reference to. It was being held that very same weekend.

Dm.A.A.

The Lost Community (and the Paradise of the Past).

The Lost Community and the Paradise of the Past.

Progress is definitely a RECENT invention.

It was really the product of the work of Hegel, a rather stuffy German intellectual of the eighteenth century.

As it turns out, Foucault was right in saying that every student of philosophy would find Hegel standing at the end of every corridor of contemporary Western thought. Yet Foucault made one classically French mistake: he excluded the Uninitiated Public. It is not only the philosopher who encounters Hegel. EVERY one encounters Hegel! Yet few know it.

This is not unlike the paradox of Samadhi. All beings are enlightened, but only the Initiated Few are aware of this fact. Elitism and egalitarianism are a duality that the ascetic yogi leaves behind.

Hegel was of course the teacher of Marx. And Marxism suffuses contemporary neo-Liberal thought, which permeates our media and social common sense.

Marx insisted that, as in the Hegelian model, history is a MARCH OF PROGRESS. Yet Hegel, the hyper-rational Virgo, (whose notorious Taurus pupil was of a common Earthly Element) had made the mistake of excluding any Religion that could not be rationalized. And so it would be with the man who famously uttered the words that “religion is the opiate of the masses.”

Consider what is considered the oldest Human Religion: (at least by its own estimation, which has not been out of accord with the findings of contemporary Aristotlean physics) Hinduism. According to Hinduism, Time is Cyclical. It comes not in waves but rather cycles. (I do not preclude that it can come all so in waves, but let us make the idiomatic accommodation for one moment.)

The Yuga Cycle begins in a Golden Age that is longer than any of the following Ages, and this is a period of Peace devoid of even the conception or the hint of Evil or Discord. Then the Cycle proceeds into the Silver Age, wherein Evil is first introduced in dim shades and creeping, unsettling whispers, not yet shocking but novel and disquieting. Evil bubbles up to the surface over those millennia, until it reaches Balance with Good in the Bronze Age. It is interesting to note that people are in our age often puzzled by Star Wars; “How can one restore Balance to the Force by destroying half of it?” The half is of course Evil, or the Dark Side. The Balance that our contemporary mind conceives of is the Warlike balance of the Bronze Age, and it speaks volumes of our depravity that we can think of balance only in terms of Equal Grounds for violence between two warring factions. The Balance that the Jedi speak of is of course the HARMONY of the Golden Age, devoid of the disturbing CHAOS that is Evil and Ignorance.

The Final Stage of the Yuga Cycle is the Iron Age. This is all so referred to as the Kali Yuga, the Age of Black Time. In this stage, Shiva takes the form of Kali, a daemon that enshrouds the Manifest World in Darkness and Despair. During this age, time speeds up, the Teachers of the Ancient Wisdom Disciplines are totally marginalized and ignored, and Evil triumphs over Good. The consequence is a cataclysmic event that has been Universally promised throughout the World’s Religions: The End of the World. At that point the Cycle begins anew, and Balance is restored.

We are living in the Kali Yuga presently.

We have been for a while.

It is said to end around 2025 or so.

Considering this perspective it is easy to see that progress is sort of a silly idea. Yes: science, reinforced by the Hegelian superstitions of the eighteenth century, (as well as those of the SEVENTEENTH century which Hegel himself drew upon) creates the illusion of progress. But think of the arts, for instance. Alan Watts said that we have to walk with two feet forward, that every step of one foot deserves a step by its opposite; that in short technological progress must be accompanied by an increase in SKILL in the use of that technology.

Yet the music industry shows otherwise. Musicianship is no longer respected as either a tradition NOR some thing that one can “just pick up” as though from a past life. The CORPORATION runs EVERY aspect of it. It tunes all the music to the same frequency, (A = 440 Hertz, a.k.a. Goebbels’ Frequency) exhibits an egregious and even barbaric degree of Compression (Bill O’Reilley once Fascistically denied that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were being used to torture prisoners from the Middle East, whose sensibilities for music would of course be of a surpassing subtlety, and his denial is despite the fact that audiophiles have called that very band “unlistenable” owing mainly to their Absurd compression tendencies), and confines our ears to four-chord songs by people who cannot sing artfully but are still praised for having won the vocal “competition” necessary to get a record deal. We all know that this Emperor is not wearing any clothes, but we subject ourselves to the monotony of redundant radio airplay because we are discouraged from complaining if we cannot Do, we are discouraged from Doing is we cannot Succeed, and we are told that we cannot Succeed unless we Conform, meaning, upon the reflection we perform in isolation, that we would simply Become-the-Problem by trying to solve it. And since we are all ostensibly “equal”, the isolated critic does not even think to raise his voice in Absurd Protest, for to do so would be to state a redundant fact, and if HE cannot do it, why should he believe that any body else (any one “better than him”, which he refuses to imagine) CAN?

It is not hard to imagine that we are living in the End Times when one considers just this one example. Our strides in technology, which Hinduism Itself had prophesized as the Mastery of the Electricities, have afforded us a studio abounding in recording hardware and software which remains in the hands of an Elite who control most of our Media and Common Sense. And what do they do with it? Devoid of tradition, save for that of the twentieth century, (when the Nazis were in power and had gained psychic influence, ostensibly, over the London Orchestra) the Industry ABUSES its technology and allows its puppets to be street-rats and vengeful degenerates who want only a skyrocket to success in place of the laborious process that it takes to MASTER something, REGARDLESS of whether or not one is ultimately Known for it. The Way of the Lone Ascetic Yogi has all but vanished; nothing is enjoyed for its own sake any more, for it is all ways made to serve a Utilitarian Process that would ultimately re-enforce the Consumer Capitalist Culture. Yet all the while liberals preach progress and pretend that civility is a product of the last seventeen years, and the very people who should be fighting the Corporate State are its staunchest advocates, every bit as much as they had been in 1970.

NOW do you believe me that the World is Coming to an End?

In context, it is laughable (though one shudders to laugh openly in public about it) when some millennial insists that the Past was Great if You Were White. The Hindus were not white, though the personification of their Saints was. The Zen Buddhists were not White, though they prized that colour above diamonds and rubies. Enlightenment and Purification is a Universal Human Theme. And it is ultimately the totalization of Individual Potential. So it would follow logically that the measure of a Culture’s Health is in relation to this Higher Good and Spiritual Greatness. So a hierarchy of cultures is totally appropriate and necessary; to live without it would be to delve into madness.

Discrimination used to be a term of masculinity, alongside its synonyms discernment and discretion. Decadence was a mark of shame; to have “class” meant to have attained great progress, or to have been born into a noble tradition and raised in accordance with it. To be “aristocratic” was lauded by even the most egalitarian of intellectuals, to be seated “upon a high horse” meant that one was courtly and sophisticated, and one met condescension with respect, for it was an opportunity to Learn Something. To be “old” was to be Wise, and no one spoke of Equality without sounding pretentious and self-entitled, for while there are standards by which to assess Superiority, and even these standards had to be tested, how can one assess Equality? Would any one ACTUALLY subordinate one’s self to the values of a total stranger just based upon that stranger’s WHIM? Who is HE to preach his own conception of Equality? In whose God’s Eyes are we Equal, that I might not be allowed to point out the error of another’s ways?

And this is not peculiar to our generation. It was a problem as early on as in Kierkegaard’s time. Yet as the problem grows so does ignorance of it. Once a theory is “disproven” by the Scientific Community, it is forgotten, however effective it was in enriching and even saving the Individual Life. Hence Jung’s work remains not only unfinished but untouched throughout the world of psychology, so that the vast majority of psychic data (the Unconscious) is left untapped and only a standardized set of tautological, self-contradictory theories about the Conscious mind – that do not even admit to their own contradiction, as Kierkegaard, Jung, and Buddha would! – is left in its place, like a stopper on the Soul.

What was life in the past, then?

In the past: it did not matter “who you were”. The millennial argument that Generation So-and-So was “good if you were white” etc. is silly because the notion of being “white” is in fact ALL SO a recent invention. Even if it was around at the conception of the United States, the traditions that DROVE that conception and its immediate aftermath reached back MUCH further, drawing on rich traditions as a mature Oak draws nutrients from its loamy home via its roots.

What made the Past GREAT was that what mattered was NOT “who you were” but WHAT SOCIETY WAS. No matter WHO you were in respect to the social hierarchy of your culture, you were a contributor TO this culture, and its collective greatness was yours. And this Goal, once attained, was of such brilliance that it could ubiquitously surpass any individual ambitions one might have. Even the LOWLIEST life form, the parasitic villain whose envy threatens to destroy the civil social fabric, was a Part of the Whole, and that is not distinct from the Beatific Vision that all the world’s religions since the early days of Hinduism have expressed. Yet the poetry is lost on the contemporary person who is so upset by the expression of his own “lowliness” (though it is not explicitly stated in his case; his own conscience and insecurity simply supplement the details.) that he ignores the point, which is literally the Bigger Picture: the WHOLE!!

It should be noted that I am not expressing a Fascistic paradigm, but rather its total antithesis, and not an antithesis in the sense of an equal opponent of equal terror and foreboding, but rather an antithesis in the sense of its rightful conqueror. (The former interpretation is a Kali Yuga attitude; the latter is a Bronze Age mentality, and the miscommunication between the two is analogous to the aforementioned distance between the Golden and Bronze Ages.)

Fascism commits the Fallacy of Naturalism. It insists that the Past was Great BECAUSE IT WAS THE PAST, and so only by FORCING OUR WAY we can RECREATE THE PAST. This is archaism. It is the reason that Romanticism has produced Fascism.

MY mentality is not Archaism. I do not purport that the Past is great BECAUSE it was the Past; let me be perfectly clear about that. I insist rather that the Past was Great because it was CLOSER TO ETERNITY. It is by finding ETERNITY that one transcends the Kali Yuga.

So in that sense Progress is possible. And it is only so in that sense. Because this is what transcendence of modernity offers that equality cannot:

Freedom.

Freedom to say what you feel even if others think you’re crazy.

Freedom from Kafkaesque institutions that obligate you to subordinate yourself to what the Corporate State approves of as a sensible state of consciousness.

Freedom to, as Levitch put it, “stand up on a chair in the middle of the room to change perspective.”

Freedom to preach one’s Truth, as part of a Greater Truth, without being condemned by those who arrogantly brag that they have none.

Freedom to love against the rules and to live out of one’s conscience even when it is above the Law.

Freedom from subordinating one’s Joys to the Will of the Group even when those Joys are of a HIGHER QUALITY than the Joys of the Group’s adherents, whose alarm and envy at one’s deviance is just as arbitrary as their own Joys.

Freedom to heal and to forgive those adherents without being taken advantage of BY them owing to the same ignorance that one has to heal and forgive in them.

Freedom to teach and to learn.

Freedom to EXCEL.

Freedom to TRANSCEND.

Freedom to LIVE AT ONE’S TOTAL CAPACITY, or at least to have that hope.

It is not unusual for a contemporary youth to consider the justifications underlying a ban on climbing Mount Everest. Rape cannot be justified to the millennial mind (at least not publically), but murder can. And so can the barbaric murder of our freedom, under the auspices of Our Protection!!

What became of the desire to fulfill that Spiritual Purpose that comes from climbing to the Highest Peak, at great personal risk to one’s petty human life, if only to come near to touching the Cosmos?!?

What became of the desire to grow up as the Redwood Tree does, to live simply by giving and receiving, never TAKING like the parasite does but neither being troubled by its pettiness, forever rooted and yet constantly reaching closer and closer to the Infinite, without NEEDING to dally or change direction and topple?!?

The Voices of the Past speak of these ideals.

And some of these voices are quite recent. They are only forgotten because, as time speeds up, forgetfulness gains in pitch, just as our music has risen by 8 Hertz from its Harmony with the Cosmos.

But it is not impossible to Progress still.

Find Inner Transcendence, and think not that this comes at the expense of External Accountability. It is rather that, as Kierkegaard explained and explicated, the Religious Dimension INFORMS the Moral One. And from either vantage point one can spot a fake or traitor. But ONLY from one of them; an aesthete who has not yet self-initiated his Spiritual Quest, but who has only pretended to it, or who has reached the apex of his Icarean flight and then plummeted into the Diabolical, has no opinion of value. His value is only as a part of the whole, as all parasites are. And as has all ways been known, it is only from a great height that he can be truly loved, for there is so little love from his own perspective. As I have stated, enlightenment transcends egalitarianism and elitism, including both. He too is a part of the Whole, but only by condescension towards him can this whole be seen, for he is blind to it.

And I say “SELF-initiated” not without sincerity.

The longing for the traditions of the past is fierce in many.

But guidance from the elders can do little for us now.

Even they are susceptible to ill persuasion now.

Each of us must find one’s own way.

Yet paradoxically solidarity matters more now than ever before.

One must marry individualism with solidarity.

One must learn to judge by the loyalty of one’s fellows.

Contradiction is not a problem, unless it is a faithlessness. Paradox is a test of faith, for it involves a leap of faith, riding without the training wheels of Reason. We must not confuse paradoxical contradictions for faithlessness. And we must learn to recognize faithlessness intuitively before it tears us apart again.

Namaste.

Dm.A.A.

Why Natives Do Not Own This Land. (First Part.)

Why Natives Do Not Own This Land.

When my family fled the remains of the Former Soviet Union, an attempt at actualising Marxist ideals that ended its 72-year-stint in economic shambles, the topic of being poor was something I learned quickly to suppress. Mother did not take kindly to it, asking me desperately to divulge who it was that had accused me of being poor. So I played along and pretended we were wealthy. It seemed to be what my parents had been aiming for; all Russians have a lingering envy for the bourgeois, and pretensions to aristocracy are not uncommon in that culture. It is called a peasant's pipe dream.

It was not unlike the question of religion. Brought up by Soviet chemists, I did not hear religion brought up ever at the table. I was first asked about my religion by some elementary school classmates. They asked if I celebrated Chanukah or Christmas. I answered Christmas, and as a result of the consequent label I self-identified as "Christian" throughout the greater part of what must have been my seventh year. The truth is that my parents never brought me up celebrating Christmas. But the fact of Christmas as an entity was hard to hide from a perceptive kid, and it was easier to simply go along with the popular trend than to explain the intricacies of the Christian Church to me.
I do not blame them for their approach and for its unexpected outcomes. After all: it was one of the few genuinely Christlike things about my family: that we would turn the other cheek and give unto Caesar Caesar's due.

It is synchronous and funny that ere I enscribe this tale a big macho black van passes me on the corner of Valley Parkway and Escondido Boulevard, blasting Coolio's classic hit "Gangster's Paradise". The opening line is: "as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." and it is certainly a possibility that this was my thought mere minutes prior, leaving a Thrift Store to buy a cheap tea at Starbucks Coffee.

When my family moved to the United States, we were poor. Yet my clever and self-involved parents managed to work their way up through the ranks of the biochemical research community, settling comfortably (if precariously) in the Upper Middle Class of San Diego, California. The American Dream came true for them, chiefly owing to their tunnel vision. Theirs was not mere myopia, but microscopia. What else can be expected of someone who studies mitochondria all day?

Alfonso Rojas was a different character entirely. He lacked the breathtaking restraint and courage to play along and climb the corporate ladder like the rest of us. A Native radical, his sense of self-entitlement was even more obvious behind  the closed doors of a Cleveland Grand Hotel Room than it was on the Debater's Podium. The term "bully" does not account for him in all due detail. He was a proto-Fascist, every bit as dangerous as some Bible Belter who wanted to Make America Great Again and got his wish.

All Fascism is grounded in self-entitlement. It is a sense that the Promised Land belongs properly to you and your tribe.

And to the man who was truly disadvantaged liberal rhetoric evokes not only sympathy but even a touch of amusement. It is so ironic, because it can only be afforded from a position of privilege; it is inconceivable to the truly disadvantaged.

It is not the Native that feels most the whip of poverty and authority, but the first-generation immigrant. So each time that I see an ironic and pretentious depiction of Tribal Elders with the English caption "Homeland Security", I cringe on both sides. Yet this is not primarily on my own behalf; what use would that be? I do not fear Redskins with Redneck gun rights. Ego fears, but only an affront to the Soul and Spirit of Truth could make one cringe. What is TRULY offensive is the pity it awakens in me. After all: Homeland Security was a White Man's Invention, and it belongs properly to him. The logo only serves as an ironical reminder of how the Red Man lost, and why.

Dm.A.A.

Broad Cast.

One wonders: if all of this is temporary, then why do any thing? I mean: we are so apparently insignificant in the Grand Scheme of Things. But ARE WE insignificant? IS THERE a Grand Scheme of Things? What makes it more significant than US? Why do we feel perpetually dwarfed? Life seems to lose meaning for you when you lose God. WHY? The sky’s the limit if no one is watching you, cutting your wings. And may be God’s still out there, hiding where we least expect Him. May be, all in all, He thinks no less of us. I don’t know. What I DO know: Space is not the final frontier, but rather a perpetual playground. All the Universe is a stage. And we are but players in it. What could be more PERFECT? We are at once audience and player, and if any thing is watching us then it is by its very nature even more mysterious and fascinating than we are. So no fuss. There is literally nothing to complain about.

A man’s work will return to dust. But a great man’s legacy will out-live him. Why leave behind a legacy? Because that way OTHERS will enjoy not only one’s own life but all so its aftermath. What could be a more appropriate employment of one’s time? Will one find IMMORTALITY through inaction? Would one WANT immortality? Would one keep it were it found?

We have forgotten much.

Dm.A.A.