TRANSCENDANCE.

TRANSCENDANCE: (A Modern Taoist Tale.)

They told me to do what I was good at.

I have three skills:

Playing, thinking, and writing.

Thinking I was most recognized for.

They all so told me to write each time that I saw something to upset me.

Actions speak more loudly than words, but less subtly.

And at any rate the use of words is the most effective and civilized action.

So I combined my three skills.

And I wrote a thoughtful play.

No one has read it yet, to my knowledge.

It is Shakespearean in its length.

I have been single for the past seven years, through no fault of my own.

My track record evidences that I have adhered with stringent observation to every moral dictate that was put before me.

Receptively and with femininity I have absorbed these dictates as a sponge absorbs water.

Actively and with masculinity I have synthesized them, with ardour, into an entirely unique set of Morals.

And I have disowned all who contradict them. Thus I am on the verge of actualizing the project I began in childhood: that of becoming-Adult.

Yet I have yet to master the feminine arts, for I have not yet performed the physical act of love.

In these times mastery is rare. Women in their naïveté presume that the simple act of MAKING a decision ensures its rightfulness.

They are mistaken. Time and time again they choose the man of inferior virtue.

And time and time again he fails to keep them, for he can never transcend HIMSELF in the carnal act.

Any victory won by malice is a failure long before the victor sees it for what it is.

I have it on the authority of the last woman that I loved that I know more about sex than either she nor the [boy] she slept with, a treacherous former associate of mine.

This is significant considering that I have never had it.

It is not my hatred but rather my love for women that has put me in this posture.

I simply do not loathe my SELF. Were I to blame my self I would invite all others towards self-flagellation, by example. And that would be a cruel example to set, not merely an example OF cruelty but rather also cruelty BY example.

It is better that one hundred people own up to their infractions than one scapegoat has to bear the burden of their collective sin.

I would rather that one hundred people contribute a dollar each than one man have to pay one hundred towards the same end. (Granted that the end is selfless, of natural course.)

Collective sin is the herd mentality.

We are social beings. We follow examples.

Some times we follow a poor one.

A tree grows not by pruning but by watering.

A tree exemplifies the glory of the human project.

And trees are in that sense more human than we.

Trees are the essence of the Earth STRIVING towards Heavenly Heights.

Trees are distinct in their roles from viruses and other parasites.

Observe:

A parasite does not WAIT PATIENTLY to RECEIVE.

Nor does a parasite GIVE INDISCRIMINATELY to ALL WHO NEED OF IT.

INSTEAD: a parasite GOES OUT OF ITS WAY to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN in ITS OWN FAVOUR.

It lives only to destroy its host.

And then to PROPAGATE.

It is no coincidence that the word “Propaganda” mimmicks “propagation”.

Those most desperate to reproduce all so spread lies as effectively and affectively as they distribute their seed.

A tree does not sabotage. It does not GO OUT TO GET any thing.

It simply grows. It is rooted in its home. It strives towards excellence with saintly consistency.

Its seeds fall upon the soil of its birth-right.

A tree needs no means of conveyance.

It only needs the Love of the Sun and the Moon, without whom its World would topple.

And we do not depend upon viruses as we depend upon trees.

Life is an alchemical metamorphosis.

What begins as self-pity can be cultivated and transmuted into solemnity and dignity.

Insult too can be transmuted into laughter. Offense turns to camaraderie.

But all of it depends upon intent.

All trees strive towards the same sky.

If two individuals cannot find a common motive overlying all their petty differences, then it is all ways because one of them has fallen.

The tree that is weak and falls into the swamp is promptly inhabited by parasites.

And as the host becomes a den of thieves, so the tree turns into a living viral factory.

The Internet is viral.

Our memetic culture is parasitic.

Hence we think little when we see the barbarism done unto TREES.

I had to write this, in order to be consistent with my promises to my self.

Yet I could not tell my self that I was honouring such a promise by writing this.

Because I would have been embarrassed to fall so short of my original aims.

It was only upon completion that I saw the Truth:

That by honouring this promise I TRANSCENDED those original aims and SURPASSED my quota.

Yet think not that you can sin and rely upon the whims of other sinners to validate your goodness.

To do good without conscious intent is miles from doing bad with bad intent expecting to take credit for the goodness of others.

And to aggrandize one’s own good luck is not to be confused with virtue.

It is not an example all can follow.

And by pardoning such an abuse one simply exploits the next class of innocents.

Each day one heals from a wound that is not allowed to fester.

A man who has “moved on” must not forget that future victims have not yet grown such a skin.

And THEIR abuse would worsen under the weight of his absurd pardon.

One should never be made to tolerate parasitism.

But beware: the parasite all ways blames the host.

To do good without conscious intent is only made possible by consciously owning one’s goodness. Then one’s pure, childlike nature can again become intuitive, as Second Nature.

This is the principle of non-aggression, or Wu Wei.

We are on the verge of the Ending of a Yuga Cycle.

Prophecies indicate that at this time the Good will grow Better and the Evil shall grow Worse.

Choose a side.

That discernment is the sum of masculinity.

Masculinity is measured not by contrast to feminity…

But by union with it.

And that alone is the fulfillment of the sexual act.

The act of sex is not an act of personal fulfillment.

That is barbarism. That is rape.

The act of sex is the fulfillment of sex its self.

And in that process man and woman disappear.

The androgyne is in a state of constant orgasm.

Meditate upon this, if you will.

Because we are all androgynes.

No one was ever born into the wrong category.

Categories are simply conventions.

Sex is not a category.

It is the embodiment of an Essence, like Good or Evil.

And each of two essences contains its opposite.

A True Man need not be an empiricist.

The pursuit of evidence is a futility.

It is an excuse to propagate and to be viral.

If your reckless pursuit of the Truth has brought you here, congratulations.

You have arrived. This is the end.

Are you not content?

Dm.A.A.

To Ketchup, with finality.

To Ketchup, with finality:

I know that she is not again with you.

But you can never know that.

May it comfort you to comprehend that to the same degree that you believe yourself to know better, you are clueless.

There is still the question of who owes what to whom.

You have lost or otherwise maimed many of my personal belongings.

This is intolerable and pathetic of a narcissist who all ready took too much.

It is not how a man behaves.

My sympathies for you wane under the memory of you.

A part of me, exceedingly hopeful, believes in some sort of reconciliation, may be if only in the Next World.

Yet to the same degree that I must carry the ARROGANCE of your supporters, even if only in a fleeting gesture, I am reminded of the Realities of This World.

Know that you have brought this hatred upon yourself.

I cannot be blamed for it.

Had it not been for my profound and otherworldly TOLERANCE I would have let you go a long time ago.

But I was patient and loyal as you never were.

You are not a man.

You are a petty, self-entitled boy.

The arbiter is loyalty. You cannot deny this.

It was what you demanded of others.

And they never lived up to your expectations.

At least I PARDONED the failings of others.

But you sought vengeance, confusing it for justice.

And that was, to use a popular idiom: a bitch move.

You brought this hatred upon yourself by trying to justify yourself.

You have failed. Your only success was in that you managed to expose your true nature. Though I was generous enough to disbelieve it.

Now each time I hear your attitude echoed in an old drunken man (who has begun finally to outgrow it) I am reminded of its brute physical reality.

Before I would have cried.

But now I know better.

I am not vulnerable to you any more because I know what you are.

And to that same degree I elect to hate you with discretion rather than love you with compassion.

And you lose the most important battle:

The one for my Soul.

Though you are too depraved and too depressed to admit that you ever needed me.

You think you know me from what I could do for you. Yet even in its greatness it is made little by your myopeia.

And you know not what I truly think of you.

Because I never told it unto you.

You simply presumed it off of letters and poems that were not addressed to you, but made privileged to you(, and against my approval!).

If ever I came near to telling you what I knew of you it was only in the heat of anger. This rage could not have found a more justified warrant.

So I tell you now:

I owe you nothing and you owe me everything.

You nearly took it all from me.

You all ways tried to hold me in your illusory debt.

And for what?

For drugs? Food? Random rides to distant places of your choice?

I will accept those as compensation for the angst: the dread of bearing with your proto-Fascistic (and ultimately Fascistic) demands.

Think not to accuse me of such demands now.

My power is entirely individuated.

And it is born out of a Love you never felt for any one.

*I* offered you a CAREER.

How many songs have you to show for our time apart?

You even forgot your own when I remembered them.

How much money have you made with music?

And how much can you say you’ve SUFFERED for it all?

You asked me why you owed me music.

It was never yours to give.

Neither was the Ocean yours to withhold.

Yet you had the nerve to accuse me of trying to possess a woman.

And yes: you laid claim to her too, with the same exploitative self-entitlement.

The fact is that you owed HER the music.

But she knew you would not give it to her.

As I know that she deserved.

Hence she called you a bitch.

I know all this.

Because I loved her.

And she understands now her mistake.

She has confessed it.

Nothing can undo that confession.

Not even if in some hellish sci-fi Universe she broke her promise to me.

And that fate, not unlike a reconciliation between you and me, is impossible in THIS WORLD as well.

Why did you need me to accord with your agenda?

Just to make it EASIER for you?

Bastard. No one cares about your agenda.

HENCE you keep it Secret!

If I did not have the sort of money that your plan required it was because I had all ready been BLED DRY by the LAST narcissistic bastard that I tried to help and totalitarian bitch I had to answer to.

I did all I could for you.

You did barely any thing for me.

And what little you did would have been made meaningless by your self-entitlement to some reward.

That self-entitlement renders it meaningless now(, even if to your mind I never repaid you).

For you took more from me than I could ever spare or pardon.

And I had all ready given you all I could give you.

It is in the nature of a parasite to blame its host.

The ego sees ego everywhere.

The hypocrite must accuse others of his hypocrisy, by nature.

The narcissist will sooner blame an Other than the Self, for to him the Other has no superior dignity than his Self.

And this mind alone is prone to disastrous confirmation bias.

So it finds constant excuses in the culture it has created.

But I see through it. I all ways have.

I DID repay you.

You simply never RECIPROCATED my RESPECT.

She called you an emotional black hole.

It is a form of parasitism. You were a Tapeworm.

And may it behoove you to know that she called you THAT as well.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but so long as I am in the world you will not fool all of the people all of the time.

I know you too well.

You are scared and miserable.

I am not. I would not attest to Goodness were it not that I had ventured through Evil long enough to have found it.

You seem totally clueless to it.

All I wanted from you was this band.

And that was all that SHE wanted as well.

All that YOU wanted, by your own professional admission, was loyalty.

And you could not give that to any one.

Not even in exchange for trust.

I thought before I met you that altruism was intrinsic and implied: that no ideal could exist higher than the fealty of man.

I was wrong.

It is a rare gift in these times.

And it is one for which she loved me.

She can have no ulterior motive for so basic a Truth.

Perhaps it is your own irritation with your own weakness that compels you to punish what you perceive to be weakness in others.

But morality is not a weakness.

Loyalty is not a weakness.

Goodness is not a weakness.

Love is not a weakness.

Make no mistake that you behaved insolently in a Plan that was much greater than any Personal Agenda.

And I trust the Planner. You only FEAR Him. It must have dawned upon you now that when “He” seems to give you what you want it only winds you up in Hell on Earth.

I know you are unhappy.

We all do.

You never cared about what she wanted, though you tried to employ it as an excuse.

When given the opportunity to fulfill her, you passed.

Speak not to me of how I too had disrespected her wishes.

I never blamed her for what happened to me.

I blamed you. She simply refused then to believe that I had reason to.

But as time progresses the past ceases to be an excuse.

And you had none left for how you rejected my advance to reunite the band, with her as leader.

You rejected her that day. And she shall not forget that in this lifetime.

If you think a year would make her forget, think on how I loved her for two.

Is she any worse than I? Why would she be more forgetful? Do you honestly believe she values that, as you do, as a virtue?

I know most of this from her.

You cannot know it. Neither can your allies.

I have all ready won this war.

As all ways I knew I would.

And I owe you nothing. I can be MADE to owe you nothing.

Since she owes you nothing, she has no reason to be with you.

And we are free of you. In toto. Because we understand you now.

We only thought that there might ACTUALLY be some thing more.

That we’d be rewarded for our generosity of opinion in you.

This is YOUR tragedy, not mine.

Dm.A.A.

An Other Retarded Star Wars Meme: (Deconstructed!)

It is self-evident that the Sith have taken over the Internet when it is proliferated with this meme: a seemingly embarrassing photographic portrait of a fictional character or other pop culture icon, with a heading employing one of a pair of opposites, and a subtitle that depicts the other.

At first this strikes one as a charming reminder of the Grandeur of Paradox. As every true philosopher has reminded us time and again, the philosopher LOVES the paradox.

It reminds me PERSONALLY of the I Ching, whose sixty-four hexagrams attest to all of the conditions of Human Life and each of which is a different permutation of Yin and Yang.

Yet over time one undergoes one’s own private Yuga Cycle and comes to the understanding that these memes are misunderstood, even by the humanoid internet entities that produce them.

There is to the unenlightened person a tendency to SQUIRM when met with contradiction of any sort.

Enter Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Obi-Wan insists that only a Sith deals in Absolutes.

Yet this APPEARS to be an Absolute statement on the part of the Jedi Master.

Of course, Obi-Wan is not wrong. So why point out the obvious?

I want to settle this matter once and for all, with all due academic rigour and with the Sword of Discretion…:

1.    It does not matter that the statement is classified as an “Absolute Statement”, especially if one considers that such a classification is made by a Sith Absolutist. What is sufficient to ascertain is the TRUTH of the statement. One cannot simply PRECLUDE its Truth based upon offense and the logic that offense produces. So what we must conclude is that IF IT IS TRUE then it would be the FAULT OF THE SITH. Obi-Wan is simply elucidating it. By describing it he becomes it, but he all so becomes MORE than it, not unlike he would do so metaphysically when the same interlocutor strikes him down and he joins the Living Force.

The Living Force can all so be called the Tao, which is the basis for the I Ching.

2.   The BURDEN OF EVIDENCE does not rest upon Obi-Wan. He has at that moment only to put his philosophy into action to prove that he has the High Ground. The Jedi do not belong to the Intellectual Side, but to the Fluid Way of Nature (Tao, The Force.). Joseph Campbell, the mythologist who mentored George Lucas, said of Darth Vader that when the brain takes control of the body “you get this Father who has gone over to the Intellectual Side.”

Whilst the Jedi ARE adept at intellect, they do not resort to mind games as Palpatine does. Their “mind tricks” DO work on the weak-minded; they are adept at persuasion. Yet only a Sith Lord can corrupt the heart of some one as naturally gifted as Anakin Skywalker.

Beware that you are not likewise fooled.

3.   The meme does not attack him via EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, but rather LOGIC. Yet the LOGIC CHECKS OUT.

a.   Only a Sith deals in Absolutes.

b.   To deal in Absolutes is to deal in them ABSOLUTELY.

c.    Ergo a Sith deals ONLY in Absolutes.

d.   Obi-Wan is not a Sith.

e.   Obi-Wan does not self-identify as a Sith.

f.    Obi-Wan says that only a Sith deals in Absolutes.

g.   OSTENSIBLY Obi-Wan’s statement is an ABSOLUTE statement.

h.   It would follow that Obi-Wan is a Sith.

i.     Obi-Wan cannot both be Sith and not-Sith, UNLESS HE HAS CONTRADICTED HIMSELF.

j.     Contradiction is the OBVERSE of Absolutism.

So basically: BY CONTRADICTING HIMSELF Obi-Wan PROVES that he is a JEDI, and he all so PROVES that the Jedi are GREATER THAN the Sith, because they TRANSCEND AND INCLUDE the Sith.

That the Sith constitutes a PART of the Jedi was never a matter of contest. The Dark Side of the Force is still a PART of the Force. It is simply a part that has become parasitic to the Whole.

The JEDI represent the WHOLE.

Obi-Wan’s APPARENT “Absolutism” is in fact the very ANTIDOTE to Absolutism. And as is the case with all cures, it contains an ASPECT of the poison, even if only in semblance.

Hence in the Tai Chi symbol each of two opposites contains in the eye of its fish its opposite. So it is even with the Jedi and the Sith. (Though one would be wrong to attribute the entirety of yin or yang to the Sith. Sith would rather be best described as an IMBALANCE of yin and yang. The Jedi are the Whole represented by the circumference.)

Carl Jung, whose work inspired Joseph Campbell, said that “one-sidedness, while it lends momentum, is a mark of barbarism.”

Absolutism on the part of the Sith lends them momentum and makes the Dark Side “more seductive”, as Master Yoda attests. Yet it ALL SO makes the Sith WEAKER.

Taoism emphasizes the Gentle Way, or Judo. Obi-Wan employs the Force of his deviant pupil’s own weight against him. It is because Anakin tries to leap OVER Obi-Wan that he gets maimed. So it is all so in Obi-Wan’s intellectual Judo. He uses the Sith’s Absolutism and the momentum that it lends to bring about the Sith’s downfall, time…

And time again.

Dm.A.A.

Post-scriptum: It bears mentioning, looking on the Bright Side (joke intended; insert laughter here.) that THIS photograph, conversely, made me guffaw from my diaphragm:

Dm.A.A.                     

Analysis of Virginity as Existential Problem:

It is self-evident, even to a fool (who is often the most defensive of organisms) that one can be punished for a crime but not for the perception of a crime. Our Society is ordered and made sane by the careful and ardent observation of certain Universal Moral Principles, and the merit of an individual is determined by the Individual’s capacity and decision to adhere to such principles. Such is our upbringing: a constant preparation and pruning for Adult Life, which is most ideally the excellent execution of these Universal Ethics. Yet in Actual Adulthood we find a problem that philosophers have described as simply “The Absurd”. It becomes technically IMPOSSIBLE to ascertain with OBJECTIVE CERTAINTY one’s moral position in relation to all others, at least insofar as the childish perspective is concerned. In childhood, we imagine an ornate hierarchy where every boss answers to an other boss, infinitely and indefinitely, with no Ultimate Leader and no Ultimate Subordinate. Yet such is of course a naïve view. In TRUTH, at any one point one cannot have total access to any ABSOLUTE score-board for morality. One only has one’s past, one’s future, one’s present, and all of the convictions contained within the three (which are in fact One). These convictions apply to both Self and Other, and they tend to categorize the actions of both parties as either “good” or “bad”. Based upon one’s degree of tolerance (as Chesterton defines it: the underdevelopment of [one’s] Convictions), various individuals have various capacity to PARDON bad behavior. Once such a threshold is past, the Other becomes classified as a “bad person”. Yet the self-conscious subject always tends to grovel before the SUBJECTIVITY of its assessment.

So in adulthood we find peace through one last refuge: the two-class system. Good and Evil are not a SPECTRUM of authority but rather two definite groups of people: One Hero, the other Villain. Yet this of course cannot be ascertained by one’s position on a hierarchy. It CAN, however, be determined by one’s DIRECTION OF MOTION. People who tend to fall short of Goodness do so ad nauseum with progressively (if you’ll pardon the term) worse results. Meanwhile, Good people tend to soar. The contrast is breathtaking and tragic to behold, especially when we notice the devices of the Good sabotaged by the stupidity of the Evil.

A man may suffer from loneliness at the top. Consider the position of a twenty-six-year-old Virgin. I can attest to this condition personally. I began this weblog four years ago with one fundamental question in mind: is the sexual act a moral act? To this day I have concluded that it IS, but only if it is recognized as an Entitlement: a Need, therefore a Right. According to this conclusion my own condition stands as evidence to the general failure of contemporary society to meet this imperative. It is not a sense of Entitlement for which I can be condemned, for in my humility in approaching this question I have remained blameless and have erred on the side of caution, proverbially.

From time to time I wonder, though: why am I still a Virgin? I cannot be arrogant and therefore unattractive. The sheer notion that any one would have lost one’s virginity in one’s early twenties or even late TEENS is shocking. What arrogance! Yet it does arouse some degree of righteous fury and envy. And not only does it do that: it gives way to HOPE for the Good Man. He thinks: “Well, if some one as CLEARLY inferior as [SO-AND-SO] can have had sex MULTIPLE times, then surely *I*…”

And this all follows logically. Yet the Absurd still stares one in the face at every street corner.

The only refuge left is in God. The Good Man has to think, at first:

1.       If THEY can do it, so can I.

Yet simply being ABLE is not sufficient to the moral individual, and simply INSISTING upon one’s ability is not evidence of it. So promptly the argument evolves:

2.       If THEY can do it, so MUST I.

“Must” implies “can” of course, so this position transcends and includes the original.

At this point Our Hero embarks upon a Quest to Find Love. Yet he finds, after the dozenth rejection on the dance floor, that some thing is working against him. Could the God that had given him such Hope in his equality (a paradoxical deduction from his Superiority) now be working AGAINST him? Or has the DEVIL simply possessed these unreceptive women?

The first coping mechanism is obvious:

A.    I MUST do this, and I WOULD, but THEY are unreceptive because of their own failings.

This would appear to be an arrogant impulse, but in fact the arrogance belongs to the failing person.

The following step elucidates the matter further:

B.     THEIR failings are not that they find me unattractive, but that they find me SO attractive that they fail to approach me. Perhaps they lack my confidence because of their shortcomings in Virtue.

So we observe step 3 in Our Hero’s Mental Development:

3.       If THEY can do it, *I* MUST be ATTRACTIVE.

This is sound from the perspective of Reason, but it is not yet convincing Empirically and Emotively. Overwhelming evidence seems to contradict Lucid Reason, and so we must step out of the secular prism and consider the Spiritual. Could it be that God WAS, after all, plotting in our favour all along, and that He had a plan, but it was not the failure of the Other to accord with this plan, but rather one’s OWN failure to UNCOVER the Plan?

Mythology discerns the Temptress from the Goddess. When Our Hero learns this distinction, his entire outlook is transformed:

4.       If THEY can do it, there is SOME ONE OUT THERE FOR ME.

Hence we arrive at the Soul Mate Conclusion.

Working backwards from this conclusion, Our Hero learns that it was only ever LOVE FOR AN OTHER that had produced this restlessness in the FIRST PLACE. So it never MATTERED what the sordid affairs of his inferiors were. They had simply been overzealous in their interference in his private life.

5.       If THEY can do it, it does not matter. If they CANNOT do it, it does not matter. All that matters is THIS PERSON.

So the self-pity of false burden is transcended.

I began this essay by pointing out that one cannot be charged for bearing witness to a crime.

I explained that even a FOOL would not contest this fact.

I did this because FOOLS ATTEMPT to contest this fact without knowing it, where sexuality is concerned.

To the INFERIOR MAN, a man of LOW CONVICTIONS and EVIL DIRECTION, there is no Moral Order governing human relationships. So it is arrogant to protest the Absurdity of sexual conduct; to this mind, all entitlement is SELF-entitlement, and all righteousness is SELF-righteous. The narcissist stamps all values alien to him with his seal.

THANKFULLY this is a deluded posture.

The Fool insists that there IS no Moral Order, no Good nor Evil, but simply CHAOS. So he cleverly (and stupidly) blames the Good Man’s predicament upon the Good Man Himself, insisting that the decision to Be-Good is little more than self-flattery and that it is FOR THIS VERY ARROGANCE that the Good Man is condemned to involuntary Virginity.

But there are several glaring fallacies about this.

First: it presupposes that the Virginity is INVOLUNTARY. The Good Man initially presumes this too, until his Convictions have grown to a degree that he has totally individuated himself from the Inferior Mindset.

Second: It is coercive. By yielding to the threat of Dying Alone, the Person of Virtue SURRENDERS his or her Virtue and changes Direction. This immediately puts the Person of Virtue in the POSITION of Vice, and thereby he or she finds evidence for the coercive bias, and ONLY evidence for it. YET THE BIAS WAS A FOREGONE CONCLUSION FROM THE START. Conversely, it was never a foregone CONCLUSION that the bias was coercive; simply observing this [tragic] progression in people, that they become corrupted by fear, is enough reason to describe it so boldly.

I write not with the intent of aggrandizing myself or rationalizing away a personal character flaw.

I write rather to encourage the Good to remain upon their path, and I encourage them to enlighten their more deviant fellows.

Dm.A.A.