Wherein We Eventually Arrive at the Smell of Salt Marshes
8/17/06 8:58 AM – 9:27 AM
So when they asked him, he had to admit that he would rather see people angry and ready to act than mildly happy and content. The list of things that are an opiate of the masses grows longer every year. Thou shalt not do this, because then you are no longer effected by my rhetoric. It is not apathy, though I don’t really care what you call me, it is the realization that any grouping of men is an attempt at marketing.
Do this and thou shalt be cool. But cool has too many contexts to be meaningful. Mindless obedience to a charismatic dictate is one cool. Sneakers might be another. Elmwood cool is another. And yet all cool can offer is acceptance into a group. But groups don’t exist. Groups don’t die. Whether that group is called a corporation or a co-op, it isn’t really there. Cool is an acceptance of a social norm. Those that ask, “but why?” are shunted off to another group. All reasons are rationalizations, set on an unprovable primal axiom.
What do you want then? What should one want? How then should I live? You stop asking questions after a while, unless you’ve suffered some great trauma, then questions are all that you have. And that’s as pointless as accepting dictates without question. So forget everything and sit down. Stop your whirring mind and look again into the universal word of Silence. It is not “no” nor “yes.” It is no answer at all except the only one you will get. All that there is, while you are alive, is living, and no one can tell you what living is. Eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. Whenever you find work that turns your whirring mind away from itself, do it with all your heart. There is only this day and then matter reclaims its own. That which animates departs and where it goes we can only hope and pray and then forget that the question was bothering us. To see a girl sleeping on a blanket at dusk, as fireflies move above her like ghosts of Christmas lights. To tell a tale that surrounds you so completely that you forget to question and worry. All of this. All of this and the smell of salt marshes besides.
So when they asked him, he had to admit that he would rather see people angry and ready to act than mildly happy and content. The list of things that are an opiate of the masses grows longer every year. Thou shalt not do this, because then you are no longer effected by my rhetoric. It is not apathy, though I don’t really care what you call me, it is the realization that any grouping of men is an attempt at marketing.
Do this and thou shalt be cool. But cool has too many contexts to be meaningful. Mindless obedience to a charismatic dictate is one cool. Sneakers might be another. Elmwood cool is another. And yet all cool can offer is acceptance into a group. But groups don’t exist. Groups don’t die. Whether that group is called a corporation or a co-op, it isn’t really there. Cool is an acceptance of a social norm. Those that ask, “but why?” are shunted off to another group. All reasons are rationalizations, set on an unprovable primal axiom.
What do you want then? What should one want? How then should I live? You stop asking questions after a while, unless you’ve suffered some great trauma, then questions are all that you have. And that’s as pointless as accepting dictates without question. So forget everything and sit down. Stop your whirring mind and look again into the universal word of Silence. It is not “no” nor “yes.” It is no answer at all except the only one you will get. All that there is, while you are alive, is living, and no one can tell you what living is. Eat your bread with joy. Drink your wine with a merry heart. Whenever you find work that turns your whirring mind away from itself, do it with all your heart. There is only this day and then matter reclaims its own. That which animates departs and where it goes we can only hope and pray and then forget that the question was bothering us. To see a girl sleeping on a blanket at dusk, as fireflies move above her like ghosts of Christmas lights. To tell a tale that surrounds you so completely that you forget to question and worry. All of this. All of this and the smell of salt marshes besides.
posted by Spike at 6:31 AM
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