I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record
I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record
IT IS THE CASE THAT
There are places to “get to” in life. Those places are better than where you are now.
THEREFORE
Where you are, who you are, what you are, how you are – these are all not as they should be. You should be uncomfortable about this condition, and at least a little afraid.
AND BECAUSE
Productivity and achievement are intimately and inseparably connected to worth and satisfaction.
IT IS ALSO THE CASE THAT
You should want, and work, and compete, and expand – expand who you are and what you are and what you have and how and how much you are seen.
BECAUSE THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IS THAT
Life is something to be completed, and completed well - or else it is wasted.
This is the dream-walking state of life in a hyper-industrial society. These beliefs – or something in this general territory – are the outlines of the story that I find the majority of people living in. But in order for this story to stick, the system requires something from the individual. Something that, biologically, is baked into us and necessary for physical survival. But something that the industrial system has hijacked and expanded and taught us to worship: the Self.
Every sensation, every thought, every emotion, every single fucking thing that is generated by the mind – or by the body or by the Other and then interpreted by the mind – is a point of fascination and fixation. Every single decision, every action, every movement, every bit of phenomena in the individual’s world is experienced as a commentary on the Self.
What an unnecessary and brutally burdened way to experience life.
I, like brother Gano and the boys*, am clear that I am Nothing. And I am free to be alone in the self-obsessed, deeply unhappy crowd that seems to currently be occupying the planet.
*Gano would be Gordon Gano, of the Violent Femmes (who wrote/performed the song at the top of this essay).
If you’re unfamiliar with them, here are 2 videos of them performing the same song 40 years apart (the title for this essay comes from this song). They’re still touring and, if you can see them, I can’t recommend it enough.