For a good portion of the second half of the 20th century, the United States had a clearly defined bogeyman, fall-guy, and nemesis: the pinkie red commies of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (CCCP). Then, in the early 1990s, the CCCP crumbled, unable to keep underwriting the avarice and greed of its ruling class, unable to keep enforcing its will upon a weary populace, and unable to keep up with the sheer might of NATO's consumption-centered capitalism and widespread industrial automation. All of a sudden, after decades of silent struggle against a highly demonized foe (see the inclusion of the phrase Under God in the pledge of allegiance that was added to show what godless heathens the commies were), America found herself without a clearly defined enemy.
Into this void came the 11 September 2001 attacks, after which the branches of the U.S. government that were charged with defense and intelligence focused their various highly-sophisticated covert surveillance, espionage, murder, and sneak-thievery apparatuses not onto external foes but onto the very individuals whose Safety and Happiness they were supposed to bring about: the American people. We, the People, are now the enemy. We, the People, are now spied upon, listened to, and watched more closely than any terrorist or friend-of-terrorist foolish enough to still be using means of electronic communication such as radio, cellphone, or Internet. Worst of all, however, we, the People, as a whole, do not seem to mind this oppression, preferring rather to walk the walk we have always walked, dutifully participating in presidential elections (over which, because of the electoral college, we have little power and less influence), dutifully watching five hours of television a day, dutifully reporting to work, and then, as if we were mindless automatons hardwired to strict obedience, spending our hard-earned cash on superfluous bullshit we were instructed to buy during exquisitely-crafted television commercials which we payed good money for the privilege to be exposed to.
There is a balance that the federal government must strike between keeping us, the People, Safe and Happy; since the Bush2 presidency and continuing into that of Obama, however, this balance tilted drastically to the side of Safety at the cost of Happiness. We, the People, must find a way to regain the balance that our nation has lost, but we choose instead to rot our minds watching TV and to rack up consumer debt because we cannot control the knee-jerk drive to impulsive and conspicuous materialism, and there is little hope that we might accomplish much of anything beyond become fatter, lazier, sadder, and less free. With Osama Bin Laden dead and the regime of the commie bastard long since withered away, our worth as a People is plummeting daily; perhaps we deserve our status as the new bogeymen, as the new whipping posts of the power-hungry plutocrats who punish and imprison us for daring to pursue Happiness.
mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥
Showing posts with label watch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label watch. Show all posts
15 April 2013
26 November 2012
what I'm missing
Over Thanksgiving, I took time to watch some TV, something I rarely do. I did this in part because I was invited to by my host, who wanted to kill some time before our feast of turkey and gravy and butternut squash, and in part to see what life is like for the tens of millions of average Americans who make it their habit. As part of my efforts to make myself a better and wiser person, I have been reading books on a wide range of topics and generally avoiding wasteful and IQ-diminishing activities such as the mindless consumption of packaged content, so I was excited to run with the crowd for a moment and check out what TV had to offer. My host and I watched a show about tattoo artists competing to see who could perform best under pressure, best on camera, best before a panel of judges. Thankfully, the show had been taped, so we could fast-forward over the commercials; thankfully, dinner was served before any of us had to suffer through too much of it.
Since taking the first steps toward self-sufficiency by running most of my household from a bank of 4 deep-cycle marine batteries fed by 6 solar panels, I have restricted my personal viewing time to but a few hours a week – I hook up the 750 watt inverter to watch only one movie at a time, whereupon I detach it from the battery, thus shutting everything down. I do not veg regularly on the couch flipping through channels; I follow neither show nor series, episode nor finale, nor do I bring up watching TV in conversation or stick around if someone else does. In short, at the mere mention of television, I become a butt-hurt curmudgeon. And so I was shocked at how stressful watching the boob-tube has become, how stupid I felt afterward, and how many more commercials there seemed to be now than when I watched it regularly just a few years ago. It is as if producers, studios, and networks had baited the viewing public into watching compelling and interesting shows and then switched formats to reflect their ultimate goal, that being to trick the American people into thinking they were having fun when they were in actuality being force-fed one advertisement after the next in bewilderingly frequent intervals, minds rotting while waist-lines expanded, ambition draining away while creativity was crushed under the jack-boot of rerun content.
Before this thankfully brief exposure, I had begun to wonder if I was missing something important, if I had erred in canceling my cable TV service, if I were somehow worse off for swimming against the crowd by not succumbing to TV's mind-numbing allure. Today, however, my curiosity is stilled, my wonder has abated, and I am confident in one thing: I am better off for having avoided television these past few years. As a person who has glimpsed the eternal silence of the Great Vast Crushing Nothingness and lived to tell the tale, I have a decent understanding of the preciousness of human existence; therefore, my decision to try to better myself as a person, as a scholar, as a linguist, and as a writer rather than waste my short life glued to a self-illuminated, talking rectangle appears to be bearing fruit, if only slowly. By no amount of talking, warning, cajoling, begging, demanding, nagging, or urging will I ever convince anyone else whom I care about to join me in ceasing to watch TV, in preserving a shred of self-respect and personal dignity, or in saving the self by switching off the tube; all forms of salvation – even ones that are so simply accomplished – come from the realization that there are always better ways than the current path, that nothing worth its while is easy, and that the hardest things are the most rewarding. So, please, cancel your cable subscriptions, dust off a book, and start living well again. Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
Since taking the first steps toward self-sufficiency by running most of my household from a bank of 4 deep-cycle marine batteries fed by 6 solar panels, I have restricted my personal viewing time to but a few hours a week – I hook up the 750 watt inverter to watch only one movie at a time, whereupon I detach it from the battery, thus shutting everything down. I do not veg regularly on the couch flipping through channels; I follow neither show nor series, episode nor finale, nor do I bring up watching TV in conversation or stick around if someone else does. In short, at the mere mention of television, I become a butt-hurt curmudgeon. And so I was shocked at how stressful watching the boob-tube has become, how stupid I felt afterward, and how many more commercials there seemed to be now than when I watched it regularly just a few years ago. It is as if producers, studios, and networks had baited the viewing public into watching compelling and interesting shows and then switched formats to reflect their ultimate goal, that being to trick the American people into thinking they were having fun when they were in actuality being force-fed one advertisement after the next in bewilderingly frequent intervals, minds rotting while waist-lines expanded, ambition draining away while creativity was crushed under the jack-boot of rerun content.
Before this thankfully brief exposure, I had begun to wonder if I was missing something important, if I had erred in canceling my cable TV service, if I were somehow worse off for swimming against the crowd by not succumbing to TV's mind-numbing allure. Today, however, my curiosity is stilled, my wonder has abated, and I am confident in one thing: I am better off for having avoided television these past few years. As a person who has glimpsed the eternal silence of the Great Vast Crushing Nothingness and lived to tell the tale, I have a decent understanding of the preciousness of human existence; therefore, my decision to try to better myself as a person, as a scholar, as a linguist, and as a writer rather than waste my short life glued to a self-illuminated, talking rectangle appears to be bearing fruit, if only slowly. By no amount of talking, warning, cajoling, begging, demanding, nagging, or urging will I ever convince anyone else whom I care about to join me in ceasing to watch TV, in preserving a shred of self-respect and personal dignity, or in saving the self by switching off the tube; all forms of salvation – even ones that are so simply accomplished – come from the realization that there are always better ways than the current path, that nothing worth its while is easy, and that the hardest things are the most rewarding. So, please, cancel your cable subscriptions, dust off a book, and start living well again. Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
24 August 2012
mirrors – mirrors everywhere
Look around you. That's right, take a good look around you. Unless you are visually-impaired or you lead a rugged, comfort-less existence out in the woods somewhere, then, while just looking around, you probably looked at a mirrored surface, something in which you perhaps saw a reflection of yourself having a look around. Many things with which we surround ourselves these days are high-gloss, shiny, or mirrored, including our laptops, automobiles, mobile phones, tablet computers, windows, watch-faces, doors, door-handles, hubcaps, handlebars, plates, pots, utensils, and eyeglasses, to name but a few. Oh the many mirrors one can gaze longingly into, losing oneself in the strangely hypnotic activity of making eye-contact with oneself. So is its profusion, and such is its commonality, that we modern persons can hardly imagine life without the mirror.
Consider, however, that just a few thousand years ago the primary reflective material was a calm surface of water, which only reflects well under optimal conditions and which requires one to lean or suspend oneself over said water to the point that objects start falling from pockets and fluids start dripping from the face. The ancients, it appears, understood the dangers of self-observation, telling a cautionary tale about a young man named Narcissus who so loved looking at his own reflection that he dove into a pond after it, where he was promptly ensnared and drowned by pond-nymphs, who had been lying in wait. (Similar to other old stories, I believe that the tale of Narcissus is meant to be taken as a warning of the dangers of emulating his foolish ways and getting caught in the tractor-beam of one's own reflection.) It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that many people could afford mirrors or, for that matter, glass; before the 18th century, the only persons who could afford mirrors were fantastically rich individuals so corrupt and so cruel that one wishes they'd have stared at their own reflections more often instead of eradicating villages and enslaving and torturing their own subjects. (I believe that the myth about seven years of bad luck resulting from a broken mirror dates to before the Industrial Revolution, when hand-portable reflective objects were prohibitively expensive.)
So, today, are we better off having all these mirrors everywhere, or can mirrors be blamed in part for our rational-selfishness (i.e. avarice), that wasteful, ego-centric, quasi-capitalistic economic system that drains our lives of intrinsic value and imprisons our hearts in shells of self-serving egotism, rendering us incapable of respecting ourselves, each other, and Nature? I find it logical to assume that staring constantly at one's own reflection reinforces the notion that we must first look out for ourselves, for number one, before sacrificing our precious time or hard-won greenbacks on others. Since thinking about these questions, I have tried to look into mirrors only when necessary, such as when shaving my face or checking for ticks, avoiding even looking at my own reflection when typing; when I do stop to look, I am often shocked to see the image which I have come to associate with myself staring back at me, an image which correspond but poorly to the ebullient spirit that burns deep within my loins. Which, I think, is the crux of the matter: mirrors disassociate one from one's tender humanity, from one's intrinsic goodness, fueling one's ego and facilitating the ego's hijacking of the soul, which results in greedy, self-righteous, and short-sighted behavior such as conspicuous consumption and self-banishment into wage-slavery. Therefore, dear friends, avoid a mirror today, and rescue the soul from the ego's sticky clutches. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
Consider, however, that just a few thousand years ago the primary reflective material was a calm surface of water, which only reflects well under optimal conditions and which requires one to lean or suspend oneself over said water to the point that objects start falling from pockets and fluids start dripping from the face. The ancients, it appears, understood the dangers of self-observation, telling a cautionary tale about a young man named Narcissus who so loved looking at his own reflection that he dove into a pond after it, where he was promptly ensnared and drowned by pond-nymphs, who had been lying in wait. (Similar to other old stories, I believe that the tale of Narcissus is meant to be taken as a warning of the dangers of emulating his foolish ways and getting caught in the tractor-beam of one's own reflection.) It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that many people could afford mirrors or, for that matter, glass; before the 18th century, the only persons who could afford mirrors were fantastically rich individuals so corrupt and so cruel that one wishes they'd have stared at their own reflections more often instead of eradicating villages and enslaving and torturing their own subjects. (I believe that the myth about seven years of bad luck resulting from a broken mirror dates to before the Industrial Revolution, when hand-portable reflective objects were prohibitively expensive.)
So, today, are we better off having all these mirrors everywhere, or can mirrors be blamed in part for our rational-selfishness (i.e. avarice), that wasteful, ego-centric, quasi-capitalistic economic system that drains our lives of intrinsic value and imprisons our hearts in shells of self-serving egotism, rendering us incapable of respecting ourselves, each other, and Nature? I find it logical to assume that staring constantly at one's own reflection reinforces the notion that we must first look out for ourselves, for number one, before sacrificing our precious time or hard-won greenbacks on others. Since thinking about these questions, I have tried to look into mirrors only when necessary, such as when shaving my face or checking for ticks, avoiding even looking at my own reflection when typing; when I do stop to look, I am often shocked to see the image which I have come to associate with myself staring back at me, an image which correspond but poorly to the ebullient spirit that burns deep within my loins. Which, I think, is the crux of the matter: mirrors disassociate one from one's tender humanity, from one's intrinsic goodness, fueling one's ego and facilitating the ego's hijacking of the soul, which results in greedy, self-righteous, and short-sighted behavior such as conspicuous consumption and self-banishment into wage-slavery. Therefore, dear friends, avoid a mirror today, and rescue the soul from the ego's sticky clutches. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
18 July 2012
on individual ownership
Bicycling everywhere I go in this little town gives me certain glimpses into the private lives of the people living here that simply cannot be obtained by driving around in a car. For one, I approach people nearly silently, with only the occasional creaking gear or rattling chain to betray my presence, allowing me to observe them candidly until I am all but upon them (or at least until their peripheral vision picks up my whirling feet). Secondly, whereas when driving in a car one is prone to choose the most direct and well-paved path to get to one's destination so as to maintain a good fuel economy and to spend as little time as possible stuck in traffic, when riding a bicycle I take a variety of routes paved and unpaved, direct and circuitous, back-alley and broad-way, as I see fit and as my schedule allows.
By avoiding the beaten and asphalted paths, and by keeping my head on a swivel and looking into everyone's yards, I have made a number of judgments and come to a number of conclusions. The first of all these unbearably smug and better-than-though-art observations is that people living in close proximity to one another own items in such redundancy as to nearly boggle the mind. No matter how large or small a person's yard should be, it will be cut using a full-sized, gas-powered lawn mower. No matter how few obstructions and other solid objects that cannot simply be mowed over, they will be trimmed using a gasoline-powered weed-whip or edge-trimmer. Every yard – even the postage-stamp-sized ones – will have a shed of sorts for storing gardening tools; every home-owner – even the ones with more time than money on their hands – will rush outside and pay good money to have machines to do such work as they could easily do themselves at the cost of some sweat and a few minutes of precious television-watching time. Oh, if communities but had a central storage-and-loan shed for tools, a type of tool lending-library, a place where persons not interested in always buying such things as they might need to keep their property up to code could go and borrow a pair of hedge trimmers or a ladder. Imagine the volume of extra cash that would be floating around! Imagine the richness such a facility would bring to communities across America, people coming out of their homes and mingling with one another on a regular basis while queuing for tools, discussing methods of lawn-care and sharing freely of hard-won secrets, second-hand tips, and local advice.
The second observation I should like to make is that far too few people seem to be growing victory gardens, accepting rather the luxury of being able to buy their food at grocery-stores as some sort of Eternal Truth and wasting their time sitting around in air-conditioned houses eating cheesy-poofs and watching reruns on TV instead of mucking about in gardens where they might – oh cruel and terrible thought – stumble into conversation with a neighbor or passer-by. Square miles of good growing space sit wasted on grass; endless expanses of fertile soil stand planted with little more, perhaps, than a handful of ornamental flowers. Sew grain, not just grasses! Plant food, not just flowers!
Dear friends, I am coming to see the widespread use of television as the root-of-all-evil in America, that one main factor that has sent this once-fine land into a tailspin of societal and communal decline, that one primary thing without which ours would be a better, stronger, and more closely-knit nation. Without TV, people would not be constantly told to Buy More Shit, and without TV, they might get off their fat fucking asses and go outside for a nice, healthy walk now and again. Woe is unto us, sisters and brothers, fellow Lovers Of Liberty, we who reject the tenets of conspicuous consumerism, we who seek to be self-sufficient and self-reliant; our siblings have stumbled down the path of convenience and leisure, seduced into personal debt by the candy-sweet promise of touch-screen-equipped tablets and one-click-ordering, lost in a land of false and hollow hope, ensnared in the web of ubiquitous advertising, bled dry of honor and self-respect. Which way leads back out again, friends? To whom do we turn for salvation? The answer, in short, is that we must turn now to ourselves, setting such good and positive examples as might show our fellow Americans that there are other methods besides their ruinous ways. Mahalo, friends, and keep fighting.
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
By avoiding the beaten and asphalted paths, and by keeping my head on a swivel and looking into everyone's yards, I have made a number of judgments and come to a number of conclusions. The first of all these unbearably smug and better-than-though-art observations is that people living in close proximity to one another own items in such redundancy as to nearly boggle the mind. No matter how large or small a person's yard should be, it will be cut using a full-sized, gas-powered lawn mower. No matter how few obstructions and other solid objects that cannot simply be mowed over, they will be trimmed using a gasoline-powered weed-whip or edge-trimmer. Every yard – even the postage-stamp-sized ones – will have a shed of sorts for storing gardening tools; every home-owner – even the ones with more time than money on their hands – will rush outside and pay good money to have machines to do such work as they could easily do themselves at the cost of some sweat and a few minutes of precious television-watching time. Oh, if communities but had a central storage-and-loan shed for tools, a type of tool lending-library, a place where persons not interested in always buying such things as they might need to keep their property up to code could go and borrow a pair of hedge trimmers or a ladder. Imagine the volume of extra cash that would be floating around! Imagine the richness such a facility would bring to communities across America, people coming out of their homes and mingling with one another on a regular basis while queuing for tools, discussing methods of lawn-care and sharing freely of hard-won secrets, second-hand tips, and local advice.
The second observation I should like to make is that far too few people seem to be growing victory gardens, accepting rather the luxury of being able to buy their food at grocery-stores as some sort of Eternal Truth and wasting their time sitting around in air-conditioned houses eating cheesy-poofs and watching reruns on TV instead of mucking about in gardens where they might – oh cruel and terrible thought – stumble into conversation with a neighbor or passer-by. Square miles of good growing space sit wasted on grass; endless expanses of fertile soil stand planted with little more, perhaps, than a handful of ornamental flowers. Sew grain, not just grasses! Plant food, not just flowers!
Dear friends, I am coming to see the widespread use of television as the root-of-all-evil in America, that one main factor that has sent this once-fine land into a tailspin of societal and communal decline, that one primary thing without which ours would be a better, stronger, and more closely-knit nation. Without TV, people would not be constantly told to Buy More Shit, and without TV, they might get off their fat fucking asses and go outside for a nice, healthy walk now and again. Woe is unto us, sisters and brothers, fellow Lovers Of Liberty, we who reject the tenets of conspicuous consumerism, we who seek to be self-sufficient and self-reliant; our siblings have stumbled down the path of convenience and leisure, seduced into personal debt by the candy-sweet promise of touch-screen-equipped tablets and one-click-ordering, lost in a land of false and hollow hope, ensnared in the web of ubiquitous advertising, bled dry of honor and self-respect. Which way leads back out again, friends? To whom do we turn for salvation? The answer, in short, is that we must turn now to ourselves, setting such good and positive examples as might show our fellow Americans that there are other methods besides their ruinous ways. Mahalo, friends, and keep fighting.
場黑麥 mentiri manufactorem fecit
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