haiku 18 Oct 2017

Wisps of rising steam
Bitter slosh, gunpowder green
In tea: salvation

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 16 Oct 2017

Don’t pick the winners
Unless it’s war, overseas
Then, pick the winners

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 11 Oct 2017

White gun owners plus
Unconscious murderous rage
Equals mass shootings

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 9 Oct 2017

When confronting a
Punitive superego
Proceed with intent

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

haiku 6 Oct 2017

Blowing winds fly birds;
Earth, on its hurtling orbits,
Carries man starward

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

logic of difficulty

In an effort to increase productivity and spend my time left on this mortal coil wisely, I’ve been experimenting with making certain things difficult. Not good things, of course, such as ritual, spirituality, creative expression, or spending time with people whose company I enjoy; the things I’m trying to make difficult are detrimental and wasteful activities such as watching internet videos, eating when I’m not hungry, and spending more money than necessary on transportation.

To avoid getting lost down a YouTube rabbit hole, I tether my laptop to the internet via my mobile phone instead of using house WiFi. Due to the limited amount of mobile data my plan provides, watching internet videos is out of the question. When zoning out to the latest trending vidz threatens to eat into my allotment of wireless gigabytes, staying on task and hammering out the paragraphs becomes the path of less resistance.

To avoid stuffing my face between meals, I buy most of my food dry, raw, or in bulk, which means I have to prepare something before it’s ready for consumption. With the exception of the odd carrot or apple, this has allowed me to drastically cut down on spells of random munching, given that I can’t just eat one cookie after the other while standing in front of the kitchen cupboard but have to bake a batch first, from a box.

To avoid wasting time driving around out of laziness or spending money unnecessarily on a gym membership, I bicycle or walk nearly everywhere I go. Bicycling and walking, as well as a daily hatha yoga practice, sets of burpies, and regular disc-golf outings, fulfil most of my upper and lower body workout demands without monetary expenditure. (Plus, these activities contribute little to my overall carbon footprint, which I estimate to be roughly 9 tons of CO2 a year.) Since getting access to a car or a gym is difficult, I resort to the options at my ready and immediate disposal.

By making that which I want to do easy, and that which I want to avoid doing hard, I find myself living a more productive and active life than I ever did watching TV or driving around in a slave’s chariot.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

on biblical brutality

After having made it through most of the Christian bible’s Old Testament, perusing now Isaiah, I see what many people with whom I’ve spoken say about the beauty and kindness contained within said book’s pages. There are fantastic passages that seem to tell the reader to be merciful and good. I also see, however, how someone reading this ancient text could soon become radicalized and filled with righteous hatred.

Psalms 137:8-9 (Good News Bible, Today’s English Version) for example says: “Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the man who pays you back for what you have done to us - who takes your babies and smashes them against a rock.” The Old Testament abounds with such language, with pleasure gained from the suffering of innocent victims, with pleas to Yahweh that the reader might rejoice when the children’s children’s children of this foe or that enemy are punished for his misdeeds. Taken out of context, of course, such words would horrify any modern, rational, sane-minded individual. 

Why, though, are such hateful and despicable passages still in the text? Why have they not been excised? Why does the Christian bible still contain parts that call for finding joy in the suffering of others, kids and other innocents alike? Anybody who recites the Nicene creed must believe in the Old Testament, including that: “Intelligent people talk sense, but stupid people need to be punished” (Proverbs 10:13). Punished by whom, though, and when? By an armed teenager, today, or by a bloodthirst god thousands of years ago? Keeping such destructive and terrifying language in one’s holy book encourages weak-minded and easily excitable individuals, who seek guidance from Bronze-age belief systems such as the Christian bible, to harm others. The bible has been changed before, for purposes political and power-related. Why not change it again and take out all the hate-mongering and schadenfreude? While it’s not a perfect system, anyone looking for a different and more peaceful path might turn, for example, to Buddhism, a code that contains within itself far fewer calls to abject violence against persons who cannot defend themselves.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan