success through failure

Francis Bacon said, “By indignities man comes to dignities.” Stated a different way, it could read thus: man succeeds through failure. Ancient teachings, especially those that originated in Asia, are rife with this enduring truthhood.

From one perspective, the yin-yang symbol exemplifies the notion that in all light is some darkness; that fear is rooted of joy; that the elixir of happiness is best distilled from wells of sadness. Therefore, experiencing loss is as beneficial as the gain that comes after it; without such loss, one struggles to see a clear path forward.

Perhaps one reason why Americans are turning away from their Western, Christian heritage and toward Eastern modes of living is that the former tend to promote the notion of an invisible afterlife free of suffering instead of setting forth teachings and tools useful in the immediate engagement of pain and loss while still alive. Without a temporal body, what loss could we possibly endure? To what dignities would we dare strive without a physical vessel to contain them in? Deep thoughts this Monday morning fill. Aho.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑

on shambles

Small were the stumbles that brought him to his knees, old the pitfalls that sent his card-house tumbling. Still chained he is to bells rung too soon, to sloppy routines that once helped but now harm. He won't explain his torment too openly, lest he appear pitiful and lacking in direction. Wise words and simple advice on deaf ears fall.

Caused less by the ever-present specter of failure, his torment is rooted instead in the potential for success, Happiness, and contentment. Part of his psyche is malicious and evil; as long as he is alive, it will never fully go away, nor will it ever stop being a part of him. (For him, this is a new and exciting revelation.) His hope for controlling and channeling the evil that lives inside him lies in showering it with love during yoga and remaining vigilant of its power for the rest of his life.

For some years now, he has scoffed at the saying, “fall down seven times, stand up eight.” He thought it a groovy way for people who had their shit together to gloat about being resilient, tough, and smart. Now, however, he realizes that this whole falling down and standing up business happens not at one particular fulcrum point but every day. By staying in the moment, taking nothing for granted, and learning to cherish those things he has for so long tried to destroy, he can find salvation as well as a way back to where he had strayed from the path. What good fortune that it always sits at at his feet, waiting.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

America fails, again

America's media outlets fail her People. So widespread is their deceit, and so brazen is their obfuscation, that the 3rd party presidential candidates' debate of 05 November 2012 streamed live only on rt.com, the website for Russia Today. No indigenous source for news – not FOX, ABC, NBC, not even fucking NPR! – has mentioned the name of a 3rd party presidential candidate in the last few weeks, and none of them – not even fucking NPR! – agreed to air Monday night's debate, let alone to acknowledge the existence of candidates besides Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, person such as governor Gary Johnson or Dr. Jill Stein. So deeply entrenched are these media giants – even fucking NPR! – and so fully have they been bought and paid for by the faceless corporations that now control the hearts and minds of millions of once-free ynki, that it is safe to say that this grand experiment of ours has failed. Now, we are following a trajectory similar to that of the Weimar Republic (see truthout.org: “History's Magic Mirror: America’s Economic Crisis and the Weimar Republic of Pre-Nazi Germany”) or the French Third Republic (see truthout.org: “How democracies die”); now, our down-spiral into widespread fascism and state-sanctioned religious extremism is not merely food for thought – it is as certain as death from an Obama drone-strike.

For most of my adult life I have been told that this land's news media is the fourth pillar of government, after, of course, the legislative, judicial, and executive branches; we have seen over the last weeks, however, the true extent of the news-media's sinister power, standing by in silent and docile witness as it corrupted democracy and deliberately destroyed equality and free speech, the very essence of this fragile republic. In that sense, the title of this piece is wrong – it is not America that has failed us, rather we the People who have failed her. I have tried to write about these matters, and I have tried to sound the warning klaxons repeatedly and with growing vigor, but, according to my new slogan: “I write because no one listens.” I could, perhaps, stand out in the cold again holding a sign in protest of or support for this idea or that policy, this notion or that cause, but my efforts would be for naught; just as one can lead a horse to water but not make it drink, so one can lead one's fellow citizens to knowledge but not make them think.

Where does this path we have chosen lead? To the jackbooted and willful destruction of diversity, life, honor, and Truth. This same path is the path taken in the early part of the last century by the people of Germany, who signed away their consciouses for the fleeting security of a chicken in every pot. So vast has our failure become, so readily have we given up our most precious ideals in pursuit of an artificial peace-of-mind and self-enslavement to our material possessions, that we no longer deserve to call ourselves patriots, let alone Americans; real Americans would fight for liberty and not give an inch to petty tyrants ruling from behind the black gates of White Houses; real Americans would demand that all voices be given equal air-time, that all candidates for the presidency be thrown into a room together without make up or polish, prepping or preening, polling or punditry; real Americans would take to the streets in the thousands in order to defend the rights of gays and women instead of shutting off their minds with a click of the television remote. Dear reader, we might have saved a bit of skin by not electing Mitt Romney to the presidency, but our struggle is far from over; indeed, it has just begun. Mahalo.

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)

Sandy boon or bust

Without doubt, both major-party political candidates will try to use the devastation and damage caused by erstwhile hurricane Sandy to their advantage. The incumbent Barack Obama will likely point to the rapid response time and widespread preparedness of thousands of emergency personnel as proof of his competency, as an indication of the methods by which he will tackle the nation's less immediate issues such as high unemployment, growing national debt, and our crumbling infrastructure. The challenger Mitt Romney will likely point to the sluggish federal response and lack of adequate leadership by the current administration as proof that our sitting president must be replaced, that he has a tendency to sit around lackadaisically while America drifts rudderless through the shoals of catastrophe, that his policies have failed, and that he is the greatest threat to the Safety of the People since redcoat placed boot on our soil.

I listened to NPR and checked the news regularly in the days and hours before Sandy made landfall, and, to my knowledge, Mr. Obama analyzed and calculated and fact-checked the storm as much and as thoroughly as he did his primary opponent in their third debate together. (Glaringly omitted from this debate were a couple of the other persons contending for the presidency, among them Dr. Jill Stein and former governor Gary Johnson, who were barred from attending the event and from sparring with their super-slick counterparts by the sinister and undemocratic machinations of the Commission on Electoral Debates a freedom-hating organization controlled jointly by the Democrat and Republican parties.) In all likelihood, Mr. Romney will blame his foe for failing to have prevented every tree from falling and every transistor from shorting out, for not acting quickly enough in his efforts to warn us sodden souls hardest hit by this frankenstorm of its exact path and true destructiveness, for worrying more about controlling the narrative and looking good on camera than visiting shelters and keeping hope alive. Hopefully, however, this time around, Mitt won't blame the few score deaths on the president (as he did following the tragic events in Benghazi) or insinuate that they would not have occurred under his watch, although if were to make such claims, he might alienate a few more swing voters and put himself out of the race altogether, which, in the long run, would work out just fine for liberty and equality here in America.

There is a chance that while he is out smiling condescendingly and surveying the shattered hovels of commoners the Republican challenger will fall into a ditch filled with sewage-mixed seawater and catch such a nasty cold that he will be bedridden for these last few days before the election, sparing us the torture of listening to his pitying smarm and of having to puzzle through the mounting mysteries of his constantly-shifting viewpoints. We shall see how things shake out once the storm of the century has passed. If you are interested in avoiding such disasters in the future, vote Green Party! Mahalo.

© mentiri factorem fecit (場黑麥)

encylopediamericanifesto - phaltscape withdrawal

  The phaltweary smog rider proves her phaltworthiness by bicycling the phaltscape. The evidence of her efforts lie in her callused hands, in her creaking bones, and in gritty, fleeting smiles that threaten sometimes to skate across her youthful and vibrant face. She accepts her station in life so long as she is allowed the exhilarating freedom of gliding around town atop a skinny metal sled. If she can ride smog in the city of her choosing, she has beef with no man.

  But what happens when injury, weather, or mechanical failure incapacitate the smog rider, and keep him from his Rounds? He will descend slowly but surely into the same type of madness that inflicts any proud and majestic beast that is kept away from its preordained way of life. Similar to a tiger taken from the jungle, the smog rider who cannot ride will develop a variety of diseases, among them shingles, bulimia, and long spells of wild-eyed, howling insanity. He will move about the area in which he is confined with increasingly erratic and violent movements until such time as he must be contained to avoid damaging himself. The color will flee from his once-rosy cheeks, he will put on weight, and his overall happiness will decrease markedly.

  If your smog-rider begins to develop symptoms similar to those mentioned above – if she turns cranky, impatient, or bossy, or if she loses sight suddenly of the horrible beauty of life itself – get her onto a bicycle and out in the phaltscape as quickly as you can. Every school-aged child knows that to keep an animal locked up far from its usual habitat is cruel and unusual punishment. She who smog-mashes, her insanity dashes.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp