as seen from low orbit (IP)

Joliette rummaged through her backpack. She was not thinking about how she looked unloading all her personal belongings onto the walkway while people passed. She yanked out books, planners, maps, her little purple pencil bag, and several colored glass jars she brought to collect pasalubong for her little brother, Jean. She was frustrated and edgy, having over-layered her clothes for the tour. Even the light red sweater-t and worn wool beanie were becoming a nuisance. She snatched off her hat and let her auburn hair pour over shoulders in a solid shimmering mass of bottle red. She released a sigh of relief and stopped for a second to feel the crisp wind whip her hair against her cheeks and lips, her eyes squinting against the naked sun. She raised her hand to her brow and absentmindedly stepped away from the ledge of the bridge. Forgetting for a moment that her bag was underfoot, her left foot slipped into the looped strap. She was looking out past the mountains, considering a frame of the morning sun in the east. Something she could accomplish the next day if she could get out early enough to catch the first bus. Not likely.

And then, she was stumbling back. On the way down, all Joliette could think was “camera!” She glanced quickly to the left of her snagged foot and landed heavily on her behind with more joy than pain when she realized her camera was not in her hand. Her palms caught on jagged pebbles and her open backpack jerked backwards with her, tossing out a few items. Abject humiliation.

Joliette glanced around, noticing that more than one person was chuckling and walking past her with sudden urgency. She spat under her breath. ”Connards.” While brushing away the imbedded flecks of dirt from her hands, she felt a hand seize her upper arm and pull. She dropped her weight and did not allow herself to be picked up. She only frowned turned her head up to her uninvited rescuer. Turning her head back down, she grumbled unintelligibly. Persistent, the hand did not let go. “Je suis bien!” The blurt was unexpectedly loud. The grip loosened and Joliette pulled herself up off the ground stubbornly.

An unassuming couple looked at her cautiously. American, undoubtedly. The two looked at each other and shrugged, giggling awkwardly. Both were wearing matching T-shirts and black visors. Couple of dorks from the States. The lanky gentlemen removed his sunglasses.

“Um, sorry. We don’t speak…whatever you’re speaking.” Joliette squinted and pursed her lips, “I said I’m fine. Thank you.” The young man gave his companion a raised eyebrow.

surrogates

blood thins, cords spin, warp

snap by distance. devotion.

by proximity

echo boom this

sometimes i am speechless with disgust at my generation, the generation that preceded mine, and the one that follows. we are pampered, so sated and pacified by our material comforts that we fester in our own lush shells. domesticated pigs greedily feeding on our own crap.

our flight from our given places on simmer. what are our obligations when the social contract is no longer honored in spirit?

what i see disappoints me. i include myself in my assessment. i am fortunate to possess comforts that my predecessors did not and my contemporaries in other countries do not. yes. i am fat, lazy, and apathetic. the zeitgeist hovers just above the surface of our awareness, but never quite settles. it’s difficult to sense and synchronicity is stunted.

we all seem to be suffering from something like synaptal fatigue, psychic numbing. i call it sissified bullshit. i call it whiny baby learned helplessness. i call it spoiled-ass generation XYZmyfoot-the-grownups-willdealwithit crap. even a whipped dog or beaten child will eventually lash out. people condition themselves to ignore. cleave it out, wuss.

all this disgust in me for inaction but i recognize we possess a potential as yet untapped…quiet militancy. respectfully belligerent. weapons of the weak. willfully suppressed, but it’s there.

your fat, lazy, apathetic ass has too many rainbows and ice cream cones to focus on. i don’t mean to say that each doesn’t have his own sorrows. but the truly downtrodden have a greater capacity for joy and a less cynical sense of the sacred. they are not so padded by the comforts of the flesh as to reject the the eternal. your doubt and over-analysis of the meaning of life mean precisely dick.

the oppressed are women. the oppressed are men. the oppressed are children. the oppressed are the elderly. the oppressed are the white. the oppressed are the non-white. the oppressed are those aware of their opression and those who are oblivious. they are the starving and the overfed.

raise your sons as you raise your daughters. to feel and fear and love. raise your daughters as you raise your sons. to fight and move and shout.

i sporadically bring up these topics with peers. i rarely have the opportunity to breech the topic of the big picture and how one’s thread fits into the tapestry. i’m sick of talking about my job and my money. i don’t know where to start. where the fuck is everyone else? i feel like i showed up at a meeting in the wrong office.

pillar of salt

“Or will he turn his eyes toward the sun so he will not see the shadow of his body amongst the skulls and thorns?” — Khalil Gibran

i immediately thought of alighieri, collective conscious, architect, irrespective of theology or tradition 

human reason.

can humans, with the limited tunnel vision that reason represents, cope with evil (or even define it) without divine or transcendental intervention? could this weak ankle be the explanation for all theology?

1 – no belief in God –> trust in human reason alone. clearly hasn’t worked for us yet.

2- constant whirlwind of flesh and desire. arms and legs askew, flailing for solid union. manifests as self-loathing and aimlessness

3- garbage from within and without. stuffing the void with filth and untruth.

4- unreconciled materialism and moral obligation.

5- helplessness and frustration without answers translates into hopelessness and violence. desire to exact power on time and movement.

6- misunderstanding. misinterpretation. willful distortion of truth.

7- desperation and fear. violence with nothing to turn on looks to itself and others on which to exercise power. lack of trust in the wheel.

8- heal hack drag heal hack drag. no answers. circles with no tangents.

ground to transcend

live in a time and place that is simple. care for children and family. find the apex of honor and happiness. contentment in service. to children, partner, self, family. actively oppress the ignoble poison of pride.  the work of people is prime. breaks down to no more than itself and the other. speed and urgency negligible in the heated pursuit of all.  love is simple. intrinsically so. without the preconceptions and maladies of analysis and awkwardly dispersing fission.  love is not to analyze. observe only.

complications stem from the branches we affix and the leaves we attach to a solid sphere out of a need for aesthetic gratification. for romantic consideration. for philosophical blathering. triangles, squares, cones, cylinders.

integration and fusion. aligns with the shifting paradigm into solidarity.

newly eligible

holy shit. when did i become someone’s fucking supervisor? and when did start collecting retirement and thinking about starting some kind of a fledgling financial plan? this growing up business is for someone stuffy and uptight. not cuca.