Parcequedonc - Reporting Back to the Common Understanding

Reporting Back
to the Common Understanding

Foreword

My brother stands
Where time stands still….
He is at the vortex,
the eye of the whirling hurricane
of mobile and fickle social values….
He is steadfast…
But he is sensitive
and he experiences guilt…

I can only watch,
but my heart goes out to him….

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The Common Understanding

The Common Understanding
is the fund of knowledge
into which we are born;
from which we spring
on our journeys through
human consciousness.....
The beauty of the Common Understanding
is that
it is assembled over many centuries
by ultimately selfless people...
In their journeys through human consciousness
many people forget the indefinable nature
of the task facing them....
They forget that they are here to learn
and to contribute...
In the course of this forgetting
many of us become petty and selfish...
But this only lasts a short time
because people die
and in this ultimately selfless act
they leave behind what they have discovered
in their journey...
The sum total of all these discoveries
that those of us still journeying
can remember or record
is the Common Understanding....
The sum total
of these recorded or remembered discoveries
becomes the best answer
that we, through the generations,
can provide
to the question
"Why are we here....?"

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20th Century Prayer
or The Elusive Quality of Life

I am
a gift of consciousness.
From whom I don't know.
To whom I don't know.
But,
a gift nevertheless.
All the others are like me,
gifts of consciousness.
Like me,
they haven't a clue
about what's going on.
But I admire them
as I admire me
for carrying on
in the face of the impossibility
of ever finding out.
It is my purpose
to assume responsibility
for my passage through this reality,
to learn what I can,
to act where I can on that learning,
and to deal with my death
when it comes.
Should it ever transpire
that I meet the entity or entities
behind all this,
I shall demand
a very comprehensive
explanation...

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Why Do We Hate Our Children

The converging spiral drum was painted by local children. The children were given paint and brushes and told they could do as they pleased. The spiral drum was lying on its side and was therefore free to be rolled for access to every surface. The work began peacefully enough, with individuals undertaking the coverage of small areas. The pace picked up, however, as individuals began to compete, both for space and for particular colours. Although initially very excited at the prospect of painting such a large thing, I think, finally, they did not enjoy what they were doing. I think they became competitive and concerned with establishing a hierarchy.

This has happened before with this sort of thing. Why does it? Is it natural or is it acquired? I've noticed that the very young aren't so imbued with these preoccupations (competition and establishing hierarchy) and that the older they get, the greater their preoccupation. And I conclude that this arises out of their increasing involvement with formal education.

Although I'm not a parent in the sense that true parents feel they are and am therefore subject to much patronisation and scepticism, nevertheless I have children. The fact that I have them comes occasionally to me in much the same way as the fact that they don't have them must occasionally come to true parents….

Why do we hate our children so much that we submit them to authoritarian, hierarchical regimes. Why do we send their tiny little selves into such machinery. Why do we try to hurt them so badly. Why are we all so surprised at the apathy and bitterness, and inarticulate depression that comes over so many of them at about the age of thirteen or fourteen and stays with them either forever or until they have found some way of coming to terms, consciously or unconsciously, with what has happened to them. And we are we so shocked at the fierce and burning rages that come over so many others when they finally hit the streets and discover, I real terms, the inadequacy and hypocrisy of all they've been forced to ingest throughout this time…..

Why can't we act more responsibly….

People don't grow up….
They just become "more important"….
Because there is a universal expectation
of some sort of maturing process,
Individuals,
in assuming that change for the better takes place in themselves and others,
create sets of assumptions
that inter-weave and counter-support each other
and create of the universal expectation
specific sets of attributes and symbols…
The whole process of becoming important
relies upon people's readiness to admit importance in others
and thereby lay the groundwork
for making their own claims to importance…..

It is a very subtle and difficult infrastructure
with which to work
and children don't usually bother….
They frequently construct charismatic edifices out of one another
and six minutes later
tear them to shreds….

People don't realise
the extent to which they shape reality
with what they say….
They are so careless….
They realise even less
the extent to which they shape reality
with what they believe…
They are so afraid….

They are so irresponsible….

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Facing Defeat

The timing is never right….
Opportunities arise too late…
Resources are expended too soon….
People are gone when they should be here
and vice versa….
And time is passing…..
The last natural enemy
is beginning to have it all his own way…
I feel as though I push at things to help make them happen
but only ever learn about how difficult it is to control patience
and how easy it is to damage people….
The harder I push
the more awkward the timing becomes….
My philosophy used to be
that success in large quantities must come by accident
if achieving success is to be a non-corruptive process…
But the accidents haven't been happening…
Even the smaller ones
like a newspaper article
to coincide with a community event
or a cash or job windfall
in time to revive a struggling enterprise
before it collapses altogether….
And the more I get into trying to precipitate such accidents,
the more corrupt I feel myself becoming….

Success to me
is the attainment of sufficient short-term credibility
to enable some social energy
to be generated
and focussed
to the common good….

But the really impressive thing
about facing defeat
is the sheer repetition
of all its facets and processes..
It is the awe-inspiring number of repeat performances
of every aspect…
The unswerving predictability….

Well I'm getting on in years now
(or so I keep getting told)
and I'm beginning to feel
I've missed the boat….

In a currency based, wealth centralising society such as ours,
money can still be used to break cycles of defeat….
Rich bastards have no excuse….
Money is still a great social energiser….
The unfortunate thing is
that the idiots with all the bread
can only think in terms
of further excesses
in self-indulgence…
Another champagne breakfast;
another May Ball…
Another plate of something "exotic"
with which to stuff the face….
Morons….

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History Of England Part I.

The Queen is Queen by convoluted consensus.....
People kneel
because, historically, it was the only way
the Robber Barons
could agree to stop trying to kill each other
and each other's Peasants.....

Initially, amassing bands of Peasants and Lackeys
and flinging them at the bands of Peasants and Lackeys
amassed by the other Robber Barons
in defence of arbitrary claims to pieces of ground
was the most important pastime
of the Robber Barons.....
They used to have a good time
because it kept them fit
and the Peasants could always be relied upon to co-operate.....
If ever this became too much of a strain
on a Robber Baron's Peasant resources,
he had to forego the pleasures of this, the most noble, pastime
and settle for amassing bands of dogs and horses and chosen Lackeys
and flinging them at foxes and stags.....
This would give the Peasants a chance to rebuild the economy:
get the crops going, rebuild the wagons, refire the forges,
rebuild the roads and fortifications, and most important,
reproduce.....

The Barons had no difficulty controlling the Peasants.....
They simply entrusted chosen Lackeys
with their flogging.....
It is the peculiar nature of a Lackey's character
that allows this to take place.....
Lackeys are people with little or no internal self-esteem
who are constantly on the look out for someone in "authority"
who can provide them with some (self-esteem).....
By careful manipulation
of this supply of synthetic self-esteem
the Barons were able, and still are, to call upon the Lackeys
to do the most outrageous things,
including flogging Peasants
into producing the wherewithal
for their own destruction.....
But things sometimes got out of hand
such that the battles became larger and more drawn out
and began to render
stabilisation-of-the-economy periods impossible
even for the most diligently flogged Peasants
to the extent that
even the Barons' own standard of living
began to be affected.....
So, in order to preserve and maintain this fundamental aspect of the economy
(the Barons' standard of living),
they the Barons, found themselves needing to agree
to revere
a third party..... A separate office.....

Into this office, with the suspicious support of the other Barons,
was placed a Baron
whom the other Barons agreed to call King.....
This King walked on thin ice.....
He could only "lead"
where none of the people who'd agreed to let him lead
had any vested interest.....
This usually meant Foreign Wars.....
But,
this position of compromise
was delicately balanced.....
Initially meant as a means of ensuring
that no particular Baron should suddenly acquire undue power,
start grabbing land again,
and thereby endanger the stability
that everyone with any power comes to crave,
the decision gradually took on a meaning of its own.....
The King gradually became the office through which
all righteous action in the name of stability
came.....
And gradually
it became impossible to determine
whether the righteous action emanated
from one or more of the supporting Barons
or from the King himself.....

Thus the King accumulated more power
until his "divine right" became inarguable,
incontestable,
because no one could afford, or was willing,
to stick his neck out.....

Things kept on in this way for some time.....
But eventually, as must happen,
all good things must come, if not to an end,
to at least an apparent transformation.....
What happened was
that the Peasants began to get Religion.....
Christist Religion.....
The bit of the story about Christists
which warmed the hearts of the Barons
was the bit which taught people to know and appreciate their place.....
This was good for stability
which, as it happened, was good for Barons.....

But some of the Peasants noticed
that, besides teaching appreciation of place,
Christ also taught equality of humans.....
Then some Peasants also noticed
that the Barons and their Lackeys were generally quite pleased with this Religion
unless the notion of equality
came up.....
Then they became distinctly displeased
and killed, maimed, and deported (depending on the degree of their displeasure)
any Peasants known or even thought to be
giving this radical and unruly notion
any undue consideration.....

After a period of time in which many Peasants
suffered and died in great loneliness
the rudiments of Peasant mobilisation,
fuelled by this unruly concept of equality,
began to emerge
and began to demonstrate some of the awesome power that Peasants,
working together,
actually have.......
The concept of "King" began to crumble
and many of the Barons were at first very shaken.....
Many of them stuck to the "divine right" principle,
because it was the only one they knew or could think of,
and got killed.....
Many of them were more cynical and detached
and waited out the storms.....
When "Parliament" began to emerge,
the surviving Barons pressed for their "rights"
as only Robber Barons can.....
So effective were these surviving Robber Barons
in pressing for their "rights"
that they were able to justify, through Enclosure Acts and the like,
driving the now less governable and therefore less profitable Peasants
off the land altogether
and bring on to the land vast quantities of sheep
to replace them.....
This made life much easier and more profitable for the Barons.....
and much more difficult, as usual, for the Peasants.....
They were crowded into the cities
where the new "industry" was beginning to gain momentum.....
The Peasants, now completely cut off from the land,
unable even to grow their own food
(and maimed and killed when they tried to do it
on the few tiny parcels of "common land".....)
were forced to compete with each other
in search of work
at the new monolithic manufacturing establishments,
the Factories.....

Because the nature of their predicament changed so drastically
in the "Industrial Revolution",
what headway the Peasants had only just began to make in their rural settings
was lost.....
The nature of their exploitation by the Robber Barons
changed.....
Instead of having the Peasants flogged by their Lackeys,
the Barons de-humanised them
by depriving them of the land
and making them the servants of Machinery.....
The Lackeys were put in charge of the Machinery
and instead of flogging the Peasants,
they manipulated them by threatening to cut them off, individually ,
from their new, enforced, and only means of sustenance,
the Machinery.....
The fact that the Machinery belonged to the Robber Barons
was a direct consequence
of the Barons having, for generations,
killed and flogged people
who questioned their ownership of the land
and its produce.....
The currency they were able to concentrate
enabled them to "purchase" the Machinery
("purchase" here meaning paying Peasants subsistence wages or less
with currency derived from generations of Peasants' labour on the land
to build the machinery).....
This now subtley altered predicament
caused the Peasants much anger, suffering, frustration and disease.....
Being forced to compete (there were so many of them driven from the land)
for subsistence wages
meant, inevitably, taking less than subsistence
for impossibly long working days.....
It meant living in overcrowded and neglected dwellings
(also, surprisingly, belonging to the Robber Barons and their Lackeys)
and sending their children out to find work.....
It took many years for a new Mobilisation to develop,
but Peasant history is full of brave men and women
who, right from the start,
set to work trying to correct the balance
and who were sacked or maimed or killed.....
Because of the determination and courage of some of these people
the concept of Combination came into being
and became the Peasants answer
to the Machinery.....
Combinations were the forerunners of Trade Unions.....
They were organisations of people who would agree
not to service the Machinery
for less than a subsistence wage.....
These organisations were declared illegal
by Parliaments full of Robber Barons and Lackeys
and many Peasants were fined and beaten and imprisoned
for even discussing such organisations.....

Such were the appalling living and working conditions
that the Peasants had no choice
but to persist with their Combinations.....
This sometimes meant taking action against fellow Peasants
who, without considering what they were doing to Peasants in general,
would continue to compete for work
and take less than subsistence wages.....
These were bad and unhappy moments.....
But the Mobilisation continued to gain momentum
and finally emerged
with some "rights" to organise
and even
some Parliamentary representation.....

But the going was slow
and tortuous........

In Part II Merchants, Representatives, Professionals, the Media, and many other characters and phenomena will emerge….

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Multi-National Blockheads

These guys,
in their executive suites,
making executive decisions
about what to do
with the world…
What a bunch of pricks…
How did they get there…
Who authorised their madness…
Who gave them the wherewithal….
They are like greedy somnambulants run amok
carrying out their own interpretations
of the directives of the common understanding
as distorted by their greedy somnambulance…
But they're only an offshoot…
They're only operating on part of the programme….
The rest of it is still developing…
But they're so mindless
and so greedily energetic
that they don't notice…..
And what are the weapons available to the rest of us,
the rest of us contributors to the common understanding,
in what must become a battle
to get these guys to calm down…
The rest of us can't even communicate with each other
without resorting to mediums
administrated by these madmen,
mediums left in the control of a few
in order to facilitate
the ongoing consumption of the planet….
The thing is
they think they're the cream
or even the end product
of the common understanding…
But what they are
is delegates….
They've been delegated
to get on with administering the practical implications
of some of the more recent
and more shattering
contributions to the common understanding
in the best interests of us all….

They think they're the point,
but they're beside the point….
While they're freaking out over the profitability of the practical implications,
the rest of us
are still trying
to extend the common understanding….
The trouble is
these guys are so serious
in their commitment to distorted objectives
that there's a good chance
that the common understanding
won't ever extend
from here…
And we have to decide
either to do something about it
or accept that this colossal experiment in consciousness
was a failure….

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PMT

You experience all this raw vision
as trauma,
a time of abnormality,
a time of emotional crisis to be weathered
and then, hopefully, disregarded…
You've been told for centuries
by generations of patriarchs
and their unquestioning spouses
(how can you doubt it when even your own mother tells you,
right from the beginning,
to interpret it in this way)
that you're acting erratically and irrationally;
that for this period of time
others will disregard you
and you must try to disregard yourself….

But remember
it is a period of harsh lucidity….
That what you're seeing and comprehending in this time
is a slipping of illusions
and a tearing
of the threadbare fabric
of an already tenuous reality….
What makes it so difficult
is that a lucid view of contemporary reality
is not a comfortable one….
It is not surprising that you experience anxieties….
Clarity can be very unnerving…..

But you also have to remember
that your anxieties vis a vis your clarity
are compounded
by anxieties you are going to experience
as a consequence of being told
by a male dominated society
that your clarity
is trauma,
abnormal,
a long but passing (we're only talking about a fifth to a quarter of your life here…)
and therefore insignificant moment….
The trauma
arises not so much out of the period itself
as out of anxieties associated
with trying to suppress
the lucidity and its implications…..

I wish I could offer you
something more substantial,
but my experience is so limited…
I can only say
that, though I fail you time and time again,
you are the most powerful single factor
of the wonderment
I have for this earth….
Without you
it would be appalling….

I can only say,

Have more faith in your vision;
don't get isolated…..
Go out on a limb with it if you can,
but don't get isolated….
Look for the others who are out on the limb at the same time,
and share with them….
Take notes,
keep track of your thoughts
and examine them more closely
when you're back to "normal",
when you're back with the rest of us,
sharing our more muted, stifled, security conscious
world view…
Remember that communicability is the link
with the common understanding
and that the common understanding
needs you….

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Reflections on Reaching an Understanding
with Banks, Building Societies, Solicitors,
Estate Agents, and Similar

Let me just get this straight….
I've finally reached an understanding
with you lot
by which you and all your friends agree
that you're gonna keep off this bit of turf
unless something big comes up…..
You're not gonna come across any of this ground
with any roads or bridges or tank traps
unless, as I've said,
something big comes up….
Something big like a battle
between the collective paranoia of the administrators of one culture
and the collective paranoia of the administrators of another
or
something big like
a new breakthrough in the planning and implementation
of the consumption of this planet….
And, in exchange,
I undertake
to give you units of common currency
on a cyclic basis
as determined by the passage of the moon
around
where we live….
Okay,
I think I've got that…..

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Your Poxie Son

Your poxie son came to stay….
I tried to explain to you
what happened,
but your mind, like concrete,
was already set….
You were just waiting for a chance
to get the boot in….
The little bastard doesn't know anything…
His head is empty…
I could forgive him because he is young,
but he is so stupid
that he carries a kind of vanity with him
borne of an implicit faith in himself
borne of an implicit faith in his originating context;
his family environment or
perhaps even some kind of genetic superiority….

For a long time I used to kid him about it;
used to tease his certainty
of the untarnishable value
of his parents' world view….
But he told me that this made him angry
and he asked me to stop….
I could see his discomfort,
and could see that the point was lost
and so, except for occasional lapse,
I stopped this teasing…
But this irritating and naïve certainty of his continued
and, because I considered him a friend
and liked him to be near me,
I tried another tack….
I tried to demonstrate to him
that there is ultimately no way of measuring human beings….

I said that one doesn't have to aggrandise
a genetic line or a parental world view
in order to have the satisfaction of knowing
that one is a competent human….
The simple truth is
that while one human might surpass others
in any particular way or ways,
this doesn't mean he's any better…..
Not only are there plenty of other commonly recognised ways
in which others might surpass him,
but there are also limitless arrays of still other ways,
some uncommonly recognised,
some unrecognisable,
some inconceivable,
in which it is impossible to measure
one human against another….
The simple truth is
that anyone with the sensitivity to realise it
is a competent and magnificent human being
in a world full of human beings
in the throes
of making the same realisation….

(Although,
I would additionally argue
that there are those less or more inhibited
by ignorance
arising, for the vast majority,
out of varying degrees of environmental deprivation
and, for the privileged few,
out of varying degrees of self-indulgence….
In some cases seeing the truth means get down off a pedestal;
in others it means getting up on to one…)

But ultimately your son rejected this reasoning…
And do you know why…
He rejected the reasoning
because he couldn't overcome the conviction
that his father was a better human being
than himself….
He actually said this…

I tried many things to shake this conviction,
but couldn't….
And for me, the really scarey thing in these situations
is not so much the private implications of a person's self-abasement,
but more the escalating implications for every one else
of the emerging sense of hierarchy
in the person's mind….
Ie. "If he is better than me,
then either I'm the worst person in the world
or I am better than at least one other, and probably more…."
The real scare
is seeing someone latch on
to the latter option….
And it is this latter option
on to which your poxie son
appears to have latched…

But when I try to speak to you about it,
you block me….
You bring your anger and your stridency up
and, like a true Briton
suppress any attempt at direct interaction…
So what I feel towards your poxie son
is still with me
when, in a sense,
I could have cleared it
in conversation with you…
And what is also still with me
is the long fought realisation
that trying to communicate with you
is a waste of time….
The strange thing is
that you have long been and continue to be
an influence on my writing….
It's strange because you don't even realise you have that influence
and it's strange
because I don't even know why you have it…
Perhaps you're the epitome
of the intransigent
to whom I often imagine
I''m addressing myself…

Although I may say terrible things,
it doesn't mean I don't love you…
It only means
I don't know
what to do next….

Back to the top....

Aspects of Life
on the Turkey Farm

She was like a wee flower,
carefully unfolding
almost for the second time…
I was so careful…
I was oh so careful….
I was so careful not to tamper,
not to bruise,
not to put her in a place in my mind
where she mightn't want to be,
not to interfere
unless it was to say,
"The world isn't going to change,
all that will change is your attitude to it…"
And she was so shocked and offended
so much of the time
by some of the more abhorrent indications
of human frailty
that surrounded her
that she often felt she couldn't face
getting straight…
She couldn't see the point
if everything was such a struggle….
But I wasn't saying,
"No dear, that's not so, things are actually very alright
unless you have a pessimistic mind…"
I was saying,
"Yeah, that's the way it is… Isn't it fascinating…."

But she couldn't really make the jump
between her two year sleep and today
without some kind of sedative…
I tried to keep enough good smoke around
to help
but I never really had enough money…
But because I got off on her so much
physically as well
our lovemaking became a sort of sedative,
a sort of getting straight chemical
to ease her into the modern reality….
And I became like the administrator of the drug
and I did my best without, I don't think,
getting caught out on an egotistical excursion,
and for a while we were both really flying along together
on the same drug…
But gradually she began to get straight,
she began to be more awake than asleep
and more comfortable with it
and she began to get more curious about
her immediate surroundings,
one aspect of which
was me…
Who was this administrator of the drug,
what made him tick,
how could he, on the face of it, be so honest
in a world so full of abhorrent frailty….

But she wasn't getting enough information from me
and her curiosity was compounded by
the insistent telephone presence
of my former girlfriend
who, completely and totally without reserve or scruple,
was still trying to re-establish old love…
So she (the wee flower) began to turn to those around us,
my friends and acquaintances,
and, unknown to me,
began to quiz them,
to extract rambling insights from them
because (she claims) she was becoming afraid
of ending up
like the insistent ex-girlfriend…
I suppose that I had assumed
that, because they loved me
and knew that my intentions generally speaking
were humane and caring
and that because they knew I cared for her
because I had actually been telling them so
(completely out of character),
they would assure her, should any discussion of me arise,
that I was basically an alright person and,
though subject to human frailty like everyone else,
thoroughly dependable
and usually kind…
To my eventual horror,
I suddenly realised that I was not
getting this backup from my friends….
They were telling her to be careful,
to watch her step,
to watch out for my sudden unreasoning rages…
(One of these people had been present when,
well and truly beyond the end of my tether,
I was subjected to yet another surprise visit
from this gratingly determined ex-girlfriend
and I flipped out, raging,
not just at the accumulation of such incidents
and not just at the present invasion,
but also and more particularly
at the prospect of a bleak unwavering future
with no end in sight to such incredible tenacity,
such incredible force
of demented will….)

So she (the wee flower) began to observe me for signs
and, sure enough, eventually,
as happens when you look for things,
she began to find them
(I can still see her facial expression as she observed)
and began to present me with her findings….
To me
it simply seemed
like the eerie extension
of the ex-girlfriend's
demented will,
and this, coupled with the shock
of realising what my friends had been revealing
about my "true character"
led me into a kind of spiritual decline
wherein I became
the angered and spiteful person
they were all waiting for….
Even as I was getting into this decline
I realised I was losing my self-control
with regard to the careful nurturing and non-interference
of the flower's slow re-awakening….
But I began to feel as though she should be able to handle it
and as though I myself, under attack and harassment
for a similar period of two years,
was beginning to crack at the seams
and could expect a little help and support
from someone I had cared so much about….
Instead,
she responded with more suspicion
and broadened her circle of enquiry
to include her own friends and acquaintances
most of whom had never even met me
and who, presumably responding to her descriptions of the situation,
took also to warning her of the grim dangers
if she remained much longer with me….
Instead,
in response to much advice from you bunch of turkeys,
she ran away…..

What were your motives…?
I know that a lot of people,
including many women
and some men you wouldn't normally expect to be interested,
simply entertain the hope
of hopping into bed with her….
There's no doubt about it,
she conveys that quality, that attraction,
in some indefinable way….
I even think that this was part of the problem
with regard to the negative feedback
she was getting from some of my friends….
They were mildly entertaining that hope
and slagging me was a step towards this end…
(There is, as it happens, fairly concrete evidence
for this train of thought…)
So I suppose it's not surprising that some of you,
particularly those of you who don't kow me,
took the same steps…
In a way, that she is, time after time,
subjected to this process of alienation through advice
is more a reflection on her own inability
to differentiate between valid and invalid advice
or, more to the point,
her ability to get people to rationalise conclusions
she's already reached herself
by selecting the information with which she provides them….
(More about this later….)

But what of those of you
who weren't entertaining such a hope…?
I've hear it said that I was bad for her;
my "negativity" brought her down;
I was "warping" her mind
with my idiosyncratic social perspective..
But my message in this respect was simple…
It was that there are varying degrees of privilege on this planet,
very little, if any, of it merited,
and that there are people throughout this spectrum of privilege
too ignorant or too stupid
to recognise that a) these differences exist
and are causing unnecessary suffering,
and b) most contemporary social institutions
(educational, judicial, retributive, financial, legislative)
are geared and biased towards the preservation of this system of privilege
simply because the people who run them
are at or near the top of the spectrum,
like it there,
and gear and bias as part of their unmerited entitlement to privilege
in order to remain there….
I think it is extraordinarily naïve
to say that this is either a warped or idiosyncratic perspective….
"Negative"…?
Perhaps, but no more so than observing
that all time and velocity relationships are relative
and there don't appear to be any absolutes…
Or that there doesn't seem to be any verifiable indication
that there is an afterlife….
Very disturbing stuff,
but simply conclusions drawn from observations…
But even if you disagree with this perspective,
what have you achieved…?
So she's back in the swing of things,
leading a "normal" zingy life,
hanging around with exciting people,
chemically inducing energy and intensity,
having exciting talks about chemicals and music,
gay and carefree, bounding down the road
that once before took her to exciting Chelsea,
exciting Paris, and exciting Israel,
the places where, of course, she picked up her habit in the beginning….
Maybe it was inevitable,
but why did you feel you had to hasten it…?

I've heard it said that I'm a "womaniser"….
Where in the name of Jesus to you get your information….?
What do your idle minds get up to
in the run of a day…?
For the record, in the time that I undertook
a proper relationship with her,
I committed one "indiscretion"
and this was in the trough of what I've called my spiritual decline
and is associated with enough history and extenuating circumstance
to convince anybody but an idle collector of images and distorted facts*
that I wasn't acting totally thoughtlessly…

I've hear it said that she was unhappy….
Maybe so, and I suppose this is the most valid basis for a motive
if it were true,
but unhappiness, like happiness, comes and goes…
An opportunist will always be able to find a time in which to act
if he is awaiting signs of unhappiness,
but what's the point….?
What's particularly painful for me
is that in the time of her awakening
I knew she was fixing on me to a certain extent
and even as she was, I knew I could never live up to her expectations
for very long….
I knew a realisation of my limitations had to come for her
because I knew my limitations,
I could see where I stopped….
But suddenly, as she was making the inevitable realisations,
all these people started popping up out of the woodwork
and joining in a sort of cacophonous chorus of denunciation….
I didn't even get a chance to fight back
as it was all happening elsewhere…
But by then I was exhausted anyway
and was prepared to accept whatever transpired
fairly stoically….

But, I didn't bargain for the magnitude
of my missing her….
I didn't realise how far into me
she'd grown…
I didn't expect not to be able to get by as always….
And I was doing just that,
getting by as always,
until she suddenly appeared out of the dark
at the fair…
I sensed someone on my right…
I turned….
She had her back to me…
Her hair was cut so I wasn't sure…
I said, "Susie….?"
She turned toward me, smiling nervously,
and a yawning hole blossomed
in the pit of my stomach
and seems to have remained
ever since….

So okay….
Life goes on
and I walk around with this emptiness in my midsection….
No doubt I'll get used to it,
adapt,
lose myself in other activities as they say….
But I just wanted you to know
you might have done
a very dumb thing…..

The final dimension, which I haven't yet but touched upon,
(Warning: mushroom enhancement)
is the wee flower's own role in all this,
the role of her wakened mind
in her wakened wee head….
She is like a tiny sailor
wot drifts,
like a tiny rosebud
wot stands waving in the wind….
Carlos Castenada says: "A complete woman is dangerous in her completeness, more so than a man. She is unreliable, moody, nervous, but also capable of great changes. Women like that can pick themselves up and go anywhere. They'll do nothing there, but that's because they had nothing going to begin with. Empty people, on the other hand, can't jump like that any more, but they're more reliable. Don Juan said that empty people are like worms that look around before moving a bit and then they back up and then they move a little bit again. Complete people always jump, somersault, and always land on their heads, but it doesn't matter to them." (P. 118, The Second Ring of Power)
Well that's my Susie,
a complete nutter,
but at the same time
so fucking together
that it takes some wisdom to see it….
Something I'm very much afraid
you lot haven't a hope in hell
of achieving….
I guess I'm surprised at the weight of it…
I guess the knowledge and its inherent contradictions
(only some of which I've tried to examine here)
hit me a little harder than expected….
This might, for whatever reasons, give some of you grim satisfaction…
If so, then I give it freely, with this letter,
a present,
the writing of which
has already
done me a world of good….

(Aspects of life was a form letter I sent to friends and relatives of a young woman who came to live with me. This young woman was in the process of overcoming a two year heroin addiction. She'd already been through the withdrawals, but the real struggle seems to come later, when questions of purpose and purposelessness keep coming up. These friends and relatives of hers were, as you may have gathered, very industriously trying to get her to leave me. Some, in their ignorance, were set on institutionalising her. I, like a warrior walking the face of the earth, did whatever I felt I had to do, and lost her. I've no doubt that I failed her and, in a sense, deserved to lose her, but, besides what I felt from her sheer gone-ness, a bitterness towards these people remained just the same. The bitterness almost disappeared with the writing and the sending of the letter, but not quite. The letter actually continues, but I couldn't generate enough good faith towards these people (all extremely well off financially, high in the privilege spectrum, but too self-indulgent to admit or even appreciate it) to include the rest…. So what follows is what I couldn't give them… I'm giving it instead to the common understanding in the hope that it may have its uses… I apologise for the disjointedness, but the paper kept getting wet, there were long pauses between paragraphs, and my pen can never keep up with my mind even at the best of times….)

I guess I'm surprised at the weight of it,
and I guess there must be something more involved
than just Susie
and I guess she, in her unconscious togtherness,
sensed this as well….
I'm trying to define what "this" is….
I'm sitting in the field
cross legged
sobbing
groaning
tears pouring down my face
intermittently laughing very hard
as a tidal wave of thought
released by my preoccupation with Susie
floods out….
I need to make loud sounds,
they're trying to come through my chest,
but
I can't let them out,
it might disturb the neighbours (this is England)….*
How could I ever face them
afterwards….
It's like an animal or spirit
trying to get out of my body….
My body gets wracked by very real
physical spasms,
but my mind is still curiously
detached
and I keep taking notes
even though
the spasms and all the water
make writing difficult…

Heaven, to me,
is not a place….
It's an explanation….

I've always felt I had to bring people with me,
to wait for them,
to watch them learn the same things
and reach the same conclusions…
I've always felt the important people in my life
have done this for me…
But I guess I have to be more selective…
Not everyone is going to pick up on the same things
in the same way…
So I have to start saying, "Forget about it…",
to waive explanations….
You can only indulge in these things a short while….
You don't really have all that much time….
Instead of looking at all the humans
as potentially like-mindeds,
I have to recognise the time-bound limitations of each
and how they either synchronise or don't synchronise
with my own time-bound limitations.
I have to start looking for true colleagues among them….
Or else I have to forget about them altogether;
settle for hermithood….

I've sometimes encountered a dream scenario
in which I'm demonstrating special powers
like flight,
levitation,
control of objects,
and what have you,
and then laughing heartily at everyone's seriousness and awe
and saying,
"It's here, it's all around us…
We can all do it…"
And it is…
And we can….

Dear Wol,
This is another cosmic convergence spot
that I'm sitting in….
The geese already knew about it…
Some of their footpaths come together here….
But I think these spots keep changing….

Besides just looking at the sunlit beauty,
the delicate webs,
the waving fronds,
the heaving green earth,
the impeccable intricacies of light and moisture,
plant and sky,
there's also your contribution to be made….
Just like the bees and the butterflies,
you have to get off your butt
and make your contribution….
But unlike the bees and the butterflies
we've been blessed with the ability
to stop and take it in….
But this can't mean stopping altogether,
can it…..

There's a kind of knowledge
associated with the tension
between soaking up the beauty of this plane of reality
and acting within it
(remember "I am the Fisherman"…?)…*
The knowledge brings with it
a terrible kind of loneliness,
a terrible kind of grim jawed determination
to carry on regardless
of the impossibility of ever knowing why….
It also brings strange euphorias,
hysterical recognitions of the all encompassing ridiculousness
of this colossal joke,
rapturous realisations of the way in which
the completeness of the joke
manifests itself
in some of the tiniest, most insignificant seeming details
of life and consciousness….
Jane knows…
Dick and Marion know…
Wol knows…
Poor old Michael C knows….
Jerome sometimes knows, and Didier…
Many others of you know
at least fleetingly….
(Some of you get freaked out by it
and pretend you don't know…)
Even if people are unconscious of knowing it,
you can sometimes see they do
just by watching them….
But it can never be acted upon…
All we can ever do is say, "Hello there"
and keep on keeping on….*
We see each other; we recognise each other….
But our life forces just push us by….
We just have the fleeting satisfaction of having seen
and maybe recognised
each other….

I've brought you all here today
to say
Why aren't you loving me…?
What's the hold up…?
I've been loving you, and continue to,
but you haven't been responding….
Well, not enough anyway….

Jane keeps saying
Why haven't you written another book,
and I suddenly realise she's saying
We haven't heard from you in a while….
And I'm so vain,
I think, yeah well I can do that any time,
but of course I can't…
I actually need the love…

The sun alters my moods…
When it's out,
it glints off the cobwebs and the leaves….
It emphasises the stunning colour variations…
The textures stand out….
The ground moves….
The water that keeps coming out of my eyes
dries…
(My nose keeps running too… What's going on here…)
When it's in
my expansiveness contracts,
my ability to reflect warmth
diminishes….

I need the sun….
Perhaps not all the time,
but more than I've been getting it…
Am I a sun in your life…?
Well, you see,
if I am,
I have no way of knowing….

The most hurtful thing
is the passing of time…

There goes that nut Trudy
on that nut of a horse of hers….
If you ever wanted to see a love/hate relationship in action,
you should catch a glimpse of those two….

Margaret's just arrived….
She's eating all this stuff that was so beautiful…
She just came up
and started to eat the fronds and the webs…
Then she started to eat my writing….
You should have seen me jump…
Really startled me..
You should have seen me hustle
to save my papers…
Looks as if she's trying to remind me of something….
Maybe she thinks I take myself too seriously
or something subtle like that….
Goats have great sensitivity….

The turkeys just think I'm weird….
You can't explain anything
to the turkeys……

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