“If you want to know me, look inside your heart.” - Lao Tzu · It seems in the midst of all the world’s current turmoil, the most difficult thing for me has been to help others; at least help in a way that aids them, not me. At another time in my development i’d chastise myself for ______fill in the blank, but sitting here puzzling the logic of contribution i realize that that frustration reveals my unacknowledged desire for approval. If i was honest with myself about my motivation to help others, failure would not factor into the equation, i would simply step back and readjust, and then seek a more effective way to serve. But my insatiable ego, my indestructible ego, my ever present ego - it’s almost as though the more i try to escape it, the stronger its hold on me · So do i simply let go and accept the “I” in my life reigns supreme and the ineffable, eternal soul i barely understand exists be abandoned¿ that is a question?
Even writing that i am aware of my facility for language that disturbs most and unsettles very nearly everyone i’ve ever known, except Winston, and Dave Simpson; et, very few al. Winston would simply look at me kindly and remark “you’re sick,” David’s strategy when faced with my withering repartee would whinny in his highest pitch mockery “CRAZY JOE” like the mutant hatchling clone from the bowels of aerospace hell that he could never be - just too human a guy · Russel Price took greater exception because we suffered similar maladies - mutual affection across party lines; David was invulnerable; he knew it and let it be, Russell was a reformer who felt if he could find the right formula, the correct combination of words - i would then understand and align myself with the killing work of the company. Our discourse finally distilled down to a barrier about knowledge - Russell asserting knowledge to be finite · i believing then, and now, in the infinite.
The irony being - regardless of the truth · we have only ourselves to blame. Were i to keel over right now struggling for the next word in this essay, the answer to our dialectic would have very little bearing, likely as true then as now. A truer discussion would include my affection for Russell as a person, and the loss i feel not knowing what he or David are experiencing right now. I left the computer lab where these semantic hijinks took place just as my 2nd marriage was collapsing - a move 400 miles North while in my 3rd semester of a Bachelor’s degree in English that did not improve my life much, but was a great career move for my wife · What that move did serve to do was clarify how exceedingly destructive my labor was, that no matter what bonhomie we’d conceived our computer lab tribe to possess - the fact remains our work made the lives of our children more precarious and less safe.
I accept that my attachment to that time in my life is the memory of belonging - i have always been drawn to periods of my experience when bonds were strong and enthusiasm high · in retrospect i felt the same alienation and self-doubt that plagues my steps today, but the feeling of mutual purpose and affection transcended, or deluded (depending on one’s perspective) much of the travail of that time, which in retrospect was as powerful then as now in its own way. How is this useful to the time we occupy facing the extinction of our species? I cannot recreate that delirious time, nor would i want to wander down that slippery slope of nostalgia. I think the more valuable lesson to take is to identify salient flags that might be recognizable in the path we all face. Our tribe was an unmanageable lot, and the smart leaders simply assigned us tasks and waited for outcomes. Mischief was a principle condition of the computer room we occupied - replete with an “apoplectic” button drawn on the blackboard for no other reason than to terrorize the sysadmin, for bringing the servers to their knees was routine sport for this band of renegades.
And not - i can see it was the delusion of being within the “circle” and the sense of strength that feeling provides. It gives me sad insight into the reactionary base which the fascists are now playing like a bad fiddle. I know how it feels to draw strength from the frustrated ire of an opponent perceived to be outside of range. The zeal one draws from taunting the weakness of one or many who would restrict your agency and sovereignty, however real or imagined. This feeling is not all that much different than the personal strategies we each employ to retain the fictional control our egos demand about a world that is uncontrollable. Where i get into trouble is when i leave the moment and try to apply previous experience to current choices - a conceit that was beaten into me under the guise of learning from our mistakes · one must strongly believe that s/he has made a mistake to believe that something can be rectified; when in fact, if you are doing the wrong thing, just stop it. The world will adjust itself without your help.
jts 29/08/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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