It is symptomatic of the dilatory way in which this blog is written – and in which my life generally is lived – that this particular blog entry was conceived some weeks ago when I happened to watch The Last Night of the Proms on television one evening. That must have been the 11th of September.
I’ve never really been able to get a taste for classical music, though I have been interested and even tried to like it. However, as I grow older I find that my tastes change. In some ways they become more inclusive, in some ways they become less tolerant. For some reason, when Last Night of the Proms came on that night, I really wanted to watch it, though even someone like myself, who is hardly a connoisseur of the subject, can easily see that it’s a very populist form of classical music purveyed at the Proms. I suppose there was in my desire some hint of nostalgia for a middle-class England that I’ve never really been part of, but which is ingrained in the English consciousness through, for instance, the works of Dickens and some of his contemporaries. Somehow, Last Night of the Proms seems to be a kind of party in celebration of just that England – cosy drawing rooms and brandy and rosy-cheeked daughters of kindly doctors in waistcoats and… you get the general idea. It’s no accident that Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia and Jerusalem are all regularly aired at the Proms. Anyway, I was watching the orchestra and the swaying drunken crowd in a warm vegetative state, when one of the guest singers gave a rendition of a song by Gilbert and Sullivan that particularly caught my attention. The song in question was As Some Day it May Happen from the opera The Mikado. There was a refrain that ran throughout about having 'a little list'. The rest of the song enumerated the kind of people who were on that list. The purpose of the list was not exactly clear, though mention was made near the beginning of 'a victim' that 'must be found'. I’ve not seen The Mikado, and I don’t know its plot. (I do know that no Japanese person in history was ever called ‘Nanki-Poo’ or ‘Poo-Bah’.) However, it seemed to me that the list was actually an assassination list; further, I was suddenly convinced that we all have such lists inside us, and that I had to articulate mine as a matter of some urgency.
The guest singer at the Proms had changed the lyrics slightly, and I decided that I would do the same. To this end, I looked up the original lyrics on the Internet. I found them to be quite lame. Maybe they had had a bit of bite at the time, but really, I couldn’t rally my bitterness and bile behind, "All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs". This satire itself had flabby hands – limp flabby hands that were like lettuce when you tried to grip them. What’s more, I just didn’t agree with the smug, jovial conservatism of most of the lyrics. There’s a reference to "the nigger serenader" which seems worrying, but is explained in footnotes as alluding to singers who would black up their faces a la Al Jolson. I’m ready to believe that, but when I hear another reference to "that singular anomaly, the lady novelist", it fails to tickle my ribs. If we reverse the dictum of Homer Simpson, "It’s not funny, because it’s not true." Rather, I can see the author of the line smiling to himself at his own 'brilliant wit', and I find it tedious.
While not particularly confident of my wit, I am at least confident of my venom, and I thought I could write a much better version of the lyrics in terms of bite than those flabby, floppy Gilbert and Sullivan fellows.
While I was contemplating this task, something rather synchronicitous happened, and the comments section of my blog, specifically the comments section attached to a rather melancholy post entitled 'The Dark Nights are Drawing In', was visited by a purveyor of rhyme, whose metrical response to my ponderous ponderings chimed in rather neatly with the idea of the lyric I wanted to write. I just about managed to respond in kind, and I hope that it provided me with a bit of limbering up for the 'big fight' with Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan. Anyway, here is part of the exchange that I had with my versifying visitor:
Your 'monologue', it seemed to me,
Lacked an ingredient – 'brevity'.
It looked as if your writing skill
Was used to show us how you "thrill"
Yourself, your ego, artistically
By utlising – dramatically –
A self-made 'prop' which, while macabre,
Reminds one of "Les Miserables"
It's clear you have an aptitude
For narrative, beyond the 'rude'
Employment of plain noun and verb,
But if your 'patron' – the late Quentin –
Were around to read your writ
He might suggest you use some "wit",
For no one, I suspect, much cares
For stories with depressive airs
Q:
Tempted as I am to try
To match your wit and versify,
I fear my version of the same
Would not add greatly to my fame.
If natural talents I possess,
Therewith my fellow being to bless,
They are talents not of wit
(Or not as most would notice it).
Are laughter, then, and talent one?
That most profound which is most fun?
Must talent, too, come easily,
As laughter does not come to me?
If there is mirth in what I do
It's recognised by those few who
Have felt such pain as I, such as the damned
Do feel when in Hell's gate their toes are jammed,
And this deep, everlasting pain
Does rise in spasms to their brain;
In madness do they laugh and cry;
In madness does my talent lie.
But enough of this limbering up. Without further ado, here are the lyrics to As Some Day it May Happen, as re-written by me:
Q:
As someday it may happen that a chance will come my way,
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
To assassinate the evil swine who haunt my every day
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There's the Philistinic publishers who ceaselessly insist
That struggling writers their rear-ends do regularly kiss
And to whom a story’s wordcount’s more important than its soul
And who mock the artist but then flock like vultures when he’s cold
And all the morons who from buying trash do not desist
They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!
Chorus of Men:
He's got 'em on the list — he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!
Q:
There’s the advocate of ‘progress’ whatever that word means,
And the vivisectionist – I’ve got him on the list!
In the pursuit of science he would splice his mother’s genes.
They never would be missed — they never would be missed!
There’s the suit who bursts out laughing if you venture to suggest
Integrity in business dealings might be for the best
And advertising executives who think their work is art
And believe all real artists, must, like them, be tarts
And the swarm of modern artists who truly do agree with this
I don’t think they’d be missed! I’m sure they’d not be missed!
Chorus of Men:
He's got ‘em one the list — he's got ‘em on the list;
And I don't think they'll be missed — I'm sure they'll not be missed!
Q:
And self-satisfied actresses who say, “Because I’m worth it!”
And that Gates monopolist – I’ve got ‘em on the list!
And all men with a bulldog’s gonads where their brains should sit,
They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!
And politicians, naturally, only fit for plots and schemes
Who make us choose between their lies, and still they have sweet dreams,
And all God’s angels and the cosmic forces who presume
To rule us, judge us, toy with us, then lay us in the tomb
These are just a few of the bastards on my list
For they’d none of ‘em be missed – they’d none of ‘em be missed!
Chorus of Men:
You may put 'em on the list — you may put 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!
While I was mentally engaged in re-writing this lyric – the rhythm was simple and regular, so I could do it in my head without too much difficulty as I went for a stroll, or something – it occurred to me that, actually, what I was proposing with such a list was something like, was, in very fact, a form of Final Solution. What it meant ultimately was that, these are the people or entities who should be sent to the gas chamber. I’ve had – and managed to forget – the same realisation before. And this realisation, not mine alone, seems to point to the fundamentally insoluble nature of the human problem. To put it another way, in solving the problem, I create the problem.
In his famous play, Huis Clos, Jean-Paul Sartre formulated the equation that Hell is other people. For many people this equation is manifest as xenophobia. "If only those foreigners weren’t here, there would be more employment, less crime, and life would be okay." And that is more or less the position taken by the likes of Adolf Hitler. For someone like myself, the equation 'Hell is other people' is manifest not in relation to ethnic groups, but in relation to certain types of behaviour, the types of behaviour enumerated on my 'little list'. However, I wonder if, imagining for a moment that I was in the position of Adolf Hitler, whether the result would be any different if I were to round up advertising executives rather than Jews.
Hell is other people – it is the basic inability of one human being to get on with a slightly, or greatly, different human being that has been the cause of most of our human problems. What can I say? War, crime, loneliness, addiction, segregation of all kinds. There are people who believe that, for instance, problems of racism have been solved. Of course they haven’t. The conflict and violence that is rife throughout the world is proof enough of that. While one human being can justify violence towards any other on the basis that they are different, that they are, in other words 'not me' or 'not us' racism exists, because this ultimately is the source of racism.
The liberal solution to all this is tolerance. We must tolerate each other. But that only works if everyone is liberal. In other words, the eternal dilemma for liberalism is, should we tolerate intolerance? Whether you tolerate it or not, intolerance will exist.
If, as a liberal, you decide not to tolerate intolerance, you have ceased to be liberal as such. You have, instead, chosen sides in a war. Liberalism simply becomes the banner you wave as you march into battle. Is this inevitable, I wonder?
When I read The Place of Dead Roads by William Burroughs, I was half horrified and half delighted to discover the concept of 'shiticide'.
Let me put on my Burroughs drawl for a moment:
"A wise old queen once said to me, 'Darling, some people are shits.' I have never been able to forget it."
In The Place of Dead Roads Burroughs puts forward the (modest?) proposal that we should "slaughter the shits of the world". Just how much Burroughs is playing devil’s advocate and how much he is sincere is difficult to tell, and probably beside the point. Here we have a perfect expression of the liberal finally getting fed up of tolerating others. It’s the old feeling of, "If only everyone else was as liberal as me, the world would be a wonderful place." Looked at another way, it’s a return to the child’s sense of injustice. "They started it!" might be the rallying cry of such a crusade. There’s a sense behind such anger of the incredible potential of the human race if only – if only!!!! – it were not held back by the greedy, the stupid, the spiritually myopic. Somewhere in there is the dream of a community of artists, supporting each other, caring for each other, being creative together. We could have that beautiful world IF ONLY it weren’t for the shits who insist on spoiling it all. And thus, shiticide. Of course, if you want to justify it with a kind of moral logic, you can’t. The contradictions are insurmountable. Still, that feeling of 'if only' calls. It’s a matter of just taking sides in the war, winning it – or, more likely, losing – and then, if you’re not dead, sitting down with a sigh of relief for a moment before getting up again to start building paradise.
But first, how do we identify who the shits are. I’ve made my list above. But what if the people are like have lists that disagree with mine. Do we just pool them? Then there’s the fact that, even if only my list were used for this imaginary revolution, it really looks like a case of destroying almost the entire human race. I don’t think the Utilitarians would approve. Okay, let’s look at Burroughs’ criteria for a moment. He seems to think, metaphorically or otherwise, that the human race has been infiltrated by Venusians. Now, this is an interesting idea, and one that I find simultaneously fascinating and just a bit disturbing, which is what I like Burroughs for, I suppose. Let me explain. I’m sure his choice of Venus and not Mars as the source of the alien invasion is very purposeful. What he is attacking is the romantic viewpoint. He is attacking the notion of Love, certainly as it is propagated within the Judeo-Christian tradition. Addiction is one of the main themes of Burroughs’ work, and in attacking the romantic notion of love he is attacking an addictive illusion. As he says elsewhere, "The face of evil is always the face of total need." And what is love, in its romantic aspect, if it is not need? The idea of love as a kind of sickness or corruption is not new. I’m reminded of a line from T. S. Eliot: "The heart is wicked and deceitful above all things." The quote is, in fact, echoed by Burroughs. Developing his interest in Egyptian mythology, Burroughs tells us in The Western Lands that, "[t]he Ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls." He begins to list the seven souls in order, giving a brief description of their properties: "Number Four is Ba, the heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk’s body, with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down like Samson by a perfidious Ba."
I tried to be religious. And I failed. Thank God I failed. I have similarly tried to be an atheist, and, similarly, failed. But I think I tend to see spirituality more and more in very personal terms that cannot be communicated and which, for me, centre around creativity. I think that creativity is a kind of madness that is the only means of coping with a world in which our lives are painful and meaningless.
Hello to you, Q.,
Granny (or someone who used to look remarkably like here) once told me “You can’t put an old head on young shoulders”. So it is with thee and me. All I can /will say is that there is no crime in wanting an ‘audience’ to support one’ self-belief /self confidence. Trouble is, of course, that audiences can be fickle (“tell me about it!” I imagine I hear a theatre producer moaning somewhere)and fame (as I don’t know but have often heard said) is fleeting.
If there is any counter-point to your ‘malaise’ I have already made it in earlier postings. Arrogance is a cousin of self-belief. One may have to have an ego the size of mars (the planet – not the confectionery)and project this outward to be accused of arrogance in order to maintain one’s self-belief.
Or one may have what ‘mountain-top messiahs’ proclaim to be “a quiet confidence” in one’s own ability(s). Or one may simply know that one is good /brilliant at doing at least one amazing thing. In your case I would say there is no paucity of evidence.
Your writing ability, as published in your journals, is “amazingly / brilliantly” good. Yes I know I have just tripped over two cliches but there are exceptions to any rule and in reading these phrases you should gracefully accept that they are not intended to be cliches in your case.
In some strange way there is a ‘sympathetic link’ in your subject matter and in Emily’s (hello Emily). Both of you seem to be interested in ‘dark’ writing(s). Perhaps you have the edge on Emily in the ‘gloom’ genre. She does write on wider issues (yes I know you have added your passionate commentary to the Iraq question) which seem to be germane to her environment. I also believe she has an extraordinary literary talent which matches your own.
For the moment I leave you as I found you but perhaps next time I will find you in a different frame of mind. The chances are slim on that expectation I know.
Be of good cheer – even if it pains you. Imagine you have an audience.
~~lokutus~~
Hello Emily.
I’ve just noticed there are a couple of typos in the ‘Little List’ entry, despite my resolve to be more careful in that area. I’ll have to sort them out later.
I’ve just realised that I am a number four, too… according to the enneagram model of personality types and the diagnosis of a friend. Number four is the romantic, acutely aware of loss of contact with the original source and longing for some misty elsewhere.
However, I don’t know how this corresponds to the Egyptian seven souls, as there are nine types in the enneagram.
The seven souls are something like Ren, the director, Seckem, energy, Ku, the guardian angel, Ba, the heart, Ka, the double, Seku, the shadow (memory etc.), and no, hang on, I think the seventh one is called Seku – the remains. That’s completely off the top of my head. The order and general conceopts are, I think, correct. But I probably have the names wrong.
The enneagram personality types are 1. the perfectionnist, 2. the martyr, 3. the performer, 4. the romantic, 5. the observer, 6. the questioner (?) 7. the hedonist 8. the leader and 9. the mediator.
In numerology four is the number of earthly security, since it is the first square number.
These systems seem a little disparate. But there’s no reason to expect them to fit together, really. They’re just models of interpretation. The lens may change, but the object examined doesn’t.
I’ll let you know when I buy an island and set up a community of artists or seers. I’ve got a lot of saving up to do, though.
Hello Dr. Prime.
My silence, when it occurs, which is often, is, I’m afraid, a sign that I am having to survive in one way or another. Well, I’m sure this will come as no surprise.
At present I am trying to become self-employed, as I’m really finding it intolerable to be employed. This is taking up a lot of my time and energy. I went to the inland revenue office in Tolworth this AM to attend a course on self-employment and taxation.
I’ve been reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, and many of the characters consult the I Ching as a matter of habit. This kind of got me interested in the I Ching, so I took it down from the bookshelf and consulted it on the matter of my becoming a full-time writer. I got hexagram 56, The Wanderer:
“When a man is a wanderer and a stranger, he should not be gruff nor overbearing. He has no large circle of acquaintances, therefore he should not give himself airs. He must be cautious and reserved; in this way he protects himself from evil. If he is obliging towards others, he wins success.”
I had a nine in the fourth line:
“This describes a wanderer who knows how to limit his desires outwardly, though he is inwardly strong and aspiring. Therefore he finds at least a place of shelter in which he can stay. He also succeeds in aquiring property, but even with this he is not secure. He must always be on guard, ready to defend himself with arms. Hence he is not at ease. He is persistently conscious of being a stranger in a strange land.”
Well, we shall see. We shall see.
I shall peruse your recent postings later. Thanks. Bye for now.
Q,
I had never heard of enneagram types before, but I found this cool link also. I thought I would be a 6. I’m sort-of depressed about being a 4 to be honest, but I guess that’s because I’m a 4. Why fight my nature?
E
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then…I contradict myself;
I am large…I contain multitides.” Thomas More
That was for you, Q. But hello to you too, lokutus!
I’m a philosophical mess, and it’s probably best not to listen to anything I have to say. I don’t believe in determinism, and when I have more time I will write a better response here. The idea I was trying to suggest (and I think you’re right Q, about fighting our nature being part of our nature, like an animal that tries to eat himself) was that maybe there are keys within us, and the keys are facets of our natures that compell us to behave in specific ways. Maybe if we’re “attuned” correctly or something then following these compulsions will lead to synchronistic events and thus…I don’t know, enlightenment or something. Is is up to us to apply the point? Is simply believing in something enough to manifest it? I grew up in a very Christian household and I know how indefensible their beliefs are. I couldn’t understand how everyone was so much better at this game than I was- this game of pretending. Jesus was like the idea of imaginary friends to me. I never understood that either. It was like something kids said they did, to seem like kids. But how could I really play with someone that wasn’t there? I abandoned that silly game instantly.
But I am not an atheist. There is Divinty- I see it evidence everywhere, and I would be arrogant or foolish to to deny it.
Hello Emily, I have followed your discourse with Q. here.
Interesting. I of course don’t know much about you or your background (I’m not fishing) so my comment is, I hope, ‘disconnected’ and rational. Your ‘nature’ (personality, character?), in part, will owe something to your genetic inheritance. Any residual factor(s) will have been influenced by your upbringing, your environment – then and now – and many other (almost) imponderable reasons. Not many of us can fight our ‘nature’ but we can adapt and survive. Now why should I post a comment which on first sight would seem to be an emotioneless,
dull, (I see you nodding vigorously!) way of describing what you may be? I suppose I am saying ‘don’t be depressed about being a 4 – or anything else, for that matter’ because the creative/ intellectual output in your journals, Q.E.D., demonstrates who you are and what you are capable of. Your poetic side will sustain you. The signs are very positive.
Of course you may just be a pixel of my imangination. 🙂
Peace,
lokutus
Hello Dr. Prime.
I’m afraid that, where you have a capacity to speak in rhyme, I have a tendency, instead, to speak in quotations. A great many of them come from singer/lyricist Morrissey, to whom I would say, “I can’t help quoting you, ’cause everything that you’ve said rings true.”
“No heavenly choirs” is a quote from one of his earliest songs, called Jeanne. If I quote from memory, it goes something like:
Jeanne,
I’m not sure what happiness means
But I look in your eyes and I see
That it isn’t there
Jeanne,
The low-life has lost its appeal
And I’m tired of walking these streets
To a room with its cupboards bare
Because we tried and we failed
We tried and we failed
Cash on the nail
It’s just a fairy tale
And I don’t believe in magic any more
Because I think you know
I think you know the truth, Jeanne.
There’s ice on the sink where we bathe
But you still something something something
As you tidy the place
But how can you call this a home
When you know it’s a grave?
No heavenly choirs
Not for me and not for you
Because I think you know the truth, Jeanne,
That we tried and we failed
Etc. etc.
******
The fact that I had ‘tried and failed’ naturally reminded me of this lyric, and thus, “No heavenly choirs”. Such are the convoluted ways in which my mind works, I’m afraid. Anyway, thank you for putting that in a new context and shaking me a little out of my fixations.
…..or even my ‘imagination’.
Well now – you believe you are a failure? – and so you become one because you are convinced that adversity holds your card in its capricious hands. You tell me more about yourself but at the same time reveal that you are 32 years in existence. This is hardly time to run the full apprenticeship of the ‘convinced has-been/never was’. I am past 60. Perhaps this is not relevant to your situation but I mean to send you a small supply of Hope (contraband in a failure’s world) by my revelation.
I may regard myself also as a ‘failure’ if I look at the things I meant to do/should not have done, over the long course of my life but in the balance all the ‘essentials’ (a relative term) are in place.
I am unknown -except to those who count. I am unloved, except by those whose love is a focal point in my life. I am not famous – though when young (teenage) I yearned for some sort of ‘fame’.
I am not clever, unless one measures that description by inate ability(s), unique to myself – but then most of us have an ability which defines our ‘cleverness’ and some of us never recognise or use it in a positive output (but utilise it as a ‘destructive/negative’ channel, to belie the alternatives/ potentials – perhaps because ‘shocking’ the world – while at the same time ‘shocking’ ourselves – is a far more cogent action).
I do not have a monopoly either in knowledge or wisdom and yet I possess some small measure of both – perhaps because I am receptive to both, perhaps because the longer I am alive the more I see to challenge my reasoning and my logical thought process and to stimulate/inspire my ‘artistic’ output (‘artistic’ may be a misnomer: I use certain tools in my literary expression/output to construct/evoke a point of view/opinion/send a message, but also to attract responses/ opinions/reactions/feedback).
We all have the ability to be losers but our instinct – as a specie – is to survive. We eventually adapt or we perish.
You seem to have much to offer. I urge you not to perish.
I am sure I have left unsaid many relevant points but there is a limit to the boredom I should inflict on the reader.
We shall, doubtless, return to this theme at some time.
All good wishes, from me to you Q.
~~lokutus~~
Hello Q.
I enjoyed your journal (super image holding the Little List) and your parody of G&S. You know -I see you (imagine you to be) in a role not unlike G&S’s “Modern Major-General” but in this case I identify you as a “Modern Literary ‘Animal'” Quote marks around that word will, I hope, assure you it is not a pejorative term, but a complimentary one, as used by me, to describe your ‘presence’ in your journals. I’ve scribbled a few lines down, following the theme of parody. Sorry it’s so brief -but just say the word and I will extend it for you 🙂
Best wishes Q. ~~lokutus~~
______________________________________________________________
Modern Literary ‘Animal’:
I am the very model of a literary animal,
My anecdotes are gloomy but I cannot say that’s criminal,
My Directory Of Lost Souls is far from being minimal
With gloomy aspirations set in subterraneal phoneme;
It’s very easy to subsume identity and empathy,
Abandon happy-clappin and become another entity,
And that is where I’m headed and I shun all wasted sympathy,
For all my awful dealings with the publishers of infamy.
ALL:
#For all my awful dealings with the publishers of infamy.#
#For all my awful dealings with the publishers of infamy.#
#For all my awful dealings with the publishers of infamy.#
Modern Literary ‘Animal’:
I’m very good at allegory, allusion and analogy,
I slaughter those who frame me in a certain sort of category,
I’m caustic and I’m cutting, I’m a theatrical Great Gats-b-i-e
And those who threaten me are lashed, literally and actually.
ALL:
#And all who threaten me are lashed literally, and actually#
#And all who threaten me are lashed literally, and actually#
#And all who threaten me are lashed literally, and actually#
Modern Literary ‘Animal’:
I’m prone to rage, and reason, but it’s due to my identity,
I do not suffer fools around who bother me in quantity,
If I could deal directly and avoid them I would come to be
In better circumstances with my merit for posterity.
ALL:
#In better circumstances with my merit for posterity.#
#In better circumstances with my merit for posterity.#
#In better circumstances with my merit for posterity.#
Such an interesting idea. In Vodou, the number four is an omen of heartbreak. Also interesting that the Egyptians represented the heart as a predatory bird- a creature that could flap its wings and leave you without notice, a hollow-boned hunter capable of shredding and devouring other birds. What a fitting metaphor! We can go to such extremes of cruelty and kindness when we are in love. It is such an intriguing force. I think to love Love, you have to be something of a masochist.
Personally, I think it is one of the most exquisite things a human being can feel. But I am not referring to Love as a traditional plastic-couple-smooshed-into-white-frosting kind of way. For me, Love is an awareness of Beauty in another person or thing, a recognition of a meaningful connecetion to your place in time. Love can be general or specific and it is undiminished.
Other people are hell. I don’t love most of them. I think most of them are wholly disregardable. They go about with their ears blocked and their eyes closed and their mouths and trousers hanging open. Boors and slobs and fools. When you talk about a “community of artists…being creative together” – this is what I meant by a community of seers, a community of “awake” people, who look at life the same way.
You’ve been reading about Hitler and I’ve been reading about Karl Marx. I had similar thoughts this week about the failure of Communism. If people weren’t such greedy asshole idiots, and were dedicated to the idea of surviving and thriving….
And we’re back to the Pilgrims, and starting all over- a world without idiots! Utopia! But I think it’s part of our genetic code. So maybe those gene-splicers you want to eliminate are just idealists, too….
Peace.
E
Brilliant verse, by the way. All of it.
Hello, again, lokutus,and Q, of course! It is your blog, after all! We seem to be something of a strange trinity. I suppose I was really mostly making a joke about being depressed about being a four, because as a four, I have a tendency to be morose. But in a way I was kind of disappointed because I have this idealized perception of myself as a Questioner. I sortof expected to be a four, but I was hoping for something a little more…noble, I suppose (no offense Q, my dear fellow 4).
By the way, thank you very much for all the kind things you’ve said about my poems and my blog.
A pixel of your imagination- I like that! It’s entirely possible….
Peace.
E (The Holy Ghost)
E. – I don’t disagree with how you describe what you see. I have also seen it myself. In the sunsets off of the Phillipine islands. In the sunrise near the pyramids. In the storm lashed fury through the straits of Tawain. In those things I wrote down in my travels as a young man. It’s only a noun we place on our perceptions. Divinity is as good as anything – maybe better. Whatever it is – through evolution or a ‘super-being’, it is still a wonder which calms our innermost being.
~~~lokutus~~~
Hello Emily and Dr. Prime.
Well, there’s a great deal to respond to here. Let’s see… I took the enneagram test. I was half-expecting to find my friend’s diagnosis wrong, and that, after all, I was a hedonist or a martyr or something, but no, I seem to be overwhelmingly at number four. My scores were 3:3, 4:11, 5:2, 6:1. However, as my friend, from whom I learnt about the enneagram – he’s a therapist – is at pains to stress, the types are not really who you are, they are simply ways of identifying where you spend most of your time emotionally. Whether or not it is possible to fight one’s nature is something I have debated with myself for a long time, without coming to any conclusion. I think, until proved otherwise, we must at least assume determinism to be false, otherwise we might be falsely led into fatalism.
I was trying to express something similar to what Dr. Prime has said with my analogy of the lenses, but I’m afraid my lenses were not very clear. I meant that, although lenses of interpretation may be useful, the object itself is not the image filtered through the lens.
On the matter of the heart, I rather like the way – quite accidental, I should add – that the quote from Burroughs about Ba, the treacherous heart, seems to segue into the entry below that, ‘There’ll Always Be a Place for You in My Heart’. It’s a nice little irony that occurred purely because these journals don’t seem to be able to hold more than about two thousand five hundred words per post.
And finally, thank you Dr. Prime for your lyric, which I enjoyed very much. I think I’d like to see it performed on stage.
I was disappointed in the original lyrics to As Some Day it May Happen because, on the occasions I have actually heard G and S songs, there has been such a sense of wit in the melodies that I thought I would find it in the lyrics when I examined them, but in this case, I didn’t.
I certainly like the idea of Gilbert and Sullivan, but I wonder if I would appreciate the reality if I delved too deeply into it.
Anyway, your own rendering of G and S is not a disappointment.
Well, lunch calls.
…musing on quentincrsip’s posting I give the following which I deicate to his comment/view and which I may also post as a journal entry.
_________________________________
No Heavenly Choirs for me
Or shrill fanfare,
Announcing I am on my way,
Or hellish drumroll
As the gatekeeper reviews me
On the ‘final day’.
I did not believe in anything
Associated with religion,
Nor did I believe in non-belief,
And now I am not here to question
Whether I was right or wrong.
But when I lived I was creative
To the point of madness,
My counterpoint to anything,
With overtones of ‘gladness’.
If I am wrong and there is resurrection
I won’t be changing my views or my direction.
Falsely led into fatalism, huh? I don’t know where I stand on the issue of Fate. From a critical standpoint, it does seem… overly romantic on a superficial level, and disturbing in a does-free-will-exist? kind of way. But recent synchronistic encounters and discoveries are beginning to make me question my specific place in the framework of human existence. So my question to you is this: what if our natures serve a function? Sometimes the whole world and all of life and even the universe seem like a giant fractal to me, swirling and undulating and repeating. We are self-devouring, self-repeating, beautiful beautiful beautiful. Even the “shits” – they are like forest fires, releasing nitrogen, clearing the Earth for something greater.
Perhaps to fight one’s nature would be to run against this cosmic fabric, to snag yourself on Purpose and miss your chance.
Of course I’m not this Zen most of the time. Most of the time I want to go around kicking everyone in the balls.
E
Greetings Q.,
When I was a little lad, and as I grew into my teens, I recall my mother’s comment, whenever I appeared to be ‘down’ or a ‘low’ for some reason or another (who can say with teenagers?); “Son” she would remark “We’re a long time dead”. Out of context her remarks may sound odd now, but it was her way of trying to let me see that ‘triumph’ and ‘disaster’ – those “two imposters”, as Kipling refered to them – were only events. Things would move on and I would be able to cope with my unfolding life. It sounds trite now, of course, on the complex, fast moving “we-must-succeed-or-perish” stage some of us are standing on (I’m not referring to myself of course – I have always been somwhere in the ‘wings’, usually raising a metaphorical curtain here and there, so to speak), but you, my fellow ‘banterer’ and potent writer of analogy and drama, are able to weave such detailed, lengthy, researched and gripping stories, in words that paint light into your imagined darkness, that I must draw your attention to what I perceive in your literary output, in the hope you may see what I see. As to your ‘fixations’ – I am pro-Darwin. You will adapt to circumstances and, providing you continue to believe in yourself, you will prosper.
Now, may I draw your attention to some verses I have insinuated into your journal pages (when you were otherwise occupied,) apropos Iraq, and also to my most recent journal postings. I look forward to hearing from you, should you have the time.
I also look forward to the ‘revival’ of our mutual friend, Emily. I have missed her ‘input’, though I can understand why, post GWB (if you read this Emily let us all see that you are ‘bouncing back’ again, against all the odds. Your writing skills and clever narrative add much colour and wisdom to the universal input. Do not allow the ‘sling and arrows of outrageous fortune’
to wound you).
Best wishes – friend Q.
~~lokutus~~
I used to be a big believer in destiny, but somehow I didn’t equate it with determinism. I don’t actually know which is correct – free will or fatalism. However, it’s a bit like whatsit’s wager – I forget his name – which states that you might as well believe in god, because if you don’t and he does exist you’ll go to hell, and if you do and he doesn’t exist you haven’t lost anything. My wager, however, is eminently more sensible than that. It goes like this: Let’s imagine someone about to go into battle. Let’s call him Fred. If Fred thinks that the outcome is predetermined and he is wrong, one of a number of things might happen. He might believe he is destined to lose, and this belief may mean that he fails to fight, and so is defeated. He might believed he is destined to win, and be over-confident, and so be defeated. He also might win through confidence, but on the whole it seems to me that misguided fatalism – and we simply do not know whether it is misguided or not – must have more of a negative than a positive impact. If, on the other hand, Fred is correct in his fatalism, well, it doesn’t change anything anyway. Similarly, if he believes incorrectly in free will, that changes nothing. However, if he believes correctly in free will, that might change something positively. That’s why I think we might as well believe in free will while there is still doubt (while we are free to do so, if you like).
I’m not sure it’s possible to fight against one’s nature. I mean, to fight against your nature might actually be your nature. It certainly will be your nature if determinism is correct. That is, everything you do will automatically be your nature.
I’m not sure I’ve actually answered your question though… I seem to be a living paradox. My god-given nature seems to be to deny god. I speak – probably – metaphorically. In that sense I can both believe that my nature serves a purpose and also believe that the purpose is to deny the purpose. Does that make sense? I hope not. I think that might be something similar to what you’re saying, though.
Actually, I think this is largely to do with the fact that there isn’t one me as such. There are various different mes, working sometimes in harmony and often in conflict.
Sometimes I’m able to believe that both determinism and free will exist at the same time. Since I’m not a scientist or a philosopher, though, I cannot explain this. It’s something that I ‘see’. Of course, seeing it doesn’t mean it’s there.
I realised that I hadn’t really addressed your comment re being down and so on and so forth. In a sense, I’m not sure I should, just because anything I say is bound to be partial (in the sense of incomplete) and misleading.
I don’t think I’m determined to be gloomy, as such. In fact, there’s really not much I can say on the matter at all. Only that, I have lived with my self for more than thirty two years, and by now I know myself quite well. I have, in fact, tried all sorts of pills, self-help and so on. I know people who swear by psycho-therapy, but psycho-therapy is for the rich. If that is a prerequisite of mental health, then the poor cannot expect to be happy and well-balanced. I have never had enough money for therapy. I write using a fairly smart computer, but this was given to me by someone whose business had updated their computer system. It’s a cast-off. I have never starved, or had to live on the streets, but most of my clothes are those that people have given me, and are, in fact, falling apart.
I think I’m going off at a tangent here. I have tried to be cheerful, and I’ve never really managed it. I know very well that we’re a long time dead, but that has never cheered me up, either. I have merely castigated myself for wasting my days in gloom this way, which is of no use to anyone.
And so, to some extent, I have changed my tack. That is, I have given up trying to be cheerful. Let’s make no bones about it, I am, in fact, a dreadful failure, and the only way to mitigate the pain of that, is somehow to revel in my failure.
Going back to the enneagram, although I don’t hold this as written in stone, I seem to be a number four, a romantic, and, in negative terms, the defining emotion of the romantic is…. You’re thinking it has to be ‘love’ or something, but no, it is envy. I see people succeeding where I fail. I see people who have something I don’t have that allows them to be happy. That is very painful, and can be incapacitating. I am constantly stricken by the desire to be someone else. In order not to be incapacitated, and to get on with my life, I have to somehow persuade myself that they don’t have something that I don’t have, in other words, that we’re all losers, that it’s all hopeless, and I should just go on doing my hopeless thing and not care. And that is how I just about manage to get through the days.
______________________________________________________
Hello E, Hello Q,
Many years ago I had attached myself to a group in my workplace who met each day for what they described as “Bible Reading”. Now I was not a ‘religious’ person in the accepted sense of that term – too much study in philosophy and Darwin had given me a different perspective on things – had offered me alternative answers, so to say, and therefore the attraction to this group was in part motivated by a mixture of intellectual curiosity, mingled with a “what if there is something…?” aspect, a desire to know how the group worked and a willingness to keep my mind ‘open’ to the extent that my reasoning so allowed. Here I must pause and explain to you that my thought process, when I was much younger could be described as “mercurial” – I was a student hungry for knowledge of itself. As I grew older some of that earlier ‘furious pace’ was replaced by a more cautious, more researched approach. That did not mean my genetic inheritance had been ‘overcome’ of course (pace Darwin) but that I had adapted my pace and style to suit the circumstances in which I found my self. Anything else that happened to me was outside my immediate control or ability, whether I realised it or not. Attending this particular group of ‘Bible fundamentalists’ was a challenge on all fronts – more than I had anticipated.
I remember how strange it felt, sitting at a long table with these others, some of whom I knew well, some with whom I had only been on nodding terms. I supposed that we would sit and talk to each other about the central focus, ‘The Creator’, ‘God’, ‘Jaweh, ‘Jehovah’, and through that ‘focus’ we would also dwell on the earthly connection of The Creator’s ‘son’ Jesus Christ &c. Well we did of course do this but in a ‘tight’ somewhat ‘controlled’ – almost ‘stereotyped’ manner that I found uncomfortable. A room full of highly intelligent, well educated people, consisting of scientists, broadcast engineers, and so on but, with one exception, all using or speaking in the same ‘dogmatic’ manner. It was not the place to be for an intellectual debate, nor had I intended to assume there would be that type of environment. As I implied earlier ‘curiosity’ was certainly one of my motivations but perhaps there was something in this belief they all posessed after all? And if it manifested itself I would be there to witness it all – wouldn’t I?
The disquiet arose when we were looking at the Christian Bible. I ought to say here that those Christians who are of what some in the media would call ‘Happy Clappy’ sects are prone to be absolutely positive that everything they read in the Hebrew/Christian Scripture/writing is literally true. No ifs, buts or naysay. Sitting there I was telling myself that if there was a Super Entity, then, It/He/She would already know what I was going to say and so it would be alright, or I would not be there in the first place to say it – right?
‘Look’, said I, ‘Accepting that most of us wish to believe all that we see in this Bible – can we also consider that it was written a very long time ago and that many of its stories had to be told in a way so that ordinary people could understand and not question anything?’. The room was quiet for a moment.
Then the ‘President’ of the group looked at me and said ‘ – ‘These are the words of The Lord and His witnesses. The evidence is here’. Everyone nodded towards me and smiled. Were they indulging me – or was it the other way around? Later on I could not keep silent over the absolute acceptance of the ‘prophecy’ , allegedly foretold in the ‘Old Testament’, regarding the future birth of the Virgin Mary.
‘Well now’, I began, ‘We should not take that passage literally. The original documents have been translated many many times. In fact a scholar-friend of mine tells me that a more accurate version says in the original Aramaic that “a woman will bear a child…”. The word “Virgin” was not used.’
(My mother once said to me “A still tongue keeps a wise head”. Later on in life I would come to realise that going down that route would sometimes be sensible but, more often than not, was a ‘cop out’. One had to be true to one’s self. So I said what I thought.)
Deadly silence. Then a rather large man sitting opposite stood, Bible held to his chest, and blasted me in no uncertain terms, using harsh language -damning me to hellfire and so on. I thought he was going to hit me. I think I was trembling a little. It was time to leave, but as I stood up I looked at him and, keeping my voice as low as possible said ‘Look, G. – If anything I have said offends anyone here I am sorry. It was not some malign intent on my part – but surely God knew already what I was going to say? And if God allows ‘free will’ then what I have said cannot be anything but my own free will to question?’
The big man went a deeper puce. I left the room.
I never went back to the group. There was no way anyone there would ever accept an outsider questioning their interpretation. They must have been less secure in their beliefs than I had supposed.
Was it all ‘determinism’? I had used my ‘free will’. There had been no ‘divine intervention’ – unless the big man was an instrument. I came away thinking that reason and rational discussion will always get nearer to the ‘truth’ (perhaps never quite hitting the bullseye because ‘truth’ is often difficult to pin down) but that I would have to look for it elsewhere.
On the subject of ‘self’ and existence – I paste here a copy of someone else’s journal (on another site) in which they asked a question and where I gave my reply in verse (ok – both of you are smiling and saying ‘well dincha know he just had ta put a verse in!’ – you are right of course :))
__________________________________________________________
Saturday, October 23, 2004
-Untitled
the strong will survive
the weak will perish
good point. i’ll keep that in mind.
this world. is virtual real? is reality virtual? man i’m confused. wad if this whole world is jus an act? No one knows after you’re dead. what if people around you are jus forced to act in front of you. this action is called fate. is fate unpredictable or predictable? is prediction a form of fault in reality? can the unseen be seen? can the seen be fake? wad is fake? is fake not real? wad is reality? wad is this world? wad is life? is life just a virutal memory of wad i see? pain. i can feel it. but, wad if i can’t. wad if you’re being controlled by a person? like a puppet. who is this person? it this person so called god? who is god? why are there so many different kinds of so called god?
my name is void
my family is void
my friends are void
my status is void
knowledge is void
trees are void
water is void
void is void
my body is void
i’m nothing and nothing is nothing.
character
attitude
destiny
fate
feed
mate
kill
repeat
i dunno. somebody get me outta here
posted by The Joker at 1:37 AM
1 Comments:
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lokutus-prime said…
Sounds like the ‘existentialism’ debates we used to have when we were kids. Hop along to my blog & see if there is anything I have written that may answer your questions…. or/as well… you could just note my little verse, below:
_____________________________________________________________
Do I exist?
Well, let me see.
Darwin (or God)
has given me
Power to question
My mortality.
Do you exist?
It seems you do,
Unless my reasoning
Convinces me
That this is untrue.
If I do not exist – what then?
Who made the ‘dream’
I am appearing in?
And if it stops
Will I then disappear?
So many existential questions
To ponder on
While I am ‘dreaming’ here 🙂
__________________________________________
Best wishes E & Q.
~~lokutus/Dr prime~~~
Well, I don’t mean to give the impression that I don’t appreciate encouragement, but I do think I’m a failure. I know it, in fact, because I can feel it in my bones. My bones tell me every time they groan. I don’t think someone is necessarily a failure because they are not rich or famous or attractive. I see people around me who somehow have a human integrity in what they do in life, and simply do not seem to suffer the envy that I do. It is the very fact of envy that makes me a failure. I cannot deny it. I am not able to find any meaning in my life as it is, and though I value my human relationships, if I’m totally honest, I value them as something that ‘could be’ more than something that is. From a very early age I was aware of being unable to relate to people in the usual way – the usual way leading people to build a home together, have a family and so on – I knew, before my teenage, that I was only really able to be myself with ‘an audience’. An audience requires some level of fame. I’m sure this sounds very strange, but I’d probably have to give my whole life story before it began to make sense, and even then it would need a lot of footnotes, I think.
Hello E.,
I have made one or two observations in another posting here, as you can see, but your musings on ‘Fate/Fatalism’ are relevant because it is in our (human) nature to question the purpose of our existence and, lacking any clear (convincing) evidence one way or another look for answers which satisfy our soul (psyche).
My views are mallable in as much as I am prepared to amend them if what I see – or believe I see – persuades me that I am mistaken or convinces me that I have to look again at what I have previously been inclined to believe. But of course I also know I do not know the – to me – all important cosmic question regarding the reason or explanantion for the ‘beginning’ which That question is not “How? or “What” or even “When” but “Why?”.
Balanced against my quest for a logical and rational answer is my ‘artisitic’ side which sees the ‘Hand of God/The Gods’ in everything but that specific phrase is not – to me – a fundamentally religious concept. Beauty and creativity are things – I believe – which have taken millenia to develop as part of our individual and collective natures. Evolution has helped us….. and yet there are some cogent examples of things which have happened over time that seemingly defy or do not easily fall under a rational explanation. I cannot explain those examples – I can only debate them, but I would accept a ‘fate’ or a ‘fatalism’ as a means for some of us to come to terms with what cannot be rationally explained. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” –From Hamlet (I, v, 166-167). How true!
Best wishes E.
~~lokutus~~
Hello Dr. Prime. Well, it would be churlish of me to argue, I feel, and tedious of me to describe my situation further. Somehow I have avoided becoming an alcoholic, drug-addict, criminal and so on. I seem to deal with my problems (if I do deal with them) with my mind alone. Perhaps this accounts for what might be called a gloomy disposition.
Thanks for your comments on my writing. Much as I would like to disagree, I have been instructed not to disagree when someone pays me a compliment. I suppose I always considered my writings as evidence of my inner sickness, and thought it a further part of that sickness that I am somehow compelled to expose it to public scrutiny.
I quite honestly don’t know what I’m doing keeping a public journal like this. I’m expecting the van and the men in white coats to come round any day. At the very least I expect people to throw rotten eggs and tomatoes. So far there hasn’t been much of that sort of thing, I’m glad to say.
Yes, I like Emily’s writing very much, which is why I have put a link to her blog amongst my links.