In Pursuit of the Truth

I believe it’s very possible for two well educated people to disagree vehemently on a variety of different issues. The debate is its’ self in an essential component of democracy. I think that we all have a desire to find a set of facts or truths, which will better govern humanity. I think that we have established guiding principals in this country, which act has beacons in the storm of fanaticism: justice, equality, the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. I don’t know that you can create an omniscient view of the world in a moral sense. I have a lot of suspicion for anything that is presented as such. I think the best thing you can do is to approach each subject in an equitable manner.

“Everyone will have their own views on things because of their social status, their life experiences, etc. Should I bring morals into the equation? Everyone also has their own morals, their own values, their own idea of what they consider right and wrong.”

Within the moral sphere there is such a thing as personal truth. Personal truth is distinct from personal opinion. Personal truth is something much deeper, what you might call a moral root. Edward R Murrow delivered a speech entitled “This I believe.” I want you to cradle these three words in your mind for a moment. Those few words hold so much power for me. The idea presented thus seems almost irrefutable. A statement with so much conviction it defies contradiction. There are times at which our knowledge of a given subject -and even our wits - fail us, and in the mirky darkness of self doubt we much return to those beliefs, which fasten together the moral fiber of our beings. I believe that we are too flawed, too subjective to form a perfect impression of the world. Therefore we must move forward with such beliefs as are our own. We must approach the world with all the inadequacy of our intellect, all the splendor of our imperfect ideals, and all the passion within our souls. The glory of all mans’ triumphs has been in the personal conviction and pursuit of those ideals, which have not yet been cemented into the greater consciousness. This I believe.

2012

Someone asked me recently what I thought of the “2012 Prophecy” This is what I told him.

I think the end of the earth, the death of man is such an interesting concept. Living in a heavily Christian country the idea of the apocalypse has a strong hold upon on society. It’s become something of a sick fascination. The Christian church has up held the belief, since the death of Christ, that we are living in “the end times.” More recently we have been hearing similarly dire predictions for extremist religious groups of all factions. Why is a three century old prophecy from an extinct pagan tradition stirring up so much anxiety?

What really concerns me: Is global warming. Israel’s continually antagonistic behavior. The escalating conflict between Pakistan and India . North Korea’s hostility. The extremist in this country who seem intend on engaging an enemy, which has no country, and no laws, with such barbarous and archaic tactics as the carpet bombing cities and villages. People who are bent on fulfilling biblical prophecies. These thing scare me.

If we are indeed living in the end times. If the “world” -that is our world- is going to end in 3 years. What is the value of that knowledge? We are each so fragile. Our little world has represented by our life is so precarious. 40,000 in the US die in car crashes every year. We don’t think about that when we get in our car, because we assume it won’t be us. But the end of “the world” is so complete and so final, that the idea haunts us. There are many tragic events in the world which can snatch away our home, our future, and not all are so grand and cataclysmic. LA could experience an earthquake a slide off the map into the Pacifica. In retrospect of such an imaginary event what would each of us have done differently if we could? Would we have been better to one another has human beings? Would we have been more honest with each other? Would we have pursued our passions more vehemently? Mostly these things would be among our many regrets.

So if we are “living in the end times,” if the world is going to end in 2012. What are we going to do with the present?

Letters: thoughts on an antiquated practice

Dear Friend, sincerely, I would love to hear whatever you have to say. I love letter writing; I love the composition, the interplay, it’s a beautiful practice, which is being lost to antiquity. Letters in their own way are a freer form of communication then instant massaging, and phone calls; there are no interruptions, awkward moments, long silences. They are simply a stream of consciousness. The out pouring of ideas, experiences, fears, thoughts, and desires. Our physical imperfections, our emotional inadequacies, disappear. I would encourage you to write. What you have to say is not meaningless. There is no comparison between minds; each individual perceives the world differently and that is beauty of our intercourse.

The Lone Star State

Just got back from Austin. I forgot how much I missed Texas. It gets in your blood, I think, and you just can’t get it out. It’s in me, underneath my skin, with the ink and the scar tissue. I’ve never seen a place at once so empty and so beautiful. There are no obstructions. Nothing for miles. The highway simply disappears into the sky. I pressed my check to the window of the car, and watch the long tangled barbwire fences, the scrub trees, the bare billboards, the long horns, the rusted pick-up trucks, and the 18 wheelers past by. At dusk we went out to the Congress Bridge to watch over a million bats take flight. The whole city came alive at night, like nothing I have ever seen before. All the clubs, and bars flung their doors open and the music just came streaming into the streets, which become like rivers over sound. It was really amazing.

On the subject of desire, sex and self validation.

It’s a late here. I know it’s even later on the other side of the globe. I didn’t want to bother but I’ve been thinking a lot about your response, which I found very interesting. I don’t think there is anything wrong with seeking self validation. Unfortunately it’s not something that our society dishes out readily. Particularly when it comes to eros, which of course is what we are talking about. The reason I find the undying urge to needle you on the subject is because I feel that you are not being entirely honest with yourself. I don’t believe introspection should be cause for degradation. I see introspection as a vehicle for self realization, and eventually self-fulfillment, which is yet another one of those dirty, dirty desires swimming about in our heads. Desire itself is a multi-faceted emotion, which I feel the need to emancipate from it’s obscene and other wise ludicrous connotations before proceeding. Desire encompasses so much more then sexual longing. Desire is short hand for affection, attraction, intimacy, companionship, validation, conversation, and stimulation. Western culture itself treats eros/desire as an almost paranormal force, which is both depraved and unharnessed. The pursuit of pleasure, gratification, and validation -not only in a physical or sexual sense- have become almost heretical activities. It seems that with in the eyes of religious authorities and government officials sex, love -and even the desire for such- can only exist safely within the confines of prescribed social norms. I don’t find this to be a particularly pragmatic approach to the human condition. I see guilt and shame to be the byproducts of a set of archaic beliefs that refuses to expect the legitimacy or necessity of human relationships.
Americans are at once publicly oversexed and personally desperately undersexed. We are surrounded, bombard, assaulted by images of unrealistically attractive people selling anything from beer, and cars to laundry detergent and sofas. It seems that more attractive people are cleaner, drive better cars, and can drink endlessly without vomiting, and it is our secret suspicion that they have better sex or at lest have sex, because most of us aren’t having any. There is more sex on television today then most of us are likely to see in a year. “Sex” all be it striped of it’s emotional connotations, cleaned, and repackaged in neat palatable portions, entirely remove from the involvement of inevitably flawed human beings. There is no mystery, no innuendo and yet this thing alludes us. We are caught in the antagonistically stimulatory production of want, which fuels our consumer-culture. So we reach out through the isolation of cyberspace in search of some human contact, recognition, appreciation, and validation. What is so wrong in that? What is weak in that?

Living in LA

Los Angeles is interesting. I think that it has probably changed dramatically since you were living out there. It feels now like the city of forgotten promises. The infrastructure is falling apart and the state has no money to fix it. There is a strong sense that the city itself -like so many of the nubile bodies, which have flocked to its glittering edifice over the years- is aging, and after so much reconstruction, the ravages of time continue to wear away at what once was. The city seems despondent and dejected now (like many other cities in America) as the growing tide of this latest economic down turn sweeps away the dreams and promises of the past. The unemployment rate in California is currently at 10.1 percent. Homes (even in this neighborhood) have been abandoned, standing alone among the perfectly manicured lawns, weeds growing up to the window sills, as if nature could reclaim them. There seems a certain incongruity in the number of empty homes and homeless people, which illustrates the disparity of wealth in this county.
After I arrived in Los Angeles my father took me to downtown Pasadena, which has become one of those self-aggrandizing to displaces of commercialism, which has become its self the the hallmark of capitalism. The juxtaposition of wealth and abject poverty is striking against the back drop of store fronts, selling body cream, designer jeans, manicures, and five dollar coffees. The economic chasm which has begun to consume families and individuals caught between “the American dream” and a new form of debit compelled, capitalistic serfdom, has created a growing divide within America, which many refuse to acknowledge. Passing down the street people give the needy a wide berth as if they can create not only physical but psychological distance between themselves and the intruding reality represented by this person. They wear there blindness like a weapon. They cast they’re eyes down or continue on as if the individual does not exist. As if in not acknowledging them they might sink back into the pavement and disappear. There is a sense in they’re eyes that they know that they are disappearing, that they have become yet a another statistic locked away from the public in a filing drawer, unequal and unattended. They look up pleadingly as if in the acknowledgement of they’re presence they might become human again, but as the mob (not yet damned) passes them they take away yet a little more of their humanity.
There exists an unspeakable cruelty in the bosom of a society which refuses to feed and cloth its own.

Lost Dreams

I was musing the other day about the reliquary of lost dreams in this country. I am at the age where many of my friends are putting a side their ambitions and aspirations for families and blue collar work, and I have to wonder where does all that hope, passion and youthful idealism of these souls go? Do these childish fancies simply fade away? Do our dreams go to rest like wrecked ships at the bottom of the ocean? Do we recycle them like used car parts? Do we quietly give them up like old shoes? Do we grow news ones like a lizard, or do we simply go through life incomplete? It is my belief in watching all this pass that some people give there dreams for someone else's and thus they live in constant fear that the Red King will awake. What will we give up our dreams for my friend? For family? For country? For fame? Or for God? Everyone takes away a little piece of you, and our dreams become like relics of the faithless within time. It's just an idea I'm toying with.