As often happens,
when I think about writing something about the state of the modern world I
find that I already wrote it a decade ago.
8/6/02
To
take a step forward, I must first retreat. Retreat into the shadows, oblivious
to all except my own thoughts, my own mind. To confront this pressure cooker
frustration full in the face, see it for what it is, examine and understand and
from there to toleration and acceptance.
This
has been allowed to fester far too long. Who the hell have I become? This
stalking consciousness. This foster child of hope. An apologist for
disappointment. Secure with every inch of my fibre of who I am and what I was
meant to be and yet impotent in the light of possibility. So I lock away
knowledge inside myself. Engorged upon future I am too lazy to bring to
inception. And the tension grows.
Yet
who knows? Who sees? If you find me crying, that doesn’t mean I’m unhappy, nor
does laughter denote joy. The turmoil deep inside is a constant ache. Uninterrupted
nights are rare. The thought process, once a point of pride, has long ceased to
hold pleasure. It becomes more and more a torture day by day. Yes, I appreciate
your help and concern, but only one person can confront this hell, ‘fore only
one us is living through it. Be grateful for that. Where it comes from, I fail
to understand, yet it has been in here as long as I can remember. Maybe I was
born this way or I was dropped on my head or perhaps I just had humanity sussed
from a very early age.
Yes,
you see you are all part of the problem too. Your cruelties, your petty hatreds
of those you don’t understand or worse still, have never met. What’s wrong with
you all? Chill the fuck out. Yes, in this oh so conscious stream, I see you for
what you are. Afraid. Afraid of death, afraid to die forgotten. And in your
impotence, you accept mediocrity and fall further into the dustbin of history
than if you’d just let it all go and say in a proud, clear voice, ‘I’m
terrified of my own mortality.’ Stop aligning yourselves to people of the same
race or nationality or sex and sexuality and the other assorted accidents of
birth. There is nothing to be proud of here. Be you own person, be with people
who understand you, accept you and not simply tolerate you because you look
like them. And examine yourselves. Look in the mirror and ask, ‘Who am I,’ and
maybe, just maybe you might begin to approximate the person you where meant to
be and not the monster social engineering has forced upon you. Again,
mutilation is nothing to be proud of. Neither is clinging to flags and anthems
and primary colours, as if you’re hanging off the edge of cliff, grabbing at handfuls
of turf, trying to save yourself from the void. Let it go. Let it all go.
But
don’t worry. I’m not angry with you. You’re unlucky enough to have been born in
the flatulent west. Hypocrites and murders in residence. I mean the Bushes and
Blairs of the world. The ones who promote democracy and freedom with empty
statements and curtail and destroy them with the next. Words and actions. Emotive,
motivational speeches. Abstract nouns. Abyssal chasms of morality. You see,
they are really no different to Hussains and Bin Ladens of the world. The
ideology may be different, yet the methodology is identical. If there really is
a war on terrorism, why isn’t NATO bombing Washington? How many times will the
good ole’ U S of A see their trained nutters come back to haunt them before
they realise that those abstract nouns could be so much better if they had some
basis in reality? Why did either of my grandfathers bother fighting in the
second world war, when the fascists have obviously won through in the end. While
our faces were turned towards the Channel, the real coup was taking place
behind our backs.
So
you see my problem here! I have so much to give you all. Passion, joy,
knowledge, hope and understanding. Yet you fit into your tight little ethnic
groups and start kicking out at each other. And THEM, the rulers, the dictators
of this solar, island plantation, that’s exactly what they want. They want you
impotent and afraid. They want you to look out of your rose tinted, double
glazed windows and focus all your hatred upon the first face that doesn’t
resemble your own. Yet as long as you remain fragmented and isolated, this
little blue, green planet will sink further into the mire. You will work for
their companies and spend their wages on their products. Meanwhile, your taxes
will be spent on subsidising them, while they contribute nothing to your well
being. Yet they will still control what you see, read and watch. Paranoid? People,
it has already gone on for decades.
In
1984, Orwell invented a language called Newspeak. The purpose of this new
language was to slowly reduce the vocabulary of the public, until there were so
few words left, the human race could no longer communicate emotion successfully.
Humanity would be reduced to the level of savages. Orwell was too limited in
his appraisal and probably too decent a person to fully appreciate the full
malevolence of the world. Political correctness, which to begin with was a
perfectly valid idea, has now reached the point where we can no longer have an
intelligent debate on social ills and inequality, without being accused of
‘political incorrectness’, further exacerbating racial tension among
communities. Hey! Racism is not something that simply disappears because you
don’t discuss it. See Burnley and weep. If you ignore cancer, it doesn’t go
into remission. It festers and eventually it claims you as its own.
Further,
popular culture seems to have no other mandate than to lower people’s
expectations, until anything of a vaguely higher standard is hailed as artist
genius. Pop music has now become so anodyne and homogenised that often even the
teenagers, who almost exclusively listen to this trash, can not differentiate
been one boy band or another. TV is slowly rotting into the same swamp as
across the pond. On the small screen we are sold fantasy in the guise of
reality. Meanwhile Hollywood sells us historical rape as incontrovertible fact.
Popular culture hasn’t lost the plot, it just feeds us the same one over and
over again.
So,
how long ‘fore you’ve had enough? When the population of Africa no longer
exists and the continent has become one enormous free trade zone, where the
poor of the world have been shipped to, to serve double breasted slave masters?
This, in my most cynical moments, is the future I envisage. ‘Slavery’s coming
home, it’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming.’ Europe, the ultimate
theme park (already happened ). The irony of all this of course, is that
humanity spread like a virus out of Africa and now we sit back and do nothing
as it slowly implodes. If an entire continent is on the endangered species list
and we choose not to act, is that not genocide?
All
of which bring us, by a commodius vicus of recirculation (to quote Joyce), to
me and my unfulfilled life. I need to look at this in more depth. Why am I
unhappy? Lack of confidence? Definitely. Laziness? Guilty as charged. Environment,
unemployment, disappointment, insufficient outlets of emotional and
intellectual feelings. All true. What the hell am I waiting for? Why so many questions (humour, good)? No one else
is going to do this but me. I have all the potential in the world. I could
achieve relative immortality (an oxymoron, but never mind). I have intelligence
and passion and ability and strength and originality (a rare commodity in these
dark times). I also have a moral and ethical code which I have been guilty of
disrespecting too often recently. I have been petty and I need too focus all
that anger (an indispensable form of passion) into more productive areas. My
evolutionary path these last five years has been so steep, that I have become
so swamped in information, it has clouded my judgement. Weighted me down,
basically because I have had no outlet to channel it all through (hence this
digresstionary tale). I am out of practice and out of touch with my form, my
art.
So
maybe this is what I should be doing! Sitting down, day after day at this
machine and writing ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, until I reach such a point as the
fog has lifted and I can communicate properly with the world once more. An
artist cannot survive in a totalitarian state ( to paraphrase Orwell) and I cannot
survive in any state recognisable to myself, so long as I continue to live hostage
to my own confused mind, heart and soul. This has gone too far. Enough is
enough. When the tangents subside and sustained, literary creation begin to
flow, then I’ll be myself once more. No, I have never truly exhibited my true
form, my true persona, not even to myself. This will be its embryonic awakening.
And once it arrives, it will be here to stay.
So,
let’s get the fuck on with it, eh! This shall be my daily testament to my
inception into a creature of light, of radiance, of apple-white purity. Whether
you cheer or groan when you lay eyes upon me is not my concern. As long as you
see me, that is all I ask. I will hide in the shadows no longer. Nor will I let
any of you off the hook as easily as I have done. Already I feel freer, less tense.
This is my medium and I reclaim it as my own. Through words I exist. Through
words I share my insanity, my wisdom, my passion, and all anger, hatred and
prejudice dissolves on contact with this keyboard. You can not infect me. I
will achieve peace and not allow the time between now and my demise to become a
void, nor filled with resentment and bitterness. Your world is full of shadowy
figures and duplicity. Mine is filled with glorious creatures and truth. The
only truly impervious beings are the honest. So that is who I shall be. Cool! So,
come and have a go if you think you’re smart enough. The Truth! You can’t
handle the truth. And things generally of that ilk.
Why
not just do your best. ‘Cause the way things stand, it all pointless anyway. We
all die, we all rot away. I am as convinced as I can be that there is no God. I’ve
yet to hear an argument in His favour that wasn’t clever wordplay or mere
intellectualising, leading to profound confusion. Descartes believed that since
he was imperfect, he must have been created by a perfect being. Or
alternatively, Rene, perhaps you were created by a process less imperfect than
yourself. Christians argue that evolution could not have created something as
perfect as the eye. What they fail to either mention or comprehend is that the
human eye is far from perfect. It is riddled with flaws. If God did such a good
job, why did humans need to invent glasses? Which throws up another question. Why
would a perfect being, create an imperfect one? What’s up with that?
Neither
do I by into this argument that procreation is a form of immortality. Most of
us have little knowledge of own lineage beyond four or five generations
previous (not an especially successful attempt). However, a larger percentage
of the population know that Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. Hmm,
can’t name our own great-great-grandfather, yet we remember the name of a gay
Irishman. I’m not gay, but I think I prefer Oscar’s method. Maybe I’ll never
get anywhere or my portfolio be lost to civilisation, but since I’ll be
forgotten within eighty years after my death anyway, I may as well have a shot
at it. Beats watching Big Brother (being flayed alive and anally fucked by an
elephant beats watching Big Brother however).
Get it done.
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