19 Observations

Since most of my writing focuses on cinema, which is a triviality, although vastly inspiring and engrossing, I thought I might share a few observations, and aphorisms, in the manner of my collections of Nietzsche and Stirner.

1.

The strong dominate the weak. The clever dominate the strong.* The rich lord it over the poor. The television will shore up dissent, ensuring the masses are, mostly, kept on a nice, steady, safe track; as re: doing the bidding of the people responsible for the "programming." Whatever sports program is offered--whatever bread and circuses are handed out to placate the masses, their "groupthink" (the opposition is controlled, too) will dominate their decisions, Anyone who is not, immediately, too terrified to break free from the control, will be ostracized, mocked, ridiculed, reviled as a potential "threat," and relegated to the fringes. It has always been this way; it will always be this way. It is a world of sheep, sheepherders, sheep dogs, wolves, and exiles.

2.

Justice? What justice? The system doesn't run on justice; such a half-baked concept fuels nothing. Only MONEY is the lifeblood of "justice," which should never be confused with "right," or "good." The System, like any true psychopath, will destroy an individual, then, offer up self-righteous justifications and self-exculpating malarkey about why it was right and proper to do so. The only difference between the killers on the inside of the bars, and the ones wandering around free outside, is that the killers behind bars are at least often honest about who they are. It's the same with whores and politicians. A whore I might be able to trust. A politician? Never.

3.

Mankind: Your only saving grace is literature; also your art and music. Otherwise, you're indistinguishable from any other common biological organism. Eat, evacuate, and dream all day of breeding. Worry over farm subsidies. Politick. All the rest? a brutal bore. In a thousand years, this is meaningless and does not exist, except as archaeological remains. And perhaps only the distant explorers of an alien race will exist to excavate our collective tomb; most likely, this planet will spin in darkness, a burned-out husk, around the eternal Sun.

4.

Either consciousness survives bodily death, or...nothing. Blackness. Not even that, perhaps. Which state of being is most foreboding, do you think? Actually, one seems as if it is a state of utter non-being. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? Religion plays upon the fear of that Great Unknown. A night ago, I had a dream of tall, medieval stone towers in Peking, wherein Buddhist monks were burned alive by fires, whipped into furious blazes by bizarre wooden fan contraptions, situated down a stone staircase, and manned by eager executioners. Buddhist monks being known to self-immolate, the dream seemed to suggest Dante's Hell instead. The furious blaze formed the face of a demon before I awoke. And what does this particular message hope to convey?

5.

There are causes and effects, actions and reactions. But “evil”? Evil is a chimera, a phantasm; it has about as much objective meaning as “hate,” which is another favorite term bandied about by politicians, media shills, and other assorted pimps and whores of the establishment, all for their purposes. What is “evil”? Is it predation? If so, then all of nature must therefore be a reeking quagmire of this metaphysical stuff, this “evil”; as all of nature is, essentially, predatory, locked in a Darwinian struggle. When the State determines what is lawful, it determines what is “evil,” and thus, everything “evil” is only that which contravenes the interests of the State; which is only rooted in its self-serving interests and need to propagate and maintain its power and coercion through brutality, force, and violence. Thus, it will wield the very cudgel that, in another’s hands, it would decry as an instrument of “evil.” Hypocrites all.

6.

We live in a world of modern Philistines. Nietzsche said that certain men (I won’t use his term that has become trite or loaded with comic significance) are marked out from Fate, set aside from the rest of the world and outside of its common values. Operating at a different level, they are exhorted not to judge their actions by the petty dicta of an unthinking, unfeeling world. But their inner vision guides them to “Smash and destroy accepted ideals, to first be revolutionary.”

7.

Every turn of the wheel, of course, is fraught with new troubles, dangers; cataclysms. The present milieu will not long survive, I can assure you. It’s already disintegrating, and no amount of political puffery or vanity, mawkish sentimentality about the idealized past, or arrogant, haughty pride at our “progressive” humanitarian ethics (all of it vain, hypocritical posturing) is going to save the ship so easily sinking beneath the brackish waters of cold, incessant TIME. But, Nietzsche also exhorted these men to “Walk on eggshells,” and it’s instructive: Moral panics, monstrous, breathtaking hypocrisy, and near cult-like mind control on the part of your fellow citizens is the order of the day.

8.

Just you violate, in an egregious manner, one of their sacred moral taboos, inculcated in them by the media, by academia, by the propaganda sheets or electronic hive mind that dictates “reality” as the Overlords wish us to perceive it, and you’ll find out why so many have been burned as heretics for so many long, insufferable ages.

9.

A public Sinner must needs be flogged, particularly if he is a renegade from the cult of “celebrity.” The sickening, feigned moral piety will dribble from every flat-screen television, from the surgically-altered lips of so many coke-addled pundits; from politicians beating their sorry breasts, rending their garments like Caiaphas interrogating the Lamb of God.

10.

Better just to keep your mouth shut, roll your eyes at the ceiling, twiddle your thumbs behind your back, and WAIT. Nothing unnatural will survive.

11.

Generally, there is nothing worth "giving your life" for. Certainly not an abstract ideal. If you decide to do so you become a pawn for someone else; who, most assuredly, would not do so themselves. Once you're gone, there are no special accolades, medals, awards, pats on the back, or brass bands to comfort you in your eternal sleep.

12.

Every human system is an exemplar of corruption. The fawning adulation of the same is a mechanism of control. Abstract concepts, that are meaningless in and of themselves, are used as leverage to herd about masses of sheep; all the better to line them up for shearing. EVERYONE in power to some degree wants recruits; boot-lickers, lackeys, cannon fodder. The greatest criminals and murderers sit in the highest seats of power and authority. They invented an arsenal that will, one day, relegate ALL life on this planet to burned-out cinders. They deserve not loyalty or devotion, but bottomless, wary hatred and contempt. But, mind you don't get scorched by the dragon's breath. Love and napalm, from the Belly of the Kali Yuga.

13.

God puts some on earth to suffer, some to serve, some to be weak, some strong, some to be victims, others to be perpetrators; some to "win"; most to fail. And even the winners all end up pushing up daisies in the same boneyard, eventually. How is it, then, you say that God is good? He seems if anything, wildly inconsistent, ambivalent, apathetic, sadistic, and, overall, as if he encompasses both the "good" as well as the "evil" which surely sprang from him.

14.

One thing that has been troubling me lately: If God is "wholly" good, then wherein did "evil" enter the world? Isn't "Satan" simply a creation of God? Isn't EVERYTHING simply an emanation of God? Implying God is either NOT wholly "good," or that "evil" is simply a matter of human perspective (what is evil to one man can be purely good to his adversary). Isn't ALL human experience an emanation of God? All experiences, even horrific and intense experiences? Pulpit-pounders insist Satan is the "enemy" of God--as if he came on stage by some nefarious means, as anything but the CREATION of God! And, if God's foresight is all-encompassing, could he not see that the fall of Lucifer was imminent? Hence, is he not responsible for it? And, if he is all good, why create a Lucifer, to begin with? This seems to be a massive hole in the belief system. And it troubles me, to an extent.

15.

People will swallow anything. The world is truly one big carnival midway--and everyone's a mark. Or a hustler. They'll follow you to the ends of the earth and off a cliff if you tell them "paradise" is just over the edge. Politics works the same way. Wave some symbols, sing some songs, tell them THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED...and they'll be ready to go kill someone they've never even met, halfway across the world, just because they're wearing a different uniform. And the Powers That Be? They'll laugh all the way to the phony bank. It's child's play.

16.

We live in an age of "reformed" this-and-that: ex-druggies, ex-gang bangers, ex-Nazis, ex-Satanists, ex-Mormons, ex-bulimics, ex-compulsive eaters, ex-porn actors and actresses, ex-skinheads, on and on and on, ad infinitum, for the tabloid freak show of modern life. All of these folks are only too happy to sell you the story of their conversion, for the proper price. For a country where there are, supposedly, "No second acts in life," many seem to not know when to take a curtain call.

17.

Mankind: so much time spent worrying over a perishable commodity. What, we all have seventy, eighty years? Then? Old age renders beauty a moot point; beauty fades and finally succumbs; wealth and material possessions transfer upon death. What eternal truths or values can we cling to on our unmerry way from the cradle to the ladle? (Life, ultimately, becomes compost to feed the daisies we so inevitably push upward. Also, of course, to fatten worms.)

18.

People will defend to the death the most egregious actions committed against them by those in authority--yet, they will become emotionally angered by petty insults and trivialities. Mankind loves its bondage, and its servitude; everyone is looking for a "master" to whip their back. NO ONE wants to step outside the bourgeois sphere of "good think" to any great extent. To do so is to be "exiled," and then, THEY WILL NOT SURVIVE.

19.

"Nothing outside myself but the 'I'", and the Lion has the "right" to eat the Lamb; conversely, if the Lamb can eat the Lion, the Lamb has that right as well. No nation has integrity. It's not a "spiritual force," unless patriotism is a religion (it essentially is a secular one); it's a geographical location on a map. It's governed by laws and ordinances, enforced at the end of a rifle, or bayonet. The masses, or "herd," are kept in line, psychologically, through propaganda, iconography, symbols they're taught to revere, and "fear baiting" of the "other," that could threaten their rather mediocre, troublesome lives. It's essentially exploitation by FEW at the top, of MANY at the bottom."

*Inspired by a comment from avant-garde musician Boyd Rice.