When Justice is Vengeance

We are talking and they begin to tell us about this adopted kid of their friend's that is a manipulator and a thief and who recently threatened to turn a knife against himself, supposedly to kill himself. He's 15 years old.

"Sure," they say, "the kid was abused very young. But he needs to learn some respect. He needs more discipline. They need to be more strict on him and start punishing him with more harsh methods."

This is the traditional view of crime and punishment. That men are free moral actors and that if they act out then they must be met with enough force to realign them with society's interests, or neutralized or obliterated completely. Individual by individual. Perhaps in stable times this principle can hold at least somewhat decently, however misled it is. But these are not those times. It is telling that this principle seems to rear its head more prominently the closer we approach matters with just our emotions.

But all I see when I hear about and interact with damaged people like this is a deeper, more complex, more deliberate force that is running underneath appearances; this degradation cannot be reversed with brute force. Sheer reliance on force displays to me a crude understanding of not only human nature but of the deeper mechanics of how general reality works.

No, damaged people like this seem to me to be part of a sort of social erosion, a geological process who's causal chains extend far beyond mere individuals. And now, as this erosive force is accelerating under the disintegrating effects of a declining empire, and we are seeing more of these damaged individuals even in supposedly stable households, those with less of an understanding of life itself seem to want to apply even more brute force to counteract these disquieting trends, resulting in an aggravation of the problem.

So the less wise of us grow vaguely uneasy when pieces of rock begin to break off of the edifice. But instead of investigating the causes of this erosion, we pick up the crumbling pieces of this foundation and toss them violently aside so that we don't have to worry about them, or we try in vain to shove them back where they came from, even as the fissures splinter their way further upstream.

Well Let It Out Then

The words aren't coming easily tonight. I sit on my floor with my laptop, staring at the wall opposite of me, listening to the sounds coming from the street, or the lack of them anyway.

It is quiet outside. A helicopter flies by. A car passes and is gone, leaving a wake of hissing air, like a paintbrush passing lazily through a cup of water. The houses are dark. Everyone is asleep in their colony barracks. Good workers synced up with the good rhythm.

Helicopters and planes make me feel small. They pass sometimes noisily, sometimes silently, glinting metal in the daytime, winking with white and red lights at night. They remind me there is a teeming world out there that I haven't yet seemed to join.

See, images of the cosmos make me feel like I belong. Like I am part of something wonderful. But planes and helicopters are alienating. We are putting up sheets of glass and metal to separate ourselves. To make ourselves feel more alone.

But they are inventions of human ingenuity. They are fantastic achievements. They allow us to do great things. I suppose it is the era. I've been in school all my life, my mind crammed with information and directions all the way. Always directions. I had to eventually split off and ignore all the directions and simply explore for myself. But it always comes to the tests. You're right or wrong. Be creative on your own time, whenever that is. But they said to get through college and you'll be fantastic. You'll get a house and a car and be independent. Follow the instructions and you'll be okay.

But I don't feel independent. I work all week and I'm too tired for anything when I get home. I feel agoraphobic on the weekends and I'm tired of the media that is supposed to keep me company in my solitude. I want to take flights to other parts of the world but it is so expensive. I want to see the world but the news says it is falling apart. I want to take a train to Washington to protest with others in pain but the ticket is expensive and I have to work. I want to drive across the country but gas is like chains. Funny, it seems as though the rise and fall of this empire coincided with the ebb and flow of cheap oil. When will we learn?

A recent repair to my car cost me 700 dollars. An entire two weeks of constantly doing something that is meaningless to me. Now my car works so I can continue to write meaningless fabrications to sell more junk that I don't care about. We are taunted with media that says life is short, that one should grip life's passions firmly and enjoy. But maybe only do this in the comfort of your home with the media. Buy some more when you tire of the old. But don't do it in the real world because it is scary.

I feel I am paid too little, but then scold myself for caring about money. I hate money. As an economic mechanism it rewards the mercenaries and the hacks, and punishes the creative and the honest through deprivation (only generally speaking of course).

I ordered a sandwich today and the two employees whispered to each other and I watched them. They saw that I was watching and became reserved and fearful. I wondered if it was about me, or about my observation and awareness, or both. I also wondered if it was just a series of misunderstandings and unnecessary calculations that were keeping us suspended from each other. I wanted to tell them that all of this was unnecessary and that I know what it is to have a meaningless job, and that we are all human and the fact that I am a customer does not make me superior in that instant. And yes, we are all uncertain of what happens next, and that though we are all so sensitive to every little word and body movement and that yes we all have to be so careful and delicate to each other that everything in fact will be okay and that we are all friends whatever the case.

The talking heads tell us that everyone starts with a crappy job and that if you work hard enough you'll be fantastic, but it seems when I search for jobs all I can find are crappy jobs or even unpaid ones. And the numbers tell us that this perception is true. That we as a people are being sold out. We are surrounded daily by lies and cynical attitudes and this is not how a democratic society works. There are people who are living with private jets and multimillion dollar yachts yet we can barely pay the bills and the poor are dying and this is not what they talked about in school.

There is much to be sore about with today's human reality. But there is much more to be glad about with the greater physical reality itself. Life is beautiful and even this disintegrating organism we are trapped inside now will clear the way for something new and exciting. Sometimes I feel I am helplessly tossed between these peaks and valleys wherein I am a completely different person for each with different thoughts and fixations. An idea itself is a multifaced prism that can only be viewed from one angle at a time, though you can choose which angle to view (or simply oscillate from view to view while surging on biochemical waves as in my case).

Dogs are creatures that offer unconditional love and I am reminded of this as I open my door to find one of them sitting on the floor, a smile seemingly spreading across his face as it is revealed by the widening wedge of light. Living creatures of many species can delight in each others' existence. We are pleased with nature's ingenious bio machines. And those little bio machines love us don't they? We give them food and scratches and pats and affection. We are like demi gods.

I strike away at my guitar strings and find the melodies to come much easier and with less contrivance. It is meditation and expression. It is a way out of this labyrinth of constricting abstractions my poisoned mind lashes me with day to day.

Yes, our higher thoughts have become so entwined and overcomplex that they seem to be stifling our emotive engines; they become suffocating as we grow more agitated. Thank goodness there is a way out. Thank goodness we can reset ourselves and grow again.

There is now another me that is forming on its own. It remains hidden and much of it lies in various electronic pockets on the internet and in various corners of my mind that I keep hidden from the squares. My public self is radically different from this self that is still forming, which seems to be peeking out here and there, such as from the growing hair. In fact the difference between the two selves is so stark that psychologists would probably call it a pathology, but I think it is just a new normality. It is a necessity. To survive in this dying system we must be these strange, fabricated creatures that they tried to form in school and at work and in the media but there are these new selves that are ballooning out that cannot be stopped. Such is the nature of repression. It will always come out somewhere else.

I am not entirely pleased with what I have written. Much of it could have been more organized. It could have been more detailed. But it was all supposed to come out this way. It had to unwind quickly as it came to mind or I would lose it or deform it. That is the point of letting go anyways. That is the point of ah...this life this life this life.

More Thoughts On The Problem

Thinking more clearly about The Problem, I realize that blaming our fragmenting consciousness on capitalism itself was a mistake.

After all, capitalism as a term is only useful insofar as it serves as a sort of signpost for the current power structure we find ourselves with. The reality of our current socioeconomic system is that it is so far removed from the concept of capitalism that it is barely recognizable if juxtaposed with Adam Smith's writings.

That's what happens with a foundational ideological framework. It is created within a huge (and rare) expenditure of energy, so that as time passes and mankind itself continues to evolve and even the ideology itself is left to be worked out on a practical level in the field, adjustments and fine tunings have to be made to fit the concept itself to the changing environment. These adjustments are of course made by whatever body of decision makers are in power, so that as a system matures, inferior men climb their way to the top of the ladders and alter the system to enrich themselves, thereby deforming it - how does this happen? Another problem to be tackled another day I suppose. As time goes on, the ideological framework becomes increasingly irrelevant and ill suited for the environment it is applied to, and the adjustments made to it to adapt to the environment (or at least adapt to enrich those at the top) become increasingly convoluted and entangled. This is when an entirely fresh framework must be put in place.

This is the case for spiritual ideas, philosophical ideas, economic, political, whatever.

So to remain on point, the problem with capitalism is simply that it has proven itself unstable, as it encourages power accumulation and resource waste. And it won't be replaced until it destroys itself unfortunately, as those charged with making the change have reached a critical threshold in which their power is nearly absolute.

Capitalism as an economic ideology is simply a product of a greater process: the ever-changing constitution of human consciousness. The Problem can more accurately be defined as a product of a destructive tendency towards hyperindividualism, and the resulting fractures that occur in a societal body as a logical result.

To illustrate, we live in a society where half of our population not only does not believe in helping others that are less fortunate (if they are not of course close friends or relatives), but are aggressively hostile towards the idea itself, as expressed in the widespread irrational hate of socialist ideas. How anyone can fail to understand that this attitude is directly antithetical to a coherent and stable society is beyond me.

Of course, it is inevitable that the system crash. And the crash will give birth to an equal and opposite movement of creative energy. It is a simple physical reality. Great ideas seem to be born out of crises. Those times when it becomes necessary for radical change. It's just going to hurt a little, that's all.