Category: Vignettes

VIN 21- Self-Mold

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

Stop telling others what you believe is good for them. Unless they are utterly lost and alone, nothing one can say or do to another in said situation, is going to turn out anything like you desire.

For instance, telling someone how to be a writer– or what makes them one, is not your job. In most cases, Humans self-define. Most often, as a result of the trial and error in understanding one’s self, environment, or society. Certainly, some things are defined for us, but those definitions are most often limited and circumstantial. That is, the result of uncontrollable mechanisms like genetics, socio-economics, or geography, even world events and abridged, rather than comprehensive.

None of that changes the aforementioned: people decide for themselves whom and what they are, and in most cases, how to go about making the most of that. None of that is anymore another’s business than the color of your underwear– or indeed, if you’re wearing any.

And that goes doubly for you as well: Do unto others…

However, if you feel the need to help someone you still can. The best way to do so is by listening, reflecting, being for another how you would wish them to be for you, were your positions reversed.

No pushing. No bludgeoning. No perceived realities. Rather, in your mind simulate as near to their reality as possible so as to understand the differences, changes, and how best to help or avoid them. Because otherwise, it is your reality, a result of your trials and experiences, not theirs. While it can be helpful, often it is detrimental.

Let others define themselves, or stay away from them. Otherwise, you may be doing more harm then good. And the same goes for you: let not others mold you, but rather help you to understand how best to mold yourself.

But then again, who am I to tell anyone what to do?

VIN 20- Thus, We Resist

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The only problem with America is that it has always been acceptable for large portions of it to be uneducated.

After the fall of Southern Slavery, that divide became smaller and smaller, resulting in less educational inequality. The seeming Broca-Divide between those diseased with poverty, and those with eloquence and refinement, was nearly erased. At least so far as history had yet recorded. Then came the re-institution of racism in the national-jingoist’s mind, the rise of the Civil Rights movement.

These were effects of the disturbing changes in modern-day comforts. Suddenly, instead of seeing a local newsman lazily predicting weather, people were seeing whole swaths of others being brutalized or disruptive.

Regardless of sides of the fence, fires were stoked. Indeliberately, but undeniably.

These realities though still existent, seemed to subside with the growing pace of the Vietnam war’s end, and the sleek fast-moneyed cocaine-lifestyle of the 80s. However, that lifestyle had a seedy underbelly that millions were suffering from the cost of fueling it. In context, Cocaine was black market. Black market was bad. Not because it is, inherently– it is only a concept for the market of that which is prohibited but needed, and thus, unregulated– but because it was perceived to be and treated as such. (Whether it’s worth long term stability to remain so is a matter unto itself.)

However, those suffering from that underbelly were those so recently disenfranchised– whatever the effect, because they, as components of the system of society, were yet in the final stages of their own turbulence.

In essence, civil-rights and peace movements weren’t done moving, but they were slowing– if only to come to a stop at having yet nowhere to go next.

That was exacerbated later, by those other-but-corrupt elements of the system (society) that had struck back at those slowing, causing them to speed up, swerve, and nearly lose control. It was like a retributive game of rural-road chicken.

The crack and heroin epidemics of the 80s and 90s gave way to such current nuisances as the Drug-war and Opioid epidemics– whose pre-digital mindsets are entirely products of their time. Psychology dictates prohibition is doomed to fail. Human curiosity, that which is relied upon for us to survive and thrive, does not allow for prohibition except when used to challenge oneself.

While these aforementioned epidemics are of the worst kinds, in that they harm those involved more greatly than they could ever help, it remains that it is not in the prohibition nor prosecution of these behaviors, Human efforts should be focused. Rather, evidence best indicates its focus should be on treating their underlying causes.

Escapism will never be entirely voluntarily. It is, if only partially, a compulsion for Humans that comes from their need of, and connection to, imagination. It is why, despite the existence of videography, pure type still exists. There is a want, need even, for the Human mind to capably escape its reality in as many ways as possible.

The reason is simple: Stress is a killer.

Medical science knows this now. Society knows it, too. Likewise through Medical-Science, it is known as unavoidable, useful even: as much a part of the Human condition as water, oxygen, excretion, or death. An equal imperative in life to keep itself living. As well, through Physics, we know each action has an equal and inverse reaction.

These principles, reversely applied to escapism, reveal its engineering as a mechanism of action for coping as much as needed or desired. The problem with the aforementioned epidemics, and their connection, means they’re byproducts of the same underlying issues.

Simply: No pure-escapist, uninfluenced by external sources, wishes escapism badly enough to rot their teeth and smell like bleach and cat-piss from crack. Such a person would be like a connoisseur of animal shit: probably necessary, but limited in number for sake of natural process rather than want.

To simplify even further, the extremes one may go to in their escapism may correlate the depths of their damage. Speaking generally, the higher you wish to soar, the deeper you live– unless you’re Tolkien’s Dwarves.

But education, its seeming lack of pervasiveness in a so-called “educated society,” dictates we are anything but. Mostly, because en-masse Humans have failed to grasp the simple concept that to learn, one must be willing to do so.

With that comes a harsh reality: Humans don’t care to learn. They care to be led. To change the people, they must understand why they must change. It is why the addict seeks help only after admitting their addiction.

Thus Humans must wish to learn, so that they might see the beauty inherent in what it grants– why it is crucial to existence as a whole, as a “next-level” species to do so.Because otherwise Humanity is built on a foundation of animals shit, rather than something lasting.

To resist that, guide the change properly, allows all involved to be apart of something grand. It makes each participant like a kind of royalty.

Until that is recognized, treated as such, Humanity cannot hope to even begin grasping the challenges before us. When such challenges threaten our existence as a whole, it is dangerous to ignore them– Climate change. War. Nuclear anything. Planetary catastrophe. Extra-solar catastrophe…

We must remain focused on our individual goals, the healing ones– for ourselves and those around us. Otherwise, the systems needed to be in place to prevent catastrophe– for us and our progeny– will not do so.

Thus, we resist.

VIN 19- Worthy Fights

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

America is in the midst of several, Human Rights crises. Their origin is the blatant attack on our democracy. The idea is to watch it crumble, and benefit from having– if not the best, at least the only structure upright.

Only the mentality of a conquering, tyrannical-style government could account for this. It is a test against not just Democracy, but the forces (people) guiding it. You need not look much deeper than method to trace its origin, but regardless of perpetrator, infinitely more important is the reality that only we can fix it.

We must allow justice its time: it is not a force of instant gratification. Rather, true Justice is a force of satisfied closure– it is the knowledge of adding to the species as a whole, ingrained in our guts, and ensuring its longevity. It is the feeling of completing, if not in our way than in some way, our species’ existential goal: to persist.

Justice is not a thing of guessing. It is a thing of knowledge, conviction. Facts and figures. Those things immutable to Time, because they are formed of Time itself. This is the true test of our era: for we, as a people, to commit to the prolonged trudge of democracy.

We are a lazy people, made that way of our own accord, and joined as thoroughly as possible by as many others as possible. That is the American way, truly: to each of us, live as Rulers of our own fiefdoms.

But to do so requires ensuring the community remains capable of it. That requires work.

Problem we have today, is that the system of contribution is simply too complicated. In a world where everything can be done at the touch of a button, not having the capability to do so routes you. You are automatically a non-entity.

The other side of this is the fear of security– or insecurity, really. The only way to allow the aforementioned without manipulation, is to make it a thing of either personal security or pride. Thereby, making it personal. Something consigned and confined to each person. Yet mobile and secure.

Maybe once encryption takes off, sure. Until then?

It is not an easy solution, no matter which direction is taken to it. Yet, it is by no means impossible. In fact, it is very much possible, and likely, that such a handheld device personally tailored, and secured, could secure democracy.

But look at the costs, risks, and ethical virtues required in such a system: “Is it worth it?” remains the question. In the case of America, is the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness worth fighting for?

Personally?

Yes.

VIN 18- Social Media Overlords

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Social media isn’t your overlord. It’s their delivery system. You are the product. The overlord is the same as it’s always been; the wealthy-elite. In this age, and because of the ramifications of unincorporation, those Elite are Corporate. It’s still the same people hoarding– at the top as it were, but ultimately it’s nothing different than the last few thousand years of Human society.

Human history is nothing if not rife with Greed v. Need.

The difference is, a man cannot murder and remain legally at-large. A corporation can. They do so with regularity. (See corporations like Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, their ilk.) In the end though, the corporation is the system. It can no more be blamed than a failed engine never maintained. This engine’s purpose, rather than momentum is money.

Or rather, turning varying resources into money.

Money is the object. Power the goal. Resources enter the system, flow from one changing-mechanism to another before final output. This method of action is inherent in any system’s structure. Through-put.

In our times, no wealthy person lays claim to his or her money. Rather, it is invested in the system’s current, and ever-changing money-making variables. (ie, stocks, services, goods) Those involved have access to all the same resources as before and more, through the shared pools of exclusivity surrounding their inner-workings.

But ultimately, their value is theoretical, and always ranked.

Problem is, though it appears a cohabitation of Greed and Need, it is not. The restructuring of a few, internal workings that seem to have allowed for “newer” elite to exist, is in actuality, a static number. Exclusion from the elite is merely less obvious due to perceived growth. In reality, growth is non-existent, an illusion created after recognizing the importance of the group’s closed-nature: that its individuals’ survival depends upon its exclusivity.

Using its resources (e.g, media companies, telecomms, ads, etc) to highlight the seeming “multitudes” now part of this “new-money,” are in fact just those already there highlighting those wishing to be there. The presumed growth therein is a fallacy unhindered to mask the closed nature of the system itself.

So, the Elite circles are closed. The always have and will be. Thus begging the question, if true; why would a cable company want to own an internet company, or vice-versa? The answer is obviously money, power, greater range of control over the image their group puts out. Because it’s their survival on the line, but not the life and death kind, the luxury kind.

Whereas for all those effected, it can become actual life and death via circumstance.