Tag: Offbeat

VIN27- In It Together

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

I grew up wanting to be a cop. Then, as a teenager, I was treated like a villain for my views. Most ran counter to those of what I wished to be. Not because I was any different, but because I learned my “dream me” requires being someone other than me. Namely, an asshole hypocrite.

Simply, my views kept me from achieving what I wanted because I was suddenly the enemy, rather than the Guardian, as I’d wished.

Growing up is difficult. Yet I remain a Guardian. Each fool that believes I hate: I do not. Each debater/hater that disagrees and hate me— I don’t hate you.

In fact, I feel for you. Because you hate, and that is a painful thing to carry around.

Trust me, I’ve spent most of my years hating myself.

Growing older, I came to realize how important it was to discourse. I grew up, realizing, if I wasn’t the bad guy, and “dream me” wasn’t the bad guy, and the guys I wanted to be like weren’t really bad guys– for Guardians are required, regardless of title– then something was wrong.

That something, it turns out, is the system meant to support and nurture these “dream me(s)”.

It is broken. With it, so are we.

But I’m speaking personally, so I will remain narrowed to that field, and personally, I am broken too. I am damaged, emotionally and physically, as are many of my family and would-be friends (as I don’t have any left at this point).

All the same, we’re not the only ones.

In fact, there are entire generations of us utterly wounded, bleeding, broken, and all from unhappiness.

I have said it once and I will say it until my teeth fall out, tongue withers, and throat bleeds:

We are in this together, and should fucking act like it.

In the end, I don’t give a fuck what you put in your body. I don’t care how or who you love. I don’t care about your affiliations, views, or perspectives. You are Human and I love you.

If I feel you are wrong or confused, I will debate and correct you ‘til the B’ohs wander in from pasture, or I get bored, too angry, sad, or disappointed to go on. But I will return. Eventually. And do it for you. And me. And everyone between, around, and hidden or foreign.

Because we are in this together, and should fucking act like it.

Take heed however: there are powers that wish us all to be at each other’s throats. I love them too. Because they’re Human, susceptible to error, and just as much scared, lost, and alone as the rest of us– no matter their power or position.

That doesn’t mean I like them. It simply means, because they are Human, I feel for them and hurt with them. I love them, as I love the stranger weeping on the street for their loss whilst the others walk past.

It’s past time we stop walking past and help.

Because in the end, all any of us wants is to be happy, healthy, and loved. You cannot deny that. Not at the core. It is a Human thing. No matter what you say, you’re Human– if only in part. Because you understand, at your core, (even if you don’t want to admit it, and trust me i have fucking been there) that you it is truth.

So. If you see me fighting, arguing, debating, or finding yourself subject of it, please remember I am doing it for the betterment of all. Even if I wrong, the point is to discourse: to understand and compromise. For the good of all.

And so we all can come to happiness, health, and love. Because we’re in this together, and should fucking act like it.

VIN 24- Duh

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

This recent outpouring of emotion over those otherwise “the opponent” shows how far the game has fallen. Three men, all of whom could have theoretically been at one another’s throats at this point in history from thus subjecting their subordinates– for surely these are so-called powerful people– to their whims, now sit beside one another mourning for their part in the game’s downfall.

But Heroes are those whom endure suffering so innocents need not.

This is a time to think on one’s sins. Especially for sinners. If not to correct, then to understand, reaffirm one’s commitment to sin. Ideologies aside, two factions are emerging in society: destroyers and builders. And they are eternally at odds.

This mourning? Feel it, but do not share it. It is meant to be personal. Each of us is meant to feel these moments. Think on what we have or have not done, whatever it may be. This is not a time for men or women, it is a time for Heroes. A time for symbols and idols, but logical, representative ones, formed of collective will and conscience.

The individual is at stake here, yet we feel it as one, revealing this as an assault on Hope.

ReziDump and his fecal ilk, their spawn, will always exist. Whether we allow them power to disrupt is our fault. As a species. They are sewage oozing from beneath us, but it is we that must keep the shit-lines clear: their infrastructure in-shape and running.

This is our generation’s primary task.

It’s unfortunate. Eventually though, all of the entitlement bullshit will go away. Afterward, once history places us as those doing the jobs no-one wants, suffering for the sake of all. Shit-covered and reeking– not because we’re lesser, but because we don’t care when others do, would rather they not suffer while the job gets done.

We are a generation feeling through one another because we are close, tight, bound by need and circumstance. Each one to the other, all of us linked. We beat as one. We bleed as one. We know nothing but one another because our existence was formed in an unhitherto seen turbulence. We are a generation whose only stable presence was itself– one another.

That we know this. That we communicate and feel it in actions, in revolutions, in mass-panics and organizations, is the effect of technology’s pervasiveness; its role as tool for Human endeavor. There is no act we can partake in that cannot be connected through tech if desired: showering, shaving, shitting, working, running, resting.

The time-before– pre-digital, became the transition through digital, which left us all most certainly living postdigital. The current crises are the aftermath of change. Like a tornado passing through, change can be violent, but so too can it bring the town together to repair and rebuild.

So, now, we clean the mess up and move on.

Duh.

VIN 23- Bullshit Without Context

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Here’s my problem with the so-called light-net we use everyday: it’s full of bullshit.

Not the kind you think of first. Not ads, spam, morons– the elegantly meaningless bullshit spewn by people and organizations with no scruples and even lower intellect.

Rather, the deeper bullshit, after the moments of clarity from laughing, when you recognize the source. It’s the kind of bullshit where everyone needs to feel big sometimes, so they belittle, but its something more than bullying or memes can touch.

The net’s revealed one, crucial reality Humans have known but never faced before: Bullshit without context brings out our worst instincts.

Human History is rife with social catastrophes borne of crucial-yet-missed context. Nowadays most seeking to ridicule deliberately remove or ignore that context to a point of impotence. Doing so, they ridicule whole swaths of their species, whole disciplines of study, entire milennia of recorded history.

Rightfully or not, and just-so from circumstance rather than desire, makes no difference if it is devalued to impotence

Putting this more simply: it is foolish and unacceptable for any one of our species to isolate itself, let alone groups of us to– especially to other groups of our species.

No advanced society, awareness of status aside, would deliberately drive people to ignorance without ulterior motive. Ours does so, demonizing those its sees as peaceful, loving, accepting of change. In the meantime, and via others playing on fears or egos of their would-be-wards, are driven away from true knowledge and enlightenment.

Shame and fear turn people away from experiences. Often, based on others’ perceived reactions. Which they’ve no control over. That is therein turned to ignorance by circumstance, want of peace.

These are the effects of an aging system producing output errors visible only in its finest details. It is Chaos incarnate. Learning to spot the flaws in a system, social or otherwise, is what is required to prevent total collapse or decay.

It used to be that such ignorance was excusable due to Humaity’s isolated nature. Geography isolated culture, and culture insulated the individual against their neighbor.The Human-Mind, though capable of it, was not so thoroughly engaged as it now is.

Until recently, too much of life and time were spent in back-breaking labor and the simple assurance of survival. No mass-planning or growth could ever take place on the individual scale, let alone the social scale. The Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, Women’s suffrage, the French Revolution: all effects of Humans pressure-cooked to explosion.

Things are different now. Technology is at-play here. Television was big, but it didn’t fit in one’s pocket. It didn’t cast during storms. It couldn’t intercommunicate.

Predigital, Humans were auto-pilot only configurations. Technology has since reformed them into auto-pilot and operator configurations. Our ancestors’ ways will soon be lost to their efforts and those of their descendants. Very soon. Yet with so much change, so closely abound, Humans are forgoing all connection to sanity.

How? Allowing their species to repeat its own delinquently juvenile-mistakes. Overwhelmed or blind-sided, it must be overcome. The Human Condition is that Humans must thrive despite their flaws, always seeking the unattainable: perfection, because it is the ideal and ideals last longer.

Humans can overcome, yet our flaw is that we must when we should not have to. One need not touch a hot coal to be certain of its heat if history assures it. Rome fell because of simple problems people believed nonexistent, or at the very least, inexplicable.

This current madness is yet another “Gods Must be Crazy” of civilization. A culture shock to be sure, but so long as we keep our heads, survivable.

Until then, we are willingly complicit in the tainted pipe-lines, the civic laziness, their existence; whether by allowing others to drink or forcing them to. We may only change this if we, as a species, come to recognize it as only an extension of the Human Condition. We, as a species, must recognize Humanity is not ordered, but that order can and may exist. Chiefly; by Humanity, to aid its sustenance and growth– as a whole, as well as individuals.

If we do not come to recognize this, Insanity will take over. Chaos in the system will lead once more to its fall. And due to the datum– the contexts and subjects involved, possibly the Human species altogether. Whether that is through an evolution or extinction seems the only question.

Our species suffers when any one of us is disparaged in intelligence and opportunity. The sooner we realize this, the better off we’ll be.

A century ago, when governments controlled everything, they feared that. Who wouldn’t? Information, the right kind, could tip the balance of power in instants. The individual had no power, not as it was. They did however, have the ability to rally others. Which meant keeping dissent down for fear of being overthrown.

Especially then, it was a legitimate fear. Governments were relatively new. Monarchys, Tsardoms, empires– all the norm until too recently, and with a bad habit of rallying themselves like Napoleon after Elba. Often, they came back and retook more ground than before, destroying any new, systemic improvements to society for the sake of their own power.

Until society at-large, and those in places of power and control, recognize the pointless futility of attempting to flex authority over natural, systemic, societal evolution, our species can go no further. Worse, we might meanwhile go extinct as a result of the aforementioned few, their choices or lack thereof, and their effects.

A politician denying a factual report opens the door for others to do the same. When these same individuals form groups, their power heightens exponentially. They know this. Allowing for it is dangerous through the sheer fact that humans, no matter their ideology, are often wrong.

Beginning to understand my concerns better?

VIN 22- Halls of The Universe, pt. 1

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

I started writing when I was about six. Doesn’t everyone?

As soon as I could pick up a pen, I began writing. My mother, an oldschool reader, subscribed to volumes of collections of fairy-tales as a child and filled the house with books until the shelves sagged. My father, though not traditionally “literate,” held true the written word enough to have learned most skill through self-teaching manuals.

Thus, the vein of story is pure and deep within me. It’s no surprise I became a writer. Though spending life attempting to please others is not the way to go, it does not devalue what you learn of yourself along the way. For me, that was fiction. Stories. Information. Then later, technology and science, truth and justice. Text. Words.

For words are power: true, eternal power.

What separates us from the so-called inferior boils down to language. One need only look to history books to see as much. Especially with regard to North American and European history, the barrier between “civilized” and “savage” was based upon whether one spoke specific languages– usually, those of whites, Caucasians, Europeans, and later, North Americans.

This extreme and prejudicial example is no less repeated in regard to anthropocentric– that is, Human-centered, views on Death, the Multiverse, and Nothing. The problem is, these views are subject to mob mentality as a result of their manifest by the group. Simply: Death, the Multiverse, and Nothing, are concepts too big for one person alone to understand and thus require the effort of the group.

Big jobs need more people. Simple enough, right? Right.

The catch, as always: this reality means the mob-mentality– or that state of chaos roused by inexplicable rage, fear, or inner turmoil, can also exist.

This is not seen in other animals. However, the reason’s likely a result of Human intellectuality placing them as ecologically dominant. It is quite possible, given enough Evolution, any remaining lineage of Earth-animal surviving alongside Humanity long enough would inherit its traits. Intelligence being its defining trait, would only increase the likelihood of that trait being made manifest.

Evolution would need only, as a result of the same naturally-selective processes, on social-scales, eliminate those traits. To do otherwise would avoid evolutionary paths-of-least-resistance, which is counter to nature’s tendencies.

In essence, if dogs or cats could live in large, intelligent enough groups, for long enough, they might too become as complex socially as Humans. Canids and Felidae alongside Homo sapiens in the halls of the Universe isn’t the worst idea, but it does require compromise on the largest scales of Human Ego.

Then again, maybe that’s the point.