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Oct. 19th, 2010 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foolsguineaOnce in a great while, when I am hip-deep in emotional crisis, I head down the viaduct.
Tonight I went to invoke Ares & dedicate myself to war against democracy. This has been building for a while.
I have grown more & disgusted with the conservative social order that excuses W. Bush's kidnappings & secret prisons; that delights in long prison terms & permanent disenfranchisement for the supposed sin of being a junkie; while screeching at the ostensible offense of being forced to buy health insurance. In the end, democracy is another form of entitled, aristocratic privilege, just with a very large aristocracy. I have been in a spitting rage for months.
In a case of my general irrational emotional overreaction, I decided I was done. Clearly democracy is mad--or perhaps it's really conservatism & privilege. Surely autocracy is better; one man with absolute power, absolute freedom, absolute control. I decided I believed in the Genghis Khan (not the historical Temujin, but the Universal Overlord in principle) & wanted to make him real.
This emotional state required me to go somewhere outside my usual routine.
So I walked down to Main Street, I walked past a high retaining wall & a low field, & passed through a well-lit stretch of road to the relative darkness of the viaduct. I looked at the streetlights, at the highway, at what man has built. I got to the viaduct, stood at its high point, & looked out over the railway toward the woods. I thought, would I really throw everything away for the few small things that upset me?
If it's me, yes, I would do it in a heartbeat. I have burned opportunities, ruined my life, over the length of my hair. I would. But I'm crazy.
Invoke Ares? I've always been more into Apollo. I need a better direction. I looked to the stars. Some people speak metaphorically of the North Star as a guide, but to me Polaris is just marking a physical axis. I looked around. I hadn't even noticed Sister Moon in conjunction with Jove; they'd been behind me. "Guide me, Phoebe. Guide me, Father Jove. Guide me, Apollo." I walked back the way I'd come. I added, "Guide me, Skiron. Guide me, Trismegistus." Wait, Trismegistus? Really?
I got across the first street north of the viaduct. I looked up again. The planet Jove is really just a big ol' ball of stuff, right? Is this really something I can pray to? OK, Sister Moon has meant something to me since I was a youth, but ... I suppose these gods they are not real. No more than the Genghis (or the Devil Genghis). I have no Apollo to guide me, not really. Just me.
I let the anthropomorphic dreams of gods, fantasies of god-emperors, & the mental landscape of powers & false realities that only exist in human imagination, be stripped away. And in that moment I felt myself very real, with the smell of the grass around me, a tiny being on the great curve of the Earth, a man.
I walked home. And this time I decided to clear off the noise, to deny it. "I am not the Genghis. I am not the living end. I am not the apocalypse, I am not Apokolips, I am not Apocalypse." That sort of thing. Names, mostly, I shall spare you the list, they only mean something to me. "I am not foolsguinea." (beat) "Well, actually, I kind of am foolsguinea." I chose that name & have used it a long time now. But yeah, even the name my mother gave me, "I am not." (I can always reclaim a useful name I suppose, but I needed to clear off this bizarre rage & mania, & the magic of names seemed a thing.)
As I got back up the hill, I moved on to, "I am," statements. (I hit, "I am not a number, I am a free man.")
I am free.
I am alive.
I am able to seek ... joy is a difficult word for me; contentment.
I am able to pursue fury. (Even if I am trying to calm down now.)
I am not the hammer, but I may wield the hammer.
I can seek peace, I can make war.
...
Some men are beset by avarice or lust or envy. I am largely jerked about by wrath & sloth. And sometimes I think wrath is better, sometimes I think sloth is better. But I need something better. I need to temper my anger with something other than lassitude.
Oh, the fury is still there. But perhaps a calm fury can be weaponized with some gained competence.
I think it's time I took a stand against the drug war. Among other things.
Tonight I went to invoke Ares & dedicate myself to war against democracy. This has been building for a while.
I have grown more & disgusted with the conservative social order that excuses W. Bush's kidnappings & secret prisons; that delights in long prison terms & permanent disenfranchisement for the supposed sin of being a junkie; while screeching at the ostensible offense of being forced to buy health insurance. In the end, democracy is another form of entitled, aristocratic privilege, just with a very large aristocracy. I have been in a spitting rage for months.
In a case of my general irrational emotional overreaction, I decided I was done. Clearly democracy is mad--or perhaps it's really conservatism & privilege. Surely autocracy is better; one man with absolute power, absolute freedom, absolute control. I decided I believed in the Genghis Khan (not the historical Temujin, but the Universal Overlord in principle) & wanted to make him real.
This emotional state required me to go somewhere outside my usual routine.
So I walked down to Main Street, I walked past a high retaining wall & a low field, & passed through a well-lit stretch of road to the relative darkness of the viaduct. I looked at the streetlights, at the highway, at what man has built. I got to the viaduct, stood at its high point, & looked out over the railway toward the woods. I thought, would I really throw everything away for the few small things that upset me?
If it's me, yes, I would do it in a heartbeat. I have burned opportunities, ruined my life, over the length of my hair. I would. But I'm crazy.
Invoke Ares? I've always been more into Apollo. I need a better direction. I looked to the stars. Some people speak metaphorically of the North Star as a guide, but to me Polaris is just marking a physical axis. I looked around. I hadn't even noticed Sister Moon in conjunction with Jove; they'd been behind me. "Guide me, Phoebe. Guide me, Father Jove. Guide me, Apollo." I walked back the way I'd come. I added, "Guide me, Skiron. Guide me, Trismegistus." Wait, Trismegistus? Really?
I got across the first street north of the viaduct. I looked up again. The planet Jove is really just a big ol' ball of stuff, right? Is this really something I can pray to? OK, Sister Moon has meant something to me since I was a youth, but ... I suppose these gods they are not real. No more than the Genghis (or the Devil Genghis). I have no Apollo to guide me, not really. Just me.
I let the anthropomorphic dreams of gods, fantasies of god-emperors, & the mental landscape of powers & false realities that only exist in human imagination, be stripped away. And in that moment I felt myself very real, with the smell of the grass around me, a tiny being on the great curve of the Earth, a man.
I walked home. And this time I decided to clear off the noise, to deny it. "I am not the Genghis. I am not the living end. I am not the apocalypse, I am not Apokolips, I am not Apocalypse." That sort of thing. Names, mostly, I shall spare you the list, they only mean something to me. "I am not foolsguinea." (beat) "Well, actually, I kind of am foolsguinea." I chose that name & have used it a long time now. But yeah, even the name my mother gave me, "I am not." (I can always reclaim a useful name I suppose, but I needed to clear off this bizarre rage & mania, & the magic of names seemed a thing.)
As I got back up the hill, I moved on to, "I am," statements. (I hit, "I am not a number, I am a free man.")
I am free.
I am alive.
I am able to seek ... joy is a difficult word for me; contentment.
I am able to pursue fury. (Even if I am trying to calm down now.)
I am not the hammer, but I may wield the hammer.
I can seek peace, I can make war.
...
Some men are beset by avarice or lust or envy. I am largely jerked about by wrath & sloth. And sometimes I think wrath is better, sometimes I think sloth is better. But I need something better. I need to temper my anger with something other than lassitude.
Oh, the fury is still there. But perhaps a calm fury can be weaponized with some gained competence.
I think it's time I took a stand against the drug war. Among other things.
