Shattered Rossi

This post may trickle into the personal, but I hope it's still interesting to the outsider.

Things have irrevocably changed. Either a dare met with injury or a hypothesis dissappointed, one. We mixed a gross contradiction of unpretentious intellectuals into an apoplectic slurry of alcohol, stoned junta, world music, technologic fetishism, lawlessness, warts-and-all cosmopolitanism and philosophical ADD in one of the most anarchic cities in the country and eventually, some year later, we met the status quo's inevitable. There are no tears to shed for that first to die in outer space. We've all come out relatively unscathed with permanent memories to match any cinema and a bracing view of Your pathology. I suppose there is a comment or two to make:


The darts I wrote during this period, that of the House Trumbull, were arrhythmic, selective, unconscious and for the most part bad. But their spine thickened and I think at some point in the future I can approach them again fresh and it will be some of the best stuff I have ever written. An example I don't hate is next to my profile pic. The ideas for longer form literature were profuse, yet the opportunity for only the best of social situations (i.e. hanging out) were even more in number and I've been left with a thousand incomplete ideas. More importantly I have been convinced that ability and inspiration is not my deficit, distraction is.

The Son of Juan gave all of our extended family a moniker that presupposed a purpose: Guerrilla Detroit was supposed to be an idealized, unwritten creed for how skillfully none of us gave a fuck. I apparently misinterpreted it as a spit in the eye of the suburbs we all emerged from and a unified recruiting device for the like-minded. Nontheless, Guerrilla Detroit as a community group failed for more reasons than I care to mention, not the least of which is that everyone involved had little interest in pledging any degree of allegiance to a group of even the purest intentions. We coalesced precisely because we refused to under a thousand under circumstances. Just as well, none of us had a precise definition to reference. Nor did any of us have identical utopias.

Many people came through our doors, mostly invited and almost always welcomed. We saw every level of human depravity and decency. Wiped the mouths of grown men, housed strangers for a night or two, passed the dutch to whoever claimed interest. We threw parties of a certain magnitude, I stood on furniture and pumped my fist or threw that same furniture out into the ink. There was an often successful attempt to vent the resevoir frustration that comes with our age and occupation(s). In the end our all-embracing attitude was our end, let it be said that the devil may come in many forms but you can still recognize him a long way off.

We gained an interesting notoriety and I'll try not to admit that it makes me smile.

Most of us are now leaning towards a more solitary life, I'm looking forward to a few lonely nights where I can finally allow the words to come out, it's been since the suburbs that I wrote 2,000 words in a sitting. The rest of us all have our own destiny we're trying to carve or force or sumbit to.

However, everything does not end, thankfully, and you can still find me and mine on Friday nights grubby and shouting about moral relativism, AK47, the infinite. Perhaps breaking your good china. We'll still be somewhere near the center of the revelry, halfway thru a case of Pabst with a lot of shit to do in the morning.

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Population Pt. 1: "Life is Sacred"

In daily commutes from this A or to that B, I find my speed sometimes hampered by people. Not always the willful ignorance of some slow-poke or a powerless individual deliberately milking a situation for any control they can temporarily claim. Oftentimes there are simply too many individuals in one space, comprising a teeming mass that expands and contracts at environmental whims. Beyond my arrogant observation that most of these people are likely "just in the way" ,or not hustling off to a task on an equal par with mine, in urban and suburban areas there is the sense that there are too many of us.

As a transportation dork I've come to understand that the capacity for things like roads, sidewalks, traffic signals, public transportation, and to a similar extent public institutions such as schools and courthouses, are built to a precise demand predicted to exist sometime in the future. 20 years is often regarded as a good figure for transportation demands, 5 is more likely for something like a school. The problem with these estimates, one would argue, is that (barring the apocalypse) there may very well not be the funds in the future to make upgrades to match an increasing demand.. Where does this problem come from? The fatal flaw in these predictions is the capriciousness of exponential growth. Without digging too far into the mathematics, suffice it to say that the variables in an exponential formula lend themselves, generally, to a wider range of results than linear relationships. Failing to correctly predict one factor can affect a result by orders of magnitude. Or, in application, lead to a crowded interstate in 10 years rather than 20.

I stated all this, really, to talk about the topic of the title. Population is an issue, whether one opines that every sperm is sacred or condones infanticide. Population was a concern of tribal cultures who were concerned about their ability to balance their responsibility of supporting a member thru gestation and childhood against their own personal needs. People, fully understanding where children came from, often made the undoubtedly life-changing decision to end their child's life, often post-fetal. There was an overwhelming sense of placing the well-being of the tribe or community above the well-being of one's self when the benefits of a "selfish" act failed to outweigh the detriment to the community.

Americans don't do this.

On a large scale we seem to have failed to consider the fact that every birth is not only a death, but 60 Billion calories, thousands of unrequited dollars, several hundred barrels of crude oil, a potential drain on gov't resources (with regard to social security and healthcare and transportation and defense and education and . . .) of millions. Every person added to the mix is a gamble, plain and simple. Some people pay off, some of us do not.

We've been very successful in paying lip service to the concept that life is sacred; celebrating the birth of children under any circumstance, prolonging the inevitable death of the elderly by subjecting them to batteries of treatment to pull them several inches back from the brink, imagining that our lives are so special that they could have only been created in the snap of divine fingers. Anti-choice activists claim that abortion is murder while supporting death in both foreign and penal policy. Eric Robert Rudolph bombed buildings because he believed so much in the sacredness of life.
While I do believe that once a child is born it is absolutely the responsibility of the parent and the community to provide that being with a shot, with as equal circumstances as possible, I must confess that we Americans don't really hold life sacred.

Take, for example, the birth of children in abject poverty in both inner cities and rural communities (I'm thinking here of the unspeakable poverty in parts of Appalachia). We Americans seem to find this life (on the brink of starvation, cold, uneducated, unhappy, unhealthy) so satisfying that it would be a shame not to let another child in on it. We hold the value of that child's life to such a level of import that we are literally willing to subject him or her to the absolute worst life has to offer rather than fix the problems affecting ourselves and those already born. In our refusal to accept the reality of our environment we seem to think that "love" is enough for a child. Unfortunately, Love is a poor substitute for dinner or textbooks or a blanket or vaccinations. Love is important to raising a child (and daunting problems also arise when people have children without love or even worse without evena sense of responsibility, but this topic does not speak to the economics and philosophy of overpopulation that I'm shooting for), but so is having the approriate resources to put that love into affect. Those who bear their children in abject poverty (and I'm not speaking about people who have simply bad credit, or a mediocre job. I'm not relegating the bearing of children to the upper crust) are not holding life sacred, in fact they make a mockery of it everytime they select exaggerating the problem over the simple mathematics that a deer or a fox perform. And because this is America, we can often only think in soundbites that rhyme, I've comprised a piece of verse: "If you can't feed, don't breed."


Another example is the current "healthcare crisis". Our nation is crippled by rising health care costs and their impact on corporate incomes, personal financial security, and what I will call the "emergency infrastructure" (that is our ability to respond to health emergencies such as gunshots, car accidents and fires). While I have equal vitriol for frivolous lawsuits and underhanded drug companies (and the demons in Washington who promote their interests), the topic of this post relegates me to discussing the issue of prolonging the inevitable.
In our relentless pursuit for the sanctity of life we, America, have developed a method of operations with regards to the elderly and the terminally ill that neither holds life sacred nor benefits the community at large. A prime, well-known example of this is the Terri Schaivo case, in which faux-Christians demanded that a woman nature pronounced dead 10 years ago must remain plugged into machines presumably until decay. Rather than facing the sad truth of inevitable death and freeing up resources for an recovering individual who needs it, rather than donating the still vital organs to an 8 year-old girl with a malformed kidney, rather than putting a corpse in the ground where it belongs, our pursuit of sanctity required that Terri Schaivo remain "alive". When the voice of reason finally prevailed, not without a fight, it was discovered Terrie was virtually brain dead with no chance for even marginal recovery using current medical methods.
To a less exaggerrated degree we take this philosophy to the elderly. To 90 year-old women having their chests opened for the 14th time, to 85 year old men confined to a bed for eternity but whose tired heart promises the the financial return of one more surgery. to $100 per day (whether paid by insurance or the gov't) in drug costs to squeeze out a year or two more of unhappiness.

This is not holding life sacred. This is being terrified of death.

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Define Success (Part 3):Talk is Cheap, Times Have Changed

When queried at dictionary.com the top result for success is: "The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted". Using this loose defintion within an attempted explanation for what success is in our individual lives means, quite simply, that however we term success it will never occur without action. We cannot be Van Gogh, Bill Gates, Alexander the Great, whoever without a pursuit of the model which we've defined. We not only must determine what success means (as I have attempted to do in the 2 previous posts) but we must also actualize this definition to truly be pleased.
Success in a limited, animalian scope can be literally translated into survival. An animal is successful if it can live long nough to pass on its genes. We too can be pleased with this solution, after all an intuitive survey of our environment shows we are merely animals. Improbably sophisticated and ubiquitous yes but still subject to famine, hurricane and injury. There was a point, not long ago in geological time, in which a successful hominid was that one who could simultaneously kill or gather a surplus of food (for him/herself and any dependents), evade death from predatory animals (or even defensive prey) and injury, and find a mate who was equally capable of spawning children. In simple terms, mankind's sophistication (that is cleverness, language, ability to manipulate objects, etc) came from competition, some of which he was desperately disadvantaged in. Early man was no match for the tiger, and many a simpleton was likely gobbled up kicking and screaming, cursing his weak arms and high-pitched growl. Of importance is that this task, survival and reproduction, was basically a full-time job (at least until agriculture came along) or at least so demanding that other ventures were marginalized (for example, nomads did not spend their entire day trying to kill things, but the destabilized nature of their lives stymied the evolution of culture).
In reference to the prioritized list of Part 2, early hominids could only be successful in the first (or second if they were truly skilled) list: themselves. Nothing they did could affect the species, even if they declared war upon their fellow man they would only be able to destroy a handful before some other self-interested hominid put them down. As man approached the agricultural age his potential for influence amongst the prioritized list grew, with the advents of language and more sophisticated tools men and women could settle in tribes and work for the betterment of their community. A medicine man could find a life-saving or pain-relieving herb, a skilled craftsmen could develop a better arrowhead, a wise leader could develop a new logarithm for making decisions. Man's increased sophistication quite literally changed the definition of success by changing the potential for influence.
As man settled into farming communities their influence spread, and as the role of chieftain became the role of king, one's actions could have influence throughout communities in a region. In pre-Columbian America the first group to devise the zero concept, or to use the Incan method for counting ropes could potentially influence other people that they would never meet.
In a very short time, man devloped amazing abilities. He could influence change (Thomas Edison, Newton, John Locke, Christ) around the planet not only to people he would never meet, but people who didn't even look like him. As the globe shrank the potential influence throughout the priorization list above grew. Millions of people all over the world are involved in activities that influence and affect themselves, their family, their communities, their civilization and in fact all mankind.
Whatever the precise definition of success is, it must take into account our potential to affect change from top to bottom of the list in a way that has never been possible before.

This does not mean that it is easy to affect change, merely possible. And it makes some sense from a strictly physical perspective that the further down the list one would like to go with their objective (recall, success has something to do with attaining a goal) the more energy of one kind or another it will take. Species-level influence will not come through individual-level energy. One essentially gets out what they put in, and some individuals are much more capable of directing particular types of energy (that is some people are more creative, outspoken, visionary or prone to leadership). If there were an inkling that mankind was really one large organism (root word organize) it could very well be argued that each individual is a cell (civilization merely the order of one's body extrapolated) and each individual has some function mostly decided by their abilities. However, this is another discussion. Let's make the assumption (and yes it may be overreaching) that the individual will pursue that track in which their talent/function lies. Or at the very worst the track they decide on will be a stab at pursuing this function (even in failure perhaps increasing competition in this arena and thus useful).

What is all of this getting at? Defining success for oneself is a multipart problem. First, one must decide upon their personal version of right and wrong (one can select organized religion, nihilism, or their particular flavor of prioritization). Secondly, one must decide on an objective that somehow squares with this vision of the world. And finally one must pursue it. It can be assumed that if one desires their success in the higher levels of prioritization (or within the more poorly defined structure of say x-tianity) they will have to dedicate their entire lifestyle to it and that it will not be easy.

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The Fourth Anniversary

Today is the 4th Anniversary of a tragic event that we still don't really know the truth about. Do something to remember the life of those that died. Please watch the videos in this link and consider the questions that they raise; I don't agree with every controversy it puts forth but the volume of video and analysis is worth the time.

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staplegun

An explanation of "sTapLegun" that I wrote late last year

Let me explain sTapLegUN in the several ways in which it is significant to me:
1) It's a beautiful word. Like the "cellar door" model from Donnie Darko it is somehow rhythmic, inspiring and yet not individually functional enough to say anything on its own. It stands like a dream.
2) I have a (staked?) interest in the utter "modernness" of this modern world and all of the devices we've created and produced en masse to satisfy our many idiosyncratic needs. A staplegun is a wierd, mutant kind of tool in that it takes one useful object (a "staple", various forms of which have been used in construction dating back to at least the Incas) and combines it with another in less than intuitive fashion. For me it is something of a symbol for both man's ingenuity/innovation as well as his tendency to weigh himself down with "things".
3) In the future (if we make it), when we're all one gender and one race, or simply telekinetic hovering heads, nothing will seem as absurd as being macho and obsessed with collecting things that are big, powerful etc. Stapleguns do serve a purpose, as do big trucks and shotguns . . but if we think that's the only reason people buy them we are seriously mistaken.
4) Rearranged: UNTapLegs....i know that we generally tap feet, but this has a subconscious affect on me. Some kind of coded imperative to stop bouncing my leg impatiently as the world marches on this course. And, it's not just a command to stop; it's a command to re-educate completely.

A sTapLegUn in the literary sense is a modernistic, mutant amalgamation of at least two literary forms, expressing in sbstract the particular worldview as described above, here are a couple sTapLegUns:

-An arachnid lurch that flakes off skin and rubs in dirt. Lie-buying smile that convices aphids the strangest narcotic mile between beyond now and when his chin truly ages. A crossed proprietary wire that introduces itself in stages.

-Escape is not an option for all tunnels lead you home and every wall lept is a one brick taller Rome. Those fields you lust for have been groomed and saved, removed from the appeal of an experience with numbered days or a fearless leader states it's time to enter caves.

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Define Success (Part 2): Moral Relativism, Observer Created Universe and More Q's than A's

The continuation of this discussion requires the assumption of several things; however success is defined it must contain value under the one major heading: influence. And to repeat this influence is not neccessarily power, popularity, wealth, et al but merely the ability to affect change. It can be argued that for an act to be"successful" does not require a universal perception of positive influence; as a test for this we can look to acts deemed universally negative (such as Hitler's physical and psychological trouncing of Europe) for lessons on how to be successful, i.e. if Hitler had been working toward a common good and yet used his brilliance and charisma to overthrow a tyranny he would be heralded as a hero. Therefore negative actions can be considered successful, but for application into our personal lives we would much rather define it in terms of what we determine to be "good".

Moral Relativism:
It is a common assertion that while theft in general is bad, stealing bread for a starving family is to be excused by authorities ranging from local to divine. Likewise, while violence is frowned upon, murder in self-defense is thought of as the actions of a hero. Even within our stricit morality there is a sliding scale that depends on circumstances, all encapsulated within an only slightly broader set of circumstances we can call the "human situation". This situation consists of being a living being on this planet, being subject to the laws of physics and their extrapolations into the laws of chemistry and biology. There is no morality to these scientific laws, we are not carbon-based organisms because it is the "right" thing to do, gravity does not influence us because it has the moral authority to decide which way is down. These laws are the broadest set of circumstances and because we exist in spite of them rather than the other way around we have no basis on which to philosophize whether or not they are correct, they merely are. Nonetheless, we have worked hard to determine a set of codes by which all of us should live, and nearly every rule that has lasted the aeons and remains enforced deals strictly with how one human being relates to another. Frequently, these codes emerge independently among various cultures; just as frequently naunces vary greatly and what is right amongst one civilization is deemed wrong in another. This argument has existed in Western culture likely since white people discovered tribes practicing infanticide/paganism/whatever and, upon delcaring their savagery and immorality, decided these individuals were uneducated, subhuman and disposable. This represents a significant clash of cultures in which a person of any vintage or creed could declare both sides were wrong, or right for that matter. The point is that the idea of right and wrong is at best a social construct. It makes sense that many individuals would reach an approximation of the same values without even being educated about them because many of our civilizations are essentially the same. That is, a farming based community will share many of the same values with other agricultural communities (more so communities farming the same crops or living within the same environs) as would hunter-gatherer groups share many common interests.
If right and wrong are simply social constructs there can be a set of rules for deciding them, and thus a very broad set of "rules" that could be applied to anyone and possibly incorporate wildly different lifestyles.
I propose arranging a set of of prioritized groups (each one in sequence larger than and composed of the previous) that goes something like this:

Yourself
Family/Friends
Community
Society
Species

What this means is that everything you do should be arguably good for all 5 groups, however it is most important that your acts are good for yourself (health, survival, development etc) followed closely by those you know personally as family or have adopted psychologically as family members. Followed behind this your actions should be, if not tremendously positive for your community, at least responsible to and mindful of the needs of your community. Followed behind this your actions should be concerned with the current circumstances of your society (whether you consider it the nation or the globe). Of still significant concern is whether or not your actions are positive or negative with respect to your species.

Notice this manner of prioritization makes no claim about what is good for any of these things, that is for the individual to decide through experience, careful thought, conversation with diverse groups, and lifelong education. No one really knows what may be good for the species; perhaps the species (man) is at its best currently, maybe its numbers must be reduced and its technological advancement reconsidered. This system of prioritization also allows for current mores to be inserted. Vegetarianism and PETA-esque animal ethics make sense in one way: refraining from killing animals and ingesting them introduces health benefits for individuals, efficiences for a civilization, and a peaceful cohabitation for our species. Likewise any personal philosophy can find room within these priorities. The important thing is, as always, balance. Not every act you take will have species level implications but the outcome of your life in general certainly will. Every action you take, however, does have implications for you as a person and who you are ripples through each of these levels.

So, for the sake of further approaching the definition of success, let's state that whatever it is the individual on trial for "success" must be in the balance "positive" through their list of priorities (under the influence of whatever they have determined to be right and wrong). This means that one must decide what they think is right and wrong, decide on ambition (for an action to be successful it must in the very least be an action), and pursue it within the morals they have decided on with an eye on the implications through the list of priorities above.

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