"Beyond a certain point, there can be no return. This point must be reached."

(video: Cornell West on Real Time, quote: Franz Kafka)

Reading Anarchist political thought and finding nothing there that truly transcends anything. Thus far it leans towards socialism. "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" like a spit in the face to the whole manner in which we've survived through this epic. Granted that was written at a time when less was known about the human mind; but we see in all tendrils of evolutionary psychology and game theory and economics and yes even history that this strategy fails. It creates an artificial environment that breeds an undue quantity of cheaters. It is bound to cast itself into vicious tumult that only a fascist can briefly put right. It channels only the most idealistic, and thus the eventually weakest, tendency of human nature. Yes we could feel empathy for some small tribe that churns out a product. But could those we trade with ever be trusted? Casting your lot with those you know, even if admittedly outside your genetic bonfire, is possible and happens frequently. But sweating out everything for far-off strangers on a planet teeming with those you don't know, people you may have no issue with but yet are subject to different cultural pressures than you . . .how can it honestly be thought that people en masse will toil for the livelihood of people they cannot influence? I have more to say on this, but more reading to do first.


Giddy like xmas eve of '93 for grad school. And it's one year, and one year does not feel like the long yawn it once did. I met with a former professor of mine for sage advice; I will not leave any advantage to rivals or the wind. He's convinced me that I will be successful, that I will end up some place. That he reads applications himself and would vote my work into his institution. Nothing firm there to pin the label "success" on, but I've never worked this hard for something that belonged purely to me. And to know the trench I dig is deep and straight, it makes the shovel move faster.



I like the rabble. I like noise and dirt and spiders and waking up so groggy that one's entire life seems punctuated by a fever-dream that you cannot remember. I like to argue and fight and point my finger at god and government for the weirdness they have wreaked, and I like to scream out that they hold no rule over my life. I'll compromise my free will to science, but no god and no master will take it from me. I like to stagger into work on no sleep with the stink of misdeeds still leeching from my pores. I like to rip a hole in the middle of my yuppie day and bleed from it and ache from it for no other reason but that my body will endure. I like to craft rites of passage via bricolage and name my impulses like dogs in heat. I like working long into the night, save one in five when I run the streets and burn through brain cells and am liable to convert your son or daughter to my cult. It's all completely untenable, and that's the point: so is being alive.