"The world... ravaged... the sun beat down on the carbon stricken rock. Civilisation... a distant memory. Human-robot sex... the norm. Each day, every day, survival and ... how? this-thus."
No. No. It's not my purpose, it's the purpose – whatever that may be, at the time, although, sometimes purpose only becomes clear after the event – events – and has to be retrofitted. It's like the trajectory of pinball flipping back and forth between bumpers in a game of life and death with an endless supply of chump change. I speak not of my own life and death you understand, rather, those upon whose behalf I take the plunger in my palm. Tilting the table in my favour, of course. That's why they call me "The Wizard".
So it's about the money?
Your man in the street, in the supermarket on his way home from the office casing the chill cabinet for ready-meals, or on the cheap couch watching his favourite talent show for the talentless, always thinks it's about the money. Certainly money – and lots of it – helps. But money is just pixels in the shape of numbers – tokens – on the trader's Bloomsberg console. The numbers have no intrinsic value. Value is velocity. The speed of the game. How long can you keep the ball spinning?
When individual belief in what is right – and by extension, what is wrong - are treated as sovereign, what is right becomes divorced from the public process of consideration and deliberation. Concomitantly, when it is placed beyond the ken of public discourse: placed in the hands' of the gods, or, alternatively, an impersonal system of metaphysical absolutes, it remains hidden except from those self-appointed, earth-bound guides, to the immutable. There are also those that submit to the wisdom of the crowds: right is the sum of cumulative might.
I don't subscribe to the Euthyphro dilemma.
Ever.
Some talk of the ancient struggle between the forces of good and evil. If a struggle it is, then what is of the utmost importance is the struggle, for it can never be resolved; these are the virtues of doubt, indecision and reflection.
There's a story within a story in one of Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled novels - I forget which one; I can't be bothered digging through the various piles of books stacked on every conceivable horizontal ledge (L-shaped edge) within my apartment - about a suburban family man making his way to work, by way of a construction site, when a steely girder crashes to the ground within a living inch of his half-frozen flinch. And nearly killing him really dead. A second earlier and he would have been human kebab. The man keeps walking. Doesn't stop walking. Moves to another city. Takes up another job. Continues along the same career trajectory. Marries. Has kids. Again. It goes on. He goes on. Life goes on. Again.
But supposing, just supposing, instead, when that girder buried itself into the sidewalk, a tiny fragment of projectile concrete shrapnel penetrates his skull and gradually slivers its way into his brain. Nestling among the network of calculating neurons. Let's further suppose that his name is Maurice. Maurice changes his name to “Mauricicle the Musical Pimpernel” and goes on to enter various TV talent shows performing uncanny impressions of already established dead, dead stars. His success creates a platform of popular popularity and that platform raises his profile sufficiently to position himself for public office. And time. And motion. He ends up the President of the United States.
I eventually came to the realisation that I don't belong behind a wheel when, at the start of my driving lesson, I would have to remind myself of "left" and "right" by pretending to write and then would still end up confused. It didn't help when I explained to my driving instructor that "left" and "right" are relational and not absolute concepts, since space cannot be defined independently of concrete objects. Such metaphysical musings had little impact on my instructor as he was more concerned about the length of school girls' skirts and - in the the unlikely event that I met his wife - I should avoid bringing up this tendency in polite conversation.
My instructor also sported a late-70's-early-80's mustache a la Burt Reynolds; I feel I should mention that in deference to full disclosure.
[In progress: to be completed when the state of "sobriety" is achieved.]
We never left the garden, so-called “paradise”, “Eden” - “but weren't we exiled because of Eve? the snake? the apple? the tree of knowledge?”
Now that I've got you're attention, let me suggest something controversial: where were Adam and Eve exiled to? Come on. Name the place; identify the geological location; longitude and latitude. “Well”, you say, “it doesn't mention it because the story is an allegory; a metaphor of sorts.” Good answer, I can tell you're not one of those literally fundamental fundamental literalists. However, that is not to say that the "story" doesn't allude to literal truths.
I'll explain. Why would the acquisition of knowledge be such a bad thing? Wrong - well, not quite on-target - question. Better: “What is it about knowledge that excludes you from the prior paradisaical state of naivete?” Much better: in putting the question that way we can begin to uncover what is hidden right before our eyes?
The devil is in the detail.
Heraclitus of Ephesus: "A hidden harmony is better than a visible," and, "whatever concerns seeing, hearing, and learning, I particularly honor, having before particularly honored the invisible."
Ever had one of those dreams - nightmares if you will - where you're in some kind of social situation only to suddenly realise you're wearing no clothes? If you never needed clothes, had no concept of their purpose, do you think you would still be capable of the same dream? Did Adam and Eve realise they were naked? Didn't the notion of shame coincide - "coincidentally" - with knowledge?
And, supposing, if they thought about it "post apple-gate” for long enough, might they not get used to it and, as long as no one was offended, be happy in their birthday suits and only dress when there was an agreed reason to? You see, that latter conundrum was edited out of The Bible.
“So what?”, you interject, “Are you advocating nudism?” “No”, I ejaculate, quickly clicking shut my web-browser, “I'm merely suggesting that you are naked beneath your clothing - naked and, yet, clothed.” Okay, okay, let's try a different brass tack: knowledge - in all its forms - just like clothes, is - are - artefacts. Man made. Intentional constructs. Purposeful. Created - cultivated - grown by the mind.
What is real? Imagine the human race is destroyed by some force that leaves all human artefacts created by civilization intact, except for two infant children, we'll call them “Adam” and “Eve” and let's call this post apocalyptic word “The Garden of Eden”. All the “infrastructure” of civilization exists, but is it real for them? It is not good enough to merely know something is there if you have no idea what it is - was - for?
The danger with knowledge is its objectification - the notion that it exists without a subject - somehow "out there" to be discovered. But knowledge requires active participation "subject to scrutiny" - to understand derives, etymologically speaking, from "to stand under", if you don't know what you're standing under then you don't know where you are.
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people such as these.”
Notice he doesn't say “heaven” - “paradise” - belongs to the children, but to “people such as these”.
The possibility of losing something is also the possibility of gaining it.
And vice versa.
Like innocence.
What value can you place on innocence if it is the product of ignorance?
Heaven belongs to the kingdom of balance.
Seesaw.
Now take your seat on the throne and don't get thrown.
...
Desert preacher Pop-Pop put another pharmaceutical grade crystal rock into the mouth of his meth pipe.
Note denote note.
“Now fuck off and go name all the extinct animals.”
Postscript script.
Incidentally, I find it ironic that Eve is the one to take the initiative and to challenge authority. Eve is the Promethean feminist – to use an anachronism – and, if that makes her a harlot, I think it's time to embrace our “inner” harlot.
You are an incontinent tectonic bowel-shattering molten-headed gimboid of a smegma; an imbecilic gimp rope dangling from the wardrobe of an unsuccessful experiment in auto-eroticism; a perforated septic bladder floating in the steaming mug of disappointment; the unsightly and unwelcome aggregation of spumescent deposits found congealed on the frayed handkerchief adhered to the lining of a professional tramp's urine stained trouser pocket; a carbuncle set atop a pustule attached to an intestinal polyp residing above a prostate tumour; a failed abortion extracted by the vacuum of emotional sterility and deposited on the doorstep of existential abandonment.
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