9.1 A Howl
9.2 Another Howl
9.3 Heat
9.4 “I am not a number, I am a free man.” (someone laughing) Ahahahahahahaha!!
9.5 Disaster, failure, shame, consequences, fears and petty concerns, commonality and racing thoughts on natural.
9.6 Sacrifice.
9.7 Earth revolving the Sun, heliocentric extravaganza.
Introduction
What is the needed change when everything is change and the chant for change is constant and the thought of change is it is a positive thing, it equals something better and positive which we can contribute to? What is changing then? Is it us, for the better I hope? Who has the ability to make change, change themselves and their communities, what does and would it mean? Change is the only absolute, it happens without anyone doing anything, as Žižek says nature does not exist, so what happens, does change exist?
In this essay my attempt is for one personally comprehend components of the individual in today’s world, structure and idea of the individual, how do we become visible, reliable, meaningful and potential, agents? The society, the mass of people and the individual working together and separately, our functions within and outside the systems we have and the system we are. Our place, the play of being a human in the modern, using it, understanding it or not as it seems we are lost. How feelings are structuring, breaking and rearranging what we start, end, complete, make, create and how well are we able to see where our systems/system begin, change, do they do what we want or just suddenly collapse, like oops. Why we think the way we do and what is good are in constant need of evaluation. What are the possibilities of one person to start mass movements, make change in good and bad, which could be a social reform in good and bad and in which phase evaluation is in order. My effort is to comprehend choices and results of actions via for example scientific achievements in Physics which have solved problems concerning machines, heat, nature’s laws and work leading to industrial revolutions and the phenomenon of the modern, development of the modern mind in the process is interesting: what is that, entwined with popular culture, images, the visual influencing, influences, mass consumption, mass of people and the struggle of one among many.
9.1.A Howl
The feeling of helplessness, thinking one is without means when one has no wealth, left out of decision-making (if that is possible) or a card table, without acceptance and opportunity. People who make politics seem to be out of reach in this kind of situation, are not as interested in as they are supposed to be interested in lives of the citizens. Improving people’s lives is more and more up to the people themselves, which for people who are used to being pampered and have been trusting that the system will work for their benefit no matter what happens can be harrowing. This new situation where you are at your own devices can be overwhelmingly difficult and devastating. It is a test. It is up to a point self-evident that people have the power which brings up the question of how much dependent should, could and are we to be and how much fighting does it take to survive and succeed in life? What is earning, what should be earned and who earns the most?What kind of factors tell and matter for us, what kind of fight? Where goes the limit of support and what kind of support society, the nation, must provide for its people as nations stand for all of its citizens? This should be again a self-evident question and answering an easy task, but it is not. A very basic issue at the moment for the welfare state to solve is what does welfare and state mean and who are the weak that must be helped and how?
When the politician/administrator is someone who cannot be addressed, questioned, confronted and critiqued easily and justly by just anyone or at all, system is not functioning as it should be for its citizens. Bureaucracy, status, hierarchy, pride, biases, dysfunctional communication and disinformation are making everyday life difficult increasingly as we are not sure what and whom to believe and know why is it so difficult to get justice. The feelings of despair, distrust and difficulty seemingly anguish many, are hard to deal with and to go without chemical aid takes character. When bureaucrats/administrators become shielded, unable puppets saying it is the system, and positions overprotected trophies, whose motives and interests are primal? What kind of interests lead thinking, making of a nation and evidently affecting people’s lives? How much business interests lead a welfare state as without a functioning economy welfare gets weak and weaker? When politics is made personal gain in mind, when politics is a business, a show and a game played with images, within which it is almost impossible to make democratic and all benefitting ruling, the most vulnerable are played out, as in entertainment the rules are harsh.
Public servants who have interests of their own to protect and a lot to gain as seems to be in academia and in arts as anywhere, is unfortunately a common enough case and a very disturbing phenomenon at large. Corruptive force within public institutions such as schools, the personal ambitions and grouping play a role: who are the ones who get to benefit, what kind of causes get green light, what is interesting and important to teach, does schooling evolve, educate enough, minimise, make progress at all or does it only look like it does? Having a status of serving the public, doing good, students, patients, workers, being on the side of the fellow citizens without much actual effort of doing so, is an interesting disguise. Smiling makes you look so good… The will of doing altruistic work, an act of calling, for the general good is an open mouth, that is what voluntary work is about (but who does work for free?? artists? students? interns?) where power and money do not play other roles than getting the work done that is needed for common good. I’m sure such idea has been a starting point to begin with. In politics there is a stark conflict between the will to do the work and do good. We struggle with trust issues. Having power and access to money which bring in the element of who can be trusted, what kind of people we place our trust upon and how this trust gets build and remains. Fulfilling a purpose, the importance of one’s career with issues one holds dear, which cannot be discarded as we must have a certain amount of selfish interests to keep our lives interesting, sustaining self-worth and how much politics can be played with on the stage of fulfilling those selfish goals, it must be carefully thought through, what is the game. It is a question of how we see politics, what is politics and what is the stage all about, what is common good, what is my good. Such work can offer routes and is a stage of performance, an act and a place of play which we follow, read and interpret.
Common problems and sentiment about politics and in arts, the distrust, a progress and what it truly is and means, the suspicion on why people go to politics and how politics functions on different levels of society also strongly in arts and with arts. Issue for people who aim at positions of power anywhere is to solve the issue of their ambitions, perspectives, motives and purpose. To have power over people’s lives, the distrust here and there already exists against public servants. A constant failure of our system which our society today performs which makes headlines and scandals, again and again, the case of the battle against the system is never-ending. Helplessness revealing itself in front of threats that there are in the future and is massive. The constant confronting of problems which are there and difficult to solve, us having to deal with the shields and the lies bureaucrats tell as they must behave accordingly. Us against the administrators is a fight of us against them. In this kind of picture the ones who succeed are the ones who manipulate the best. The demanded political correctness is an interesting case of play. To disagree or not is an issue of being against or on side of someone, having enemies and friends in right places. We must choose what and who are the good ones, what is the bad as it never is oneself. Going to conferences, international meetings at where being photographed in convincing situations and having been there seems to be the main issues and the meeting of important people and the handshakes show proof of something having been done for the common good. Publicly solving issues is a case of talk, promises, choosing sides, shaking hands. Knowing and understanding problems is part of solving them. Problems that concern the whole planet this power show is making one wonder what happens there and what is the effect in the end: we do know what, but do we know how, or other way around. Treaties, contracts, files, pacts, deals are reported to the public in a way that is always somehow scandalous and ominous, a sign of the better ahead and yet not. It all is just grand and the best word in use is growth.
9.2 Another Howl
Ways that reveal helplessness, feelings of tied hands and mouths shut and what causes such paralysis’ and fears. There is clear inability to speak the truth or the same language as the ‘common’ people on many levels. Communication systems we have should make all clear and loud and we have many systems which are easy to use, right? Clear sentences scream demands on bankrolls and the shouting crowds walk in demonstrations all over, demands are visible but are they enough, the walks, are they desperate attempts of nonviolence or shows of inability and again helplessness? To begin, to start, kick off, institute embark, dissatisfaction takes form of violence which will not go unnoticed, causes of harm making headlines and constant talk. The thrill and the hurting there are on both sides which want political correctness or trolling to solve all, which it most certainly will not, we are unsolvable
When to begin and how? Do I begin now or only continue? When am I to make a move for change, with new year’s resolutions? To be, to have a clear idea of living in a moment and make an event for difference. It is I in question, question of what I do in my life for the common good. For whom do I do, what and why. What are my priorities in life? Life is full of beginnings, of making decisions and choosing, complaining, frustration thinking nothing ever changes. Whom do I let interfere my decision-making and what can I do? Progress in one person wanting something, adding more to the idea of self and a person, a citizen. Wanting progress, noticing that it is inevitable, constant cultural and personal evolution and how it is dependent on human will and circumstances. To what extent and what do we want it to be, citizenship and personhood, individuality, we as many individuals, wanting the common good or just personal gain?
9.3 Heat
Heat is a result of motion stated 1824 by a French scientist Nicholas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796-1832). Mechanical theory of heat was first proposed by Robert Boyle 1675, but it took its time to become interest of science and utilized. Carnot’s analyses and studies on heat laid the cornerstone of what we know as thermodynamics literally the heat movement, movement of heat. As Philip Ball states: discipline of thermodynamics is the
216
science of change and without change there is nothing to be said [12], meaning for example engines invented doing and helping us in our work, us understanding our place via tools, changing work methods, tasks, systems and purpose of ours in the circle of nature and ours, us placing ourselves in the universe, us observing what is the change that has happened, is happening and why and thinking what happens to us, what is warmth, how to be warm. The Industrial Revolutions have been making our productivity rise and lives change dramatically as there has been many influential ones after another. Constant change through innovations, inventions, cultural, social, scientific, technical, practical, ethical and ideological for us to work with, think, live better and longer, maybe more humanely, less violently and more safely, more productively and independently. Idea of working becoming a different world entirely for women, children and men opening up new dimensions and opportunities. Innovations changed the ways and meaning of hard labour, work as physical and mental, time-consuming all energy eating way of life, now more effective, faster, giving more products and quality with less effort and inexpensively. Nowadays without machines we would be badly disabled, somewhat helpless and paralyzed: what can we do with our hands, what can we repair, build ourselves, how to survive without garbage disposal, electricity and running water? Question is how capable are we in the end, facing the tragedies there may be as there will be, always has been. They will be grand as well, the tragedies?
Mechanics is addictive and beautiful and is a matter of knowing. Variations and options of what you can do with engines and motors are limited only to access, intellect, curiosity and imagination. Why am I writing about Physics of which I don’t know much about is the fascination on dependency and how we utilise the information there is freely in use. It is out of the comfort zone of mine as is mathematics but I find them both hugely acute, interesting and beautiful as STEM-subjects remain gendered and for many out of reach, they have begun to intrigue me. What is the gender aspect here I wonder, still remaining? The essential areas of expertise that have influenced all, we now take for granted. Important to seek through as I am trying to catch the point where are we now and how have we gotten here as technical advancement are the key to problem-solving and advancement of ours, solving basic needs of humanity at the moment and always has been and how well these technological things are available for all. Hard sciences have had the most definite impact on what we do, how we think and how we do, all this and interestingly technology is still very male. Still those who haven’t studied hard sciences which tell us where we stand, must know what to do with this found and given knowledge, are women. Is it fear? We can and are quite unaware and incapable when scared, especially of how things fundamentally work, how we work and how to repair anything as to buy a new one is more easy now than ever before. We are living in a world that has more information revealed than ever, at least that is said. What do we do about it is astonishing, many choose to ignore it and let other people know for them. Do we want to know what is going on or is ignorance bliss? Learning is hard work, we clearly want easy, lazy, cozy and fun.
Continuing with thermodynamics which has three laws and according to Philip Ball, two of those should be engraved in the minds of everyone who want to know anything about science. “Energy is never destroyed but only transformed and there are processes that go only one way, which are irreversible.” Laws to make way to understand what causes movement, how does matter/materia behave, what makes it behave/unweave the way it does. How does form/shape get made and the sense in any of this called the material world. I let Ball continue: it is a complex matter, difficult to understand. “Mathematical theory of change and irreversibility: entropy. Crudely speaking measure of the amount of disorder in a system”. We could use these laws to measure humans and their behaviour. Language of Physics drills into the exact, exactness is a key, the beginning and the end of all, how it moves. All is beautiful in its definition, the constant search and doubt, circles, the infinite, that there is always a possibility to be wrong in exactness, the absolute is tempting. What is there, another door, another mystery to be puzzled by and be solved? Physics is a good starting point to human body and psyche, you never know all of it, we still don’t. It is a thrill to have curiosity to explore. Will curiosity be our end? Brain will not stop working, humans will not stop searching for answers. Interesting is eventually for what kind of questions we need answers to. To process, information sensed and analysed, impulses, stimulations, sensations, images, smells, feelings, messages, formulas, information given, information hidden. It is fantastic, chaotic and yet systematic and complex that it can drive you insane to think about the complexity of a person within complexity of matter, complexity of a mass, complexity of an event, reaction, aftermath and what is that energy we use and have. I am what was before, future looks thrillingly open in the now. Not closed, dark or dim. Disorder, measure and system, atomic motion, average
217
behaviour, swarm of bees, laws to make sense of, probability, singular direction, something done that cannot be undone, so how to choose what. Machines and information, production of goods rule the market which is us, who has got the machines, means of productions and why, how intelligent can machines get or us, how much is enough? What kind of freedom is it to be dependent on goods, on machines or know close to nothing about the machines we use?
9.4 “I am not a number, I am a free man.” (someone laughing) Ahahahahahahaha!!
Number six is a central character in the 1960s TV show Prisoner. “[the Prisoner] hasn’t got [his freedom]” and he escapes, as Number Two brainwashes him into preferring Russian cigarettes as a means of undermining his identity. Prisoner Number Six also made known by Iron Maiden in their song The Prisoner from their album The number of the beast from 1982. The whole idea of the series was to find out why Number Six left his job. He is escaping something which is the menace; his ultimate fate is not revealed. What job did he have? [1.] “What do you want? Prisoner asks from his captor. We want information, information. Who is new number two? Whose side are you on? That would be telling. You won’t get it. Who are you?” “I, I, I,” repeats a voice, “Sir on behalf of us, all we thank you”. Sci-Fi is taking over as is quite the nonsense, where we don’t know what is going on, we just go on.
Making a fable, myth and a legend, what would happen if the man of secret service would retire. Refusing of excepting his fate: I will not be pushed, told what and when I don’t know who. Spies that knew too much, what their theory is and was is unclear. There are sides but no one understands which side to be on but on one’s own, what other sides are there, very strange. When do you plan to escape, all the time? Surreal is close and still based on reality of spy life. I didn’t walk out, I resigned, he said. “Subject shows great enthusiasm for his work.” Man reads the file of Number Six in a ball chair. -“Why did you walk out?” Why is it interesting that he resigned, emphasis is on resignation. He will not be let go, walk out. He is haunted, chased, seen on having will of his own. Work as holding information is telling we are also the information and we have information that is valuable. We are targets, subjects, possessions telling what we want by what we watch, read, listen and buy. We are being followed so our needs can be fulfilled. Is that what they want me to think?
Driving a Lotus or Lexus, holding my Samsung, typing my Apple, doing and making with devices, going somewhere, being pro with something elegant in hand, in use. It was about brainwashing before, it is about brainwash now, it is brainwash since birth and not to rebel against. The prisoner is interestingly cool and flashy, weird and little psychedelic dedicated to the escape of one man, resignation of one man, heroic maybe, desperate yes, disturbance created by this man, torture of this man, intense questioning and now being answered somehow. It is dangerous to question the machine and do what you want and we are all alone. Cruel idea of a place called Village that cannot be escaped is an idea of the caged modern human. Doesn’t it sound like the lone rider, someone who is up against the evil ‘master mind’, the system, the society. How many are up for it, actually, to be against the system that uses us to profit from us, information which we are and information that is held from us? What is the situation of escape and the place to escape from and where to go, how bad will it all have to go? To be against the wall is the fear, have everything personal taken away, unwillingness to obey can be costly. How much sadism do we take and
218
how sadistic can we be? How sadistic do we want to be and why sadism would be a means to take on? To die rather than stay inside a world of a ruling dictator, realisation of being dictated and abused or take a risk is one turning point. Importance of one man and his necessity to decide for himself play a big role. What was his job that he was numbered and captured to do? Who is his boss, why is he chasing this lone hero and what is the danger, what is freedom here? Number Six is knowing something that makes him hunted or is it his free will that makes him dangerous? He says: I am not a number, I am a free man. I can do what I want, to which Number One replies with laughter: weakness embodied in front of absolute power.
Dystopia of the future where one man manages to escape from where nobody escapes, a job, a cage and running from it just anywhere, tragedy which resembles the world of today where laughter plays an important role, we live the science fiction, true tragedy and a comedy emerges when tragedy is so severe there aren’t other refuge than laughter. Do we live in this fiction realised? To be hunted like an animal is part of the frightening picture, to be owned by a force that does not let go of you no matter what you do, because the force owns us all. Living in acute fear as we are monitored, dictated, ruled over and we are information to be owned and known. Horror film repeatedly becoming reality what we have already faced, what we obviously want to happen is be caged, to witness our caging, the sadism of every day and still think we are free and safe. Those who dare to step away from the daily routines, duties and chores of ours are a threat, liability, outcasts, despicable. A threat because of acting out, stepping out, giving up, taking stand, speaking against those in power, daring to do it, because to that person there is no other way than stop the madness he encounters and does not understand. Trust no one. Human tragedy here is clear, we are trapped. Contempt, isolation, inequality, hate, anger, anguish, anxiety, what is the escape for many are drugs, alcohol, partying, playing video games; to face someone who holds power over you can be too much, is it the parent-child relationship, teacher-student, curator-artist, boss-worker, citizen-politician? How to react to that dichotomy, difficulty of status, impossibility of having power? How does that relationship evolve or get destroyed? Master mastering what and how you do, think, eat, work, evolve, make progress, live and sleep. Aren’t we already in that kind of situation, us against them? Are we mastered and how does it happen in other ways than with fear? Or have we always been this way?
There is a social order that pushes us to act in and out our social frame. It is called necessity, independence/dependence, living in an exploitative system is a necessity as we are told, nurture here exploitation there. System, the word, a structure, is descriptive of this function and the meaning that there is an end, a product to enjoy and continuity. Manufacturing, manipulating, producing and keeping up a livable functioning platform. Masters of today, hated for their mastery and distance, invincible invisible ones. Arrogance there, cruelty getting worse and wealth getting into fewer hands bind us together as rebels. To know what and who we fight against and for is of the essence. Slavery has not ended, it is expanding and increasing and escape is almost impossible.
Storytelling in movies and in TV-series function as tools in predicting the future. As a warning and making us see what might be a futuristic possible reality to happen. Entertaining us with not so distant views into adventurous, dangerous and heroic action, daring for the one. Our lives seem small, far from being capable of saving anything. Watching who lives and who dies in movies make us relate? In real life the only desire is to survive which dictates how. Always on some multitude, on some level, for it is one most important desire, the will to live, stay alive and flourish, but as we do not live alone, we need others to flourish with as well for us to flourish. Flourish as being able to feed, clothe, socialize, dance, talk, write, give birth, make love, sleep, work, work out or workout, it takes a lot to be a content human being and make a livable platform. To avoid the lack of important aspects in living, to find security, balance and satisfaction, feeling of being a whole person, appreciated as a person and a maker which may seem to be often a lot to ask. To ask for it or take it as it comes, should we be taking liberties as worthy people? As nobody is telling us how to do in the end although there are a lot of instructions which show us ways to be accepted and valued. How to make progress demand authenticity and personal learning, you have to decide quite a lot for yourself. To find happiness and satisfaction, perfection is something we struggle with
219
as is with finding a place, mood, work, body and mind, a happiness with more and more is a tough one to handle. The difficulty in being one, in understanding oneself, others in relation to oneself and not is a constant if progress is what is the search. One doing with the wanting, needs, is a constant battle with illusion, perfecting being visual. Is it about/because of chemistry, hormones, our biology, our nature, getting old, sick, living before dying being something we must accomplish. Feeling of the speed, fastness, fulfilment, like the thrill of racing cars, of dreaming of someone else’s life, life as perfection and wanting that same thing, grabbing it when seeing the picture someone by the pool, perfection in warm climate drink in hand, in swimsuit with a desirable body, sunglasses, beautiful landscape, endless and pure health and youth, also a lively nightlife must be at reach for all. Luxury of living is an ad, lust is within your reach, the same ideal of a real life dream glimmers on Instagram. Whose dream is it? Who is dreaming this? Dreams becoming pictures and vice versa, consumable luxury items, extensions of egos, the self in a picture, the question of what is self and what does it want all the time, why is it lonely and lacking? Aspirations, learnings, jobs, dead ends, visual escapes do tempt.
When I open my eyes is there something I do not want to see? There is despair in the air, in the news, panic of losing, youthful looks to gain and have like possessions sold as any thing. But why be bothered by these sights of contemporary disaster? There is nothing more disgusting. I can complain about all, does it change this pain shown that is so obvious. Misery is not vanishing, it stays the same whatever happens, it possibly multiplies as mankind expands and has more than is necessary. Pain is there to tell us something. Pain has a meaning itself, it is a sign which not tolerated one bit.
Pain tells us direction, when to stop, how to react and what to do, feel, to feel better would be nice. We can adjust to tolerating pain, learn not to fear hurting, because it is an everyday issue, learn to live with certain amount of pain when we have to, when there is no other alternative than to adjust. An unpleasant feeling caused by intense damaging stimuli, such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting alcohol on a cut, bumping the “funny bone”. “Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage.” Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. Most pain resolves promptly once the painful stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but sometimes pain persists despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body; and sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease. Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in the United States. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions and can significantly interfere with a person’s quality of life and general functioning.[2.] Psychological factors such as social support, hypnotic suggestion, excitement or distraction can significantly modulate pain’s intensity or unpleasantness. This suggest
220
we hurt constantly and pain, mental and physical, is unavoidable essential part of life, still a sudden attack to be feared. Fundamental idea of feelings guiding life and actions of ours is mind-blowing as we consider ourselves rational. Feelings affecting, sentiments and nuances, relationships, constant emotional variations during a day, letting feelings decide the good, the bad, that there is good in bad such as drugs. Rules made by people for what is good to do in order to live a so-called good life. Machinery of man-made rules make pictures that are produced to continue the story of desirabilities, desirables, lust, hunger for something extra, search for perfection and feel-good, that can never be found and we keep on living with our imperfect world as imperfect desiring to become perfect, balancing the good and the bad trying to understand why we are the things in pictures.
Maybe talk about revolution is senseless since there is no clear starting point and surely aim for equality is not going to be accomplished in near future or maybe that is the senseless part since we are not equal in capabilities and to put all in the same line is stupid waste of resources. But to talk about revolution is important, it is essential still as it is a mystery. The word has captivating strength, meaning of struggle for good is meaning of life and progress. To end misery is maybe an illusion but to go on with the never-ending battle for human rights is still worth fighting for.
To give birth is a bloody act stating our belonging to nature, stating our dependency on each other. What is proven to be true there is human weakness. Confrontation continues as it is well-serving for some, traditional power structures and issues held dear thrive: family, steady job, home. Life lived and seen through traditions would mean we’d be staying in the Stone Age without the defying counteraction, necessity to do things differently, risk-taking and the need to change the ways of thinking, still there is wisdom and sense in the old-fashioned or family-based lifestyle. It is important to notice that something that was good roughly 1500 years ago may not be accurate to follow today, which comment goes for the values that regulate people’s lives in the strictest of ways. Talking about pain and judgment by Sharia law is one ancient example executed in Islamist dictatorships today like in Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia tells it is a legislation, moral code and a law of Islam. In the strictest definition it is the infallible law of God. It deals with many topics addressed by secular law like economics, politics and crime as well as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer and fasting. So it gives Muslims everyday regulations for good, God-loving and -fearing obedient life. The reintroduction of Sharia is a longstanding goal for fundamental Islamists globally. “The concept of justice embodied in Sharia is different from that of secular Western law. Muslims believe the Sharia law has been revealed by God. In Islam, the laws that govern human affairs are just one facet of a universal set of laws governing nature itself. Violations of Islamic law are offences against God and nature, including one’s own human nature. Crime in Islam is a sin. Interesting are the viewpoints of dictating
221
what is criminal and how crimes are punished. Whatever crime is committed, whatever punishment is prescribed for that crime in this world, one must ultimately answer to God on the Day of Judgment [3.][4.][5.]
Revolution needing violence for revolution to happen is an issue that raises mixed feelings but revolution faces fundamentalists, bigots, religious system which does not believe in man-made laws. It is a glorifying ideal and evil combined, of getting killed in fighting for justice. In Marx’s words ghosts of the old revolutions are circulating. ”The nation feels like the mad Englishman in Bedlam who thinks he is living in the time of the old Pharaohs and daily bewail the hard labor he must perform in the Ethiopian gold mines, immured in this subterranean prison, a pale lamp fastened to his head, the overseer of the slaves behind him with a long whip, and at the exits a confused welter of barbarian war slaves who understand neither the forced laborers nor each other, since they speak no common language. “And all this,” sighs the mad Englishman, “is expected of me, a freeborn Briton, in order to make gold for the Pharaohs.” “In order to pay the debts of the Bonaparte family,” sighs the French nation. The Englishman, so long as he was not in his right mind, could not get rid of his fixed idea of mining gold. The French, so long as they were engaged in revolution, could not get rid of the memory of Napoleon.” [6.][7.]
9.5 Disaster, failure, shame, consequences, fears and petty concerns, commonality and racing thoughts on natural.
To see an execution just like it was done before, a beheading, and feel the side of good in action? It is difficult. In some countries there are (public or secret) whippings, beheadings, shootings, hangings and stoning’s. Public corpse, death by sword or axe, head falling is a horrifying sight, headless bodies in line up a fence. To see blood, corpses, stay safe ourselves witnessing a massacre online and it is a place of our anger on someone unknown, distant, someone of whom there is talk, who has done something that has broken a moral code and must be punished this way. Is it humane, isn’t it and we don’t know how the horrible can be true? Something to have an opinion about, “How awful!” and “I would not have dared to watch”. Death penalty is problematic and you probably could watch it happen. Possibility of making the wrong judgement there is, not to mention the brutality of the punishment, which is a clear indicator of humanity (and we like to think it is the animal). It is to answer violence with violence, violently ending violence, make a sign. To be against Humanity one may think is to have death penalty like this, what is lawful there, godly, justified? What is an unforgivable act and how to take a life? What is sacred anymore? To scare and be scary is to show who has the ultimate power.
Death is a direct way to solve problems, solve the mess of people and keep effectively a system intact. What does death penalty solve other than the human problem. Ignorance is holding on to traditions and lack of empathy is clear but still people do terrible acts of crime against each other. For some the other does not matter and human life is cheap. It is the same problem with economics, political, environmental and ideological distances and differences which we face today, how we struggle to understand ways of others or the question of human rights. They are somewhere there, rights, duties, problems, trash, losers, mess, though it is clear we are all connected and fundamentally troubled and unequal. The calculated effects of punishments on
222
crowds and individuals spraying, committing crimes, spying, punishing, threatening. How people react on a public joke on someone unknown to them or constant visible cruelty online? Papers’ normal scoop is to trash someone in continuum.
9.6 Sacrifice.
What would natural be for us but birth, intercourse, illnesses, secretions, smells, getting old and dying. There is unlikable, inconvenient and bestial awkwardness in decay. For a modern human natural is something avoidable but there, it is shut out and again scary. Much of these natural functions that belong to our existence have been seen as ugly, impure and perverse. To preserve our dignity, to avoid the strangeness of falling apart, to protect the modern in the face of eternal youth and strength. To let us forget or remember how completely part of nature we are, have been and will be since we all have been conceived, have been born and are going to die. We don’t want to touch the slime or smell the shit of an any person. It is a distant and frightening picture of future, isolation and contempt from and against anything unknown. Decay is unfamiliar to our youthful healthy bodies. It happens to someone else now but me when? Death. Cruel and inevitable, distant. We don’t even know how animals get slaughtered for us to eat. We don’t know what it is we put into our mouths. The sight of slaughtering animals disgusts us. The blood and terror. Then there are the questionnaires of what will you probably regret of not having done before you die. Eternity and preserving the illusion of having a piece of godlike spirit, having lived.
Sounding like something is jailed, chained. We are not forced to escape anything, but it is what we do. Living in compost of comfort and paying our bills. Grounds for naturality, our obvious belonging to nature, our beastly character is connected to nature. We want to place ourselves into the frame of the natural, we sell products with cherished idea of the pure naturality and beauty, purity and divinity of nature, as we are part of the natural continuity which we control and still are apart from it. Will of God is in the nature which is in use of ours. What happens to us is His will, by his hand, Him, man the director who does His work through us. God having hands as we are His image, we want to see His image in us, to understand Him better, but how we understand ourselves seems hard. Nature is at the brink of catastrophe not only by us but because it is the way it works. Constantly managing from falling into chaos and destruction according to chaos theory. It is what happens despite us, we are at mercy of nature which is merciless. It is ‘will’ of an entity to worship and obey. God, Goddess, millions of goddesses, godly, lord, oh my God, the one that I worship somehow. Those who have died by nature were meant to die. Nature is the god and we are little particles in it. To
223
acknowledge this may lighten the grief caused by the merciless god, lighten suffering and pain of loss as we will be lost and be born again. Believing there is a better place like Heaven where there is no pain, helps us keep on living. Reasoning, answers to why and hope to continue living. Earthquakes and Tsunamis happening like punishments, what have we done to deserve this? Answers must be found either scientific or religious (to be more obedient servant is to avoid disasters).
Iranian movie director Abbas Kiarostami filmed a road movie And life goes on (1992) of a man and his son and their car ride looking for the road to Koker after a devastating earthquake. Trip was to find the boy who acted in Kiarostami’s movie. Idea for the movie became after Kiarostami had heard the boy who had acted in one of his films had died in earthquake which hit Iran 1990 and killed approximately 50 000 people. Film about a lost boy who is not to be found. Man driving the car showing a poster with image of the boy to passersby, survivors of the earthquake. Striking is the humbleness and kindness towards the two strangers who wander around in ruined villages. People walking carrying their few belongings left. Accepting God’s work, the quake that swept away whole families and villages in one moment, a night. Natural horror, amazement and wonder on man’s face when he hears that there is still a football tournament held, despite the circumstances and deaths that have hit the most of everybody. Wishing well and good fortune although all sixteen of someone’s family members and home have vanished. (Talking through car window with an old lady crying and telling this story). There is nothing else to be done than go on and hope for the best for everyone.
9.7 Earth revolving the Sun, heliocentric extravaganza.
How a thing called tree reveals itself to us and is itself. A living organism without a conscious mind, unlike us mindless humans although with minds and brains minding our own businesses unaware of our consciousness, unable to appreciate the subconscious. What one is taught to see becomes what one looks at, stares at, wants to see and do. What do you observe, how do you observe and how much our upbringing guides our noticing what happens around and what we appreciate? Finding out that the earth is not the centre of the universe meant that human, the man, is not the centre of all existence. Finding existing worlds is a matter of our adventurous minds and yearnings, curiosity, imagination. It has been one of the most profound ideas revealed to us, infinity and other worlds, other kind of realities. One revolution was finding out space, order in the universe and the Earth going around, revolving the Sun. What are we then? Looking for our purpose and is there any purpose. Questioning everything is a basic
224
rule for any scholar in finding the truth. Amazing is the strength of belief in major religions that have millions and millions of followers often denying the scientific truths. Religions which are more or less fiction, old and tradition bound together cannoning our world. To have faith in the invisible energy or light may give hope. In front of scientific research and evidence there is a mass of true believers.
Animals being part of the modern society as exploited parts like we as well are treated as objects and tools in use. We may not be aware of the all abusive ways of capitalists scheming of ripping off maximum profit and giving guidance like a liberal light it falsely likes to show us. To have a breakthrough in destroying constant demands of growth in winnings, we have to abandon corporation ally led hoax democracy society. How to do that since we live among leaches whose only task is to suck the consuming population dry and their grasp is pulling. How to lessen the dependency on products, productivity and need for efficiency? Dependency being thorough meaning every daily function we do. How to be satisfied with less? Since needs are what are being created with visual heavens. How could we have only what we need to live and decide what is it that we actually need?
Combination of words that all anticipate action, the unexpected. There is something strongly personal in all of the words mentioned above. They have meaning as something that has been unsatisfying, something gone wrong, disturbances of peace, seek for balance, continuity and finding what is lacking. Releasing of ugly emotional turmoil, mess, chaotic destructive behaviour and scare. Threats to security and health are in the happening, thinking about the real event of actual riot, insanity, anger, revolution, the scheme to ruin it all, maybe us. Concepts needed for creating and drawing together the reality we live in, or realities, as everybody has their own and something to aspire. To know what someone else is feeling in the middle of struggle, surviving, you thoroughly won’t know what. Our inability to completely understand the other. In many cases people don’t even understand themselves but they have faith. We have to have a common understanding of common needs, realities, common consciousness, spiritual union, that there is something called subconsciousness, human depth and intuition. Psychologizing and psychologisized modern rules of ours, our culture, civilization and its structures, living under observation in information society can feel safe and well-structured. Occurring incidents that dictate a so-called fate of man, everyday life and which details make our spaces of experiences happen. Since our lives are lines of some sort, trees, plants as metaphors for our lives, lines of experiences experienced lines, crossing, not accepting something ready and given is to be suspicious. Difficulty as an individual to make a move and change situations of one’s life also in a way that is affecting lives of many.
225
Understanding the effects of your choices to lives of others as well as to your own. Making decisions thinking how to act, how you wish your children to act, how far to go in the means of acting and actions, action causing reaction, causality, disturbance, violation, violence and harm. How to be less violent. How far do we have to analyze violence, is it physical, mental, against others or oneself and how much to avoid it? Are we doing our best? What is believed to be right, we as an entity and how are we doing as beings. Is that what everybody is doing coping and analysing? Or are most of the people settling to the comforting state of good enough and why bother to reach and react since it is difficult, painful, forcing one to sacrifice one’s convenience and ease can be lot to ask. How are we our minds in this mixed up world? It is a question of almost knowing, but never knowing enough, still asking, how are we? How, our minds are us? How am I me? As I have an identity which is built of several layers. What is being build when a person’s identity is in question. Are the things I do part of my identity, meaning I am building my identity all the time, stating it, realizing me, revealing and hiding me. Identity revealing itself to me and I make it happen. How much identity can prevent individuals from seeking social change, stop from making reform? How much are we stuck to our images of good and our roots? Is my consciousness part of me or all of me, physical parts of me working as helping that consciousness? I have become to think, to express; without ability to create new, new ways of saying, ways of living, of doing I would not be me. Creation of mind, creating consciousness constantly organically. Getting inspired is what makes me every day. It has a lot to do with emotions, an attitude towards me as myself and life as it happens and what is there to be done. Responsibility and love, could we learn what it is to love, there are questions about interests, self- interests, how to create social benefit for as many people as possible instead of few. What is social benefit: It is a working welfare for everybody. The most important benefits state can offer to all of its citizens are education, housing and healthcare. When these are in poor condition the whole state is at its core in poor condition. Reason to revolt, reasons why riots happen, corruption and concentrated wealth. Citizens feel continuously abandoned by the state, officials and politicians. When government does not serve the people, it is legitimate to ask who does it serve, who do we serve and what is the state for?
What is the mind? Anatomical details, extension of to from where it is born, not to be only one but many. Does that make any sense, how is to make sense? Sense of now, sense of a place and space. Our minds are a space in us, among us, within. Mind, knowing, consciousness, comprehension, understanding and puzzle, imagining and seeing more than what our eyes tell there is. How a mind becomes self-sufficient and will it ever? To what extent do we operate as someone else’s minds like having
226
a visitor functioning through us (is that an ill idea or contemporary)? I’m curious of our dependency on others and how much are we manipulated. How much do we let us to be manipulated? We meaning not only humans, but animals that can feel, sense, reason and therefore I conclude have consciousness, to have some kind of an idea of self, capability to reflect self to the other and idea of self as an individual in this world.
Treated as an object, you will get hurt if you do that, since you are female or a child, you belong to me, things may happen to you if you are not careful, you are like an animal, strange unknown. Somebody will hurt you, there is nobody to protect you, you are fragile in terms of your sex and class, in the dark and small, insignificant. To disturb, to put at unease, to break, destroy, willingly cause harm verbally, physically, mentally. Reasons for harassment for one is of not getting what one wants revenging childish need to not having been fulfilled, deliberately endanger someone’s health for fun, to bring atmosphere of fear, anxiety and hate, bring distress, loneliness, hurt, ill, hopelessness and shame. Does harassment change anything? Yes, it destroys people’s lives. Why is revenge important? The bullying society has its significance to bullies, to keep members the somehow unwanted of the competitive society in their places, scared. Competition is a large part of capitalism operating with hurt, harm, testing and winning, putting people into different positions, levels of worth, competence and mentally violating. Competence is curiously a shallow surface and often decided by outer features and self-assurances, to qualify to fool. In this sense people are cattle, a herd led by how things look than what they really are. The best liar wins. Competition society has lords and subservient just as there has been in any society considered more violent than ours today. Fact, injury, a kill. It is a curious mixture of emotions to look into, objectively and subjectively digging in, despair as an object put into pieces, observe yours. Reasons leading to feelings of anxiety, distress making people behave in desperate way. Desperate acts, desperados go with violent deeds and thoughts.
There is a romantic version of a desperado, a legend, male, lonesome wanderer. Mad Max fighting to survive at the end of the world. It is frightening to step into the unknown and we do it when we have to. Desperation becomes rage in front of injustice. Who admits being desperate, we rarely admit even rage of ours. But I think human race is at the moment in a very desperate situation and we still halt the ultimate rage because it is a civilized thing to do. Here comes a chance and importance of written and spoken word in making revolution, in making rage visible in a constructive way and one question is what and when is the point civilized measures do not function anymore. People as power, mass, energy, as organic constructed beings, chemistry, physics, biology, anthropology, religion, art, history and still any definition for humans is too little or sounds like wordily praise of a hypocrite making a facade. To
227
have it in better and worse any possible ways, people, definitions, ways of doing and thinking.
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Six_(The_Prisoner), 11.9.2013
2.http://www.iasp-pain.org, International Association for the study of pain
3.https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/death-penalty-countries-world 9.12.2014 by Simon Rogers & Mona Chalabi 4.https://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/mar/27/death-penalty-statistics-2013-by-country http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2010-0351&language=EN 9.12.2014 position of EU is against death penalty, Resolution (EP) No P7_TA(2010)0351 of 07/10/2010 on the occasion of the World Day Against the Death Penalty,
5.http://www.tacticalmediafiles.net/articles/3448/Wikileaks-and-Freedom_-Autonomy-and-Sovereignty-in-the-cloud;jsessionid=D3C6C11FD045B1A1B87A6B10F9842EE3,
April 05, 2011INFOPOLITICS, INFO-ACTIVISM, WIKILEAKS, SURVEILLANCE
economist, piracy researcher at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam. 8.1.2014
6.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm “The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95″. 9.1.2014 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx, 1852.
7.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia 11.9.2013
8.http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/divine-violence-and-liberated-territories-soft-targets-talks-slavoj-zizek, https://takku.net/article.php/2012010822255227, (2011) 8.12.2014 Divine Violence and Liberated Territories: SOFT TARGETS talks with Slavoj Žižek
9.http://www.ghananewsagency.org/print/60825, 7.7.2013 by Ghana News Agency
10.http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/imp.asp?lg=&reference=9968 28.6.2013 by London review of books, Zizeks views on revolution, on global protest
11.http://www.marxist.com/egypt-a-pharaohs-nemesis.htm 9.1.2014 by Lal Khan in defense of Marxism , “one of the salient features of revolution is that the masses conquer the fear of the state and repression.”
12. in addition an inspirational and information-filled book, Ball, Philip, Critical Mass, How One Thing leads to Another, (page 36 and pages 37-39, Laws of Thermodynamics, implications of laws of motion, industrial revolution), New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004
228