Standing at the banks of the Whitewash River

I could just make this entry a diary of the past few intense weeks and probably get away with it, but I don't want to "get away" with anything, its against Nature. In fact, since my personal survival method lacks "getting away" with something, I'll surely fail out there in our new cold, cruel world. I wouldn't be alone though, there are a lot of people like me. I know this because I have met them along the way. The threat of failure is only a momentary splash on our sunglasses if we hang around the Whitewash Riverbank too often.

I wonder how many of my friends here think I'm a lot like them? We would be exactly alike if we removed all of our crutches and apparatus for getting along in the Hierarchy's civil-ization, aka The Game, aka The Zombie Food Court. We would be exactly the same minus everything that made us think we are individuals. It would be a great world, wouldn't it, if all the me's and mine's and owners and possessors and partisan parties and borders just evaporated. Someday it will be like this. This is the real war, its a world war that's been going on earlier than the year Zero, AD. One thing is certain, we will win it someday because its all about the truth. How we feel about this on any given day is variable because our immediate survival insists we step into the River of Whitewater Whitewash on occasion. We are influenced no matter how strong and certain we are about ourselves.

Everything that we think "happens" to us is rooted in the River. Only your own internal buoy will keep you afloat and it is you, alone, who must paddle yourself home. There are old songs and biblical passages about this kind of thing, remember "You got to walk that Lonesome Valley" or "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow ... "? This is one of the reasons I can say we're not alone in the struggle, the fact is we've got plenty of company and always have, going way, way back. Its a long war. War is definitely not the right word for this. Actually, we don't have a word in English or any western language that accurately describes what is happening. "Win" is inappropriate as well. What do you say when everything on the one hand is fubar while everything on the other hand is rock solid truth? I'm going to say "intentional juxtaposition". How's that?

At any given time, we are doing our best. The myth is "we can do better". Can we do better at doing nothing? Can we do better by adjusting our settings so no alien computer spies on our blog comments? Can we do better spending money we don't have, can we try harder to be someone, something we are not and never were or will be? Maybe we can do better by wearing earplugs and blinders? Can we do better when we are sleeping? See what I mean? You are enough just as you are. The true you underneath the accoutrement of the motion picture starring your Self-Representative is good enough, all of the time, anywhere in the Universe, in any setting, even the Rose Garden if you were somehow thrust into it ... but don't count on that being televised. The real you is not going to be picked up by Larry King, not even Oprah wants you as you are, which is interesting isn't it, you being at your best and all.

There was a line spoken by Martin Sheen to his son, Bud, in the film Wall Street. It went something like "A man lives long enough, he sees everything." I thought it was a good line then, but lately it comes back to me as a great line. Far superior to Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." which I find kind of juvenile. Sheen's line is rock solid truth, I mean, look around, did you ever think ---, meanwhile, Rene Descartes encourages the me-ism of the individual as if "I am" completely justifies adopting the Illusion's version of jugular justice and its accompanying outrage, excuses, side-winding, winners, losers and various in-sane punishments and tortures.

We are bored to distraction with this nonsense, are we not?

The glorified individual is just another boulder in the Whitewash River. They are stuck there literally for eternities. It is our job to paddle past them proving the Universe is fluid. Maybe they will even hoot and holler in your wake, admonishing in their Hierarchical tongues, threatening and advertising themselves in terror babble. You can spend every hour of every day for the rest of your life listening to it, acknowledging it, adjusting your mental settings to it as it pole dances nude, flashing Monopoly money and promising salvation in pop-up masquerades on your webcams or you can just paddle on home and clean up your soul in your own way.

We have in a sense, become labeled without the label, no one is really saying it, but we have been here before. This is where the permanent outcast class has it over the sunken middlins, long ago they got the message. We had a little breather following the Civil Rights Movement, but its doubled back with a vengeance previously thought to be impossible, this time slamming everyone but the ones doing the slamming. Victims qualify for full outcast status by the mere fact of their victimhood and thus perceived as weak and stupid, dependent and available for suckering. Victims don't think, therefore they are not. What is the difference anymore between "injuns" and you and me? Everything we read about the history of the Native Americans and the African Americans enlightens us to the truth of the present which is this unsustainable intentional juxtaposition that places victims in the enemy camp.

When you listen to Muddy Waters singing Willie Dixon's, "I just wanna make love to you", the intentional juxtaposition becomes very clear. It is no accident we and our historical brethren cannot get next to them, much less intimate. And yet, we must and we will. The pain and misery of knowing what the Universe asks of us and not being anywhere near the finish line is to some of us unbearable. It appears as such a simple step. But in our immediate situations, its helpful to remember we have been here before and could be here again and over again. It is a long war. We have to love them if we are going to join with the Universe, which is a given, it cannot be denied to Earth, no planet left behind sort of thing. When you peer into the night skies at the Milky Way, our destiny is absolute even to the naked eye, if anyone is looking. I know you look, too.

I want to thank Michael now for bringing me back from the river banks with his link.