Update on Presentism

It is only right and fitting that proper credit be given where  it is due.  This hot and sweaty subject is still with us, the beast's foul breath up close and personal and has a feel of permanence, but then so did the past while yesterday was gradually awakening into the present, step by step, the sands running through the hourglass of time,  we suddenly arrive at this peculiar situation.  An example of how the memory in overload of presentism stores information would be the essay I put up in July on Present Shock, much of which highlighted Charles' essay of May 22nd.  Thus the following correction and more on the subject:

"Present Shock and the Fantasy of Change August 17, 2013
The fantasy is that the status quo won't change dramatically, even as it already has changed dramatically.
It's remarkably easy nowadays to experience Present Shock overload. I wrote about Douglas Rushkoff's new book Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now recently (Present Shock and the Loss of History and Context May 22, 2013); the book discusses the manner in which always-on digital media, communication and work flatten the natural narratives of time and context into an associative sea of free-floating information.
With history and context both disrupted, it takes a huge amount of work to maintain a context that "makes sense" of our actions and conceptual narratives. Just maintaining this coherence requires a constant investment of time and mental energy. In this sense, the constant threat of filter failure or information/task overload acts as a kind of ambient friction, draining a significant amount of time and energy from our limited resources.
When I find my worklife decohering/splintering, an internal Code Red is triggered and I go into slash-and-burn mode, reducing commitments and circling the wagons to conserve my mental energy for truly critical long-term tasks. In a way, the multiple commitments and digital distractions of modern life conspire against long-term projects and the coherent organization and investment of one's time and energy they require.
In other words, as distractions and pressures mount, we become ever less able to focus on the truly important projects that are long-term by their very nature. ... "

I saw Charles' new post a few minutes ago, the subject fascinates me.  I highly recommend reading further at his sites.  In presentism, our overloaded memories of what someone said or did have no room for context.  This leaves us wide open for suggestion, implantation of context from undesirable forces as we see happening repeatedly to beleaguered little people worldwide every hour of every day.  USA, USA, USA!  Some might call it a war if they are able to grasp its totality of annihilation.  This IS what is dividing us because so few are able to see or define it,  much less get out from underneath its brute weight. 

Douglas Rushkoff's brilliant book cover, can you feel it?  

Present shock ...

Present Shock and the Loss of History and Context

Recognize the title?  Charles is the brilliant mind behind it.  I liked it so much, I've borrowed it.  It perfectly sums up the experience of these times more succinctly than anything I've seen.  Read that line again, maybe again and again, there is a long and tedious, alarming and prescient freight train of human catastrophe endlessly passing before us as we sit at the crossroads while bells clang, lights change from green to yellow to red and whistles scream Danger, Danger!  Each boxcar crunchlocked to its predecessor, each more incongruous than dreamed possible to the landscape they pass through daily, nightly, every crusty bolt, every surface upon and in between the corrugated tin smashtagged in day glow obliterating ownership logotypes so that no rust remains visible, ensuring no one has reason to suspect the panorama passing before them is forever doomed to the elements.

One might think they'd lost their way, if they knew the way to begin with, which many do not.  I'm constantly running into people who have no idea where they are going.  It looks like they know their way, but if you ask them for directions, you get, to begin with, a quizzical look.  I'm gettin' very tired of that, aren't you?  Charles' "Loss of History" became a reality because the memories of our train watching travelers are sponging incessant variations of experience, pleasure and pain complete with artful twists, victor after victor indulging his mortal vision, including the perverse persuasions of centuries old scribes, co-authors and copywriters, that actual history, those massive subjects of World Civilization and Ancient Geological History, going back as far as the human imagination extends, exists only to adopt and rearrange.  

I find the daily compounding disasters taking place globally to be in perfect keeping with Kali Yuga.  We knew it was coming on and now its everywhere at once.  It is impossible to say with certainty how many of the daily disasters come about through technology fatigue, reliance on automated systems. We know that nothing lasts, nothing, and we see the world's infrastructure coming apart without serious management programs and funding allocated for upkeep.  We see our land itself heaving, sinking, shrinking, burning, sliding, frying and when you see it you ask why is this?  We see the enrichment of evil, the smarmy contracts let to those who deserve it least and still the train keeps on a rollin'.  We see everything, us, the Earth, all life under God under brutal attack and we very often find ourselves unable to do anything meaningful to abate the increasing damage.  When we can find nothing meaningful to do to heal this situation, its easy to fall back into complacency because there is no encouragement to be on the side of good and right.  What we must do is find our own encouragement and act on it.  A group isn't the answer.  Groups are brought down through all the common weaknesses inherent in gathering - from diverse allegiances to infiltration to unaffordable, impossible to implement solutions.  Not enough like minds agree on exactly which problem or issue to tackle and the reason behind this is the secrecy shrouding every platform that requires transparency, as if there are merely a handful of problems and all we need to do is agree which particular one in which to devote our energies.  Addressing them ALL is beyond our means and beyond our capabilities.  Even agreement on the magnitude and timelines of these problems is up for debate.  And there are worse problems ahead, just as Kali Yuga arrived, on schedule, so will the problems of the near future.  Soon enough we will witness rising seas pushing inland the great coastal cities as metropolitan populations are told they will have to pay for the stilts and cassons and berms and seawalls themselves - which is saying "Save Yourself"- and happens to be the exact formula we've seen played out time after time in every country on the planet since corruption/irresponsibility and evil became the NWO norm.   Due to the historically sideways manner of revealing important climate, food, economic truths such as employment and healthcare, there will be many who will interpret the information casually as far off in the distant future or people who must by circumstance refuse to pay.  Many will not survive. 

In a disaster, there is no room for debate. It is nothing short of cruel, evil, stubborn insistence on false ideals based on allegiances that overrides the possibility anything can be saved now.  This is another area where my patience is running thin, I'm sure yours is too.  At this juncture in Present Shock, to begin explaining what has happened and how it happened is ridiculous.  If one has not noticed by now that which is impossible to miss, one will never notice.  The die is cast, "things" will take their course and our best hope for survival is to stay out of the way. 

I don't blog as frequently anymore because the information is there for all to see and interpret.  Brevity is the short answer due to the nature of our precarious situation, the clash of civilizations, the mass undoing of global humanity, unilateral species genocide, the very breath of air itself, the seas, the water, and now the maturation of the dumbed down unable to decipher the difference between vicious violence and compassion, don't be surprised if you see much smaller posts soon.  The long answer is unknown.  It may come to a combination of the two, short then long, etc.  I won't back out, its something I do and will continue doing, like painting which has taken higher priority for weeks lately. 

On a happier subject, be sure to visit the Trout Clan's regeneration efforts.  From the devastating fire wiping out their once beautiful property, out of the ashes comes the TEEPEE.  Praises!  Crushall!  It is beautiful indeed to see disaster overcome by the unstoppable forces of goodness, love, truth, solid dedication and authentic partnership in action. 

What I was saying in the paragraphs above the Trout's heartening news, is in no way to be taken that I condone ignoring the circus.  We are an integral part of that show, like it or not, and there are things we can do.  We can counter evil, hatred, stupidity, carelessness, lies, conservative and liberal prejudices and allegiances, deliberate cruelty, revenge, greed, illusions, personal rejections, etc., by simply being the natural person we are in our core, for once and forever casting out the loudmouth representative-self blathering platitudes.  ALWAYS making the effort to see whatever there is to be seen through eyes of understanding and compassion.   Spiritual evolution, especially the continuing growth of our own, is our battle strategy, our Zen simplicity accurately aimed with all activity a union between body, mind and heart in sync so we may exponentially improve our response to all that comes, now and directly ahead, is and has always been the only way to manage survival.  It has undoubtedly taken all of us uncountable lifetimes to realize this fact and in knowing this we must also know it will take further uncountable lifetimes to re-right the ship, if ever.  We have no choice but to be okay with that and live wisely with love, otherwise the cycle of return, for uncountable members of our bredren (and perhaps even ourselves) will never end.

Post title © CHS 2013

Snowjob

I can’t tell you for sure if the Snowden incident actually happened, I can tell you only vague highlights (think headlights in a thick fog - at night), that you already know and I can also tell you whatever happened didn’t happen in the way it is being presented.  Really now, where’d they get this guy?  Was he cloned and trained just for this moment in time or lured off death row by the promise of a holiday in Hong Kong?  The same applies to nearly everything, maybe all, that has been cultivated, packaged and consumed without having any factual information on what it is exactly that you are ingesting, as if reader content is just more pink slime, as if sand men running around the dunes carried out … well you know, as if that was the beginning of the end of happier days which it was not, impossibly so, from any angle.  The point being we have become inured to these stories because we‘ve been around this block before, it’s the same old song lip synched by the same lame band, pseudo vocalists who appear to us as simple minded in that they repeat themselves ad nauseam.  Have they never heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?  However, each time the wolf snarls, it could very well be a real wolf, except, well, as I said, we’re inured.  How long has this been going on?  Surely you haven’t forgotten Choicepoint?  So why are we being subjected again to threats upon our sacred secrecy policies that are not exactly secret at all?  There could only be one explanation which is, apparently, we are not yet completely in lockstep with created reality.   To the masterminds of heroic murder fiction and spy thrillers, we appear disinterested.  YES!  I realize its hard to grasp such a thing, but no one in their right mind wants to pick up the same book over and over again, unless it’s a Henry James or Chinua Achebe work of exquisite art where every word in every sentence conjures revelation and imagery both good and evil and invites ardent study in order to grasp the full poignancy and utter foolishness of the human species.   Certainly this is yet another good reason to wear earplugs and blinders, the self-styled masters behind these phenomena have to be unable to hire better writers at any price and to any literate person, appear oblivious, which means they like it that way in the same way they like their Chateaubriand.  Perhaps they fell for slick presentations from the slickest of the slick PR/Damage control/Crisis Management consultants all of whom turned out to be duds when what is perceived as an exciting, lucrative, all time best selling crisis by our death-match secret keepers is casually treated with recycled product messages such as Swine Flu at the Podium, Bin Laden Deepsix or Bush Drops From the Sky as Jesus in Flackwear.  Besides, there is so much else going on, every day, wonderful and atrocious, we no longer have the time, interest or desire to freak out.  It is a fact of life in our overproduced and counterproductive environment, the human being’s natural defense mechanism is activated to turn away from that which causes anguish, suffering, harm and pain. Our lives are local and in local territory there are unwritten rules of genial conformity tempered with much compassion largely adhered to with an exception here and there.  Normal people don’t speak in acronyms or define whatever it is they’re pushing with MIC-speak.  Normal people have no way to translate journalists’ dialogue filled with words and statements such as breached, intelligence and leak and the overused unclear, "It remains unclear due to ongoing..."  The meaning behind this language is completely lost on vast numbers of citizens, it simply is not in their vernacular.

What is truth for locals are hourly wages, food on the table and their children.  As much as I detest this city, its dirt and its ubiquitous evil, equally I love the diversity.  From my observation, the US born white guy is the minority here.  Of course, it is that very diversity that is the spinal cord buttressing the local monoculture of obscene wealth in wanton ignorance to the outside world and its ongoing disasters just as blood circulation is to the heart.  As far as that monoculture is concerned why should they care either?  They, too, are busy with their own version of local.  They care only to the extent of returns on the dollar.

It seems the only people(?) that are having hissies over the current revival, Its Snowing in Snowden, are the producers and their agents.  There is a point, of that we can be sure, why such events take place and are, as you have noticed, escalating and that point is M-o-n-e-y.  You might disagree, but power and control are expensive products to maintain and to insure their viability into the far future. 

If you haven’t been keeping up with Arthur Silber’s takes on this issue, you are missing the best thinking and writing available anywhere. 
* * *

Bulletin: The Trout Clan will shortly be making public, visually, their astounding recovery progress.  It’s a mighty thing to behold.  Stay tuned for their next post.  I will be linking to them onblog to make sure all of you have the opportunity to see what hard work, love of the land and love of life itself can do.   Residents of Tornado Alley and regions prone to wildland fire will be especially interested.