xenoflare

upgrade: parallel processors for better fire control, faster lock on and field acquisition.
weapons: twin plasma cannons, twin knuckle shots on front.
stabilizers: fins on arms, legs, heads (all front), elbow and core (left)
engines/ generators: hybrid of rapid response and air strike systems.
chassis/ frame: hybrid for energy/ ballistic resistance.

the center of gravity is heavily tilted towards front and left. inherent bias towards left lol. well, easy to rush in, and then maintain ideal close range, while bursting speed to maintain distance for plasma. boost to left is faster, but turning to right is slightly slower, so keep at optimum distance is important, but not that far too. if come too close, can wait it out and punch.

hmm, damn dueling unit.

field radar: (general target acquisition) writing is privilege of the rich and powerful, dominated by class of elites. writing as Djehuty's gift, that is a mark itself of wealth and sophistication. people who write are themselves part of the modernist project; this postcolonial nightmare.

wait, what is central focus? is this a siege unit, or recon racoon? No, it's a duelist and fast strike craft, so reconfigure.

larger radar scope is to see the missiles coming in so you can dodge them, not so you can RUN into them, boyo.

stance switch: apparent "culturelessness" is actually culture. no sense to essentialize culture as high or mass or folk or pop, back to working definition => culture as process. if the rich and powerful have access to means of resources, they have higher degree of control over culture, back to Rajaratnam's social engineering and historical switcharoo policies.

The cultural elites within this system aspire to a reification of the ang moh standards as being timeless, the standard for all else to aspire to. an abstraction is granted free-standing ontic status.

people write about what they want, about what they fear, etc. Together with the remodelling of people into mobile suits to help mine the ore the state needs, there's some kind of hoppity hoppity hop situation at work. Chua's application of Gramsci to look at the situation, where there's mutual cooperation, even in the forms of apparent resistance.

WAIT. if the state is made up of people who want to become elite, whether it's in civil society or political society, and this general society is built on encouraging elitism - LKY's "slender resources needs to be given to top 2 percent" theory...

some people will always seek to become the elite, and apply their technologies towards transforming their status into the elite. of course, there's different kinds of elite. Via my education, i have to acknowledge that now i am a elite in terms of my acculturation, but i am no Big Shot. Hence, i am not a socially acknowledged elite. (though the auntie who sells nasi lemak is impressed i read so much, lol, that is also a kind of acknowledgement, more ikan bilis, thanks)

ok away away from subjectivity as illustration.

so => rambling long thing is, people who seek to become elites will become some kind of elite, but then they'll always be smaller than some other guy who even lagi zai than them. (correspondence to leet culture? interesting thought but not too useful at this point)

boundaries are drawn in order to create clear, bounded units of ethnicity. "our people do it this way." this guy is the smart guy, that guy the strong guy. classification fever.

clear schematics!

rework!

1, writing is fiercely guarded privilege of the rich. and this rich tends to be consolidated in a few classes/ industries and their ideas are representative of their class/gender/religion biases. Yeah la, and most of them are old men (or young women wishing they were old men). Whether it's professors, teachers, feminists, govt officials, liberal humanists, Catholics, Marxists, or whatever. in that sense, they maintain the cultural hegemony, and the horizon of knowledge that can be easily reached by most people is controlled by them. Likely also to breed resentment, so people feel these ppl are irrelevant to them, and find other elites to emulate.

2, the big problem: in a state where writing/ reading is the ang moh pai's gold card, the oral tradition is gutted with a vibro knife. The "i want to be writer" syndrome. Haha. Writing has such a powerful fetish bound to it. even this one. *pokes* hmm. this reality seems rather stable.

3, english-educated people look at english writings and see that world of writing as za worldo.

4, these english-educated people are either well-placed cultural producers in their fields, or cultural producers in the schema of everyday life. your "normal joe".

5, ideological blindness, because in that way, they see one thing (a particular) as representative of all (the whole)...

6, these games are themselves created by the ang moh pai, either becos they have access to social networks or other capital.

ok go eat la. come back later.

satori: unfold. THUNDER KONGO VAJRA YASHA STRIKE!

within larger space-time social context => (boomer generation in the world post 1945, singapore's experience: one sub-caste of the English educated elite had to deal with the individualistic mindsets of that time)

british trained anglophile founding fathers; chinese and indians who wish they were brits. They won and dominate current historiography had to deal with ppl who disagreed with their ideas. inherited power structure from the brits, primogeniture. hmm. perceive chaos on all sides, then the big bulge of baby boomers who saw the world as their oyster had to be tamed... no hippies, no long hair, all dangerous.

my parents' generation. some of the richest and the poorest were able to break away from the social engineering, by drifting away from the mainstream. but hmmm the individualism of the times was subsumed into a group identity, a fallen generation - where kids didn't know how to grow up into adults, and parenting sometimes left a lot to be desired. but everyone was just finding themselves, yeah..?

ppl were supposed to "get married" start families get jobs and be responsible. then the peasant mentality comes in, cos these ppl of the generation before us - my parents at least - were from peasant stock. so we didn't have big old money. so upward social mobility FTW, everything is a matter of moving on and on. Get english name, get western education, get job that is based on manipulating resources for an industrial purpose, and all that based around gaining symbolic capital of social prestige..

(and some of you want to run but you never do because you're scared of daddy, aren't you? sigh. and you're scared of mommy dearest. and you think of yourselves as stoic warriors, just like those salarymen with tie-bandannas in japan. please level up a bit more before the world eats you up even more...)

so anyway. next wave.

some of you get a mistress or a toyboy on the sly, others go to church or temple or mosque, get your damn car, your family's ok, you provided for your kids, so what if they're latchkey ya? They're fed at least. Send them to school, a good school, where they'll get good traditional values (another strange construct - those values you have?) Equip them with the skills they'll need to survive, and hope you did all right. And most of you did all right la... it was hard for you too. Your times were quite crazy.

Then our time comes in. The rebellion wave - bursts in next generation, we the Gen X-ers. For those from old money families, hmm you get married and stabilize really quick... but for those from other places, who don't benefit from the system that much, it's hard ya. You can't even articulate your rage. (if you benefit from the system, even worse, cos you got Catholic guilt now lol) You don't have the vocab. The cultural capital. You just know you're feeling pissed on. You just know that a bunch of guys who push papers around somehow get the girls, the cars, the big house, and the respect, and you're the guy who did mechatronics just like everyone told you to do so, and you got a PHD poly halfway dropout and then you upgrade yourself like siao to just get your job now and you're stuck in some office hell where some smoothtalking asshole tries to rimshot you all the time and get the credit for your work.

So the point is, the old guys dominate discourse and discussions, while the ppl who do well, want to do well, and not "be wrong" don't really see anything wrong (and quash any feelings of those wrongness if they get too strong) and then this middle/ upper class of cultural elite produce the media, reinforce cultural hegemony of this place being a world for the rich, and this place runs and thrives on this glut of mammon, and you justify its existence by saying "if this wasn't the case, would we have this or that?" then shout out any form of critique by straw man arguments. the intellectuals' roles within a knowledge-based political economy is very powerful.

middle class wants to be rich, rich wants to stay rich, maybe if you're rich dilettante, you can play at being poor and grungy, then poor also wants to be middle class. everyone hates themselves because they can't be you, and as long as there's you, who needs to do anything yeah?

then the really poor, who fall out of the cracks? Those who can't speak english? Those old uncles who worked as rickshaw pullers and then cobblers and then sit at coffeeshop tables with transistor radios but they can't understand JACK SHIT now because you took out their dialect programmes you did you motherfuckers oh and don't tell me bout meritocracy i'll punch your laser satellites out with my armpits. So they have no education, no media, no publications for them? and it's all their own fault?

oh wait they have THE NEW PAPER right, or whatever you have created to be the voice of the masses ya. Meh. So cynically you stalk, my scholarship-holding ninjas, you didn't even do journalism, but you're journalists now. And then you don't even know how to investigate. But ya la it's not your fault. You have to pay the piper, and give Caesar his due.

AND YES PUT IN SHOWS ABOUT HOW THE LITTLE GUY MAKES IT BIG DESPITE TROUBLE YADA YADA and it's all cos he got talent and the system works and there's no structural problems no sirree.

so programmes news publications here just push the little guy down and push the big guy up eat this fucking nice new restaurant ya it's so goddamn nice and go to this ccb place in dont know what continent to backpack and you're one of the culture elite

laugh at us push us down and then say we have culture by having goddamnawful programmes telling us to eat chicken wings at fuckall what hawker centre, that doesn't cut it, punk.

rage rage rage GODDAMN RAGE.

push the poor into invisibility, deny the social problems, quietly work on them on the sidelines so you even prevent people from having the moral grounds to criticize you, and work on them just a bit so they dont stop you from making your money with social unrest, and overwork the social workers who are living saints and bodhisattvas who wont ever complain cos they know they depend on you for their damn funding and too many things depend on this working right for them to risk it all on a burst of angst and so this sits inside INSIDE INSIDE and it never comes out

and another generation of drones buzzing beelzelbub rasetsumaru with no idea what their own angin is, all dancing demons in the skies of concrete!

you use your power to twist their lives, Gramscian attack dogs! and you drive them onwards and work them to the bone and reap the benefits of their labor for yourselves.. and your puny pathetic defence is "that's how the world works", hahaha, what did the dentist fill your rotten maw with when your teeth fell out due to a lack of moral fibre? Filth fillings? Tau sar pau and mantou got different fillings, same same can la.

then if media is controlled, dominated by you white people who can't find work elsewhere so come here do Red Threads and Masters of the Sea... and then act so goddamn cultural at holland v and dempsey...

who speaks for the little guy? can the subaltern speak? not with speakers, maybe, but with subwoofers, woof woof under the radar, when all we have are the tongues of curs.

need to go out to breathe a bit now. Refocus later.

*woosh*

what does it mean to possess cultural capital? re: singapore context.

ok, so i'm like some sort of an academic. i read a lot, write a lot (used to), think a lot, and i observe a lot. the work i do deals with learning, teaching, communicating and remembering.

my da and ma both graduated from nantah; they treat education with quite a high amount of respect. there are beautiful things in my house, from paintings to dinosaurs. i am reasonably proficient in chinese, more so in english, and a lil bit ok in indonesian/ malay.

i used to act, and used to play games, tell stories a lot more. those leisurely pursuits, together with my family's respect for the scholar-knight errant, had more to do with my current life in this configuration, than anything else. i grew up with a bunch of great friends who were from different walks of life, but were all expressive and confident in their own spheres of life, and we did many great things together.

what is it that prevents this greatness and exuberance from reflaring up?

the machine of this place.

hmm.

why am i able to continue doing what i do? family background comes in. not by birth, but by my family's cultural dispositions towards education, literacy, and higher learning, i was equipped with enough resources as a kid that nurtured certain nascent qualities within me. I have entered the ranks of a scholarly elite class that exists in this country. i do not *choose* to channel my social and cultural resources towards attaining what this country's popular discourse holds up as being "success", but that also possible due to my good relationship with my family. i don't encounter the same pressures as perhaps others of my social class do, to become an iron bowl bureaucrat, and they have encouraged at many times these interests and affinities of mine.

Cultural capital, in Bordieu's sense?

hmmm. university. it's not bout whether you can get the book or not, to read. it's bout the training, the apprenticeship to a discipline, the mentor-journeyman relationship, where you learn not just bout books, but about life and lives. books are cultural objects - artifacts that contain "embeddings" of culture, perhaps, but to associate books entirely with intellectual high culture is an aspect of the totemic fetishism..

yes, i read many things on my own, and i gained a lot from these readings, but it was not until the discussions, the arguments, the late-night conversations, the research papers, the putting of theory into practice, that my readings crystallized into learning.

(cultural capital also linked thus to social capital? to meet people of similar interests and affinities, whom you can apprentice together with, to learn a craft and master some skills? they then eventually go into certain sectors of society, and i can utilize those contacts and friends to do certain things?)

hmmm. and in this regard, RPGs - both as hobbies/ leisure activities and groups of people who come together, the hobbyists - represent a possible way by which people can gain access to cultural and social capital in a highly stratified society. It's not something that appeals to everyone - or can work for everyone; firstly, there are some affinities that are more useful than others. Power gamers and rules lawyers emphasize that bend-it-till-it-breaks ideology that underscores Weber's ideas of the bureaucratic elite and their knowledge-power base; linguistic affinities, ability to express oneself and understand others are also good skills to have, because all games are social activities and cultural products.

hence, ppl with interests in magic, but not necessary of that intensity/ sort to go into the full-gonzo occult lifestyle, can consume "fantasy"; the fundamental schema of reality within their reckoning is not threatened because it is not "really real", but also because it is not "really real" it is actually less dangerous and more comfy; so you can put it into your life in a more or less modular fashion that isn't so painfully stark.

Magic isn't limited to being an intellectual thing, but some degree of intellectualization and cerebral activity is involved. there is the whole breaking apart of cultural conditioning + the ability to have faith and belief in things. most of the time, without the latter, the former degenerates into some kind of flaccid agnosticism?

but anyway, not the point.

RPG => hobby groups and activities => different kinds of people play them, come together into different groups, recreate their social universes and express their fantasies and ideas, gain access to voice for self-represnetation, even if that voice is borrowed from other forms of culture through media => and speak for one-self.

context? => local arena, stratification of classes, tightening control of social and cultural capital for the technocratic culture elite, survival tied to global flows, loss of soul and spirit as language and memory is molded and spliced, increasing amount of empty markers of class boundaries, searching for "identity", for "who am i truly", while agnosticism increases, and the erudite love techne more and more for its "reality", and then the drive towards fundamentalist interpretations of scripture also increases, that are actually supporting pillars *and* distinguishing features of an increasingly atomized, self-worshipping, individualistic society, that seeks to define the limits of "humanity" and creates a cultural product of the "human being".

ack.

nightmare blade!

chill. relax. something gestated there. return to the void. namaste.

wandering ghosts of the seven clouds
where are you now and where do you go?
where do you sleep in these lands
when your homes here are gone?

this house is but a heart
caged in bone and brine
this tongue a dew-weeping bridge
from my world to yours

another brick of memory
a kiln of forgotten fires
cracked dreams, quiet tempest
in a pallid palace, that king feasts
and his banquet sings to the bereft

through you, thunder-god, sky-singer
old stone names whispered in a sheltered gaze
i taste this draught of my eyes so cleanly
winter's dart across these lifeless winds

embrace me
as i return to you
as a son
to this black earth

you don't know how to give to others, do you?

everything is conditional for you.

you will tear down the world to feed your ego, and deny your own true power, because you're scared of fighting for yourself, for other people.

and you will keep them down, push them down, tear them apart, to suit your purposes, rather than acknowledge the possibility that you may just be wrong, and reflect on that... it's too much to ask for you to make amends, is it?

this sword is a serpent, and this blood burns like venom.

ink of the skies, rain upon the soil of my brain.

infinity uncoils.

fucker

what a bitch.

this city
this tribe
full of assholes
who dont have any respect for themselves,
let alone others
but what to do
they're my people.

devil's eyes. devil's eyes!

Hello!

Dear Mother, how are you? How are my friends and family on the other side? It is all getting rather strange, these days, for me. I wonder how you are doing? It gets tiring sometimes, here, in the shadowed world of matter. i hope things are good for you all in the realm of spirit?

It's getting rather scary here, you know. Yeah, i know i'm probably just panicking, but this time, i'm a mortal - and a rather young one, after all. This incarnation is getting a hang of what he's supposed to be doing. It's just getting really, really lonely. Which is funny, cos i have so many friends, yeah?

But they don't - or they can't - see you anymore... and the places i go to, to find you, they grow smaller and lesser.

The tall grassy lands, the hills, the little copses, they are all gone now, replaced by banks and luxury condos and carparks. The wild pack isn't there anymore; they've probably been killed and shot down for the safety of the new human denizens. I don't know where the snakes and the birds and the frogs went too. Even that little mound - where I leave my flowers, my fruit, and my tea and wine in your name - they took that away from me, my friends. That place where I sit to commune.

First they took us with fire, that they claimed was an accident. Then the surveyors came, and gouged you so deeply with the iron dragons. And now they build a mausoleum of cement over my memory of you. I am glad some other humans found a home to stay, but still i miss you. Mostly i guess i miss hearing you all the time, and talking to you. It's something nobody would remember, when i pass and fade as well - for i have no tribe to sing to these days. They are too busy for us. They don't believe in us anymore. They would kill you and replace you with their golems.

This place breaks the spirit, Mother. i don't know what to do sometimes. I throw myself into work, mostly. Around me, i hear the darkness gather and its teeth grind, and it suckles upon the freshly broken dreams of the young and the constantly revived despairs of the old. It is a subtle thing, not carved in hellions' flame or tipped upon wyvern's stings. There is a sickness in the spirit - that afflicts the people; and their panacea... well. that is a shape in my head that they would bid my soul to wear which I would not don.

It is hard for me not to cry when I see my friends walk to their houses of worship, and they have so many things. They have books, and they train their priests. Their young believe in their truth, and that is good, but... their ways will destroy us. And they know it, and they plan it, and they do it consciously, and they are protected by Gilgamesh. The laws of man are comforting things to them, a blanket, an invisible veil, that shields their hands from damnable spots of the blood that should stain their soul.

and Mother, this land itself - the spirit of you - it is changing - and that is why i pray to you now with this electronic image - which is hydra-like and infinite. i do not know who will read this, or why, or when. Maybe someone can sense you in these words. Maybe someone will taste the salt of my eyes in this scentless ink that repeats itself across time and space in the minds of the humans. Maybe we can break the illusion, for a while, and wake up from our sleep.

No, i am not jealous of the other children, no. i have gotten over that. And yes, i grieve, for my own loss as much as yours, and also that they will never know you. It is human to weep, and pain is not the sole province of man. And in this weeping, i know passing, and in this grief, i know winter, which breaks me from the bonds of digital manipulations of time...

But still, i have my own house of worship for you, in this palace of my mind, built upon memories and experiences, a narrative citadel. I can still hear you when you laugh, bells twinkling in some unknown flat-owner's window, and I can see you in the shudder of the mynah sits on the grass, feathers all rough-fluffed, eyes wild and beak askew. The blind clarinet player's midnight howls as empty glass eyes stare at me from unsleeping office towers where the lights are never allowed to die.

So, thank you, for blessing me with your greetings and reminders of the empyreal.

and i can still see you, so i try my best to do what i can, for those among the scattered tribes who feel this pain too, that they can't see clearly, or can't express, except through the ideas of dead white men.

lend me some of your strength, and sensitivity, and fill my heart with the humbleness of the little beetle. i need such to soothe the minds of men, to ease them from the throes of hatred and hidden jingo, before they birth the nightmares they entertain, and realities collide and shatter.

Oh, and this wish deep inside me - that i could just go to the steppes, or the mountains for a while - soon, soon. In a few years perhaps. But ironically, i am a child of the city, born and bred in this concrete jungle. Still, it can only do me good to learn from the older voices. But i must remain, for now, for there is shaman's work to be done, and the other friends i have learned from - i do not think they will return, from where they are now. They're happier there, and i'm truly glad for them. But i'm just an old-fashioned kind guy, i guess. i'm born the son of the sons of peasants and immigrants. And we have our links to the land that we cannot forget, that we can never truly sever. In this hope, i shatter the strictures of thunder placed by those who would inherit the sky-mien.

Thank you, Mother, for going on and sailing into the deep sea of stars another day, for bearing us upon your back.

Good-bye. It's been good talking, we should catch up again. Please take care of yourself.

pain and grief

i feel my loss again - my loss of you

o Green, my bond to you..

all the dogs have nowhere to run now, and the birds, nowhere to feed

identity?

identity as something inside that is expressed outer? or something outside that shapes the inside? useful distinction? (return to this later)

attitudes and stances and ideas
influence how we deal with situations
influence our experiences of things - our experiences of our experiences even
meta-experiences?

rigidly defined identities exist, just as rigidly defined everythings-else.

why do ppl want to rigidly define identity thru markers? sanity? stability?
hmmm.
pedantic.

ok, it's not really being in touch with reality, per se, cos they're more really holding on to a specific view, a discourse, extremely strongly. They may array themselves with an armory of relevant facts and common sense and personal experience..

hmm.

*observe though, your own slant here - you are already interpreting them in your own schema's frameworks.*

lol. in my observations though, that works out so far quite well la to explain stuff.

spectrum of reality

facts - generalized statements of observation about phenomena which can be objectively tested to some degree...

THIS IS A PRATA

feelings - subjective experiences of phenomena

THIS PRATA IS GREAT

or

THIS PRATA SUCKS

then mmmm... social reality gets into the picture.

WAIT.

social science problem zomg the oldest engineering fake out solution

if the hypothesis you have created does not suit the phenomena you are studying, you can change either the hypothesis, or the phenomena!

LOL. ok. frigging cheaterbugs.

By streamlining social reality into a certain form - through the use of various engines - you can manipulate ppl's actions and perceptions....

Then by removing certain scopes of action from the realms of imaginable and actualized possibility, and by transforming how people think and feel with control over media and knowledge... you can make them into you.

Cos it's not bout who you are, for most ppl?

it's bout what you do?

then when what you do (no-sync) with your self-image, you break down, go bwuhhhhhhggdgdg?

then you do what you are doing/ have done/ have been made to do, and your self-image kinda cracks and you rearrange the broken mirror shards into liquid glass and paint over the holes in the soul and pretend they not there at all?

Then then then

then hor it's like one day quarter life crisis, WHY AM I DOING THIS

I NEVER LIKED THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE

WHO AM I

ZOMG

OH NOES.

(then ya la, ok, aunties, mom, you will send your kids to tuition and piano and say "that is the real world.")
(but i got you to admit at lunch yesterday that was how *you* thought!)
(and then you admitted it's cos you are worried - which is yay, it's a human thing to feel emotion. don't argue from authority over metaphysics ok! as long as you human, not robot. elemental also can. thanks for being fleshy organic.)

THEN HOR. ppl will call you irresponsible, say you never think of big picture.

that discourse privileges certain masculine ideas of man over nature, of technocratic power, of ascetic discipline without the introspection and humility.

It's like become a monk for pride's sake, look at how i flagellate myself, and get toughened, and endure, without walking the path of lily or lotus.

lol, silly male pride.

ok, then. come back to topic la, nabuay, you got thesis to write.

this is dancing around the main issue.
but you not approaching it fully yet!

bakhtin, butler, turner, herzfield, appadurai, abu-lughod, husserl, scheler, geertz, tolkien, goffman, cs lewis, foucault

autoethnography stuff
symbolic anthro stuff
philosophical anthro stuff

arghified! then there's the fieldwork to make sense of too.

it'll all be all right. City, speak to me. I hear you.

http://tr.youtube.com/watch?v=MFkSE_3GSLM&feature=channel_page

nice!

Adapted from traditional folk song. Minstrels and bards apparently didn't really like to sing this very much. You'll know why when you read the lyrics and hear the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa8zeimdrZk

Green grows the lily oh
Right among the bushes oh

A gentleman was passing by
And he stopped for a drink
As he was dry

At the well below the valley oh
Green grows the lily oh
Right among the bushes oh

My pack is full unto the brim
And if I were to stop
I might fall in

If your true love was passing by
You'd fill him a drink if he were dry

She swore by grass
She swore by corn
Her true love had never been born

He said: young girl
You're swearing wrong
Six fine children you've born

If you be the man of noble fame
You'll tell to me the father of them

There's two of them by your brother John
Another two by your uncle Dan
Another two by your father dear
Green grows the lily oh

If you be the man of noble fame
You'll tell to me what happened to them

There's two buried 'neath the kitchen door
Another two near the stable door
Another two just beside the well
All of them outside the graveyard wall

If you be the man of noble fame
You'll tell to me what'll happen to me

You'll be seven years of ringing a bell
At the well below the valley oh

Seven years of burning in hell

I'll be seven years of ringing a bell
But the Lord above might save my soul
From burning in hell...

BLOODLUST MODE ON

ACTIVATE, CODE KIRIN!

BEOOOOWUULLLFFF!!

tired soldier. weary wolf.

i love this land, and i love my people here, but ...

would i really want to raise my clan here?

i don't know.

i'm so tired, so very tired.

constant fighting and training is gonna break your back one day, boyo.

rest up, you're in this for the long haul. no point draining yourself dry.

observations upon simulation of reality in modernity

1, draconian tail sweep, maintain social order, and justify its existence with the Book of Lord Shang disguised as Confucius, that most people read as niccolo cos they don't know anything but they think they know everything. direct biopower towards creating and maintaining production and viability.

2, control as many aspects of reality as you can with appeal to lowest common denominator, while getting the highbrow on your side with Thrasymachus attack. You mostly get the janky uncommons, but you sometimes get the Egghead Emeritus, and then there are the envious types who will do anything cos the most they will show dissent is to kaopeh and then diam diam.

3, next, deny validity of free exploration to suppress generation of alternative paradigms and opinions in society

4, then, positivism strikes back; under scientism, reality has been reduced to bare matter, and most organized religions pretty much buckle under by not asking individuals to look beyond the Demiurge, but to instead look to the Demiurge to provide a glance into Sophia. look for archaeological evidence of divinity, o snap.

(backwards dancing man asks: what if you are wrong, observer? what if this is not sell out, but it is possibly exactly this search for tying Spirit with Matter, that is resistance to the Unitarian Engineer Council?)

(observer: still looks like a crock la.)

5, So, if those who have put themselves in charge of mediating Spirit for the mass consciousness sell out, what remains is a drive towards occultism in all its forms. To be *occulted*. to hide. to sequester oneself, so one can think and experiment and reflect; mystic's path, contemplation.

6, hence the generation of self-sustaining, inherently fluctuating groups of subcultures who practice resistance via the weapons of the weak; produce transcript narratives.

7, but they get sian ji puah, cos they feel like they will never be the mainstream, and they judge themselves by that standard. Then the younger ones look at the older ones and shout "YOU ARE SOOO PASSIVE AND COMFORTABLE!!!! YOU DONT HAVE THE EDGE ANYMORE!" while the elder lao jiaos say "NO, YOU ARE TOO REACTIONARY!!"

8, but that's life ya. Then inside, the lessons get taught again. and again. Is it just my sentimentalism? Or is control getting stronger? Or has it always been the same?

9, (dancing backwards man says, you'll always have friends who disagree, then how?)

10, observer: lan lan lor, it's not like you can expect everyone to agree, if they could then no need for simulation and control of reality right. And why you want everyone to agree so much? If you do, then you fall into Thrasymachus laser diu diu trap too!

Ok, breakfast.

Contemplation as an internal process is an action. But it is not an action that is manifest in the world we share with others. How do I manifest my love for others and this world? While empathy is a good start, what is the next step, what is the next step needed to change our shared external world, to make things better for all of us?

Hmmm. Direct action in both the realms of flesh and spirit. My path has been to distill, test, forge within, as well as to share, give, receive without. To me, magic now seems simply to be the skillful and meaningful synchronization and calibration of both these internal and external realities.

Pride in one’s self, which springs from self-confidence and self-knowledge, is my path by which my will actualizes these changes. It grants me the exuberance and inner strength to transcend overwhelming odds, and bring hope.

Yet, at the same time, when hubris strikes, and delusion conquers me, corruption and stagnation will swirl from the murky depths of that poisoned well of arrogance.

Then meanwhile, the mystic experience that comes when the underlying essence of all things is revealed, when the weariness of the soul fades for a moment, and the eyes of my feet kiss this sacred earth. Hmmm. The ecstatic thrill of intrinsic connection with the cosmos, that everything is all right somehow, no matter how screwy things may seem. There’s a sort of deep, deep, faith – that this all means something, all makes sense.

And that lends me a surety of purpose that bursts forth from an overwhelming sense of energy around, inside me. There’s this engine that buzzes, a furious ticking, loping, growling thing bleeding chaos and potentiality. Time slows down. Reality becomes fluid for a moment, and I sense connections of bitterness and honey, of where my fangs and fists can change the world. No matter how bad everything is – it will be all right.

Not just cos of the self-belief; that’ll be vainglory.
Not just cos of the faith; that’ll be delusion.
Not just cos of the energy; that’ll be ego again – application of energy and effort does not always equate to an effective outcome. Reality is not a static, replicable thing.
Not just cos of the mental preparations and planning; again, too much pride in wisdom can lead to hubris in action.

So what is it? How do I express it?

Is it something that comes together from the whole of the parts? Or is it yet another thing entirely, ineffable? Am I trying to explain and deconstruct that sexual rush of mysticism?

Oh yea la. It's magic.

Then I return to earth, and my eyes are tired from the dust of both the stars and the streets. Then my blood is a hungry thing, that cries for the milk of the ocean to feed its lust for meaning… And I close myself off and force myself to earth and ground myself.

And so… I must not lose my nature, even as my mind roars and flares.

sweet fear!

i would love to be alone for a while.

the wind calls.

too many spells, too many tingling tastes of reality co-mingling within a brief measure of this life matrix.

too many things started but spinning into vistas of the undone, unfinished.

i need to focus the flare before it burns me out; my fury is a quiet thing that bleeds out into the world around me through these devices of syllable and context, and i don't want to burn all of this up, to poison this land and this well.

Please.

Let me understand what i do, see what i see, and speak the Truth.

Please.

Gaia.

it is not despair that drives me, nor is it rage, not anymore.

what is that taste in the soul?

Pride exalts, just as hubris brings one low.

there is a gentle shaking

as doubts are lifted from the eyes
when the fist blossoms into fire
yet you stop and break apart and reform
and pluck desires from the tree of the will
and spring slays winter without weeping

there is a gentle shaking

i hear the gutting of the wind
it howls and snarls; irritated,
as metal scrapes the sky
devils yawning, windows blinking,
nothing spinning in this wheel

darkness
solitary in this cave
i stare into you, one-eyed bearer of the book of numberless pages
i stare into you as you stare into others who read this now
i stare into you, the source of the light in this darkness
and yet you are not all there is
but i have drunk so deeply of your light
that i have forgotten my name as spoken by the sun

there is a gentle shaking

i feel the roads leading inside growing from brick of bone
fletched flesh binding broken arrows torn from discarded words
this puppet is animated by excarnate lovers and soldiers

there is nothing wrong with exuberance
and nothing wrong too with melancholy
except that i must temper one with another
even as i whirl in rage
i must remember i walk
and walk
and walk
as nestled in loneliness
or clustered in company
as i wish to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKuR3skM_g0

Just one year of love
Is better than a lifetime alone
One sentimental moment in your arms
Is like a shooting star right through my heart
Its always a rainy day without you
Im a prisoner of love inside you -
Im falling apart all around you - yeah
My heart cries out to your heart
Im lonely but you can save me
My hand reaches for to your hand
Im cold but you light the fire in me
My lips search for your lips
Im hungry for your touch
Theres so much left unspoken
And all I can do is surrender
To the moment just surrender

And no one ever told me that love would hurt so much
Oooh yes it hurts
And pain is so close to pleasure
And all I can do is surrender to your love
Just surrender to your love
Just one year of love
Is better than a lifetime alone
One sentimental moment in your arms
Is like a shooting star right through my heart
Its always a rainy day without you
Im a prisoner of love inside you
Im falling apart all around you
And all I can do is surrender