12,434. RUDIMENTS, pt. 921

RUDIMENTS, pt. 921

(looking at ted kaczynski)

Life always presented me with

a certain catalogue of problems,

things I willingly accepted.

None of it really bothered me,

just rather made me think; as

I went along  -  sometimes I

found that I was able to

breezily go on alone, doing my

task or work or business at

hand, on one level, but have

my mind and all that occupied

on a complete other level. One

time some guy asked me if I'd

ever been driving somewhere,

preoccupied in my head, and

some minutes later realized that,

wherever I was at that point,

I didn't remember getting there

or what landmarks or recognizable

things I'd passed along the route

to getting where I was. I said,

'Yeah, sure; I know that feeling

well.' I did, and it never bothered

me. So did that guy too, I guess.

It was as if there were a few different

levels of anything happening at any

one time and the work of the mind

and the work of the body are in

some way working together but

quite separately. That's a good

thing, how the body can work

diligently for its own good. It's a

complicated vehicle for carrying

the other half of our duality  -  the

scurrying mind, conceptual and

forming as we roll along. Maybe

those old people who wrote 'Merrily

we roll along.....etc' had a good

feel for earthy reality. (I think that

was a song or a nursery rhyme or

something, and it (in my own

mind anyway), it ended with, 

'All the live-long day,' though

I think that was a railroad song).

I always liked it all, no matter.

There is a place in consciousness 

where all borders fall away and 

everything jams together and 

makes their new alliances. That's

how reality gets constructed.

That raw pile of 'it all' is what

artists and writers construct from.

It just takes willingness, and

some practice to get over

oneself and put that all aside.

The human mind sometimes

struggles like a frightened bird

to escape chaos. I accept chaos.

Figure it thusly: Dreams and

sleep, as a chaos, are what we

spend forty percent of our lives

in. We are then victims, when 

awake, of our own ill-judgment;

to disease, to age, to external

suggestion, to nature's compulsion.

Doubting even its sensations, we

fall through it all, both wondering

and wandering, as we clutch at

straws of our own imagining. 

After seventy years of that, the

mind awakes to find itself then

looking at the dark void of

death. 'That it should profess

itself pleased by this performance

was all of the highest rules of

'good breeding' could ask? But

that it should actually be satisfied

would prove that it ended only

as idiocy.

-

I always wondered how it went:

Had things started out simple, and,

then gotten complicated; or was

everything made complicated,

right from Day 1? It was just an

idea to mull around. I forget the

name right now, but some

philosopher or person once

posed the idea that in all aspects

of things  -  problems, questions,

etc.,  -  the 'simplest' answer was

always the best. If that was so,

I figured that things had started

out complicated and over millions

of years had simplified themselves

down, into a sort-of simplicity,

like now, that we can live with;

even though we think it's complicated

and going always in the other direction,

with all that 'How difficult is life

today!' stuff, etc. The places I'd been,

over time, had taught me that no

matter what else, if you yourself

slowed things down (simplified them,

in essence), and approached any

task in a one-thing-at-a-time

manner, and went about the task,

after breaking it down, one thing,

one step, at a time, it all becomes

manageable. It's a bit like a scientist,

looking at a sample, a bug, spit,

or bacteria, in intense and isolated

magnification. That's when you

see all the squiggles and lively,

tiny, things always underway  -

all the smallest parts of our weird

dance of life, invisible for the

most part. I never knew if that

too could be considered part of

out initial'design,' but all that

stuff made me wonder.

-

So, even up on farmland, when

I lived way out in the booniees,

I could bide my time, driving a

tractor for hours, throwing hay,

spreading manure, or milking

some ace-cow's teats, and be

thinking about a hundred other

things as they come through.

I always liked the solitary

confines  -  and the solitude  -

all that stuff gave me. The same

went for NYC too  -  no one ever

threw me a second glance. I was

just an invisible nobody with the

liberty of all those streets and

places and situations. It was

pure gold, and the anonymity,

except for the draft battles and

the resisting and the fighting

back, was golden. But  -  and

this is where it gets odd  -  try

any of that stuff in 'school' and

you're in trouble right off. They

all try to mass-man you, fill

your head with the prescribed

notions and wicked-strange

ideas of society at large  -  so

you end up just like them and

you don't gripe about it either.

-

Now, when (yes, I found) when

I approached this entire thing

as if it were music, it brought up

an entire other field of thought, and

with it, one of my favorite words:

arpeggio. Musically, and life-ly,

I had stumbled upon a working

concept  -  and a word I figured

probably not everyone knew about.

But, reducing things to their smallest

components, within the breakdown

of larger time patterns and the

breaking up of the chordal structure,

much like life itself, gives us the

momentary magnification that

allows for the creation of that

moment, theme, mood, and

volley of information. People

do it all day long in music  -

to set their musical mood, to

simplify, to get to where they're

going, sound-wise  -  which is

just an inversion of silence, when

you think of it  :  As is slowness

and steadiness to a task, a

solitary confinement into the

space of getting things, meticulously

too, done to satisfaction. These

are all moments of simplification,

from the complex. Are they not?

-

I guess anything like that begs the

very question it poses? For me,

mo matter where I was, it all

became pretty simple, and I

really tried to keep it that way.

Now, for the most part, one

cannot do that, unless you're

that cabin guy whom his brother

turned in, in Utah or wherever.

Nice manifesto, though no one

reads it; it was squelched by the

authorities the instant it saw the

light of day. We're all now just

servants of the powerhouse.

I guess, about it all, I just

stopped caring.