RUDIMENTS, pt. 949
(no Paradise involved)
Every so often I about just
give it up. Like now. Going
back to Elmira where it seems,
at least, like a more sensible
place and I don't need to keep
up with the sub-par Joneses,
as it goes. Mad dukes and
all those Ferdinands. There's
a place there, calling me.
-
Now, I mentioned to tell you how
nothing exists, and I intend to do
so. If I was a cigar-smoking man,
about now I'd light up one of
those long-burning, expensive
ones, to tide me over for the
onslaught. All the days I poked
around in NYC, I spent a lot of
lost moments looking for things
like answers. Some of them were
church kinds of things. Funniest
item in the world is how, in most
parts of the center sections of the
city, and Philadelphia too, now to
mention it, there are churches and
church edifices every 1500 feet, it
seems - along the broad avenues,
clustered and regal, high, soaring,
impressive. Even Elmira, at its
old city center, was a fort of
churches. Denominations and
anti-slavery places, where the
great northern Abolitionists
preached and fomented their
sedition and civic unrest, in a
manner you'd never get away
with today - Homeland Security,
due to insecurity, would have
you in a snatch, and, probably
if you were a woman, they'd
have your snatch too, and get
away with it in the name of
National Security. It's funny
now how we allowed that sort of
totalitarian-type control to seep in
and not even be thought about.
I think that's called 'insidious' or
'invidious,' or one of those, close.
The whole idea of these churches,
however, was display; not much
else but pride actually. There was
no tie-in to the story line of birth
or creation or well-being of the
spiritual kind. The key object was
money; was showing off, was
comparing your own status
against those of others. In a
place like a congregated and
mercantile city, as well, the
usefulness of all that garment
and materialism shopping was
in having it out on the display-day
Sundays, when one or more of
your household servants and
dressers would put it out for
you and maybe even help you
adorn yourself in it. That was
the extent of church and religion,
and don't tell Papa. If any of
it was highbrow it was the
lowest form of highbrow then
known to man.
-
The concept of 'God' and 'Deity,'
although it got a broad billing,
was actually far behind the rest of
all this and was granted a lip-service
at best. There was, and probably
still is, a curious vein of America
life equating good-fortunes, riches,
and business success with a proper
form of righteous divinity. If
you were 'no good,' it was thought,
your efforts and appearances in
turn would reflect your position as
a non-elect. As time went on, all
that ever occurred was the deepening
and enrichening of the God and
origination stories. In so many
respects, that embellishment was
really the only reality these stories
had. You see, as it all went along,
everything was translated downward
into the situation of 'God' operating
in purely human ways and with
purely human motivations - as
if this Earth-tending was the one
and all-consuming task of the
Deus guy. Here's the rub:
not true.
-
Mankind has been called the
Crown of Creation. Not sure why,
no, but - still got that cigar? -
it has been. Granted, we make
pretty good bombs and guns, know
how to split hairs and fight over
borders, maintain ideologies, and
destroy the Earth. But apparently
none of that counts for anything,
certainly not as anything detrimental
to the Human cause. Yet. God
would have known all this, or
should have, by our designs of
Him anyway. BUT, a true God
would really need none of this;
not evidences, not tangibles,
not sequences, not any this-for-
that stuff. Embroiling all Creation
in a 'ONE,' and a cosmic 'One'
to be sure, all this God would
have had to do - and it would
probably have taken maybe 10
minutes of God-time - was to
make a 'Human' format being
with the capability built-in to
accept everything. Causation.
A perennial offshoot of the
controlling acceptance of every
new and latest contingency as
it arose. Every form of Godness
and origination, and thus all
the religions and inflammatory
aspects of same, the ideas of
things like box, shoes, logic,
trees, steel and water. If I told
you that backwards was forwards
and water was round and fire was
cold and hollow was solid, and
if I did it all blessedly enough,
it would be believed and taken
up, purely by the factor of the
Human aspect of reciprocation
and validation. The psychology
of Life is based on the shared
and inter-personal assumptions
of billions of people at any one
time and - if this 'God' figure
was wise, which is sui generis
to the thing itself, It would have
known all this; needing to do
not a darned thing after the one
point A of input origination.
We were given all we'd ever
need to much things up. There
was no Paradise involved, nor
any reality either. Just make a
'Human' that believes all that.
'Human' that believes all that.
-
So, anyway, it was a slow drive
and a short trip for me to enter
the halls of craziness. I did it on
the Bowery. There had been a fight,
and a man was there, lying on the
sidewalk, atop much broken-bottle
glass, and blood; I figured 'his' blood.
Short of alcohol, it's usually blood
that seeped from these guys, wounded
or in any other kind of in-extremis
scene. No one did a thing, not
even stopping. I just stood there.
Crying. I had become overwhelmed
and confused by everything, and I
truly felt something inside my
head snap. What that snap may
have been, it's never returned to
set me back a'right. It was a
damage, to be sure, but a damage,
as I saw it, in the right direction,
and a direction away from all this
human bullshit I'd been attempting
to deal with. That was my last foray
into marketable reality.
(Next: All that wasn't there).
(Next: All that wasn't there).
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