Insightful Post Dump

[Payne]

So this has become a 'submissions to crams new Discorian lit magazine' thread?
i should dig through my posts and see if i said anything that doesn't count as a net negative ....

No, this is an insightful post thread.

Some of them may be used in a magazine, but it's not for that.

[Elder Iptuous]

right. i was just noticing that it seems to have turned into people posting their own things rather than MO (and others) digging through the history and finding things that others have said that gave them insight.
no problems..... I enjoy the self-congratulation of this board in general. 

[LMNO]

So this has become a 'submissions to crams new Discorian lit magazine' thread?
i should dig through my posts and see if i said anything that doesn't count as a net negative ....

No, this is an insightful self-congratulatory masturbation post thread.

Some of them may be used in a magazine, but it's not for that.

Fixxxored for self-importance.

[Payne]

So this has become a 'submissions to crams new Discorian lit magazine' thread?
i should dig through my posts and see if i said anything that doesn't count as a net negative ....

No, this is an insightful self-congratulatory masturbation post thread.

Some of them may be used in a magazine, but it's not for that.

Fixxxored for self-importance.

I think you're allowed to be self important about it, anyway.

~~~Payne: Finds your posting to be generally insightful.

[Manta Obscura]

right. i was just noticing that it seems to have turned into people posting their own things rather than MO (and others) digging through the history and finding things that others have said that gave them insight.
no problems..... I enjoy the self-congratulation of this board in general. 

Whether the posts are for self congratulation or insight doesn't really matter, just as long as the posts that are added are ones which have either been insightful (or inciteful?) to one's self, or posts which one thinks may be insightful to others. The former is what motivated me to search through others' posts, and the latter is what motivated me to add things of my own which have hitherto been unseen on the forums.

[AFK]

For me it isn't self-congratulatory, it's more like,

Oh hey, I used to actually post useful stuff here from time to time. 

[Payne]

Okay, I'll join in then 

The origin of an idea:

      Sitting here is hell.

   The Blank Screen is a mirror to my Blank Mind. No ideas, a creative wasteland.

               "The end of the story is the most important part."
It's creation surely, is more important?

Old memes cycle round and round, like a circular saw. building nothing new, just chopping through thought to create recognisable metaphors and concepts.

      So we become jaded.

   Our questions become meaningless, as the answer is always the same- "bullshit!"

               "Another day, another dollar", What does that mean?
Are we really conditioned to like this shit?

Even the artists are become physical labourers, as we cannot respect a person who does not sweat for us. Philosophy is dead.

      We turn to new gods.

   It is a crime to write on the walls people. They are the forbidden canvas, taboo.

               "Only Nixon could go to China" Hypocracy rules!
And opposites attract, leading to grey centrism.

We are that grey centrisms opposite. Are we doomed to fall into it's gravity well? Are we doomed to go to China? Will we draw upon the walls no more?



We all are doomed to greyfacery-ness, at some point. Some of us will build monoliths that put others in shade, when they tumble (as they will) they may take other pillars with them. Some will build little shiny gemstones that we will wear as pretty rings, blinding us to everything else.

Fuck I don't know what to say or do anymore, I just want to scream my hate down upon ye and they. And toast the coming of the social black hole.


EDIT: Weak ending fixx0red

And its refinement:

This is for all of you out there who have shit going on, in your life, and can't deal. Can't vent. Can't defend yourself from.

There are times when you must be seen, heard, felt. And even the most apathetic or the most cynical of us do it. There are times when you must stick your head over the trench wall and see others toiling away, and take comfort from the fact that you are not alone.

So I am here. I am listening.

Some of us take up the pen, the sword, the megaphone, and turn negativity into a positive. Some of us create temporary monuments out of the shrapnel that rains on us.This is why: if we do not shit our hate, we will die.

Your tasks are your own, what you do, you must do alone, but what is done, will be seen.

The best will be remembered and emulated and refined, it is true, but the best will fade as fast as the worst.

There is nothing permanant. In the space of a life time, we build many monuments, and we tear many down.

There is respite, though. There is a moment of hiding in a shell crater as you run across no-mans-land, sharing a knowing glance with another refugee, leaving your mark, before you jump up again, and run to the next bit of scant cover.

There is that assurance that what we do will have meaning, for a fleeting time perhaps, but not an empty gesture.

EDIT: Because the original subject title suxx0red.

[Manta Obscura]

From Cram, a sort of meta-post, in which he gives a critique of the BIP*:

Preamble: This was a difficult review to write. Warring in my head are three points of view,Äî

• The Discordian who wants to Wake Up and to Wake Up everyone around him
• The random guy on the bus who found the pamphlets I left him
• A devil,Äôs advocate that dissects things on principle. Toro! Toro!

These guys disagree on just about everything, so my opinions may not appear fully consistent. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I wanted to be thorough as a service to the project.



My Report on the Black Iron Prison Project
by Cramulus, Professor Emeritus, basically some guy

Abstract:
Overall, the BIP pamphlet carries a strong message, which is extremely useful to those trapped in sleepwalker mode. However, it suffers from poor packaging - its ideas are presented in a way which may repel the casual reader or random pedestrian. Overall, I am hopeful that this, and future incarnations of the project will be effective in shaking the public.

In short:
If people could just realize how stupid they are, they,Äôd stop being so stupid!

Article:
I love the Black Iron Prison pamphlet. With the assistance of the OBNOXIOUS JERK CABAL, I've spent years putting together and passing out subversive / enlightening pamphlets, posters, and public performance. I've handed out my own stuff (total crap), and a great deal of stuff that other people have created. (most of it total crap) The BIP pamphlet succeeds where many other Discordian / Illuminating tracts fail - it felt like a slap in the face, even to someone who thinks he's got a toehold on figuring out this fractillian merry-go-round. And I thought I WAS awake!

But I think the BIP suffers from poor packaging. The format in which these ideas are presented, unfortunately, make them less palatable. I understand that you're trying to be really open and translucent about what the motivation of the pamphlet is. I can smell the lack of manipulation, and it smells good - the intent seems to be to give people the tools and let them figure out reality on their own. That rocks. But the tone is often condescending, intentionally offensive, cynical, and in many places shows contempt for the reader. There are likely people who were digging the pamphlet, or were on the border of getting the "point", until it got really Righteous. At that point, it's easy to classify it as the same sort of propaganda Jehovah,Äôs Witnesses hand out. Citation?

• Page 16-17 sets up the same "us" versus "them" mentality that mainstream religions and cults use to foster an in-group mentality. Midway down page 17, the author refers to "them" as "these beings"... Personally I react very negatively to dehumanizing the opposition. It's very Holier-Than-Thou and it stinks. More Us v Them on page 26. Are "they" the enemy or the people you're trying to "wake up"?


• page 21-22 is a lot of seething contempt for the general public, which presumably includes the reader and friends ("What is it with you people?"). I understand that this particular passage is trying to shake people into making their own decisions about pop culture et al, but if the target audience is people who do like QPCs and American Idol (the sleepers), you,Äôre not going to crack the ice by shouting the word sheep at them over and over again.


• Page 5 suffers from the same problem. It,Äôs like ,ÄúYou people, OR SHALL I SAY SHEEPLE might learn a thing or two if you listen to me. Stop being such comatose slugs!,Äù The implication is that the writers have it all figured out (even if they later say that they don,Äôt). If the reader agrees with the writers and does what they tell him, he,Äôll become a higher class of being too. Evangelical? Perhaps. Does this read like goth poetry? At times.

Certain parts of the pamphlet are pure gold. Among them:

The anecdote on page 3-4 reminds me of (sorry) a Hagbard Celine quote  "You're still trapped in thinking of it as left versus right. We're up versus down!" Hell yeah! (Unfortunately this point is almost sacrificed by appealing to liberals against conservatives on p25)

Page 7 is also really well written. It explains WHY you,Äôd want to see the BIP. The 7th-8th paragraphs are the real meat here. ,Äú,Ķthe more people are able to think for themselves, the less willing they become to exhaust themselves at someone else,Äôs command,Ķ,Äù Its either rare or well done, depending on how you like your meat.

Page 9 says ,ÄúThe time has come for you to start thinking for yourself.,Äù That,Äôs kallisti-gold on the page and couldn,Äôt be printed bold enough.

The description of the nature of The Machine,Ñ¢ on page 10 makes me want to stand up and shout HELL YEAH. I showed this to a Discordian friend while stinking drunk, and days later, this is the only paragraph he could remember about it. Particularly the part about focusing on the component parts rather than the whole picture.

Page 12 has a line: ,ÄúThe notion that some nebulous group is out there subverting people with imagery and printed words designed to alter moods and behaviors is simply science fiction of the wildest, most escapist variety.,Äù This is some delicious self-reference.

As I read, I wondered,Ķ If it,Äôs worth it to be self-liberated and self-aware, why do the writers sound so pissed off and frustrated? I mean, you,Äôre trying to sell us freedom, but the tone of the pamphlet sounds like the authors are a bunch of brooding, bitter, cigarette smoking, echoes of Tyler Durden. Is that the reality I want? Well the longer paragraph at the bottom page 15 addresses the question Why Bother. That Why Bother is a big selling point and shouldn,Äôt be ignored.

The way page 16 ends in a couplet (,ÄúWe call it pollution, toxicity. It takes many forms and it,Äôs increasing rapidly,Äù) is really tight. It has a sort of lyrical quality to it which resonates well with me.


Page 19 ends with ,ÄúIf you accept that as truth, I wonder what you will believe when you are eventually convinced that it is a lie.,Äù BaBAM, kickass finishing move. I think p 18-19 is a really great spread.

The Herman Hesse quote on 23 is seriously hot shit. I think it,Äôs the most important part of the whole pamphlet. p23-24 is pure poetry. I especially like the line ,ÄúPissing all over someone else for doing something you don,Äôt personally approve of is MORE pointless than how pointless you think what they,Äôre doing is!,Äù

Page 25-26 is really tight. It,Äôs really nice to see a concrete example to support all the metaphor.

Inconsistent Audience:

I had trouble figuring out who this pamphlet is addressed to. If it,Äôs addressed to random people on the street who pick up the pamphlet, it should omit the stuff aimed specifically at Discordians and SubGs.

The target audience is definitely ,Äúthe public,Äù on page 8.
The target audience is definitely ,ÄúDiscordians,Äù (and their ilk) on page 12.
The target is People on the Web on page 23 (,Äú,Ķhere on this website, talking about this goddess,Ķ,Äù)

Generally the tone flips between adding nuance to already established Discordian issues (like the Machine and the Con), and trying to shake up people who are pinned to their sofas. These are two different audiences, two slightly different messages, and I think they should be approached in separate (but equal) ways. Trying to cover the whole spread in one pamphlet decreases the effectiveness of both. For example: Most Discordians feel (perhaps incorrectly) that they,Äôve left the couch. Maybe you can convince them otherwise. But be clear ,Äì when I first read the pamphlet I (in part) thought ,Äúoh, they,Äôre talking to fingerlicking mouthbreathers, not me. I already hate American Idol.,Äù




Miscellaneous Stuff I Don,Äôt Like
The introduction on page 2,Ķ I don,Äôt like it. I don,Äôt think it does a good job at describing exactly what the prison is. ,ÄúIt,Äôs your life, it,Äôs the cold trap of your existence.,Äù (that line made me hurk a little ,Äì I think it reads like teen goth poetry). So how exactly is that a prison and why should I hate it? Note - I think I understand what you,Äôre talking about, and I,Äôm not asking for an answer ,Äì I,Äôm just pointing out how the guy on the bus may feel about this vitriol. The first page of text is the make-it-or-break-it page of the whole pamphlet, and it,Äôs basically only frustration and metaphor. It needs something concrete to anchor.

It,Äôs possible to explain the two man con on page 4 without making the reader feel stupid for not having read American Gods. Likewise page 26 references Kant, Hume, and Locke, who are probably strangers to those people on the train.

The ,ÄúTUC,Äù mentioned on the bottom of page 5,Ķ what does that stand for? I,Äôd either spell it out or delete it. Same with SSOOKN.

This may be purely a matter of taste,Ķ
Page 14 begins by attempting to describe TEH NATURE OF REALITY. I hurk a little bit every time someone else tries to ,Äúexplain,Äù reality to me. That passage goes on to very effectively argue that we ignore / are unaware of most of reality. But then the consecutive point on p15 is that there might be great fun in exploring the reality that,Äôs currently invisible to us. Though I,Äôm hip to the metaphor that,Äôs been set up, the passage literally suggests that there,Äôs great fun in being aware of my feet inside my shoes, and being aware of the post-it note barely visible in my peripheral vision. It,Äôs plausible that the dude on the bus missed the point with all the metaphor.

We all have a little chunk of brain at the top of the spine called the Reticular Formation which filters out unnecessary information, like the temperature inside my shoes, the sound of the fluorescent lights, the entire world when I,Äôm asleep, etc. I trust its decisions. Yeah, it,Äôs filtering out a LOT of information, but is that information relevant?

That big Why Bother question is answered several times throughout the pamphlet by demeaning the people who don,Äôt ,Äúget it,Äù. Citation: page 4, ,ÄúNot wanting to beat the shit out of very stupid people is hard work.,Äù The authors must be pretty smart to see all this stupidity! In answer to the question ,ÄòWhy bother?,Äô Because I want to be smart like you, can I send you a membership fee and jump behind your smart rebel label? :-P


Page 20 is mostly metaphor. I think the point gets lost without something concrete to anchor it.

Appearance:

There,Äôs a bit that can be done to make this pamphlet easier to read.

Page 6, paragraph 2. Should begin with ,ÄúYou,Äôre,Äù, not ,ÄúYour,Äù. Page 8, paragraph 2, I think it should be ,Äúensure,Äù not ,Äúinsure,Äù. Page 21, the SSOOKN quote should drop the word ,ÄúFor,Äù. I know, I know, that,Äôs really anal. But since its in print it should matter.

Some of the leaves are out of order. Maybe I,Äôm printing it wrong, or doing something dumb, but I tried a zillion different ways, and no matter how I paginate it, p18-19 is followed by p12-13, and p8-9 is followed by p16-17. Luckily, it doesn,Äôt really seem to matter.

I think the large blocks of text (read: the entire pamphlet) need to be broken up with some graphics or quotes or what-have-you. This is your opportunity to punch the reader right in the limbic system. Some lighter images could go a long way to soften the austere bitterness (unless you really like the bitterness ,Äì personally, I think it,Äôs unattractive). I know that this commutiny has no shortage of hysterical graphics.



Conclusion:

I,Äôm equally impressed by the BIP pamphlet as I am with the PD.com community. You guys have shaken off the mummy-wrappings of ancient Discordia and created a new episkipos which is, perhaps, even more radically free than previous incarnations. It was really refreshing to realize that there are people who are putting a new spin on Discordia, even though sometimes some seem to be a bunch of elitist, cantankerous, endearing assholes (you what I mean). Likewise the BIP perfectly reflects the commutiny ,Äì it,Äôll enlighten you ,Ķif you,Äôre tough enough to stomach it.

In My Humble Opinion it can use a bit of levity. What attracted me to Discord when I was something like 17 years old was that it was the first time someone tried to convince me of something important without cramming it down my throat. It tasted good so I swallowed it on my own. The humor and lack of self-importance is what (according to The Prankster and The Conspiracy) Greg and Kerry thought would save Discord from Dogma. And I don,Äôt just mean LAIL dada humor.  Maybe absurd silliness doesn,Äôt have a place in this document, but I for one would be able to take it more seriously if it didn,Äôt take itself so seriously.

And on that note I acknowledge that I am also quite full of shit. All of this long wind emanates, perhaps, from a narrow, stubborn mind. I sure couldn,Äôt do any better than you guys have done, but I,Äôm hoping that all this jazz will somehow help. Looking back on this post, I find it pleasantly absurd that my report on the BIP is approaching the length of the pamphlet itself. But whatever.

Um, I shall leave you with a llama,


A llama

*Note: any information/links that anyone has to talks about a 2nd ed. BIP pamphlet would be greatly appreciated. If no such thing exists yet, then it may be worth revisiting the pamphlet for revisions.

[Payne]

And a couple I really enjoyed writing, the second actually affected me fairly deeply after I read it back to myself, cause I just shat it out without much thought and didn't get the impact of it until I read it in a slightly removed way.

"We came here, not only to help John [Sinclair] and to spotlight what's going on, but also to show and to say to all of you that apathy isn't it. We can do something. Okay, so Flower Power didn't work, so what? We start again."

~John Lennon (at a benefit concert for John Sinclair)

There are many Discordians out there who still slavishly follow the original Principia Discordia, a ragged tome written by a couple of stoned hippies, filled with 60's humour but with a serious message running through it like barbed wire hidden in a heap of cotton wool. This humour was already dated by the early 70's, but even today we have aspiring Discordians who will parrot the jokes ad infintum. They don't even believe that there IS barbed wire in there.

Which is fair enough, a person is allowed to believe what they will. They also have to take the consequences when they shread their hands unexpectedly on the "true" message of the PD.

Flower Power did not work. It became less a philosophy and more a fashion statement, less a movement and more a profitable exercise. With this in mind, is the packaging of the original message of PD really appropriate? Can we expect an audience of today to find any truth hidden in hippy rhetoric? While the answer is obviously "yes" (many of us were able to see some form of "The Truth" in it), shouldn't we also consider the number of people who have completely missed it, and set it aside as an interesting yet ultimately dated and dead piece of literature?

I personally think that the meat of the PD is a stark reminder that we are all monkeys, we are all subject to simian behaviour, regardless of our "civilisation", "humanity" and other such concepts. It tells us to 'Think for yourself, Schmuck!', and that we are all susceptible to trying to impose our own ideas of what should be onto situations where no such concept can exist, and then call it "reality"!

This is a timeless idea, as applicable today as it was in the 60's, and probably all over human history.

When we seem dark, stark and bitter, we are only relating what we believe is the true tone of the PD. When we are hateful, impatient and arrogant, we are reacting to the context of the time that the message now finds itself in, stripping the cotton wool of the 60's off of it and clothing it in the flak jacket and utilitarian fatigues of our time.

Nonsense as Salvation, whats more non sensical than taking the scribblings of a couple hippies and turning it into a personalised philosophy where these things can happen, without contradiction?

So spare us the "ZOMG23PINEALFNORD" crap, the hippies are dead. The new age requires new action, the activist today needs a suit and a tie, not a tie-dyed shirt.

Discordia will always be more relevant to me personally than in any kind of "cause" or "movement".

Yes, things in society are fucked up, yes "everyone" thinks that "everyone" else wants things to be this way, and there is nothing that they can do about it as individuals. Yes, they are wrong.

But all of this means nothing to me.

I am not an activist, I don't go out of my way to try and convert people anymore. I used to, but then I thought it was mandatory or at least expected. Since I decided for myself that it wasn't, I don't do it. I don't expect people to wake up unless they want to do it themselves, I certainly don't expect it to ever make sense for them unless they do it in the hardest and unfunniest ways, but that may be my jaded and bitter inner self talking.

Discordia is not a movement, it is not a purpose, it is not a cause. It's a state of mind. A state of mind that connects a diverse group of people who wouldn't give each other the time of day if they met socially in other circumstances and didn't have the call signs Discordia offers, the "fluff" like 23, Eris or Principia Discordia.

I like that. I like talking to people who I normally would never talk to, who would normally never talk to me.

Discordia is at times an excellent way of tying some of us together to work on projects that normally would never be worked on, like Paths and Shrapnel, PosterGASM and some of the weird and wonderful art projects that have grown out of these forums.

I like that. I like working with people on plans and projects that may have some relevance to how I think about my life, or can help decorate it in a way that makes me question what decoration is.

Discordia will always be relevant to me in some way because of this. Its worth far outweighs the effort of getting anything back from it.

I like models, I like art, I like exploring the weirder aspects of our psyches, and the even weirder methods of exploiting what we find.

I like to laugh, hate, cry and love, as we as humans are meant to, not as we have been conditioned to. As I've only learned to do with some intense soul searching and some pain. Discordia has been the chair I've sat down in when I'm weary, the desk I've used to write some of the most personal and important things I've ever written, it has been the mirror in which I've seen what I am, what I was and what I want to be.

And I've learned to not care what others are thinking about it all, except in specialised circumstances, for example: when I feel like it.

I know what I've learned, I've learned to question what I know, and I've learned to learn more, always learn more.

For me, Discordia is a question, an answer and everything else in between, and it is so huge that I could spend a lifetime exploring it.

Is Discordia relevent? Certainly for me, maybe for you.

[Manta Obscura]

From LMNO's "Shrapnel" thread. Note that I have removed the initial sentence, which merely references the post and does not contribute to or detract from the overall message of the post:

Shrapnel.  Something exploded, and a piece of it embedded in your flesh.  Now you have to carry that around with you for the rest of your life.

It affects you.  In changes the way that you behave, you take the experience of being hit by that shrapnel with you in every decision that you make.  Even if you remove it, the scar remains.  Even in its absence, it informs your decisions.

For the most part, the explosions are essentially random, when taken from a subjective view.  Someone else planted these things, and you walk right into it.  These things may have exploded centuries ago, but the shrapnel is still in the air.  Still able to pierce into the heart of you.  

Often, they tell you where to go.  They push you onto new paths, or keep you going down the one you're on.  They can blind you, they can cripple you, they can make you afraid to continue.  They can accumulate, like scales, like armor, like a lead weight.  Given enough time, they can even render you impervious to other bits of shrapnel.  But not forever.

Shrapnel is not subtle.  It's just that we don't recognize it for what it is.  We get hit full in the face, and we don't even realize what just happened.  We know something just went down, but what?  

You heard a symphony.
You read a story.
You went to school.
You got a job.
You fell in love.
You got into a fight.
You fell out of a tree.
You were mugged.
You got an erection.
You listened to a preacher.
You took drugs.
You got lost in the woods for 3 days.

You lived your life.  And you carry that with you.  Each thing that got the limbic system pumping, every "aha!", all the moments of simmering rage, each instant of bliss... They all left their bits of shrapnel in you.  They all push and prod you in directions you might not even have intended to go.

But you don't have to be one of the walking wounded.  The choice is yours.  Self-surgery is messy, but it's possible.  Search out the bits that got stuck into you, see if they're worth keeping.  Then get a pair of pliers and an exacto knife, and get to it.  

[Cramulus]

*Note: any information/links that anyone has to talks about a 2nd ed. BIP pamphlet would be greatly appreciated. If no such thing exists yet, then it may be worth revisiting the pamphlet for revisions.

actually, my critique was relevant to the first edition BIP pamphlet...
the one you've read is probably the second edition one.

If it had graphics, it's the 2nd edition.

[AFK]

I'm not sure that the first one exists anymore.  The link on the wiki goes nowhere as I think it was on a part of POEE that went splodey.

[LMNO]

I think I have it as a word document.  It's a good start, but a bit meh.  I'd check out the Wiki for further updates.

[Manta Obscura]

*Note: any information/links that anyone has to talks about a 2nd ed. BIP pamphlet would be greatly appreciated. If no such thing exists yet, then it may be worth revisiting the pamphlet for revisions.

actually, my critique was relevant to the first edition BIP pamphlet...
the one you've read is probably the second edition one.

If it had graphics, it's the 2nd edition.

Ah, I see. Would you like me to remove the post because of lack of relevancy, then, or would you prefer I kept it up for historical significance? My vote is for the latter (it is, after all, still a well-written critique), but I'll go with the herd on this one.

[AFK]

FWIW, I'd like to have the original version back up on the wiki, just for historicaly perspective if for no other reasons.  Or am I the only sentimental spag around here?  So, LMNO, if you find it send me a PM and I'll give you my e-mail addy.