St. Hugh's Rant # 5

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

St. Hugh??s Rant #5

We are stuck in a great cultural traffic jam. Instead of elevating ourselves, we are merely televated, televised, and evangelized by the creeping malady of DUMB. We want our enlightenment coded in neat sound-bite phrases which inspire little to no commitment. We want our elevation handed to us on a silver platter of nice New-Agey catchphrases so we don??t have to feel any need to investigate further just what in the hell is really going on. On our highways of supposed betterment, we have little patience to endure, instead preferring to take the nearest exit ramp to pithy egotistical collections of knowledge. How can we realize that knowledge is as much a hindrance to awareness as it is a help?

We want our spirituality with satisfaction guaranteed and when we sense that there are no guarantees anywhere, we forget that honest feeling and search about for something in which we can feel satisfaction guaranteed. This spins us about to nowhere, and since we are on a highway, stuck in a traffic jam, we just try to speed up to get ahead of someone else. And this only results in furthering the jam, as anyone familiar with traffic jams can point out. The question is simple. Why are we even on the highway if it takes us nowhere? Escaping through the nearest exit ramp only furthers the jam as all the streets connected to the great cultural highway are also jammed.

There is no escape. There is no true exit. There is no way to deny who and what we are. Imagining ourselves to be different only increases our own attachment to the jam. We can imagine something better in the hopes of eventually finding ways to be something better or do something better. But are we really after the goal of betterment, of awareness, of explosive pineal gland wisdom? Or do we just take the words and visions to use as a convenient and deceptive cloak to wear as another myth of freedom? There is a paradoxical truth expressed in the statement ?¨Those who convince themselves of their freedom are the ones furthest from it.?Æ

Many Erisians tend to forget that our perfect Lady of Discord, Eris, is not in the habit of consolation, but in confrontation. Humor is one of the best ways to expose the delusions of supposed freedom. Humor is at heart confrontational. But let us not forget the more seedy and shadowy aspects of Eris. She did, after all, provoke a war when not accorded the respect She deserved. In that story of the Great Snub, and Her subsequent destruction of the pretensions that led up to the snub, lies a pattern we can learn from and practice. The cultural traffic jam must be broken up without hesitation much like a collection of balls in billiards must be broken up in order for the game to get under way. Eris provides us with a cue ball to do so?ñour pineal glands?ñour awareness?ñour own minds. We don??t need to imagine ourselves free. We need to become free. And that goes for all of us.

It is best to simply dive into the cultural traffic jam and break it up. When you feel yourself falling, take a dive! When you feel yourself pulled, run at full speed! Chaos is about?ñwell, Chaos. Do not forget that things need to be taken apart in order to have the space to put new things together. We need to empty and smash apart our cups of knowledge so that we can live in reality unmediated. How to do this is for everyone a unique and personal endeavor with at least as many methods as there are people.

It is not enough to merely counter the rise of DUMB with more knowledge for DUMB is not about lack of knowledge as much as it is the ways in which knowledge is used. Many knowledgeable people only contribute to their own and others?? ignorance. There are many people who lack erudition and forms of knowledge but who are embodiments of living wisdom. I propose that the way to dismantle the cultural traffic jam is to increase it. We could contribute to the general anxiety that such a jam creates until people can no longer stand it. We can turn up the heat until the thing explodes. If this seems confusing, then we may have more in common than you think.

The State, and the presumptuous authority it embodies, may well eat itself but we must be aware and take care that in that process it doesn??t eat us as well. And do NOT kid yourselves. The State feels that it is not only its right to eat you, but it is, in fact, its duty to do so?ñwhether slowly or rapidly. DUMB and the cultural traffic jam are utilized effectively to accomplish this. So we need to be aware while we attempt to break up the traffic jam. Too much notice from the State and you will then be devoured more quickly than a pink squirrel eats popcorn from the hand of a white mouse.  And don??t think that the DUMBed down masses will lift a finger to help you once that happens. Just as there is no tyranny in the state of confusion, there is no compassion in the state of DUMB.

We have to be just as skillful as Eris in this regard. Our Golden Apples must be elegantly and humorously crafted to meet each situation that needs to be broken up. It helps to be crazy. It helps to have free thought. It helps to do something or other. Sure, we are stuck in a great cultural traffic jam. But let??s have some fun with it. We may, or may not, succeed to break it up. But we can keep laughing at it, at DUMB, and at ourselves for being enmeshed in it. The one who laughs loudly can then discover the truth behind the myth of freedom.

?¨Tochaill go doimhin ionat f?àin.?Æ

(Sweetmorn, Bureaucracy 57th, 3169 / Friday, October 3rd, 2003)

[Slarti]

that's awesome hugh. you're doing some great Roger-esque and Trollax-ian type stuff.  

I agree with you that we should 'increase the cultural traffic jam', as you put it. how do you think this should be done? are you talking all the normal stuff like mindfucks and stuff, or did you have something different in mind?

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Mindfucks...etc. Other things too. But we all have to be creative in this respect. Right now, I'm sort of focused on the "Beware of God" project, but I'm sure I'll get more ideas soon.

The traffic jam must be accelerated. I actually went into a sort of working class right wing sort of bar and put "Legalize Free Enterprise Murder" on the wall. The rest of the night was chaotic to say the least.

[Doktor Howl]

Bump.

bwahahaha

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am NOT reading that. 

[Doktor Howl]

I am NOT reading that. 

Betcha you will.   

[Adios]

that's awesome hugh. you're doing some great Roger-esque and Trollax-ian type stuff. 


Just because I am a bad person!

[Jasper]

It pains me to say this, but the first half of the first paragraph is not actually wrong.  Imagine anyone else saying this today:

"We are stuck in a great cultural traffic jam. Instead of elevating ourselves, we are merely televated, televised, and evangelized by the creeping malady of DUMB. We want our enlightenment coded in neat sound-bite phrases which inspire little to no commitment. We want our elevation handed to us on a silver platter of nice New-Agey catchphrases so we don't have to feel any need to investigate further just what in the hell is really going on."


...And it actually resonates as valid commentary.

So I guess it's too bad he didn't know that he could have just left it there and not shat a huge wall of text nobody cares about.