Rant 148
Why We Do This
Year after year, week after week, day after day, why do we keep this up? This Discordian Society? This putting-the-fun-back-into-the-inevitable-dysfunction-of-hypertrophied-order which you find being shoved down your throat and taught to your children against your wishes? Why do we continue to offer you and every woman, child, and man on this planet enlightenment for the taking, when all the other outfits offer you the bottled air version of enlightenment or salvation for an exorbitant price? Why do we continue to insist that Eris be included in all of our feasts even as the world at large is ignorant of Her and of us? Why? Why ask why?
Just know that we are here (and there and just about everywhere that you haven't quite thought of yet). The world is ablaze with the greyfaces who have finally induced most of its human cultures into their market of everything for a price so long as satisfaction is guaranteed. But the problem is that once you fall prey to their addictive treadmill habit of grasping after their ephemeral phantasms, you find it difficult to stop going after more and more of what they have to sell you. If only you could get this next new hotly marketed item/experience/religion, then you may finally have found the elixir, the grail, the ultimate thing that will banish your sense of impermanence and emptiness, replacing it with the constant ecstasy you so crave and think you deserve. No matter how many times their products loose their luster or appeal after you acquire it, somehow you hang on to the fanatical belief that another product is all you need. Just one more. If only it was the right size, or the right timing, or the right packaging, or the right color, texture, noise, taste, thought. If only....no other phrase expresses the point that you have missed the whispers of your own freedom. With every passing year in this habitual circular run through the desires brought to you by your sponsors, it gets harder to break free. The grooves become etched deeper and deeper. And yet, there is Eris and the rest of us, waking you up at odd hours to shout into your face that you are free.
Why do we keep doing this? Why? When all we should really do is watch you spiral out into being that pseudo-self that the advertising specialists have so carefully crafted and sold to you as the be all end all of existence. It could be pretty entertaining watching you run around like a rat in a maze, looking for the passage way that will finally give you the cheese you so desire. But unlike rats, you can climb the walls and grab the cheese directly. This is what makes your predicament even more funny. But no. We don't just sit there and watch. We get involved. We remember when we were small and afraid and looking for that bit of cheese to make us happy too. So we play with you as you walk through the consumer mazes and the corporate religions. We push and pull and cajole you. We whisper in your ears when you are sleeping "Climb out of the fucking maze, already! The joke has gotten stale along with your cheese!"
And you, at first, think we are just a bunch of loons. We are not as serious as you are. Your quest to fulfill the lab experiments of your masters is much more important than living a human life with the ability to stand upright and look at the sky. "No" you repeat to us, "Take your Erisianism and all that silly impossible happy freedom crap back to whatever hallucination you crawled out from." That's what you say. WE....we, the hallucination. While YOU, a person who is cobbled together from advertising blurbs about what it means to be alive, from scraps of poorly understood con-jobs called religions, from pieces picked up from all those people around you who seem better at the game than you are, from the fantasy images of yourself that never seem to pan out when all those shiny products loose their luster...YOU say WE are the hallucination.
Sounds to us like you are tripping on greyfaced consumerism and you can't seem to get back up, let alone even hit the ground. WAKE UP, DUPE! There is no ground for you to fall on in this game. Nothing is going to catch you. There are only more and more "if only" prayers, and more and more shiny products and experiences that your sponsors will sell to you to deceive yourself into feeling real. To convince yourself that you are not tripping into the endless freefall of the bought and sold market fragments of souls memory hole.
Your life has been brought to you by sponsors, and yet you try to tell us that WE are the ones who don't get it? We are the ones who are crazy? We are the ones who need help? Hah! Sucker! Perhaps we should just sit back and watch you spin around and stumble in your dimwitted slavery to desires that were placed into your soul at an early age so that the greyfaces could forever pull your strings and get your heart to jump around at every which way so you can work for them and buy their products and experiences. They have convinced you that time is money. So you need to work all of your time away now so that you can have much more time later on, in some imagined future heaven that few ever get to see. They will tell you that enjoying things now is for fools, even as they party off of the labor and money you have given them. It's a good scam. And the fool is you for buying into it. For subscribing to a reality that is just as false as any other version. Just because it has the majority of dupes believing in it, doesn't make it any more necessary or real.
And this is the point of our existence. (At least that's what we like to tell ourselves and others.) We are here to break up the maze. To get you to see that you do have the strength to climb over the walls. To get past the naysayers. To live the live you feel you are meant to live without any interference of those piddling parasitic sponsors. This life is yours. And we are here to help you with seeing that, not out of altruism, but out of the sheer entertainment value that your realization will give us. Eris is not seeking you out to become a convert to Her Operations Mindfuck (hell, if Eris sought you out, you would not be stuck in that maze you are in now), She is only trying to open up the chances. Blow a little fresh air into the stagnation that masquerades as razzle dazzle. Get the minds to blow open wide. It doesn't matter what you think about our Discordian Society. At least while you are still stuck there, in your land of "if only" and "just one more."
Remember THAT as you trample and get trampled this holiday season to get to your shiny products.
November 29th, 2005
-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
PMM Co-Episkopos, Pan-Goddess Diddling Witch of the Coven of Macha, Arch-Deacon and Rabbi of the International Great Discordian Jihad, spokesperson of slack, and covert cohort of the Church of Eris. (And a whole lot of other amusing titles and credentials which may or may not have any relevance, depending on who you are and what you want.)
Day 546 of the DJ
That would make a great flyer - if the greyfaces would take the time to read it.
Maybe I'll print some out anyway on red and green paper and leave them around the shopping malls.
If that's alright with you.
hells yeah. this is getting put under a metric fuck-ton of car windshield wipers on my next day off.
nice rant.
Go on ahead and make it into flyers. Flyer away!
I was thinking about posting it on walls poster glue just this morning.
And all this time I was just in it for the prescription drugs.
Quote from: SchizzyAnd all this time I was just in it for the prescription drugs.
Why do that when you can make your own?
Thorazine makes me too stupid to make my own evil drugs.
all you have to do is put key words in bold and large fonts
Quote from: LHXall you have to do is put key words in bold and large fonts
This will only inspire mass hysteria.
true
skip the large fonts
or
maybe mass hysteria isnt too bad
Mass hysteria's great. Especially when zombies are involved.
mass hysteria is not only OK, it is FUCKING NECESSARY.
Quote from: East Coast Hustlemass hysteria is not only OK, it is FUCKING NECESSARY.
FUCK YEAH!
Toss your chicken broilers into the air and call them UFO's!
And yes. Hugh, I hope you plaster those rants all over your local 411 not just post them here.
EDIT: for those of you who don't know, following the soccorro saucer (which was more your cuban-cigar kind of dealie) in New Mexico there was a lot of chicken-broiler tossing going on.
hmmn. We get UFO's around here, maybe it's time to start a panic. Have one land on the local chruch. I remember when I was younger we had a performance night at the local church and they did this sketch with an alien landing and they had gobs of flashing lights going off and the speakers cranked up, and there's me, two years old, head out the window looking for the flying saucer.
looks like the large fonts are staying
the sky is falling
This rant makes me enjoy refreshing time. Thanks!
Quote from: East Coast Hustlemass hysteria is not only OK, it is FUCKING NECESSARY.
Yep.
project mass hysteria is officially in effect
the discordians have spoken
no whining if it gets too hysterical
How about screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth? Or are we taking Patton's stance on this one?
Quote from: East Coast Hustlemass hysteria is not only OK, it is FUCKING NECESSARY.
This is another statement that should be on bumpersticker and pastered across bank windows, spray painted across high way billboards....you get my drift.
Project MASS HYSTERIA!
True dat. I have just the set of buildings in mind...
Quote from: CainTrue dat. I have just the set of buildings in mind...
I believe this holiday season has found it's new slogan.
spreading MORE than just holiday cheer
bumper stickers are forthcoming, though I'm not sure they'll be done before x-mas. but I'll let y'all know when I get them, and I'll send them to anyone who wants them, free of charge.
I would like a few.
matching belt buckles
shirts
and knives
Quote from: Baron von HooplaI would like a few.
Me too. That would be fantabulous.
im thinking of flyering this too...but it's just, i really doubt ANYTHING would come of it where i live. the people here wouldn't be able to read it, since it's in english. :| plus, it doesn't apply to them so much, since most of the people here don't have the time to be opressed and depressed by consumerism and the aneristic illusion, there are much more pressing matters at hand, like death and the border patrol.
but maybe i could put it in the bookstore that the rich white people hang out in.
why is it always rich white people?
are rich black people and rich red people and rich indyans and rich yellow people and rich cossacks any less evil?
is bollywood any less corrupt and dirty under the covers than hollywood?
the white man's burden is paying our fathers' debts.
there is something about whiteness
well, the reason i specified rich white people is because they're the ones who usually speak english, and most of the rich people ive seen around here anyway are white
if more of the rich people i knew were korean then id say the rich korean people
but i only know one rich korean family, and they barely speak english
oh, and i dont have a point in this particular post. im just typing whatever im thinking.
update: the order has been placed for the bumperstickers, and they should be ready in time for me to get them in the mail before x-mas. t-shirts may take a bit longer since I have to go buy the blank shirts and wait until my buddy with the screen press has a free day on the weekend to spend drinking whiskey with me and making t-shirts.
Quote from: Chlorinewell, the reason i specified rich white people is because they're the ones who usually speak english, and most of the rich people ive seen around here anyway are white
if more of the rich people i knew were korean then id say the rich korean people
but i only know one rich korean family, and they barely speak english
oh, and i dont have a point in this particular post. im just typing whatever im thinking.
You can translate it to the local language. (Such as I did for West Belfast friends who speak Irish.)
Quote from: East Coast Hustleupdate: the order has been placed for the bumperstickers, and they should be ready in time for me to get them in the mail before x-mas. t-shirts may take a bit longer since I have to go buy the blank shirts and wait until my buddy with the screen press has a free day on the weekend to spend drinking whiskey with me and making t-shirts.
Do you need our addresses and stuff? You can get mine from Bella.
Dude, what's the point of having "people" if not to have already figured out where we all live?
(Seriously, ECH, if I haven't already left enough bread crumbs on this forum for you to find an address for me, just drop me a line and I'll give you my home addy. And I am willing to PayPal a few bucks to cover the cost of this project. Especially because I'd be slapping them on OTHER peoples' bumpers, and I'm still old-fashioned enough to believe in paying for quality entertainment. :twisted:)
Quote from: East Coast Hustleupdate: the order has been placed for the bumperstickers, and they should be ready in time for me to get them in the mail before x-mas. t-shirts may take a bit longer since I have to go buy the blank shirts and wait until my buddy with the screen press has a free day on the weekend to spend drinking whiskey with me and making t-shirts.
project mass hysteria is gonna be HYPE
we are true role models
Quote from: LHXQuote from: East Coast Hustleupdate: the order has been placed for the bumperstickers, and they should be ready in time for me to get them in the mail before x-mas. t-shirts may take a bit longer since I have to go buy the blank shirts and wait until my buddy with the screen press has a free day on the weekend to spend drinking whiskey with me and making t-shirts.
project mass hysteria is gonna be HYPE
we are true role models
This is the correct rabbi's goat.