NOTHING TO BE DONE

"It's after the end of the world, don't you know that yet?" - Sun Ra

A-SIDE

It’s not the end of the world, and if it is, then there’s nothing to worry about.

As if there wasn’t enough suffering in the world, many more people will have to die. It is a gladiator circus world.

War is not a tragic accident of civilization — it is one of its primary functions.

If democracy truly meant anything then the people would use their power to change this sorry state of affairs. But, there is nothing to be done because democracy, like so many things, means very little. They have no power to stop this because they have given it away. That is democracy. Demo-crazy. Democracy itself is cynical.

Do not forget the fact that those who declare wars are not the ones who go to kill and die in them. Neither are their children. And they can call a truce when they decide to reach an agreement, but what about the dead children? Whoops. You can vote them out in the next election. Give away your power to another “leader” who will “act in your interests.”

The tendency, when a bunch of so-called leaders decide to kill a lot of people, is for ordinary people to take sides and justify why “their side” is right to kill other ordinary people. Further augmenting that argument with notions of “for God and country,” while forgetting that their perceived enemies are also children of God.

I refuse to take such a posture. Murder is murder.

It says a lot about the sickness of this world that all this so-called technological advancement is nothing more than the perfection of the war machine. Mankind has come a long way from bows and arrows. There are many countries today that possess weapons with the power to wipe out all life on earth with the click of a button. Now, is that real advancement, or sophisticated barbarism?

To take sides in a modern, technological war is to take part in a completely irrational disaster. A sorry spectacle between believers and ardent believers. Who wins in the end? Only the weapons manufacturers.

What puts a million people in mass graves? Is it ideology or bombs? Both. Ideology is a drug. It numbs the conscience while giving the illusion of righteousness. The high is certainty. The cost is reality.

Poets, writers, painters, and artists of all kinds might want to pull out their tools like weapons and pay attention to the times. Now is not the time to despair.

The world is violent and irrational, humans cannot control it, and panic is useless. The artist must continue working like a modern stoic. James Baldwin likens the role of the artist to that of the lover, saying that the artist must make one aware of the things that he does not see:

“The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.” - James Baldwin

Life in this planet on a number of occasions almost completely expired. When more than half of all life died in cataclysmic events. And every generation has had the belief that the world was ending. Yet, here we are, risen. How lucky we are.

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B-SIDE

I know there is a place for us all.

Where we can just be.

A place beyond, where even language fails,

And there is no need to name it.

The clouds know it.

Even the birds know the secret about you and me.

It’s the reason we sing and breathe.

It’s worthwhile.

It’s within.

Nobody talks about how you ought to behave unless things have gone radically wrong. All this talk about virtue, morals, or enlightenment, or self-actualization - all these terms that are being used - all of it attests to the fact that it hasn’t happened and will in fact get in the way of its happening.

Language is only a signal. And when it is used to point out what should be – ease, harmony, virtue – it is usually signaling what’s missing. The danger is in becoming fascinated with the signal rather than what it is pointing towards. Morality appears when harmony is lost. This is our state of disease. We will not find what we are looking for in the words themselves, but in the thing the words are trying to remember.

Love is not what you say. It is what you do. Saying “I love you” often replaces the thing itself. We become attached to the signal and forget what it points to. A baby understands this without language, if you are paying attention.

A thing is a thing, not what is said about it.

This is the work of the artist — not to decorate the world with more words, but to return us to what was always there.

There is nothing to be done about the world, but everything to be done within oneself and one’s craft. This is the part we can control. To be beautiful. To be able to love, and to be loved. To ask ourselves, each day, how we can live a little bit more honestly. To remind ourselves of our mission.

So, what is to be done?

Begin by breathing.