Reflections
I made up my Mind some Years ago
I made up my mind some years ago not to tolerate bullshit from anyone. If someone wants to be my friend or lover or any other intimate thing (i.e. they want a significant place in my life), they must be honest, honourable, loving, faithful and true (and I will to them be the same). They must be self-aware enough to be able to police themselves not to be disingenuous, manipulative, aggressive or competitive. If I detect the least whiff of treachery, lies or betrayal, they’re gone from my life. It’s that simple. No psychos. No self-centred, immature narcissists. No “entitlement” types. No bullshitters. No game-players. No gold-diggers. No deceivers, hypocrites or inveiglers. No cowards. No bullies. No screwed-up adolescents disguised as grown-ups. Life is too short and too precious for anything other than honest, harmonious, selfless, loving exchange. I would rather be alone forever than in any kind of compromised, unbalanced, pathological relationship of any kind.
Awesome
If I see or hear the word “Awesome” being misused again, I think I’ll scream! It has become another word hijacked into trivialisation by the prevailing one-inch-deep mentality. The Milky Way is awesome. The Aurora Borealis is awesome. An active volcano is awesome. The opening chorus of J.S. Bach’s B minor Mass is awesome. An ice cream is *not* awesome. #1 in the Top Ten is *not* awesome. The new line of Maybelline mascara is *not* awesome. Your new jeans are *not* awesome. Geddit?
A funny Story
HERE’S a funny story. A poet mistook me for another famous poet and publisher who has the same name as me. He sent me an email which said: “I would like to offer a poem or poems for publication. My poetry is on the theme of anti-capatilist [sic] establishment and anti-bankers in particular”. Hahaha! I had a long laugh at that (not least because he couldn’t even spell!). For in order to ingratiate oneself to anyone who’s anyone in the mainstream poetry scene these are the sort of credentials one has to present. You have to be left-wing and politically correct! It’s a treadmill. And the poetry treadmill today is indeed a depressing one. In order to become a “successful” poet in the mainstream one is supposed to go through a series of hoops like a circus dog. First, one is supposed to send poems to poetry magazines (which are only read by poets). Then one is supposed to enter one’s poems into competitions (which only poets know anything about or read). But getting published in poetry magazines or winning poetry competitions means nothing at all in terms of being a poet. Showing off to other poets and seeming to be clever to each other and publishing each other is just a fancy mutual back-slapping exercise. We shouldn’t write for other poets but for real people and our poetry should be judged as to how much it moves real people’s hearts. That is the acid test and is the true role of the poet rather than trying to impress other poets or those who have set themselves up as judges of poems simply because they run a “creative writing” class, have the right political credentials or have themselves jumped through all the right hoops. These days to “succeed” in the mainstream poetry scene one has to conform to certain prerequisites such as being thoroughly left wing, being politically correct to a T, never really rocking the boat (and I mean *really* rocking the boat rather than merely scoffing at soft targets like “capitalist bankers”), avoiding using rhyme, eschewing sonnet-writing, steering clear of any romantic elements and being willing to ass-lick the *right* people. Well fuck all that! Real troubadours would never get on that conformist treadmill because *success* for a real artist is not about vanity-traps such as winning competitions or getting published but is about reaching into the hearts of people (and even changing them) in a meaningful and lasting manner. (It’s an equally depressing treadmill in the music scene too; but I’ll come back to that one some other time 😉
Why do Kidz Love Kitsch?
Everything about Christmas is kitsch – I mean EVERYTHING. The tree with its gaudy baubles, the room decorations, the awful sweaters. Santa’s outfit (I mean who wears fun-fur at the Poles?), his contrived ho-ho-ho (isn’t it a bit in the Jimmy Saville zone for an obese old man to be shinning down chimneys to sneak into children’s bedrooms in the middle of the night?!?), the stuff in which the presents are wrapped, the fake snow everywhere (except in Sweden and Russia), the weird artefacts hanging in the streets, the Falstaffian bonhomie, the stopping of hostilities on the battlefield to play football for 24 hours (worst kitsch of all), the way that every shop has to look “Christmassy” in order to get trade and “enter into the spirit”, the cards which everyone sends to everyone who sent them one last year, the holly (but the mistletoe is okay 😉 ), the £5 billion (yes, that’s right, I checked) which is estimated to be spent this weekend in the UK in the shops (mostly on totally unnecessary rubbish), the endless 80s Xmas “hits” being churned out on the radio, the plastic fairy on top of the tree, etc. Talk about bad taste!
So What’s the Big Deal about the Mayan Calendar?
I can’t imagine why the beliefs and practices of the Mayans would be of any relevance to anyone today who wants to be a spiritual person. People just assume that because it was an ancient culture where the priests got doped out of their brains it must have therefore been some kind of cool shamanistic utopia from which we can all learn. Revisionist political correctness has ensured that academics take a romantic view and speak only of great discoveries and high civilisation. Don’t be fooled. The Mayan culture was a bloodthirsty, totalitarian society that essentially destroyed itself. Because polygamy was practised among the nobility, warring factions were constantly fighting among themselves with huge cost to life. They performed human sacrifice, including child sacrifice (which could also involve the cutting out of their hearts) which could take place from birth onwards. They would torture and sacrifice prisoners of war, beheading them and keeping the heads with them as a trophy. To get into a religious or leadership high position was not on the basis of suitability but nepotism. Not what you knew but who you knew. Contrary to popular myth, Mayan society was not a peaceful culture but one which was entirely based on war. War was at the heart of Mayan culture. Heck, what they got up to (if you care to look into all the latest archaeological research instead of romantic New Age revisionism) makes the American war machine of today seem like the studio set for The Adventures of Noddy (Oui-Oui in France!). As to their spiritual activity, well here is an excerpt from an essay by Time Magazine science writer, Michael D. Lemonick:
The biggest non-event in recent history will unhappen
ON FRIDAY 21st OF DECEMBER, the biggest non-event in recent history will unhappen. I’ve been tracking this for some time. Years, in fact. Based on a false interpretation of a Mayan calendar, it’s very interesting how it has evolved. First, there was the claim from some of a certain persuasion that there would be a kind of spiritual apocalypse with everyone being struck by blindness for a brief time, which would only be survived by those who had attuned themselves with the right kind of exercises to the “new vibration” overtaking the planet — as if that was the absolute beginning of the New Age. All the rest (those who had fear or who were not attuned) would perish. Then there were the earthly apocalypse stories of weird objects or planets hitting the earth and mystical galactic alignments and pole shifts and earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. Sometimes those two stories would go together — sometimes not, with many variations in between. Now I observe there’s a lot of backtracking from these two positions, saying it will be a day which seems like any other but the shift in consciousness will have taken place anyway but only those attuned to it will feel it. A very neat way of sidestepping the whole issue. Talk about mind-control! 😉 One thing is certain: Many have made a lot of money out of this non-event. (Not for the first time either). There will eventually be a cataclysmic maelstrom on this planet; no doubt about that. But not on the 21st December 2012, for of the exact time when this will take place we cannot know. Besides, there are some other things which have to take place first, not least of which is the emergence of a world leader of the world government which will be. That will be even more deceptive than the installation of the lawyer Obama as US president, having been falsely presented to the people as a benign and peace-loving prophet-saviour. The Obama psyop is just a rehearsal for an even deeper deception. It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. Time will tell. A friend of mine once said that in order to make sense of the world today one needs the hide of a rhinoceros and the abilities of a world-class spy. I know what he means. Mostly one needs wisdom, the capacity to see through bullshit and a love of truth. Everything being claimed today about the 21st of December is bullshit. Pure fantasy and surmising — wishful thinking or downright deception. We are in the midst of a vast battle between light and darkness which doesn’t only involve humans. We have to keep an eye on what’s really happening in this world rather than falling for stories invented either by people lost in the mysteries of their own navels or those who are the rulers of this present evil world-system. For some time, those rulers have been pulling off deceptions which have fooled most of the people all of the time. Their gullibility is gargantuan. They easily fall for preposterous lies from the media and their governments (and are even proud to do so); yet when good and wise people with no axe to grind show them the truth of what is really happening they yell “Conspiracy theorist!” How convenient. When the mass of the human race give more credence to lies than truth, call darkness light, think that evil is good, you know that the end of this civilisation can not be far away. But it won’t be in the next 48 hours! That I can guarantee 🙂
Poor Performance
That was a very poor performance yesterday from the President of the United States of America. Fake tears and all. No Oscars there (though his speech-writer deserves one for pulling every drop of political advantage out of the situation!). The hypocrisy was even worse. The day I see someone in high office in the US stand up in tears (real ones) and apologise for all the children across the world who have been killed by the Amerikan War Machine (and promise “never again”) I will know that something is happening to human consciousness. In Iraq alone, between 30% and 40% of all those killed by US forces have been children. That is a huge number. Many tens of thousands at least. It is characteristically narcissistic (and jingoistic) for people in the USA to ignore that and shed tears (and seek the world’s sympathy) only when those of their own group are destroyed. Selective sorrow is unacceptable when it concerns the deliberate killing of children. Example is the most powerful form of education. When governments run around the world killing loads of people (including civilian women and children), unstable types quickly get the message that mass murder is somehow acceptable. That’s the lesson. Tragic though it was, the few kids killed at the school in Connecticut this week were a mere microcosm of the global massacres and mass murders that their parents and grandparents have been tacitly or explicitly supporting across the world for decades. I’m sorry to have to say this but there needs to be some perspective in the face of the neglectful emotionalism being paraded across the media at the moment.
Until we leave behind…
Until we leave behind completely all national, cultural and religious conditioning, there will not be any real spiritual, ethical, moral or anthropological progress on this planet. That means no longer thinking of ourselves as British, Serbian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Amerikan, Australian, Ghanaian, French, Swedish, Canadian, Argentinian, Chinese, Russian, Mexican, German, Italian or any other such crazy thing. We only need to envision ourselves as living beings with a destiny and to do all that we can to search out and live that destiny. There is no flag (rhymes with rag) or religion (rhymes with division) worth fighting for or believing in. To discover what we are made of and who we are meant to be as men and women is both our starting point and our lifelong calling. From there we hold out a hand to others, test all things to see if they are true and trusty (for discernment is a vital part of the art of being) and then live fearlessly with all heart and goodness (call it love if you like). After that, a whole lot of stuff falls into place and makes its own arc in the sky. If only…
Problematic Roles of Men and Women
One hears so much about the problematic roles of men and women these days amidst many scorching flames. To me, the answer is simple. One only has to look deeply into the essence of oneself with honesty, avoiding the rigid, coercive denials of reality inherent in 21st century political correctness. A woman’s role with regard to her relationship to a man is to lead him to himself — to his true heart. She more easily swims in the deep and can take him by the hand into the sweet tide of emotion where, with her, he can become all that he is meant to be in the midst of love and safety. This is what he needs and through this he finds a missing piece of his fulfilment. Only a true woman in touch with herself and her gracious, benevolent power can do that. False representations of womanhood, such as bimbos and gold-diggers, with their pocket-emptying (mind-emptying) promises of loveless sex and pseudo-femininity (ladettes included here), will never be able to do that for a man — though they can certainly seduce him into imagining they can. Feminists can never do that for a man either — though they can certainly intimidate a man into submission so he imagines she can. Only a woman who is free from unwomanly resentments and shoulder-chips, who rejoices in human femin-inity rather than textbook femin-ism, who can embrace the depth of her womanhood and who respects the creative power of real manhood can step into that role. However, alongside of that, the man’s role with regard to his relationship with the woman is to help her to feel safe and secure in the midst of all the tumultuous depth that she is — essentially, his role is to be a rock for her to whom to cling (figuratively-speaking). This is what she needs and through this she finds a missing piece of her own fulfilment, no matter how much she may have been persuaded otherwise by the shrill voices of fashion and cultural shibboleths. Until women and men accept these things as living realities in a mutual symbiosis of beauty and completion, there will continue to be an unprofitable socially-engineered “battle of the sexes” in this fragmented world. With love and light to all… ❤
Why do people feel obliged to smile every time a camera points at them?
Why do people feel obliged to smile every time a camera points at them? What’s that all about? If you point a camera at a little kid to take a picture they never put on a smile but just have the face they naturally have in that moment. That is, until all the adults who want to idolise their kids on film keep pestering them to “say cheeeeze”. Then they start to obey, like little clones. Probably around 95+% of all smiles in the world are fake (most of them without even realising it). That is truly scary! One expects such ersatz from the advertising industry, government propaganda or ‘new consciousness’ cults, so they can sell you their lies or their product. But from my fellow human beings I expect better, higher things. I’m so glad that no one told Dmitri Shostakovich to smile on camera either when he was a young man http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Pi…/Shostakovich-Dmitri-104.jpg or when he was an old one http://kennethwoods.net/…/uplo…/2012/03/old-shostakovich.jpg . Now there’s a guy I can trust to tell me the truth rather than being a salesman for himself or anything else. Was Gustav Mahler laughing his socks of when he posed for the camera in 1904? http://www.thefamouspeople.com/pro…/images/gustav-mahler.jpg or Johan Sebastian Bach in 1730? http://www.baroquemusic.org/bachat35.jpg . No way! Anyone (especially an artist) who wants to be taken seriously, as if he or she is the real deal rather than a con artist, avoids a fake smile for the camera. The Mona Lisa knew a thing or two about avoiding fakery. I’m so glad she didn’t fall for the cheesecake lure. It’s almost like it’s become a crime not to smile (or grimace like an idiot) on camera these days. “Oh, go on, you spoilsport; smile!” But why? What for? To convince the photographer and all those who see the photograph that all is well with the world? That would be a lie. Why should my face wear a lie? One can read so much more into a natural, unsmiling face (by which I do not propose a miserable one – just natural). Perhaps that’s the key. We all wear masks and no one is themselves anymore. More scary stuff. Ever noticed that a skull, when stripped of its flesh, is just one big grinning fool. Death face. Figures…
The Naked Troubadour 