I'll fancy dancethropy. Stointhropy. Disdains of disdains of misanthropy. Who really matters any more? Numbers can't hold a candle but let's just live in a certainty for once and oh the absolutes that mean so much. I watched children crawl across the ceiling just to see a bug spin down the wall and lick the floor and the feat of my cat. She savored the attention as I ignored her, sipping wine from a friend's cup left here in yet another bout of Baccanalian debauchery. It was fun while it lasted, friend, you should have been here and I'm sorry you missed it in the next day's paper. It was what they call whirlwind and flash you stupid sight. Sure, I wouldn't have seen you if I could. That was the mantle dripping you know. Eyes fucked by eyes. Surely you would have caught the smell. But now we're here. Now you insist I tell the story.
If I cube Pythagoras, or take him to the fourth, the fifth, etc., we won't find the answer in a vin induced discussion. But childlike we'll nod in absurd comprehension. I sit on my deck, you across, because in fact you are the only one I trust. So what stories we bend around because we are smarter than our social existence allows. Well damn all, here's to the ultimate solitude. I've given enough and you weren't even there, or, to the extent I imagined you there, I still awoke to find a puff of smoke still simmering by the bedside, floating gently out to the trees, across the fence, splitting, one half up farther towards the clouds, the other to the ground, spreading and descending, sinking into the soil. I stood at the back door, cigarette in hand, lit but dying, not wanting to mix the smoke, wishing you'd never even made the call.
When I'm dying I'll ask you, to myself, why you even bothered to call. To write. To smile when the last thought floating across your face was permanence. You are flighty like a butterfly that can't control the wind. I'm done with up and down and back and forth. I do seek that constant. It alludes even the most simple and stable hearts. What I could offer is lost in the bricks that make up your wall.
Let's just let me walk the path now . . . absent of smoke and drink yet blind with toxins, stumbling like that Frenchman walking the lobster, buried in his Parisian grace. Montmarte or Pere Lachaise, I can't remember. But I stood at your grave, remembering Aurelia. Foolish romantic searching literature in a foreign country, giving up the pursuit just a year later, knowing that your art was getting me nowhere. Had I known sooner I would have chosen to remain ignorant, stupid, blissfully the dunce of the parking lot. I know now there was no one out there to impress.
Nerval, what insanity haunted you, or demons of Wilde, out there, Sade, whatever, A reboirs, Against Nature, I can't stop thinking of any of you. But, but, but, what story have I told in this foolishness? None, I suppose, I'm just excising flight and fucking my past. I'm absolving, erasing, purging, moving on to the end. I can't accomplish that dance until I make all senses numb or, better, until I've awoken to realize there is no past. I'll go further back tomorrow or closer to now next week so that when I die not a single memory will remain. That's a blast, a shock, to stare stupid and lifeless.
My reason is to swirl and relive what brought me to the day so I can look head down without a memory and wonder why on fucking earth I didn't have a say in this one debacle. That's the laughter, the dance, the insane of insanities. I'll make a mockery of this thrusting.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
220 and 284
Looking for numbers, relations. Take 220 and 284. They are the match of friendly numbers. They are the love, the connection, the collaboration. The divisors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 110, and the sum is 284. The divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, 142, and the sum is 220. Thus. 220 and 284 are friendly. A bond. I'll give you the 220, and, for me, I'll keep the 284. We are numbers. Connected. Math is life, breathing, that in which we search.
This is the quest. To be found or not found. A realism in search for a match. I'll give a locket, to feel alive, with a number. Perhaps 220. If the number given back is indeed 284, then there is a perfection, a truth.
I have no defection. I am not a defect. For my 284, I do not, never will, expect a 220. But in math I will know the possibilities. I will seek the friendly. Christ, it is about nothing but the quest. When I die, I will hold out truths, numbing, I was meant to be 284 without the 220.
I'll die by my own hand.
This is the quest. To be found or not found. A realism in search for a match. I'll give a locket, to feel alive, with a number. Perhaps 220. If the number given back is indeed 284, then there is a perfection, a truth.
I have no defection. I am not a defect. For my 284, I do not, never will, expect a 220. But in math I will know the possibilities. I will seek the friendly. Christ, it is about nothing but the quest. When I die, I will hold out truths, numbing, I was meant to be 284 without the 220.
I'll die by my own hand.
Friday, December 23, 2011
We Need A New Word, A New Classification: Stointhropy
A ten minute search of the word "misanthropy" reveals a million hits related to hatred. And not just hatred, but hatred with violence, with a violence. I think this is missing the point, in fact, it is bastardizing the belief. One can have a distrust, mistrust, even disdain for humanity, but does must that devolve into a hatred? If that's misanthropy, then it's too extreme for me. Yet I can hold on to the gems of misanthropy and make it my own, or should I search for more, a better classification?
Stoicism might be a close relative, depending on which definition you choose, of which school you adhere to. But stoicism as a collective approach to existence embodies a certain indifference while simultaneously insisting on brotherly acceptance. But can one internalize stoicism to the point of firing off humanity in exchange for a deeper, inner sensation of reason and resolution? If we combine misanthropy with stoicism, are we left with a person embittered by humanity while at the same time living amongst the people in order to continue doing good? Yes, and that is doable. As put previously, I in my own misanthropy can still co-exist and, by all appearance, be gently, kind, philanthropic.
I reject the hatred. I embrace the distrust. And I must rely on the stoicism to allow me to distinguish between truth and fallacy, to avoid the simulations. To avoid the hyper-real. It is reasoning that keeps me in check. It is misanthropy that reminds me how I got here.
I've not fully evolved. I've left certain plains, likely never to return, hopefully never looking back, but forward. I cannot continue looking forward without accepting that I will continue to evolve. If for the time being I can always add to whatever classifications fit the bill, then I will know I am growing.
I'll propose a new word for now, and call my day stointhropy. The definition will be borne out over time, but for now I will use such a word to describe that person who has rejected the belief in humanity while continuing to live within its grasps to maintain and promote most importantly one's inner salvation while, through reason, exist to avoid disrupting humanity's path.
Stoicism might be a close relative, depending on which definition you choose, of which school you adhere to. But stoicism as a collective approach to existence embodies a certain indifference while simultaneously insisting on brotherly acceptance. But can one internalize stoicism to the point of firing off humanity in exchange for a deeper, inner sensation of reason and resolution? If we combine misanthropy with stoicism, are we left with a person embittered by humanity while at the same time living amongst the people in order to continue doing good? Yes, and that is doable. As put previously, I in my own misanthropy can still co-exist and, by all appearance, be gently, kind, philanthropic.
I reject the hatred. I embrace the distrust. And I must rely on the stoicism to allow me to distinguish between truth and fallacy, to avoid the simulations. To avoid the hyper-real. It is reasoning that keeps me in check. It is misanthropy that reminds me how I got here.
I've not fully evolved. I've left certain plains, likely never to return, hopefully never looking back, but forward. I cannot continue looking forward without accepting that I will continue to evolve. If for the time being I can always add to whatever classifications fit the bill, then I will know I am growing.
I'll propose a new word for now, and call my day stointhropy. The definition will be borne out over time, but for now I will use such a word to describe that person who has rejected the belief in humanity while continuing to live within its grasps to maintain and promote most importantly one's inner salvation while, through reason, exist to avoid disrupting humanity's path.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Misanthropy Resolved through Math
There is an eternal truth, a constant. And if there isn't a proof, then the mathematicians will search for it. No one will let Fermat's scribbles rest. They will search. And Andrew Wile found it. The misanthrope doesn't so much search for truth, but for a proof. Humanity fails the misanthrope. Humanity is the hypothesis. It is that almost knowing, but under conditions of doubt. There is nothing, nor can there ever be, anything absolute about an hypothesis.
A misanthrope requires a proof. A theorem. A perfect absolute. The misanthrope starts with an axiom. He takes on the belief that something is right, and then endeavors to find that which will serve him into infinity. It is the quest for a theorem. However, a misanthrope must be guarded. Or rather, becomes guarded, in fact, perhaps becomes a misanthrope, because it is the quest that made him a misanthrope.
Before he was a misanthrope, he was a humanist. He relied on the hypothesis of man, that is man. And like a poor physicist thinking that he had found finally the foundations of matter in the atom, failure deals a blow by the discovery of the subatomic particles. The physicist's hypothesis has crumbled. A misanthrope does not make that mistake. An hypothesis is not enough. He needs a theorem.
Math solves the problem. Or at least one problem. Reliability. Consistency. Pythagoras sought an absolute. He would not trust the number unless it yielded an explanation. He found his theorem. He denied irrational numbers (despite the discovery in his lifetime that irrational numbers do exist). The perfect. The imperfect. A humanist trusts the numbers with blind faith and a leap. The misanthrope savors and constantly searches. Why does 1+2+3 equal 6? Note the divisors. All three numbers used to reach the sum of six divide evenly into six. The number six is perfect, it is perfection. It is what the misanthrope seeks. It is obtainable. Rare, but obtainable. Take another perfection. The number 28 and its divisors, 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14, when added, equal 28. A perfect number.
Wile would not let the unanswered proposition rest. The math community would not let it rest. So too can the misanthrope find perfection, not in humanity, but perhaps in one person: that one rare person. It is this quest that haunts the misanthrope. An hypothesis will not do. I could guess today that a perfect person must exist because I have met scores of great ones. And for each great one I meet, behind him or her there has been an even greater one. A scientist would be content in believing that, following this pattern, one day the perfect person will be found. Such a leap leaves the misanthrope in a state of unrest and panic.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
A misanthrope requires a proof. A theorem. A perfect absolute. The misanthrope starts with an axiom. He takes on the belief that something is right, and then endeavors to find that which will serve him into infinity. It is the quest for a theorem. However, a misanthrope must be guarded. Or rather, becomes guarded, in fact, perhaps becomes a misanthrope, because it is the quest that made him a misanthrope.
Before he was a misanthrope, he was a humanist. He relied on the hypothesis of man, that is man. And like a poor physicist thinking that he had found finally the foundations of matter in the atom, failure deals a blow by the discovery of the subatomic particles. The physicist's hypothesis has crumbled. A misanthrope does not make that mistake. An hypothesis is not enough. He needs a theorem.
Math solves the problem. Or at least one problem. Reliability. Consistency. Pythagoras sought an absolute. He would not trust the number unless it yielded an explanation. He found his theorem. He denied irrational numbers (despite the discovery in his lifetime that irrational numbers do exist). The perfect. The imperfect. A humanist trusts the numbers with blind faith and a leap. The misanthrope savors and constantly searches. Why does 1+2+3 equal 6? Note the divisors. All three numbers used to reach the sum of six divide evenly into six. The number six is perfect, it is perfection. It is what the misanthrope seeks. It is obtainable. Rare, but obtainable. Take another perfection. The number 28 and its divisors, 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14, when added, equal 28. A perfect number.
Wile would not let the unanswered proposition rest. The math community would not let it rest. So too can the misanthrope find perfection, not in humanity, but perhaps in one person: that one rare person. It is this quest that haunts the misanthrope. An hypothesis will not do. I could guess today that a perfect person must exist because I have met scores of great ones. And for each great one I meet, behind him or her there has been an even greater one. A scientist would be content in believing that, following this pattern, one day the perfect person will be found. Such a leap leaves the misanthrope in a state of unrest and panic.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
The Misanthropic Transformation is Complete
With a pill, a miracle cure, a switch, the misanthropic transformation has found its mark, made a friend, danced in an empty room. The cloak of humanism is removed, tossed about, slightly eviscerated, done. Whatever hopes I held for humanity have vanished. Whatever it was that I cherished slithers into the soil. It is not a hatred, but a disdain. I can trust no one and there is no one left I care to trust.
I'll take courage in sinking into the corner and banter soulfully at my reflection, tipping drinks, glasses of wine, in celebration. This is my new friend. To you will my treasure be entrusted. To you will I seek a death in living. What masks I wear I give to no one else.
Misanthropy is the ultimate in simplicity. To some it is cowardice. To some it is an unreal escape, a torture of the weak mind and heart. To me it is the inevitable conclusion of over forty years of struggle, of searching, of vain attempts to exist and co-exist. I've tasted all cures, been open to all ideas, embraced human endeavors, and all the while made personal sacrifices. At the time and until only recently I felt I was becoming one with all around. I fucked and became the fool.
Just today I taught my children the word futile. Impossibility. In the context of resistance, I told them that it was futile. I will not teach them the futility of humanity. They will have to learn that on their own. They will have to come into reconciliation on their own. If they find peace and a piece of life then I will cherish their successes. But at least now they know the meaning of futility.
I, all the while, will embrace this two dimensional existence. I will nod, say kind things, give a child candy and the homeless money. I will make promises to my friends and abide by my obligations. On the surface I will be a friend, a father, a partner. But what depth I have reserved will be only for the internal pursuits of discord. I will find my own dimension in order to exist. My planet will be whatever my mind allows for, whatever my heart feels, on any given day I will live in a distant universe. I will curse them all, I'm sure, but I will be living in my own constant.
I have become static in my own abyss. Frozen in time. My emotional pursuits have plateaued. I've found my niche. As no one knows me now know one will know me tomorrow or the week after. I am passive without remorse. I'll follow nothing but the mirror.
As blame is questioned, I will take some responsibility for the misanthropic transformation and subsequent demise. I was on a path so long ago. That I'll admit. But when reaching out, accepting words and actions, I became vulnerable. I took a leap with some, with many, only to find the mirror. So, as I take blame for what curses I brought upon myself, I also look out, at the hand I held out for others, and at the others, I look out, and have realized that what trusts were promised, accepted, were empty words and awkward looks.
That is individual life. We all have demons. We all must do everything to take care of the self. We are not children. No one truly puts themselves out there. They hold on to their own. They hold on to what makes them safe. It is their life and it is the only one they will ever have. I do not blame them. That is part of the realization. That is part of the misanthropy. That is the antithesis of humanism. It is not about the greater good. It's about the individual. No more. We do what we need to do to survive.
To survive. Some are content with distance, with hyperreality. Some can live at such distance. Some actually find depth in a perverse bastardization of existence. That alone defies and decimates humanism. Yet they call themselves humanists. Or spiritual. Or progressive. Or, worse, all at the same time. Yet they live in social networks, texting environments, inter-web falsehoods. They are consumed not by what is real but what they have been told is real. They are nothing but symbols, simulations. People unable to live in the blood world. An emoticon is not a facial expression. It is two pecks on a keyboard. It is a fallacy. It is the beginning of the end.
For that I embrace misanthropy. For that my transformation is complete. I will not compete. I will not trust. Not because people are untrustworthy. In fact, I believe their are intentions are pure. But their intentions are borne from selfishness. From selfsurvival. That is not a criticism. It is a reality. And it is a reality I am prepared to accept. I will not insult others anymore. I will not put them in a cave. I will not dance shadows in front of them. I will not dare to presume any form of ignorance. I will simply nod from a distance. My dance with them will be robotic. Nothing more because that is what existence has become. I am two-dimensional now to all but the mirror. That is my misanthropic cave.
It’s just something I knew I had to do. The transformation is complete.
I'll take courage in sinking into the corner and banter soulfully at my reflection, tipping drinks, glasses of wine, in celebration. This is my new friend. To you will my treasure be entrusted. To you will I seek a death in living. What masks I wear I give to no one else.
Misanthropy is the ultimate in simplicity. To some it is cowardice. To some it is an unreal escape, a torture of the weak mind and heart. To me it is the inevitable conclusion of over forty years of struggle, of searching, of vain attempts to exist and co-exist. I've tasted all cures, been open to all ideas, embraced human endeavors, and all the while made personal sacrifices. At the time and until only recently I felt I was becoming one with all around. I fucked and became the fool.
Just today I taught my children the word futile. Impossibility. In the context of resistance, I told them that it was futile. I will not teach them the futility of humanity. They will have to learn that on their own. They will have to come into reconciliation on their own. If they find peace and a piece of life then I will cherish their successes. But at least now they know the meaning of futility.
I, all the while, will embrace this two dimensional existence. I will nod, say kind things, give a child candy and the homeless money. I will make promises to my friends and abide by my obligations. On the surface I will be a friend, a father, a partner. But what depth I have reserved will be only for the internal pursuits of discord. I will find my own dimension in order to exist. My planet will be whatever my mind allows for, whatever my heart feels, on any given day I will live in a distant universe. I will curse them all, I'm sure, but I will be living in my own constant.
I have become static in my own abyss. Frozen in time. My emotional pursuits have plateaued. I've found my niche. As no one knows me now know one will know me tomorrow or the week after. I am passive without remorse. I'll follow nothing but the mirror.
As blame is questioned, I will take some responsibility for the misanthropic transformation and subsequent demise. I was on a path so long ago. That I'll admit. But when reaching out, accepting words and actions, I became vulnerable. I took a leap with some, with many, only to find the mirror. So, as I take blame for what curses I brought upon myself, I also look out, at the hand I held out for others, and at the others, I look out, and have realized that what trusts were promised, accepted, were empty words and awkward looks.
That is individual life. We all have demons. We all must do everything to take care of the self. We are not children. No one truly puts themselves out there. They hold on to their own. They hold on to what makes them safe. It is their life and it is the only one they will ever have. I do not blame them. That is part of the realization. That is part of the misanthropy. That is the antithesis of humanism. It is not about the greater good. It's about the individual. No more. We do what we need to do to survive.
To survive. Some are content with distance, with hyperreality. Some can live at such distance. Some actually find depth in a perverse bastardization of existence. That alone defies and decimates humanism. Yet they call themselves humanists. Or spiritual. Or progressive. Or, worse, all at the same time. Yet they live in social networks, texting environments, inter-web falsehoods. They are consumed not by what is real but what they have been told is real. They are nothing but symbols, simulations. People unable to live in the blood world. An emoticon is not a facial expression. It is two pecks on a keyboard. It is a fallacy. It is the beginning of the end.
For that I embrace misanthropy. For that my transformation is complete. I will not compete. I will not trust. Not because people are untrustworthy. In fact, I believe their are intentions are pure. But their intentions are borne from selfishness. From selfsurvival. That is not a criticism. It is a reality. And it is a reality I am prepared to accept. I will not insult others anymore. I will not put them in a cave. I will not dance shadows in front of them. I will not dare to presume any form of ignorance. I will simply nod from a distance. My dance with them will be robotic. Nothing more because that is what existence has become. I am two-dimensional now to all but the mirror. That is my misanthropic cave.
It’s just something I knew I had to do. The transformation is complete.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Reconciling Humanism with Misanthropy
We can embrace our own humanism, ignoring other formal religions that require a deity. We can question what some call spiritualism, those who seem mostly to need a belief, and call them at least a friend.
But unfortunately I can't stop questioning now what humanism really is. I struggle between wanting man to perpetuate the betterment of man, and the commands of misanthropy to have disdain for humans. Can I reconcile the two? Can I be a selective humanist? Or a selective misanthrope? Do I hate some while still relying on all? Doesn't humanism require a continuous, unbroken chain? Thus, if I hate one, only one, haven't I broken that chain?
Maybe it's not disdain, but mistrust. At this point, do I stay pure to humanism while taking solace in misanthropy? TO BE CONTINUED . . .
But unfortunately I can't stop questioning now what humanism really is. I struggle between wanting man to perpetuate the betterment of man, and the commands of misanthropy to have disdain for humans. Can I reconcile the two? Can I be a selective humanist? Or a selective misanthrope? Do I hate some while still relying on all? Doesn't humanism require a continuous, unbroken chain? Thus, if I hate one, only one, haven't I broken that chain?
Maybe it's not disdain, but mistrust. At this point, do I stay pure to humanism while taking solace in misanthropy? TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Passing Father, This is Your Chair
He sits in the chair he inherited when his father passed. Each morning, each night, the occasional afternoon, he sits. As the youngest with numerous siblings, he can't help wonder why his father's wife gave him the chair. She never said his father wanted him to have it. It was her gift to him. He's often wondered what made her think she had the power to choose how to divide his father's possessions. But she did, at least with respect to the chair. The chair he's sitting in now. Black, leather, cold, complex. The opposite of his father.
He'll close his eyes as often as he breaths and think of what ways he could possibly communicate with his father now. The picture, not a gift from anyone, but one he himself took, is the only way, the only one way, he has to pretend to communicate. Next to that picture are framed photos of the children. His father's grandchildren, the youngest, a son, he never knew. The son, the youngest, never knew his grandfather.
The dark of morning, before the sun begins its ascent, blackens the room, everything the darkness envelops. He can't see around him, but he feels the leather touching every exposed part of his skin. To him it's yet another attempt at communicating. He opens his mouth, begins to speak, stops, and is capable only of a whispered gasp.
The daylight breaks through slowly. He passes on any other thought, keeps his eyes closed, stands with a wobble and curses the silence. Yet briefly he believes his father is alive again.
He'll close his eyes as often as he breaths and think of what ways he could possibly communicate with his father now. The picture, not a gift from anyone, but one he himself took, is the only way, the only one way, he has to pretend to communicate. Next to that picture are framed photos of the children. His father's grandchildren, the youngest, a son, he never knew. The son, the youngest, never knew his grandfather.
The dark of morning, before the sun begins its ascent, blackens the room, everything the darkness envelops. He can't see around him, but he feels the leather touching every exposed part of his skin. To him it's yet another attempt at communicating. He opens his mouth, begins to speak, stops, and is capable only of a whispered gasp.
The daylight breaks through slowly. He passes on any other thought, keeps his eyes closed, stands with a wobble and curses the silence. Yet briefly he believes his father is alive again.
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