IKNOWIBEENCHANGED

Tom Waits

EDIBLE DIRT

Melvin was reading that, according to Nietzsche, 'free-will' is a bullshit guilt-trip concept invented by idiots to make themselves feel guilty all the time and hate anybody who steps on their toes. But the phrase is something more along the lines of 'impute guilt', thought Melvin, feeling guilty about how he'd paraphrased his fav. philosopher, who he idolized above all stupidities ever. In point of case in fact, he was just now making a nifty new leather binding for that indispensible classic of yore, 'Twilight of the Idols'. Ahhh the refreshing gusts of bullshit-bashing Friedrich could hencerightly follow his e'r footstep through the miserably unenlightened world gefilled mit error-stricken monkey humans, dithering pathetic 'long the yester banks of mental destitution. Take for one the retarded believers in things that don't make sense, Melvin negotiated, with a furrow of brow, gazing out with dunkel darkening concern, with exuded genius, with perservering pessemism for the UBER man. Was the subject truly sublimated into category by now or was he confusing his geniuses? Wait - the retards, he re-requisitioned his thought gone awhirl amid the mind capsizing tangible elements of the external, indeed corporeal reality. Existence reasserted its Dasein-ness in simple water eddies, like those below the pier he stood on presently, overlooking the genuine Pacific. Mistake, again - forgot to concentrate on the likelihood of lost subjectivity - reified pseudo-consciousness, how could this enlightened farce register? Why was this artifacted hangman metaphysics not shattering the consciousness of modern being?
Ever the slight compulsion to dizzy from the Zarathustrian Elysian heights! But it was slight, and Melvin carried on upon the mountain of knowing. Knowing and knowing and knowing. And he knew. And he knew some more and then even some more. But he could see that down below, here and between the strangled rivers there were ant people, retardedly remaining idiotic. And he knew it because he did.

Pepsi and Chimpanzees are your father in heaven.

--------------------------MY CENTURY (Reductio ad absurdum)------------

PEOPLE ARE CIGARETTES.

NOTHING EXISTS EXCEPT ME.

There is nothing I can do to make anyone else happy. (No one can make me happy.)

You haven't hurt me. Yet.

Love is chocolate.

SEX IS GOOD FOR YOUR COMPLEXION.

I do not have any choice. I have millions of choices. I believe in freedom but I am a determinist. I believe in the big bang. The different choices of soft drinks mean I am free.

TRUST YOUR DRUGS.

CONSCRIPT, PRESCRIBE.

A TATTOO is a PRODUCT ENHANCEMENT.

Marriage is status quo and staus quo is, as you know....

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.

Everyone has real feelings on television.

COPYRIGHT YOUR PERSONALITY.

Be my COCA-COLA. I WILL BE YOUR VERIZON WIRELESS.

YOU SOUND WRONG.

EMOTION IS MYSTICISM.

IF you are not happy enough, you are unsuccessful.

IT IS YOUR DUTY AS AN EMANCIPATED AMERICAN TO HAVE A good time.

FREE WILL IS YOUR ONLY RIGHT.

CAUSALITY IS AN IDEA.

IF THERE IS CAUSE AND EFFECT THERE IS NO FREEDOM.

FREEDOM DOES NOT MEAN 'NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE'.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN SCIENCE?

Organic matter means something.

SCIENCE IS NEITHER BAD NOR GOOD IN VIRTUE OF ITS BEING SCIENCE.

"A MOLE HAS NO CONSCIOUSNESS BUT IT burrows in a SPECIFIC DIRECTION."

Love is MORE THAN YOU THINK.

YOU CANNOT MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY. YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY.

TWO OBJECTIVE INTERESTS CAN BE IN OPPOSITION.

WHAT IF I HAVE THE ONLY FOOD AND SHELTER LEFT? (CONSTRUCT A POSSIBLE SCENARIO.)

Who accepts complexity? Complication is acceptable.

COMPLEX HUMAN.

The unlikelihood of setting sail let alone finding new lands or ending up anywhere.

From Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland).

HOW WHAT?

Grey. Or gray, if you want. The breakdown of ability to make distinctions results in 'totalitarian' landscapes. We 'exist' in 24 fps, in exit right, enter left standard - the tempo of cinematic conventions have locked us into step. With what? With what though? With an ever-homogenized aesthetic. Attempts, as there are, to 'free' the 'trapped' are over-focused on notions of false consciousness. Whatever became of faith in mind? The core of that great big existential corpus - was really the affirmation of the individual as an essential identity (not the supposed necessitation into nihilism)... see Kierkegaard, see Kant on 'freedom'. (But) Hence we would free ourselves through enslavement. Via dedication to extremities, to 'new' unconventionalities. Blatant stupidity is the way this contradictory new ideology presents itself. Be unique - and choose for yourself the drink that everyone else is choosing. No work is required to undermine the absurdity of these kinds of statements. Nevertheless the contradiction is taken as non-contradictory - why? because the message 'be unique' and 'be like everyone else' are both accepted as generically positive. And contradictory language has a 'stunning' quality. Examine the tautological sentencings of contemporary politicians. What shall we do about the budget deficit? We will do something about it. What can we do about improving education? We will resolve to do something about improving education. But what? How? And there is now the persistant clamor of all-connectedness - this persistant effort to eliminate the natural borders (instead of the unnatural ones) is just more evidence that we are loosing the ability to face our individualities and suffer our uniqueness, to make connections of our own free will, out of our commonalities and differences alike, across natural divisions there are may be natural connections - the metaphysical ones, those we must make distinctions in order to be able to see. We are not all the same... "We had to learn to distinguish. To distinguish and distinguish and distinguish. It was distinguishing, and not explanation that mattered." (Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet, pg. 61) And from the previous page: "Whereas others sought the extraordinary in the world. Or wished to be what was gaped at. They themselves wanted to be the birds of rare plumage, the queerly deformed fishes, the ridiculous breeds of men." Max Weber - "Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart, this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved."

Thanksgiving Day

Predictions

In the future:

1. A person will digitally sign 5,000 pages of contract every morning at breakfast.

2. Breaths will be taxed and insured.

3. Sex will be a competitive sport.

4. Sexual activity and hours spent television watching will be tied to your credit rating.

5. Corporations will build private cities.

6. Children will be taxable assets.

7. Every inch of the planet will be watchable via camera satellites.

8. Video cameras will nestle in and try to sleep in your bed.

9. People will be assigned a group of 'diverse' friends: one gay, one bi, one black, one from somewhere in the middle east, one superstitious, one aethiest, one christian, one racist, one skinny, one ugly, one bored, one fat. There will be obligatory monthly meetings at the government re-education center or the local high school gymnasium.

10. People will have barcodes on their tongues. You will have to stick out your tongue to buy groceries, a muffin, a stapler, whatever.

11. Automatic weapons will be legal only in inner cities and impoverished areas, on the argument that it is dangerous to live there, and violence is more likely.

12. Sterilization of females born in major cities where heavy ground level ozone concentrations - sulfur oxides, etc. - make fertitility a 'risk'.

13. Eunuchism will re-emerge as a popular new mystic religion.

14. People will have pet rats on leashes.

15. India and Pakistan will join with Iran and N. Korea to form what they will call the 'Axis of Evil', and bend their collective wills towards destroying all living things. Or nuclear war will break out over the Kashmir.

16. The United States will legalize torture in cases where the probable criminal probably knows something about something atrocious that happened or may happen in the future - under these circumstances, and these only, is such extremity justified out of concern for the rest of humanity. They will push for the ratification of the same legislation at the U.N.

17. Marriage will be illegal if you have cancer or any life-threatening disease.

18. Abortion will become a matter of state legislation - it will be outlawed in all states except for New York, Massachusetts, and (a new state in the future) Southern California.

19. Public health officials will come arrive at your door one day to evaluate your house and leave a little card taped onto the front window reading 'B'. You will notice that the house across the street has a small 'A'.

20. I will move to Switzerland and live in total seclusion, except for the wife and kids, where we will eventually die of exposure to nuclear winds.