Wednesday, September 15, 2004
This is the real issue, damn it
I feel I can no longer rationally comment on current events, so I have turned to poetry, where I have more freedom to irrationally comment on current events.
Plunged into a mad hopelessness, really, in which Bush is very likely to be elected (shakes his liberal kook head again at the thought that Clinton was impeached over a blow job but the stuff going on right now merits re-election), but, much more to the point, that Kerry is unlikely to make any real difference to the real and global problems that persist out there. This hopelessness strikes very deep with me--I discuss, on a very regular basis, the likelihood of whole species surviving after a certain point in their evolution with Doctorate level scientists--they remind me that the Earth is moving under my feet (Earth tides--that's a trippy thought), and that anti-matter has been captured--albeit very briefly--and not even those in a position to know actually know what happens when it is used in certain ways.
Nietzsche's hope, man. When you go to bed and sustain yourself until the following morning by reminding yourself that you actually do have the ability to opt not to live through the night.
BUT...assuming that there is a way forward at all, and that democracy (whatever that is) is actually part of that way forward, or perhaps it's something far less noble, like boredom or morbid curiosity, keeps me on the lookout for stories like this one.
The real issue.
That what we are fighting against has yet to be properly defined.
Nietzsche again: 'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.' (Okay, so that was a gimme from a long time ago in this process)
It's not apathy. It is a genuine shrug in the face of the machine bearing down upon me...the awareness that the most honed of my gifts are words...and the further awareness of the ineffectualness of those words in the long run.
Plunged into a mad hopelessness, really, in which Bush is very likely to be elected (shakes his liberal kook head again at the thought that Clinton was impeached over a blow job but the stuff going on right now merits re-election), but, much more to the point, that Kerry is unlikely to make any real difference to the real and global problems that persist out there. This hopelessness strikes very deep with me--I discuss, on a very regular basis, the likelihood of whole species surviving after a certain point in their evolution with Doctorate level scientists--they remind me that the Earth is moving under my feet (Earth tides--that's a trippy thought), and that anti-matter has been captured--albeit very briefly--and not even those in a position to know actually know what happens when it is used in certain ways.
Nietzsche's hope, man. When you go to bed and sustain yourself until the following morning by reminding yourself that you actually do have the ability to opt not to live through the night.
BUT...assuming that there is a way forward at all, and that democracy (whatever that is) is actually part of that way forward, or perhaps it's something far less noble, like boredom or morbid curiosity, keeps me on the lookout for stories like this one.
The real issue.
That what we are fighting against has yet to be properly defined.
Nietzsche again: 'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.' (Okay, so that was a gimme from a long time ago in this process)
It's not apathy. It is a genuine shrug in the face of the machine bearing down upon me...the awareness that the most honed of my gifts are words...and the further awareness of the ineffectualness of those words in the long run.
# posted by Gene Justice @ 5:50 AM 
