Italy, Media

Naturally, I only view the Western media as, in broader matters, useful for roughly pointing towards the exact opposite of reality, and so I avoid it like the plague. It’s a bit similar to how I completely avoid for instance drinking stale urine - I wouldn’t view its consumption as adding to my life - which isn’t to suggest by the way that I drink fresh urine. Anyway it seems the mainstream media, that corrupt, propagandist mouthpiece of shite, has now someone new to hate almost as much as they do Donald Trump - which is in itself a massive endorsement. So anyway I thought this below was powerful stuff:

And after her saying we will not be simply consumer slaves, remember by contrast the motto of The Great Reset, “”You will own nothing and be happy,” and the utterance by one of their principal ideologues that since we have no souls, there should be no qualms in treating us as “hackable animals” whose very minds should be accessible to and controllable by the all-powerful dictatorship. This vision of absolute control is where transhumanism comes in, if unsure or unaware of the term. The financial speculators she mentions presumably refers to the likes of George Soros who provides so much financial muscle to so much of these agendas in the EU and well beyond.

bird man

With this for me new medium I don’t think I was taking this too seriously in the messing about that produced it last night, but seeing it now I’m a bit surprised that I kind of like it. More usual is the taking seriously of something and not liking it at all the next day!

More Ink

 

Water, City

 

Heart

“Would you prefer to be at the heart of things or at the periphery of them”

“It depends on what they are.”

Beyond Parody

 

Way beyond. In fairness though, “Which focused,” is one of the greatest sentences ever uttered by anyone, in or out of the public arena.

Jan Mankes

 

Forest Road Near Oranjewoud (1912).

Docks

 I’ve just gone back to doing a bit of art, and started trying out using inks for the first time - which is great for how quick and loose you can work with that medium, whatever about the quality and of the results. The above - not much more than, I dunno, maybe 10 or 15 minutes’ work to the above point, and not that I’m making any great claims for it - gives me a bit of a shipping vibe. Though to add, how long it took to make something doesn’t actually make it any better or worse than if it took a different length of time!

“What do you think of this - it only took me ten minutes.”

“It’s crap.”

“Yeah but it only took me ten minutes!”

“Oh right yeah, I suppose it’s amazing when you think of it like that.”

Self-Righteousness Again, Tantrums

Why are what we call liberals so incapable of dealing with adversity or contradictions to their will? There’s loads of videos I could pick as undignified examples of this, but I’ll just make do with the assertion of this as truth. Because - and this is very much related to the last post on self-righteousness ( https://wwwinabstentia-andrewk.blogspot.com/2022/09/self-righteousness.html ) - the ideology as a whole it is an ideology of the exaltation of the self’s personal desires; rather than the humbling of self in the search of deep truth, the exaltation of self, its desires, its search for pleasures. 

Think of a toddler or young child throwing a tantrum. Why this awful performance? It’s a response to the failure of his will to be the dominant mover of reality - and it seems to me it generally is much more likely to be a boy than a girl, probably as the exertion of the will is much more the archetypal masculine energy than the feminine. So the child’s parents haven’t succumbed to his holy will, and took him home from the playground, didn’t buy a bar of chocolate, whatever, and thus the awful screaming. . . His self should be exalted as the highest value in life, and the tantrum is the enraged reaction to reality not bending to his will, which he feels is and of course unquestionably should be the highest value in life. He also hopes that through the awfulness of the tantrum, making life hell for those around him, he may yet gain victory and be given in to. The sulk, and this kind of behaviour obviously can go on right through life, is another potential step in this process. “I’ll make life miserable for . . . (whoever is denying my will), and perhaps eventually I willwear them down and triumph.” And the willingness to keep this behaviour can go on a hell of a long time!

So with liberalism, especially as it gets ever more pathetic and toxic, there most certainly is no God or ascetic ideal to succumb or attain towards; instead this ideology’s legions are subconsciously fed the relentless idea that the self and its pleasures is the highest value, and obviously enough given the very people and traits all this is appealing to is to is narcissistic, self-absorption, well then here we meet again essentially the response again of the toddler to his will not being placated to as the centre of the universe.

A follow-on question is if the selfhood and its will is the highest value, why the seemingly intrinsic phenomenon that people of this ideological spectrum are typically so servile when it comes to the powers that be imposing restrictions on the individual’s will and rights: perfectly willing compliance to lockdowns, masks, forced “vaccinations”, etc. I might have a look at that another time, but just to mention Aldous Huxley seems to have covered this very thing in Brave New World, where in that projected future society, the desires of the self are wholly related to the physical and especially sensual self, whereas the desire for spiritual or inner independence from society is usually and ideally non-existent.

Self-righteousness

It’s generally accepted as a criticism or unpleasant phenomenon for someone to be very self-righteous, but actually here I’m going to try to get at this at a deeper level. Jesus obviously stresses again and again that the self must be humbled, that by definition if by contrast we are “self-righteous” about the state of ourselves, then we are at enmity with the spirit. So through humility and self-discipline is aided the loosening of the binds to the perpetual psychic swarm of ourselves, this self or inner shape which exists as a consequence to and in tandem with our behaviours, physical and mental.

 Self-righteousness though is the exalting of this individual selfhood, we have no need to humble ourselves, rather ourselves in this mode of desires, passions, pride, self-love, etc is good; thus self-righteousness. There is no need for any humbling, this self is righteous, and the more of it the better.

Messenger of Autumn

 Paul Klee, 1922.

Poisoning

“Do you know what’s important if someone say has poured poison into their victim’s glass?”

“What?”

“That the victim doesn’t notice there’s anything wrong with what they’re drinking. And even if it tastes a little bit off, it’s only enough that they can explain it away and not mind too much, maybe it’s even nicer! - and so it would be too much bother, maybe too rude, to ask for a different glass.”

“And I suppose over time, if there’s only very small doses of whatever poisonous crap is in the glass, if they’re not trying to do it all in one go, the amounts can be built up as the person becomes used to the taste and thinks it’s normal.”

Spirituality Doesn’t Mean It Must Be Good Spirituality!

 I thought this snippet contains a good response from Fr Peter Heers, an Orthodox priest, to a very awkward question to have to deal with. And also of course as the answer deals with, if one is wide open to phenomena on the simple basis that they are spiritual or supernatural, well then you’re wide open to whatever may be approaching. In the human domain, it would be bizarre to be wide open and defenceless to anyone’s approach, so this applies all the more when in deeper waters.

Who Needs

Toxic Blandness aired a new song last night on MTV Live, Dangerous and Vaccinated, titled Who Needs Women When You Can Have Pregnant Men (Nine Months to Freedom). A quick sample of the lyrics below, presumably written by lead singer, Charles Manly:

Just passed my first pregnancy test 

The first one’s the best

We’ve been enslaved too long

But now those days are gone 

Nine months to freedom . . .

I’m afraid that’s as much as I was able to decipher at first listen.

Dostoevsky, The Adolescent

“Egoism has replaced the former binding idea, and everything has broken down into the freedom of persons. Set free, left without a binding thought, they have finally lost all higher connection to such a degree that they have even stopped defending the freedom they obtained.”

. . . “Develop?” he said. “No, better not develop, and what’s more it’s my passion - to speak without developing. That’s really so. And here’s another strange thing: if it happens that I being to develop a thought I believe in, the result is almost always by the end of the explanation I myself have ceased to believe in what I’ve explained. I’m afraid I’ll fall into that now, too.”

Spoken by the character Versilov in Dostoevsky’s The Adolescent.

Coincidentally

“Ok class, can someone show me the meaning of the word “coincidentally” by appropriately using it in an everyday sentence? Harry?”

“Coincidentally, at the exact same time Covid went rampant, the flu figures seemed to more or less disappear.”

“Yes Harry, that’s an excellent and strikingly illustrative example. The flu, which has been around in human terms pretty much forever, did coincidentally disappear right when Covid appeared. What a coincidence that was. Hello Covid, goodbye flu. Wearing masks and lockdowns, though not effective in making Covid disappear, did wipe out the flu just like that - and maybe even before they came into use. How fragile an illness, which had been around forever, turned out to be.

And so anyway for our next word, which is “gullible”. Can anyone put that in a sentence for me, please? Extra points if you can combine it with “servile”. Sorry Harry, no. I’d like someone else this time.”

Xtal

 

By Aphex Twin.

Pleasure, Pain, More on the Bourgeois Soul

Some thoughts below a bit thrown together.

The self apart from spirit ends in complete failure, i.e. it dies physically. The nonsense of a pleasure based sense of self where sensually one’s pleasures is greater than one’s pain or suffering. However much pleasure one affords oneself, in the sense of a contest between pleasure and pain, with death pain “triumphs” absolutely on this plane. “Yes but until death, whilst alive, one’s pleasure outweighed one’s suffering.” Ok, but it still ends in total defeat of the sensual self.

 So the self defining itself on this plane is underneath everything very insecure, because however much pleasure it tries to afford itself, the ultimate defeat of the physical, sensual self is certain. If only something like a vaccine could keep death at bay . . .

The bourgeois essence as a lived ethos is that on the material plane, one is part of a successful group of society where pleasure outweighs suffering. As far as one is or becomes a pure member of this class, one does not think independently but from this communal spirit or bourgeois soul, and the core here is self-perpetuation and self-exaltation. It’s not enough to simply be winning sensually, living in luxury, etc, however much we try to reduce things, we also need to believe in one’s virtue also. So it’s a combination of pleasure and a sense of virtuousness and self-righteousness, and all the veneers of elegance help lend credence to this virtuous nature. The short story, After the Ball by Tolstoy is very much about this phenomenon of veneer versus essence. 

One of the key traits of bourgeois-ism is the exaltation of sensual pleasures as if they were even intellectual truths or spiritual essences. One is exalted by for instance by the refinement of one’s tastes regarding coffee. So this is the underlying essence of pleasure on the sensual plane being played out, and where the sensual pleasures are supposedly imbued with some sense of higher values also! The refinement of one’s tastes mark one out as truly of the victorious bourgeois class which is triumphing on the sensual field of existence over suffering! 

So remember this is where it all goes back to: life on the plane of pleasure versus suffering, and one’s partaking of a class that is here winning. It’s not enough to experience sensual pleasure; one also has to believe in the exaltation of this essence and class as a whole. Doubts after all bring suffering back into the equation. So of course one has to be fully imbued with a sense of virtue also, and thus the importance of the convincing and elegant veneers. The veneers also serve to conceal the sensual essence, as for example, watching pornography is also within this world of sensual pleasure, but it’s very hard to convince oneself this is also somehow virtuous! Thus the need for polished veneer and refinement so we can get beyond any thoughts of crudeness regarding this all!

To add, there of course may be nothing wrong with something like good coffee, but it’s the “spiritual” exaltation of sensual pleasure and one’s ability to experience such refinements that it is the kind of bourgeois essence I’m talking about here.

 The communal spirit is the self-perpetuating of the class, and of course one’s membership of it. Thus if it appears deeply conservative, this isn’t actually in terms of values but simply of self-preservation of oneself and one’s successful position within the structure of society. Thus it is deeply amoral in essence, and so the bourgeois class is only accidentally moral - depending on the ruling ethos of society. If for instance that society, in terms of its ideological engine-room starts becoming infected and deranged - “birthing persons”, etc - then the bourgeois soul will effortlessly adapt to be in sync with this, and will convince itself that, just as with sensual pleasures and their refinement, their ability to believe the new values is a mark again of its own refinement. In terms of susceptibility to spiritual temptation in the negative sense therefore, it is wide open to willingly receive concealed but pretty bloody obvious inner darknesses.

One other thought is that presumably one of the principal facets of fasting as a spiritual discipline is the deliberate undercutting of our inclination and even enslavement to sensual pleasure.

Musical Newness

A big dollop of newness on the musical front, as relatively new band Toxic Blandness have a new song out called Pedos With Dementia (Make the Best Presidents). It seemingly takes sonic inspiration from the early years of nu-metal, whilst a further air of wistful nostalgia is subtly imparted through the drums being recorded with an intentionally big 80s sound. 

The song has captured the zeitgeist to such a degree that already a new group has been formed from the ashes of several other industry outfits, calling themselves, in obvious homage, Pedos With Dementia. And their own first song has just been recorded, titled I Love Your Young Son, but I’d Love Him Even More if He Was Your Daughter (You Know What to Do). “It is quite a long title, yes, “ said a band member, “but we like to feel like we’re breaking new ground.”

Desires Thwarted

“You say we’re material creatures, materialism is the beginning and end of things?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“If we desire something and don’t get it, what ensues?”

“Descending on the intensity of the desire, pain, from mild to utterly awful, especially perhaps if the something is someone.”

“Why?”

“Because of our intimate connection with the material plane.”

“But why say the brutal pain, even in some cases, to the point of absolutely unbearable?”

“Like I said - material desires by a material being,”

“So what was the material change here with the failure to attain one’s desires? There was no material change! The person is in the exact same material situation they were with the lack of material attainment. If materialism is the be-all, you’d think material conditions remaining the exact same wouldn’t be enough to send someone into such a pit of even suicidal despair. No, there’s life in the self way beyond materialism.”

Extremist

“So you have to fill me in a bit here, you know I’ve been in that monastery for 25 years.”

“And no information about the outside world, no news, no nothing?”

“No. So anyway it’s this extremist guy Trump is the mad threat to the world that we need to do everything to smash down?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“And he’s pushing mad stuff like pregnant men, brainwashing children into getting castrated and all this kind of madness. He sounds like a right sicko. What the hell has happened since I’ve been away?!”

“No, no, you’ve picked it up a bit wrong there. Trump is the main focal point of opposition to the pregnant men and castrating your children and all that stuff.”

“You’ve lost me. I thought you said he was the crazy extremist. I’m all mixed up. You’ll have to go over everything again, but go real slow this time.”

Liberalism = “The Empty, Bourgeois Soul” Expanded

 A little portrayal of exactly the point in the Summing Up post, where is written:

“How would you describe liberal wokeism?”

“I think in essence it can be summed up as a bourgeois cult. In human terms, that’s as deep as it goes. The smug, empty, bourgeois soul is attempting to elevate itself to godhood.”

“But you’re not saying what you mean by bourgeois here necessarily equates to middle-class?”

“Not at all.”

There are two Project Veritas videos out now of US educators boasting of propagandising children whilst in their care, “teaching them how to think in a progressive way.” Progressive way of course includes wonderful concepts like pregnant men and “birthing persons” rather than mothers. And then then if successful, the children can become just like these educators! These aren’t impoverished revolutionaries dying at the barricades. These are comfortably off bourgeoisie - the difference between simply middle-class and bourgeois is this smug, self-esteem, and with emptiness of soul underneath its seemingly elegant covering. The assistant principal who almost certainly obediently favours concepts handed down like Defund the Police, in a follow-up video quickly calls the police to deal with the very inconvenient journalist James O Keefe and the full airing of thoughts and agendas he’d much rather keep hidden, regarding children in his care.

Cool Drink of Water Blues

 Tommy Johnson from around 1928. Deep, dark, primitive, mysterious.

I asked for water, and she gave me gasoline
I asked for water, gave me gasoline
I asked for water and she gave me gasoline
Lord, Lordy, Lord

Crying, Lord, I wonder will I ever get back home
Crying, Lord, I wonder will I ever get back home
Lord, Lordy, Lord

I went to the depot, looked up on the board
I looked all over
"How long has this east bound train been gone?”
“It’s done taken your Faror, blowed its smoke on you”

Lord, Lordy, Lord

Lord, I asked the conductor, "Could I ride these blinds?"
(Want to know, can a broke man ride the blinds?)
"Son, buy your ticket, buy your ticket
'Cause this train ain't none of mine"

"Son, buy your ticket
Train ain't none of mine"
"Son, buy your ticket
'Cause this train ain't none of mine"
Lord, Lordy, Lord

“Train ain’t none of mine”

Summed Up

“How would you describe liberal wokeism?”

“I think in essence it can be summed up as a bourgeois cult. In human terms, that’s as deep as it goes. The smug, empty, bourgeois soul is attempting to elevate itself to godhood.”

“But you’re not saying what you mean by bourgeois here necessarily equates to middle-class?”

“Not at all.”

Anger, Despair, Spiritual Warfare

For someone who is easily prone to anger, it is supposedly the messed up circumstances of the outside world they encounter which is provoking their outbursts, this is a natural matter of cause and effect, but of course they are simply primed to see and then respond to these triggers. The flawed external world serves to both apparently justify the unhappy inner state, and also to find release from it with these outbursts. If the habitually angry person didn’t have the release of their outbursts, that person could hardly live with themselves - thus that brilliant expression and image of “letting off steam”, where otherwise the machine could explode with the unreleased build up of pressure!

Similarly the grave danger with something like despair, which again apparently falls within the fieled of cause and effect. The despair justifies itself as the natural outcome of external circumstances - one’s own or the world in general - and the very intensity of the inner despair also serves to prove itself or justify itself as truth. “Such-and-such is so bad, therefore this despair is the legitimate result.” It even can masquerade as virtuous, and prey on one’s sensitivity to bring one down.

And this despair is a much more serious threat because it is denied what could be called the cathartic release of the angry state, and this self-containment can lead on eventually to even suicide - which energetically is the soul and culmination of despair. This is the awful catharsis the inner logic of despair allows itself.

With all this is seen how to be alive is to be engaged in spiritual warfare, of forces which manifest in our thoughts and emotions, which if pushed far enough to their core, end in victory or defeat of ourselves.  St Isaiah the Solitary says in The Philokalia, “Be attentive to yourself, so that nothing destructive can separate you from the love of God. Guard your heart. The first virtue is detachment. At the time of prayer, we should expel from our heart the provocation of each evil thought.” 

Without that detachment and silence, the provocation runs riot as with the two energies talked of above. This dynamic of provocation, far from crude or primitive, is such a key to our inner dynamics.

Nonsense

If I don’t write this down, I’ll forget it.