Goin' with the Flow... Swimmin' against the Tide

So, yeah... I got off of Facebook last week, but in a larger sense, I feel like I've been doing this kind of thing for my entire life... going along with the flow... trying to find my place in group action... working towards what I hope and believe will be positive... running into something that seems to be a contradiction to the general flow... attempting to point out the seeming discrepancy... having cursory agreement from others, but usually in service of saying, "Huh... well, I guess that's the exception that proves the rule." *... then noticing that, especially if the discrepancy keeps cropping up, either folks ignore it, or they get disgusted and walk away from the entire premise, and still... I find that if I'm interested but want to find out why the discrepancy popped up and continues to, and also, what the quality and indication of that discrepancy might be, I get a great wave of resistance among my fellow travelers.... usually indicating to me that we've moved from one cloying mode of dogmatic "orthodoxy" to another emerging form of what is also becoming its own form of dogmatic "orthodoxy". And then the alarms start going off in my head.

And, then I get sick in my soul, disillusioned, angry, turn into a tale eating Ouroboros, and then I either become mute or explode. Then I go to the wilderness.... not always literally, although often so.... this is the Australian Aboriginal "Walk-About", the time of Jesus in the Desert, Prince Siddhartha's time under the Bo Tree, Rip Van Winkle's nap time........

 It's been going on with me for over a half a century this cycle. Observation. Examination. Participation. Testing and Questioning. Discord. Disillusion. A loud or quiet exit, not from the premises, but from the club. From the fashion. From the fad. From the rationalization. From hypocrisy, both in others in that which I find has set in and is taking root in myself.

And, I don't regret any of these.... I do re-run them in my head, over and over and over.... I'm observing it in myself. It also goes on in the world over and over and over. Catholics become Protestants become Methodists become Wesleyans become....??? Jazz kids become Beat kids, become Hippies, become Punks, become Post-Punks, become Emo kids.... ???

It goes on and on and on... and every time someone becomes a disciple, he seeks, finds, loses, finds, loses... builds a franchise... builds a power structure..... Jesus rejects Pharisaic Judaism.... gives his life... Paul gloms onto the teachings of Jesus... builds the church... church is persecuted by Roman Empire... Roman Empire accepts the religion... becomes the religion... the religion is a fun-house mirror version of Pharisaic Judaism writ HUGE.  Some individual followers get mute or scream at the top of their lungs. Again, and again, and again... and...

I think that the point of the story is the telling of the tale. This is the Buddha's joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. It's just that when the "joyful" part is gone, the trick is getting it back... the joy... not the sorrow... the sorrow always takes care of itself.

These excerpts from Alan Parker's "Midnight Express" illustrate the universal this process perfectly. And, I recognize that sometimes I'm the Brad Davis Bad Machine in this scenario, and sometimes I'm the yammering skinny British Bad Machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW9DxqYtvmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shlBZZ-IQYY


I'm not saying that everything in existence is like this... but, I often find myself in this abstract... and then I know I need to get off the wheel for a while. So I have the energy to walk again.




*Which, by the way, is an utter pile of bullshit: There are nearly always exceptions to rules. Granted. Of course. However, those exceptions in no way EVER prove the rule. They may not invalidate the rule... that needs to be further explored... but, go into a scientific lab, perform an experiment, and when one instance doesn't go in the same direction of the rest, then tell your fellow scientists that the "Exception proves the rule." They'll laugh you right out the door. Because, in no way does the Exception Ever Prove The Rule. Period.

Respite, Repose, Reset

So, I unceremoniously left Facebook last week. I had become addicted to its most damaging aspects. I found myself incessantly checking it. Giving hours of my day to scrolling my Feed. It was the behaviour of an addict. My compositions, I discovered, were geared more and more towards trying, in some way, to sway people who I ultimately don't need in my life. Some are family members, and some are not. But, I have wasted far, far too much energy and too much time on caring what they think, or if I can or should try to influence them. The political climate of the last few years has exacerbated this, but I can't lay this exit all on that sorry state of affairs. I'm gonna own that I got addicted to tangles that weren't worth the portions of my soul that I am coming to realize that I gave to them.

Also, I find that I really, really despise what Facebook and Twitter are doing. We all have walked into a vicious social experiment that we didn't fully realize the implications of, back over a decade ago. It is not healthy to constantly converse with all the remote tangents of the history of your life. Some ghosts ought to remain ghosts. Some family only need be seen and nodded to at the annual reunion, if at all. And finally, having algorithms applied to one's self to help one more easily enter hate-filled echo chambers is an action of pure evil and self-eating abuse.

I don't know if this leave-taking will prove to be permanent, as I do a fair amount of work-related stuff there, and also have a couple of hobby sites there that I miss. There's a hiking page I like, and an old movies page, and an iceberg watching page. And, I enjoyed several years long Scrabble marathons with friends.... but there was also a fair amount of bile, and poison there, too. I injected a fair amount of it, myself. Sometimes I fancied myself in some grand ethical battle of epic proportions... and, I guess sometimes I was engaging in something like that... but, also, sometimes I was guilty of walking into the elevator and punching all the buttons to see what might light up.

Not healthy.

There's also quite a few folks there with whom I'd like to stay in touch, but I'm hoping that returning to this blog, which I haven't touched in over six years, will prove to be a more reciprocally sustaining and helpful outlet, and also will be a nice way to share stuff with friends. There's a few of you already here, and I really don't need "thousands of friends". Does anyone really actually have thousands of friends? I doubt that is actually possible. Maybe some of those folks on Facebook will join me. Who knows?

I have kept written journals for many years now, but I find that they ultimately serve a different function for me than online composition. As I read through them, I realize that they are really kind of a stream of consciousness mental spew.... there's no small amount of poison expelled in that writing, and ultimately, I'm going to burn them. They serve a purpose for me, but really, not for anyone else.

So, I'm gonna try this again. We'll see what happens. If you're out there, cool. I hope you enjoy this. That's what I wanna try to do, as well.