I'm always planning my escape
It's the most aggressive symptom
Of this collective phantom pain
And the more that you ignore it
The more it makes you go insane
Just look around
It's the battle of the passwords
It's the trumpets on the hill
It's that constant paranoia
It's the final fire drill
And if you won't sing the anthem
They'll go find someone else who will
They're Cracking down
We're living in the future, so shine a little light
It may not make it any better, I'm just hopin' that it might
I'm not talkin' bout forever, how about just getting through the night
We're livin' in the future, so shine a little light
I'm always lookin' over shoulders
Not knowing what I'm looking for
Now that the feeling someone's watchin'
Isn't just a feeling anymore
Now that both sides of the aisle
Are this good at keepin' score
We've crossed a line
There's a madness to the method
There's a market for the fear
It's that dance out on the razor's edge
The wolf held by the ears
It's the man behind the curtain
It's the weight of awful tears
Since the dawn of time
We're living in the future, so shine a little light
It may not make it any better, I'm just hopin' that it might
I'm not talkin' bout forever, how about just getting through the night
We're livin' in the future, so shine a little light
We're living in the future, so shine a little light
It may not make it any better, I'm just hopin' that it might
I'm not talkin' bout forever, how about just getting through the night
We're livin' in the future, so shine a little light
31 comments:
Dont even THINK of living in the future. There's no there there.
Living in the past is the ONLY way to get through life without going raving mad.
Do whatcha gotta do of course, but for the REST of the time just keep it strictly between your ears.
Go to museums.
Visit historic houses and gardens.
Watch OLD movies
Read good OLD books.
Keep a DIARY
Write poetry.
Write letters, even if you just send them to yourself
Grow houseplants.
Enjoy gardening and home improvement.
Be pleasant to everyone, but don't try to get too close.
Be kind to th animals.
PRAY frequently.
Enjoy the manifold blessings of SILENCE whenever you can.
__________ Time to Maintain __________
The time to wrap and hold it has arrived.
It looks as though expansion’s at an end.
Maintaining what we have is now contrived
Earnestly our assets to defend.
Taking stock we should feel gratified.
Our catalogue of battles lost and won
Mostly leaves us feeling satisfied.
At least we did our best, and had some fun.
I think ‘tis better that than Grand Achievement ––
Noble efforts –– Nobel Prizes gained ––
Taken in perpetual bereavement ––
A life by constant criticism stained.
If living just to live our time employs,
Now’s the time to savor ourpast joys.
~ FreeThinke
_____ Breakfast at the Old Auto Dealership _____
Rapture at radiance shining through plate glass ––
Earlier an automobile showroom ––
Gives power to dispel the thoughts of Doom
Overwhelming that so rarely pass.
Realizing petty things consume
Needlessly our very precious time ––
Edging timidly from the sublime ––
Hurtling inevitably towards the Tomb.
The inventive use of common space, like rhyme,
Enlivens as the sun glows in the hedges
Framing the old showroom with green ledges.
Elegant umbrellas red and lime ––
Romantic looking –– ensconced on the pavement ––
Transcend the nagging feelings of bereavement.
~ FreeThinke
_________ Contained Gardens _________
I have a special love for container gardens.
____ Something about clustering pots
of varying sizes to best advantage ––
____ and portability –– adds great appeal.
I also love raffishly untidy herbaceous borders.
____ Formal parterres fascinate,
________ but frankly make me nervous,
Yet long-established espaliered fruit trees
____ on ancient stone, brick or stuccoed walls
________ make a notable exception.
Courtyard gardens
____ in old European monasteries
________ and collegiate quadrangles
____________ at Oxford and Cambridge
Have about them an unmistakable aura
____ of eternal renewal, and of
________ Eternity, itself.
Growing things beautifully
____ indicates –– to me ––
________ a love and a reverence
____________ for Life.
___ COULD IT BE ___
Could it be
We need our fantasies
And fond illusions
More than we need
Mundane reality?
Did ancient astronauts
Visit Earth aeons ago,
Plant Colonies –– perform
Wondrous Feats of Engineering
Still unexplained?
The eternal Mystery of
The Pyramids –– The Sphinx
Stonehenge –– Gigantic Chalk Figures,
Discernible only from great heights -
Easter Island –– Machu Pichu?
The Origin of Man ––
The miracles of Music ––
Painting –– Sculpture ––
Poetry and Thought.
The Star of Bethlehem ––
The Virgin Birth – The Magi ––
Betrayal, Death and Resurrection?
Patterns of Migration?
Courtship Rituals?
Attachment –– Dependency ––
Illness –– Abandonment ––
Grief –– Tedium ––
Decline –– Decay ––
The eternal Search
For Acceptance –– Appreciation ––
Affection –– Understanding ––
ESCAPE!
~ FreeThine
__________ Dooryard Gardens __________
Happy times when done within your means.
Overspending can, of course, bring grief.
Mendacious workmen too, who play the thief,
Erode faith when they act like feckless teens.
Raging at injustice makes them laugh.
Expect integrity and you will weep.
Not many have a conscience that would keep
Outrageous overreaching down by half.
Value in the process is still great.
A transformation from a dreary hovel
To a jewel-like place where soon we’ll shovel
Inspiring garden beds due to await
Our joy in planting shrubbery and flowers
Nestled in the dooryard’s leafy bowers..
~ FreeThinke
Ahhh. The Jonah Complex... Inside the Whale... ;)
;p
I beg your pardon your Pronounced penchant for making cryptic references and oblique commentary can be as aggravating as it sometimes is stimulating.
}:^)>
"Dont even THINK of living in the future. There's no there there.
Living in the past is the ONLY way to get through life without going raving mad."
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!
That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Conqueror Worm" (1843)
You are confronted with the chaos of the world. You retreat into the "order" of the past. Do you risk a move from Caligari to Hitler... to stave off the chaos of Clown World... for that "Safe Space" inside the whale is not safe.
But can you put your faith in Reason? Can you place it in Culture?
"Culture is, before all things, the unity of artistic style, in every expression of the life of a people." - Nietzsche
Global Capitalism is the destroyer of culture, as it "appropriates" culture, creating "cultural capitalism" on a now global scale... replacing regional and ethnic cultures with values that lead to the expansion of global capitalism.... open borders... untaxed capitalists... disintegrating nation states...
The more America becomes like the Weimar Germany of the 30's, and not colonial America of the early 1800's, the closer we move to appealing to "Authority"... the STRICTER the better. Authoritarian capital... State capital... as laissez faire appears too "chaotic" an alternative.
If one could only "regulate" the chaos so as to organize a "direction".... "seed" the winds... Perhaps an "eye" would appear within the hurricane... a vortex into which one could crawl;;. ;)
:P
I think I finally *get* you FJ.
I like your current groove.
Although ultimately we may disagree, as I don't believe we have nearly enough misery in the world. Way too many people have time to complain. ;)
What steps can we take to increase and accelerate misery around the world? Can we not make America better by making the rest of the world a hell of a lot worse?
Thanks beamish!
Take Iran for example. What if instead of toppling Mossaddegh in 1953, we had dropped an atomic bomb on Tehran instead? Would history have unfolded any worse or better?
The emphasis has always been on increasing economic efficiencies. Many believed these efficiencies could only be realized "systemically". Increase aggregate efficiencies. This is the "authoritarian temptation".
I'm for laissez faire capitalism on smaller scales. Bourgeois capitalism. Automation represents, IMO, as "excess of capital". People need jobs, not robots.
What about robot repairmen like me...
::sniffle::
Sorry, I'm taking the "aggregate efficiency" back down to 3%. Get out your horse and buggy. You're robot repairman will have to learn to shoe a horse.
The great thing about Chinese style authoritarian capitalism is that it allows the governors to privatize gains, and socialize losses.
Bail out Wall Street, by taxing Main Street.
I attack and eliminate the aggregate efficiencies that allow banks to sell their mortgages to aggregators (FANNIE/FREDDIE/Goldmann Sachs), who risk-tranche the mortgages and re-sell the new paper.
I eliminate over-capitalization by penalizing the corporate form. Capital gains 90%... Income taxes 5%.
I tax Wall Street and bail out Main Street. I break up Wall Mart and subsidize Mom & Pop Hardware stores. I charge Amazon double per pound over all other customers to deliver their packages.
I use government to overturn "economies of scale". Small is beautiful. I'm a RADICAL PROGRESSIVE!
Reopen Lysander Spooner's post office...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company
Exactly. Most monopolies are "legislated" ones. Take away government enforcement of intellectual property rights, and Microsoft/Google etc. go out of business tomorrow.
Maybe that's what gives politicians the idea that they "create jobs.'
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