Cogitus Rex

At last, we have arrived. After centuries of trying to improve our lot, become more humane, democratic, better educated, after getting to a point where we started to believe in our best ideas and finest ideals, to actualize them, to become inclusive of difference, to explore the world under the umbrella of multiculturalism, we have arrived at an unexpected destination. We have arrived at "teh stoopid". This misspelling appeared on the Internet a few years back in response to some inanity posted by some looney on some forum. It was a rightwing comment that elicited this wonderful riposte. The original was something along the lines of "Teh STOOPID! It hurts!!" This covers our current situation. All our collective efforts to create a "better world" have produced the opposite effect. The current state of our world is not good. It is our sad fate to have ushered into this world almost exactly what we have been trying to delete. A sober contemplation of ou...

As the stream of police trucks and machinery arrive around the US to stop the legitimate protest and free exercise of rights by the citizens of the "world's greatest democracy", it is hard to see the end of this in anything but misery and violence, and triumph. The people have spoken and the special interests have reacted with mace, lies, beatings, deception. How do they think this will end? The beauty of this moment lies in the history of social movements that demanded justice and fairness. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.", said Ghandi. The man who helped free India, the father of that nation, the world's greatest democracy, knew of what he spoke. Obviously, such wisdom is wasted on the anti-democratic forces of the right, but rest assured The People of United States and the people of this planet know the value of Ghandi's struggles and insight. "...then you win."

Disappointment implies satisfaction, but where is it born? Not in the same heart that feels the Void. Not the emptiness that we fear, that friend called Death; that pure emptiness. Disappointment rides on the back of our attractions and commitments, scourging them with whips of prejudice and rejection. We fail as we choose and we are less as we become our choices. To not ally ourselves with the failed spectacle of daily life is to choose for ourselves in our empty hollowness. Can’t see it? Can’t open our eyes to the blindness of preference and the failure of identifying with a world that can’t deliver what we really need? This constant choosing that claims to manifest us, make us belong, is weakness writ large. The blind, at least, have the satisfaction that comes with their darkened sight. They know that they will never see. That must bring some peace, surely? Something less to have to choose for? The rest of us, striving in this other darkness, have the illusion of light and und...

Chaos is the bed of creation. It affords possibility and being. Order arises from chaos, yet the 2 nd law of thermodynamics claims the opposite. Entropy is the supreme chaos, yet affords no possibility. Human affairs; the will to power and the order imposed on beings. For all the reasons we inherently accept, we allow an order to be imposed on us as individuals. This imposition is defining. It becomes you as you acquiesce to its dictates. You become the role describing your behavior, your attitudes, your concerns and values, ultimately. The myth of individual liberty claims for each of us the choice of being who we are. The considered view of this myth against the backdrop of imposed order reveals unfreedom. Even in democratic moments, the order is evident. Debates are limited to issues, these defined by the interests vested in the process of political economy. But the consideration should address childhood, primarily. By the time one has matured into oneself defined by the conte...

"Why?" Perhaps the most important question that arises in the quest for meaning, “Why?” is the standard for action and belief. By asking it, we can arrive at the validity of our logic. Why, for example, do I choose to be a kind person, or why do I choose to be dirty...basically, why do I choose anything? Choice is a necessity, surely, but the chosen is queried or ought be. It is the mark of the examined life, it defines our position in the moral universe, so to speak. The most basic form of the question is why am I alive? Why do I exist? These questions are fundamental in the quest for meaning and identity. Despite being essentially unanswerable with any certainty, the questions put us in the position of having to justify our existence and help define the quality of our lives. When we act, when we choose to act in a given way, when we choose to be ethical it is because the question “why” informs us that our choice has inherent meaning for the kind of person one wishes to ...

It is an unfortunate development in post-modern societies that populations accept extreme psychological and behavioral control.  The question deserves to be asked, "Why do we permit subjugation of our right to decide how to live?"  There co-exists in this tolerance for control a tendency toward willful ignorance and avoidance. If we can just avoid the issues we can avoid having to choose...to choose for our selves and our lives.  I am not a libertine or a libertarian, but I feel constrained by societal limitations placed on my experience of my own freedom and right to choose. I reject political claims that a human cannot be trusted to choose and to control ones own destiny. I reject the rules imposed on me by those who profit from terror, those who restrict and profile us for the sake of avoiding their own sins. I reject those who would tell me what I can drink, watch, smoke, think, say...I reject those who expect me to be what they want me to be. I refuse this vile ...