Monday, October 31, 2005

The Eros Of Marx

Or ol' buddy Dr. Freud stated that there are really only two actual pursuits in life--love and work. Our only concerns are with a) what will you create, give birth to, produce, and b) how shall you relate to, communicate with, engage the world around you. That is all. The rest is of no consequence. Or, there is no 'the rest.'

When I invoke Karl Marx, and a discussion of the 'proletariat,' what I am really invoking is the 'spirit of work/creativity.' What my real concern is--and I sense Marx's was as well--is how can we work well. Because, after all, our working touches and affects our loving (just ask a child whose parent comes home pissed from the office or factory and you have a good idea of how true this actually is!).

What I gather Marx was interested in was addressing the 'working dimension' of humanity and how this 'working dimension' is often conditioned by certain historical circumstances that have resulted in the oppression of human creativity--all of which would necessarily become infectious with regards to our loving dimension. If we can't work well we can't love well. Work frustrations are also frustrations of loving.

One cannot separate working and loving, loving and working. A handicap in one area tends to lead to debilitation in the other. That boundary of leaving 'shit at the office' never holds. It is a porous membrane and our homes are infected/affected by what takes place while working; just as our working is infected/affected by what is taking place in the home. Kids are a prime example of how porous a membrane the supposed demarcation is between love and work. Many a child's difficulties in school have been discovered as stemming from difficulties at home. The child's working (learning) is frustrated by the child's loving.

What the child shows is of the interrelated nature of home and school (their love and work) is a fact that never changes. It is a relationship that never is altered in any way, shape, manner, or form. And it is the fool who thinks it is or can be.

So, now when we turn to Karl Marx and his discussion of labour, surplus value, modes of production, the proletariat, Kapital, the bourgeousie, and so forth, one can hopefully see how what Marx was discussing (in often very technical language) was really one of the two central concerns/pursuits of our life. It makes Marx a friend of not just our 'working/creating' but of our 'loving/relating.' Just imagine if the shackles of what humanity were often lead to feel around their working were removed--what would that mean for our loving? How might we relate better to and with one another if we eliminated some of the unnecessary frustrations of working? What if there were no wage-slaves, but everyone did what was in tune with their passion? If that were the case--and everyone were aligned with their passion in working--would that not possibly result in more com-passion in our loving and relating one with another?

I, for one, think it would. My own experience tells me as much. When I come home excited from working and feeling fulfilled in what I have either created myself that day, or helped to create in concert with a community of others, then I experience a much more harmonious expansion of that fulfillment into the home. And if that has not happened I come home looking for some 'substitue gratification'--generally in the form of some sort of pathologicallly addictive behaviour (drugs, alcohol, sex, co-dependence, shopping, couch-potatoing, hyper-media consuming) that is a hopeful, albeit shallow, attempt to redeem and heal my 'self' of those frustrations experienced while working (or, in some cases, slaving).

Now who would have thunk that Karl Marx was a friend of home and hearth? That is opus Das Kapital's underlying concern happened to be with the shackles that can, and still do in many cases, burden human creativity. As well as how those burdens on human creativity/work/labour are a detriment to the Whole of Humanity: as the inhibit not just our working, but our loving.

Wow, Karl Marx as lover!

Sunday, October 30, 2005

We Are The Proletariat

Anyone remember Y2K? And what the hell happened to those 'End of the World' prophecies that foretold of what was to transpire once the New Millennium dawned (got some freeze-dried rations to sell? anyone with a slightly used generator up on the auction block?)?

I guess many were just preparing for the worst; part of human nature. What with the recent proliferation of mass casualties at the hand of Mother Nature (and with a not too slight assist from humanity's contribution to warming the Oceans of the Earth) it may turn out to be that those rations and forecasts, those doomsday scenarios and generators, were not only apt responses to a historical turning, but increasingly necessary items in one's daily affairs.

The Y2K'ers could have the last laugh after all. Look at the situation in the majour metropolitan areas when any disruption of basic services has taken place. Evidence Katrina and Wilma. A disruption in public services shows, in stark and unrelenting light, just how dependent (mark that word, dependent) that the Metro-Polis is. The Metro-Polis has no independent existence (sorry you New Yorkers and Los Angelinos) of its own. It is a body that requires a constant and unrelenting influx of energy and resources just to be maintained, let alone to grow. One can see the kind of chaos that ensues when those flows of resources and energy are disrupted.

There is no river one can go to. And if there is it is a heavily trafficked and chemically polluted Mississippi or Hudson. There are no trees from which to pluck dead limbs and stoke a fire to warm the hearth.There is no capacity to hunt and gather some mushrooms or berries. And there sure as hell ain't no game to trap and snare, so as to cook over a warm fire (but one can always go to the Zoo and harvest a Panda or two!).

Seriously, though, one cannot help but realize the tenuous nature of Civilization in the form of the Metro-Polis when one is given a glimpse of momentary disruptions such as we have seen lately. One is given a realization as to the 'interdependent nature' of all entities--whether those entities be cities or salamanders, cultures or crawdads. Everything that exists depends upon 'others' for its continued existence. The Metro-Polis depends upon the farmer and logger and oil-rig hand. The Metro-Polis depends upon the unfair labour practices and the plantations of South America; where sugar, bananas, and coffee are grown under conditions any American would find deplorable (and don't we need immigrants George W. Bush says to do work that Americans will not do--and why, because we are too good? or because we would not tolerate working under such conditions? but hey, if we can coerce others to do so via games of economic blackmail and existential coercion then so be it, right? its our capitalist-imperialist advantage/right/prerogative).

Karl Marx was one of the first to comment, in at least any analytical form, the materialist basis of high-society. Those who may see themselves as being of another race or breed--purer, more exalted--have the proverbial rug pulled out from under them when and if the flows into the Metro-Polis are disrupted. Without the surpluses of energy and resources (and they are not really surpluses, but that is for another discussion) being made available to the Metro-Polis there is no Wall Street, no Guggenheim, no Metropolitan Opera, no Saks Fifth Avenue, no Rodeo Drive. Each of those entities subsist on the back of the 'working class'--the proletariat in Marx's terminology.

Proletariat? Yeah, proletariat... by which Marx meant those who actually produced the material means by which a society/culture were sustained upon the basis of. Those who grow the food, who mine the resources, who deliver the materials, who transport the goods are the proletariat. And when the movement of the proletariat is disrupted Civilization falters. It is always and forevermore an empowered, functioning, flowing, mobile proletariat that sustains culture; that allows for extensions of culture and society into previously unknown realms--whether good or ill.

There is no adventure into Space or the Human Genome without the proletariat. Culture and Technology flow from the ground up. It is perhaps why America succeeded where the Soviet Union failed--the American proletariat was empowered (upwardly mobile, much moe free to a larger degree) where the Soviet proletariat was essentially held captive by governmental pressures that robbed that culture of its Eros.

That ability to rise and move and express and create and give birth and be mobile in a free and uniterrupted fashion and manner is what can be seen as the 'Engine of Culture.' Eros as the force of the flow itself. And where Eros is disrupted and the erotic movement of that 'rising force' is denied then the Culture which depends upon that movement and mobility will suffer.

It is why Civilization requires an empowered proletariat. It is why Capitalism needs Marx. It is why Culture is not bland with an 'empowered working class'... but the best it can be because of that 'working class.'

Saturday, October 29, 2005

The Business Of Dying To The Isness.

Anytime one thinks of adding something to one's life it seems to be a requirement that some room be made available for that addition. It is kind of an addition by subtraction. And if Nature truly does abhor a vacuum then we cane be rest assured that any loss, opening, absence will be filled in due time.

There is also that widely recited tale of the encounter between the Zen Master and a visiting Professor; one whose cup had indeed runneth over. The Zen Master could not possibly add anything to the Professor's existence in terms of knowledge, insight, realization, or understanding. The Professor was already too full--too full of himself! There was no opening. There was no absence. There was no emptiness. The Professor had not yet sufficiently died to the known. And a 'death to the known' was what was necessary before the Zen Master would even be willing to impart anything of substance to the Professor. Aside from such a dying to the known there was no use in the Zen Master transmitting anything in the direction of the Professor.

So a prerequisite in terms of psycho-spiritual discplines such as Zen is a literal death. And much time is spent initially in breaking down the known. All of those preconceptions and assumptions and taken-for-granted assertions are eroded through hours upon hours of 'just sitting.' In the process we are not 'building,' but dismantling. A dismantling of psychological structures and conceptual systems that must be made to give way so that there is a Space for Transmission of the Dharma.

That dismantling seems to happen to seem for some in an explosive, earth-shattering way. For others it is more like the rain gently eroding a crusty hillside to reveal a treasure long buried, and just as long forgotten. In either case, there is need for emptying and eroding; there is need for a clearing to be made; there is need for Space in which Transmission can occur.

The dying to the Isness--What Is Now--opens us up for... ?

Which is where our faith and trust come in.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Transformation As An Invocation of Death

I am not sure I have given this any consideration before--at least not in the way that I am about. Nor have I heard it mentioned by anyone else in quite this same way: namely, that a call for transformation is an invoking of the forces of death.

Not life initially. Transformation is a call for reform or reorganization of the present elements and conditions of life as it is. Transformation is a desire for the Isness of Now to be other than what it, well... IS! And quite simply put, if we are desiring transformation (ITP, ILP, psychoanalysis, metanoia, enlightenment, satori, samadhi, social and cultural revolution, a New World Order, what have you) then we are in a position where we are invoking... asking for, begging, pleading, demanding... the death of what IS so that something 'Other' might come to replace what we have come to feel diminished and/or oppressed by.

So, in a nutshell, transformation is death. Real transformation comes in the guise of the ghosts and ghouls and goblins of our popular imagination; those creatures whose season is now--'All Hallow's Eve:' Halloween. Transformation is not--at least initially--all that is sweet and nice and cool and hip and fab. It may seem to be like that in the end--after our Resurrection. But it is not like that in the beginning--as the momentum of our Crucifixion builds, as the Days of Death mount, as the Four Horsemen saddle up and head our way, making a housecall that begins in our own plea transformation. That transformation we are all too shocked to discover coming in the guise of our own demise.

It is how we ask to die... when we say we want change in our lives. So don't be at all surprised when that Menace comes. You probably asked for it. You wanted it. You begged for things to be different. You begged to be slaughtered, sacrificed, dismembered. You prayed for the Angel of Death.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Trouble With Transformation

I've had this thing with 'transformation.' Change. Change for the better. Growth. Maturation. Novelty. Becoming. This deep and earnest desire for things to be different. Different for the world. Different for others. Different for my self.

Part of this may be a sense of the incompleteness of 'things as they are.' One's potential lies waiting to emerge. So a desire for change is a desire to become--as the US Army put it in an ad--'all you can be.'

The irony in this becomes apparent in realizing that a desire for transformation is a perhaps a desire to become one's self... to realize one's essence... to attain one's destiny... to fulfill one's own dharma or drama. The trouble with this 'journey of becoming' through an ever-unfolding transformational process is the unrest that tends to become a constant. Growth is like perpetual unrest. Transformation... uhm... like a dis-ease.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

A Blog Is Reborn

It became increasingly obvious to myself that I was not being 'real' enough here. The writing was simply not confessional enough--lacking authenticity. I was left feeling like I was too busy 'talking around the central issues' of my life at this point, and not busy enough dealing with what is confronting me in stark terms.

Of course, there is some fear and trepidation in being too confessional. I may reveal too much. Maybe I won't be seen by others how I wish to be seen. Maybe I will be looked down upon if people see me for who I really am. Perhaps I will be scorned and castigated if I reveal the hoary details of my life.

Or maybe I will feel shame over my own existence if I dare confess the man I have become.

That last one is probably nearer to the truth than those other concerns. In fact, I can feel it. I can feel how much I hide, have been hiding. I can feel the 'withdrawn self' wanting to hide from the light of day for fear of being revealed as the 'monster' he is/I am. I can feel not wanting to disclose the messiness within, the heart of darkness that is this man. I can feel myself not wanting to confront my own person--and how my previous attempts at writing were these earnest attempts to hide from myself.

And I can feel how that just will not do any longer. I can feel the confrontation building within--that monumental moment where I... I... I must must starkly face who I am; including the choices I have made, the choices that I didn't--meaning, the sins of commission and omission alike that in my acknowledgement of stand to break open that fragile facade of a character I had become.

A character unreal. A character I am hoping to sacrifice for something far more real and authentic.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Protecting The Innocent From The Real

'You want the truth?! You can't handle the truth!' Perhaps you remember that line from the movie A Few Good Men, in which Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson starred. It pretty much sums up how many of us come to feel relative to our need to protect those we happen to see as being innocent. Some of the harsher realities going on in this-world need to be shielded from our eyes. Governments do it to their citizens. Parents do it to their children. And Freud reminded us all that we are at least potentially capable of hiding the truth from our own conscious awareness.

Maybe you have heard of what Freud called 'repression.' It was suggested by Freud that we find a way to repress harsh truths because we are psychologically incapable of dealing with the consequences of those truths. We can't make a place for it in our current conceptions of the world we live in, so we deny its existence--i.e., it becomes buried in a psychological sense, our unconsciousness some new inhabitants.

Hiding from the truth--or just hiding the truth--to me seems to confess some belief in human frailty. It is as if we are confessing that the psyche is a fragile little child that we need to protect and shelter from 'what is' for fear that exposure to 'what is' will undermine the psyche. All of which makes me wonder if the psyche is, in someway, the locus of fantasy and illusion--of how we wish things were, of how we wish things could be, of how we would prefer to see the world as being.

Are we psychologically as fragile as our apparent need to protect oursleves from 'what is' would seem to suggest? Or might we not admire our inherent strength and psychological resilience for what it is? What if we don't give each other enough credit--as governments to citizens and as parents to children (as well as ourselves psychologically)? What if the notion that we can't handle the truth is a false one--a notion that presupposes weakness and fragility? What if we struggle with Reality because we have not yet admitted to each other, as well as to our self, what has happened, what is happening now, and what is in the works for happening tomorrow and the day after?

What if we can handle the truth but never know that we can because we don't give each other the chance? What if our children are forced to rebel from us because we are not honest with them? What if the citizenry revolts and rebels in the name of Revolution because there is a thirst for the Truth that cannot be quenched as long as Big Brother is being overly protective? What if we are made for the Truth and the Truth is made for us?

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Doubt, Paralysis, and Parental Avoidance

It is probably not a surprise to you that the generalized, Western conceptions as to the nature of doubt tend to include some sort of paralysis. Doubt stops us. Doubt freezes us. Doubt collapses our world into an intense moment of undeniable pressure--crippling pressure. We can't move. We can't do anything. We can't... uhm... even... know. We become lost.

Maybe I should say, 'adrift,' that we become adrift--as if unleashed from the firm conceptions of the world the way we thought it was. For instance, Hamlet upon hearing the news of his Father's assasination by his Uncle--an Uncle who then bedded down with Hamlet's mother--is the archetypal symbol of doubt and paralysis in literary form. And you tell me that such as what Hamlet came to know would not cause you to doubt your world: that everything that you ever thought you knew: Gone. Every assumption you had about what was taking place: Gone. Every notion about the nature of what was transpiring around you: Gone. Gone... gone... gone... totally gone... totally and absolutely gone. All a dream. All a fantasy. All an illusion.

Siddhartha, the Buddha-to-be, had a similar experience when he finally glimpsed suffering for the first time. The young Prince had been sheltered by the King, his Father, for fear that Siddhartha's inherently compassionate nature would be stirred and he would leave the palace grounds for search targeting the Truth... targeting Healing... in search of the Answers. The King's fears were warranted as we now know. Siddhartha's world too collapsed. The illusions of perfection and bliss and comfort were revealed as 'empty.' The only substance behind the 'absence of suffering' was no substance at all. It was a performance, an act, a manufatcured event meant for Siddhartha's consumption. It was a media event! A media event intended for one person--so as to give that person, the Prince, an impression of existence in this-world that was illusory, untrue, false.

The King edited Siddhartha's world for him. The King deleted all the scenes that might 'break' Siddhartha's Heart Wide Open!

What parent doesn't attempt to do that for their child--to give them the best, to shelter them from suffering, to protect them from the grotesque and the ugly and the cruel and the inhumane. And what parent doesn't ultimately fail in that regard, just like the King failed to shield Siddhartha from the often gruesome and troubling 'facts of life and death?'