A glass raised to Max and Orsen, if only we'd heeded you.

Sorry about the spelling all, but I hope you enjoy the content

~Sol~


Are we living in an Iron Cage?



Long before I heard of Weber and his theories I grew up with this frightful visage looming over the prospect of coming history. What I did not understand was that my isnulated alternitive life had shelided me from what had already taken place within much of the world and that which was still marching steadily forward.
From McDonleds in Costa Rica to T.G.I. Friday's in Prauge the homonginzation of world culture continues. And it's stripping us of our basic humanty. Humans learn and grow primarly when they encounter something new, and our multinational corprate bearucries have been systimaticly rememoving all need for truely new experiences whever they find it. Consider, if you are able to go to the same restraunt and order the same thing in the same language on both sides of the ocaen and three continents without 'breaking a sweat' what kind of new oppertunites for learning does that provide? But it doesn't stop there, what happens to the 'consumer' (even the term it's self is an unfortunte capital/corprate margenlization) in the form of monochromatic experience and mediocir (at best) products. That is secondary to the effects on the working force. Those people who make whatever deep-fat-fried proten slab or plastic widget. They are treated increasingly as less valuable and more universally replaceable than even their product. Imagen for a moment that not only can anyone walking down the street in your country take your job but most people walking down the streets of some other contintent could do so as well. How deeply does it strip your cultural identiy when one of your primary rolls negates your sense of personal value, or indeed of the concept of you being a unique person. The degradation further continues as unions are destroyed or undercut in the multinational globelization within which we live and as oversight continues to mount. And there's the real rub, these beaurcratic National governing bodies, NGOs, and IGOs all have analysts who can (and do) tell them the truth... that people are not going to find this unnatural method of living conducive to happyness and thus are likely to object. Hence you see levels of military preeption abrod by our current Pax Amarican regime but much more subtily you see the national and internation oversight growing in areas such as civil liberties and econmics. Welfair is down, medical benifits are down, social security is failing, and fewer jobs offer any retirement and of those that do fewer offer one which is investment compensated for inflation to ensure a "living wage" after you leave the work force. We can (ironicly) turn to China for an example extream example of how this system is playing out. With a few elites benifiting deeply from the work of the masses and the specilists in key fields being romanced into colaberation by privlages and sweetheart deals. It is enough to make Marx and Engles spin in their graves. And then there's the oversight, the camras at every intersection in the U.K. and most cities with in the U.S.A. are just a couple of examples. The insertion of GPS into almost every cutting edge portable device (including cars in the case of OnStar) the surrender of Personal phone records for investigation without the justifications of charges or warrents. They also unwarrented (both in legal documents and in social justice) wire taps conducted by the present U.S. admisinstration. The FBI's "raptor" program which allows them to steal any prsonal e-mail (or other digital media transmitted via the world wide web) without warrent or comment. These are but examples of how the Panopticon is alive and well, as well as being a stark validation to the visions of people like George Orwell (1984) and Lois Lowry (The Giver) or perahps the more contemperary cenmia compostion Equlibreum (written and directed by Kurt Wimmer). To return to the point we must ask the qustion "why?", why is it that these massive buarcies invest so much in overwhelmingly massive oversight and intervention? Because they understand that from the frycook to the journist, from the cubicle to the campus, people would quickly manifest divergent (or as the burrcrats like to call them "devient") behvior patters if they were not in a consistant (perhaps even constant) state of apprenhenction over weather they are being watched and what reprisals this might bring. And make no mistake, when we live in a time where econmoic buracratic tycoons [George W. Bush, Dick Chaney for but two more prominten American examples] direct goverment buracrocy to arrest and detain forgen citizens for the precived intention of commiting a "crime" (not act for any sort which they admit, but intention) of comitting a crime (not a crime that is currently on any of our criminal or civil books, but excutivly decreed as a crime [See the C-Span Q&A regarding the Military tribunal legislation broadcast on 9/7/06]) and where the CIA holds people in undisclosed location engaging in unspecified "coersion" for unspecified lenghts of time [stie same C-Span broadcast as above]. A world in which Passports are "bugged" with tracking devices and National ID cards are on the horizon. A world where minute microchips are set in clothing, credit cards, and IDs for the sake of collecting market data without bother to ask any of the people for their oppinnions. In this world that fear of oversight and buracratic retaliation is a well founded one. In such a world George Orwell would say "caution becomes habbit and habbit becomes reflex and reflex becomes a way of life" and our current Phychologists and Nurobiologists would agree. In such a world as this I would say not only has Webers view of an Iron Cage come to pass, but the Bars are electrified.

Chaos Dreams

from all things was chaos born before all things were made, and too all things is chaos owed for by all things is Chaos payed

What I've been up too, why I don't write so much anymore...

New armor Aprox $600; Nehantoe Apprentice Katana FREE it's a birthday present, Master work Katana $2000; Reading both translations of the Bushido, free here too, I have them both already; Saving for collage Tuition and fees/books $2500 per smester +plus books and fees, Drivers Ed Class $150, I have three friends Aaron, Tess, and Meg who are here for a littlewhile this summer, and most of them are of the "when I shall see thee next I know not". The price for the Armor is the price of flying out to have it fitted so that's another bit of a slice. Pratice time when I can get it too prepare for War, I expect to fight every battle this year at Pennsic. And I demand of myself a dedication to surviving all of my comrades. I won't be the last to fall, if I allow myself to fall at all. I play deeply with chaos magic these days, and hardly do words fit it. The unity of Zen the fusion of Wisdom and intillect, of inisght and inquest. Both burn strong. I am getting a new Laptop to last me through all of school, it will be about $4000 and some change. But I won't have to pass it off or press it up to new standards while I'm in school so that's a grave help to me. I am also reading Tom Robbins Novels as well as Saul Williems (soon). And I have started a regime of the 5 Tibitens and of yoga. My Jobs are mostly only two (the thirds is a "it could happen" thing were I pick up hours sometimes) Working for my father digging and re-envinting life in the back yard, and two calling on the phones to make survey calls.
I work to develop and RPG amoung my friends and I, and to have it published. Sometimes I put in a scrap or two more for my colleced work of poems. And I have a novel to complete, I am still working on the races desipostion and development for/within it. I'm doing that with my brother. I grow more of fire by the day at what I see around me, this program for a "fedreal licence" with a tracker chip in it is one such thing. I will not live in world that Orewell saw, burn them I won't. I've gotten two new Shini and am going to start praticing once more in full. I have three pratice knives, still without edge or point, and use those as well. I owe my brother $175 from last Pennsic, and I still owe my Uncle $3000 tho he would say it is less :P
that's the long and the sort of it, I've done the ACT and plan to be tested for Dyslexia as well as other behavioral conditions that may grant me an edge in school environments.
And now here, the Hour grows late and I must go.

All of the best to thee,
Sol

V

He's my kind of guy

A whole new world, this same place I've always been.

Have you ever had your mind blown? I just did, it’s... well mind-blowing.
I literally do not know what I’m doing or where I heading, but I can’t say I have no idea. It’s an interesting combination. So many of you who read this have been asking me “what was it like” in reference to my trips around the world... well at least to three or so new countries. And this is it, I have been shaken down like a brand new jet fighter on a test run. All parts checked and tested, stress limits pushed and thresholds crossed as well as established. I was aware starting out that I would not be able to imagine what was to come, but I’ll say it anyway, I didn’t have any idea this was what would happen. I’m not the same person any more, but I wouldn’t say I’m not me. Things have changed. I’m more literal and more truthful, more forceful and more reserved. More grounded and less bleak but more saddened and more wistful as well. I miss so much and so many people who’ve been important parts of my life. But I wouldn’t turn the clock back for anything and I do not regret this path I’ve taken. Just last night I was walking out the door of my room with a friend who commented on the wallpaper I’ve got up on my computer, saying how the girl I was with is hot. I didn’t argue, I think she is too, not that that’s why I love her but who says love has to be blind? This started a rustling through old photos for me where in I saw faces and places who’s likeness I have not beheld in an age. This age in fact, this new one of my life. It’s changed me to see what I’ve seen and the color pallets of the sights I now see have shifted subtly. I have been saying for years that I don’t miss people, or places for that matter, that I’m too used to it to miss anyone anymore. This is not true, what’s really true is that I’m so used to missing people and places and things in most present moments of my life that it’s hard to notice sometimes until I focus on someone specficly. Most of the people I know the missing someone it’s self is enough to draw their focus too it, but not for me, thus my miss perception. I cannot help but feel smaller now than I ever was before. Our nation is so much smaller than I had any concept of, and yet it’s huge compared to how I used to view it. Does any of that make sense? The tops been blown off this world of mine and everything’s expanding on both fields as it’s want to do when you don’t limit the exponents of change. I long for Europe more truly that I’d expected too. I love it’s culture and it’s history and it’s buildings and it’s sensibility. And still I am relieved to be home, yes that’s right, tho it costs me something to admit I am relived to be home. Back where things make sense, even the things I can’t stand, a return to what I am accustomed (consider the word custom) too. This world is more complex that I had any idea, and here now with so much more idea than I’ve ever had before in this life I still must say that my most sure realization is that I simply do not understand the implications magnitude and complexities of what we so blithely call “life” in the modern age. It’s well there’s just more too it than I can grasp right now. And what’s more with my new found humbleness of perspective I still must say that while there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people who understand this all much better than myself I still wouldn’t hesitate to believe that I’m in the top twenty percent or better as far as that goes. Which is both heartening and frightening.
I have friends whom I wish to approach about this, about well life, all of it, that I just want to sit down and share with. But I must confess I do not know how to begin. I don’t even have a phrase in my head to start describing what this feels like, not for a conversation. I suppose that I’m not doing so bad with writing this, but even with all it’s truth I’m sure you can see how mixed up and unfocused it is in some places. I want... so much more, and this is not just greater, though some of it is alterations I have sought, this is as simple as more. There’s more to life and I don’t dismiss this now as useless or sub-par and at the same time if what I was to see were the same as this I would feel cheated, this is what I’ve always been this is what I know there’s more to be had and it’s something else. That’s always the drive and I’ve always had it but stopping anywhere is what I wouldn’t be satisfied with, this stolid settling as of sediments distilling from a stream. I’d rather be the water even tho it doesn’t neccarily know where it’s headed. But who knows it might, and who knows even I might. I’ve know more than I thought I did before, and more that once at that. It is not that I do not desire that sense of safety brought on by plotting history to come before it has form of it’s own. Not that I don’t desire to hear “I’ll always be here” or to safely sit in my own house with my own furniture and feel that this is here forever for me, solid. But there’s not so much truth in that, even in the most stable and solid lives that will vanish on a hairbreadth of chance or in a heartbeats time and I have no illusions about that. I’m also used to this idea. So while I still desire that ultiment safety, it does not rule the house of my happiness nor my enjoyment and so we move forward. Happy, joyful, and somewhat apprhencive about what would be the world to come. Somewhere there’s a me who knows and who is supreamly sure of our course, somewhere inside me there’s a place where everyone who’s had something unsaid and unfulfilled, suppressed or unexpressed with me or near me, where there’s a face for them and where there’s a memory, some of these will be free, some resolved and some are perhaps too far past. But there are already shadows enough of the wistful kind in our sense don’t you agree? Why not strive for a life that beyond being full, free of regrets, and holding some meaning, is also whole. One which you simply are who you are and even when you don’t know how to be you use this as a chance to learn, not avoid it for fear of the repercussions.
There’s just so much to be done, don’t stop walking

Sol

I have had trouble writing of late, it's that I said to myself this was going to be prose not poetry. An odd commitment it may seem but if you knew my life well, and well most of you do, they you'd understand (and or do). Lately I've been stuck in rymes, and not always very good ones. it's lke the rythem of my writing has gotten stuck on "iambic pentampiter rippoff" mode or something. Just too much of it, almsot contrived but hard to get away from. Like when you play those ryme word games and then for days afterwords always think in your head of rymes for what people are saying. Sometimes lately I feel like I should be listening to "take it easy" as my constant theme song. I guess it's better than "desprado" however. Not as a song but as a theme. Either one would drive my sister crazy, or my brother too. They can't take much of the Egels.
Have you ever thought about death? No I mean really sat down and just thought about it. How little we know? how much it effects us? how it's tied into everything for our lives, or at least some of our lives. how it's the new cardnle sin and rarely examined by those who think so, and rarely emotionally confronted by those who don't. Why am I generlizing two camps? why for my own means of course as always with descriptors, they are highlts and foils to my own forecast. I dont' know what I think of death but even I think of it often, and even is said because... well it just is. It's like this box that was sitting in my room for who knows how long and both my brother and I stared at it who knows how many times until he said "a box" and then it hit me that it WAS a box, not just background "noise". Death is like that, it's background noise, but we can still trip on the box, and I don't mean die.
My dad's got a point, about many things. But I don't tell him that, because he's too wrapped up in what he's done right to work on the rest of it, like being emotionall avalible to anyone. I suppose I should be thankful, it's killed any risk of what I might have fallen into in that, I know better than to close off, and I know that in romance effection is as required as water is to plants. So thanks pappa bear, for the goods and the bads, and for the lessons even if lots of them were "and this is what you should not do..." object style in the end. Thanks, but I bet you'll never read this.
Someone said that the best form of art, the trust, is the life well lived. Well living isn't drawing breath, and it's not going to be found in a medical text book let alone art being found in one. So how do I live well? how to I follow my dreams without being a leaden weight on someone? how do I do what I love without starving or compromising? answer, just do it. Now I consider myself ot be a brave person. but this has got me intimidated. How to just do it, but do it right. There's a question, and does it have the same answer? I don't know yet, it seems like somewhere I do, but if so that part of me isn't sharing just yet or I'm just not looking right.

Kisses are like Rain, they can drown you or ease your pain.

I still kiss both my sisters and half the time my parents, who says every kiss has to be sexual to be loving? Pity we've but that price tag on both love and senuality that they have to be about possesion and about eachother. I mean sure they are often about eachother and even fit very well togather, but why make it a must when we do it's something squashed and more forced and "forceful" if you know what I mean.
There are plenty of people who I just want to love or would just love to hold, I simply want to be supportive and I am a physical person. I won't bother with the sex descriptors they've already been done here in this blog so just back read. But it's sad to me that someone has to make their choice about who they hug or who they can sit against on a couch or who's lap it's ok to fall to sleep in or who's safe to nap with. Not based on trust or effection, admiration or esteem, but weather or not they want to considering getting into euphmistic bed with that person.
Doesn't make any kind of rational sense, or intitive either for that matter. But there you are that's our socity in a nut shell. Not rational nor intutiviely sound.
ah but let us skip that rant for tonight, I'm sure you will have the time for me to go down it many more times.
Late nights, I don't spend enough time with people yet I spend altogather too much time on them. I should change that, there are lots of things I should change. But if I found a way to just be myself in every day that would be the best. I need to find this, the way, and perhaps share it too. There are so many days I wake up with the whole world swirling within my sight and it just doesn't resolve quite before the cobwebs of day decent on the mucurial pool of nights dreams. I wish to live a little dream as the poet says. One of these days I won't see it slipping away and I will have the answers, my answers at least. Until then I will just search and grow. What else is there to do? and isn't life pretty good with this as the days of it? Well anyway I don't have any room to complain, not purely on my own behalf. Sometimes though, sometimes even in peace I wish to end things as they stand... it just seems safer somehow, saner than what we'd become otherwse. But here's the choice, on this roll of the dice. Choice to find a way to do both, to find out and to shift out without simply building a blow out.
hum... was that a decent way to build a sentence? oh well, win some, lose some.
So show of hands? who wants to use the tarmac of the George W. Bush memorial airport to dry meat and fruits for winter? or who thinks they can promise solid assurances of a future for my childern, our chilern, or the childern or my borthers and sisters, that's free of the oil barons and the abject corruption of the puritan taints. Consider this my personal democricy. All in Favor?

Sol