Freedom is not given, it is TAKEN! 

Suicide Manifesto 

Who will save us?

Oprah, with her saccharin, politically correct racism, and guilt generosity? Or maybe Tom Cruise will show us all the way to forge ahead blindly to one’s own drummer with no time for apologies. Angelina? Brad Pitt? Bono? Perhaps the next “reality” shows of privileged tarts on the hoof? Or perhaps the next president, movie hero, pizza flavour, job, relationship, religion, will exhume meaningful existence out of the carcass of our pitiful, inconsequential, banal lives?

In the world we live today, the only currency more revered, more valued, more deified than the monetary ruse of the dollar by all of its names throughout the world, is the almighty status of celebrity. Without celebrity, one is only the fecund mass for the generation of wealth for the privileged and invisible few for whom the vast overpopulation of the earth are the manure for their money trees.

Since the World Wars, human life has become a trifle of inventive behaviour. Intellectualism giving way to a malignant democracy of the lowest common denominator infiltrating the cultures of the world through memetics and the fabric of all communication from television to supermarkets, politics to school programs.

DO Gooders

There are those who mean well to be sure. It is even more tragic to realize that every wonderful movement of any sort to awaken the spirit and mind of “popular culture” has been doomed from its inception to assimilation by the very culture into the matrix of fodder that supports inaction, a pathetic anticipation to be saved, to be rescued, to be “discovered”, recognized, accepted and loved. But no one stops to ask, discovered, recognized, accepted, loved, “By whom”?

I myself cannot, with all my life’s collected wisdom, truly, honestly answer my earthly minds musings on this question. Intellectually I “understand” the eternity of life, the continuum and the essence of life being a state of inactive awareness. This state of awareness is found in several ancient philosophies by different names and conceptual reference. But this “knowledge is bitter-sweet, suggesting a peace only experienced by leaving this life. Still further this suggests the “Whom” from which we are to find love, acceptance, recognition, and discovery is, ourselves. Though it makes perfect sense and releases us of the burden of satiating some unknowable omniscient judge, it leaves little incentive for continued suffering.

Suffering

If, as Buddha claims, all suffering comes from the human attachment to earthly things beginning with the want to birth, the strife of life, leading to the sickness of old age, and followed ultimately by the torture of dying, then his solution of enlightenment by releasing all one’s earthly attachments seems an exiguous proposition to take what is that which truly belongs to us. To take away one’s earthly life is the only appropriate means to alleviate suffering. It is tempting then to leave this life strictly for the joy of that purpose.

Desperate Plea

Is life then, simply a desperate plea for release from existence in the world of name and form? It seems that this is the general answer of all religions. That happiness in whatever form one chooses is to be experienced or awarded only after one passes out of this physical existence. Then to what ends should any of us act with generosity or kindness or “good”. What motivation is there to live with restraints?

Is it not more exciting, more invigorating, more justifying of one’s survival to “survive” life threatening situations whether physical, or mental in nature? Is this the fundamental motivation of “modern” culture to create more and more method and device to torture, tease, manipulate, cheat, humiliate, deceive, and to oppress?

Rebels & Mentors

And every youth rebels, more or less, for need to breathe, for need to be freed of all these things, for the desire to LIVE. Yet not all or even a few are aware enough of the huge propaganda and geo-socio-political machine that surrounds them, to know why or even to understand the needs of their life’s desire for expression. It is the job of mentors, exemplars, PARENTS, to guide and show the way. In “America”, there is no longer such a thing as a “parent”. People don’t grow up here; they simply age into greater levels of irresponsibility. But no worry, someone will save us, someone will help…

Today these “mentors” are part of the grand machine of deception and live within the collective box of oppression and rules. Rules created by those who need none of them, who use them as boundaries for the fodder of their wealth-generating machine.

Land, Land, More Land!

Land, Land, More Land!

The “privileged” use wars as competition control within their own camp by sending candidates to their death, and acquisition tools to get more land. Ever since the rampant claims of the “New World”, land has become scarce. Yet land is still the measure of wealth and power on this planet. And those with designs for wealth and power cannot rest until they control it all. This is the real motivation behind the race to the moon or mars or war on earth. Acquisition. Power, control, possession are the motive force of those few who can play at that level. The rest of us are simply game pieces at best and distraction more commonly.

Leaders

Religious “leaders” anaesthetise their listeners into bland little sheep to be lead into service of the machine. Marketers gleefully cheer and prod the highly developed consumerist “nerve”. Psychiatrists catch the strays and volunteer them back into the “appropriate” behavioural box. “Teachers” play a role more to satiate administrations than the minds in their purview. Police direct their holy mission with airs of superiority beyond the common man, now all duly justifiable as criminals for their very existence. Doctors toy with us as lab experiments directed by pharmaceuticals and money organizations more interested in medicating and thereby controlling the behaviour of all the constituents to the money-generating machine.

Celebrity

The ridiculous carrot of fame balances the actions of these and more. Celebrity has become the cure for the anxieties of the populace.

It is little wonder that real Art has been pushed out of the contemporary consciousness just as intellectualism has been shunned in all cultural messaging. To be an individual today is to be suspect, untrustworthy, a terrorist!

Be part of the “team”, go along, do what everyone else does, don’t rock the boat. This is what passes today for acceptance, recognition, and love. No individual commitment allowed. Individual commitment is seen as rogue and threatening.

I cannot live in this world! I, in point of fact, it is the “I” that is no longer allowed here. IT is the “I” that cannot be tolerated here. It is the “I” that must be destroyed here. So why not mass suicides! They could be a source of great entertainment, yes? Remember the movie “Logan’s Run”? The grand spectacle of the Roman Coliseum’s events is well known to have been effective in “entertaining” the populace of Rome while the “Privileged” few plotted their futures without the “interference” of the “people”. This is largely the function of football, baseball, WWF, reality shows and network news and all other such nonsense today. Celebrity once again rears its ugly head in the form of merchandised “heroes” from the “arena” of sports.

What better way to stop a young person from achieving or working hard? Just play a game and all will turn out fabulously! You’ll get to be on a team! And you will make allot of money, be famous, be a star, a celebrity!

Relationships

And ultimately, the final assault is on relationships between humans. As each is brain obliterated into mutant automaton with insatiable consumption and ever-diminishing identity, all inter-human “relationships” become meaningless associations for the appearances of team while each constituent fends solely for himself or herself. This is then the antithesis of relation! It can only be a competition at best and a war at common.

Therein is negated the very rhetoric of “love and kindness” used to sell religion. This is merely more evidence of its placebo mission. If one adopts the rhetoric, it is better than the real thing. Like celebrity, if you act like a “good” citizen, adopt the vernacular of a “good” citizen, dress like a “good” citizen, well then, could you possibly be anything else! Oh yes he rapes his daughter and steals from his “friends”, but look at that smile and those teeth and that nice shirt! We just don’t talk about that other stuff. He’s a good guy. Oh, and his wonderful wife, you know, they haven’t said a word to each other in almost six years. Isn’t that something?

And why should any of us communicate? After all, that would mean we have personal agendas, aspirations, personal thoughts, ideas and dare I say it, goals! No no no, that suggests an identity! Simply unforgivable. It would also suggest negotiation and communication to arrive at consensus. Decision-making at the singular level is not acceptable. You must follow the herd. After all, commitment is only an abstract used to motivate us to comply with the “norms” and to aspire only to celebrity and the team. Relationships that use commitment are a danger to society as they can lead to the illusion of family autonomy. So either fight, or sneak and lie, but never agree or plan in any relationship.

I personally cannot live in this kind of delusion: Worse yet than mere delusion, but an inhumane derision of emotional detritus devoid of life itself.

Foucault & Philosophy

Michel Foucault had a great observation in the mechanisms of surveillance as a tool of governance, but I think he missed the grander design. At the root of governance is control. And control is achieved ultimately through the cessation of identity.

And so I sit, with revolver in hand, asking, do I beat them to the trick? No more shall I relinquish my identity, my talent, my “I”.

Or should I take some of the bastards with me?