Sunday, April 1, 2012

Planned Obsolesence: When the Spirit Moves Me (and not one moment before)

I like the saying, "when the spirit moves me" cause that tends to be my modus operandi. Most peeps feel this is lazy or irresponsible, so indebted to 'control' as they are, but it does assert that I don't have a fooking clue as to what "I-me" should be doing, as opposed to all the ones who 'know.'

Yet, I'm continuously informed that ego-self will have none of that, gritting and grinding over "necessary" junk, reminding you "yea, go ahead and say that to your boss, ha!"

Egocentricity, or that tightly contained box of beliefs "you" call "I-me," likes to churn out all kinds of projects through which to "self-actualize."

But those projects aren't really useless cause you do need to perpetuate the belief that  "you" exist and that's basically the only purpose they serve.

Nevertheless, your egocentricity is nothing more than a "Planned Obsolescence." Like any artificially designed product, it will break down when the warranty runs out. Luckily, you are approaching that infamous end-date. But note how rigidly you seek to avoid your own "obsolescence." Note how important it is that you continue to be "you."

Let's face it, you can only hold off so long before it all becomes laughingly ridiculous.

Self-actualization is merely the process of continuing to believe "you" exist (with apologies to Maslow). You have to do all kinds of self-actualizing crapola everyday because, when you really examine it closely, existence is such a weak and tenuous idea (although you take it as a given). Other than your body, you really have no other concrete reference point. No other 'physical' actuality to "I-me." Nothing more to stake a claim on other than a scripted mass of dramatic bullsheit that you claim "important" stuff to your "life."

Everyday ego-self has to do things to confirm itself as a real "self" (or something as opposed to nothing). Constant struggle and hard work is needed to affirm the "I-me" concept, but you call it normal everyday functioning. Like getting angry, bored, tired, cheerful, depressed, happy, sick, indignant, peaceful, wired, wigged-out, harmonious, freaky, goofy, spontaneous, thoughtful, compassionate, friendly, loving, resentful, etc, etc, etc. These states of being are your "gravity." They keep you grounded into an "I-me" reference point, but have no other usefulness than that, regardless of your dramatic boo-hooing in protection of the self.

Then there's the work of justifying the rightness and wrongness, or good and bad, of what it's choosing as a means of self-actualizing in the moment. Like a few minutes ago my boss pissed me off and, obviously, I have every 'reason' to justify my pissed-offness! And this confirms, not that "I AM," but that I AM... 'pissed-off!' This reliance on 'emotion' helps me 'hammer down' the I Am as an I AM..as something.

Ahhh...egocentricity in all it's grandiose, ridiculous glory! Are you NOT laughing yet? Of course not! That would spell your doom...

Ego-self doesn't consider it's anger or pissed-offness as self-actualizing. Rather, it believes peace and kumbaya "happy" are self-actualizing. But, every time you jet out your rage, on some violator of your kumbaya, you're self-actualizing. Every instance of rage or resentment, or whatever, is another instance of egocentricity asserting a "self' into the  blank ether of nothingness as a means of achieving somethingness, even though nothingness doesn't budge an inch and couldn't care less what something your fixated on as a means of defining yourself.

Just because ego-self doesn't see it this way don't mean squat to the self-actualization and self-development you thrust upon the world and 'others' on a daily basis. It's all self-actualizing, no matter what comes out your mouth or rolls around in your head. "Fuck you!" is as self-actualizing to egocentricity as "I love you." Both have the same purpose. Both are nothing more than insubstantial attempts to assert the "I-me-mine" as "real." It makes no difference if it's actually true, since just the act of injecting a "self" into your mind makes it true for "you" (which has NO truth to it whatsoever, since you make up all kinds of bullsheit in your mind). Therefore, your "I love you" is as tenuous and inconsequential as "fuck you!" They both serve as means of self-actualizing, but have no other value to an ego-self.

This is the primordial fact of egocentricity. Doesn't matter what you inject, as long as you're injecting something into nothing, because there can never be just nothing.

To realize nothing would obviously be the death of you. So you fully engage space/time as a means of actualizing emptiness. You jack your "self' up all over the damn place, hoping 'something' will finally grant you some semblance of peace and happiness. But one day you will be slapped squarely in the face with the fact that nothing does or ever will.

You're on your own Bubba louey!

So go ahead and try injecting 'nothing' into all those special 'somethings' that you hold so dear. Nope, won't work.

You can't do it can you?

Keep trying....



Artwork by Ricardo Salmanca - "untitled"

13 comments:

  1. Dearest Annie,

    Got a new "smart" phone and tried to post your comment, but deleted it instead.
    If you could repost that would be appreciated, because smart phones don't work well for dummies.

    My apologies,
    mikeS

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Mr. Mike ^_^

    I think the kaleidoscope begins to slowly clear for the lazy soul. The observer always sees more than the observed. When the spirit moves one, it is the best way to move and I'll raise a glass of good port to that.

    I have a most excellent quote for you as follows by the late Mr. Paul Newman, he who once said we are all bound by the tyranny of luck.

    "If you don’t believe the legend, then you can’t really take yourself seriously. And if you don’t take yourself seriously, you’ve got a chance. It’s when you take yourself seriously and you begin to believe all this bullshit that you can really founder.”

    It can be universally applied, surely.

    Love,
    Nahnni

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Mike,

    Just finished reading the "Fook It Koan" article and thought I would check out latest comments on "Planned Obsolence" and I had to laugh when I found out my comment was accidentally deleted. (the smart phone is downloaded with the planned obsolence program) How perfect of a lesson is that?! So don't you be so hard on yourself.

    I do recall that I read the article "Planned Obsolence" on April Fools day, that gave me my first chuckle. I also remember that I felt it was both a lite hearted article with some very serious accusations by the ego and I just enjoyed the ping pong like game I was observing. I like where you take me and that makes me all the more curious as to how these inner dialogues surface for you. I think I had asked if the article comes first or if you find a picture that inspires the conversation?

    What I know is that it must be a labor of love and I do appreciate it so.

    Thanks Mike

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nahnni,

    I like the Paul Newman quote.

    I'll raise my glass to that too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Annie,

    The article always comes first. It tends to unravel from my demented mind-set and then I seek out a pic to match. Often the pic seeking takes longer than writing the post. So much dementia to choose from...

    Thanks,
    mikeS

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nahnni,

    Or the observer sees ONLY what can be seen and applies value to that and nothing more?

    Love,
    mikeS

    ReplyDelete
  7. That's the core of the blip, Mike, surely. Like Woody Allen's character, Louis Levy, in the film, Crimes and Misdemeanors, says: "The universe is a pretty cold place. It's we who invest it with our feelings."

    I think this is the value in meditation. The practice appears to clarify the mind and calms the impulsive feelings often associated with observation. Thus, one avoids being miserable, because, as you ask: "...the observer sees ONLY what can be seen and applies value to that and nothing more?" It is the only way, because each living particle is an embedded consciousness. It can only see from that vantage point, which is why Truth can only be seen in self-relative terms. Yes, there is empathy, the kind prisoners of war often have for one another.

    This is why life is often little more than a tender mercy, dusted with moments of blessing, Grace and actual acts of mercy. That's all Tao is, then you die. Memory becomes a form of attachment, ghosts, so it makes some sense what the Buddhists say. You can't become part of the universe when you are attached even to its relative meaning.

    And so I wish you many a blessing,
    Nahnni

    ReplyDelete
  8. 'It can only see from that vantage point, which is why Truth can only be seen in self-relative terms.'

    Indeed. Yet, I'm not totally convinced that it is the only "vantage point."

    Thanks,
    mikeS

    ReplyDelete
  9. What exists that is not bound by perspective, Mike?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Whatever is behind a "perspective" most likely exists absent perspective.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hmmm. Interesting...perspective. The soul, do you mean? I wonder, though, if soul has a disposition that is influenced by, but not created by, influence, itself? I've heard it said that souls are born, they are not made. But, if soul and spirit are distinct, is it the spirit or the soul that has perspective? The soul or the ghost in the shell? Again, interesting.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. "The soul, do you mean?"

    Hmmm...not sure if I can accurately define it. How 'bout this:

    "Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
    In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
    With a boulder on my shoulder feelin' kinda older I tripped the merry-go-round
    With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground

    The calliope crashed to the ground."

    I think that sums it up nicely, because when the calliope crashes to the ground all bets are off and awakening is evidentiary.

    mikeS

    ReplyDelete
  13. ,,,because when the calliope crashes to the ground all bets are off and awakening is evidentiary.

    Although I understand the inevitability of the crash and all bets being laid waste, I'm thinking there is no awakening, save that none of the painted ponies meant anything at all. The awakening to randomness in a chaotic universe may drive most mad. In Spring, I just listen to the peeper frogs, Mike, when the night mists rise. Life calling to itself, regardless of fate or the rhyme and reasoning of the brain and language. Tennyson said it well: The ghost in man and the ghost that once was man, are calling to each other in a dawn stranger than the earth has ever seen." I think awakening is a vast echoing chamber. Everyone wants to return to the womb. There are no calliopes there.

    Well, I know what I mean.

    Love,
    Nahnni

    ReplyDelete