unreality

i remember the day
i first fell in love with unreality...
ephemeral spirits of unborn ideas
glowing in the semi-gloom of the attic in my mind.
one or two of these sinuous beings
tentatively coming into the hazy glow
long enough to half solidify into an evolving concept...
then hastily retreating back into the cobwebbed shadows,
leaving me with a newly opened void,
yearning to taste the unveiled mysteries that so recently
graced my mental palette once again.
to leave any one of them unexplored
would be denying my soul its ultimate indulgence:

to be fully immersed in the blissful occupation

of delving head first

into a fresh new adventure of the intellect...

why write?

something of the poet in me
asks by what right i inscribe these words?
from where does
the inspiration pour?
and for whom are these
words intended?
unable to answer
these minor quandaries,
i ponder if i might just
halt at this fault
or write on,
should i falter
on my halt.

but i write on for sanity's sake.

Shall I, most excellent patron, leave room for cream?

No, I am not a practical man. Wait a second. Whew, it would appear that I remain a man, if the state of my externally located gonads are any measure (I'm not sure they are). But to shape the noun more carefully with the adjective "practical" the phrase has no bearing at all on my present reality. Until recently I've been struggling to struggle at learning how to struggle towards a life of purpose. And all this redundant struggle led me to a job which is one half of a hair's breadth above that of an entry-level MacDonald's employee. And this after six years in one of my country's better universities. What happened? I thought that getting an "education" was to lead to better opportunities, give me an advantage over those who do not mire themselves in student-loan debt and wasted years of unemployment. Let's look at the facts then decide how it is this dismal, embarrassing and dead-end state of affairs came to be.

What did I "study" you ask, just kidding, I know you already know friends and mom. I studied "philosophy" and history. "Philosophy" is sort of about thinking, not how to think exactly, but about what others have thought thinking is about. I must admit that I enjoyed it a little bit, though as I wrapped up my "studies" I did have a sense that the treadmill I was on had not been plugged in and so, were it not for someone who pushed me to emerge from my extended chrysalis phase, I was in real danger of breaking my nose, the velocity of my inertia was so great. A few years in a dream like state, sort of emerging from my pupae, sort of making a home out of it, and I was once again at the gate of higher learning. "I demand to be made privy to the facts of history!" I yelled. Yes, history, the stuff practical dreams are made of. Knowledge is power and "studying" history promised me, like, super powerful guns and bombs that I could use to like, display my power. Yikes! I'm a fool, buffoon and tit all at once it now seems. So once more I stood atop an unpowered, dilapidated treadmill, which I mean to represent all the books I read and crappy papers I wrote, all of which amounted to a degree in, wait for it, history.

So finally, emerging after long last, I, an educated man, set out to to unleash my hard-earned perspective and subtle though devastating skills. But what was this?! All of a sudden (many decades says the historian) there are these fucking guys pretending they can conjure money out of thin air, and the economists did look upon their respected GDPs with dismay and foreboding. A recession! My "hard-earned perspective" and "subtle though devastating skills" went from a milk producing bovine to a pile of lapsed feces. By lapsed I mean to suggest that not even for fertilizer could this turd be put to good use. And so I am now waking to my mistake and failures. It's not so bad though, lots of people don't even get the opportunity to make such mistakes and develop such failures as I have. I'm not being playful either. An article in The American Scholar speaks of the "process of disintegration" in the humanities, and their gradual nullification in our culture. It seems we haven't been giving a shit about such things as "philosophy" and history for some time now. Who knew?! And by "our" culture I mean the United States and, look way, way up at us simple folk. Us well-meaning northern North Americans to the north; America's chapstick, belly-button lint and sun block; the great sovereign nation of Canada. The article is long and will not be read by anyone who might have read this. Leave that and similar impractical time wasting to those learned in The Arts.

All great things will end

When he was born it was written that he would die. That he would somehow elude death was never in the cards, not even a remote possibility. But even though I don't think anyone seriously imagined him living forever, as time passed and the puppy grew into a lanky adolescent and a vigorous hound into a venerable senior, an idea of his immortality crept into our hearts and took root. It happened right away, the first time we saw him wrestle with a gigantic tree branch, which though many times his size, he would unhurriedly drag into the open so that he could display it in his mouth. He loved branches between his jaws, that's for sure, and when we saw this puppy collecting his kindling we knew that he gathered them for the fire that would represent our love for him. There were trillions of branches.

He is a proud dog and will fight at a moment's notice. If I were in a war I would throw the feeble weapons put into my peasant's hands and instead pick up his leash. I would go to war with him guiding me. To test his mettle, I often tried to catch him unawares, sneak up on him and attack him with all my considerable might. But he would meet me with the soul of an ancient warrior and so we would do battle. I would always sincerely try to kick his ass but he only toyed with me, carefully gripping my wrists in his jaws but never to snap them. Then, after some time gauging each other's vitality and potency, we would lay on our backs, relax in the grass and take turns describing the shapes we saw in the clouds overhead. He would share his ideas about the world and anything else he might have with him. I laughed at the things he told me, and he smiled at me, because my laughter gave him such pleasure. Above all he has a fearless and limitless capacity for gentleness and love.

When he gradually became immortal he did not brag about it. He could have rubbed it in our faces, mocking our brief lives while he counted centuries as fractions of seconds. He basically kept everything the same, refusing to abandon us for the high reaches of the heavens, or wherever it is that beings like him while away eternity. Still, we could feel it in his presence which at once soothed and reassured us. Even when we didn't have food in our hands, he would allow everyone a moment to touch him, perhaps he would use his pleasantly rough tongue to give your hand a lick from time to time. His eyes see everything and disarm us of our embarrassment and regrets. He doesn't care about all that. My sweet comrade! My dear brother! My beloved friend! It is only now that I realize that your immortality is necessary because the world does not exist without you! You cradle the world in your paws, the universe is balanced on your powerful back. Though you may be leaving us, not one day will pass where you are not living with me. And when my mortal coil unwinds I will listen for your bark. "I may be done but at least he remains," will be my last thought.

United we sit Pt. II

United we sit; or thoughts on crappy satire

I saw the film In The Loop last night. It was touted as "by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory" by a reviewer at the New York Times. Being that I love satire I reasoned that I would love this movie (Now do you see how great minds work?) As I watched scene after bobbily filmed scene, I waited in vain for laughter to swell up inside me; my mouth gaped silently open, no laughter passed through its portal. The subject matter should have struck me as really funny. It tells of how insignificant politicians, their insignificant advisers and extremely significant communications directors might happen to stumble into international conflict. I guess it's insightful if one has a phobia of reading. I guess it might be funny if one has a phobia of reading. If In The Loop offers "by far the funniest big-screen satire" then perhaps film is incapable of depicting authentic satire. Then again there is always Spinal Tap.

A fat old philosopher used to say that you had to first realize that experiences of beauty derived from inside yourself, otherwise you'd be unable to appreciate what's beautiful outside yourself. He said we needed to carry beauty with us in this life, or we would be disappointed when we failed to experience beautiful things. Maybe something similar happened with me and that crappy movie last night. I had no humor in me so I failed to see it in the film. At one point one of the interchangeable "brilliant and ambitious" young policy advisers quips that another character's balls are so big they're like "the bottom two balls of a snowman." The other three people in the theater laughed at this but my brow remained furrowed, and I thought "that's as anatomically unsound a proposition as I care to imagine." While In The Loop will appeal to a sensibility which is already well aware that in politics as in everything else, people often blindly stumble into decisions which have far-reaching consequences, I would deny that the film captured the illusive tone of authentic satire. I'm willing to accept my wrongness on this issue though, really couldn't care either way.

The next great satirical film will have to be a documentary. I hope someone's taking the time to film all these so-called "Tea Party" gatherings, that would make for superb satire. You don't have to worry about writing or casting, just point your camera to the great swaths of enraged white folk who see in President Obama's government an evil plan to destroy their way of life. The evidence they have for this: A couple white guys on Fox News, and many more on talk radio, say so unrelentingly throughout the day. The reality of these gatherings springs as though from the mind of a Mikhail Bulgakov or Jaroslav Hasek or Joseph Heller or Rabelais; this is profound satire. Take for instance the image above which shows an old man perched atop his power chair, fist held moderately high in the air. But the farcical icing atop the idiotic cake? His reliable steed proudly displays a sign: "United We Stand." That's hilarious stuff. Most of the signs are equally ridiculous, appealing to the subtle analytical organs of the kidneys and spleen.

There was one bit of banter in last night's film which did cause me to smile. As various people race around chaotically putting together a meeting of the G8, a man says into the phone something like: "It doesn't matter that the invitation is late, the Canadians are just happy to be there. They're always surprised to be invited." As a Canadian, I know full well the great inconsequence of my country's place in the world. An election looms, and our apathy deepens. Do not watch this space for updates.

A time for action, a time for guts

Conservatives are pretty satisfied with themselves that they make sense of the world's complexity using deeply-felt principles. Though the principles may differ according to society and time, a conservative viewpoint is essentially a faith in timeless truths, whatever they may be. Down yonder in America, the modern conservative believes in the inviolable pillars of God, freedom and family. There are others, but these three are the source and wellspring for any politician who identifies him or herself as a conservative. This is why they don't give a shit about reason or morality. This is why they would rather private insurance companies "compete in the market," unobstructed by pesky outsiders who would force them to not bankrupt people for receiving health care.

It was impressive to watch the conservative men in Congress carefully sift Obama's words today, parsing their precise meaning at the moment when the illegitimate president's melodious phrases alighted on their hair-infested, aged ear canals (for correct ear maintenance please see a previous post.) Particularly impressive are the men who sit on the Republican side of that venerable American chamber, it inspires to gaze at their imperviousness to anything which is not their own fanatical dogma. "What are these old men thinking?" I wondered. Is it really just a matter of politics that some old white men see 30 million living without access to a doctor as a problem, while other old white men do not? That some old white men believe illness should not leave one destitute while others merely shrug before offering a silent prayer to the divine forces of the market? What accounts for this rigid dichotomy, when both sides see and interpret the same "facts" from profoundly different worldviews? Suddenly I realized what was really going on: Conservatives don't need to think, they've got their trusty principles and gut feelings to rely on.

What's even more amazing is that these unthinking politicians can instantly, using their own guts, intuit the gut feelings of their unthinking constituents! A terrific trick! Masters in the art of human extispicy, these old men don't even need to view the entrails of a dead constituent, but can gather meaning from them while the specimen still lives! And so they sat and did not clap, nay, they did not smile. They sat silently, convening with the viscera of those whose God, freedom and family they swore to uphold. "What's that left kidney of middle-aged homemaker and mother of five, Nancy Swarthmesson?" a veteran congressman asks (with his bladder, incidentally.) Her spleen whispered: "Obama's a red menace... beware his creeping socialism." Her gall bladder murmured: "His words cannot hide his fascist intentions... his way leads to death camps and Nazism." Her small intestines rasped: "We must stop him! Stop him soon, before his murderous government kills us all, God forbid!" Gathering the collected wisdom of Nancy's organs, her humble representative, that humble conservative, is at once insulated from the subtle persuasiveness of conciliatory argumentation. No, he will not support this communist affront.

Theme Song

I finally found it.
Yes, the theme song for this site/blog.
Alright; I'm taking the piss.

How does one consult?

As the search for a job continues, I'm often struck by the great quantities of middlemen who promote themselves as a necessary step in the employment process. A casual google search comes up with nearly two million relevant hits when I typed in "career consultation." Isn't that a sign of modernity, that millions of people have a career in advising people about their careers? I've spent a little bit of time looking at a handful of these consultants and am, predictably, not impressed. Some of the most vacuous claims imaginable are proffered as though they were not at war with logic and meaning.

Take for example the claim by Career Consultation Services to be a "full service career growth company." Ok, I get it, they offer a wide range of consulting services which "grow" a client's career. That's super, congratulations on profiting on your career growth advisory talents. Or how about Perfect Fit Consulting, which deftly notes that "each generation are different and the work-life balance are different among the different generations, and it is important that these differences be understood." Now that's a consulting firm with a difference! For a fee you'll get "high powered, intuitive advice" over at careerplanner.com. I'm struck by the fearsome beauty of high-powered intuitions, not least because I have not the foggiest clue what they are. Finding these barely intelligible claims is extremely easy, the entire field is filled with similarly confused and empty statements. So the question for me is: How can I get paid to make no sense?

The French philosopher Bruno Latour has written extensively about how technologies, theories and methods are made to appear integral - "obligatory passage points" - where what was not necessary previously over time becomes so. These career consulting companies and individuals are doing just that, making their "services" appear "obligatory" both for employers and employees. Just this morning I was made to fill out a questionnaire as part of an application for a waitering job. The questionnaire was produced by Assess Systems out of Dallas, Texas. There they harness the penetrating insights of organizational psychologists to "define the primary behaviors and competencies needed for success." As part of my questionnaire I was asked whether there are 50 hours in a day and 80 days in a month. While I don't understand it, I'm sure that my primary behaviors are being thoroughly scrutinized.

So won't someone employ me to write vacuous, deeply meaningless statements which can dupe both employers and employees to pay money for empty paper pushing and mouse clicking? How about: "Our needs-based analysis will enable you to grow your achievement capacities and ensure impactful solutions," or maybe, "Using our Competency Growth Indicators® our clients can develop their people, allowing them to navigate difficult shifts in strategic approaches to core-growth challenges." See? I can write absurdly meaningless, jargon-rich emptiness too. Won't someone consider me as a potential verbal-developmental systems-based needs analyst?

Unreasonable not to have considered global recession

It's official: The Canadian government has determined that leaving my previous job was "unreasonable" and so refuses to issue me employment insurance. Let that be a lesson to you! First consider the global economy before making a change in your life. Had I placed my finger on the fluttering pulse of Wall Street investment markets perhaps I would have made a more reasonable decision. So given the ramping up of my desperation I propose to use knowingdoing as a vehicle for advertising my employable talents and skills. Here's what I bring to the job.

To Whom It May Concern:

It is with arrogance that I apply for the position of anything I can get.

During university I spent considerable time sleeping in, procrastinating and finally rushing through what little work I was responsible for. Here I gained experience in barely completing tasks, putting things off until the last minute and cutting corners wherever possible. Not only did I hand in assignments at the last minute, but I rarely submitted anything according to the prescribed requirements. I skimmed the syllabus and ignored looming deadlines. Perhaps my most significant skill in this regard was the righteous indignation I would display when receiving my below-average grades. I did my best to make the situation as awkward as possible, thereby ensuring a palpable tension in class which worked to the detriment of all.

I pride myself on being late for everything. If there's a meeting in which I'm expected to participate, I promise to arrive halfway through it. As I loudly shuffle in, I will make as much commotion as possible with the intention of distracting everyone present. When asked by coworkers for help I will sneer and issue forth a stream of nasty invective. Asked by superiors I will be all smiles until they turn their backs, after which time I will curse them and display my middle finger. I am particularly good at putting in a half-assed effort, I can guarantee that my work will exhibit large and significant omissions, which someone else will be expected to correct. I am highly adept at passing the time playing sudoku and surfing the internet. I neither work well alone, nor in groups.

Personally I would bring to this position an unrelenting cynicism and willingness to actively sow seditious attitudes in my fellow coworkers. Unmotivated and irritable, I rarely listen to the words being spoken but read a deeper meaning in them, assuming that a request such as, "Erasmus, would you please photocopy that purchase order?" actually means, "Erasmus, I'm an idiot, you should be in charge." I am slovenly with outstandingly disgusting personal hygiene, I rarely bathe and brushing my teeth is taboo. If someone makes the slightest remark about the foul smelling odor wafting from my cubicle, I immediately take action, filing grievances and issuing formal complaints to my superiors. I regularly call in sick.

If you think I would make a good fit you are out of your mind.

Sincerely,

Erasmus Herzen