AMERICAN GIRL - NUMB

I was with a an American Girl the other night.  She was from LA with money, pretty and relatively intelligent.  Despite all this there was a constant look of unsatisfaction in her eyes.  She needed bigger better faster more to keep her attention from wandering.  She spoke of her ideal man, good looking, full of mystery and many layers.  I told her it seemed she was describing India rather than a man.  

She wanted it all because her wealth and her experiences have accustomed her to the very best, to the extremes of sensations and experiences.  Why hold men to any less standard?  They are like amusement parks, or television shows or drug experiences, they are no longer people.  They are pleasure driven action packed movies.  As sweet as cotton candy and as soft as cashmere sweaters.  They are better than their therapists and much more life like then their vibrators.  

The one factor common to most of these girls is the necessity they have in their lives to be shocked.  Their extreme numbness, a result of the deadening of senses by over-stimulation, leaves them unable to access subtlety.  The only way they feel alive is when something big, vulgar and shocking knocks them out.  

That is why food is big.  Everything big, to finally feel.  Look around American society and you will see this one factor in everything.  Big, intense, extreme, all to make people feel, to shock them out of numbness.  

Look at their films.  Look at the cars.  Look at the what people proclaim to like.  Nietzhe said look to what people worship to better understand them.  

It is a sad state of affairs, American Girl.  You were wild and free once, full of wonder and innocence.  Look what they have done.  What have they done to you?  They ripped you and bit you and tore you to pieces.  Sold you and fenced you and stuffed you with chemicals.  But now, I am here to protect you and hold and destroy you to make you whole again.  We will start with your medicine cabinet and then your fridge.  We will make you feel again.  Take you to the river and wash away your sins.  Its not to late.  

Women!  We need each other to make the world go round.      

Real Change

Real Change

I am having moments of poignant absurdity strike me.  A girl next to me was eating cake from a zip lock bag as I saw crowds of cars filled each with one person, their own personal armor guiding them through the world.  They looked like children playing with big toys, all driven by  their own isolation.  If questioned I am sure all would answer the same:  Necessity.  What is one to do?  We need a car, and to eat fast food because of money and time constraints.  Necessity, that magical state of being that makes us do what we don't really want to do.  Thats the secret in enslaving people, make what you offer seem like a necessity and then all resistance vanishes.  

You need a lawyer, a doctor, an expert, a job, food.  What is truly necessary?

The first step to change is when we challenge what is necessary, think deeply on alternatives.    That takes strength, courage to take risks because you may be wrong along your journey of self-discovery.    

I am re-reading Nietzhe and am still struck by his call for strength in weak times.  The inversion of values is rampant, and single handedly he brought the moral order of the church down with his call of "god is dead".  We must not be slaves to that we have not questioned.

And even once you question it, you may not be able to bring it down, we are all not Neitzhe.  But we can at least try in small unromantic ways, though only if we try and are aware of the importance of ideas, both of ourselves and others.  

Thinking needs to be fashionable again, I agree with Leon Weisilteir's assessment that modern day American society is at its anti-philosophical zenith.  Its pointless to think for many people because they are busy organizing and planning just to survive.  Its astounding how much importance logistics have in our society.  Adolescent boys become high achievers at school merely by using their school planners better.  This is seen as an achievement by us.  But what about instilling in them the passion for what they do? 

We are all being herded for the big slaughter.