Economics

The principles by which
I subscribe to the theory
of economics
don't recognize downturns.
They reflect an ideology
that states bad times
are the product of worse
thinking, available even
during prosperous points.

Economics ride two animals,
and we know how silly we are
when it comes to transportation,
but no one ever rebels against
fools, because they're
too easy to find, and we hate
to call ourselves names.

What's to even say about it?

It's so absurd that we talk
about everything, and all
the excuses and scapegoats,
and believe the myths we weave
around them, and think that's
all there is to know. But
there is, and we all know it,
but refuse to admit it,
because it's easier
than calling ourselves names.

Again, what's to say about economics?

Fall in Their Place

It's a mystery to me
that no one seems to
think we have an
answer to the meaning
of life. Of course
we do. It's so well
understood that we
think we don't know,
but there it is
all the same.

We believe that
it's about history.

We believe that it's
about those who have
made distinctions
for themselves, on whose
back history is made.

We believe that if
we study history enough,
it will all make sense,
or at least, if we make
history ourselves, we
will have done even better.

We believe we can begin
to understand, to interpret,
to make things better by
correcting the mistakes
of those who came before us,
or perhaps to merely humble
ourselves, and accept that
they did it better.

In short, we are expected
to fall in their place.

In my view, it's more tragedy
than answer in my life. It's
a symbol of all that's wrong.

Fall in their place:

When we have recognized that
someone has done something
important, we are meant to
either deify or demonize,
because although we often
say it's better to see
in shades of gray we actually
prefer the colors black & white.
If we know their name, it
becomes all we can say,
like we are only parrots
in comparison, forced to
cede our place to them,
no place for ourselves, no
place to see but their shrine.

Fall in their place:

On the other hand, or because of,
we often find it difficult to
accept that anyone could
achieve something in the same
field as that person, that
what can be done has been done,
what could be said has been, despite
some rich tradition that already has
many names. But to add one more
is inconceivable, impossible, improbable;
what would be the point? What room?
It is easier to say that the new
is worthless, and invent many
reasons to say so, than to admit
there is some worth there, perhaps
the same, perhaps, heretically, greater.
But that's why there's history, because
the present doesn't always know
what it has (don't know what it's
got 'til it's gone, but then, we
like to misconstrue when we "do"
know), and then, history won't
know, either, 'cause it'll
got lost instead. Many a martyr
dies for this reason, a belief
in one's self. It's a secular
phenomenon. Jesus died because
he knew he had to. But it turned out
okay. If we remember.

Fall in their place:

History would be nothing without
all the little people who wait
to hear what to be told. We like
to pretend that we all rebels against
authority, but the truth is, most
of us just aren't. We formulate
neither what we like nor what we don't
but rather the calculation of what
someone else does, the arithmetic
of Joseph, the anti-life equation,
the variables that are always known
and jostled after. We claim
we don't like spam but there it is,
the stuff they teach in business school,
where they teach you you're better
than me, but can't explain why, a
snowball effect that consumes and supplies
a culture, supports society, and generally
defines history, but is nonetheless
the beast behind the machine, the ghost
that resides in the framework which we deny
but can't escape, the metaphysics
and economics, the puppet show where
we pretend we can't see the hand,
the rabble and the rabbits who run
and eventually rest, the human stain
and widening gyre, the strict forms
and counter-counter revolution, the gun plots
and powder, the pleads to remember, the howl
and leaves and bridge, the fair eidolon,
the two roads, the last lectures, the cannons
to the left and right, the canon that can
be argued, the white whale, the seven gables,
the Brothers Karamazov, the life of Pi,
the story of Edgar Sawtelle, the ode on
the Grecian urn, and all the things
that I've done, the shadows on walls
and age of mouldwarp, all soul and no soldier,
what to be done, what to be done?

Fall in their place,
that's all to be done,
all the meaning
and all of the fun.

Life's too perfect
to be lived in a bubble,
so take a bath with me,
and see how it's done.

We can take another one later.

Why's It So Hard To See?

Why's it so hard to see
all the ways of beauty?

Why's it so much easier
to say what you don't like
than what you do?

Why's it so hard
to take things seriously,
to see the world
some other way?

Why's it our basic instinct
to impose limits on everything?

I'm trying hard to see,
but it gives me hell,
all the time, in return.

Sweat the Small Stuff

I mean, seriously people,
sweat it already.

Sweat it, and not because
of old notions about
manners and etiquette,
but because you want an
active interest in the world.

Don't sweat the big things,
I say. That's a huge problem
these days, people are
so worried about big things
that they seem to have
forgotten what's necessary
in the moment, what they
can do just to keep
simple things good.

Sweat the small things,
get upset when someone does
something stupid, because
otherwise, you're
just enabling them, which
is why they do that dumb stuff
in the first place.

Sweat the small stuff, people,
seriously, and you'll find
the big things will start
to work themselves out, too.

I'm not suggesting a cure-all,
but a simply way of life
you should have discovered
growing up.

I'm just saying, learn to think
in the moment. Is that really
so hard?

Inauguration Day

Just about before today
I was dreading this
transition. I didn't
come from the side
who thought Obama
was the kind of change
we needed. Then I
started to think.

He probably is.

Putting aside the problems
I have with why it happened,
he may turn out to be
the answer we've needed
for the past forty years,
ever since the turbulence
of the 1960s, which we
struggled with the next decade,
thought we'd gotten over
by the 1980s, and discovered
just how wrong we were
in the following two.

It's a long time for turmoil,
and what we've lacked in
that time is a genuine voice
for optimism, whatever
the motivation. (Sorry,
despite what they think,
entertainers don't really count.)

That's what Obama means
to me, on this day,
at this moment, when
at the start of things,
we can all afford to give
him some benefit of the doubt.

I just don't want to feed
the machine that's crushed
the United States more
than any airplane could.
I'm over it. The despair
and bitter season are over.

Congratulations to him,
and to the history he
was welcomed into so
easily. Now the work begins.

Now I Can Sleep ZZZ

I'll tell you
what amuses me:

It's the people
who can't find
the respect for
decent opinions,
who instead
choose to fester
in their rotten
little holes
until someone
drags them out,
and even then,
they continue
to believe as
they did before.

Hm, that story
sounds familiar,
but hey, in a way,
lots of people
ended up supporting
that guy, right?

I'm sorry, what
amuses me is
the notion that
people are perfectly
okay to believe
completely retarded
things just because,
in entirely unreasonable
ways, those beliefs
make sense to them.

Hey, I'm okay
if those beliefs
lead to good things.
Unfortunately, bad things
lead to good things,
so the truth is everyone
really should be okay
with everything, but
it's a lot easier
for me to root
for those beliefs that
in the short-time
work out better than
those that make us all

wait. But, that's
the nature of reality.

Writers Don't Write

Writers don't write.

Hey, far be it for me
to break that myth,
but it's true.
Writer's don't write,
they think.

They think, and they
think, and sometimes
they write, but mostly,
they think.

That's why I have a
problem when I hear
that terrible advice,
for writers to write,
what, like every day.
It's nonsense.

Writers don't write,
they think.

Writers who write
everyday aren't
writing, they're
practicing some
story they already
know. They're
refining the rules
for themselves.

Writers don't have
rules. Writers don't
write, they only think.

And, sometimes, write.

Writers do write, but
it doesn't matter what
they write, or how
often, or how many times
they write a single
story, because they
always think. Rewriting
is a myth, cooked up
by people who aren't
writers.

Writers don't write.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes
they work on the same story,
write parts of the same story,
many times, but they only
write it once. Once it's
written, hey, it's
written.

Writers don't rewrite,
they write something else.

Writers don't write,
they think. Thinking
takes up all their time,
even the time they take
to do other things. If
they don't think, then
they aren't a writer.

Writers think,
constantly. A story,
a good story, has been
thought for a very long time.
If it has been thought long
enough, then it can be
written. Or hey, sometimes,
the story just comes.

In the meantime, writers
don't write, or they do,
just something else.

Because writers can
always write, just not
things other people
might recognize.

Writers write things
others will recognize,
or will in time,
because writers don't
write just to write,
but because it needs
to be written.

Writers don't write
just to say they wrote
but because it needs
to be written.

In the same way
readers don't read
unless it needs
to be read,
writers don't write
unless it needs
to be written.

Anyone else, they're
not writing, but
they can still get
in the way.

Writers don't write,
they think.

Sometimes, the story
may remain there,
in their head,
because writers don't write,
but even then,
it will have been written.

Stories are always only in
someone's head. And that's
the beauty of it.

Trogdon's On the Right Path

I admire the guy
to no end, but
there comes a point
to separate the past
from the present,
and I don't mean
to say that in
order to take anything
from the past, except
to acknowledge that
it's called the past,
because it's already
happened. The heat
from the moon
is the least that we
can take, but there's
the sun, too, and the stars.

So many ways to see.

There are many right ways,
but it's good to remember
that there are wrong ways,
and better ways, too.

Someone Else Will Do It For Me!

Gotta love a culture
that has adapted what used
to be a privilege into
a working public ideology.
Why do something or think
for yourself when you
can assume that someone
else will do it for you?

It's not about being rude
or stupid, or a decent sense
of manners, but rather
lacking a basic sense
of responsibility. Everyone
wants to get away with that one,
and I think the more we let
that slip away, the more we
lose a sense of what it means
to live amongst others.

Is that our real problem?
That people have grown so
used to being "individuals"
(quote marks to denote
an acknowledgement of only
a minimul snse of the term)
that they can no longer
imagine what their life
means to someone else?

Hence, are we doomed
to a civilization of butlers?

By the Same Token...

No good's done
when the good say none
are more stupid than the rest.

We all know
and it's easy to show
that some people just don't think.

I mean, c'mon people!
The church and the steeple
mean nothing if the fingers aren't there!

That's just what I think
so in your mind let it sink
that we're just not on level ground.

And the problem is,
no, not about whiz,
is that some people just don't care.

They'd much rather,
with no soap or lather,
rinse their thoughts all away.

The next time you see
someone stream by like pee,
please, for the love of god, let them know.

I swear,
like no comb-over hair,
it's better that way.

More Stupider Than You Are

I wish I could credit myself
for identifying the most stupid
people in the world today,
but hey, it's a sport identifying
them. It's just that,
everyone gets it wrong,
because everyone has an agenda
except me.

I swear! When Fast Food Nation
pins stupidity on the systematic
gridding of the world into
golden arches, what it's really
saying is, hey, I really don't
like the whole fast food thing.
It can be a whole book and
still miss the point. Dude,
it's just culture. Whatever
you think you gleam from it,
you've gleamed wrongly. Stupid
is as stupid does. You can
have the most simple instructions
possible, and still have them
less useful than they think they are.


It's not, in the end, about whether
someone is capable or willing to do
something, or apathy or conflicting
interests, but rather the fact that
for some people, it's simply easier
to ignore good sense. Yeah, that's
it. Pretty dumb, right? They might
not even realize what they're doing;
they might be listening to what they
were told to do, and the people who
told them what to do might not have
realized what they were doing, or

they did and just didn't care, because
it seemed like a good idea at the time.
What we lack is a basic ability to think
for ourselves. The book touches on that,
but doesn't seem to think it's as important
as the greater thesis, that homogeny is
somehow a bad thing. Hey, culture is
as culture does, and it's not really
about being stupid, but rather about
an apathy about stupidity, a feeling that
you're either smart or you're not.

Well, fuckheads, everyone's smart
about something, and everyone basically
knows what everyone else does, it's just
that we don't want to trust in that,
we'd rather believe that we can or everyone
probably should be able to do everything,
or that no one else can do anything,
and even when that's true, we don't
allow them the benefit, or they don't
allow themselves the benefit, and so we
listen to idiots spouting idiotic things
because it's easier than trying to see
how the person everyone says is an idiot
isn't so stupid after all.

It boggles me, it really does. We spend
all this time talking about the importance
of school, of learning, of reading,
of growing up, yet we never for
one moment think it's important that
people learn to reason for themselves.
To hell with research papers! To hell
with essays! To hell with grades!
Give me a classroom and I will give you
students who will be asked what they think,
simply as a matter of course. If they're
not thinking, they're not there. It's
as simple as that. Every day is already a
challenge, in some way, anyway. Embrace that!
Teach that! But don't tell someone
they're worthless if they challenge the world!

I mean, my god, education is all about that!

Ah, for the world to realize that,
for the world to see what the world is,
to accept that the philosophers are not alone,
that we are not alone, those of us
who are alone, those of us who are never
alone, that the world is what the world is
because it is how we see it. We don't
have to suffer fools, because it
does not take a fool to know a fool,
but it takes fools to love fools,
and to love fools is to hate mankind,
but to see past their foolishness
is a challenge we must all embrace.

It's the real struggle that we call life,
our chance to make up history as we go along,
learn from it or not, but always to see
what's possible, even when everything seems

impossible.

But don't tell me change is when we say
the right thing for the wrong reasons
and with the wrong words.
Yes, it's possible to have progress like that,
but haven't we done enough of that?

Ah, I guess not...

Cheyenne Mountain

Cheyenne Mountain's hollow,
at least that's what I heard today,
carved out and stuff like a turkey,
and certainly not by me.
Still, what do I care?
I just learned the name
of the mountain in my skyline
for the past year, one
I could have guessed if I tried,
but somebody told me,
and that turned out to be just as well.
Before that, it was just
The Mountain, or more accurately,
the mountains, because that's
all it really needed to be,
just something I knew was there,
was important somehow but just there
all the same, and maybe I knew
the military did things there
(the antennas that look if you
aren't careful like trees, unless
you're at my sister's and see
the real trees and then know
the difference like a ghost light
you found out was anything but),
like when my other sister worked there
and tracked Santa, told the girl
he had already passed, and there were
no Christmas presences left behind.
Yea, it doesn't matter to me to know,
because even though I have a name
and more specific information,
like how Bond or at least his villains
would feel right at home there,
I still think of Cheyenne as a landmark,
something pretty to look at and contemplate,
but not so much more. It's a part of
the landscape, something that pushed up
a while ago, and in untold whiles later
won't look like that or count like that
anymore anyway. Whatever I know now,
is just a moment, it's doesn't belong
to me more now than it did before,
and anything I do now won't affect the fact
that I am me and it is that,
and that is all I need to know.
Both of us will change, have already changed,
and have changed even while I write this down,
because that is the real nature of things.

Hey, nature is natural, no matter what goes on.

Stop the Kids From Reading

Stop the kids from reading,
the whole thing's a rotten scam.
The only reason we sell it
is because we never understand.
The thing is no one likes to read,
no, not the ones who don't like to,
and when we say everyone should,
those people read some fucking shoe.
They read only the easiest crap,
the stuff you see around today
but will be long far away gone
when the true test of it will maintain
what we already know.

Those who will read,
those who will write,
will already know.
That's the way
that it always goes.
If everything could
be wrapped up so nicely
as what we all wished
to be true, why,
we'd celebrate tyrants
as less history than hero.