The Burrowing Cockroach in a World Gone Mad

I drop by Fox news dot com about once a month. This gives me a chance to see what cutting edge disinfo they’ve inserted between the tits and ass from silicone, bimbo world. These horizontal hula, blow-up doll, trampolines are something else; one step removed from a Chatty Cathy doll and all pneumatic, slick gliding, plastic from the toes to the nose. These are the culture models. These are the products made by the machine presses and stamps that shape the minds that shape the bodies of the wet t-shirt, shrink-wrapped final product that dances in the flames of California burning. We all know that California is burning but since it’s on TV it isn’t real and neither are the tattered, homeless forms, moving in the bridge abutment underworld beyond your windshield, as you drive into the future through the self-fulfilling prophecy of the moment.

We think of prophets as rail thin, wild men feeding on honey and locusts somewhere in a desert landscape. They speak in riddles filled with ominous portents of things already apparent but unseen due to some strange disconnect between the mind and the senses. It’s right there but it’s not there but it’s there alright. There are other prophets who are more precise because they speak in the specific language of the times. Fox News is a prophet. MSNBC.com is a prophet. All the controlled information feeds of radio and TV are prophets when you are objectively positioned to see into them as opposed to being ridden under them. Think of it as the difference between watching a horse race and being in a horse race. Watching grants a detachment not possible to those engaged in the spectacle.

This is how people can be ‘driven’ through states of madness ...and yet maintain their course, as determined by the bit in their teeth and the reins attached. This is why they cannot stand outside of what is happening to them and identify it as something pathological instead of the natural order of things. We left the natural order of things a long time ago. When you are inside it, when you are dressed in that coat and tie, moving on the rails of habitual performance, all you know about is your engagement with or as the beast on the track. Sometimes it is better and sometimes it is worse. But... you are always at the whim of the beast. There is the element of control and then... there’s all that force which may go astray at any moment. No wonder you need a drink and another drink and a little stress management release in the wonderland of porn. Sure... it used to be something else before the romance was stripped away. Now it’s just porn. Now it’s just going through the motions.

Today Fox News had an item about the heaviest bug in the world. It’s in Australia and it’s a burrowing cockroach. Think of it... a ‘burrowing cockroach’. Is there a more perfect metaphor anywhere? This is prophecy indeed. This is a very big bug and it needs to be a big bug because it symbolizes something very large indeed. It’s the totem creature of the times.

When we are distressed, as we well should be, from ceaseless confrontation which something whose intent is to destroy us, then it is a natural reflex to burrow deeper into the pressing forgetfulness of what is causing the problem to begin with. It’s like pulling the covers over your head. It’s like just one more drink or happy pill. It’s whatever you need to create the cushion between you and what is feeding on you and that is why there is so much more flesh these days to give the impression of insulating something that is in a constant state of injury; granted no more than temporary relief from whatever tributary of Lethe is being accessed for the suppression of the symptom which is the evidence of things gone wrong. Suppress the symptoms and you increase the pressure at the root cause. What does your understanding of physics tell you about that?

What I see is riveting. On the one hand there is the remorseless push for deeper confinement, within ever more tightly proscribed boundaries, as if containment was an effective remedy. On the other hand there is the rapidly growing evidence that what you hear is not mirrored by what you see. What you feel is not mirrored by what you are being told. It’s Mick Jagger lashing the stage with a studded belt while saying, “Peace, brothers and sisters.” It’s the soothing voice which tells you everything is going to be alright as everything gets worse and worse.

There are other fires breeding beneath the rags in the corner of the storeroom, below decks on the great ship of state. There are vast piles of combustible materials known as ‘commercial loans’. There is an accelerant know as ‘bad intentions’. There’s a game of hot potato where the potato grows hotter as it passes from hands to hands. It’s a demented game of musical chairs, where sharp instruments are growing out of the chair seats apace with the increasing tempo of the music. Sitting down is not going to be pleasant but to be left standing is fatal. When the final player grabs the last remaining seat he is impaled on a steel spike that breaks through the crown surface of the skull. “Game over, you won!!!”

It seems that the only solution to survival is to mutate into a burrowing cockroach. It will come at the cost of your humanity but... you are alive. When ideals and values have gone by the wayside as the price for position and progress, then survival becomes the pre-eminent drive. Souls in possession of honor and integrity prefer the nobility of death in the face of such a choice; “Thomas Hobson to the white courtesy phone”.

Some years ago I lived in a teepee with Michael Green who is finally being recognized as a great artist and visionary. We stayed in this teepee in all seasons. Michael used to walk to town (3 miles of dirt road, 7 miles of highway) in his bare feet in the winter. We bathed in the icy stream on freezing winter mornings. Michael has never wavered in his path and made the right choices at every step of the way. I chose the rock and roll highway with the same goal in mind but traveling through much more serious and painful country. Michael made the better choices but that’s just how it went.

It isn’t the way we went that is important. It’s what our intentions were. We are here to make mistakes and in my passionate fury to burn through the sub-matrix, I made more than a few. I wish I had been more like Michael but regret is for those inclined to indulge in it. I guess some of us just like to do things the hard way (grin).

If your goals are no more than satisfying the need for security, position and power in this temporary realm then you will effectively possess none of them for long. The best you can hope for is to become an example not to be followed by anyone sane. In this world, the reality of the matter is the opposite of what we are presented with. An insane course will lead to an unfortunate end. If this is not self-evident then what hope do those who are collectively insane hope for? It is the bitter reflection of a lifetime missed that is the harvest of those who went by the usual routes. They are left to give their version of Cardinal Wolsey’s speech. In falling like Lucifer, Lucifer incarnates for the moment in everyone who chooses that inflexible course.

There is time for redemption in every life. Every life is filled with the ongoing moment where one might step aside if he willed it so. The force of the river’s current is so strong that they are few indeed who can thwart its intention and none of them without help.

It is always in hindsight that we see with clarity the error of our ways. It seems that the greatest challenge of any life is for the occupant to muster the necessary space for consideration before the fact. As our blindness increases, our ability to see diminishes accordingly.

It seems understandable that anyone who struggles must experience the wrath and contempt of those who could not bring themselves to strive for the narrow path and for which those who do stand as evidence of their failure to. I would not myself be a burrowing cockroach. The saving grace is that, despite my shortcomings, I have evidence of a better world and it cannot be discovered by digging deeper into this one.

Visible sings: ♫ Walk Thru The Fire Or Burn ♫
Lyrics (pops up)
The New Shangri-La.

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