don’t give up.
the fruits of labor
are always closer than
we doom.
but know this:
your reason to be
moves as fluid
as you.
i once thought purpose
is something we hold.
it’s not.
it is that which guides.
most ignore,
some follow,
but quickly grow tired.
you are stuck by your own demise.
never think otherwise.
the other grass shall remain greener,
the idolized past shall remain glorified,
you shall remain unclean
… if static is how you spend your time here.
you have endless possibility,
so feel free to do as you wish.
just make sure
it is purpose who leads,
not the serpent’s hiss.
not who sets flame
as its reason
to step aside.
Recently finishing the book 1984, I felt compelled to write this post so that I could clear and organize my mind of some of the ideas that were presented in this book. Written from Winston’s perspective a few months or so after the ending of the book, I use this hypothetical perspective assuming that he has begun to question the Party’s intentions again, but can no longer decide who is correct. I highly recommend this book. I find it to be an eye-opening piece that thoroughly shows the way that society and ourselves can be manipulated. Constructing a horrifying dystopia, George Orwell brings to life the dangers and powers that can rule over us without even realizing it. I hope you enjoy.
The world is something that we hold by the definition of what we can all agree upon. We take no opinion at any more weight than another, except of course if it is an opinion that we ourselves decide to be weighted higher. Being a personal matter, the world is a subjective realm that can only be seen as objective with total agreement from all, or at least all that we find credible. But what do we do when we have an opinion with such weight that all others are nothing but an echo chamber with perfect pitch?
Big Brother. What is he? He is that we so perfectly follow. A rule of law that is true and shall always be true since it has always been true. A reference to follow above anything else. Above our experience. Above our logic. And most importantly, above our feelings. Big brother is that which we must give our lives to. It is what we live and die for. He is god. Not because he can make anything, but because everything is made due to him.
Imagine the climax of an epic movie finally coming into frame. The scene where the most blood is shed, where bullets soar but never land, and the damsel is significantly distressed. You can’t seem to even blink without feeling a tinge of regret. Everything you could ever want is on the line right NOW. I believe the ‘now’ is what is so important. This moment, in its erect state, seconds away from the final orgasm, is where the Party intends to keep the world. With Eurasia (and never Eastasia, unless it was always Eastasia) on the brink of defeat, yet so are we, the turning moment of the war is today. As my veins pop, and my head aches, my patience thins for the next bulletin. What will be the results? Will it be us or them who fall? Who is going to conquer who? Shall I die or win? The bulletin is posted, and of course, victory.
The explosion of energy is similar to that of a lion finally tackling its prey. But I am not alone, the party, which is all that is human, joins in my celebration as vibrant as I. Together our being becomes one and a feeling of absolute joy jolts through my essence. We scream and yell for our love of the party. For our love of Oceania. For our love of Big Brother. As Oldspeak would say it, this is not sustainable. After the climax would come a downfall, or at the very least a moment of rest and recollection. Resolution as they would call it. Followed by self-inquiry, one may beg the question, why did I just do as I did? But that is a way of the past. Before truth came to save us. Before Big Brother. How it will go, by the year 2050, or maybe sooner, the resolution will be replaced with the same climax. What had happened would be completely forgotten, with doublethink taking one’s memory for a ride, and by the next day the same people will be waiting for the same bulletin for the same military results. Anxious as before, they shall impatiently wonder, will it be us or Eastasia who falls?
This my love is why War is Peace.Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
This state of being, in its strange beauty, comes at a cost that I don’t feel we should ever have to bear. It is surely my ill mind for having such thoughts, but they nonetheless persist. Must we lose our individual love from our personal reality? Stipping the individual into the collective entity (the Party), our personal stories become one story. A story of rage, bloodshed, victory, and anxiety. Again, beautiful in its way, but partial a single-story shall always remain.
We lose ourselves when following another in faith. It may flow and feel so swell, but nevertheless, it is I who shall fall by this decision. Therefore, the question to ask is whether the I is worth preserving. Personally, for myself in a way, I think not. In some ways, I see myself as the Frankenstein of my childhood night terrors. Assembled from the parts of death that I can gather, I find myself as a conscious corpse with unparalleled power. It is scary to be me when this is true. When I am that. Hence why I would not be offended when asked to be walked with a lease. However, must we do this to all? To everyone and every part of themself? Blindly, must we fall at the hands of an impersonal “better”?
I do not know. What I do know is that if we do not, as it was before the Party, shackles will hold many of us in place anyway. I do not need a telescreen for me to watch my own back. I do not need thoughtcrime in order to question what I think. I do not need snitching party members for me to be careful of what I say. We seem to currently police ourselves plenty, I know that I do. With so many different views and ways that people “acceptably” are, we still seem to find ourselves in a pinch between what we should and should not do. Of course not always punishable by death, as an other you may suffer in ways that the Ministry of Love did not even elicit. And with no set code or universal standard outside of where you currently are, one conscious enough may persist in fear as they struggle to know the subtle rule of law for each environment. Therefore, it may just be possible that Freedom is Slavery.
If there is hope, it lies in the proles.
How do you show cattle that they need to only reach out with their feet and kick to kill the wolves that feast on their children? I suppose you can’t because I as a human is different from that a cow. Our language is broken, our lives are incomparable, and our consciousness is at different levels. I can not teach something of such a different standard an idea only contrived from my perception and understanding. Or maybe I can? The dog has learned to sit, the horse has allowed us to ride and the cow has grown accepting of our use of it. To make matters better, I do not speak of another species. I speak of humans. I speak of the proles.
So how do I reach out and tell them something they could do but would never know? How do you teach someone something they don’t want to learn? How do you get someone to see something that they choose to not look at? It seems to me that you can trick them, force them, or persuade them. Yet again, this idea must go a layer deeper. This assumes that the thing we need to convey to the proles is within the grasp of what they can understand. A dog can learn to roll over, but never algebra. So even if I do one of the methods of teaching an undesirable subject, then I must wonder if it is even something that they can see. Now given the desire to learn, can a prole truly understand the nature of its existence? Can it see past the day-to-day life it persists within? Can it understand what the party is doing and then gather the needed resources, intelligence, and support for a proper revolution? I don’t know.
There remains one further problem that I must address: I wish to rest on the backs of the fallen and ask for their forgiveness as I ascend to heights they could never reach. Although subtle, O’Brian brought this truth into the open. I may claim that I want this change for better, but my selfishness will cloud my ugly reality until it is too late to turn back. Therefore, my intent is something that should be put on trial. If not the party then who. If not the party then why. If not the party then what. If I am to remain in my human form and resist that of the party’s intent, then why is mine something we need to follow? What will I provide that it does not already? And if I do have such answers, what is there to show that I shall actually do as I say?
Questions with no answers. Chaos whispers into my ear. How can I even make a difference? At what cost? For what reason? This internal battle can be resolved in two manners. We can either achieve these goals and their answers, or we can stop asking the questions. The party is invincible, that much is obvious. Therefore, I have only one option to end my suffering: Ignorance is Strength.
I am one with everyone before, and all after. We are connected by our succession of consciousness. Infected and molded to and by the next, lies a union of us all.
Such a bond that it is dubious to say we stand outside this sphere of ultimate concern. Both individual as I stand, and flowing as I transcend, alone is a state of being that we must fool ourselves by not noticing.
I can not fully share the sensation as my heart and mind link. How that beauty washes away the self-indulging pity we are normally occupied by.
So with that, I say this, you are not alone, you may always find a home, and that love is what we are, not what we get.
Why is it so much easier to live when alone? To absorb the riches of our universe and to hear its whispered melody when there is nobody around to experience this phenomenon with.
Social creatures we declare, yet survival is the best that us two can do. And how odd that is. Surviving is nothing but the tool that we claim to be the prize. Only breathing in and stating that the job is done.
HA! I protest. I declare your fear. I resist. You think the key lies waiting there for you? You think there is a stone to turn? You know NOTHING! And I can’t show you. Cause only alone shall my argument persist. Only when I am left on the brick of what you fear as death, can my being transcend from who I am and what I say.
Move those legs! Faster. You can’t think for then it is already lost! You must move in an upward sprint if you are to escape the fear that cradles us to sleep.
Fruitless, but know this. Doer of death, sinning in his crux of sanity, I have found you. And you shall be mine. For one is nothing in relation to all.
I can’t tell you
the secret of life.
Sometimes,
I want to finally end it
with that kitchen knife.
Drunken nights
ending in pleasureful delights.
Playing the devil’s hand
I know all,
invincible from your eyes.
“Leave me alone”
is my message
in disguise.
Fear to do
is no reason to stop
let it go
then there will be no more raindrops.
I hate my horrors
the past from which I hide.
To escape
closed-door genocide.
I don’t have that simple fate
with only lemons in the hand
I’ve learned to swallow them whole.
Rebirth
and revive.
Through death,
we eventually thrive.
It’s grief,
I hear through tears.
Sometimes,
they last for years.
Remember,
hold your head high.
Not for me,
or any others in disguise.
Numbness only comes,
to those who forget
to love,
rather than just survive.
In life, we have a choice with the pain we endure: Mind over matter or obtain power to move matter. In other words, when we desire something another way, we can either change our preference or change that something into our preference. If I don’t like how I look, do I tell myself I look amazing, or do I work out/use makeup? If I wish to be wealthier, do I lower my expectations or do I try to earn more revenue? These two options both address the issue of not meeting one’s goals by either changing the goals to meet reality or changing reality to meet the goals. Not necessarily conscious expectations, or even good expectations, they guide us into believing what we should or should not be/do.
These two solutions of course lead to a third possibility. One can choose to do neither. In doing so, the pain that one feels for not reaching their preferences will turn into suffering. It is to say that one desires more, but never tries to get more. To want to be better, but never learn how to do so. Doing neither is a petty game. It leads to self-doubt, blaming, and feeling like the world is against you. Therefore, I highly recommend you do one, either is better than neither.
Connecting this idea with that of the current social movements that are occurring, there appears to be a growing acceptance of changing matter over mind in ways not commonly accepted. This complication is that the “matter” to change is typically someone else’s mind. With the classical United States slogan of, you get what you earn on trial, there seems to be a growing consciousness for how difficult that is for some people. And the complications that come when one feels that the thing needing change is how others see/treat them. Blending the two options into one, these movements strive to validate the struggles that people of color, LGBTQ+, women, and so forth, experience by stating that they no longer need to change their mindset, but that others do instead. That racism is not just a black person’s problem. It is not just a stereotype to get over, but instead a factor that molds you unless it is actively fought against. Attempting to end fat-shaming, rape culture, victim-blaming (to name a few more), these movements are trying to bring the solution as something others must do, rather than a mindset to suppress.
The issue that follows with this is that unless one agrees and sees the struggles that these people endure, then they will never care to change their ways for others. To add to this difference in opinion, many will define changing another’s mind to improve the life of someone else as mental enslavement by stripping away one’s freedom to believe what they believe. And so the rebuttal becomes that the better solution is to change one’s mindset. To not let the forms of privilege control you. To allow a color blindness if you will. This too is of course narrow-sighted and fails to recognize the intensity of these pressures and systems that guide us to even a point we ourselves can not see/control. Which makes “fixing” far more difficult and complicated than most people would like to admit (Don’t believe me? Follow the link). Round and round the circle goes.
Another corollary from this idea is what people mean when they talk about, “Letting go of their dreams” when growing up. It sounds depressing at first, but it’s actually a solution that one commonly finds when they age out of their youth. Finding a positive correlation between growing older and increased mental health, the same researchers found a negative correlation with growing older and striving for purpose/growth (Mackenzie & Karaoylas & Starzyk, 2018). It would appear that as we get older many of us lose the ability to use our power over the world to fit our needs. Therefore, in our subtle desperation to remain at ease, we learn to instead change our mindset. And this makes sense. If you want to be stronger, then eventually going to the gym will not be as helpful as it once was in your twenties. If you strive to be a billionaire but then realize your career path has plateaued, being satisfied with what you have may be a better course of action.
Failing to recognize these two options in life can be scary. As said at the beginning of this post, if neither solution is chosen then suffering shall surely endure. By both not accepting how things are or changing them to be what you hope for is something I hope nobody goes through, yet so many of us do. Sometimes so quiet that we may not even admit to ourselves, it seems that we ruthlessly suffer at our own failure to take physical or mental action. Can you smile when you look at yourself naked in front of a mirror? Does sober sex with the lights on make you shake? Is your job all that you hope for? How about your partner? Do you love who your child is becoming? And do you love who you have become? Do long car rides make you think? And if so, do you ever need to drown those thoughts out with the radio?
I’m not trying to scare you. Or harm you in any way. All I am saying is that we seem to suffer in many ways every day and it’s not until we face this problem that we can then decide how to fix it. Neither solution always being more right than the other, either is better than neither. So you decide, mind over matter, matter to mind, or let the “imperfect world” control you.
Citation:
Mackenzie, C. S., Karaoylas, E. C., & Starzyk, K. B. (2018). Lifespan differences in a self determination theory model of Eudaimonia: A cross-sectional survey of younger, middle-aged, and older adults. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 19(8), 2465–2487. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-017-9932-4
melting thoughts
memory vomit
moments never felt
conversations forgotten
pounding
at my ear
clouding me
from seeing clear
Stop! I command
seconds pass
the talking stick
is ripped from my hand
hear,
I pray
see,
I say
but listen
I do
and look
only at you
I’m cold
there’s a start
my hands are numb
I feel my heart
bursting out my chest
subtle mania
fills the air
I must beware
who is to blame,
for their foul stench
kids not knowing how to play
torment me in obnoxious ways
scared to look up
and meet their gaze
I wonder now
if this too
is a memory
I will replay
It’s funny really,
how much we care.
Or if I dare,
how much I stare.
At you,
there remains no compromise.
Just a subtle pit
of despair.
With a half-hearted smile,
I pray that you meet my gaze.
Eventually,
I’ll learn to look away.
Because I see you
as you see him.
It’s not subtle
As much as they protest
This feeling of death
That slices up my chest
It takes my ears for a ride
I am told to open wide
Stop the delay
And listen here,
“if you don’t come… you’re a queer!!”
Blood drooling from the nose
I learned to fear the word,
too long ago to know
I can’t stand their anticipated hate
They wait and wait,
until I’m about to faint
Until I unleash what I try to stow
Close to death
Or vulnerable alike
I hold back my demons
With all my might
They giggle
Just as the sun can scorch your eyes
The longer I hear it
The less I feel alive
I want them to stop
Meddling with my ears
Threatening to call me
that fucking sneer
Leave me alone
I can only conjure
Vibrating rage
They hush so that it goes longer
They watch without mercy
With those eyes
As I boil
In my own demise
I hate them for this
More than they can ever know
I throw myself
At their crooked throats
They scream
For once not at me
and I get power
that I thrust upon thee
Still past a boil
nothing wains
I want them gone
For their life to be drained
Fear in their eyes
Now I see mine
Looking desperately
to the sky
I question my hate
Maybe it’s wrong
I let go
I move along
They of course never learn
I continue to burn
But I wonder
If death is all we ever earn
