On alignment, domination and transformation

[BurtReynolds]

Should one try to adapt/align himself to the world in order to better exist in it, or change the world to better fit himself?

This is the crux of all issues.

Be sure and like and subscribe to me for answers to life's truly important questions.

[tragabigzanda]

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

[Higgs]

While I'm alive I'll make tiny changes to earth.

[BurtReynolds]

Far be it from me to engage in hegelian dialectic, but I believe that synthesis is achieved by realizing and accepting that the true nature of the world is change, and we are the agents of that change, and thus, by embracing the will to change the world, we simultaneously become properly aligned to the world, achieving the only harmony possible in this chaotic, ever-changing meat grinder of a universe.

[Higgs]

"synthesis". Sounds like wank to me.

[tragabigzanda]

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

[tommy]

"synthesis". Sounds like wank to me.

Trag agreed with him, so it's definitely wank.

[BurtReynolds]

But, though accepting one's essence as an agent of change in a world of change, one has to also have the humility to know that, as little more than hairless, schizoid apes, all our hopes and schemes to make the world a "better place" (ie. to make the world more peaceful, or some other horribly ignorant and misguided goal) through our actions are doomed to failure. Such arrogant thinking and grand scheming will only end in tears -- and billions of dead bodies. Both the progressive and reactionary believes that we can and should attain perfection (completeness) and that we can then stop the wheel of time in its tracks and usher in the end of history -- Heaven on Earth. Delusion and arrogance! Towers of Babel and Crystal Places!

Rather, when we act for change, it should be with the understanding that it only serves change in itself, and this change-in-itself is the only god. The Dionysian god. To know Him is to see the eternal swirling and churning of chaos, out of which new forms are birthed as quickly as they are annihilated. To serve Him is to promote runaway feedback loops of creation and destruction. We should strive to be like God, constantly creating and abandoning new forms, not trying to preserve the dead past or achieve utopia, as if we could stop the wheel already in motion. There are neither brakes nor steering wheels on this ride!

[Ello Sailor]

"synthesis". Sounds like wank to me.

Trag agreed with him, so it's definitely wank.

His ass? Gotten.

[96583UP]

I am gay

[BurtReynolds]

I am gay

[pepperwhiteMFC]

If I could have voted for two options I would have.


I feel like a smidgen of adaptation is required in order to elicit change.