Sophistication

With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he prefers that the other be a woman, that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.
--Sherwood Anderson "Sophistication"

There is perhaps no communal experience that is more isolating than death. In its contemplation, with all the unknowable aspects to awe and frighten; there arises a need, primal in nature, to mitigate the horror by sharing the burden with another. Such sharing may take many forms, with many people, but love remains the most intimate, and meaningful manifestation.

Love forms from the trust built around exposed vulnerabilities; an appreciation of the complex and imperfect gestalt of personality as an artwork; not less desirable for its deficiencies, but all the more uniquely beautiful. To share our own weaknesses with someone who will both acknowledge and accept these shortcomings with candor and grace creates a relationship that can fashion a more complete person; one able to bear the responsibilities of conscience and charity required to fashion healthy society.

This bonding underlies the principle of betrothal; the foundation of human civilization. Such participation between individuals towards a common goals of unification, where a mutual goal outweighs private needs, must start on a personal level to afford everyone the necessary strength required for self sacrifice. Robbing individuals of this essence threatens the stability of the entire social structure, for depleted elements render the edifice unstable.

Thus, when society denies its people the right to bond with those who they love, it engages in self destruction. Each being needs the liberty to develop themselves and find others who will accept and cherish them. Government that defrauds it citizens of this process, whatever the motivation, degrades those it must seek to serve, and threatens its own integrity.

As the world becomes more interdependent, the price of ignorance and prejudice towards our neighbors rises. The antidote for the venom of fear that flows through the veins of an uncertain society is not a cowardly hatred, but the courage to learn and understand the differences in our compatriots. Accepting the humanity in others not only decreases the trepidation inherent in personal interaction, it also allows one to forgive the personal failings basic to all. Reaching out to touch another betrays not a weakness, but a strength too long underutilized. It is a sophistication to which everyone must aspire.

Slobber is fit badge for his breast

The abundant blasphemy which bubbles over the lips of many reactionary religious fanatics is a corsage most culled by the August Assembly; this self-donned adornment of subtle and gross depravity masquerading as embellishment remains an achievement of the first order.

Corrupting sanctimonious bigots has never been overly difficult; indeed, their ignorance and moral cowardice provide a fertile ground in which to plant the seeds of hatred and contempt. Cultivating such germs into the full flower of divine usurpation, however, takes careful tending; requiring the careful application of copious amounts of both flattery and condemnation to raise narcissistic self-aggrandizing to its full ripeness.

Only when the unctuous have deluded themselves into believing that their personal prejudice is synonymous with heavenly abhorrence will this sacrilegious bloom be pinned to the breast, and watered with the bile of disdain. By rejecting charity for the hubristic pleasures of proscription, the quest for righteousness becomes perversion; displayed by the drool encrusted blossom riding over the heart.

Thus, by careful pandering to intolerance and selfishness, a creature may be created; one who will not only vilify others for his own satisfaction, but will do so under the guise of aiding his fallen brethren. Such appropriation of celestial power without corresponding responsibility, concern and love corrupts delightfully; rendering the wielder incapable of helping others or himself. Should self doubt rear its head at the desecration that abounds, he need merely glance at his slaver-caked chest for affirmation that all is well. After all, this badge of courage is well fitted to such a noble breast.

Dr. Mordacious "Deceit as a tool of statecraft"

Elasticity

There are only two mistakes that inhibit your success. One is a lack of initiative, the other is overstepping your bounds. Between these two poles of error, the entire range of failure is bound. Thus, whatever deficits of achievement occur beneath your watch, you and you alone bear full culpability for the negative outcomes. Those above you can not be held accountable for disasters caused by your negligence and incompetence, and will swiftly met out the most severe retribution that suits our needs.

Thus, the degree of ruthlessness with which you discharge your duties becomes of paramount importance; not only to future prosperity, but more significantly, to your present existence. Understanding this will prove invaluable in realigning your values; for if any principle should limit the effective attainment of the task assigned, it is to be summarily discarded, and subsequently dismissed as immaterial.

Maintaining the utmost degree of elasticity when dealing with moral imperatives is not a sign of degeneracy, rather, it bespeaks of a dynamic, practical nature; one well suited to the progressive mindset needed for the betterment of the social structure. Any atavistic factions that cling to such notions as duty, honor, truth, justice and/or love are thus reactionary to the most appalling degree, and must be dealt with in the manner appropriate for such evolutionary dead ends- extinction.

Dr. Modacious- Deceit as a Tool of Statecraft
(from C.S. Lewis)

The peculiar form of clarity

For most of my adult life, I have striven to mitigate my perception of isolation and suffering. The methods have been varied, as have my degrees of success, but the drive has remained constant and corrosive. At last, after nearly 48 years, the cumulative corruption has reached a point where a semblance of goal has been reached; I no longer have the ability to be fully aware of reality. Unfortunately, this has not lead to an alleviation of my pain; rather it has simply added a new layer of trepidation to the burden of dread I already carry.

I willed with all my being to be insensible to reality, and in doing so condemned myself to dwell in a realm beyond the grasp of sense. Here, the terror may be unreal, but not less terrifying for that; my growing horror unreasonable, but past the reach of reason. My apprehension lies slathered with just enough apathy to permit me to shamble between moments without being frozen by fear, but I lack the discernment to navigate towards any worthwhile destination. Eviscerating my soul has left me a shade that wanders through an indistinguishable labyrinth of shadow and illumination, substituting motion for progress.

In rare moments of insight, I retain just enough perception to ascertain the depths of desperation in which I dwell, and comprehend the utter hopelessness of escape. It is this peculiar form of clarity that remains my last link to humanity. Once it is severed, I know not what will be.

Casting out the Kindly Ones

"Justice belongs to those who claim it, but let the claimant beware lest he create new injustice by his claim and thus set the bloody pendulum of revenge into its inexorable motion."
-Gowachin aphorism

Within the framework of society, conflicts between individuals must be effectively managed to insure a cohesion conducive to cooperation. The struggle to reconcile differing interests takes many forms; the most contentious and potentially disruptive may be that of addressing injuries among competing parties.

Unless all participants share a minimum of trust in the system of redress, the impetus provoked by emotional forces towards chaotic impulses threaten to rend the social fabric; as vindictive claws shred the binding ties of community. Fostering faith in such a process depends largely upon a perception of equality and impartiality; a projection of common good that overrides private concerns needs to demonstrate that the low and high share in civic responsibility, irrespective of their social status.

Thus justice compels an evenhanded distribution of punishment and rewards for those engaged in public conflict; an agreed upon framework of rules that limit acts of retribution, and supply a system of compensation for violations of communal law. When this exists, or at least is perceived to exist, maintaining social order remains a matter of application and adjustment; when such a perception fades, the maintenance becomes much more problematic.

For justice to exist, and moreover flourish, it must be valued; not merely with words, but by the allocation of resources in a manner shared by its benefactors and conspicuous in its application. Further, without a demonstration that individual power is subordinate to the demands civic interests, the burden of due process becomes untenable to those whose lack the influence to manipulate such a system.

Thus, an unwillingness to provide adequate funds to support justice or a lack of moral will to enforce justice lead to a erosion of public faith in the system, and portend a regression to more atavistic forms of redress. Taking the law into one's own hands means removing it from the social grasp, and shifting the grip from common good to individual benefit. Such a shift opens the way to the passionate clutches of vengeance, displacing the hand of due process with the claws of vindictiveness.

When reason is abandoned for a reversion to instinctual fury, the Kindly Ones are cast out from their place of honor, and condemned to roam afield; the spilled blood stains not only the talons they posses, but the digits of all who abandoned their homage.

Grasping Relics

There are certain elements of the past that encumber our lives; pieces of a bygone era that threaten our ability to adapt and change. While we hold these fragments dear, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to come to grips with the present.

When we sanctify memory due solely to the nature of remembrance, we consecrate delusion by enshrining an surreality with in the temple of truth. The lack of reality endues the past with a halo most appealing in many eyes, but our worship of such images become graven in our minds, displacing the actual history with the idols of idealized yesterdays.

The room needed for change thus becomes crowded by tchotchekes, our mental attics cluttered with baubles no longer serving an function but that of nostalgia; prohibiting growth by binding us to the departed times and places. For experience to serve, it must not remain a hallowed icon, untouched by reinterpretation, but a material upon which to build a clearer and more truthful present awareness.

Lest we devolve into dust covered memento ourselves, we need to relinquish the cherished relics of the past, and bend our digits to grasp a more solid, if slippery contemporary existence.

Of this time, of that place

The instruments of precision fail to serve when they supersede their designated purpose; the fear of uniqueness impairs the creation of the self that fulfills the deepest need of the individual. For the sake of conformity and acceptance into the society of achievement, machines degenerate the organic distinctiveness by denying soul spawned thought and feelings.

The enticements wailed by clockwork sirens befuddle all sense of navigation, sending the ship of reason yawing towards the shoals of desire; wrecking the voyage of self discovery. For want of certainty, for lust of security; progress is abandoned upon the rocky shallows of technology; the spirit left to bleach into a hollow carcass, bereft of beauty and life.

Here then lies the most terrible of all temporal and spacial junctions, the nowhere all-encompassing both self and situation; the negation defining existence that relegates humanity to an inanimate object, forever confined to this and that time and place.