otherwise ain't you, or me, or ain't none of our friends n famblys'd be here. and i like bein here....

i am reading Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. in some ways it is a bit sophomoric at times, and a platform for one man's beliefs (other novels by same author? this is a one hit wonder i believe...) but essentially it is a beautiful story, and very much requires your "rational self" to just shut up for a while.

the premise: a gorilla, kept in captivity in the mid 1900s and through a series of fortunate events, becomes educated and learns to communicate via telepathy to humans. being an objective outsider, and a scholar from the time of "identity" *(a name, and an understanding of that name as individuality) he seeks a student. he gains such (our narrator), and the instruction that follows is the "plot."

his teachings, through a series of rather mind blowing "steps" lead to the uncloaking of "Taker Mythology," basically how Takers, or "modern thinkers" (ie western ideology) have created a history in which evolution has led to basically (of course), to us. evolution did not "mean" for mollusks or playtypi or killer bees to be the pinnacle of creation. that is man. and so, we have invented for ourselves an undeniable right to power, because why on earth would we be the height of creation yet made to live like common "beasts". while we can admit that we are royally fucking things up, part of our mythology (to make ourselves feel better? to blame it on the gods?) is that there is something inherently wicked in human nature, that something in us "can't help it." we were evolved for power, and power we must take or perish. also inherent in our mythology is a need for a prophet, a divine yet fleshly hero (because as conscious thinking feeling beings we were given the right to conceive of such figures) who will tell us how to live and interact, in the "human community."

this is contradicted, though not so overtly so as to make you ill, by Leavers. i have not gotten to leaver culture or leaver mythology yet in the book but there's enough there to know that the leavers are what we (takers) would call indiginous tribes. those who we call "left behind" by history. and that the leavers don't need to believe themselves full of inherent sin, or to have a prophet, because they are living by the laws of nature, in accordance with the earth and with animal societies, and learn that way how best to carry on.

this gets me to thinking in a way i haven't in a long time: is it possible to truly live in harmony with nature, raised as we were in this culture? no, no, and no, but what if you want that, truly want it knowing all the things we call comforts, infact our very way of life, would be obliterated completely? you can't just go to south america or something and be like "here i am, i want to live like you, can i be in your tribe?" and neither does it seem you can just create your own, it's too late for that no matter how we might try to idealize it, that's just it: it's idealizing. and any children raised in that manner, i truly believe, as soon as there was an inkling of what the "real world" (ha) was about, would be off like a shot, and hating the parents and extended family of that tribe for everything since birth, since they were kept from a culture that valued so highly the individual potential for gain and more of the same.
how did it all come to be this way? this is a central premise of the book, and comes fairly close to an inkling, which is further than i've gotten in a while.

from the book:

The most fundamental difference was that in Africa I was a member of a family-of a sort of family that the people of your culture haven't known for thousands of years. If gorillas were capable of such an expression, they would tell you that their fa
mi
ly is like a hand, of which they are fingers. They are fully aware of being a family but are very little aware of being individuals. Here in the zoo there were other gorillas-but there was no family. Five severed fingers do not make a hand.
I considered the matter of our feeding. Human children dream of a land where the mountains are ice cream and the trees are gingerbread and the stones are bonbons. For a gorilla, Africa is just such a land. Wherever one turns, there is something wonderful to eat. One never thinks "Oh, I'd better look for some food." Food is everywhere, and one picks it up almost absentmindedly, as one takes a breath of air. In fact. one does not think of feeding as a distinct activity at all. Rather, it's like a delicious music that plays in the background of all activities throughout the day."

if it's like this for gorillas in Africa, why not for humans there or in the Americas as well?

sometimes these scary blank out times happen to me. usually only when drinking, but i was pretty in control of my own friday and i just remembered today that there's a chunk of time that i don't remember *what* i was doing. i guess i got sucked into a black white and red hole at the pink. i remember i hardly went inside because i wanted to smoke. but i remember i didn't have any. who i talked to and what was said was beyond me. did i just bum and bum again for the better part of an hour? (or more??? i can't remember!) i feel as though i was another person entirely for a while, and that's not the first time. it's terrifying.

another thing is when i lived in the hippy house, i used to see super weird shit behind my eyes just about every night. (while awake). i never really enjoyed pot so it wasn't that. i did a fair amount of drinking, but spent the majority of life on the sober side. it used to scare me to the point of tears sometimes because i couldn't make it stop and what it was was faces upon faces that would morph into each other, except not all happy like in the 'black and white' video but in every state of human animal, human, animal, and sometimes creature expression you could imagine. i would see the face of a child playing hopscotch change into a caricature cat face smiling horrifically while licking a puddle of milk change into an old black man's face playing a saxophone change into a toothless thirty year old cackling change into...and so on. whatever the action, the focus was always the face.
these are people i've never seen before but that i can see crystally clearly in my mind and it feels too real. my friend marc calls it having a gift but without the proper guide and/or spiritual training, it just feels like craziness to me. it doesn't happen so much anymore but every so often i feel something schiszm-ing, is the closest word i can come up with. like a fault line, with ruptures, rumbles y roaros. pieces shifting around in my head, combined with an awful restlessness.

okay yeah, so maybe then i should write or perhaps make movies, i don't know what the fuck, but my head is an egg. whatever's inside is trapped, unfertilized as of yet or perhaps past its chance to break out, rotting. either way giving birth to itself now would be a disaster.

i'm technologically dumb. i was excited to share my photos of the debauch, but apparently they won't work. and to make matters worse, i do not know how to delete them off my journal. paul? can you help?

oh, at least you can see the condom veil. which i'm pretty happy to have (both old and new) off my head. veils hurt! i have sore spots behind my ears! but wow, i'll never wear a veil again. unless i decide to have a death shroud. which i just decided. why, yes. yes i will have a death shroud......

so i will wear one again someday.

a HUGE thank you to all involved in the speakeasy party pour moi--i had a smashing good time, everyone looked extra more fabulouser than as per usual, hopefully i can get the PICTURES up asap.