Revolution at 2112 RPM

Revolution at 2112 RPM

For Tom, the guys at Occupy Colorado Springs, and everyone else:

So, if I sit here and carry on about how we can get out of this grief under which so many of us find ourselves buried by living cooperatively, and no one plays along, it's like division by zero, an operation that produces no definable solution and the thought of which is so troublesome it caused philosopher George Berkeley to suspect all mathematicians could be devil-worshipers on the side. Seriously. A new friend I met at Acacia Park yesterday asked where the little hullabaloo about banks and bailouts and revolution and such that was happening in Colorado Springs led, and was asking the general milieu of rabble-rousers where their overall revolution could be expected to go. (Hi, Tom). Some of the guys there, as one might expect, were so fed up with the obviously unsupportable state of current affairs that they were almost gleefully anticipating violence and war--civil war--right here in the U.S.A.. (Hi, Pat). I certainly can't blame anyone for thinking that way, given that I hoped fervently for exactly the same outcome from around the 3rd grade til only recently, really.

I've already mentioned my opinion of the futility of standard issue revolutions. We've tried that. It doesn't work. We've tried Monarchies, ordinary dictatorships, "working-class dictatorships", Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Ism after Ism--none of what we've tried to do has worked, neither for the oppressed nor the oppressors. We've been dividing by zero all the while. You should look that operation in the eye some, so you know what I'm saying. It's the same as proving a negative, or trying to work out the math of the Singularity, and if you find it difficult, one glance at a graph will turn the lights on a little for you. When I was a schoolboy, I always thought it was supremely bogus to respond to any questions about division by zero, (or other imponderables, for that matter), by asserting the answers to be "undefined" just because a conventional answer might be unsatisfactory. I was a weird kid, OK? Look at the links or find something more techie, (a little help, Kathryn?), and then extrapolate the idea to the business of social revolutions and you'll find my point, or at least one "quantum" facet of it. You could have a look at a representation of the Ouroborus and get the same notion to materialize in your head, maybe.

The shit we've been doing has not worked, is not working, and will not work. The answers we're after will not derive from the operation we've been attempting to apply, no matter what.

We compete. That's just what we do. We compete against one another, against Nature, and maybe against God, though it's not by any means compulsory for you to think of it in any sort of Divine sense, or wrestle with religious aversions for the thing to work out the same, here. That's just me. The competition we've been so avid to pursue all these generations hasn't worked any better for the atheists or the religious. If we pursue yet another bloody revolution, we'll wind up bathing in another absurdly predictable vat of blood, and maybe you super-rich can stretch your inane Grand Game out for a few more years in your bunkers after some of us useless eaters are dispatched and used as semi-organic fertilizer. The snake will still have a mouthful of tail caught up in its throat, if it lives through this one.

Tom was serious about finding a solution when he came by our little protestation yesterday. Pat was just as serious about the blood, I'm afraid. I've had enough of blood, so here's what I'm doing. See what you think. (Here comes the part that might curdle Mom's blood a bit, but maybe not...maybe not.)  I have completely abandoned ordinary reality. It's never worked so well for me anyhow, and I was already kinda screwed when I came to this notion, so you are welcome to hold on to your own personal misery and think of me as just another hopeless crackpot, if you want--another useless eater. After all, I'm seriously just an 9th grade dropout and unemployed house painter with bad joints and a broken back, a tragic character out of a Steinbeck novel if you will. Except I don't feel tragic at all; I'm the happiest guy I know. No shit. [Guess what? Still true in 2014. Loring is pretty happy.]

What does it mean to have abandoned ordinary reality? There are lots of angles to that so I apologize up front for the doglegs I'll be working as I attempt to answer the question. First, I've given up looking for a "job", or the hope of ownership of anything at all, including money. That doesn't mean I've decided to laze around on someone's sofa til I die of entropic dissipation; I've been incredibly busy since this paradigm shift, with no horizon in sight, really. There are millions of people in the shape I was in over last summer, wells running dry and bankruptcy looming while the whole time work to do abounds. I've just given up the game those $game pieces$ track, like a chess player laying down his king. Those guys won. It's OK--it's only a game, after all. I was never so good at it--never really gave a damn.

Now I find myself in a brand-new and rather sketchily mapped territory where I'm the president of my own head and nothing else, a monarch of abrogation and apostasy. So when Tom asked about a plan, I had to think about it some before I could even say as much as I am right here, right now. The two biggest differences I can define between this new approach and the other are cooperation and good ol' hippie-dippie, Jesus freak style love and self-abandonment. And not just on my end, see. I don't own anything, won't own anything at least so long as I go down this path, and can't pay for anything or support myself, or anyone else. Well then. WTF?

I've always given. Always. I loved Robin Hood as a kid, and I used to do things like stashing random campfire-scented homeless dudes in the back of my room at night, in hope that Mom wouldn't discover them and put them out in the snow or, even worse, send them packing to jail. (Neither Mom nor Dad ever discovered any of them. Hi, Mom. Hey, Dad ;)). I give away food for...well that's a fine question. When asked why I spend so much of my time on things like the Colorado College Community Kitchen, the best I've been able to come up with in response is that it's just in me to do. I think it's been some sort of psychic trade-off for the ethical compromises and outright violations to which I've succumbed in my lackluster prosecution of the game of property collection, which I've always vaguely known to be a sort of theft, just like the Marxists--well, Anarchists--say. Follow me, though--the Marxists haven't show me anything not-dysfunctional, either. (Sorry, Michele, Jon).

This new thing is about giving and receiving, and about a different way of seeing the whole picture, like when one of those optical illusions with the hidden horse and rider amongst the trees suddenly becomes apparent. Nothing changes; it's just revealed--revelatory. I live at someone else's house. I bring around food for everyone to eat that I never owned. I smoke tobacco that a gracious host brought to me, and hope my phone and broadband will still be operational next week. You're welcome to pay it for me while I try to figure out how to do this with no game pieces at all. Message me; I won't be paying for it. I'm living on a prayer, as the song goes, living on Love. You can too, I swear. Quit your shitty job at Wal-Mart's haircutting kiosk and cut your neighbor's hair for free. Don't worry about game pieces. Come down to CC on Sunday and help us give away someone else's food. Have some! Bring some pizzas from your shop to the protesters. Retire your jersey if you're a big winner and forget about the conspicuous displays of wealth. We get it. You won! Yay for you! Now put a few families up in your east wing. Love them. Be tender. Let their hapless lost patriarchs  know it's unnecessary to numb the pain with whiskey, or whatever. It's OK--we won't call you a wuss, or anything.

Right now there's Revolution in the wind. I like to read kind of a lot. It seems the handiest way to find out about shit, and I've read about a lot of Revolutions. It can make my head spin. If we pursue Revolution we'll be running in circles. We'll be eating our tails. The Earth herself is done with our bullshit, and there's really not any more tail left to eat. Let's get off the turntable. We'll be dizzy for a while, but I think we can walk in a straight line if we get our bearings. Get hold of me. I've got these words for you all, for free. This is not a trade. I can paint your house, too, or build you a deck or something. If you want to give me something, or give something to my family, or give something to someone I don't know and will never meet, then maybe you get it. I won't take it as payment. I'm not in that game.

I hope this works. I've had enough tail. How 'bout you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero

More from 2010

So Colorado Springs is an unusual place, it seems to me. The first city in the country to sell advertising on the sides of school buses as a means to stretch budgets. Among the first to attempt to establish legal discrimination based on sexual orientation. The first to crow about its terrific natural attributes, while simultaneously dismantling access to them and associated services. Living here, it's often difficult to tell the rhythm of the national pulse, because we seem to have such a distorted view here, and yet, as with some of those things noted above, we seem often to find ourselves at a sort of cutting edge, (or is it a slashing, burning edge?).

Homelessness has been all the way up on the front page of our news around here for several months. Around Christmas time last year the local media began focusing on the burgeoning camps along the highly visible areas of Fountain and Monument Creeks. The community, which seems to have been largely ignorant of the fact that they shared the region with a significant number of impoverished and homeless folk prior to the "news" coverage, leapt to its feet and with little foresight, began establishing a huge glut of random supplies in the camps. The campers, (surprise!), had no way to manage the trash generated by the not-quite-random acts of kindness, and admittedly often hadn't the organizational skills to prevent a huge mess. Within a month, news coverage had shifted from compassionate to distasteful, to downright antagonistic, labeling the camps as, in milder statements eyesores, or in graver terms blaming the campers for Colorado Springs' economic woes.

Local enigma Bob Holmes of The United Way and a coalition of disparate groups banded together to force the passage of an anti-camping ordinance in town, followed last week by a nearly identical county ordinance. The camps are now gone, pretty much. Bob, the CSPD's "HOTT" Team, (a handful of city police assigned exclusively to the havenothings), and other sources agreed previously that there had been around 500 campers. So where did they go? It appears that many, if not most, have moved into local motels funded by a grant from the Springs's fairy godmother, the El Pomar Foundation.

Here comes the meat of this particular thing. Perhaps chief among the current homeless hideaways is the Express Inn, located in the heart of camper territory at I-25 and CO Highway 24. God bless 'em, the folks behind the renewed purpose of the old, hopelessly decrepit Inn seem to be beyond overwhelmed. Although the key players in what really amounts to a very small bit of the overall drama involving the campers in town are obviously motivated and compassionate, (except for Bob and his pals, maybe), very minimal oversight or planning has gone into the Express Inn project. The result, in the parlance of the Inn's clientele, is a clusterfuck.

Mind that the sample from which the perception arises is very limited, but word is, paramedics respond to the Inn on a better than nightly basis. Random sponsored clients are housed together, three to a room. Nothing proactive is done to address the various, often uncontrollable habits of the residents. The rooms are not cleaned or maintained, really, and conditions may have been more sanitary along the riverbeds. Altercations among folks with conflicting habits are inevitable, and some who have spent years in unrestricted pursuit of self-destruction are without any direction at all, so far, as how to manage an abrupt and drastic social change find themselves hopelessly out of place. Management handles problems along this vein by summarily ejecting offenders.

In spite of whatever noble intent may be behind the project, none of this is going to work! Funding for the Express Inn and other similar scenarios in town is expected to disappear in a month, (unless some cryptic hints by El Pomar turn substantial). It doesn't really matter. Unless some significant motivation and assistance is provided for the once and future homeless in the discussion, they will not benefit, nor will the city of Colorado Springs, from this plainly temporary fix. Some residents with a bit greater alacrity at societal maneuvering may luck into a less tenuous situation following the Inns, but when it happens it will be mainly a matter of blind fortune. Most will find themselves in worse straights than the were when the HOTT Team threatened them into a scenario without consultation. The questions posed at various meetings before this solution presented itself remain. What are the campers supposed to do now?

We'll see if we can figure it out in another post. In the meantime, here's a link to a posting by Kathy Kelly posted earlier this year. She sets out to address homelessness in ColoSpgs and immediately becomes derailed in an anti-military rant. Funny thing is, she's probably right.

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/5540-colorado-springs-ban-qno-room-for-homeless-hereq.html