The Dumb Ones by Charybdis Press

The Dumb Ones a poem

Jason Blasso

The Dumb Ones

Jason Blasso

C H A RY B D I S P R E S S new york

Published by Charybdis Press New York 2017 Charybdis Press Some rights reserved Printed and bound in the USA 15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1 First Edition http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Poems, layout and design by Jason Blasso The Dumb Ones picture sources Front Cover ht t ps://commons.w ik imedia.or g/w ik i/File:St._Nicholas_(ser ial)_(1873)_ (14597842097).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_counterpart_to_the_State-Dunces._ By_a_Native_of_New-York._Fleuron_T034217-3.png

Back Cover https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Postcard_titled_%27the_dumb_typist%27_(14649907226).jpg https://commons.w ikimedia.org/w iki/File:Amer ican_bee_jour nal_(1881)_ (17924887118).jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Biennial_report_of_the_Board_of_Directors_of_the_Nor th_Carolina_School_for_the_Deaf_and_Dumb_(1896)_ (14753540026).jpg

The Dumb Ones is set in Sabon, Warnock, CiscoSerif, Rockwell & Whitman by Ken Lew www.charybdispress.com

Man könnte den ganzen Sinn des Buches etwa in die Worte fassen: Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen. One could understand the whole meaning of the book with these words: What can be said at all, can be said clearly; and of which one cannot speak, one must be silent. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Dumb Ones

Voluminous couch Emancipation Proletariat Helios’s horses The Sun Cow Path The Milky Way Taoist philosophers sit backwards Watching Without impatience

Rambling rose Stumbled Drunk or high Probably both Jack and Jill Ended the night with Gina

You’ll never know Collaboration You’ll never Just shut up And get back to work

It doesn’t matter I just keep saying Yes When it ends It ends 1

Otherwise Is the alternative Never mind samewise Common sense And common consensus— You know better

Germain characters Keep stopping by Where they from? Why they showin’ up? I didn’t invite them. Tell’em I wanna be alone.

I don’t know. But who does? No one I know Just forget about it There’s a breeze in the trees

You use punctuation however you want to That’s right It’s my punctuation I do with it As I Wish

Don’t be a stickleback for the rules Don’t be a herring for brakin’em 2

Waken’em or Forsaken’em It don’t matter much at all

You imagine what you want Das right And what I don’t want I imagine everything There’s a hole so big in the truth You could drive a truck through it

Sometimes I hate writing It’s like sucha chore Namean? Sometimes I want my thoughts to last forever Frozen in time Like a bandit Or a thief

What else do I want? Don’t know Prob’ly do something with my hands Builda house But you done dat Tru I do dat Leaves me latent

Dwell? I s’pose so 3

No choice of the matter of fact Here I am Dwelling A dweller Another static verb

Should you want kinesis Just stop movement And you’ll feel the movement It’s always there Right under your feet— Your nose

The dumb ones Mums the word Kingdom It’s like speaking Openly

So what do we do? Keep asking questions, I guess Who wants a solution to this riddle anyway?

I have to get back to driving the ship Gotta get back behind the wheel Gotta steer and not be back in steerage Or do I?

You know This conversation isn’t going anywhere. That’s the point Ain’t it? The point isn’t getting there Or it

A little too transparent? Let’s bury all this a bit deeper Make it a sleeper Agent Cell

Very benign Those underwater whale sounds The mother’s voice Through amnion

Poetry is a time When you sit uncensored suddenly And maybe shit out something Effortlessly

Don’t touch that they say And why not? If we let you do it we have to let everybody do it— And what happens to the art Other than have to absorb The magic Of all those hands? 5

There’s never been a snowball fight like the one in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows It’s all the compact snow of memory The Rosebud on the lips of Father Winter— The Spring thaw’s here, boys You’re all dead now But continue to live on in celluloid

Dear Andrew Celluloid Weber Grill Do a musical about summer time outdoor cooking Called Dogs

Alright, now I’m getting silly I think I’ve primed the pump enough I think— I can’t be certain But, let’s see what I’ve got

Okay okay okay okay okay Now we’re warmed up for sure Let the dumb one speak— Ahem!

Where to start? Okay Death is what where? Nowhere Precisely Don’t you dare say a word about it But don’t doubt it either

Somewhere out there There’s a Lord of Silence I want to meet him And sleep forever

Some worry about the past The future But it’s always the present you have to worry about It’s impossible to get to

Where would I rather be but here? Nah, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else But here Here

I can’t worry about it I’m not built like that I just have to do it without thinking too much Otherwise I edit myself before I get there

It’s not the editing that’s the problem That’s supposed to happen It’s a reflex We’re always changin’ It’s when you do it to hide or tailor your hide Sometimes you just have to short-circuit that Stop mending it and you’re on the mend Stop darning and you’re Well Darn

Likewise you never know what the immediate response will be It’ll always be somethin’ even when it’s nothin’ Or it’ll always be nothin’ even when it’s somethin’ Whichever the case may be It’s always hard to tell And you always only ever hear what you want to hear

But is there a clear channel? Is there some thing to hear? I doubt it I highly doubt it What would be the one fundamental truth to take from all this All this information?

I think the idea’s to take You know to take but not hold on to It’s the holding on to that always get’s ya in trouble It’s the taking and not letting go Possession is, after all, ten tenths of the law

Then there’s this— We take what we take And go on taking Because we don’t know how to stop ourselves We don’t know the codes or the decorum We just keep taking because we think it’s endless And it is But just not in the way we think

The funny thing is It’s always there You can just reach out and take it Whatever you want The boundaries don’t exist You can just reach around and pluck what you want But don’t forget The boundaries are there And they’ll snap your arm off for taking without paying Or just copping a feel

I don’t know what’s expected of me Or from whom these expectations emit The worst expector is me What mountains I roll up in the way What mountains I also take away 9

I learned that there can never be an end to the reflexion of you The reflection of you It presses right into the fabric of life You see it everyday in 3D Write a poem Write a hologram

I mean, just flake off a piece of yourself Put something of yourself into the world Watch it upload Watch your hologram become part of their hologram Whose hologram is whose?

Ever see it happen? Like a contagion? One minute, it’s not there The next, everyone’s speaking about it Like the tongues of fire on Pentecost It’s suddenly the new gospel— But what the hell Your lexicon’ll change again And you’ll be forced to use a word you don’t want to use Like viral— There, I wrote it

And it’s then that you see that it’s all interlinked However, here you’re seeing it Or rather hearing it In language 10

But if you look closer, you’ll see all the endless interpenetration Like an orgy of the ears and eyes No orifice is left unfilled Even the deaf hear and the blind see

And that’s why the dumb ones can talk They can just open their mouths anytime they want They just, you know— And utter the most inane shit you’ve ever heard Ever

That’s why I don’t understand how we can ever think that we’re divorced from it How the hell can you free yourself from this medium? Impossible! It’s a crazy thought, no? Like lifting one’s self up by your own proverbial bootstraps Real Munchausen, you know— But that illogic is funny It’s a cartoon But the one of your inescapability from it all’s not so Saturday morning anymore, Huh?

Look, it’s not like I’m complaining I know that Saturday morning cartoons are as dead as we wish Surrealism and Dada could be ? It’s the time of the smirk and the knowing wink From our “evolved” sapient simian self back to the missing link

But I digress, There’s no point to continue But that’s precisely the point The poem must bring pleasure And it does As a matter of fact, it does

But let’s not get all Freudian pleasure principle-ish Let’s not get all anally and orally retentive Pleasure is in doing what you like But most of us don’t know what we like We just throw ourselves over and over at things to see if our shit sticks It almost always doesn’t And we’re left there wondering Who or what to throw ourselves at next

Now I say: Sling away Cast your die Better to risk it all on a throw then to show up not ready to play But don’t worry if that’s the case, The time’ll come in one of these lifetimes

So, take yourself seriously if you want I’ve been giving up all of my fucks as they say And have been trying real hard to step out of the way

’Cause it’s not just about me anymore It’s about the whole thing About all of us 12

When you throw yourself into the mix, you’re bound to break a few bones That’s the price we pay to live And maybe if others see me laughing at my triumphant failure At my dumb dead body or dumb dead projects They’ll learn to laugh as I do

But do it only when you’re ready ’Cause if you’re not— Ever hear someone laugh fakely? Yeah, it sounds and looks a lot like that

Either way, it’s fine I’ll take a fake laugh— Who wouldn’t? There’s a nihilism in always seeking the profound and true As if we never found ourselves on the other side of that laugh Uncomfortable and uncertain as to why we’re laughing

Aren’t we all uncomfortable at times? Trying to process way too much information Like the first time you get stoned Or have sex It’s like all this stuff ’s happening that you don’t understand Your body and mind are doing summersaults And you do your best to keep cool And master what’s never been mastered

I mean, we’re all just barely holding on Even sober and clothed 13

Never mind tripping and naked We’re all white-knuckled holding onto our socks And once you’ve seen enough bare bottoms It’ll lead you to empathy

You Me We’re all just grabbing at people and things in freefall When you stop trying to clutch at stuff And watch everyone else panicked and anxietal You understand why man sounds like the Latin word for hand

I know I know I know Man is gender specific But let’s say you just know what I mean Let’s just say you know I didn’t invent the language Let’s just say that And high five And carry on Like carry on as in continue Not carry on as in continue to complain—

I mean, look— We can’t divorce the part from the whole I can’t divorce myself from my language, My upbringing The world that I know is the world that I know Or knew There are conventions— I choose what I want when I want

And so do you too Let’s not forget that we’re moody and inconsistent creatures Show me consistency and I’ll show you a machine And even those things lack consistency

That’s why you wouldn’t know how much I laughed with my uncles You’ll never know Those lovable and irascible racists Shit, they could tell a joke like no other Perfect timing So what if the content wasn’t PC? There’s a facet of me that knows it’s wrong Just as there’s a facet of me that still finds it funny Today, I can still feel my face and stomach cramping

And that’s where I like to be In that liminal space Full o’ holes And contradictions

So let’s not fool one another by saying we got it all figured out Let’s not do that to each other We deserve better I can’t wrap my head around it all I don’t know where I stop and you begin I lost my map And I can’t seem to remember any of the landmarks Or how to read any of the signs

So, let’s let the tension between us be the tension that creates us and uncreates us It’s necessary Some places I stop and you continue Some places I continue and you stop Sometimes I gotta put my head on the chopping block for you Sometimes you gotta for me It’s the way of things Nothing lasts forever

No matter— No matter what I’ll always be there for you Where else could I go? What else could I do? I’m this funny puzzle piece doing the only thing it knows to do

That’s why you don’t worry All the stupid shit you ever will do or have done Was meant to be done That’s a laugh, right? There’s only one right way Ever

So you can slide along your path without a second thought Or you can second thought it if second thoughts are what you’re here to do— You see It doesn’t matter The whole thing’s too big for us to see We have to stop being greedy Ease up 16

Lay back The whole ship’s on autopilot

But if you need control, go for it Who am I to stop you? Or, come to think of it, myself? Sometimes, you just gotta clamp down around something Wrestle eels and herd cats Sometimes it works Most times it don’t But, hey—

We just need to laugh at our failures Our life is strung together with them They’re the richest most spectacular things we have I wish we’d build monuments to them I mean, don’t get me wrong We should rightly celebrate our victories But we need to dial down the seriousness and awe And learn to laugh at those And their all too pyrrhic costs

Now, just cause I use musts and shoulds don’t mean you must and should There’s no Thou Shalt in any of it Neither any hell for rebels nor any heaven for martyrs It’s just another way of saying this is how it’s already done If you cross your eyes to see it

But, if you want to take yourself too seriously And throw yourself off a bridge Or light yourself on fire— I can’t stop you You must understand There’s room in the world for that too ’Cause like I’ve been saying— It accommodates everything

So, I say do what you must But don’t fight it all that much You’ll learn the limitations of control The skillful manipulate this flow and not the other way around I’m not skillful I’m one of the dumb ones

People think only wisdom can come from the wise But we’re too dumb to recognize wise until it’s too late Wisdom mostly comes from the dumb ones dying And the survivors thinking they’re skillful instead of lucky

Now, this isn’t saying anything bad about us Just we have a lot of luck If only we saw the chance We’d relax our grip What’s beneficial to us comes and goes in short bursts and long dry spells But that’s the way it is If you made it to a heaven on earth You can thank the rest of us that got you there

“And if it wasn’t for bad luck, I mean real, bad luck I wouldn’t have no luck at all And that’s a fact” And it is

Everything needs its opposite You got good I got bad Where would rock’n’roll be without the blues? After the party comes the crash And I’m comin’ down hard, momma Comin’ down real hard

And how it comes! Like being cold cocked out of left field Shit always manages to hit you blind side That’s how come I know that when it’s good It’s about to get bad

And when the bad’s on, it’s always really on Like someone standing on your chest and pinning you to the ground You’re frustrated and sweating You’re scrambling about And you become real scrawny and flexible and cunning And you reach into a bag of tricks you didn’t know you had Or if you knew it, you forgot it, and Bang! Just like that, you’re managing You’re not on top, but you’re fighting Treading water Buying time 19

Before this you didn’t understand endurance Didn’t know a fucking thing about yourself But here, now, you’re scarred and sneering with a knife clenched between your teeth Where’d this warrior come from? Where was this reserve of strength and forethought laying dormant? See, it’s never that bad is it? The struggle? See? See how you are now Lithe Like a living weapon You’re like Odysseus employing his metis When he stopped crying for his home across the waves

And then just like that <<Snap of the fingers>> It’s gone And it’s all blue skies and butterflies Hysterical! And you never know how you got there You suddenly wake up And it’s all a different hue— And for that fairyland You’re willing to chase the dragon Again and again and again and again To infinity

But only the dumb ones want endless sunshine The highs without the lows 20

They don’t understand that they want the universe to not be the universe The funny thing is that they don’t think their demands are irrational And they’re all crying on each others shoulders and giving each other solace Are you fucking kidding me? Do you remember who you were in those dark days? Do you remember how you had to move? How you slunk like a panther? Do your remember when you were Conan? Red Sonja?

I mean, come on You were a fucking warrior Now, it’s all pissing and moaning All woe-is-me This is what you’ve come to? Complaining about the mosquitoes Dodging bees and swatting flies Has every bug that’s ever bugged simultaneously found you to bug you? Every bug? Really?

It’s as if life should just mold itself to your comfort, right? You still don’t understand that you have to work to get things done And that the things you do won’t last forever That’s the funny part Everything’s making it’s way to the great garbage disposal in the sky

But back on Earth, they’re all still crying into their milk It’s all boohoo instead woohoo Do you see all the adults who are babies? Sulking that the world didn’t go their way If you want, you can stick’em back in their highchairs And spoonfeed’em and wipe their creased faces with their bib Me? I say fuck’em All those suckers wanting succor

There’s no such thing as easy street There never was I mean, we can lighten the load for each other And we should No doubt we should But we need all hands on deck Every able-bodied adult Because there’s people in the world who can’t Who really can’t And they’re the one’s who need us most You know who they are And if you’re reading this You’re not one of ’em

But still So many crybabies So many wounded Ever wonder why everyone has a lethal allergy to something these days? Ever wonder why the world is making us miserable? Can’t eat dairy or gluten or peanuts without dying The world’s taking back its gifts We don’t deserve it over all this bellyaching Mother has a headache 22

And she’s locking you in your room In the ground

Now, there’s no safety anywhere Even locked away There’s gonna be cribdeath Spontaneous combustion There’s gonna be inexplicable phenomenon People are still going to die Mysteriously or otherwise

That’s why I say Let it go Threshold moments are so much better Just having good is like just having primary colors It’s gaudy It hasn’t let things simmer together in the pot It’s too distinct Too much itself It hasn’t caramelized and crisped up at the edges It hasn’t joined with the flavor of other things

Life should have crunch It should have seasoning It shouldn’t be Wonder bread God, thank God for color Real color The secondaries The tertiaries The muddy waters You know’em Sit there and stir’em 23

And flip’em in the fryin’ pan Ah! Now, you’re cookin’

It’s a meal well served Feed everbody my guru says Everything’s a meal Even poems

A world captured in words Is not a world at all It is the world The only world That can ever be

It’s stupid, but what else can it be, right? I mean, right here, now If you’re reading this— This is it Our world But you can abandon it anytime And you can have yours back I didn’t want it anyway

Don’t take offense to that last one It’s ’cause I always had it Had always had it You and me We’re inescapable 24

And, like me, it’s inescapable too It’ll find you somewhere Somewhen— It comes round back to itself Always

Do this: Wave your hands around Space ain’t space Just cause you can’t see it don’t mean it isn’t It’s there And there’s no way to separate it from your body It’s the same glue that binds us here It’s one eternal fluid medium You remember that part about God walking over the face of the waters?

I imagine it all like an agar A jelly Like we’re in a petri dish I imagine electricity running through it But with good humor Kinda like our eye

Remember, our whole body’s made mostly of water Imagine an interior ocean Now, imagine the ebb and flow of your tides Now, imagine the weight of the planets pushing and pulling us from their orbits This is the unseen movement This is astrology 25

Everything’s a string Vibrating, humming strings Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm You pull, I push I push, you pull Everything does so little Does so much

That’s why we exist in the space where fate and free will meets Don’t think our little impulses don’t push and prod the matrix from within We’re always nuzzling up to something Chasing this and being chased by that Like I said, it always meets up in the middle Maybe that’s where you find yourself Or maybe that’s where you don’t

The thing is, it’s like, you just never know One minute, you think you’ve got it The other, it’s like you never had it And when you don’t have it You think you’re never going to get it again But sure as the sun’s the East It comes round again Again and again Just don’t cling to it, dummy

I think the game’s to always think you’re looking for something or someone I think it’s all about motion Say you’re looking for yourself Because, you know, Know Thyself and all 26

So, maybe you dive inwards Or maybe you dive outwards I say, Good luck! Let me know if you ever find bottom on that one

The thing of it is The boundaries are where we put them Sure we have a few that we have no control over But no control always spills back over into control again

That’s why our poverty and richness comes from our limitations This can’t be said enough Our poverty and richness comes from our limitations Focus less on the poverty and more on the richness

If you’re one of those positivists You’re always the window of east horizon If you like the twilight Then it’s always doom and gloom But that’s just another perspective And you can’t look both ways at the same time Unless you’re Janus, of course

It’s more about mood We’re always changing how we feel One moment we’re into it The next moment we’re not Who can keep up with it all? Those who know Stop trying 27

But if you can’t Don’t beat yourself up too bad It’s just the way it is We all do what we have to do If you didn’t think you already had it I give you my permission

Maybe you think there’s a place to settle But you’d be wrong It never stops Not for an instant Not for you or me or the devil makes three

It’s hard giving up our sense of purchase Like it was a divine right We thought we could cling to something We thought it was real Then we found out it wasn’t And then we murdered a lot of people so they would keep quiet about it But they haven’t kept quiet about it

We can’t blame them either The murderers They’re just scared and acting on orders They believe that without their vigilance the universe would cease to be And it would The only thing is— 28

And you can tell’em I told you— It would be their universe

We’re usually acting out of fear Ever see someone with a bee buzzing near them? Funny shit, right? Yeah, imagine a whole country being run by people running around, covering their heads, and swatting the air

That’s why you need a sense of humor You have to be able to see the lines and not see the lines You have to be able to move’em when no one’s lookin’ But someone’s always lookin’ Someone’s always lookin’ Courage is moving the lines then too

But it’s not the panopticon or the surveillance state that we have to worry about As we learn more about how it all works We realize that there’s no isolation That every point’s a point of contact

That’s why I, like Whitman, am everywhere waiting for you If you don’t find us there Don’t worry Look somewhere else We’ll be there Waiting for And on You 29

You see There’s never a time when we’re not We always are Both mortal and immortal Everything is Now and forever A paradox whose headache only stops aching When we stop thinking about it

That’s why it’s all about sacrifice, isn’t it? I give myself up again and again and again ’Cause I’m giving myself over to myself again and again and again Most folk don’t understand that Most never will But once you do You can’t help but smile and feel all warm inside

And if you asked how often I’m willing to give myself up I’d answer: A thousand times a thousand times a thousand To the nth power However, what the question really is is— When am I not giving myself up to myself? It makes me queasy It does! This insufferable connection to everything

Now, just ’cause I know it and feel it in my bones Don’t mean that it doesn’t feel weird 30

Weird like fate It feels weird, right? Like the umbilicus was never cut Like the womb was never left

But don’t wrap the cord around your throat just yet, baby Not everyone’s meant for the gallows and the humor that comes with it Only the blackest of hearts knows to laugh when the trapdoor of the scaffold springs open

When you find your brothers and sisters who can laugh Keep’em close Even the serious ones who don’t understand anything Keep them close too It’s okay to roll your eyes and kick’em in the ass as required It’s proper medicine like cod liver oil Like fire cider

Now, we can abuse an old pun Holy and wholly We can abuse it and pull it’s ears We can drop it in front of people Right on its face We can break its limbs right there in front of the crowd And watch and wink at those who cry— Lame

This is definitely abuse Just remember, you can’t control responses 31

And you can’t control what people think of you Sometimes you just have to throw the baby out with the bath water And throw the bathtub on top of the baby and the bath water And then pull the whole fucking house down around everything Sometimes you just gotta But then there’s other times when you give the baby a bath And dry it off and swaddle it in something soft And hear its gentle cooing as you cradle it close to your breast

Either way, you’re a demon And an angel Find me, I ask Find me someone who isn’t both at once always Don’t find me someone whose seeds are fried Instead, find me someone still seeded And seedy

After all, we’re all disgusting bags of meat We’re all pumped up with hormones and pheromones like the chicken and cows we eat Who’s to say what’s normal anymore? Especially when we self medicate What’s right side up when you forgot your original orientation?

That’s why there’s so many fanatics Fundamentalists only ever want it their way My way or the highway, they say Imagine laying claim to the only truth? Imagine believing in yourself to such an extent that only one world can ever exist? 32

Imagine all the color washed out of the world? Here’s how it would be: A. What are we eating tonight? B. The same thing we eat every night. A. We always eat the same thing every night. This is hell. And it is.

The problem is Utopia The problem is the Monism The Singularity It’s such an old trope One God, One Savior, One Prophet, One People Jeez! Let’s move away from all of these proper nouns There’s more love amongst the many So, let’s keep it to the lower case And whatever’s lower than lower case

Every language describes a different world Imagine only ever the lingua franca spoken Imagine how many worlds die when we give up our peculiar positions

That’s why we love the strange We love the iconoclasts The avant garde They see beyond the wall everyone’s busy bowing to The dumb ones never understand’em Even when they’re opening up new territories of the mind— Especially then

We’re so damn slow to accept anything For us dumb ones Everything’s a trial by fire But that’s our natural resistance towards change Conservatives pushing back on the progressives It’s the proper tension And history always proves us wrong

That’s why it’s ridiculous whenever the gatekeepers slap a Born to Lose sticker on all of us dumb ones Who keep hurling ourselves Without provocation Into the jaws of the unknown

It’s funny that there’s never a wink whenever someone bristles under work It’s funny how the dumb ones never understand the slack required So much seriousness all the time But I’m thinking seriousness on both sides is what makes the game the game

Perhaps it’s for the best That both sides don’t know they’re playing Shhhhhhh! Let’s keep it a secret And watch how it all unfolds This agon inside us

I’ll keep working a job that’s ridiculous Just as you’ll keep working a job that’s ridiculous 34

And then I’ll spend time writing poetry that’s ridiculous And you’ll do whatever you want to do that’s ridiculous And we’ll be wise in our knowing that all of this is ridiculous

There’s real power in that Real power in knowing that it’s all worth a fart Your greatest labor crumbles before you Your least labor stands the test of time Who could ever predict it? No one can That’s why we should all just be doing the best we can To do what we can when we can What more can be asked for?

I’ll tell you, though No one can tell you what that thing is— You find it by doing And you can’t listen to anybody else And you can’t do what others do And you’ll try and you’ll fail And you’ll start and you’ll stop And the whole time you’ll be changing all along the way as all of us do

Remember, dummies, that everything you do or make is a record A record of who and where and when you were Don’t worry about leaving these things behind Don’t get too precious about it Especially those beloved failures

Maybe now’s a good time to thank the failures And all their aborted attempts Maybe now’s also a good time to thank those who never lifted a finger They need thanking too Those dummies are always underpraised

That’s why we all just need to relax I mean, you Of course, don’t have to But, if and when you do You can just let yourself be You can set goals and miss them ’Cause life’s a moving target

What’s funny is the seriousness What’s funny is our desire to conform All the dumb ones do this Follow the rules Toe the line But at bare bottom We all just want to be accepted

Now, it’s true that we all gravitate together We want to connect To communicate But the bullshit that individuality has to be swept away in order to maintain it is insane Everyone knows it’s the choice between the living and the machine Do you want neutered, infallible, self-replicating programming? Or do you want haphazard mutations? The curve balls that make life so damn compelling? 36

Me? I’ll take the unknown Not knowing what’s around the bend always propels me around the bend How the hell else does matter move through the room without opening a vacuum before it?

Everything has to be just out of sight I mean, my plans might be crystal clear, but once I sit in the seat and start manipulating the keys— It’s a whole nother story

Sure enough, I press hard into it Leave an impression But once the scene is set, it drives itself And the monologue quickly becomes a dialogue

Even with inanimate things That’s why most of us want to Hulk smash shit Because that something hasn’t allowed us to do what we want to do It resists us Sneers and sticks its tongue out at us We call it our enemy Our nemesis I learned to call it learning

I also learned that you can’t tell anyone how to learn ’Cause there’s no right way How could anyone else possibly know another’s way of learning? Think how much you’d have to learn of a person Hardly seems worth it And who has the time?

But when you’re with them Either you’re with them or your not And when you’re there and they need you Be there fully And if not, be elsewhere And don’t get twisted if they demand more presence

Further, no one ever knows their own destination Don’t let them deceive you Those Type A personalities— You know the ones Overbearing in their confidence Willing to murder anyone to get what they want These are the fools that run the world Because the rest of us don’t think it’s worth the candle

Now, don’t get me wrong We need them too We need them to run the world We need everyone Just don’t let them run your life Unless, of course, you want them to These people are all about progress Goal attainment They speak the language of lawyers 38

They speak the language of corporations It’s fine to let them talk Just don’t believe the advertising— Oh, and caveat emptor

And, as an aside — It’s impossible not to buy things How can you not buy things in a market economy? Don’t drive yourself too crazy with this nonsense Sure, if you want to knit your own sweaters from the wool of the sheep you raised Do it If you want to only eat organic produce you grew in your own garden Do it Just remember— Most of us got little sleep last night And have little land, time, and inclination to do it

But, if you’re doing it— Keep on keeping on Respect to those dumb ones running with scissors Trying to cut themselves out of one medium And embed themselves deeper into another It’s sheer lunacy— And I love lunatics

Although, I have to say, sometimes I just want to shout at them There’s no where to run, dummy This is a goddamned horror flick Ever notice how Michael Myers and Jason never run to kill their victims? 39

It’s because of inevitability, man To them, you’re as good as dead

And speaking of movies and Hollywood and that whole mess Let’s address the fact that that fabricated reality is no different from the ones we’re living We create that universe as much as we create ours Memory works very much like creative editing

But back to buying It’s just another form of exchange It’s not better or worse than the next It’s just the dominant force right now But forces change If there’s anything you ever want to buy stock in Buy it in the assurance that All things must pass

And don’t sweat all this talk about overproduction Sure, we’re overproducing But isn’t that what nature does? Think about seeds and sperm Not everyone’s a winner Nature’s the greatest squanderer there is But her pockets run deep And if she got it In a way, so do we

Now, that doesn’t mean indicriminately dump shit It just means, all this’ll right itself in time 40

Through effort and non-effort alike We’re all gonna get there Kickin’ and screamin’

Just remember, the problem is the folks who say The problem is— They always think they have all the answers The problems are always pointing out problems Or pointing out others as problems Without the finger ever pointing back at themselves No matter where I point my finger I’m always pointing it at myself

And that’s why I’m one of the dumb ones I don’t know nothin’ When I say this, I mean that When I move to the left, I move to the right I don’t know where anything’s suppposed to begin Or where it’s supposed to end I can keep carrying on about all this I can talk about it all day and night But I think I’ve already said too much And as for the rest— Well, I think I’d like just to stop here And be quiet