i refuse.
i do not accept. that’s my point of departure. and I’ll try to explain why:
Life in this society is an illusion. An illusion carefully orchestrated. Just yesterday i seem to have noticed it. While trying to flee the noisy streets of downtown, after a girl commented: “maybe you are autistic”. I think to my self: “ah, maybe, i am!” and “how come after all these years, it passed unnoticed, only i knew…”. It’s funny when someone actually, by misunderstanding, gets to the point… well, my autism is coming from being afraid of crowds. Not all crowds, i would argue, but crowds formed like the flow of capital. An amorphous mass of people, moving from one place of consuming to another, from one ATM to another. Spending and making money, facilitated by an army of demi-slaves. Self subservient slaves indeed, most of them.
Yesterday i noticed: we are actively making ruins: the buildings near which i was dwelling were not actually real buildings, anymore. They were ruins of a quite recent past, emptied and turned into mere facade. Sounds a bit like some ancient roman sites, where you can see windows and doors, but there is nothing to find on the inside, making us feel like there was some great mystery behind, making you, as if get to see the void. But the opposite happens: because it is a facade, it makes you accept that there ‘may be’ something inside, and keep going were you’re going. All the while, whatever is left of that old world, has been destroyed. What you see, the ruin, the mere facade, is not so much an illusory element in itself, as much as it may have been tough, it really is the last frontier, the last standing border to the old world. As the market bubbles keep exploding, as the stock exchanges keep growing, as the people are evicted, as the buildings keep getting torn down to build the new city, the empty mass of concrete, full with adornments, pseudo-art exhibitions, new restaurants and trendy hostels, and even, for those ruins, which were turned ruins, some kind of official nomination, like capital of culture, capital of youth, green capital or world patrimony site.
yesterday i heard: the political rally of the ruling party. Now, here, I’m slipping, the floor is slippery as hell, and i need to run. I’ve just been threatened by some mechanic, to “get the fuck off, fast”, and i ran, as usual… i keep running from angry people on this town, the phrase i hear the most is: “this is no path here, go on, somewhere else” and “why are you on this pathway, don’t you see this is no path here?”, followed usually by the threats and questions of “who are you?” and “what is your matter here?”. Well… there is no freedom in this place, everything belongs to someone, or some group, or some gang, and no one else is allowed in. And by in, i mean literally everywhere, as only the streets made for cars are left to dwell. dwelling is an outlawed practice. the problem is that i personally, sorry to speak in the first person!, equate dwelling with being alive, as not being able to dwell means, literally, to be imprisoned. Continuing, the mayor, or some representative of the ruling party, which in this territory has been in power for more than 30 years, (as is usually the case everywhere, at least since the 90’s, or since neo-liberalism took over the world as an ideological and military power) was screaming to his lungs. They were having the rally at the castle, with beaming disco lights and lasers dancing across the sky. He was screaming about how he keeps the interests of his friends in mind. About how he developed roads everywhere. About “territorial continuity”. But the territorial continuity he refers to is not more than a couple buildings connected to roads and highways, all leading to places where you can spend money and do business. I heard this while stuck again, in a path of no paths, after an open door led me to a private terrace where there was some music being played. and a sequence of stairs led me further until all there was were houses and more compartmentalized terraces. no news. Anyway, i felt scared. I felt scared because the man, he was at least 3 km from me, and i could hear perfectly. Imagine how loud! He was screaming to the top of his lungs: “these things happen, because I want them to happen, so they happen!” and “i can do whatever I want, because I have the power!” and “but hey, it’s not me, it’s this amazing city, it’s the power of a community!”, to which i’ll answer: fuck your community! fuck your lies! Most amazingly, when he spoke about some topic which actually mattered politically, like the environment, or social assistance, he spoke in a low tone, making ridicule of the supposedly “innocent” people who don’t know, maybe here insert: “the children” or “the poor”, making fun saying “oh, but yes! we are a green city, we care for our rivers, we are hugging our rivers!” or “oh but yes, we care for people, and for the trees which are so beautiful in our cities” and most interestingly he promised to build many more urban parks (in an ironic tone), the kind of which have, you know, some trees, and those horrid grass carpets which are more dead than alive. and he kept going on how the city is walking and biking a lot (when official data says clearly that it’s not true, the city relies heavily on cars even for very short trips, and the high roads of course, keep getting developed). that low tone of ridicule sounded a lot like the well known populist Donal rump. And more, it felt like betrayal. Because it shows how low their game can be. They put some things on paper saying that they care for the environment, while making fun of it when given the chance to speak honestly.
All this leads me to reevaluate the nature of human relationships and society. We mostly are lying to each other all the time. That’s no surprise. But there are honest lies and dis-honest lies. And unfortunately, most people are being dishonest to each other. Intellectual honesty is what I’ve been trying to call to that state of being where no harm is meant. For someone like me, if we’re intellectually dishonest we are lost. All goes down, and society falls into chaotic non-sense, lying and aggression. The basic premise for trust must be that I can believe the other person is speaking from their heart, and that they mean no harm to me, that we can peacefully resolve and accord, in freedom of association. If someone cheats intellectually, and pretends to be something they are not, to accomplish their own aims, then, that’s not equality, it’s an attempt at diminishing the other, an attempt to control or even destroy. No peace is ever to be accomplished if i can’t trust the other not to fire when i put down my guard. That’s how i could try to begin to find out the nature of human relationships.
Which takes me to another point: society. And I’ll go on to think about social networks. The fact that I’m here, sending this message, or post, into the wild web, it doesn’t mean I’m speaking alone. Actually, that I have taken the time and energy to write, means that I’m addressing someone. If that someone is you, well, thank you for reading! But what if no one ever reads? Should that send me into a deep depression? The interesting thing is: imagine ust 300 years ago, when Nietzsche, who talked about keeping a 300 year safe distance, wasn’t even alive, someone writing in their notebook, and after finishing the writing, getting an instant notification “ping”, and he gets some 40 likes! That sounds a bit off… Society is not made, although it has been made to seem, by instant gratification. It also is not made by bits (0 and 1) running on a computer. It definitely is not made by Likes. Nor by followers. It is a great delusion to believe that a community can exist merely as an agreggate of numbers, as if some guy with a million followers could actually be those million people acting together in some way. But that it is a delusion doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t have an effect on reality. For example, how many of Cristiano Ronaldo’s fans have met him and seen him in real life? Mostly, they know him only from the TV screens. And that’s enough for them to go crazy about him, scream very loud and enter into fights for his honor. The same goes for the president. Which leads me to an inconclusion: Why do they care? How can the TV screen affect so much of human behaviour? And how does it make us accept these delusions?
Last thing: feeling alone is really terrible! but we must endure our opacity. Freedom is the freedom to do something no one knows about. To not be policed, or police ourselves. To dwell incognito through the forests, or the streets. If we must speak, then, we must find common ground. Long live the occupy movement for setting up grounds on which to dwell, much against the police, the capital bubble and the speculation of landlords, which threaten everyone with their stick!
Please get in touch with me if you wish so, you’ll find a way on this website.