John Wise

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog entry insisting it was not about existentialism, and it wasn’t, but today, maybe this one will be just about that, and maybe it won’t. I’m bored. From out of this moment in boredom (which I think I’ve alluded to being impervious to on many other occasions during these missives) I reluctantly concede that I’m experiencing the uncertainty of what to do. For six months, one week, and four days since our pandemic sequestering, I’ve been pretty good about remaining engaged or at least distracted. Today, I’m overly aware that I don’t feel like doing anything that could be done while here at home, nor do I want to venture out to find distraction there.

Yesterday, my awareness of not enjoying our place became writ large across my happiness as with Caroline at work. I was liberated to do as I please, but I found myself lost. While this past month saw us venturing out to break the long chain of self-isolation, I’m not exactly comfortable among those people who cavalierly toss reasonable health practices away in order to prove some nebulous point about raw belligerent power and a kind of masculinity arising out of our obsession with dystopian fatalism. So, though I’d like to embark on a new journey into putting these past six months behind me and exploring some new routines, I’m reluctant to be among the masses who are acting purely in their own selfish interests as opposed to empathizing with the well-being of the American community at large.

For 17 years, Caroline and I have comfortably lived in a single room, a single large open space in the form of a loft. We cherish our time together when we can be at home together, which up until March this year felt rare. If we weren’t traveling on a weekend, Caroline might be at a guild meeting or a fiber workshop. During the week, I might be at one of a few dozen locations writing, people-watching, eating, walking, or otherwise spending time away from home. When we got home, there were things to do that we’d been away from all day. When self-isolation began, our dreams of spending more time together came true. In the back of our minds, we already knew from previous experience in the late 1980s that mixing work and living in one small space is not the best idea, but a global pandemic that was forcing everyone to stop in place gave impetus to embrace the quarantine and go with the flow. So, staying at home became an extended road trip; it was camping in place and a golden opportunity to indulge our desires to spend more time together.

Now, don’t think this is heading to a lament of over-exposure between Caroline and me, as that’s the farthest thing from my truth, but after six months, our hamster wheel is closing in. I also know that this is temporary, and maybe as soon as tomorrow, my brain will return to celebrating this opportunity, but right now, I’m at a loss and uninspired. Of course, there’s also the overwhelming nonsense of the game of intruding politics that seems to aim at dominating a large part of people’s lives who pay attention to current events. This is pure unadulterated gaslighting that my own stupid compulsion to witness the trainwreck keeps bringing me back to, so too many days arrive with no small amount of dread. The point here is that I have to tiptoe around online activities as I risk catching a hint of the “Outrage du jour” from a media that is desperate to hook me into a device to nail my attention for the sake of impressions and ad dollars. So maybe if I focus on writing, I can escape what I don’t want to see and instead bring my mind into compliance with an imagination that will whisk me away from boredom.

Instead, I go around in circles searching for a muse to guide me while not really looking for that inspiration but telling myself the bologna that I really want to escape this entropy. I know I’ll have a butterbrot because today is German Butterbrot Day, where the world joins in to celebrate this uniquely Teutonic pleasure of greasing your bread with a smear of butter and calling it dinner. Well, that didn’t get it; I’m not any more motivated than before besides wanting a second go-round of yummy rye bread with butter. Yeah, eating is a good distraction; maybe I need to find where on Earth people are celebrating Donut Day today.

But I called this blog entry Cascading Existentialism and not Eating To Pacify Moodiness, so just what is it that feels so out of control? The polarized American people, our politics, healthcare, education, and our concern about the environment are the major bones of contention, but racism, intolerance, poverty, and violence play large roles too. I know I cannot change even a small part of the 330 million of us who live in the United States. I cannot influence our political parties or the media that sensationalizes everything it features: healthcare is a $3.6 trillion industry that has no regard for those it serves, education panders to the lowest common denominator, guaranteeing fodder for prisons, low-pay jobs, and an absent electorate, while we flaunt international convention about safeguarding air and water quality for the sake of profits. Racism is tolerated, while intolerance of religions, sexual orientation, cultural background, and general diversity from the status quo is promulgated as anti-American. Poverty is a consequence of all of this, with violence the natural outcome of people without an ability to surmount the structural bias against those a society would like to keep outside the gate.

Hey John, how does any of that affect your day-to-day existence? Awareness is the fodder of the imagination, and if you are an artist, you should look upon the subject you intend to capture in images, or you should acquaint yourself with the various sounds and aural structures of music should you aspire to be a musician. Yet I am a human desiring to be just that, and so the condition of our society screams at me to be recognized as though I might find an inkling of how to depict a proper reflection or maybe an antidote to the wanton mayhem that institutional stupidity is wreaking upon us. Well, that’s a pretty large burden you are trying to shoulder. But I know there is no way for me to bear the gravity of such outrage, so I try in little ways to exorcise the demons of awareness through the cathartic exercise of writing, learning, exploring, and eating. It must be time for another butterbrot.

One-hundred ninety-seven days since I last took up a seat here at King Coffee and sat in public while in Phoenix. Sure, we recently ventured out of the city, but our locations were chosen for the lack of population density to minimize coming into contact with others. It was strange as my first hour being back was spent among many a familiar face curious as to how I’d been. After socializing more than I have in six months, I’m here at my computer drawing a blank as though talking with others drained my head.

Where is my focus? Maybe it’s lost in the background music I’m no longer accustomed to listening to. Is it the people-watching that I’ve grown rusty with? When I go to the store, I don’t really want to see anyone, and what I do look for are people without masks so I can move out of their way. I’d like to consider blaming this brain funk on that I’m wondering about what I might have for lunch, but that’s not really it either.

Then there’s the question of why I am out here anyway. Well, on Tuesday Caroline visited her office and enjoyed her time interacting with the boss so much that she decided that she’d start going in on a regular basis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wasn’t ready to go back to an empty home as I knew that routine, and at a point, I felt too isolated. That really drives home how difficult these past six months must have been for so many people who are alone.

With only 265 words written in the nearly four hours I’ve been sitting here because, of course, other conversations took place, I’m now seriously hungry and will have to accept that something insightful or even interesting is not going to flow out of me. Look at today’s photo, and you might recognize the recursive nature of what I put together; in some way, it’s a reflection of my mind falling back into itself in wondering, just what the heck did I think I’d accomplish here?

I come to you out of the mountains. I walk across the desert and arrive at the note of the piano. From out of your history, I’ve tried to find what you cannot comprehend, what you refuse to seek. I’ve seen the beauty your eyes deny you. The waters that flow through those of us who live, are frozen in you. Distilled from the chaos of existence is a peace that, even after lifetimes of searching, may never be found, but I have captured glimpses of the exquisite, and while all are not of the beauty you might expect, such is the nature of existence.

Who I am is of no consequence to you as you don’t want or need to know me, but you will have to acquaint yourself because the story that will be told is essential for you to continue to walk into life.

Some will encounter the bearers of knowledge, the mountains of intellect where depths of wisdom stretch to the bottom of the sea, and yet all that is worthy of knowing floats on a feather and is lighter than the wing of the butterfly. You see, the complex is within everything, but the secret is that none of that matters as long as the order of things is what it should be. Here is the inherent problem as you read this: you do not understand your place among the possibilities. You require a guide. I may be that, but I may also be other things.

Who emerges from within? We were born into our skin, and that external person is the reflection of those who brought us into life, but the internal version is or can be an evolving cascade of dynamics most will never see or have the opportunity to glimpse. A minute, an hour, a day, a year, nor a lifetime may be adequate to know even one’s self. How unfortunate for those who’ll never experience the tiniest fractions of their or anyone else’s internal universe.

Why are you not your own Paris, Roman Empire, Disneyland, Grand Canyon, or Einstein? Napoleon was shaped by experience and his perception of how he desired to interpret history. He manifested his place in history because he could. You must ask yourself, do you bring anything forward in the endeavor to define who you are, or do you allow the antics of the petty found in media and gossip to be the sole shapers of who you will be?

Begin to realize that nothing of an immense nature is the catalyst for change. Though wars, storms, floods, and various other catastrophes can radically alter lives, it is the tiny unseen bits that are the real agents of change. As the pen hits the paper and the first drops of ink spill onto its surface, only your mind has an idea of what direction the hand will take as a letter or image begins to take shape. Should a speck of ink grow on the page to become a letter, will the solitary character emerge as a part of a word that begins the sentence that alters the course of history?

Back in 1938, Germany annexed the Sudentenland in the Czech Republic – nobody in the West batted an eye. By August of the following year, Hitler and Stalin signed a mutual non-aggression pact, but somewhere along the timeline, with pen in hand, Hitler might have written, “Soon, we invade Poland.” This is the power of language, the sign, the symbol, and messaging. Maybe this is also why many of us are ill-equipped when it comes to the mastery of skills regarding communication and our ability to think and reflect. We affect change when we commit to sharing our inner dialog in a manner that others can respond to when we are not physically present.

The key to being effective in a conveyance is allowing your expression to remain after you have gone elsewhere. From the song to the canvas, from architecture to books, it is when we can allow ourselves to benefit from that which has been shared that we’ll reap the greatest reward. Conversely, when we are vulnerable due to fear, we are most at risk of others using the signs, symbols, language, song, and facilities to marshal our dark instincts to inflict damage upon those we perceive to threaten us.

Maybe one goal we could explore is to find some understanding of what moves us between fear and tranquility. Does the megalomaniac arise out of difficult times to exploit our sense of vulnerability, followed by the compassionate and reasonable to soothe our frayed senses? What, then signifies the conditions we allow ourselves to be exploited? Is the grievance between ideologies adequate for some of our lives to be sacrificed for the machinations of the king acting out his inner turmoil?

History suggests that we accept this as witnessing the drama of the other person’s unfolding story as a surrogate experience for those not equipped to discover and express themselves.

Our willful acceptance of intellectual mediocrity bordering on the stupid is a recipe for our nearly blind obedience to a system that benefits the few by harnessing the greatest number of dumb mules.

I understand that the majority cannot see their own subservience due in large part to inflated self-worth due to their allegiance to country, flag, cross, and various other ideologies they earn praise for from those they aspire to be like. But this ride into exploiting a meek ego by a ruthless ruling class is no accident; it is an accepted and long-conditioned situation that maintains a status quo that is quite comfortable for those steeped in its luxury.

A solitary note from an instrument is not the embodiment of a musical narrative. The succession of notes with the accompaniment of other voices is where the magic of the song takes shape. The symphony of the self should be constructed with similar consideration. To accept ourselves as a shrill, out-of-tune string instrument is an affront to our potential to produce beautiful melodies.

Is a solitary leaf a tree? We intuitively understand that life is made of ensembles; the dog is not its tail, and we are not monosyllabic utterances of the troglodyte. So what turn is necessary for us to wake from the slumber of a lethargic existence resigned to living on the margin of something human only in name?

Like a watch showing us the seconds ticking by, we need a constant reminder asking us if we are truly doing the best we can instead of repeating a hollow and meaningless mantra of fake success in a feeble attempt to reassure ourselves and those who offer sympathetic ears that we are doing the best we can when deep down we know that’s not the truth. Few really try their best, and we intuitively know it, but if we admit it, we ourselves might need to strive harder instead of constantly rewarding ourselves with indulgences. We need a personal reformation where the individual breaks with these indulgences just as the church attempted to do 500 years ago. When you stop to think about it, not much has changed in these many hundreds of years, or at least that’s what my eyes believe they see.

Put your intentions into writing. Just take hold of a pen and a sheet of paper and see where your hand and mind take you. Write a letter to yourself of your expectations and where you think you’ll be intellectually in 10, 15, or 25 years from now. Then, ask yourself, are you walking into a vibrant life or crawling away from the ugly shadow of a person you barely know? If you never awaken to clean away the cobwebs from your mind and vision, you, too, will be nothing more than a decaying wooden figure forgotten to history. It’s time for humanity to leave the village and occupy the halls of knowledge so we might collectively peer into the unknown universe right before us.

The illusion of newness is an artifice and betrayal of the reality that everything is in slow decay. Only from the perspective of an undeveloped, inexperienced mind does it seem like the world and our place in it are blooming as though they arose from out of nothing. The cruel truth is you are not new, nor are your perceptions, as everything is part of a continuum that has no regard for our sense of wonder of finding things we paint as revelatory and claim as new truths.

What you hold in your mind is an extension of the meanings and ontologies distilled from those who came before you and imparted this knowledge upon you. In turn, you use those tools in your attempt to reach their level of awareness, and if society is lucky, you will leverage what you’ve learned to share with someone else who can extend those ephemeral bits of information in such a way that it might lend a lesson forward.

I cannot write this from nothing or from purely my own experience, as I do not know how to see the world from only my perspective. Take the rail line across the street; steeped in my image of trains and their routes are fragments of history that include Chinese labor, steam locomotives, gunfights in the Old West and robberies, heavy freight being hauled over vast landscapes, industrial accidents with chemical spills, head-on collisions, bullet trains in Japan, a maglev in Shanghai, super civilized 1st class travel on German Intercity Express trains, subways, rail-crossings, rusty disused tracks, defunct bridges, and a multitude of sounds. Before I could ever write about the train, I have all of those sights and sounds in my mind’s eye, influencing to some degree or other my language and imagination regarding what I could say. And so it is about anything else I might want to share.

Your opinions are not really your own, they arise out of the amalgamation of fragments you are built upon, and depending on where you are in life, you are either still building your tower of knowledge or you are in the throes of slow decay. This eye of the needle I’m trying to thread might be clearer if explain the previous sentence. When we are young and devoid of all knowledge aside from our instincts, we spoon up the intellectual gruel that’s bombarding our senses. At that time, we do not yet have a foundation and so we are hungry to consume more of the cultural fodder that those around us seem to revel in. Soon, we start to recognize certain icons and symbols and can share with those around us a sense of certainty that we are on track to understanding their world and the one we’ll inherit.

At a point, though, we’ll likely stop pulling in much of what we see as the immediacy of what surrounds us has been habituated and only acts to affirm what we know. This goes for television and by-and-large video games, too. We are no longer building upon our foundation; we are simply applying paint, trying to maintain the illusion that things are fresh. The reality is that the roof is at risk of collapse, the pipes are rusting, and the appliances are drawing too much current from the archaic wiring. Our home is in decay; we are in decay. Left to its own devices, weather and time will reclaim the structure until that time someone comes along and builds anew on top of what can no longer be seen.

We are the same as architecture in that most of it goes away. Pyramids, caves, cathedrals, and great monuments, even when worn after thousands of years, can still offer a glimpse of the magnificent when the collected ideas of a culture are able to convey some sense of place well into the future. There are also some humans who have endured the sands of time as their ideas speak to us from long ago. They are able to find this small amount of immortality because instead of being satisfied with the shadows in the cave as being their reality, they ventured out and brought in a new language of communication by discovering the hitherto unknown.

In that sense, they remain a small child well into the advanced cognitive years of adulthood, where they add their story to our panoply of knowledge that filters into our ears hundreds and even thousands of years after their existence. This act of continued learning like the child instead of going forward with certainty about what we think we know could be compared to the idea that we have enough for the basics of relating to our peers, but knowing only 26 letters of a 100-character alphabet is hardly adequate for spelling words and forming sentences with the other 74 letters you have no idea about.

This is where the majority of humanity lives with their adequate-for-them amount of rudimentary knowledge. So begins the slow decay of the house made of straw.

Every day, often in failure, I try to see, hear, sense, read, stumble into, discover, or taste that which I don’t know. There was that time early in life I didn’t know the sweet, sun-ripened flavor of the strawberry picked fresh from a field but once I had, I knew I was in love. Reading a book of non-fiction, it’s inevitable that I’ll taste the experience-ripened flavor of thoughts drawn from the field of knowledge and will again fall in love. This phenomenon also strikes me as I’m exploring the terrain of a landscape that speaks to my eyes and ears with a seductive geometry of patterns emerging out of its story about nature; here, I fall in love again. Should you counter this argument with the notion that one book is like the next or trees are trees, then this is but one small example of your mind in slow decay.

I meandered up the road this afternoon on a short drive that took a long time. Along the way, I passed many a hovel, and I’m reminded that, at one time, our ancestors lived in caves. My contemporaries also live in caves with foil-darkened windows that allow the occupants to hide where the only light that reaches them is from a few light bulbs, a TV, and a phone screen that are illuminated by a trickle of electricity that has been dragged out here from some far away generation station for a convenience and the illusion of modernity.

The description of their home as a hovel, while a tad condescending, feels like the most accurate way to convey the chaos in front of a nearly dilapidated shell of a mobile home propped up by cinder blocks, the roof held down by tires and windows where the glass is mostly gone, boarded up with plywood from within. Middens offer defensive structures to potential intruders and are more indicative of a time pre-civilization when trash wasn’t hauled away.

At work out here are those of our clan on the margins, who see no need to belong to our conformist culture, at least in regard to the environment they live in. Ironically, while they eschew living like the Joneses, they are dialed into the stream of satellite-beamed pap that is their constant companion, ensuring they are on the same wavelength as the next neighbors of the cave zone.

I can’t say that these people are part of any decay as I don’t know that they were ever willing participants in the cultural hegemony I was bludgeoned into being a union member of. But to a degree, they must be closer to me at this stage of evolution as they are choosing some of the same tools and conveniences I also use instead of going full native by throwing off the yoke of any collective homogenization.

What I do know is that they are not a part of the ascent of humanity other than what they might be doing to support the local infrastructure that allows my arrogant self to pass through, casting aspersions on people I don’t really know. If I were a less biased snob, maybe I could appreciate their presence, but instead, I see the squalor and cringe at the blight. Maybe my compassion is suffering from this slow decay I’m writing about today.